unconventional. Asking for a cup of fennel tea would have been downright eccentric.
Tea would be too cheap to justify a generous tip, so I opted for a cola. “Not too cold,” I added.
I would have to leave my work and surf through other sites until the pimply youth returned with my refreshment. He reappeared in no time, his grubby fingers touching the yellow straw in my can of cola. I thanked him and asked how much.
“Pay on your way out,” he said.
Alone and undisturbed once again, I got back to work. Lists of numbers were still flowing down the screen. If they were a code of some kind, it would be a tough nut to crack. We hadn’t agreed to anything like that. They’d asked us to crash their system, not decipher it. What’s more, I had no way of even knowing if it was in fact
I activated a search program to locate any letters. The first characters seemed randomly ordered. Then I identified names followed by cities and fragments of sentences. In the search program, I entered the first name that came to mind: Haluk Pekerdem. While that name was never far from my thoughts, it didn’t appear on the screen. Deciding to be more rational, I canceled the search. If I was looking at bank account numbers, the name Faruk Hanoglu would be more likely to appear. I entered his name and waited. I believe in coincidence: There before me, clear as day, was the name Faruk Hanoglu.
Now I was truly intrigued. What was Faruk’s name doing in this system, and what kind of system was it anyway? I’d crash the whole thing, as agreed, but I could well find something useful before I did so. There was no way for me to transfer all the data to my laptop. It didn’t have the hard disk space. What laptop does?
Something told me the information before me was valuable. It would be foolish to destroy something that could be of use to me later. But I had promised Ali. The terms of the agreement were that I would crash the system that night. I had a few more hours. In any case, in the name of professionalism, if nothing else, I would have to become better acquainted with the system in order to ensure that I didn’t leave behind any virtual fingerprints.
In order to get my thoughts in order, I imagined I was a game-show contestant faced with four alternatives: a) simply look the other way and delete all the data on my screen; b) somehow create a copy for my personal use at a later date, then delete the data; c) drop the whole project and face the consequences-even knowing as I did that the client would then employ Cihad2000 to get the job done; d) meet with Faruk Hanoglu immediately, and let the shit hit the fan.
Openly courting danger, that is; meeting now with Faruk Hanoglu, who was a chief suspect in the case, would be ill-advised, to say the least. And compressing and copying the enormous system before me would be next to impossible in the time frame allotted. Not only would it take all night, but I’d have to locate a state-of-the-art computer with an expanded capacity. And I didn’t have the option of merely trying to copy the bits that seemed important; I still had no idea what the file after file of numbers and names contained or what it all meant. And time was running out.
Cihad2000 was the only person who could help me. But getting him involved would be tricky, and I cringed at the thought of what he would then demand of me. I tried and failed to come up with alternative plans of action. There was no one to turn to for help but Cihad2000. I knew exactly how to enlist his help; seducing him would be easy enough. But I shuddered at the thought of coming up with the goods once our work was done.
Dispensing with security precautions, I entered a private chat room where I knew he always he lurks.
Good evening, sweetie,
I began.
There was no way he wouldn’t recognize me. He immediately sent me an impressive float.
where are you? that’s not your address!
Clever boy; he’d already checked where I’d logged in. Ignoring his question, I got straight to the point.
help!
I need your help now
are you free?
He answered back in a wink of the eye.
when have i ever refused you
but you’ll have to pay for it
I wasn’t about to go into more detail; it was too complicated for that.
Can I pop round?
NO WAY
I hadn’t expected to be refused. A wheelchair-bound computer whiz, Cihad2000 was living in Besiktas with his parents. The capital letters indicated that he was either about to climax or that something strange was up. I repeated:
I need your help now
This time he took some time to respond. Perhaps he really was busy.
it’s impossible right now
After a pause, a flood of letters appeared on my screen.
if it’s what i think it is, stay away!
they’re dangerous
stay away!
It wasn’t like Cihad to pause before writing something. I knew he was monitoring me, but he couldn’t know what I was doing or anything about the files I’d just opened. I’d taken every security precaution. Actually, I reminded myself, I was now chatting from a run-down cafe. Some security!
I don’t understand
what are you talking about
I need extra storage space
find me some
to transfer some data
I can’t transfer a whole system to a PC
There was no response for a couple of minutes. Then he sent me a float. Instead of the usual sermons and doomsday quotes, he’d inserted numerals into all the spaces between words and letters. It took me some time to decipher it.
it’s that client!
drop it
or you’ll burn
so many numbers
but not the lottery
stay away
I was confused. There was no way he could know whether or not we were working on the same project. And even if he was trying to protect me, in the end, we were rivals.
