The Intruder

by Greg Krehbiel

  "One," he began. "When you told me you had checked up on my friends, you didn't mention Hanna. That could indicate that you were unaware of her, or that you hadn't tracked her down yet. Two. You used completely different techniques on me. The operation against Hanna seemed low-budget by comparison. Three. You admit that you checked up on MacKenzie, but you didn't kidnap her. Why would you kidnap Hanna but not MacKenzie?"

  "Reasons why it probably wasn't the Network," he continued, "Why didn't they kill her?"

  Peter nodded. "I'm glad you didn't make up a bunch of nonsense just to fill your quota," he said. "Based on what you know of the Network, that's a decent analysis. Now," he said, moving on, "I want a full report of what they did to Hanna, with your opinions on what it all means, and I want you to tell me everything you think they could have learned from her. I want it before tomorrow morning."

  He didn't say "dismissed," but he might as well have. Jeremy left, trying very hard not to look like his tail was between his legs.

  I guess that's initiation, he thought.

  Chapter 11

  "Eunice MacKenzie?" a man with a heavy Scottish accent asked as she was heading across campus the next morning. She and Hanna still had a lot of work to do to restore Hanna's memory of her ordeal, but they had decided to go back to class before Hanna got too far behind.

  "Sort of," she said, stopping to talk to the powerfully built man. She didn't recognize him, and his demeanor didn't inspire confidence. He reminded Hanna of a Scot she had once seen in a movie -- stern, strong, someone you wouldn't want to cross, and who might be a saint or a devil. "I go by MacKenzie, if you don't mind." He nodded.

  "I'm an admirer of your groundbreaking work on hole communications," he said with no hint of a smile.

  How could he possibly know about that? she wondered. She hadn't told anyone what she had been doing, and none of her other projects could really be called "groundbreaking." Had someone been looking over her shoulder in the lab? MacKenzie wasn't sure if she should play dumb, ignore him and walk away, accuse him of violating her privacy, or what. They stared at each other for a few seconds, and then he asked if they could talk privately.

  "Privately?" she laughed. "No, we can't. But I would be willing to meet you somewhere, in public, with a friend."

  The man thought about that for a minute and then agreed. They made arrangements and he hurried away. He walked with the confident stride of a man who knew his business and would neither expect nor tolerate any interference.

  * * *

  That evening, Hanna and MacKenzie sat in a corner booth at the Chocolate Bar, waiting to meet the strange man who had approached MacKenzie earlier that day. The rainy afternoon gave way to a brilliant, clear evening sky, and the light from the setting sun on the wet pavement made the view of the Massachusetts Avenue pleasant and relaxing.

  "Do you really think this is a good idea?" Hanna asked. "It seems like we're getting sucked into something that I don't want to be involved with. And from your description, I'm not sure this man is entirely safe."

  MacKenzie shook her head. "I think we're involved whether we like it or not," she replied. "I don't think he's safe, but I haven't made up my mind whether he's good or bad. But don't worry, I've taken precautions." Hanna could only guess what she had done, but she trusted her friend completely. MacKenzie had the rare gift of knowing her limits. If she said she had taken adequate precautions, then there was nothing more to say.

  "Here he comes," MacKenzie said as she saw the man come in the door. He was alone, as they had agreed. Not a few eyes were drawn in his direction. He was a man who commanded respect, or at least notice, but he was a willful man -- you could see it in everything he did -- and, despite his general good looks, the women who sometimes went to the Chocolate Bar looking for dates weren't interested. They were looking for a good time: he was far too serious.

  MacKenzie caught his eye and he came to their table.

  "I know about your experiments in the computer lab," he said to MacKenzie after the barest of introductions. He said his name was Duncan. "Your command of hole communications is quite impressive. I wish you were working for me."

  MacKenzie's first thought was to question how he knew about her work, but she decided to hold off on that one for a little while. "What kind of work do you do?" she asked.

  "It involves hole communications," he said in a very quiet voice.

  "Doesn't everything?" MacKenzie asked.

  The edge of his lip curled into a slight smile. "I monitor hole communications," he said, pausing slightly after the second word.

  "Isn't that both illegal and impossible?" Hanna asked, slightly irritated with Duncan's manner. Before he had a chance to answer, a waitress delivered three chocolate sundaes. By common consent they were all silent while the waitress was within earshot.

  "I hope you like chocolate sundaes," Hanna said after she left.

  "The answers to your questions are yes, yes, and yes," Duncan said as he drove his spoon deep into the dessert, pulled it out, overflowing with chocolate, and shoved the oversized helping into his mouth. "At least that's what you're supposed to believe."

  "How did you monitor my work?" MacKenzie asked in as level a tone as she could manage. If he was able to do what he seemed to be claiming, it was rude, illegal and unbelievable all at once.

  "I can do lots of things," Duncan said, "but I'll give you a demonstration. Call up something on your implant. Anything you want."

  Did he expect to tell her what she was seeing? The very idea that someone could monitor what she was seeing on her implant was absurd, and a week earlier -- before she met Jeremy -- MacKenzie wouldn't even have played this game, but now she was ready to give him a chance. She tried to pick a hole address he wouldn't guess, just to make it a fair test, so she looked up the concert roster of the Baltimore Philharmonic Orchestra. As soon as the page was visible on her desktop, which seemed to float in the air just above Duncan's chocolate sundae, MacKenzie suddenly turned in the booth, faced the wall behind her, and started waving her arms as if she were shooing a very large and active fly.

  "Go away, go away," she said. "It's not your business." Hanna looked at MacKenzie as if she was crazy, but Duncan stared at her in shocked disbelief. He recovered quickly and began to look behind him and around the room, searching for someone.

  "Is he here?" Duncan said, and without waiting for an answer he got up and left.

  "What in the world was that all about?" Hanna asked after Duncan had left the Chocolate Bar.

  "I played a hunch and it paid off, that's all," MacKenzie said, "but we can't talk about it here. Let's finish these sundaes and I'll tell you about it later." MacKenzie had that smug look on her face of someone who had just pulled off an incredibly good practical joke.

  * * *

  The alley entrance to Jeremy's office didn't look at all the same in the dark, and it took Hanna and MacKenzie a few minutes to find it, and several more to find the door labeled "Janitor" once they were inside. MacKenzie sent a message to Jeremy that they had arrived and he quickly opened the door and let them in. He was still peeling some kind of plastic mask off his face.

  "So, now do I get to find out what this was all about?" Hanna asked in a frustrated tone.

  Jeremy smiled a conspirator's smile at MacKenzie and then looked at Hanna. "Think about it, Hanna. That big fellow you met tonight claimed to know what MacKenzie had been doing at her workstation. MacKenzie suspected that those images I've been seeing had been spying on her in the computer lab, and that was how Duncan knew what she'd been working on, so she asked me to come along and see if any of them showed up tonight." While he was talking he took something out of his pocket and plugged it into a port in a workstation. MacKenzie looked on with keen interest. "When Duncan asked MacKenzie to look something up on her implant, one of the images appeared right behind her head. I sent a message to MacKenzie telling her it was there and she pretended to try to shoo it away." He laughed. "You should have seen the expres
sion on its face when it thought she could see it."

  Hanna noticed another patch of plastic material stuck to Jeremy's face, and she picked it off. "So you were in disguise?" she asked. "Where were you? How did you hear our conversation?"

  Jeremy smiled and glanced at the workstation, keying in a few simple commands. MacKenzie watched everything he did very carefully. "Yes," he said, "I was in disguise. Some of those phantom things know what I look like, and I didn't want them to see me. But I could hear what was going on from this," he held up a small gadget about the size of a matchbook, "and MacKenzie and I were in chat mode." Hanna took an interest in the listening gadget but Jeremy put it in his pocket with an apologetic look. "Sorry," he said.

  Hanna shook her head at him. "You're in this stuff pretty deep, aren't you, Jeremy? But then again, it looks like we are, too. Who is this Duncan character? And what's he going to do now? Was it you he meant when he asked if 'he' was here?"

  "I'm sure of it," Jeremy said, looking at the workstation again, which now displayed an image of Duncan sitting at the booth in the Chocolate Bar. Jeremy had taken a micro camera to the Chocolate Bar as well as the listening device. While they looked, the workstation matched the image from the camera with an internal database. Next to the image of Duncan appeared a series of links to other information about him.

  "Duncan is heavily involved with these net spies," Jeremy said.

  "Is that what you call them now? Net spies?" MacKenzie asked.

  Jeremy thought for a minute before answering. "Actually, I think that was the first time I used the term. It just came to me, but it seems appropriate, doesn't it? The one I saw tonight was right behind you, looking just over your head and, I presume, directly at whatever you were viewing on your desktop. That's how Duncan expected to be able to tell you what you were looking up."

  "That means that Duncan was in contact with the net spy, just like you were in contact with MacKenzie," Hanna said.

  MacKenzie shook her head and sat down with a faraway expression on her face. Jeremy was about to ask her something, but Hanna stopped him. She knew that look. MacKenzie was in genius mode, filtering everything she had just learned through her encyclopedic knowledge of the implants and hole communications. Jeremy and Hanna stood still, watching her for a minute, then Jeremy turned to the display on the workstation and began following a couple of the links.

  Peter's either going to love me or kill me tomorrow, Jeremy thought. Duncan was one of Peter's main suspects with the network. Tonight's work had established that Duncan was connected with the net spies, but, unfortunately, he had also spooked him. He didn't know which would be more important.

  * * *

  "Jeremy's into this in a big way," MacKenzie said as they walked back to their dorm around 1:00. They were the only people on the street, so the patrolmen on each block followed them at a discreet distance, tag-team escorting them back to the dorm. Crime was almost unheard of in Washington, and the patrolmen wanted to keep it that way. Hanna loved them. They were respectful and always polite, but it would be foolish to mistake politeness for weakness or a lack of resolve. Patrolmen were required to be black belts and expert marksmen.

  "That workstation he was using back in his office had some high-end stuff on it," MacKenzie began. "And that camera and listening device weren't cheap, not to mention the mask he was wearing. He's linked up with somebody who has a lot of resources."

  Hanna pondered that for a minute. "So there're at least two groups out there," Hanna said. "Whoever Jeremy's working for, and whoever Duncan's working for."

  "It seems that way," MacKenzie said. "And the 'net spies,' as Jeremy calls them, seem to be on Duncan's side." She stopped and looked at Hanna. "Do you think we should go to the police and tell them what we know?"

  Hanna shook her head. "We can't. We promised Jeremy not to talk."

  "But we know enough on our own now," MacKenzie continued. "We wouldn't have to tell them anything about Jeremy."

  "Wouldn't we?" Hanna asked. "How could we tell our story without mixing in some of what we've heard from Jeremy? And if they thought something serious was going on, they'd summon us to testify, and we'd be required to talk or face obstruction of justice charges. Besides, I imagine one of these two groups is connected with the government. I doubt they need us."

  MacKenzie always deferred to Hanna on theory, just as Hanna deferred to her on computers. They walked the rest of the way home in silence, each considering what they had learned and working on their own suspicions and theories.

  * * *

  The excursion to the Chocolate Bar ate up a lot of the time Jeremy had to work on the report Peter expected by morning. He had the office concession pumping out coffee, but he could already begin to feel the diminishing returns. Useful brain power was running out, and he was less than half done.

  Two hours later he was finishing up his report with the last of his mental energy. He had to get some sleep before morning, so he began tossing his clothes into the launderer and looking for the right address to send the report. Now that he was an employee of Peter's organization, he had access to the roster, but as he looked for the address, a name caught his eye.

  Carl Maria Lenzke, known in the Community by his title, the Advocate. The lying rat works for Peter.

  Jeremy followed the link to Lenzke's name and found his office address. He was temporarily assigned to one of the smaller agency offices in Fairfax, Virginia. Jeremy had to meet with Peter at 10:00, but he had a hovercar at his disposal, if he needed it. It would be possible to be in Fairfax as late as 9:45 and still make his meeting with Peter. Jeremy quickly planned his itinerary for the morning, reserved one of the hovercars for the 8:00 to 10:00 slot, set the alarm in his implant and went to sleep.

  * * *

  "I thought you didn't usually eat breakfast," MacKenzie said as she set her coffee and bran muffin on the table across from Hanna.

  Hanna had just stuffed her sausage muffin in her mouth and couldn't answer for a minute. "I've been so hungry," she said after a moment. "They didn't feed me very well, you know, and I think those drugs had some effect on my appetite."

  "You don't look any worse for it," MacKenzie said, and Hanna smiled, "but it hasn't improved your taste in food." Hanna gave her a dirty look and took an over-large mouthful of hotcakes just for spite.

  "Okay, okay," MacKenzie said. "Actually, I've got some theories I want to bounce off of you."

  "Computers just aren't my thing," Hanna protested, taking another bite. "But go ahead," she mumbled through her food, forgetting her manners, and then giggled. MacKenzie glowered at her.

  "Okay, first of all, why did that ghost thing, that 'net spy,' as Jeremy would call it, get behind me and look over my shoulder as if it were watching my implant desktop? I mean, it was acting as if my implant was really there, in front of me."

  Hanna set down her fork, picked up her coffee and thought about that in silence for a minute. "The ghostie wasn't really 'there,' in any meaningful sense of that term," she said. "If you're on the right track with your research, then the 'net spy' is just some background noise that Jeremy can see, for whatever reason. So maybe we need to back up and ask why the ghostie appears in a particular place at all -- behind you, or anywhere else."

  MacKenzie smiled. "You were always good at this kind of thing. Questioning assumptions, I mean. Let me see," she thought for a minute, but Hanna was ahead of her.

  "Here's what I mean," Hanna continued. "If somebody has figured a way to crack the security codes on the hole, then it seems they should just be able to access that information at a terminal or something. They shouldn't need to be sending these images all over the place."

  "But?" MacKenzie prompted.

  "But what if they're not accessing the data stream itself? That's what you call all that glop that carries the information around, right?" MacKenzie tried not to be irritated when Hanna's silly side came through, but "glop" was annoying, and she gave Hanna a disapproving grin.

 
"Oh lighten up. I'm getting the theory right, and you know what I'm saying," Hanna said. "So here's what I'm thinking: the implants are in our eyes, ..."

  "Connected to our optic nerves," MacKenzie corrected.

  "Same thing," Hanna said, knowing it was wrong. She was in the mood to offend MacKenzie's technical sensibilities, and it was too easy when MacKenzie was in her hyper-analytical mode. "So maybe the feed works both ways," Hanna continued. "We 'see' the desktop that the implant feeds into our optic nerve, so how do we know that what we really see -- photons hitting our eyes, and all that -- doesn't feed back into the implant and onto the net?"

  MacKenzie's trained response was to shake her head no. That was against all the canons of hole communications. But so were "net spies." She stopped shaking her head and looked back at Hanna. "It can't happen," she said, and Hanna couldn't tell whether she was stating that as a fact or trying to convince herself of it.

  MacKenzie continued. "I have to admit that your theory would explain what we know so far," she said. "The best way to process visual information is in 3-D. You just can't get it all otherwise, so if you had a huge database of visual information, the best way to analyze it would be through virtual reality. You'd suit up and just walk around inside the images, looking at things." She nearly choked on the last words.

  "Looking at things," she repeated, "just like those things were looking at my desktop." MacKenzie's face turned white. "This contradicts everything I've learned about the implants, but it has to be right." She swallowed hard. "Hanna, this is terrible. This means that somebody has the capability of looking at anything and everything that anybody does."