signal had been lost. To Nolan and Kelsey’s surprise, the remaining window still showed the hacker hard at work.
‘I feel sick,’ Kelsey said, massaging her temples.
‘I’m seeing, but I still don’t believe.’
‘Believe it, Nolan,’ Grin replied, the other cable dangling from his hand. ‘The laptop is taking only one feed, and it’s coming off the ITC cable.’
Kelsey just shook her head in disgust. ‘Only one thing we can do now, Nolan. Let’s open the floor.’
Grin slipped a toolbox out from under his desk and pulled out a small flat pry bar and a pair of suction cups.
‘What are you going to do?’ Ullrich asked.
‘Open the access floor,’ Nolan replied. ‘Like Kelsey said earlier, the ITC cable only goes from here to there. By physically inspecting the line, we can see where our hacker made his tie-in.’
Tile by tile, the access floor came up, revealing a tangle of wiring that serviced all the equipment in the computer lab. In five minutes, they’d exposed the entire length of the ITC cable. They searched the thick umbilical from one end to the other and found it intact and uninterrupted.
‘This guy’s some kind of magician.’
‘I hear you, Grin,’ Nolan replied. ‘I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s getting on this line. Kelsey, could you please disconnect the laptop and bring it over here with the cables?’
Kelsey gathered up the small computer and handed it to Nolan.
‘What are you going to do now?’ Ullrich asked.
‘We know this guy’s on our line somewhere, right? I’m going to eliminate where he’s not. Kelsey built in a lot of checkpoints for this prototype, so that we could gather data anywhere in the experiment. By moving from point to point, we should be able to isolate any breach in the cable.’
‘That still leaves Kelsey, you, and me as the prime suspects,’ Grin commented dryly.
‘First things first. Let’s find out how our hacker got in here.’
Nolan clipped the monitor cables at another point of the ITC line; the monitor showed the intruder was still there. When he tapped into the next two points along the line, both showed the presence of the intruder.
Nolan then lay flat on his stomach, resting his chin on his arms, which were folded flat against the floor. His eyes followed the ITC line in the open floor duct below him.
‘That’s interesting. I was half-expecting to find some kind of transmitter embedded in the line somewhere, hidden by all the insulation, but we’re at the end of the line, so to speak.’ Nolan stood up and brushed the dust from his clothes. ‘Time to take a look at the equipment on the lab bench.’
Nolan unplugged the laptop and carried it into Kelsey’s lab. ‘Here’s where the ITC cable ends and the processor begins.’
Grin and Kelsey watched the laptop as Nolan snapped the monitor cables into place. Before Nolan could even ask, Kelsey just shook her head; the hacker was still on-line.
Grin scratched his goatee as he looked at the lab bench. ‘Kelsey, you don’t suppose that this brilliant experiment of yours is the hacker?’
‘Not for a minute-it’s just a machine.’
Nolan knew the hacker had to be tying into the system from somewhere. ‘Let’s move to the next point.’ He clipped the cable to a receptacle placed between the Gatekeeper device and the optical processor.
‘he’s gone,’ Grin announced as the signal disappeared from the laptop screen.
‘Quick,’ Nolan barked, ‘the other set of cables. Let’s see if he’s still down-line.’
Grin clipped the second set of cables to the last point they’d checked; the hacker was still on-line. The wires leading from the laptop were fitted into connectors on either side of the Moy Gatekeeper, effectively watching everything that went in and out of the device. Nolan had already isolated the optical processors’ signal traffic to the Cray, leaving only the hacker’s signal unaccounted for.
‘It would appear that this small black box bearing the name Moy Electronics is our culprit.’
‘What is that?’ Harbke asked.
‘Special Agent Harbke,’ Kelsey announced, ‘I would like to introduce you to our Gatekeeper.’
Nolan and Grin both stifled a laugh.
Sean Kilkenny glowered at the pair; he found nothing amusing about this situation. ‘Mind letting the rest of us in on your joke.’
‘Sure, Dad. This little black cube was designed to be a security guard of sorts for the government’s computer systems-something to keep people like our hacker out.’
‘Which it seems to be doing just fine. Our hacker hasn’t reached the optical processor,’ Grin added.
‘Not that a hacker could do much once he got there,’ Kelsey added.
‘This device is strictly for governmental use. Why do you have one?’ Ullrich asked.
‘Moy Electronics is a substantial backer of MARC, with a strong interest in this project,’ Kelsey explained. ‘They’ve provided me with aid on a variety of levels. This device is one of their contributions, and it’s here with the government’s blessing.’
Harbke studied the device closely.’I remember reading about this thing in a memo back at the office. The government is installing them everywhere. Word is that it can track hackers back to their own systems and nail them in the act.’
‘Unfortunately,’ Nolan offered, ‘it appears that our Gatekeeper is part of the problem, rather than the solution.’
‘He’s gone, everybody,’ Grin announced as the signal disappeared. ‘I guess that concludes our broadcast day.’
‘Well, gentlemen, I’m baffled,’Ullrich admitted. ‘Agent Harbke and I need to take this latest bit of information back to the office for a consult. This Gatekeeper is new territory for us.’
After the FBI agents departed, Kelsey, Nolan, and Grin began poring over every piece of documentation they had on their Gatekeeper. Several hours, a vegetarian pizza, and a large dose of diet Coke later, they were no closer to determining the magic that Moy Electronics had packaged inside their little black cube.
‘Well, guys, I’ve had enough,’ Kelsey announced, her frustration shared by all. ‘I’m heading back to my apartment to take a hot shower and get packed.’
Kelsey slowly stood up and stretched her arms upward; she was exhausted. She placed her hand on Nolan’s head and ruffled his hair. ‘See you in about an hour?’
‘I’ll be there.’
As Kelsey picked up her briefcase and walked out of the lab, Grin glanced over at Nolan.
‘What?’ Nolan asked, questioning the look on Grin’s face.
‘Nothing.’
‘Back to business, Grin. Bottom line, this thing is programmable,’ Nolan concluded after reading a dense listing of the Gatekeeper’s specifications, ‘so I guess the trick now is to find out what that program is. Chicago’s an hour behind us, so it’s only forty-thirty there. Let’s get somebody from Moy on the phone.’
Nolan made the call to Moy Electronics in Chicago, and after describing his problem, he was connected with software engineer Bill Iverson.
‘Bill, this is Nolan Kilkenny at MARC in Ann Arbor.’
‘What can I do for you, Nolan?’ Iverson sounded friendly and helpful.
‘I’m having a little trouble with one of your I/O controllers; it’s a Gatekeeper. Are you familiar with it?’
‘A little,’ Iverson answered modestly, ‘I wrote most of its code. What seems to be the problem?’
Nolan explained the situation, how the device was installed, and their problem with the hacker.
Iverson’s voice went from helpful to surprised. ‘Let me get this straight-you’ve isolated the Gatekeeper as the source of a hacker problem you’re experiencing?’
Nolan sat beside the lab bench, looking at the wire clips connected to either side of the Gatekeeper. ‘That’s the way it looks from here. What do you think?’
‘I’m stumped,’ Iverson admitted honestly. ‘What you describe is possible, if you knew how to program a Gatekeeper. There’s only a handful of people who know how to do that and they all work here. I agree with you-we should dump the sucker’s core program and see what’s driving it.’
Iverson talked Nolan through the procedures for downloading the Gatekeeper’s program. From the Cray,
