'Bastards keep changing the password. You know the amount of effort they spend just trying to keep people like us out?'
'As if they could.'
'If they put the same energy into improving the system—'
'Stupid.'
More letters, more numbers. 'Damn,' Jimmy said, and reached for his can of Coke. 'You know what?'
'Time for our people-to-people program,' David said.
'That's what I was thinking. You feel like refining your human-contact skills?'
David nodded and took the phone. 'Some people call this 'social engineering,' ' he told me. 'It's hardest with NYNEX because they warn their people about us. Good thing for us that most of the people who work there are morons.' He dialed a telephone number, and after a moment he said, 'Hi, this is Ralph Wilkes, I'm trouble-shooting your line. You've been having trouble getting into COSMOS, right?'
'They always do,' Jimmy Hong murmured. 'So it's a safe question.'
'Yeah, right,' David was saying. There was a lot of jargon I couldn't follow, and then he said, 'Now how do you log in? What's your access code? No, right, don't tell me, you're not supposed to tell me, it's security.' He rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, I know, they give us grief about the same thing. Look, don't tell me the code, just punch it in on your keyboard.' Numbers and letters appeared on our screen and Jimmy's fingers were quick to enter them on our keyboard. 'Fine,' David said.
'Now can you do the same thing with your password for COSMOS?
Don't tell me what it is, just enter it. Uh-huh.'
'Beautiful,' Jimmy said softly as the number came up on our screen. He punched it in.
'That ought to do it,' David told whoever he was talking to. 'I don't think you should have any problems from here on in.' He broke the connection and let out a huge sigh. 'I don't think we should have any problems, either. 'Don't tell me the number, just enter it. Don't tell me, darling, just tell my computer.' '
'Hot damn,' Jimmy said.
'We're in?'
'We're in.'
'Yay!'
'Matt, what's your phone number?'
'Don't call me,' I said. 'I'm not home.'
'I don't want to call you. I want to check your line. What's the number? Never mind, don't tell me, see if I care. 'Scudder, Matthew.'
West Fifty-seventh Street, right? That look familiar?'
I looked at the screen. 'That's my phone number,' I said.
'Uh-huh. You happy with it? You want me to change it, give you something easier to remember?'
'If you call the phone company to get your number changed,'
David said, 'it takes them a week or so to run it through channels. But we can do it on the spot.'
'I think I'll keep the number I've got,' I said.
'Suit yourself. Uh-huh. You've got pretty basic service, haven't you? No Call Forwarding, no Call Waiting. You're at a hotel, you've got the switchboard backing you up, so maybe you don't need Call Waiting, but you ought to have Call Forwarding anyhow. Suppose you stay over at somebody's house?
You could get your calls routed there automatically.'
'I don't know if I'd use it enough to make it worthwhile.'
'Doesn't cost anything.'
'I thought there was a monthly charge for it.'
He grinned and his fingers were busy on the keypad. 'No charge for you,' he said, 'because you have influential friends. As of this moment you've got Call Forwarding, compliments of the Kongs. We're in COSMOS now, that's the particular system we invaded, so that's where I'm entering changes in your account. The system that figures your billing won't know about the change, so it won't cost you anything.'
'Whatever you say.'
'I see you use AT&T for your long-distance calls. You didn't select Sprint or MCI.'
'No, I didn't figure I would save that much.'
'Well, I'm giving you Sprint,' he said. 'It's going to save you a fortune.'
'Really?'
'Uh-huh, because NYNEX is going to route your long-distance calls to Sprint, but Sprint's not going to know about it.'
'So you won't get billed,' David said.
'I don't know,' I said.
