Denial of Service 5: End of Line.

by Steve Jordan

  Copyright 2009 Steven Jordan. All rights reserved.

  For more material by Steve Jordan, please visit SteveJordanBooks.com.

  The much-anticipated conclusion to the Denial of Service saga! Questions answered! Itches scratched! Bad guys challenged! Good guys tested! Espressos served! Being there = not being square!

  The characters in the Denial of Service saga are all fictional. The city of Baltimore is based on an actual place in North America, where the time is always 6:42. The city of San Diego is also based on an actual place in North America, which seems to be as wonderful as depicted in these stories, but whose denizens continually deny that they have ever seen or heard of a pair of detectives, brothers named Simon, who reputably work there. Also fictional is the main character’s profession: There is, of course, no such thing as “IT”; the myth of such a profession was originally postulated by Earl Standish Cloves in the sixty-ninth century, and it proved to be such a psychologically-rending concept that it somehow managed to be projected into the past by the more acutely telepathic members of the last of the human race, before they self-evolved into a hive-mind and left the planet to join the conscious legacy of the galaxy. And finally, Starbucks was named after an angel who vanished once the colonists finally discovered Earth.

  Episode 5: End of Line, subtitle: DOS IT!

  By Steve Jordan

  1: Morning in Hollywood

  Morning in Hollywood was developing into a nice one. The sun coming up over the California hills was bright, and a small and picturesque scattering of white clouds dotted the otherwise blue sky. Yup… one of those mornings that made California really shine.

  Too bad I wasn’t in a mood to enjoy it.

  That’s because I had been up all night, working. Me and my Toughbook had been going for hours, basically as soon as Gail, Mel Cooley (the accountant at Byers & Mig, not the guy from the old TV show) and I had returned from dinner the night before. And now that the sun was coming up, my eyes could barely stand it.

  I blinked back against the beams of light that slotted between the curtains in Mel’s hotel suite, and glanced around. Mel was asleep in the other room (one of these days, I mused, I have to stay in a hotel room that doesn’t have a mini-fridge next to a twin bed). That was okay: He’d stayed up with me for a few hours, providing me his login and password to his Byers & Mig (or, as I liked to think of them, good ol’ BM) office servers, and then to help me find my way around his office’s servers. Once he’d done his bit, he’d gone off to get some shut-eye before his flight back to Baltimore this morning.

  Across the main room of the suite, curled up on the couch and fast asleep, was Gail. There was something particularly fascinating about watching Gail sleep; for one thing, when it was night (and often during the day), the two of us were either both asleep, or wide awake and doing our damndest to wear each other out. It was a rare occasion when I was awake enough to actually see her sleeping.

  And there was something else: The expression on her face was more relaxed and satisfied than I think I had ever seen it. When she had told me the story of how she and my brother Pete had broken up—seems like a whole episode ago, now—I remembered thinking at the time that it had been an incredible weight she’d been carrying around while we were dating, and I was sure unburdening herself would be a relief to her. In fact, her reaction when I assured her I understood, and didn’t blame her for what had happened, left me with no doubt that she had been dying inside over her side of the breakup. Getting my absolution had opened up the floodgates, both of relief, and then of passion… and boy, did I get drenched. Now, she slept the sleep of the truly contented and secure… the sleep of the loved.

  Yeah. Back up and replay it, if you need to. I said it. I loved that woman, more than any other gorgeous rich nymphomaniac I had ever known. Personally. When awake.

  Suddenly, a chance beam of sunlight slipped through the curtains and lit on her face, giving it an angelic glow. Somewhere in the back of my head, a choir began singing that single note in four-part harmony that they love in the movies. At that opportune moment, Gail stirred, and opened her eyes. It could have been the sun on her face… it could have been the holy choir leaking out of my thoughts… right now, I’d put money on either. At any rate, her eyes searched the room, and when they found me sitting at the desk not far from her, she smiled. One of those smiles that just makes a geek like me forget all about what I’d been doing all night, and remember the things I wish I’d been doing all night. She pushed herself upright on the couch, stretched (gad, I wish she hadn’t done that!), and whispered, “How’s it goin’, lover?”

  I swear, I had to look down at my laptop to get a clue as to what I’d been doing up until then. When I finally remembered, I said, “It’s goin’.”

  “That doesn’t sound so good,” Gail said, and came up off of the couch. She had slept in the dress she’d worn to dinner the night before, but somehow, she looked as neat and fresh as if she had just put it on. She came over to me, put a hand under my chin, and gave me a kiss that could have loosened fillings. When she pulled back, she said, “Having trouble?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly. “Concentrating!” Gail smiled guilelessly, and backed off to take the seat next to mine at the desk. “I’ve been digging into anything I could find on the Merc program.” I didn’t have to elaborate: Gail now knew the Merc program was written by a company acquired by BM and designed to take advantage of some programming loopholes to con the NASDAQ system and make off with billions in instant profits. It had failed on BM’s first attempt to use it, and to cover their tracks, I had been randomly blamed for a denial of service attack on their servers, fired from my IT job, and blacklisted in my own home town. Gail and I also knew BM was planning to try again, and if I could play my cards right, I might be able to stop them, and get my reputation back.

  And Gail knew the information I’d gotten from Mel was instrumental in my getting into their systems. Mel, having decided that he wanted nothing to do with BM’s little stock-swindle plot, was more than willing to help me out once we had all gotten together and compared notes. His password had allowed me to get at other computers at BM, to compare comments, notes, and the occasional debugging script, examine some output feeds, and in general collect every bit of information I could about Merc’s design and intent.

  We heard the click of the bedroom door, and looked up. Mel was just coming out, already dressed, and with his suitcase in his hand. He looked at us at the desk, squinted at the rays of sunlight coming through the curtains, and said, “Morning. My flight east leaves in two hours. Do we have time for breakfast?”

  Gail considered. “Better eat at the airport.”

  I considered. “Works for me. I’m ready for a break, anyway.”

  Gail stood up and said, “Mel, you get the rest of your stuff together and meet us downstairs. I’ll get my car and be waiting out front.”

  “No problem,” Mel said, and watched me as I packed my stuff away. “Did you get anywhere last night getting into the B&M servers?”

  “Been making good progress,” I said as I followed Gail to the door. On the threshold, I paused, and smiled at Mel. “Don’t worry: We’re gonna get ‘em.”

  I waited until I had closed the hotel room door, leaving Mel inside, before I turned to Gail on the outside, and said, “I don’t know if I can get ‘em.”

  2: California Dreamin’

  We spent breakfast discussing the things Mel needed to do to give me a head start on getting these guys. Knowing how badly Mel wanted to bolt on BM, now that he knew how underhanded the whole Merc thing had turned out to be, and getting him to refrain from doing the whole “Take this job and shove it!” bit, at least for a
few days, was tough. But eventually he agreed that he’d go back to work and lay low for a few days, feeding me anything new from his home e-mail account, until it was time to act.

  I just wished I knew when that time was going to be.

  Finally, it was time for Mel’s flight back to Baltimore. We saw him off at the terminal, and once he was out of sight, we headed for the parking lot and Gail’s car. Gail and I walked silently, Gail’s hand around my arm. Since the other night, she was being a bit more touchy-feely than usual… but I could hardly blame her. And besides: It was Gail. Who wouldn’t want a creature like this hanging off of you? You should’ve seen the looks we were getting, especially from other guys who looked like they just wanted to sit down and have a cry because they weren’t me right now. I wish I could’ve seen their looks clearer. Unfortunately, my eyes were finally starting to glaze over after being up all night, and I had to let Gail steer me the rest of the way to the car. Once I was in the passenger seat, I cranked the seat back and laid my head back on the headrest.

  Gail started the car and got us out of the garage, and in no time, we were on the highway to San Diego, and home. Now, Gail finally opened up and started talking… but about Merc. “Are you going to be able to stop it, Mike?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” I replied. “Gail, I’ve pored over everything Mel could point me to, including bits of code that hint at the code in the Merc program itself. One thing I now know about the Merc program: It’s well-written. Another thing I know: It’s very secure. I can’t get in to hack, change or crash the program. I can’t block it at the NASDAQ end. I can block it at the BM end, once or twice, but their guys would find that and work around it right off… waste of time. And right now… I don’t know what other options I have.” I let my head fall back against the headrest. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

  We drove in silence for awhile, before Gail spoke again. “Mike… I know how badly you’d like to get at B&M, and get your reputation back. But… if it turned out you couldn’t… if you couldn’t go back to Baltimore…”

  “You don’t have to say any more,” I cut her off. “Sure, I’d like to repair my rep. It’s a professional thing. But fixing my rep… going back, staying here, going somewhere else… none of it would mean a damn thing, if I didn’t have you with me.” I reached out and put my hand on her thigh, which almost, but not quite, managed to wake me up a bit. Gail quickly put her hand on mine, and I’m pretty sure she smiled down at me. But at that point, my last erg of consciousness finally deserted me, and I headed off into LaLa Land as we drove out of LaLa Land…

  I wish I could say that I was completely out, and didn’t wake back up until we were back home. No such luck. Like any good IT guy with a problem to solve, my subconscious mind kept working away at the problem, turning the bits and pieces into little dream elements and trying to find ways to work them into outlandish fantasy scenarios that would somehow be forgotten by my conscious mind until the split-second I needed a solution, and then in some TV-type dream flashback I’d put the pieces together and save the day. Except that that almost never works in real life… so it was always frustrating when I watched my subconscious mind going through all this nonsense. I felt like a spectator at a bad movie, me and the little MST3K silhouettes, shouting at the screen: “C’mon, lose the bandana, they suck as blindfolds!” “Tell Ripley not to park the Nostromo there… it’ll only sink!” “That’s why they don’t make those in green!” “The fake guy always says ‘He’s a fake!’ first! Don’t change the camera angle, or you’ll lose track!” “No, Kermit, take the left turn!” “Who’s waiting for these biscuits?” And I’ll bet you think I hid a real clue in there with all of those bogus clues, don’t you? You watch too much TV, my friend…

  My incredibly stupid dreams were soon interrupted by an earthquake. I’d never been in one before, but I’d read enough about them to never want to be in one. My shock brought me awake instantly, dragging me out of one of the last really stupid dreams, so the first thing I said when I awoke was: “Tell Charlton Heston!”

  “What?” Gail looked down at me, eyes wide. It had been her hand on my arm, trying to shake me awake, which had prompted my earthquake reaction. Then she turned back to her driving. “Never mind… that’s not the weirdest thing you’ve said in your sleep in the last hour.”

  “I’ve been talking in my sleep?”

  “Yes,” Gail said. “And now I know the secrets that you keep.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I grinned. “—What did I say? Anything good?”

  “Well, the biscuits sounded tasty. But tell the chef they’re always better without prime factorials.”

  “Meh.” I tried to remember anything I’d dreamt, but came up dry. “And double-meh. I need—”

  “You need rest,” Gail told me. “Let the answers come tomorrow. C’mon, you’re home.”

  I looked around. “That explains the four Moons in the sky.”

  They weren’t Moons, of course… they were the roof lights in the parking garage of my brother’s apartment building. I climbed out of the car, having gathered enough rest during the trip to at least carry my bag and gear. Gail left hers in the car, and took me upstairs to Pete’s place.

  We walked into Pete’s apartment, and found him in the kitchen, making a sandwich. “Hey, guys,” he said, and paused from his sandwich making to come to the foyer. “So, how was your adventure, bro?”

  “Adventurous,” I replied. “And tiring.”

  Gail nodded. “I’m putting him to bed. Do me a favor, Pete: Keep it down, and let him get some sleep?”

  There was something in the way Gail had spoken to my brother, which made him pull up short; though I was too tired to really notice. “Uh. Uh, sure, babe,” he said as Gail and I passed him. “Quiet as a library.” As we passed, Gail reached out and cupped Pete’s cheek. It would occur to me only later that this was the first time I’d seen them actually touch each other since I’d arrived in San Diego.

  Gail walked me into my room, took my gear from me in order to put it on the floor, and steered me to the bed. She barely had time to pull the covers back before I flopped into it. “Good boy,” she said soothingly. “Now get some rest. I’ll see you later, lover.”

  “You bet. Thanks, Gail,” I said. She responded by leaning over and giving me a kiss on the forehead. Then she stepped lightly out of the room, closing the door behind her. I heard her and Pete’s voices faintly outside, but nothing I could make out… and then I was out, again.

  3: Rested

  When I awoke, it was dark in my room… but not totally dark. I realized the blinds were drawn, reducing the amount of light coming into the room. I wasn’t sure if it was evening, and I had slept a few hours; or if it was morning, and I’d slept all day and all night through.

  “Morning.”

  It took me a second to realize I hadn’t spoken. I turned over and looked across my bedroom. There, in a chair propped next to the closet, was a figure in the dark, facing me.

  “Pete?”

  The figure lifted a glass to his lips and sipped from it. “Gail was right,” he said presently. “You do talk in your sleep.”

  “I say anything good?”

  “I don’t know,” Pete replied. “What’s ‘eschew obfuscation’ mean?”

  “I’ll let you know,” I replied, “when I’m awake enough to remember.” I levered myself upright, and peered around the dark room. “I slept all night?”

  “You slept all night,” Pete confirmed. “How you feel?”

  “Like I slept a lot.”

  “Thank goodness for that.” Pete took another sip from his glass. “Gail told me what happened.”

  I nodded: It was good that he knew.

  Pete continued: “She told me everything that happened.”

  I stopped nodding. The talk. I looked in Pete’s direction, but I couldn’t see his face in the dark. “Yeah, she told me.”

  “I guess you can understand,” Pete said slowly, “why I
didn’t want to volunteer that information to anyone.”

  I did understand. It was hard for an essentially macho guy like Pete, someone who was apparently wilder and swingier than most guys, to admit that his old lady was too much for him sexually, and that he’d actually been the one to back out of the relationship. I wished that he’d felt he could have told his little brother… but the sibling thing sometimes made the most personal conversations harder than they ought to be. There are some things that you don’t even want to discuss with family.

  “I know,” Pete went on after a moment. “I wanted to say something. But I… well… you’re my little brother, Mike. I guess I didn’t want you to think less of me… if I wasn’t…”

  “No,” I said, smiling, and I hoped he could see it. “I don’t think less of you. I think… I think a lot of guys wouldn’t have taken it nearly as well as you did. They have even done themselves… or their partners… some damage as a result. But you took it like a man. Even if you did invent a little white lie for appearances’ sake. But then, that’s also one of the things that makes you you. And no matter what, you’ll always be my big brother, and I’ll always love you.”

  I saw his head cock to the side. “Oh, well, if you’re gonna get sappy on me, I’m gonna leave.”

  “Not without me, you don’t,” I said, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. “God, I’m starved. You had breakfast?”

  “Does this orange juice count?” Now I could tell he was smiling.

  I got dressed, and we walked down the street to a hotel that had a lobby restaurant that did decent breakfasts. On the way, I asked, “No Reilly around today?”

  “She left hours ago,” Pete said. “Had an early shift. We tried to be quiet, for you.” He smiled. “Actually, there’s something to be said for quiet sex… for whatever reason, we don’t do it often. But it really seems to be… good for us. I really should try to do it more.”

  “So she forgave you your little Gail-grenade from the other day?” I could relate: Sex with Gail was lasting on the brain; I could well imagine thoughts of her intruding on even the best sex with someone else, and I didn’t blame Pete for letting her name slip out in the middle of sex with Reilly. Much.