personal file area, a section devoted to an individual user’s personal storage. It was the logical location to upload information into the server. As a rule, network software restricted user storage to such limited areas, and only such areas, allowing the system operator to predict, control, secure, and maintain a specified amount of storage. Martinson had cleverly found another location that would allow the uploading of files, one that, through a series of passwords and now a date function, installed several secure gates in place, effectively locking the information away so that she, and only she, could access it.
A colorful calendar filled Ginny’s screen with the date, June 14, 2000, highlighted in a small box. There was a To-Do list, complete with Preferences. A time-of-day work space for appointments and calls. A small spreadsheet to track cash and credit card expenses.
The calendar work space was left blank-a particularly clever move. Even if a hacker sleuthed the several passwords needed to reach this location, even if the hacker then arbitrarily landed ahead on June 14, in the year 2000, there was nothing to see, nothing that announced the prized information hidden within. Nothing but a single asterisk at the very bottom of the screen in a box marked MEMO.
Martinson clicked on MEMO.
An information box presented itself in the middle of the screen.
RESTRICTED BY PASSWORD
PLEASE ENTER 8-DIGIT ALPHANUMERIC
STRING
Ginny looked on as Martinson typed: L-A-T-E-R-I-N-5. The letters meant nothing to her.
The screen filled with the first page of a technical report. Ginny was momentarily distracted by the contents of this page. It had something to do with drug testing….
“I’ve got it!” she spoke into the phone. But Martinson caught her off-guard by suddenly selecting EDIT … DELETE. The screen responded.
MEMO IS 76 PAGES.
DELETE CONTENTS
(Y)es(N)o
Martinson moved too quickly. Before Ginny could notify the SNET workman to interrupt the transmission, Martinson sent the necessary “Y” down the high-speed transmission line.
Into the phone, Ginny shouted, “Disconnect!”
But the screen suddenly read:
DELETING CONTENTS IS
UNRECOVERABLE.
ARE YOU SURE?
(Y)es (N)o
This final protection device saved them.
“Disconnect!” Ginny shouted again.
But the blinking cursor, frozen in its position on the screen, told her that the SNET man had done his job. Martinson was disconnected.
“Ready,” Ginny informed Dart.
Although able to access the system’s security functions by modem-a necessity to allow people like Proctor to monitor functions from the field-Ginny had no modem access to this user-area side of the Roxin network. Access was restricted to actual terminal nodes, to prevent the kind of hacking that Ginny had in mind. Where the SNET man had managed to hard-wire Ginny the ability to
That job was up to Dartelli.
Dart reached the second floor at the same time that the security guards pursuing him charged into the third floor office where he had been working.
He told Ginny the color code on the door that he was facing, and a moment later, when the small indicator light turned from red to green, he opened this door and entered a glassed-in area. Behind the wall of glass and a stainless steel entrance purification chamber, he saw a clean-room lab, with no computer terminal. The idea of breaking into a genetics lab did not thrill Dart; he turned around and hurried out, seeking another office.
The next door down was marked with a blue box, a yellow box, and two red circles. Ginny, believing she was getting the hang of things said, “You’re in.” Dart tried the door. It was locked. The blue-green characters marched across the reader:
ACCESS DENIED-PLEASE CONTACT SECURITY. THANK YOU.
“No good,” he announced.
“Try again,” she advised.
“Same thing.”
“Shit,” she said, “they’ve locked me out. We’re screwed!”
The computer’s security program had identified Ginny’s raid and blocked her access.
Dart stood there in the darkened corridor, his heart pounding in his chest, wondering what to do.
He couldn’t think clearly. It was as if, all at once, his mind went blank.
“E-S, descending by stairs. E-N, descending by stairs,” warned the lookout suddenly. “Eagle-Nova, descending. Eagle-Sam, descending. Do you copy?” The security team pursuing him had split up, coming toward him from both directions, leaving Dart sandwiched. Trapped. By Ginny’s attempting to gain him access, the computer had once again identified his location.
Dart glanced back at the reader.
ACCESS DENIED-PLEASE CONTACT SECURITY.
“Approaching the second floor,” the lookout reported.
In an attempt to divide and conquer, the pair had split, each taking one of the stairways. No doubt the computers had been used to shut down the elevators, in an attempt to bracket Dart into being caught.
“Lookout, how many in each stairway?” His feet began to carry him toward the south stairs, the closest to him. The plan formulated quickly in his mind:
“One each,” returned the steady voice.
“Arriving second floor,” the lookout warned. Dart was on the second floor.
The door to the fire stairs was ten feet away. Five …
His only hope was surprise. A rent-a-cop in pursuit would be excited and probably poorly trained. He would be thinking that his target was attempting to run away and hide; he would be in a hurry.
A wedge of yellow light arced across the hallway floor as the guard opened the door to the stairs. This wedge spread open like a fan unfolding, illuminating the far wall.
A boot and a dark pant leg stepped through. The guard had gotten ahead of Dart by a fraction of a second. The other guard, at the far end of the hall, could not be far off.
Dart threw himself to the floor, diving for that leg as if it were home plate. He hooked his left arm out and snagged the leg as he slid past, pulling the stunned guard with him. The man went down, looking as if he’d hit a banana peel, all limbs in the air at once. A
Dart scrambled atop him, grabbed him by the hair, and snapped the man’s head down firmly against the hard floor. The sound of the contact instantly made Dart nauseated. The guard groaned sickeningly.
