Technosis: The Kensington Virus by Morgan Bell Page A

1996.”
    The helicopter lifted off, rose to 19,000 feet while drifting forward, then suddenly accelerated, and Jamie had the sick feeling of being thrown into a express train three and a half miles in the air.
    “Just like the roller-coasters at Cedar Point!” Rosen hooted.
    “Do they last three and a half hours?” Jamie asked, as another wave of nausea hit him.
    “No, and neither does this. The acceleration kick evens out in a few seconds. Just wait for your ears to sort it out. But don’t close your eyes.”
    “Why not?”
    “You’ll throw up because your ears won’t have a horizon reference,” Rosen said.
    ∞
    Sharon Quaid was sitting in the food court in Canton, Michigan, with her three children. She had them once a month as part of the joint parenting agreement. Philip, Rick and Randy were all demanding that she take them down to the entertainment center on the third floor.
    “You have a system at home,” Sharon said, knowing that this was the standard, “How much do you love me” demand that came with her infrequent contact with her kids.
    “It’s not the same,” Randy, the youngest, argued.
    Sharon looked at Randy; he was the test. Every time the older two would put him up to doing the begging to see if Mom could hold up.
    “Randy, you are getting older,” she pointed out, by way of an opening on the subject of the fact that this wasn’t cute anymore.
    “So are you, Mom,” he countered, taking care to keep his face a picture of innocence.
    “You remind me a lot of your father,” she grumbled, getting a credit transfer stick that she’d brought with her in anticipation of exactly this sort of demand.
    She set the stick on the table and used her panel to load it. “There is enough on there for the three of you to play two games,” she told Randy, and handed it to him.
    “I can take it,” Philip asserted, trying to snatch it from his little brother.
    “No, you can’t,” Sharon said, stopping him, “You didn’t have the nerve to ask me yourself.”
    Philip gave her a contemptuous teenage glower and then the three boys were off to the escalator. Sharon loved seeing her boys, but she valued these breaks from them during the visits almost as much as she did the time with them. Her panel signaled that she had a message. Sharon began to wonder if it was their father checking up on her. She felt her neck tighten. Then she saw the message was from someone else.
    Two minutes later the HDMP officer for the food court and fourteen customers were dead. Sharon Quaid died seven minutes later, blowing up herself and a data hub on the food court level.
    ∞
    For the next few minutes Jamie wouldn’t let himself blink. Then finally he felt the nausea pass and everything seemed quiet and normal.
    Drake popped his harness open and walked over to one of the windows. “He’s taking it easy on us. He’s going about 150-175,” he shouted over the sound of the engines. “This is one of the newest ones. It can go 475 miles per hour.”
    “Operational limitations,” Blaise said over the intercom. “Not allowed to open this up to its full speed over populated areas. Not allowed to sustain top speeds for durations longer than necessary for engagements or evasions. It sucks! She is cherry and I would love to ride her out hard. But the only time they let me do that is out over the desert.”
    Drake gave Blaise thumbs up and continued to look out the window.
    Jamie noticed that his tablet was flashing at him. He opened it. There was a message. It read:
    “Greetings Meat Puppets! Glad you’ve decided to come out and play. See you in Detroit. But don’t expect to escape it alive, my little lemmings. Regards, Cronus.”
    Jamie reached the release catch on his harness and yelled. “Your tablets!”
    The other team members’ tablets were flashing the message and heating up.
    “Drake! Tie off and pop the door!” Blaise yelled.
    Jamie gathered the tablets and tossed them to Drake. Drake clipped himself to a