Version Innocent

  ***

  Jeff sat at his desk, staring at the two backup cubes of Sam’s. It was already five PM, the news broadcasts had already started. The technical report had come back that the cube Sam had sent him that morning contained a very sophisticated virus that was triggered when the restoration of the backup was begun. The virus infiltrated the system and started to destroy the backup stores. It hadn’t been too hard to stop. It had only taken a few hours.

  All things considered, the damage was nowhere near as bad as it could have been. There were over twenty billion backups in the system. Thirty five million was a small number, but nothing like this had ever happened before. The system was supposed to be safe from these kinds of threats, so the backlash was likely to be severe. It probably meant that he would be removed from his position. After all, he had initiated the illegal restoration of Sam and caused the event.

  Jeff could only imagine two possibilities of how this could happen, and he didn’t know which one disturbed him more. The first was that Sam was sincere in his letter and that the resistance had caught him and used it as the conduit for their attack, and that in all likelihood Sam was dead. The resistance had used Sam’s connection with Jeff to target their attack.

  The second possibility, and the worse of the two, was that Sam had intentionally done this. He had used his relationship with Jeff to initiate this attack. The betrayal was almost too much for Jeff to contemplate.

  It must be this resistance, but how can I be sure? he thought. In Sam’s eyes I have already committed a betrayal that would be almost equivalent to this, but I can’t believe for a second that Sam would ever do that. It must be the resistance.

  Jeff’s eyes moved from the backup cube that Sam had sent him to the other cube. This one was very old, made on Sam’s twenty-third birthday. That was the day they had made their pact to take down the system. They had both had cubes made that day and given them to each other. It was like a pact of blood brotherhood, something stronger than just being crèche mates. They always had the symbolic support of the other no matter where they went. As far as Jeff knew, Sam still had his backup from that day. Jeff kept that old backup on his desk as a reminder of his own betrayal. The old backup cube of Sam 23.1 was a much more innocent time in their life. Jeff quietly longed to be returned to that time for a second chance, but that wasn’t possible.

  Another disturbing fact that Jeff had discovered only a few minutes earlier as part of the report on the virus, was that all of Sam Storm’s backups had been purged from the system. The old backup cube of Sam 23.1 on his desk represented the only backup of Sam in existence. Was Sam 6.7 still alive? Jeff didn’t know, but there was going to be hell to pay for this, especially once Damon Harding was informed. Just the thought made Jeff’s stomach lurch, his hand went quickly down again to hold it. Too many questions.