skin tone.'
'If you were unscrupulous,' Megan said, admiring, 'you could get off a lot of school that way.'
'Don't remind me. There have been times…'
There was a soft chime in the depths of the ice cave. 'Come on in!' Leif said.
A slight young dark-haired boy with slightly Asian features walked out of the air and glanced over at them. 'Hey, Megan.'
'Mark!' Mark Gridley was small, and fairly young for a Net Force Explorer. But he was also one of the sharpest and most devious young minds that Megan had ever had the dubious pleasure of being associated with… besides being the son of Jay Gridley, the head of Net Force. There was very little that Mark couldn't get a Net-oriented computer, facility, or resource to do if he was properly motivated, and Mark didn't take much motivating, being possessed of a curiosity that would have made the Elephant's Child look like an ostrich by comparison. Megan often reflected that it was a good thing Mark was on the side of law and order. Otherwise, the law enforcement organizations responsible for online life, meaning Net Force in particular, would have their work cut out for them. Far better he should be used for 'peaceful purposes…'
'Took you a while,' Leif said.
'I was busy,' Mark said, sounding mournful. 'It's harder than usual getting online time when we're traveling.'
They glanced at the dim and hazy background out of which he'd walked, a sort of swirling default blue. 'Where are you, exactly?'
'Paris,' Mark said, making it sound more like he might as well have said 'Alcatraz.' 'Boy, am I glad it's lunch- time here. I'd hate to get up as early as you two.'
'Go on, rub it in some more,' Megan said. 'What've you been doing over there? Is it a vacation?'
'Don't I wish,' Mark said. 'Why does my dad have to go do these things physically? He could be there in a second, virtually, and not mess up my work schedule.' Mark sighed. 'But he feels the need to go 'press the flesh' sometimes. Claims he can tell things from actually being with people that he can't tell just from virtual experience. And he insists on bringing me along to 'expand my horizons.' He can't fool me… he's just trying to keep me out of trouble. Unsuccessfully, I might add, since here I am.' Mark grinned innocently. 'He has to take his Net hardware with him wherever he goes… but at least he isn't always using it. I can get some business done.'
Megan reflected that Mark must be one of the few human beings on the planet who could be taken out of school and sent on an all-expenses-paid vacation to Europe and still feel like he was being badly treated. 'So this is what you meant when you said you thought you knew someone who could manage the 'fakery,' ' Megan said to Leif. 'I see your point. Mark, what have you got?'
'Well. I won't bore you with the technical details-'
Leif and Megan exchanged skeptical looks.
'Come on, you guys, eventually you have to learn something about the bones of the system you use every day-'
'Not today, we don't,' Megan said.
Mark sighed like a philosopher denied the chance to cast pearls before swine. 'Well, after Leif called me and told me what you told him, and what you two were thinking of, I went and had a look at Breathing Space's security 'cordon.' It's comprehensive, but not watertight… but then no system is watertight, if you poke it hard enough.' Mark frowned. 'The problem is, I didn't have to poke it nearly hard enough.'
'You didn't?' This surprised Megan a great deal, after what she had read about the hacking attacks on Breathing Space in its early days, and the huge amounts of money the service had spent on security thereafter.
Mark shook his head. 'There are entirely too many holes in their system,' he said. 'They're not all obvious. But there are a whole lot of side doors and back doors in and out of the space for administrative use, and someone's gotten a little careless about closing them down behind counselors and staff who've left the charity. In particular, there are even some 'ready-made' side doors, templates, sitting around stored away for assignment to new staff.'
'You're kidding,' Leif said.
Mark shook his head again. 'This,' he said, reaching into his pocket and flipping something small and bright and shining to Leif, 'is one of them.'
Leif caught it. It looked like an ordinary old-fashioned house key, the kind that would go into a physical lock. Megan peered over at it as Leif turned it over in his hands, and found that it even said 'YALE' on it.
Mark said. 'That's a symbol for one of about twenty template mail and space accounts they had lying around. A sign that someone over there really hasn't thought things through. Not in the charity itself. They don't handle their programming, it's contracted out. I know who the contractors are, too. They even do some work for Net Force. But if they did this kind of work for our people, and someone caught them at it, they and their contract would get flung right over the horizon. They may have implemented these 'ready-made' keys as a courtesy to the staff, or the staff may even have asked them to make them as a way to avoid extra 'call-out' charges when new entry/ exit protocols for added staff had to be written. But either way, in terms of security, it's a dumb idea. And it's entirely possible that the kids inside, the ones who're savvy to security structures, have found out about these keys, hijacked a couple of them, and are using them to set up these 'street corners' inside the main system.'
Megan looked at Leif. 'You don't suppose that someone on the inside has just… you know, let these loopholes be there'
Leif looked thoughtful. 'Without evidence, it's hard to say. But it makes me wonder. If I was one of the people doing this shady recruiting we're interested in…
wouldn't it be simple to bribe someone to leave a back door or two open? Or not even anything that obvious. Just a little money slipped into someone's personal account to allow some information about Breathing Space's security structures to fall into the hands of the kids themselves, the ones inside, the ones who really want to 'tunnel out.' That way, when you come in through the same tunnel, you don't look responsible for anything in particular… '
Megan thought about it. If Leif was right about this, the cynicism behind the strategy just about took her breath away.
'As far as the rest of your little plan goes,' Mark said, 'the way Breathing Space itself is structured is going to work in your favor. They don't revoke their clients' access to their virtual space for ninety days, in case they have second thoughts about meeting with staff or their families. So part of your backstory can be that you were in one of their facilities recently, but you came out… and now you're 'visiting' again.'
'You're going to have to plant records that make it look like he actually was in one of them,' Megan said.
Mark nodded. 'Doable,' he said. 'I need to get the details from you first, though,' he said, glancing over at Leif.
Leif grinned. 'I've been assembling a precrs,' he said. 'Some baby pictures of mine, altered just a little, in case we need them. Enough truth so that if I get asked for details, the lies will sound genuine. Enough manufactured stuff so that they won't be able to link anything to the real me.'
'Send it over to my space,' Mark said, 'and I'll see that it gets where it's needed. The filing system in the Breathing Space mainframes has better security than the virtual space does, believe it or not. But I can crack it, given an hour or two. Which I've got,' Mark said with a heavy sigh. 'My dad's left me in the hotel with some of his staff, and I don't find them any more interesting than they find me.'
'What hotel?' Leif said, suddenly sounding interested.
'The George V.'
'Holy cow, Mark, don't just stand there, call room service and order stuff!'
'Why? Is the food good here?'
Leif hid his face in his hands and moaned. 'You'll ruin your makeup,' Megan warned him. 'Cut it out. Mark, go do what you have to with Leif's files. We don't know when the word is going to come from Bodo, but I want to be ready.'
'Okay,' Mark said, and turned back the way he came. 'What should I order? Caviar? I hate caviar.'
'You've got a sweet tooth, haven't you? Have them come up and do the crepes suzette for you. But don't let them set the curtains on fire.'
'Think that's a possibility?' Mark said, his eyes glinting with interest. 'I'll try it and tell you what
