Page 100 of Rescuing Rebecca
“What does that mean and how does it work?” Adam asked, leaning forward, both forearms pressing into the table like he was the only thing holding it in place.
“It means,” Jay said, grabbing her hand in excitement and squeezing gently. “Becca had the forethought to develop a code that, if successfully integrated with the lock and key and uploaded in advance of Dominion’s release, will trigger the virus to reverse-engineer itself out of existence.”
“Poof,” Cody said, making an exploding gesture with his hands. “As in no more world-ending virus?”
“Poof,” Jay repeated, nodding his head in agreement. “If combined correctly, the lock, the key, and the kill switch become a Trojan horse destroying Dominion from within and rendering the Imperium Council impotent.”
“Meaning there’ll be no reason for them to come after either of you,” Jamie said.
“That’s right.” Jay grinned at Becca, and she felt the heat of it warm the pit of her stomach even as it plummeted. He didn’t know all of the obstacles involved. Not yet. And when he found out?—
“So what’re we waiting for?” Gray demanded. “Let’s get to work destroying the fuck out of those council assholes.”
“Uh…I’m afraid it’s not going to be that easy. We’re talking about merging three separate codes written in an archaic C++ language before converting them into a quantum encryption capable of communicating with an advanced learning software. We’ll need to design a middleware protocol, something that can translate between the two systems in real-time.” Met with blank stares from everyone but Jay, Becca sighed and continued. “Essentially we’ll be trying to build a bridge over quicksand, and we’ll need a hell of a lot more computing power than you have here, then—if we’re successful—we’ll need to find a way to distribute the program to servers worldwide because we have no way of knowing which direction Dominion will come from.”
“No problem.” His big brain already working overtime to come up with a viable solution, Jay solved the first of two seemingly insurmountable obstacles faster than she could blink. “We use the CIA’s servers to merge the codes and analyze the conversion to quantum encryption.”
“Sure, but they don’t have the quantum environment needed to actually make the conversion,” Becca said.
“No, but their research partners do. We can use the CIA’s backdoor to gain access.”
“IBM?”
Jay nodded. “Or Google. Whichever one we break into first.”
“Holy shit,” Jamie said. “Is that even doable?”
“For us it is.” Jay looked at Becca, and his confidence would’ve given hers a boost if she hadn’t been aware of one major Maya-shaped complication. “We can do this, baby. I know we can.”
“How long will it take?” Adam asked.
“About a week,” Jay replied, and Becca shook her head.
“We don’t have that kind of time.”
“Why not?” Cody piped in.
“Because when you took me from Volkov, you escalated the war within the Imperium.”
“How’s that?” Gray asked.
“Volkov thought he had one of two people capable of controlling Dominion. Now, he has nothing except the virus itself.”
“You think he’ll release it in retaliation?” Adam asked.
Her stomach twisting, she met his stare. “If his demands aren’t met—yes.”
“What does he want?” Davis asked.
“To rule the world and everyone in it,” she replied. “To do that, he believes he needs two people.”
“Maya and Jay,” Jamie said. “Because she lied to Johnson about being the key.”
“That’s right.”
“Why would she do that?” Grant asked.
“Because she needed his protection after…”
