by Cathy Pegau
But to stop Willem’s pestering, I had to speed things up. If I could avoid direct access to Talbot’s computer, I could get the job done and get out of there in the next few days. The way Mom’s brow creased as she shook her head told me I was probably out of luck.
“Those are some of the best indirects I can think of. You’ll have to go right to the source.” She glanced at the black stick on the table then up at me. “Assuming you can do that.”
Tonio and I exchanged looks. He knew how difficult that had been so far. Talbot had given me little opportunity, but with her increased trust in me I was getting close.
“How much time would I need?”
Mom shrugged. “Depends on the size of the files, encryptions, whether you have the names and tags or if the app needs to search. The more information you can provide, the faster it will go.”
“Worst case?” Tonio asked.
She took a breath. Her cheeks puffed out as she exhaled and thought it through. “Big files with the barest of information? Five to seven minutes.”
My eyes widened. “Seven minutes?” I gestured toward the data stick. “Is there a little man chiseling bytes on stone inside that thing?”
“You asked for worst case. Better to give yourself a little extra time you don’t need than to get only half the data—or get caught.”
Okay, she had a point. But seven minutes? That may not seem like much…until you’re the one waiting to download damning files and have to avoid apprehension.
“Here, let me show you.” She set her computer on the table. “It works best if the computer is off initially. When you turn it on, the app bypasses the normal start-up sequence and immediately re-reads any biometric keys and mimics the log-in strokes of the last person who used it. It leaves no imprint and covers its tracks by making the unit think it’s been off all along. You can copy but not change or install anything. That takes a different appliance, and Tonio said you only needed to download.”
“Right. What if it’s already on?” I asked.
“Plug it into a port,” she said as she demonstrated on her unit, “while holding down the yellow button on the end. The button has to be down initially, or the unit may detect the appliance before it’s seated. Release it once the stick is connected.” Her screen image split, one side of the display showing the normal, colorful mode of an SI waiting to do its user’s bidding while the other showed a stark white box on a black background. “The appliance puts the normal operation in a sort of suspended animation. The interruption is there if anyone looks for it, but they have to be looking.” She typed “Monty’s Accounts” into the white box and hit the Enter key. A dozen or so alphanumeric strings popped up on the screen. “Input the file name or key words, and it’ll get to work. Double tap the Enter key and it will copy whatever’s on the screen. Or highlight files, and it will copy the entire file.”
“And to disconnect?” I asked.
“Hold the yellow button down and pull it out. Make sure you keep the button down, or the interruption will be detectable.” She unplugged while holding the button, and the unit went back to its normal mode. “If you started with a unit that was off, it will automatically shut down once you unplug.” She held the black stick out to me. “Want to try?”
Tonio left us alone, and for the next hour or so I downloaded various files from Mom’s computer. The hardest part was making sure all necessary files were copied. Mom supplied vague information for some of the files, similar to the situation I encountered at Exeter. If “K-73” or “filters” weren’t mentioned anywhere in Talbot’s file designations or text, I’d have to come up with other potential key words for the app to search. Which meant I could end up with a whole lot of useless muck to wade through and possibly miss important data. But nothing’s perfect, and Mom’s little toy was as good as I was going to get.
Teach Your Daughter to Hack Day—what a lovely familial activity. We sat side by side without a harsh word passing between us. Maybe it was because we were engrossed in the lesson. Maybe because we both wanted to avoid what we needed to talk about. But our camaraderie didn’t last.
“I think you have it now.” She smiled. “Given the right tools, you’re a chip off the block.”
What a terrifying thought. “Let’s hope not.”
All the ease of the last hour evaporated, and she winced as if I’d hit her.
Well done, Liv. Jerk.
I rubbed my temples with my fingertips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
“Sure you did,” she said softly. “And I don’t blame you.”
It was my turn to cringe because I had meant it, and she’d called me on it. I opened my mouth, ready to offer another false apology to make her feel better, but couldn’t get the words out. It was time we were honest with each other. With ourselves.
“I’ve missed you,” she said.
“Then why didn’t you come see me in Pembroke?” I hated the almost whiny quality of my voice, but I couldn’t help it. The hurt was as raw as the day I’d left home. “I’ve spent the last fifteen years thinking you didn’t give a damn.”
Tears tracked down her cheeks. “What’s the first rule, Olivia?”
I swallowed the prickly stone that had lodged in my throat. “Don’t let yourself get too close. But you’re my mother. That rule doesn’t apply.”
“You’re right,” she said, dashing her tears away with her fingertips. “But I didn’t realize it until too late. By then, you were on your own and didn’t need me upsetting your life. When we came here, I didn’t have the courage to find you. I knew you’d hate me for it, but I couldn’t do it.”
“Until you had a falling out with Monty and needed money.”
Her cheeks reddened, and her gaze dropped. “Not the best circumstances to make amends. I was desperate and thought I could explain myself before you figured it out on your own.” She drew a deep breath and straightened. Her eyes filled again, but she looked directly at me to prove she wasn’t playing me. “I’m sorry, Olivia. I know you have no reason to forgive me, but I am sorry.”
My jaws clenched, and my hands gripped the couch cushions. I believed her, but I wasn’t ready to forgive. The hurt-little-girl part of me wanted to, but grown-up Liv was still too torqued.
I cleared the lump from my throat and changed the subject. “Are you back with Monty?”
She blinked back tears and composed herself, understanding that an apology didn’t mean automatic forgiveness. “Working on it. I told him I had to take care of few things before I could come home. He still doesn’t know who you are. Maybe I’ll tell him when I get back.”
The wistfulness of her voice struck me. “Mom, do you actually like this guy? What about Rule Number One?”
She frowned and dropped her gaze to the left. “Don’t be silly, Olivia.” She was lying to herself as well as to me. Mom had been miserable about Monty’s cheating when she came to me in Pembroke. If she truly didn’t care for him, she would have been angry about losing his money, not acted like she was heartbroken. That was the problem with Rule Number One. Sometimes you couldn’t help breaking it.
I promised myself I’d never fall into the same trap.
“Besides,” she continued, her blue eyes back up to mine, “we’re not talking about Monty. We’re talking about us.” Her expression softened. “I want us to have a normal relationship.”
I snorted a laugh. “I doubt we could go that far. But we can try being friends for now.”
She grinned and nodded. “I’d like that.”
“No touchy-feely girly stuff,” I warned her. “I don’t do shopping or spa dates.”
She laughed, and I was actually happy to have made her feel better. “Deal. Though you have to admit our last outing was a success. You look wonderful.”
My cheeks warmed. “Thanks.”
A conspiratorial glint lit her blue eyes as she keyed her computer. “Since you won’t go shopping with me, how about I show you a few new tricks you might be able to use? Th
is is a little program I like to call The Hammer.”
Chapter Eleven
Even with Mom’s gizmo in hand, I had to appease Willem with the promise of complete, untraceable results if he’d be a little more patient. When he asked about the hardware I told him my source was impeccable—I lied a little there—and he had to trust me. My insistence didn’t sit well with him, but what choice did he have? Send in Chaz? Security wasn’t permitted to enter executive offices unless they suspected a problem. As the closest member of the crew to Talbot, I was least likely to raise questions if caught in her office.
In the meantime, I tested the gizmo on my company SI unit. I’d found it odd that James, Talbot’s regular assistant, had nothing at all on the filters; executive assistants usually knew everything their bosses were up to.
While Talbot was engrossed in a conference call in her office, I plugged in the black stick, taking care to hold down the yellow button. When the white box appeared, I entered “K-73 filters.” No tags or encoded files with that designation came up. Either James had been completely clueless, or the Powers That Be had wiped the unit of all references to the filters. I was betting on the latter.
Undaunted, I considered other words and phrases that might garner hits without spitting up a deluge of useless information. I typed in “Talbot,” “Pritchard” and “Craig.” There were hundreds of files associated with the VP, the Chief Engineer and the VP of Research Integrity. Not surprising, but it would take more than a minute or two to wade through them. Half listening for Talbot’s approach and grateful the SI screen faced away from her door, I dove in.
Unfortunately, I had to look at every single item. Had I been the one concealing information, I would have made it appear official and something entirely different. But that’s me. Average people aren’t criminally minded and tend to do things like hide their spare key cards under rocks by their front doors. Laziness and lack of imagination are a thief’s best friends. If James was involved or knew about Exeter’s misdeeds, he probably knew enough to camouflage data. Another Felon’s Rule: Unless you know otherwise, assume the target is as smart, if not smarter, than you are.
After endlessly opening and closing files I slumped in the chair, head resting on my hand. The click of Talbot’s door made me jerk upright. I managed to hide the gizmo screen to reveal the report I was supposed to be working on when she emerged from her office. The door shut behind her, and she engaged the lock.
Damn.
“I’ll be back in about an hour,” she said. “Clemens has some environmental advocate in his office he wants me to reassure.” That last bit came out as if she wanted to spit.
“Yes, Miss Talbot.”
She left the office.
Glaring at her locked door, I brought the dual screen back up and returned to the Talbot, Pritchard and Craig files. Another ten minutes of reading about the latest in fuel cell conversion techniques and the like made my vision blur, and I almost skipped the next file in the queue. The tag read “Prit” and it was designated as a “tran” file, whatever that meant. Only a few megabytes, it wasn’t very large. Nothing appeared on the screen when I opened it, but the speakers hummed. I slid a finger along the “Volume” icon to raise the level.
“—loss is edging toward fifty percent, and nothing seems to be working. I’ve given her the new numbers and she’s backed off for now, but I don’t know how long she’ll trust them.”
Pritchard’s voice. That explained the tag. Was she talking about Talbot?
“Just stay on course,” said a vaguely familiar male. Who was that? James must have hacked and recorded a private communication exchange. I was impressed. “Your team at Brighton will get the numbers down, and she won’t be a problem. I’ll make sure of it. But you need more subjects.”
“We’ve tapped as many as we can,” the Chief Engineer said with no small amount of frustration in her voice. “There will be questions.”
“We’ll take care of questions later. Find more.” The man’s tone left no doubt that he’d issued an order.
The snippet ended there. I stared at the blinking letters in the white box. Was it worth keeping? There was nothing concrete, but my gut said James had stashed it for a reason. I was a go-with-the-gut kind of person. I copied the file onto Mom’s gizmo, downloaded a copy into my personal comm behind some heavy-duty walls and sent the original back to its hidey hole in the company SI unit.
A search for “Brighton” came up empty. It matched nothing in the Exeter system or in any external database. Whatever it was, I couldn’t find it and had to move on.
The remaining files yielded a memo regarding keracite fumes and an industry recall warning on something called a Craighead spanner. I unplugged the stick, careful to hold the button down while doing so, and resumed work on Talbot’s assignment.
She returned twenty minutes before the hour she’d allowed. Her stiff gait across the carpet struck a glimmer of fear in my heart. I’d seen her fume on several occasions and knew it was best to just let her vent without interruption.
“Wasting my time with ridiculous questions,” she muttered, unlocking her office door. She started to go in then turned back to me, frowning. Uh-oh. “We have the shareholders meeting coming up, and I need you to head some aspects of it. Are you game?”
I sat up straighter. “Absolutely.”
The lines between her eyebrows softened; she took a breath. “Good. It’ll mean some late nights. Come on in. We’ve got a lot to do.” She headed into her office again but called over her shoulder. “Oh, and coffee, please, Olivia,”
“Yes, Miss Talbot.”
I rose, resisting the urge to rub my hands together in glee like some holo vid villain. I was another step closer to Talbot’s computer and the end of my task. It was only a matter of time before I was trusted to be in her office alone.
That is, if I could have found ten minutes to visit the lav, let alone steal files.
For the next week, Talbot and I were virtually chained together preparing the R and D portion of the shareholders meeting presentation. When I wasn’t doing that, I was holed up with several R and D admins arranging the department-sponsored “Yippee for us, aren’t we fab!” gathering. While the others had seniority, I was the VP’s assistant and therefore in charge. Despite my loathing of the assignment, but because of my disdain for my coworkers, delegating responsibilities and keeping everyone on task with my Talbot-like iron fist was more fun than I’d have thought possible. I will admit to a certain amount of satisfaction at having things under control and running relatively smoothly.
Well after 2200 the night before the shareholders meeting, Talbot and I put the finishing touches on our part of the report. She wanted it pretty as well as informative and readable.
“Olivia,” she called from her office, “I can’t find the ten-year prospectus.”
There was a slight hint of anxiety in her voice. Not surprising, since we’d been at this for hours without a break.
“It’s labeled ‘prospectus,’” I said as I went in to her. Over the past weeks I’d picked up on subtle signs that told me how far I could push it with my laser wit. I’d even raised a smile on Talbot’s face now and again.
She shot me a halfhearted glare over the top of her monitor. “I know that, but there are six versions of it. Which one is the final?”
I circled around behind her desk and leaned over the keyboard. “Let me see,” I said as I tapped with one hand and rubbed a bleary eye with the other.
She scooted her chair back to give me room but remained close enough to see the screen while I searched the files. She leaned forward, her shoulder pressed against my arm. The teasing scent of her perfume wafted up to my nose. Jasmine.
“See?” she said after I’d opened and closed each file. “They’re all the same.”
“Not quite. Here.” I found the correct file and copied it into the main body of our report. “The time stamps are close, but for the final version you had me change ‘in conclusion’ to
‘therefore, in future endeavors.’”
Talbot smiled when she looked up at me. “Didn’t see it. I must be getting tired. Thank you. I’ll send it to production and call it done.”
Thank God. “Sounds good to me.”
She keyed the appropriate commands, and confirmation of her request flashed on the SI screen. When the meeting began in eleven hours, there would be two dozen data sticks on the rich wood tables of the conference room upstairs, each with an overview of every Exeter department. I was glad I wouldn’t have to sit through it.
Stretching my aching back, I started around the desk for the door. Visions of my bed floated behind my tired eyes.
“Olivia, wait.”
Damn. So much for going home. I kept the distaste of having to stay longer off my face as I turned to her. “Yes? Is there something else?”
Talbot opened one of the lower drawers of her black lacquered desk. She set a dark green bottle on top, reached into the drawer again and withdrew two crystal tumblers.
“We deserve a bit of a celebration,” she said with a grin. “Have a seat.”
I smiled back. This was exactly the kind of one-on-one moment I needed to establish a closer bond with her. Working hour upon hour together was one thing, but it had been all business to Talbot. Sharing a drink meant I’d gotten through the first layer of her defenses.
The thrill of taking that next step, plus the exhaustion of a long work week, made me almost giddy as I sat in one of the chairs across from her. Talbot poured two fingers of amber liquid into each glass and held one out. I brushed her hand with mine as I took it, ignoring the little tingle I felt on my skin.
She raised the tumbler to the light. Gold-and-white diamonds danced on the black desk. “Ever have Loch Moorland whisky?”
Peering into my glass, I admired the deep, tawny color. Or at least pretended to. I had no idea what I was supposed to be looking at. “No.”
