And I get this real weird, sick feeling and I don’t know why.
Mandy jerks like she’s laughing to herself. She flicks cigarette ash like it’s going all over their pretty little dream. “You better get hacking,” she says.
I don’t know if they did, but the next day my dear Dr. Curtis runs in to tell me we’re all about to get a visit from the cops.
Curtis looks terrified. He looks sick. He leans against my door like they’re going to hammer it down. Plump smooth-skinned pretty little doctor, he’s got so much to lose.
“How’s your system?” he asks smiling like he’s relearning how to use his facial muscles. He’s got something he doesn’t want to say in front of the ordnance.
I don’t get it. “What’s it to you?”
He makes a noise like someone’s jammed a pin in his butt. His eyes start doing a belly dance towards the window. I look out and see that the front drive of the Happy Farm is stuffed like a turkey with police cars.
I just say, “A shape outlined against the light?”
I mean a silhouette. Curtis sorta settles with relief and nods yes. “You’ve been following the news.”
I get it. The cops are here to find out if any of us nice old folks are funding Silhouette’s reign of terror. That means that they’ll be going through our accounts. For once Curtis and I have exactly the same self-interest.
I’m a thief and I’ve never been caught and that’s not because I’m smart, but because I know I’m not. So I worry. So I prepare.
I got about ten minutes and that’s all I need. I start running my emergency program. It looks like a rerun of pro golf. Curtis hangs around. He wants to see how I do this. I need to put on my specs but I don’t want him to know about the transcoder.
“Curtis, maybe you should go talk to our guests.” I mean slow them down. I mean get out of here.
Then there’s a knock. In comes the Kid. Maybe he’s come to tell me about the cops too. He sees Curtis and I swear his eyes switch on with hate like a lightbulb.
“Joao, maybe you could take Dr. Curtis out to greet our guests.” And that means: Joao help me get him out of here.
That Kid is sussed. “You,” he says to Curtis, and punches the palm of his hand. Curtis understands that, too. Note. Not one of us has said anything that would sound bad in court.
I hear the door shut. Finally I put on my specs and the transcoder shows me data download on one eye lens and data upload, on the other.
It’s a fake I’ve had worked out for years. It’ll cover my whole account and make it look like I’m some kind of gaga spendthrift, that I gamble a lot on a Korean site, lose my dosh, win some dosh. It matches, transaction for transaction, money in, money out.
That’s what’s uploading. On the other lens, I’m encrypted my old data. I got maybe five minutes now.
Just having some encrypted data on my system will be enough to make trouble. I’m ghosting the encrypted file and then I go to get it off my disk. It starts to squirt into my transcoder.
I hear big heavy boots. I hear Dr. Curtis babbling happily. I hear a knock on the front door. Mine? No, next door.
Six… five… four… stuff is still downloading. Three two one zero. Right, off comes the transcoder. It looks like the arm from my glasses.
On my hard drive, iron molecules are being permanently scrambled. Sorry Officer, I’m just this old guy and I’ve been having these terrible problems with my system.
I go take a shower. They monitor your heartbeat and video your keystrokes but the law says they can’t perve you in the shower.
And while I’m in the shower I take the transcoder and like I rehearsed a hundred times, I push it up the head of my penis.
The transcoder’s long, it’s thin. In an x-ray, it’ll look like a sexual prosthetic.
When the knock on my door comes, I’m out, I’m dry, and I’m in my nice baggy shiny blue suit. I am the picture of a callipered, monitored neurobic modern Noughties Boy. With money of his own.
The Armament comes in. He looks like somebody who divides his time between weightlifting and V-games, hairy golden biceps, a smile like a rodent’s and heavy-duty multipurpose specs. His manner is unfriendly. “You’re Alistair Brewster. Hello. We’ve been wanting to talk to you.”
“I don’t see what’s stopping you.” I don’t do polite even with Armament.
“Fine.” He sits down without being asked. His specs have a little blinking light. Smile, you’re on candid camera. “Mr. Brewster, you used to work for SecureIT Inc.”
“Was that a question or a statement?”
He blinks. “You worked on the design of security systems.”
There is no lie as effective as the truth. “That’s how I made my money. I came up with some of the recognition software, the stuff that means the ordnance knows who it’s dealing with.” I try to make it sound rich.
He nods and pretends to be impressed. “I was wondering if you could help us understand some of the ways in which these safety checks could be subverted. During the recent spate of thefts.”
Now this is trouble. It’s coming from an angle I was not expecting. They don’t think I’m a thief. They don’t think I’m a donor.
They think maybe I’m part of Silhouette’s crew.
I stall for time. “Can I confirm your ID?”
“Sure.”
“I’m not talking security until I know who you are.”
“Very wise, Mr. Brewster.”
“Not wisdom. Habit. You get by on habit at my age Mr…”
Secret Squirrel here won’t give me his name, just a look at his dental work. So he leans forward and my TV checks out his retinas. We share a polite, stone-cold silence as it chews over this for a while. Then out comes his stuff.
Secret Squirrel is 36 years old, has a tattoo on right knee which sounds real romantic and is validated as Armament, Security Status Amber… oh, it takes me back to the good old days. It still won’t give me his name. Psychological advantage.
I always hated Armament, for the same reason I hate Silhouette. They shoot people. Also, they never gave SecureIT a clear brief. “OK, Secret Squirrel, shoot. I don’t mean that literally by the way. Feel free to make a few more statements you already know the answers to.”
“Smart ass,” says the Armament.
“Look Squirrel, I’m rich, I’m happy, I don’t have to take anything from anybody and it was difficult getting to the point that I can say that with confidence. I didn’t ask you in here, and I don’t have to cooperate. In fact I signed a nondisclosure agreement with SecureIT when I left. What they would prefer and what I would prefer is that you go talk to them instead of me. So. You want me to be nice to you, you start thinking nice thoughts about what a sweet old guy I am and how much you respect me.”
“Age Rage,” he says sweetly, calmly. “You’re a suspect Mr. Brewster, not an information source.” He keeps smiling, and waits for me to fall over in shock.
I just do Mr. Rich Disgusted. I roll my eyes. And hold up my hands like, I live in this place, so why would I have Age Rage?
He keeps his poker smile. “So Mr. Brewster, it is in your own interests to cooperate fully. In the first place Mr. Brewster, it is true that you came up with alot of this stuff, and it is also true that it is all patented in the name of SecureIT and that you didn’t get a bean. Isn’t that so.”
“I got paid,” I say. “A lot. A lot more than you. And I’m smart with my money.”
“Eighty percent, Mr. Brewster. Eighty percent of online crime is by employees or former employees. You fit the profile like a glove. Your profile is in neon lights all around your head.”
I don’t like his attitude. “First thing, I got nothing to do with all this crap. My own granddaughter just got her face burned off so don’t come here with some fairy tale about how I’m a big Age Rage freak.”
He blinks. And I think gotcha. I have no problems pressing my advantages. I go for it. “You dumb fuck, you didn’t come here and not know that Elizabeth Angstrom Brewster is my granddaughter did you? I mean you have read the files, I take it? Victims? Try 13705 Grande Mesa Outlook, apartment 41, Loma Linda, CA.”
