The Hive Solution

Chapter 21

Mason makes his way through the halls of the evaluation centre to the main meeting room where he first met Cooper. It had been two days since he dreamed up his idea with help from the Queen and he'd spent the time reading up on radiation poisoning and spending long hours with Carter Black and Jane Schofield, learning about the nano's in his body and just what they might be capable of.

He walks through the door to see everyone sat at the table waiting. Cooper, Storm and Colvin sit at the head of the table with Claire, Schofield and Black all sat opposite. As he closes the door behind him the queen appears next to the presentation podium where Mason will present his idea to the others. Black and the Hive are aware of what it is Mason is planning, he needed their expertise and information to see if his plan was at least feasible.

"Good morning Joe, I'm told you have something for us?" says Cooper.

"That's right Sean, it's nothing new but something's changed that might give us a new angle in the Independence Day investigation"

"Okay, when your ready" says Cooper smiling.

Mason takes his place behind the podium as the lights dim and a holographic image of the map of the U.S and the Hive hub system appears next to him. For an instant Mason feels nervous, apprehensive even. This is something completely new to him, briefing a group of people on an idea of his own but at the same time he feels that slight rush of adrenaline course through his veins.

"Okay everyone, is everyone aware of the Hub storage and transfer system that the Hive uses?"

Most of the group nod except for Claire who shrugs her shoulders and pouts.

"Well, the Hive uses Hubs in the four corners of the country to gather information about its military assets which are in that region, these are then passed on at high speed to the main Hive complex at NORAD, Colorado Springs. After speaking at length with the Queen it appears that not only are these hubs used for data transfer they're also used to store archive data. The problem is that two of these hubs we're cut off from the network in the attack "

"Okay Joe, so how can that help us, we can't get to that info and what use would it be to us if we could?" asks Colvin

Mason puts his hand up to Colvin. "Hang on Alek, I'll come to that in a moment"

Claire absentmindedly chuckles slightly at her brother. It's not that Joe rebuked Alek or anything it's just the change that she's seen in her brother. She spoken to both Schofield and Cooper about this and both feel it doesn't really have anything to do with the Nano's, this change in confidence has come about from Joe finally having a new direction in his life and the fact that he's won his sister back has helped too.

Colvin smiles at Joe and nods for him to continue.

"Anyway, the queen has informed me that not only are the sonar records from the North Atlantic at the time of the attack stored there but we could also have the security camera footage from the ship yard where the USS Texas was built"

"Okay Joe, this is all old news for most of us round here, what's changed, as far as I know we still can't get anywhere near the site and it could of been destroyed anyway" asks Cooper.

"We're pretty sure the site is intact sir, it's incased in concrete some 12 floors below ground, it's the link to the hub itself that's destroyed" replies the Queen.

"How was the link destroyed?" asks Claire

"It was destroyed by the electromagnetic pulse from the nuclear blasts. It's a short burst of electronic discharge from an nuclear explosion, it's highly damaging to electronic devises such as the server which linked the hub to NORAD" explains the queen.