Hidden Agendas

'Haven't had time? You are feekin' me, right?'

'No feek,' Tyrone said. He had been spending every spare minute he could scrounge with Bella. And when he wasn't with her, he was thinking about her. Dreaming about her.

Lusting after her…

'Rider, you are stalled out!'

'It's just a game,' Tyrone said.

Jimmy-Joe stared at him as if Tyrone had just morphed into a giant roach and started doing a demented jitterbug.

'Just a game? Just a game? You got a testosterone short in your cerebrum, chum.'

The bell for class rang, and Jimmy-Joe walked off, shaking his head. 'I will see you later, slip.'

Tyrone stared at his friend. He didn't understand. Games were fine, but how could a game compare to holding hands with Belladonna Wright? To kissing those warm and magical lips. To putting his hands on those warm and—

Don't follow that thread, Tyrone. Not here and now.

A video game? Even a VR full-flex, compare with Bella? It couldn't. No way.

He hurried toward his own first-period class. And he was going to the mall after school, dupe that to the eighth power.

Monday, December 20th, 9:05 a.m. Quantico, Virginia

Julio Fernandez looked at the holoprojection floating in the air behind the instructor. The image was a series of mathematical equations interspersed with pictures of what appeared to be an old-fashioned paper theater ticket, a crumbly cookie, and a heavy metal safe with a big mechanical tumbler lock dial. Remedial computer imagery for dumbots.

The instructor said, 'All right, who can tell me what the phrase ‘security through obscurity' means?'

Fernandez stared down at the screen built into the top of his desk. Pick somebody else, he thought. There were fifteen people in the computer programming class, so the odds weren't that bad that the dipwit teacher would call on one of his classmates, except that the dipwit seemed, for some reason, to have it in for Fernandez. The teacher's name was Horowitz. He was maybe twenty-four, short, dumpy, wore frazzled suits, had acne, and his face always looked as if he had a painful rash on his private parts. Horowitz also looked as if he would rather be scratching that rash naked in public than suffering through this class, and Fernandez knew how that felt. If there was any other way, he wouldn't be here either. At least the man was a civilian and not — thank God — an officer.

That the classroom smelled like old sweat long gone sour didn't help.

Of course, he could have downloaded all the lectures and texts for this class and studied them at home on his own. Nobody was holding a gun to his head and making him attend. Most of the other students were new feebs — FBI Academy students — and this class was mandatory for them, though more a matter of form than anything. They were all college grads, most of ‘em law school grads too, and this dinky little access course was a snoozer they could pass in their sleep.

Not so for Sergeant Julio Fernandez, whose computer literacy was right up there with his knowledge of quantum mechanics, or the mating habits of great blue whales, which was to say, very lame on his best day. He'd tried absorbing the stuff on his own, and it slid out of his mind as if his brain were made of solid Teflon. He'd hoped that listening to the teacher and having other students ask questions and offer answers would somehow help, but so far, after three sessions, it hadn't done much to advance his knowledge of the subject, which he hated, but which he needed to know. When it came to using his hands or his weapons, Fernandez didn't give away anything to anybody. He could set up camp in a jungle or a desert and live off the land, but when it came to anything past button-punching a computer, he was dense, and that wasn't good for a Net Force man—

'Let me see… Sergeant Fernandez? Security through obscurity?'

Great. Just freakin' great. 'Sir, I believe it means that a certain kind of computer system's security is sort of like a… fortress. You know it is there, you can find it easy enough, but the doors into the place are armored or booby-trapped or rigged with so many locks you can't open ‘em, even though you can walk right up to them.'

'What a charming simile. You know what a simile is, Sergeant?'

Some of the feebs chuckled.

Fernandez felt himself flush under his swarthy skin. He was old enough to be this kid's father and the little bastard was jerking him around. 'I know what a simile is.'

'Well, as it happens, by what is no doubt a major miracle, you are essentially correct. Today's lecture will cover principles of how to accomplish various forms of security, from firewalls to encrypted passwords, from private-access tickets and their expiration dates and times, to security cookies, both fresh and… stale.'

A few of the feebs laughed at the stale-cookie thing.

The teacher waved his hand and the holoproj vanished, and was replaced by another. This one showed a small boy sitting in front of a workstation. The kid looked to be about five years old. Probably who this class was aimed at, little kids.

Fernandez gritted his teeth. Even when he gave the right answer, this dipwit twisted it so he looked stupid. Horowitz must get his jollies like that, making students look bad. He certainly wasn't going to get much action otherwise, as lemon-faced and pimply as he was.

Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe Fernandez should be spending his time on the range instead of having his tail twisted by young Master Horowitz. Maybe he should just bail out and paraglide away, and spend his time doing something he knew how to do: ground-pounding, dirt-soldiering, pick ‘em up and set ‘em down and count cadence while you are at it.

For just a second, he enjoyed that thought.

No. He was gonna learn this crap if it killed him. So when the young shavetail lieutenants started rattling off their compu-babble on a mission, he could nod and at least vaguely know what the hell they were talking about.

One lieutenant in particular came to mind…

'So, who can tell us what happens when an electronic ticket expires on an encrypted access site? Sergeant Fernandez? Since you are on a metaphorical roll, would you like to give us another of your charming little homespun similes?'

Fernandez regarded the man. He was mightily tempted just to get up and walk out. His second choice was to get up and teach Horowitz how to breathe again after he punched him one good shot solidly in that soft gut. Now there was a real pleasant thought—

'Come, come, Sergeant, speed is of the essence! In computer programming, in life, in everything. He who hesitates is lost and last!'

'I believe you are mistaken in that, sir.'

Horowitz regarded him as a frog might view an uppity fly. 'Oh, really? Please elucidate. Show us the error of our ways.'

Fernandez said, 'Sir. When I was going through my basic training, we had an old master sergeant who was teaching us the use of small arms. He told a story about when he'd been a recruit, about a rivalry between two drill sergeants from different companies.

'Seems there was a military shooting match both guys had entered, a course of fire using the then-issue M16's.'

Fernandez looked at Horowitz. 'That's a fully automatic rifle, the M16. You know what a rifle is, sir?'

Horowitz frowned. Good thing Fernandez wasn't depending on getting some kind of grade in this class — he'd never pass.

But the feebs had had some firearm training at this point, so he had their attention.

'So the first sergeant, name was Butler, he came up to the line. The timer beeped and he locked and loaded. Or at least he tried to. Nothing happened, the magazine wouldn't feed the round. So he dropped the magazine and inserted a fresh one, only cost him a few seconds. Same thing happened. Since the course of fire was limited to two magazines, he was SOL. He raised his hand, and got a DNF — that's a Did Not Finish.