by James Cox
"Feces!" Gallaway paused for a few more bites. "I... No. I'm not going to say it. I don't want either of us lashed again."
"We won't be," said Robin, "I made a really tough burn today. I don't think he'll punish me after that."
Gallaway coughed, chuckled and almost choked on her drink. "Do you know why I became a solicitor?"
"Why?"
"Because I always liked helping other people more than I liked them helping me."
Robin chuckled. "You sound like a friend of mine. A chat-friend." How long ago? She bit down on the pang trying to form. "MoldyGrape. He's a teacher and I think he's a good one. That sounds like something he'd say."
"Maybe you can introduce us," said Gallaway, willing to let the conversation lighten.
"Deal! You'd be amazed at the people you meet in chat. The things you can do there."
Gallaway nodded. "I remember you talking about it."
Robin recounted some of her other chat experiences while Gallaway finished. When she did Robin handed her the 'sticks, a chip and a note.
'Hide this but keep it with you,' wrote Robin, 'It's all the data and conclusions I have. Make sure the CA gets it.'
Gallaway nodded. She held her 'stick and the note up to Robin's lighter.
Everett waited outside Gallaway's door tonight. Unusual. He slipped his arm under Robin's and walked her slowly back to her room. She thought of more than one unpleasant conclusion but determined to deal with whatever happened when it did. Everett released Robin's arm outside her door but followed her inside. Robin's stomach hollowed and filled with dread.
"You did well, my darling. I'm so proud of you."
He reached over and kissed her forehead.
"But you were also careless, sloppy and far too defiant."
He let the lash uncurl.
"I could call Donnel, my dove, but I think this is best handled... between us."
Robin's stomach turned to ice and it spread. She felt a shameful tear trickle down her face.
"Very good, my darling." He slowly unbuttoned her shirt.
Robin lay on the bed and buried her face in the pillow.
Chapter 13. Burned Bridges
The young burner worked his terminal furiously. Several things were happening, the net was hot and he was in the solid middle of it. Two men stood in the corner, silent, awaiting his instruction. As a rule he didn't raise his voice often, he left that to his superiors. Now, however...
No! He wouldn't think back on it. He had part of Macy's data broken with no interesting results. Yet. Now this. Her two fellow travelers were making some interesting forays into the net. He couldn't quite deduce their target but he liked a challenge.
No sooner had he formed an idea when all chaos broke loose with Fed Financial. The severity of the incident overrode his current programs with a high-priority request for help. A request that he, by duty, could not ignore. He joined the fray just as the hottest CA countermeasures got blasted off the net. Including him! Intolerable!! His secondary terminal, programmed to stay one step behind its primary, stepped forward just as he switched over. He did catch the last few fragments of the intruder's data just as his tunnels collapsed and vanished.
"Pyro burn!"
The other two men jumped. Perhaps, he thought in retrospect, he had spoken too harshly when giving them their orders. They should have known most of them, though! No matter, he had another situation to attend.
The situation at FFFT required immediate attention. Grudgingly the burner connected to it, reset what he could and terminated everything else. They hadn't lost any data and what matter if the salami lost a few slices. He grabbed all of the intrusion logs. He scanned them quickly and soon had them reduced to just what he needed. Then he sat back, puzzled.
"Choke and destroy?"
"Pardon," asked one of the other men.
"Effective," said the young man, "but why that when you have something better?"
The other men shrugged.
Curiosity burning his guts now, the young burner started a low-level examination of the event logs.
"They're all the same. Why? Why should they be the same?"
The man at the datamart fired off another query. The burner logged it for later and turned to his other data. Breaking the encryption took most of the building's computer power but they wouldn't complain. Again.
"Of course! Clever! Clever, clever, clever girl!"
The burner read and reread the data, stunned. He felt a thrill of triumph suddenly tempered by reality. He succeeded, but what to do about it? As yet he had no word from his superior and he nursed no delusions about his ability in that world.
"Choke!" Realization dawned. "Choke, choke, choke..." He knew he had it. He had every flavor of burnware available, legal and otherwise. Somewhere. Finding it only took time.
He turned his attention back to the datamart connection. Still active. Good. He repackaged Macy's data as quickly as he could, conscious that the connection he watched could terminate at any second. As he worked he slowly synchronized with the datamart and its connections. His smile grew. Even sweeter than a challenge was besting one of his own kind.
***
Micah sat in the datamart drinking tea and chatting with Caulder. Ferrel sat at a terminal looking for more data. He found precious little past what they already knew and Micah was ready to call Tolgos' Bridge a dead end.
Ferrel tensed up and swore under his breath. Micah saw it and started considering options. Then all the server cores beeped in alarm and started shutting down.
"What," yelled Ferrel with surprise genuine to anyone but Micah.
"Oh flames," said Caulder. He dropped his tea on the table, spilled most of it and rushed to the system terminal.
"What is it," asked Micah sharply, aiming at Ferrel.
"Line spike," answered Caulder, "Bloody things always hit at just the worst time." He brought up the terminal and began working it. "Sorry, guys. I won't charge you for the last hour."
"Negative problem," said Ferrel, "I got most of what I wanted."
"Can we help," asked Micah.
"Nak," said Caulder, attention elsewhere, "Wait. You mind changing the door to 'Closed?' This is going to take a while."
"What happened," hissed Micah, attention on everything but Ferrel.
"Well, I'm the one that spiked the servers. Something strange happened and I don't know how."
That chilled Micah! "What was it? Do we need to worry about the CA? Something worse?"
"I don't know, I don't think so and probably not," said Ferrel, "I got some data but I'm not sure how."
Fully alert, Micah combed their rooms thoroughly before he let Ferrel enter.
"I wasn't traced," continued Ferrel as though nothing had happened, "I'm just not sure about a few details. I am ninety-five certain, however, that I just slapped a query into the CA here."
"What?! I thought you were going to avoid that!" Micah barely remembered to keep his voice low enough for the garble to cover.
"I did, Micah! I absolutely and expressly did not burn the CA." Ferrel collected his thoughts; something he didn't need to do often! "I think the bounceback hiccuped. The CA and municipal systems communicate frequently. Logical. The muni server cores aren't that pyro and there was a lot of traffic going through them. I think they choked. That's logical, too. When the CA net reset the connection it slirped my query into its own archives. I think."
"You think?!"
"Micah, I don't know everything! I realize that's contrary to doctrine but still truth."
"Did you get your data?"
"Plus a lot more. Yes."
"How soon can you have it analyzed?"
"You know not to ask, my brother."
Micah thought hard.
"Slib. We're taking the late-night out of here. We have enough data and I don't really want to stick around. Things like this upset me."
"Me as well, my friend. I'll crack the rest of it during the trip."
***
Micah glowered at Ferrel. After several tran changes they settled in Northaven Valley. Ferrel spent most of the time with his terminal. Now this!
"It makes no sense," said Micah.
Ferrel shrugged. "I can only tell you what the data is. It appears to be a message from Robin Macy concerning her current whereabouts along with a plea to the CA to find her."
"The which was dated very recently," said Micah, "and, if your hypothesis is correct, logged in the archives of that selfsame CA."
"It was encrypted," said Ferrel, "but not very hard. A quarter-credit clickpuppy could break it."
"So it's a fair assumption that they have."
"Truth. But it was plaintext and there was no link to or from it. I'm at least four-sigma that I got all the information and that they had a low priority tag on it."
"Charles, this feels to me like another dangle or a delay. Or a trap."
"It does, save for the source. I can think of one option."
"You want to burn the CA?"
Ferrel nodded.
"Slib. What about our other operations?"
"Still too spiky to touch. I've been monitoring, my brother. It hasn't been that long since our big snatch and quite a few companies are still torqued to orbit over it."
"Can't understand why," said Micah. Then, after some thought, "We go tomorrow. I want at least a little sleep."
***
Robin woke slowly. Reluctantly. She relived Everett many times after he left. She headed to the fresher and a good shower. As she stepped under the water she noticed something disturbing: this time he left marks. The hot water stung mightily but she held herself steady until she felt clean. When she wiped the steam off the mirror she saw a hard edge to the eyes staring back at her.
Robin planned her burns carefully. She had a stack of them with no easy ones. She had no doubt Everett wanted an excuse to lash her again; he enjoyed finding new ways to cause her fear and he wanted to savor them when he did. She determined to deny him whenever she possibly could.
While she burned with her main terminal Robin had the slower ones re-encrypting her data. Choke programs never used the same data more than once so neither would hers. Rather than change the raw data, though, she elected to change the encryption. Some versions would be harder to break, some easier but all would be different.
For a pleasant surprise Everett didn't join her for lunch. Less pleasant: Donnel and Jack did. Donnel alternated crude innuendo with outright bullying threats while Jack remained silent. He neither came to Robin's defense nor helped antagonize her. No matter, though; Robin simply ignored Donnel and refused to rise to his barbs. At first she tried to sink some of her own but she soon found that her silence irritated him more.
The afternoon burns went well. She used her modified choke and destroy eight times with five of them going directly against CA countermeasures. She tried hard to keep any traces from passing her second link and only failed once. For some reason her links felt slower. She didn't dare hope, instead she attributed it to nerves. Doubts still plagued her, though.
"You've been busy, my dear," said Everett as he finished his wine, "I trust you have something for me?"
She handed him the spools. "All but two. I should be able to take them down tomorrow."
"Perhaps, my dove."
Everett seemed distracted as he talked. It bothered Robin that she knew him well enough to sense it. When she prepared Gallaway's tray he waved absently.
'I think something happened,' mouthed Robin as Gallaway ate, 'Something was definitely bothering him. I have another chip.'
Gallaway nodded and Robin carefully kept the conversation light after she finished eating.
***
"Nothing," said Ferrel. Again. "Not only nothing, but no links to nothing. They've cold-sevened the case and don't even want any new leads."
"The which means one of two things," opined Micah, "Either they have her or someone with the authority to do so squelched the investigation." He stood, moved to a different chair, sat.
"The report didn't even mention any follow-up," said Ferrel, "There were some notes about legal suppression during adjudication but that shouldn't affect the records themselves. There should be something active."
"Unless they want accomplices," said Micah, "More specifically, accomplices who might be able to burn into their records. "Is there any quick way to trace other data that links into hers?"
Ferrel merely lifted an eyebrow. "I'll pretend I didn't hear that. No, my brother. Not without examining every single link in the archives. Not feasible. Their records are deliberately structured that way. You know that. Are you mining the parking orbits?"
"Yes," sighed Micah, "I'm less than ecstatic about our other projects. Our targets are still trying to pull hydrogen out of a hypermass, meaning they don't just want the insurance money."
"I concur," said Ferrel, "But it was always low-sigma that we'd find any deep data there."
"All truth and no blather," said Micah, "but our best alternative still isn't that certain."
Ferrel shrugged. "We can be in place tomorrow."
***
The young burner concentrated hard on his terminal, trying to merge his own brain into its circuitry. Reluctantly he changed his location to Hibson, the purported location of Robin Macy. He left his boss a message. He left detailed instructions for the brief time he'd be incommunicado.
"Come on," he exhorted the terminal, "I know you're there! Just show me where you are."
But his quarry didn't listen. No problem. Within three to five hours he'd have a satellite in position and dedicated to his needs. More than a few people wouldn't like that but his need outranked theirs.
***
"I don't like this," said Micah.
"I concur." Ferrel shifted slightly for a better holocaster angle.
The two of them lay concealed less than a hundred meters from a nondescript house in the back part of nowhere. Ferrel's data showed the house rented but unoccupied. They'd spent the better part of the night watching the place and morning would break soon. The lights came on and off irregularly but neither saw any sign of occupation. The lawn needed tending as well.
Micah hated not having League mercury suits or at least noseemes. Ferrel devised some clever local improvisations but they felt kilometers away from League tech now! The apparent lack of activity also bothered him. Any person with half a brain cell could program lights to go on and off randomly. No apparent motion behind the windows didn't make the house deserted. Nor did the unkempt grounds.
Micah reached a decision. "Stay here and keep me in view."
Using every bit of cover and concealment available and every milligram of stealth, caution and just plain sneak he possessed Micah crept toward the house. He scouted carefully for traps and alarms and he hadn't gone far when he found them! Edging cautiously back he moved a few meters to the left and advanced again. Then back and to the right. He located at least four signs of buried mayhem, no doubt anchored to a console within the house. He didn't try to disarm anything. Rather, he traced them in a long line to and including the road leading to the house. He worked his way back to Ferrel.
"They are not hospitable," he said. Then he described what he found.
"So it's a trap," said Ferrel.
"Pious question," said Micah. He and Ferrel now sat in their room, occasionally checking the spider they left behind. "who set it and why."
"I have an idea," said Ferrel, "It might be hard to test but it would be conclusive. Vinsley might be using it as a dedicated relay or a single link in a jumping spline. They don't have to be small and they're ruddy hard to detect if they're using hardwired hardware."
"So how do you detect one?"
"From the outside, of course. The crudest relay is nothing more than two comms taped speaker-to-mic. If you cross-connect them you get a galaxy more options."
"I understand. How do you detect it?"
"With a simple terminal or datapad," continued Ferrel, "one
that isn't even that smart, and a little bit of pipe you can increase the capability tenfold."
"How do you detect it, Charlie?"
"That's the basis for a hardlinked jumping spline, too. At least five nodes for a three-node spline. Best performance uses at least half the number of active nodes as a reserve. Elementary burn-wisdom, my brother."
Micah growled.
"The which our dear Robin will know! That makes that house of ill welcome either the first or last link in a chain of them. The way to trace it is to determine when the link to that particular house is active."
"And?"
"And we perform basic traffic analysis on it."
"That easy," asked Micah sarcastically.
"Plus-plus, my brother. That easy and easier... with proper preparation!"
As evening descended and closing time approached, Hibson Central Data & Communications began disgorging people from its buildings. Administrators, managers, marketing staff, accountants and myriads of others left their daily work for their daily after-work. As they did they swapped a few words with those just arriving: tech support, cleaning crews and evening maintenance.
Micah didn't like the haste with which Ferrel inserted them into the cleaning company's roster. Hibson felt small enough for people to know who belonged where and who didn't. Ferrel blathered that, burned in and forged IDs '... good enough to draw a salary!' Once they made it past the perimeter gate, two guardhouses and the building entrance Micah conceded Ferrel's point. And paid him his five credits.
"Now make yourself busy," said Ferrel dismissively, sitting in a comfortable chair and jacking in, "Oh. Do a good job, too. I don't want a bad rep."
Micah forebore a reply and busied himself cleaning the office. Easier to juggle spine vipers barehanded than to separate Ferrel from a datajack. By the time he finished it and three others Ferrel had a full spool of data and a wide smile. Success! They finished the rest of their cleaning quickly and headed away.
"Now this I believe," said Micah.
"No blather! It was not easy to find, brother mine."
Ferrel not only pegged the links from the first house, he also managed a complete link analysis on all the recent traffic to or from it. Micah thought it strange that all of them lay within Hibson's service area but Ferrel explained it.
