'No.'
'Okay,' he said. 'Now for the hard part.'
I COULDN'T tell you what it was that they did. A little after eleven they switched and David took over the controls, while Jimmy paced the floor and yawned and stretched and went to the bathroom and came back and polished off a package of Hostess cupcakes. At twelve-thirty they switched again and David went into the bathroom and took a shower. By this time TJ was sound asleep on the bed, lying fully clothed on the bedspread, shoes and all, and clutching one of the pillows as if the world were trying to get it away from him.
At one-thirty Jimmy said, 'God damn it, I can't believe there's no way into NPSN.'
'Give me the phone,' David said. He dialed a number, snarled, broke the connection, dialed again, and on the third try got through to somebody. 'Yo,' he said. 'Who'm I talkin' to? Great. Listen, Rita, this is Taylor Fielding at NICNAC Central an' I got a Code Five emergency coming down. I need your NPSN
access code and your password before the whole thing backs up clear to Cleveland. That's Code Five, did you hear me?' He listened intently, then reached out a hand for the computer keyboard. 'Rita,' he said, 'you're beautiful. You saved my life, no joke. Can you believe I had two people in a row didn't know a Code Five takes precedence?
Yeah, well, that's 'cause you pay attention. Listen, if you get any static on this, I'll take full responsibility. Yeah, you too. 'Bye.'
'You take full responsibility,' Jimmy said. 'I like that.'
'Well, it seemed only right.'
'What the hell is a Code Five, will you tell me that?'
'I don't know. What's NICNAC Central? Who's Taylor Feldman?'
'You said Fielding.'
'Well, it was Feldman before he changed it. I don't know, man. I just made it all up but it sure impressed Rita.'
'You sounded so desperate.'
'Well, why shouldn't I be? Half-past one in the morning and we're not even into NPSN yet.'
'We are now.'
'And how sweet it is. I'll tell you, Hong, you can't beat that Code Five. It really cuts through all the bureaucratic bullshit, you know what I mean. 'I got a Code Five emergency coming down.' Man, that just about blew her doors off.'
' 'Rita, you're beautiful.' '
'Man, I was falling in love, I have to say it. And by the time we were through we'd sort of established a relationship, you know?'
'You gonna call her again?'
'I bet I can get a password off her anytime, unless something tips her that she just gave away the store.
Otherwise next time I call her we're gonna be old friends.'
'Call her sometime,' I said, 'and don't try to get a password or an access code or anything else.'
'You mean just ring her up to chat?'
'That's the idea. Maybe give her some information, but don't try to get anything out of her.'
'Far out,' David said.
'And then later on—'
'Got it,' Jimmy said. 'Matt, I don't know if you've got either the digital dexterity or the hand-eye coordination, and you don't really know a thing about the technology, but I have to tell you something.
You've got the heart and soul of a hacker.'
ACCORDING to the Kongs, the whole process really got interesting after they got into NPSN, whatever that meant. 'This is the part that's fascinating from a technical standpoint,' David explained,
'because here's where we try retrieving information the NYNEX
people claimed wasn't available. They'll say that just to brush you off, but some of them were telling the truth, or what they thought was the truth, because the fact of the matter is they wouldn't know how to go about finding it. So it's almost as though we have to invent our own program and feed it into their system so it'll spit out the data we want.'
'But,' Jimmy said, 'if you're not into the technical side of it, there's really nothing there to keep you on the edge of your chair.'
TJ, awake now, was standing behind David's chair and watching the computer screen as if hypnotized.
Jimmy went over to the refrigerator for a can of Jolt. I dropped into the one easy chair, and David was right, there was nothing to keep me on the edge of it. I sank back into the cushions, and the next thing I knew TJ was shaking me gently by the shoulder, saying my name.
I opened my eyes. 'I must have been sleeping.'
'Yeah, you sleepin', all right. You was snorin' some earlier.'
'What time is it?'
