The Prisoner by Carlos J. Cortes

motivator and an excellent tool of persuasion, but it didn’t breed loyalty. That feeling needed to be fostered by admiration, gratitude, or a combination of both.
    A few years back Dennis had landed in a tight spot when he’d hacked into one of the hardest networks in the land. He’d slipped a program into his chosen server farm like a lover seducing a virgin—a little at a time. Spaced every few hours, over days or even weeks, Dennis dripped lines of code, innocentlydisguised inside standard forms or routine queries. The lines would assemble in the uncharted space between memory sectors until triggered. Then the program would run, take over the network, and flash
Gotcha!
on hundreds or thousands of screens before disappearing without a trace. The NSA classed those messing about with systems as white hats or black hats: hackers or crackers. Both used similar tools, but their goals were as different as the color of their virtual headgear. Hackers never caused damage or tried to retrieve data, restricted or not. Rather, they would highlight the weaknesses of a system. On the other hand, crackers sought mayhem by crashing systems or releasing viruses. The experts agreed on this one: white hat, a prankster.
    Eventually people make mistakes, usually triggered by overconfidence or sloppiness. In Dennis’s case, his nemesis had been fatigue: The boy had fallen asleep while running one of his programs, only to be rudely awakened by a security squad. Nikola agreed the hacker had caused no real harm, but he was dangerous and in need of a lesson. After a couple of days in a suitable environment, cunningly prepared to scare his pants off, Dennis had repented and moved in as Nikola’s assistant. Within a short time, mentor and apprentice had fused brains and talents into a formidable tracking machine. Ten years had passed, but it seemed like only yesterday that Masek had descended into the police dungeons cloaked as a redeeming angel to spirit Dennis toward the light.
    “Weak signals.”
    Masek snapped from his reverie. “You got them?”
    “Of course.”
    Years before, cajoling the folks at Hypnos had taken deft footwork, but Nikola had managed to have them hide a microchip in the neck sensors of the inmates, broadcasting a unique signature.
Afraid the inmates will thaw and take a powder? When pigs fly
. That had been what Vinson Duran, Hypnos’s head honcho, had said. Well, pigs were definitely airborne, but not for long.
    “Where?” Nikola slouched forward and examined the map spreading over Dennis’s plasma screen.
    “Almost four miles away. Here.” He pointed to a tiny group of flashing dots. He touched the spot and the image zoomed.
    “What’s there?” Nikola asked.
    “Commercial tanks. Nyx Corporation.”
    Nikola nodded. It made sense. Nyx had the equipment and knowledge to revive Russo. His respect for whoever had planned the escape increased a notch.
    “Stationary?”
    Dennis poked at the screen again. Three dots flashed intermittently over the same spot. “Yup.”
    So, the three pigs were holed up at Nyx. Lukas Hurley, the controller, would be trying to flee the country. Nikola had no way of tracking him. He carried no sensor, but Dennis had wired Lukas’s holograph and biometric data to every police station and border crossing. Good luck.
    “They got there through the sewers?”
    The image on the screen zoomed back, and a network of colored lines superimposed themselves. “There’s a main line running under their building. The folks from Nyx manage their own effluents. No need for their own spur.” There was a hint of criticism in Dennis’s tone, and Nikola had to agree. Hypnos’s design to manage their sewage in a remote treatment plant was a weak link. A flaw that someone had used with remarkable success.
    Nikola sighed.
When it is obvious the goals cannot be reached, don’t adjust the goals, adjust the action steps
. Regardless of the millennia, Confucius’s words held true. Worrying didn’t