Cyber Genius

by Patricia Rice

“You need to talk to Tudor and Graham. I have no clear understanding of what Tudor’s monster is capable of, but it sounds as if it may have mutated. The attack might be real, but if it’s just Tudor’s program, then it won’t go anywhere without that hole in the operating system. Advise your people to remove any beta software, and don’t accept any attachments from anyone.”

  I wanted to go to MacroWare headquarters, but programming really was Tudor’s bailiwick, not mine. I’m a researcher, and sometimes a harpy, but I had no real programming training. I regretted my lack of education for many reasons.

  After hanging up on Nick, I tried calling Graham again. Protecting the world from itself was a lonely job. I thought he might need human contact occasionally. Or a mosquito buzzing in his ear.

  “Tudor isn’t answering my messages,” was his greeting—but at least he’d answered.

  “Not a good sign,” I agreed without argument. “I’ll try to have Sean check on him, but it’s crazy out here. Without a computer, I’m helpless. Any new direction I need to follow?” I asked this out of panicked politeness. I was already aiming for the Metro.

  “Tudor’s worm is corrupted almost beyond recognition,” he reported. “There are IT departments around the globe gleefully accessing any beta hole they can find, and in return, Tudor’s malicious worm is attaching itself to everything they copy. If it gives you satisfaction, I’d say that all these amateur spies are downloading infected documents and passing them on to all their buddies.”

  I whistled happily. “So the villains destroy themselves. Karma rules.”

  “Except they’re taking the rest of the world down with them, and the Russians and Chinese are exploiting the beta problem with vigor. We need Tudor working to close the hole and stop his monster because management at MacroWare is running around placing blame and accomplishing nothing.”

  He sounded exhausted. It would be nice to lead the kind of life where we comforted each other with hugs. That wasn’t happening anytime soon. “I know Tudor’s working on it, but I’ll talk to him. I want to have a chat with Adolph. We need to get to the bottom of the murders so you can return to your office.”

  “Miss me?” Graham asked with what almost sounded like real human humor. “Civilization as we know it comes first. Find Tudor.”

  He hung up, of course. He was a busy man. I got that. But he was also a paranoid robot who’d shut down anything resembling human emotion. Some days, I approved of the robot.

  I stood on a street corner, trying to reach Tudor. Or Sean, who might know who to call in the office. I watched as frightened businesspeople rushed by, staring in disbelief at their mobile lifelines. Mostly, the non-business types appeared ignorant of imminent disaster. Mothers walked babies. School kids trooped in and out of buses, chattering.

  Bombing the internet in no way resembled bombing buildings. It took a long time before economic carnage became visceral. That didn’t make the destruction any less fatal.

  I hoped and prayed that hospitals and vital resources like police and fire departments weren’t so advanced as to be playing with beta software. The internet affected everything in our lives.

  Tudor still wasn’t answering his phone or texts. Neither was Sean.

  I hadn’t worried about my little brother while he was at school. We’d never really talked in years. I shouldn’t be concerned now, but I was.

  Even as I thought that, my phone rang with the Jaws theme I’d designated for Magda, the Hungarian Princess.

  I didn’t need her asking what Tudor had done now or offering helicopters. I let the call go to voice mail and headed for the Metro.

  Once my phone quit thumping, I called Mallard. Unlike the rest of us, he could usually be counted on to be home. “Have the police concluded we’re not hiding in the woodwork yet?” I asked.

  “They have departed the premises with a warning to alert them as soon as you return,” he intoned solemnly.

  “Bugged the place, did they? That’s not legal. We’ll ask Oppenheimer who to sue.” Graham had the whole house bugged, so this was just business as usual. “In the meantime, have you seen our resident alien? He isn’t answering his calls.” If there was any chance of bugs, I wasn’t using Tudor’s name.

  “There is no one here but me. I shall see that the car meets Miss Elizabeth Georgiana at school.”

  I glanced at my watch. It was well past lunch, and I was running on empty. I liked being there when EG got home, but it didn’t look like this would be one of those days. “Thanks, Mallard. We’ll owe you big time. Hold the fort.”

  My bratty little brother had a bad habit of disregarding calls and dropping off the radar. Besides, Sean should be with him, and there wasn’t a darned thing I could do to make Tudor work faster. I’d only had an apple and a breakfast bar all day. The hotel was on the way to the newspaper office. I could do double duty, take time for a fast bite of food and make a call on Adolph.

  I texted a threat to Tudor and left voice mail with Sean.

  It was disconcerting that Graham had actually been the only one to answer my call. He normally ignored us, but he had an eerie ability to know when disaster was about to strike.

  I hopped a Metro car just before the doors shut, and for a change, I tried prayer to any god that might be listening. I had a feeling a higher source than little old me was needed to save the day.

  Twenty-two

  Ana tackles the kitchen

  I’d only formulated a half-assed plan for approaching Adolph by the time I arrived at the hotel where presumably Graham was still staying. I didn’t know how many security cameras Graham could follow at one time, so I didn’t bother waving at them as I entered the hotel restaurant.

  I was convinced Adolph was the key piece to my puzzle, but he was elusive. I couldn’t think of any way of tricking him into revealing what he knew, and he had no reason to speak to me that I’d been able to dream up.

  I’d learned that Maggie worked catering conferences for extra money, but normally she was day shift in the restaurant. I didn’t see her as I asked for a table in a corner, where I could keep an eye on everyone in the room. I’d been hoping for her aid, but I’m creative. I’d find another way of reaching Adolph.

  Perusing the outrageously expensive and not very comfort-food-friendly menu, I wondered if I could charge the meal to Thomas Alexander’s room. Thinking better of it, I ordered tomato soup and a cheese sandwich. They weren’t on the menu but the waitress didn’t argue.

  I had second thoughts about tomato soup as soon as she left. Obviously, I hadn’t been thinking. Did botulism have a smell?

  Could I end up in the same ward with the MacroWare execs? I’d love to interrogate those guys, but with a murder rap hanging over Graham’s head and the feds looking for Tudor, I figured I’d better keep my distance. I certainly preferred not to gain entry to their ward through tomato poisoning.

  Like everyone else in the almost empty dining room, I punched my phone. No replies from Tudor or Sean. I texted Patra, just in case. She was supposed to be in Atlanta, but she could be with Sean after they broke the nasty news story about the beta program.

  By the time I’d eaten my soup (diced tomatoes, basil, no cream) and sandwich (I wasn’t venturing to guess what kind of cheese or herbs), I’d dug into my cloud files and uncovered Adolph’s mobile number. If I was going to develop food poisoning, I’d be sure to spill my guts on his shiny shoes.

  Maggie had told Adolph about the potentially poisonous salt shaker, and he hadn’t told the cops. That, in itself, was suspicious.

  If Wilhelm was telling the truth, Adolph had made the salsa that could have contained spoiled canned tomatoes.

  Our unfriendly hotel chef also appeared to be benefitting from MacroWare’s connection to Goldrich—which looked like an insider pay-off to me. He had a spotty reputation with the law and alcohol and no good means of climbing higher than a hotel kitchen unless he pulled strings.

  And he’d been in the safe room when Hilda had been shot. I didn’t
think he had sufficient motive to be suspect Number One, but he looked like a solid accessory. Of course, whoever had crossed the wiring was the real accessory, but that could be any of a few thousand people.

  Feeling stupidly safe knowing Graham was a few floors above me, I rang Adolph. He didn’t answer. I wouldn’t either if I didn’t recognize the number.

  “I know about the salt shaker,” I told his voice mail. “And Goldrich is going down as we speak, so your mortgage is already in jeopardy. If you’re prepared to tell what you know, there’s nothing anyone can do to stop you. I’m waiting in the dining room for the next ten minutes.”

  I was giving Adolph the benefit of the doubt because I just didn’t think he had sufficient motivation to kill five MacroWare execs.

  I ordered coffee and waited.

  ***

  Tudor’s Take:

  All the pillocks were so busy arguing over potential economic collapse that Tudor slouched out of the newspaper office without anyone noticing. He felt as if he carried the weight of the bloody world on his shoulders. Babies might starve if he didn’t repair what he’d broken.

  Not that he’d broken the dodgy betaware. But no one had expected a worm to crawl in and start burrowing through their files either.

  The creepy kid song, the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out, dug into his brain cells and couldn’t be dislodged.

  People had probably been killed because he’d found that beastly hole. The internet could still die if his monster wasn’t stopped.

  If his fix didn’t work, he’d have to call his mother and take a helicopter to Africa and hide. Or Thailand, maybe. He heard there were lots of pretty girls in Thailand, and beaches. He needed to research extradition treaties.

  The worms play pinochle on your snout . . .

  The D.C. MacroWare office wasn’t far from the newspaper office. Accustomed to the London tube, Tudor easily located the Metro he needed to get there.

  He’d done his research and knew that even at a low-level sales center, MacroWare had multiple stages of safeguards. He’d dug through Graham’s security files until he’d located the emergency back door code, along with multiple warnings from Graham to the office wankers about not changing the code frequently enough. He’d have to hope this latest one hadn’t been changed.

  Tudor knew not to carry in thumb drives or other bits that security screens would spot. He also knew he was asking for trouble, but Graham and Ana were more interested in catching bad guys than fixing what was wrong. He admired what they did. He couldn’t do it, but he was good with other things. His task was clear.

  He had the patch to stop his monster. He had to see if it worked, and he couldn’t do it without MacroWare’s servers.

  He repeated that mantra as he donned a plasticized ID card he’d nicked while rummaging inside Graham’s console. The photo didn’t look like him, but he wore it flipped over as if blown by the wind as he walked through the back door. The guard at the desk didn’t notice. The bar code got him past a card check. If they had eye or thumbprint checks, he was screwed.

  But this wasn’t MacroWare’s main operating headquarters, just a small sales office. Apparently the prats didn’t realize how easy it was to access the national main frame from the D.C. server or they’d think twice about their security.

  Well, Graham had warned them. Tudor had seen it in the files. Someone hadn’t wanted to pay the extra expense of securing every employee and door in the D.C. office.

  He pondered that as he stalked past offices in shambles and milling, worried twits. Why hadn’t management wanted real security?

  With a shiver of apprehension, he prayed that the passwords he’d copied inside his jacket pocket would get him straight into the company’s servers. He had to be able to access his cloud account where he kept the patch code, and he didn’t need potential killers breathing down his neck.

  First, he needed a computer.

  He had no clue where to go once inside. This ground floor had carpeted hallways, real offices, and names on the doors. He knew MacroWare only occupied the first two floors, and he assumed he’d blend in better with cubicle dwellers. Hoping he’d find them on the next level, he took the fire stairs up. He could always pretend he was maintenance if everyone else wore suits and ties.

  The predictable cubicle farm on the next floor hummed with unhappiness. Khakis and long-sleeve tees seemed to be appropriate office attire. His grungy sweater and corduroys weren’t entirely out of place. He rubbed his shorn head and hoped he wasn’t on wanted posters on every cubicle divider and screen saver.

  He eased toward a darker corner, away from the water cooler crowd. The wonks in the cubicles he passed looked grim and appeared to be juggling phones and not computers. Sales, right. He bet they were being hit by a butt-load of grievances.

  Swallowing his guilt, Tudor chose a cubicle with no photos adorning the dividers and no papers on the desk. The dual monitor was a beaut. He powered up the drive and got the expected password demand.

  Biting his bottom lip, he checked the list in his coat pocket and began typing. If none of these were general override passwords...

  He was in. Not feeling any relief yet, he started digging into the computer’s security.

  Before he could get past the first level, he had a yahoo leaning over his shoulder.

  ***

  Ana goes mad

  Adolph stood me up.

  Well, that was to be expected, after all. Maybe he hadn’t checked his voice mail. Maybe he wasn’t ordering his hard-working staff around today. Maybe he’d scarpered after I’d tackled Wilhelm.

  At least I’d been fed.

  The newspaper office wasn’t far away. I had time.

  I wasn’t moving on until I knew the chef wasn’t on the premises. I needed better confirmation of my nebulous theories before bearding any lions, and Adolph had been right there, front and center, while the poisoning was happening. He’d also been in the room when Hilda had been shot. I needed face time.

  I took the elevator to the lowest level and wandered ugly concrete block corridors until I heard the kitchen.

  “She’s up there now!” I heard Adolph roar. “I don’t know who the hell she thinks she is, but she’s dangerous. Get your silly ass out of my kitchen until she disappears.”

  Oh, were they talking about little ol’ me? How exciting! Did I eavesdrop to see what they had to say, or just present myself and grin?

  I sooo preferred eavesdropping. Old habits were hard to break. I leaned against the cold block wall and listened. At least I wasn’t hiding in a closet, my former modus operandi.

  “But we are guilty of nothing,” Wilhelm whined. “What can she do? My sauce, it is almost done. I cannot leave it.”

  “She can have you deported,” Adolph said nastily. “Now get out. I’ll watch the sauce.”

  That didn’t precisely sound like a lover’s spat. Curious, I waited for Wilhelm to depart.

  He didn’t, not through this door. I knew there was more than one.

  Well, blast. Now I’d have to enter hell’s kitchen, where they kept all the long knives. I rang Adolph’s number and parked myself against the door jamb to watch the kitchen. I hoped I had enough distance to get a head start if he came after me with one of those hatchets I’d seen Mallard wield.

  From this angle I could see Adolph in his chef’s whites on the far side of the kitchen, whisking something on the burners. He pulled out his phone, then shoved it back in his pocket without looking up. So much for the importance of my call.

  Since I hadn’t come up with a better plan, I leaned against the door jamb, crossed my arms, and whistled. The nearest slavey heard me and glanced over. He poked the person next to him. The din in the kitchen slowly silenced sufficiently for Adolph to notice and look up. I waved.

  “You!” he shouted, grabbing one of those knives I feared. “Get out of my kitchen! Get out of my life! You are to leave my people alone!”

  I shrugged, pretending insouciance. “I’m not
your problem, honey-pie. In case you haven’t figured it out by now, the rich honchos you’re hanging with are killers. Money doesn’t grow on trees without a little bloodshed to fertilize it.”

  Adolph was not a small man. Nor was he a weak one, like Wilhelm. He had a few extra pounds, but they didn’t slow him down. He shoved past kitchen workers, bearing down on me, knife in hand.

  I really didn’t think he’d gut me in front of witnesses, so I didn’t run. But defensive tactics were called for if I wanted to pry information out of him. I dodged to the other side of the complicated maze of tables and burners.

  “You want to discuss it here, with everyone listening?” I taunted from behind a massive steel stove and an array of saucepans. “I’m good with that.”

  Really, I wasn’t. I just wanted to hide in my basement and play safely on my computers. But he had information I needed, and I wasn’t letting Tudor and Graham down because I was terrified of knives.

  What didn’t kill me, made me stronger, right?

  “I know nothing!” he shouted, edging around an aisle of appliances to get at me. “I told the police all I know!”

  The kitchen staff obligingly got out of my way as I ducked under a worktable and came out in a different aisle. There are advantages to being small. Adolph couldn’t manage that maneuver without cracking his head or a few ribs.

  “You didn’t tell them about the salt shaker, did you?” I demanded. “Where is that now? Who dried the fish guts?”

  In a moment of brilliant insight, prompted by holy terror, I concluded, “You did! You dried all those poison livers that Kita was throwing out! No one else would know how to do that. Did Kita confront you? Is that why he’s dead?”

  “I wish that I had never heard of Kita!” he cried, waving his knife and bringing down a hanging pan with the force of his swing. It clattered to the stainless worktable with a resounding bang he didn’t appear to notice. “Fish soup is disgusting! If those imperialist pigs must eat poisonous fish, they deserve to die!”

  “Tell me what you really think,” I said dryly, darting around a stove bubbling with lunch specials. “But you’ll do what the hot shots ask because they return the favor, right? Tray wants you to serve puffer fish. You need a new restaurant. Quid pro quo... am I getting close?”