Double Bait (Stone Blade Book 2)

by James Cox

  "Yes."

  "Thought so. Those shoes you're wearing look nice but they're no good for walking around on all day." Jacobs counted out some money. "Here. Go to the Vestorama where Maxine sent you and get a pair of black Spongies. Make sure they have traction soles, too."

  "Th-thanks, Jas," said Robin genuinely, "I'll pay you back!"

  "Bloody righteous," grinned Jacobs with a wink, "This'll make sure you can stay on your feet long enough to do it. Flames! That's my bus. See you tomorrow!"

  As Jacobs ran to catch her transit Robin walked gingerly to the corner. She made her purchase, adding ten unis for extra ankle support, and pulled on the shoes. Her feet felt better instantly and she blessed Jacobs for the kindness.

  As Robin walked she considered her day. Her legs still hurt and she was tired past any day she'd worked before but her mind raced to encompass all she learned. Not about the restaurant and how to work it but about Jacobs and her life. Then toward her plans before Jasworth's class this evening.

  ***

  Robin took a calming breath. She had her tools ready. She had the datamart logs and dogz handled and she had her plan solid. Time to execute it!

  She connected to the fourth machine she corrupted, owned it and connected to the CA site. She sent a carefully-forged criminal check request and waited for it to respond. When it sent an encryption tunnel Robin forked it and sent her gooey grapple after the first file it could find. As soon as it locked in place she sent a spiral tunnel down its track. When the check returned negative and the first CA connection closed Robin widened her tunnel and fortified it. Though the outer CA tunnel vanished hers remained, solidly connected. She sent a very light probe down it and it reported no activity on the CA end. Robin strengthened that connection until she had a solid anchor there.

  Working with cautious speed she forked her tunnel and connected to her bank. After several seconds it acknowledged and a cold drop of sweat started working its way down her back. Using her biometrics she opened a new account and transferred one hundred fifty unis into it. When the bank acknowledged success she forked that connection into hot memory and suspended it there. A second drop of sweat joined the first and she gained understanding of why the hottest burners always wanted fast boxes and wide pipes!

  Robin introduced an error into the back-acknowledgement. The CA connection terminated and the bank's went into a security audit. While it worked she turned her attention to the CA. Before the connection fully closed she stuck a quick edit into her thermal worm and launched it against the CA.

  The CA connection noised up when the worm detonated. Not good! The CA dogz requested verification from the bank but its connection had already closed. As swiftly as she could Robin forged a minimal positive acknowledgement and sent it down the tunnel. The CA dogz chewed on it a moment before returning a positive back-ack.

  Relief washed through Robin as she let the CA connection fully close. Unless some natural disaster struck the CA hardware within the next five minutes the edit her worm planted would commit and replace Robin's biometrics with carefully-corrupted copies. After their daily backup the CA would have no solid connection between Samantha Taw and the person who tried to impersonate Robin Macy.

  By the time Robin finished with the CA the bank machine sent a close request. That would not do but she wasn't ready for the next step. She issued a suspend-keep-open, sat back and took a deep breath.

  The bank connection re-opened at Robin's request. A quick check of the security logs revealed nothing amiss: since she neither added nor removed money the balances matched and since the original connection came from the CA the security stayed quiescent. She issued a close for the connection and forked it before it completed.

  Now came her next risky move. With a half-open secure authoritative authenticated connection her promote-me module should give her a higher level of access. Since most banks used standard financial packages the difficulty lay in figuring out which one and how to use it. Robin succeeded on her third try and authenticated as a backup and archive administrator. Not as good as full administrator but she could work it. She wormed her way through the backup policies until she found her target.

  Since before the Imperium banks dealt with roundoff error. By law financial transactions were tracked to the ten-thousandth of a unicred but computers were much more accurate than that. Robin located the salami account, the one used to hold less-than-ten-thousandth roundoffs, and began tracing the feeds into it. Since roundoffs were unavoidable and novice burners were tempted with each new generation, banks adopted an elegant solution. All roundoffs went into the salami account and any attempt to withdraw money from it would trigger a galaxy of security. She very carefully did not try to withdraw anything from the account.

  Robin identified and traced the salami connections associated with various planet-wide or interstellar companies. She then slipped a carefully-crafted shim between the feed and the ports that would connect to it. When activated, and Robin placed a randomizer on that, each shim would funnel between a quarter and a half of the roundoff into her original account.

  Robin knew someone would discover her work eventually. She planned to have plenty of ready cash by then! Before she left she located the bank's cryptobase archive and copied it. She knew she'd need to do this again and she didn't want to use a CA connection each time.

  With her tasks complete and her connections closed Robin chipped and hid her data and removed all traces of herself from this machine and the business'. That left her just enough time to make her class for the evening.

  ***

  Lorna Gallaway looked at the writ before her with disbelief. The man standing before her, handsome despite his blue uniform, graced her with a wide smile.

  "I still don't understand," said Gallaway.

  "I'm sorry, signora. I'm not at liberty to say anything past this. Do you want to re-verify the order?"

  "No."

  "Will you comply?"

  "Of course! I'm no criminal."

  The man touched his cap in salute and left.

  Gallaway puzzled over the Writ. It complied to all relevant laws, of course, but its content made no sense. The basic text: cease and desist all further investigations of the Macy case and disclose the results of any and all such immediately. Not that she found much, Macy simply vanished. She thought about adding the incident in St. Gore-Wharton where someone tried to impersonate Macy but decided to let the CA deal with that itself.

  Once Gallaway summarized what little she did find she automatically filed a request to block admission of all compromised evidence. That would damage the CA case, if ever it came to trial. At least, she thought, that would cost the CA some effort!

  ***

  The weak-chinned man hid his smile. His coworkers told him it wasn't pleasant despite his best efforts to the contrary. His carefully-woven plan clicked down the track he inferred. Soon it would either bear fruit or fail to do so in such a way as to yield a treasure ship of information.

  Patience. The wisp of a smile escaped his lips as he sipped his tea and watched. He left a nice tip for the new waitress struggling to manage her tables.

  ***

  Robin walked into her new, small apartment and closed the door behind her, glad that her shift ended. Though not spacious or fancy the apartment took up most of her meager pay. No matter. She lived scrupulously within her wages, ostensibly. Crafting an identity as Samantha Taw took a lot of effort but Robin put it forth willingly.

  Samantha Taw lived her life, went to school, graduated and spent most of her time before moving to St. Gore-Wharton in the small town of Alverton Wharf. Records there were sketchy but the town suffered periodic catastrophic floods and its residents refused to move despite the government's urgings to do so. That the centrally-archived records in Primary didn't match exactly those from Alverton posed no problem. Thomas told her of many burners who crafted false identities from the records of Alverton Wharf.

  Meanwhile Robin amassed a not-inconsiderable
sum of money from her transfer tap. Since it could vanish any day she made regular, sizable cash withdrawals. Some of it she kept, the rest she distributed among several retina-coded rental lockers. She finally spent some of her hoarded money on a brand new, high-speed, hot-to-the-slot, optimized portable terminal. She maxed it on memory and added an extra pair of chip burners. She took her time configuring it, drawing on her experience and others' to maximize its burn potential. Though not quite as pyro as Everett's rig it would still serve her well!

  Several weeks passed since Robin's arrival. She finished her class and concentrated on fitting into her job. Her new persona helped with that: any time a customer became rowdy or flirty she pulled Samantha on like a glove and let her handle them. She now had five regular customers of her very own, a solid friend in Jasmine and Maxine's praise on a semi-regular basis. As she worked she also observed. Samantha readily learned things Robin never would.

  Robin settled in the datamart, bandit-booted its terminal and meshed it with hers. Today she wore mundane clothes and not the eye-catchers Samantha liked. Since breaking their transaction crypto Robin hadn't burned or even touched the CA site. Now that would change. She relaxed herself and set up half a dozen standard tunnels to random bounce sites across the net. She opened a connection to the CA and when it stabilized she sent identical requests off her bounce sites. Her initial connection noised up and she hoped the security there reported a penetration attempt. Her plan hinged on it!

  The CA connection started to close for security conditions. Excellent! Robin refused the close and requested a resend, meanwhile inverse-bouncing dozens of ersatz requests through the half-open connection. When the terminate-request resent she triggered two programs she had waiting. The first forked the connection into hot memory and acknowledged the close. The second launched a very traceable script-burn from one of her bounce sites. It immediately attempted to burn the CA in a very visible and spectacular fashion. How far it would go Robin neither knew nor cared: it distracted most of the CA security. While it worked Robin opened a standard connection to the CA's public site. Underneath the standard protocol, though, she had a spiral tunnel encrypted well past what the connection required. As the CA security began tracing the script-burn she fused the spiral tunnel into the half-open one she had in hot memory. After a few seconds the tunnels merged. Success!

  Within minutes Robin watched the datamart from a bench down the street. She had a cup of tea and a 'stick and, apparently, not a care in the galaxy. After ten minutes no CA hovers appeared. Success twice! Robin finished her tea and 'stick and headed for the next datamart.

  This time Robin used a low, slow and subtle attack. Her spiral tunnel stayed in place until she settled into her next datamart and she detected no security out of the ordinary. She carefully probed and queried the CA data service, mostly to infer its structure. As soon as the normal security approved her presence and settled down Robin launched her hottest warez. She fired a throbbing needle deep into the database and followed it up with a thermal worm loaded with a very specific query. When the security roused and began swarming Robin fired a thorn snatch with queries for the public information on any and all CA arrests within the past four months. The site bogged down with the immensity of that request but not before Robin's worm detonated. Robin collapsed her tunnels and left.

  Now at a third datamart carefully not close to the first two Robin connected to the CA again. She started a fast file transfer and before long had a massive data squirt coming at her. The lag on the responses showed her thorn snatch still active so she gritted her teeth and waited. The file transfer terminated abnormally and Robin knew better than to wait for a proper close. She jacked out her portable, powered down the datamart terminal and left.

  The street contained several restaurants, a vital part of Robin's plan, and she walked briskly to the second-closest. By the time she emerged from the fresher five CA hovers had converged on the datamart. She shed her outer clothing in the fresher and now sported one of Samantha's flashier selections. She ordered a light meal and lit a 'stick, all the while watching the blue-garbed officers and their frenetic action. When a pair of them approached her current location Robin smiled sweetly at them. One of the men merely scowled at her but the other returned a half-smile.

  Giddy with accomplishment Robin mocked the hovers when they left. She knew they had her description and most likely a picture but that would do them do good whatsoever! After Robin finished her dessert she peeled off the glove spray Maxine insisted everyone on her staff use. Before she left the fresher and even before she changed clothes Robin spat out and flushed the huge wads of gum she'd had tucked into each cheek. That would hash up any facial metrics and Robin very carefully did not leave another trace.

  Safe now and full of good food Robin took out her terminal, killed the net connection that tried to form and called up her data. The header report said her query succeeded well past what she allowed herself to hope! It reported the results, summarized them and tabulated them. The authentication summary reported access well past what she needed to query those results.

  Those totally empty results!

  Robin read and re-read the reports. Then she checked the original data, then the condensed and summarized data. Nothing! She had an initial CA report on her alleged crimes along with several motions Gallaway filed to suppress them. They had an arrest warrant for her and a notation that it had been executed. Then nothing. She saw an arrest warrant for Aunt Lilly then nothing. No notation of arrest, no solicitor's request, simply... nothing.

  Robin muddled her way back to her apartment. All that preparation and nothing to show for it. Squelch! She knew from trying her comm combo that no one occupied Aunt Lilly's house. She even risked a hover-by in a taxi. The yard was clean but the grass higher than Lilly liked it. Robin blinked, surprised at the wetness that rolled down her cheek.

  "Information," said Robin softly. But what to try now?

  Chapter 6. To a New World!

  Robin entered her apartment and locked the door absently, her mind still focused on her problem. The CA was her best and most likely avenue to what happened to herself or Aunt Lilly but not the only one. She hoped. Maybe she should try...

  "Hello. I see you've done well for yourself."

  The voice startled her. After a moment of shock and paralysis she looked up, already knowing to whom it belonged. Carl had just risen from one of her chairs and now he stood before her.

  Robin reacted as Jasworth taught her, indeed drilled into her bones. Though terror still washed through her she took a deep breath and time slowed as she felt the small cylinder settle into her palm. She took a half-step back and sprayed it into Carl's face. When the first spritz expired she followed it with another.

  "One shot will disorient and incapacitate," said Jasworth, "Two will knock down the ruttiest thug and keep him down until you call the CA. Even if you have to walk a block or two to do it."

  Carl felt that! He might be able to shake off a stunner but SLAMflat hit him hard. She sprayed him twice more for good measure. When he flinched back, as she knew he would, she kicked fast and hard. Carl grunted as he folded around her foot.

  With adrenaline, anger and fear flooding through her Robin set herself to knock Carl down and render him unconscious. She swung her fist, tight and loose.

  He dodged it! Somehow he moved! When her fist whizzed past him he stepped inside it and jabbed her with hard fingers. Then again, again and again.

  Robin choked a gasp as her arm went numb followed by the rest of her body. Carl struck twice again and she could only watch as the floor rose to slap her hard. Then... Pain! Severe, excruciating pain!

  When her ears stopped ringing Robin heard Carl muttering at the sink and running water. Breath came slowly and spots swam before her eyes. Eventually she could twitch her arms and legs and sharp tingling replaced the pain. Slowly. A hand grabbed her collar, lifted her and deposited her in a chair.

  Carl sat staring at her, water still dr
ipping off his face. He blinked red eyes constantly but he could obviously see her and, although he moved gingerly, he'd also shaken off her kick. His face was a stone mask with no warmth in it whatsoever. Robin felt her throat tighten as fear replaced pain and tingling.

  "What the hades was that for?"

  "Y-you stole me! I don't know what you did to me but I'm not me anymore! Th-they don't have any records of me. I mean, this me and not the old me! You did that!"

  Carl stared, his eyes boring into her very soul.

  "Feces," he finally said, heavily, "Just excuse the hades out of us for trying to help you."

  "Help?! Help how?"

  "Without our help you probably wouldn't have made it out of Ribbon City. If you tried to ID for anything the CA would have arrested you on the spot! Flames! Didn't you have to pass a check for anything since we left?"

  Carl fell silent, waiting for her to counter his words. She tried to marshal a response but found she couldn't. After a while her body stopped tingling and she could move her arms and legs. He sat, silently watching, while she did so.

  "Umm... Thanks?"

  "You're welcome," he said heavily.

  "So why are you here?"

  "To see how you're doing. It would've been a shame to waste all that work on you."

  "Wh-what exactly did you do? To me, I mean."

  "Shave and a haircut. Microscarring. We ran a light surgical across your hands and the backs of your eyes. Not enough to do any damage but enough to hash up your biometrics. That and a little bone gel in your cheeks."

  The implication left Robin cold. "While... While..."

  "While you were asleep," came the icy response, "Yes. And yes, we could have killed you, raped you, left you for the CA or any other nasty thing your mind can think up but that is not how we operate. We do not want you dead, in bed, in prison or any other such thing."

  "Oh."

  "Besides," he continued, "We might have some information concerning the people who framed and kidnapped you."