“Just one more thing,” said Slocum. “Your underwear.”
“Oh, c’mon man. You can’t leave us naked out here.”
“That’s how you left me.” Slocum gestured with his gun, and Bobo reluctantly slid his briefs down over his ankles, tossing them at Slocum’s feet. Chico’s followed. “You know, Bobo, this hardly makes us even, but it will have to do. Stay warm.”
Slocum scooped up the clothes and backed away into the night. He didn’t think Bobo had it in him to offer much of a threat, but then these two had managed to sneak up on him once before. He made it back to his car without incident, and soon was hot on the trail of the palmtop.
***
“What have you got? Did the file go through?” Charles Mason stood behind Norbert Green, head of the computer department, and the agency’s technology guru. Norbert had come up with the idea of broadcasting a special file to Slocum’s palmtop to ascertain whether it was being accessed.
“Yes, sir, it’s confirmed,” said Norbert. “The device processed the last message and sent back verification.”
“Did it offer any clue as to where it is?”
“Unfortunately, no. But a link was established with a computer, probably a PC.”
“How can you be sure?” asked Mason.
“The palm unit sent back verification that the instructions were processed,” said Norbert. “If no interface was attached, or if it malfunctioned, an error would be generated. We would know.”
“So someone plugged it into a computer, right?”
“Yes,” said Norbert. “And Mr. Slocum still has the original cable. It’s not a standard interface.”
“So?”
“So, whoever is using the palmtop either knew how to make a specialized interface cable, or had one made.”
Mason nodded his understanding. “The file you sent–what exactly was in it?”
“Instructions, primarily. If the palmtop were attached to a local PC it would try to grab the users name, then use its own capabilities to match that with publicly available sources on the Net. Unfortunately, it didn’t send back any data, only the verification.”
“But you’re certain that it connected to another computer?”
“No doubt about that part,” said Norbert.
Mason patted him on the shoulder and nodded his thanks, then hurried back to his office. He immediately phoned George Pampas.
“Pampas here.”
“George, I have a gift for you,” said Mason.
“A gift?”
“That’s right. Norbert has been trying to verify whether Slocum’s palmtop is active.”
“How?”
“He transmitted a file to it with certain instructions. Apparently it processed the instructions and sent back some kind of verification. According to Norbert that means it was hooked up to a PC.”
“Sounds like someone is messing around with it,” said Pampas.
“That’s right. And to do that requires a special cable. Slocum still has his, right?”
“Sure does.”
“So that’s your gift–a solid lead. Find out who had a cable made with the specifications necessary to interface with Slocum’s palmtop.”
“This might tie in with something that Slocum reported.”
“What’s that?”
“He says he has information about where the palm unit was last seen.”
“Good,” said Mason. “Then get with it. And keep me posted.”
As the line went dead Pampas considered the options. Slocum had reported that he knew from one of the Latinos where the palmtop had been discarded. Staring at the phone, Pampas wondered if there were any electronics stores in that area.
***
The agency that employed Robert Slocum–National Communications–occupied a nondescript midtown office building, but its function was anything but common. It had its genesis as a government commission, but had been privatized several years after its creation. With a change in administrations and the temporary chaos that followed, it dropped off of everyone’s radar screen. Extremely well funded to begin with, those finances had been invested wisely. On more than one occasion the timing of those investments would have raised some eyebrows, had anyone been watching. The phrase ‘insider trading’ would have been entirely inadequate.
Shortly after its privatization there had been a power struggle. Charles Mason had watched as the agency’s potential was squandered by those who, in his opinion, lacked true vision, and he had led the coup that toppled his predecessor. Of course, he couldn’t have done it on his own. Such a dramatic power shift required powerful alliances. In this case, his main ally was a data file outlining some very peculiar personal preferences of the man he replaced. Nothing illegal, it was nevertheless sufficiently embarrassing to convince the man to voluntarily step down–and to name Mason as the new Director. It was a bloodless coup, but it represented a change in direction that would ultimately affect millions of people. Now Mason was in charge, and he ran the organization with an iron fist. As was the norm on Tuesday mornings, he had gathered his top managers together for a status meeting. After going over some routine departmental matters, he opened the meeting to general discussion.
“So, who has good news?” asked Mason.
Tom Snelling was the first to respond. “Profiling division is a go for the next run. Kayoko’s numbers were within range.”
“No complications?” Mason seemed to be directing the question at Snelling, though he glanced briefly at Kayoko. It was Snelling who answered.
“If we can’t get the population matrix aligned with the societal baseline, the quotient will be meaningless. The input from the computer department has been choppy.”
All eyes turned to Norbert Green. His thick glasses, unkempt, curly reddish hair, and pale lifeless eyes screamed out ‘geek’. He was, however, a brilliant computer scientist.
“Do you have any idea how complex this project is? Just storing the sheer volume of data is challenge enough, but we have to dissect it, parse it for nuance or idiomatic discrepancy, filter it for known dialectic patterns, then index the whole mess for proper presentation to our colleagues in Societal Profiling. If our efforts fall beneath the ninety-three per cent threshold, we get to do it all again.” He looked around for some sign of sympathy. He only got blank stares.
“Look, people. The repositories are filling up faster then we can shuffle the data. We either have to expand operations, or…”
“Or what, Norbert?” Mason looked quizzically at his boy wonder.
“Or, we might consider piggybacking on some of the feds hardware.”
“Norbert, the feds don’t even know we exist,” said Mason. “I doubt they’d let us use their computers.”
“They wouldn’t know.” Norbert smiled.
“We’ll consider it as an option, but for now let’s make due with what we have.”
“Okay, but we’re really over-extending our capacity. If we crash, recovery won’t be easy.”
“Then don’t crash.” Even Mason had his limits, and the look he gave Norbert made it clear he was there. “Field Services, what do you have to report?”
“We’re short an implementer,” said George Pampas. His dual role included security and field operations.
“Yes,” acknowledged Mason. “Mr. Slocum is unfortunately engaged in a high priority project at the moment. Is it setting you back?”
“Some of our people are doubling up. The extra miles could leave a paper trail, but we’re careful. One person, for a short time, can be covered.” He emphasized the short.
“I don’t expect Mr. Slocum will be otherwise engaged for long. Is that your only concern?”
“Right now my only concern is getting the next profile implemented. We’re on schedule with the preliminaries. There are some minor equipment issues in the greater Philadelphia area, but we have people on it.”
Mason liked Pampas. He didn’t dwell on the problems, but cut through the crap to solve them.
***
Although he was a programmer, not a technician, Stanley had always retained a curiosity for how things worked. That’s why he now sat before a disassembled assortment of electronics, each component of the palmtop carefully extracted and placed on a piece of paper. He had even drawn a picture of how it looked before he took it apart, in case he forgot how to put it back together. He had removed everything he could, even unsoldering some connections, and had no more idea of what he was dealing with than before. He scratched his head and reached for his cup of tea.
The back door slammed and Bobby walked into the kitchen.
“Hi, Dad. Whatcha doin’?” He strolled over to the table.
“I took it apart.” Stanley indicated the palmtop with a nod of his head, cup held to his lips.
“Why?”
“I wanted to see how it works,” said Stanley. He slowly put the hot cup on the table.
“So…how does it work?” Bobby looked skeptically at the tabletop.
“It…well, I’m not exactly sure. I think that,” he pointed to a flat, square module, “has something to do with communications; maybe a transceiver of some kind. Otherwise,” he shrugged his shoulders.
“Can you put it back together?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Will it still work?”
“You doubt my ability?”
“Uh uh. Can I watch?”
“Of course.”
It took the better part of an hour, but he finally got all the pieces put back together. Bobby sat silently the entire time, fascinated by the internal workings of the palmtop. His father held it up triumphantly.
“Now for the test,” said Stanley. He pressed the power button and the unit came to life. It seemed to be functioning normally.
“It works.” Bobby stared at the device.
“I still need to find out who this thing belongs to. I’m not having much luck in that department.” Stanley picked up the palmtop and brought it over to his computer, once again attaching the cable. “I think I need to focus on decoding the menu system itself.”
He spoke out loud, but no one was listening. Bobby had left the room.
***
It was the third electronics store he had visited that day, and the last one within reasonable distance of the spot where the palmtop had been thrown out by Chico and Bobo. Slocum was going on the assumption that whoever had found it and had subsequently downloaded the file sent by the agency would have purchased the interface cable close to where the device was discarded. It was a long shot, and there were variables that could nullify the premise, but it was all he had at the moment. He walked into the electronics store.
“Can I help you, sir?” The attention was immediate, as Slocum was the only customer.
He smiled disarmingly. “Yes, I hope so. A friend of mine was going to have a cable made for me, for a palmtop. It was kind of unusual–it had to be specially prepared.”
“Yes, I remember,” said the clerk. “He came in last Saturday with his son. Is there a problem with it?”
“No, not at all. Actually, I was hoping you might be able to whip me up a second one. You can’t exactly buy them off the shelf.”
“No problem, just bring in the unit and we’ll make another one.”
“That’s great. I was just on my way over to his house, and…say, do you know this area?”
“Sure, I live about a mile away.”
“He told me how to get to his place,” said Slocum, “but I got all mixed up, stopping here and all. Could you look up his address and point me in the right direction?” It seemed a natural request.
“No problem, Mr. Whipple’s a regular customer. Let’s see.” He punched a few keys on his register, and soon had the address. “One-fourteen Sycamore. If you take a right out of the parking lot, go out on the main drag, two streets up take another right. That’s Warren Road. The tree streets run perpendicular to Warren. I think Sycamore is about the fourth one up.”
“Thanks very much.” Slocum offered a quick wave as he turned and left the store.
The directions were good, and Slocum easily found the Whipple residence. He parked his car across the street from their house, observing from a short distance away.
He sat there for an hour, watching the pattern of lights and the comings and goings inside. The occupants of the two-story dwelling seemed to settle into an upstairs-downstairs routine. He considered whether he should barge in and bully them into returning the palmtop, or wait for an opportune moment to break into the house and steal it. The trouble with both approaches was that he didn’t know for sure that they even had it, and he didn’t want to attract undo attention. Had he simply knocked on the door and asked for it, Stanley Whipple would have been delighted to give it to him, but of course Slocum had no way of knowing this. After watching and thinking about it for another twenty minutes, he started his car and pulled away from the curb. He would come back in the morning.
***
The lights in the Whipple household burned long after Slocum had left. Stanley, on the verge of giving up, had stumbled upon a clue. It happened when he started playing with the date and time settings on the palmtop. He had simply been trying the various features, having tired of all his previous failures. As he toggled through the settings, the regular menu suddenly disappeared and was replaced with a peculiar logo that nearly filled the screen. A pair of wheat plants formed an arch, encompassing the initials NC.
“Bobby, check this out.” Stanley excitedly looked up, and only then realized that he was alone. He looked at his watch. Ten forty-five. He glanced at the palm unit, then pushed his chair back and walked upstairs. The light was on in Bobby’s room, so he gently knocked and opened the door.
Bobby was stretched out on his bed–sound asleep and fully clothed. Stanley walked over and covered him with a blanket, then stood watching him for several minutes. He recalled how he and his wife had stood together like this many times when she was alive. He smiled at the fond memory.
He left Bobby’s room and went into the bathroom to splash some water on his face, and it was then that he caught himself staring into his own reflection. The face that looked back wasn’t old looking, but it was old, he knew. Not in years, perhaps, but experience can find ways to age a man that don’t necessarily find their way into wrinkles and creases. Stanley’s clean-shaven skin and bony features defied easy assignment of age, but in the eyes it was there, and Stanley couldn’t hold his own gaze. He was grateful for the towel that broke the moment, and softly closed the door and went downstairs to resume work on the palmtop.
He sat before the strange display. NC. What did it mean? Beneath the logo was a line with a flashing cursor, obviously waiting for some input. A user name perhaps? He was reluctant to even touch it, fearing that even this bit of progress would slip away. He decided to take a guess, to put something in and see what happened, and racked his brain for the right word. What did he know that might make sense to the device?
The only thing he could think of was NC, the logo that now stared at him. He had picked up the stylus to enter it, but then changed his mind. He did have one other word. Pascua, from the text he had downloaded earlier. He had florida, too, but pascua seemed more likely. He input the six letters, and tapped Enter. The logo disappeared and the screen went blank.
At first he thought he had lost everything, but after ten seconds the screen refreshed and a menu system appeared, numbered one through five. He checked the interface cable attached to his computer and studied the menu.
Option one read ‘New Contacts’. He scanned the rest, but none made any sense except the last one, number five, ‘Download�
�. He selected this option and watched as a light blinked on the palmtop, while his hard drive once again went crazy.
This time the process was different from his earlier experiences. It more closely resembled the file transfers he was accustomed to, and there was even a status bar indicating what percentage remained. A few minutes later the process completed, and he was returned to the main menu. With nothing to lose, he now selected option one. The screen again went blank, flickered, then died. He tapped it lightly, causing it to flicker once more, and then he banged it harder and it went completely dead. He was unable to revive it. He shook his head in resignation.
“Okay my friend. Perhaps I’ve worn you out.”
Closing the lid, he unplugged the cable and placed it on the shelf under his computer desk. His back ached from sitting bent over for so long, and after turning off his computer he stood up and stretched, then went to bed. Tomorrow after work he would take a look at the download.
***
Norbert looked worriedly at his screen, then up at Mason, who had recently acquired the habit of hanging around the computer center.
“Mr. Mason, something’s not right here.”
“What is it?”
“Slocum’s palmtop authenticated to our data stream,” said Norbert.
“I thought that was impossible with the security you have in place.”
“It is. Unless…” Norbert stared through the display. “I can only think of two scenarios in which security could be broken, and so quickly. Three.”
“I’m listening.”
“Number one, some other agency has the device and has figured out what we’re doing.”
“Continue.”
“Number two, the unit was somehow broken. It’s conceivable that if the logic module was damaged, it might be possible to bypass certain security protocols.”
Norbert seemed a little too sure about this.
“Certain security protocols? Are you kidding? How could that happen?” asked Mason.
Norbert nervously cleared his throat. “A small number of our palm units were known to have a susceptibility under extreme conditions.”
Palm Sunday Page 3
