Part 6 (1/2)

She let fly with a series of curses that would have made the Ayatollah blush, and immediately tried to log back in. The mainframe let her in for a moment and then logged her right back out again. After trying this three times, and having the door slammed in her face each time by her own machine, Swan was ready to commit mayhem.

Robert Link also had root privileges on the system. She phoned him at home and demanded his pa.s.sword. Encouraged by Christmas cheer, he was happy to hand it over. She logged into his account, sagging with relief when the mainframe didn't boot her out again right away. But she was already hammering in commands, checking to see what was happening on the mainframe.

Someone was downloading her email. Swan froze, hands rigid on the keyboard, as though if she didn't keep control of her body, she was going to explode into a screaming cloud of blood.

The system itself was almost frozen, grinding along at a fraction of its normal speed. There was a process running that Swan didn't recognise. It had to be the monster that had taken over her machine. She killed it.

The system immediately sprang back up to normal speed.

Again she cafted for a list of processes; a single command could stop the electronic theft. But the moment she typed in the command, the system logged her out again. She logged back in, this time tried listing the files on the system. Again, the machine's door slammed in her face. And all the time her private email messages were being sucked out of the mainframe by person or persons unknown.

What she didn't know was: While Swan was glued to her terminal, struggling to defend her turf, Bob and Peri were quietly slipping through a back door of the TLA building.

Peri had been furious at being left out of the Doctor's doings yet again, while a mere interloper like me had been permitted to sit by his side and take notes. But a few moments after I left Bob's house, he called back with new instructions.

His hacking had two purposes: one, obviously, was to s.n.a.t.c.h Swan's email and scan it for information about the item the Doctor wanted. The other was to keep her distracted long enough for a couple of amateur thieves to try to s.n.a.t.c.h that item out front under Swan's nose.

Peri was doing her level best to enjoy their little adventure.

Since Swan would recognise Bob's car, they were obliged to park in a near-empty strip mall lot a few blocks from the TLA building. They walked through echoing near-darkness, slipping behind the row of offices into trashcan land. Peri wore camo gear: a pair of black trousers and a dark sweater under her black coat. Bob had reminded her to wear sneakers instead of high heels. He had simply wrapped a black leather jacket around himself, skinny legs sticking out underneath in their faded jeans.

Peri was somehow unsurprised when Bob picked a lock at the back of the TLA building. His amateur locksmithing had begun as a way of getting a closer look at the university's mainframes when they were wastefully idle in the middle of the night.

In her travels Peri had navigated many a labyrinth, cave tunnel and corridor of power. She steadied herself with a hand against the wall and followed the tiny beam of Bob's torch.

The building had the unnerving quietness of any place missing its usual crowds like high school after the school day was over, thought Peri. At least if anyone else was around, they were sure to hear them coming. They tiptoed up the fire-stairs to the first floor, then opened doors until they found someone's office. Bob looked longingly at the terminal.

'Better not risk it,' Peri said. 'We don't want to mess up whatever the Doctor is doing.'

He nodded and reached for the phone, but Peri had already picked it up. No-one had deigned to tell her the numbers for the looparound pair, so she'd simply watched Bob dial the number in his study.

The high tone stabbed into her ear. Peri sat down in the chair belonging to whoever worked in the cramped room. It was actually kind of hard to do. In real life, she thought, you'd never just go into someone's office and sit at their desk. Bob seemed pretty comfortable, running his flashlight along the shelves to check out the collection of computer manuals.

'Don't take anything!' Peri said, alarmed. Bob snapped off the light and sat down on the edge of the desk.

They sat there for a while. The only sound was the squeal-pause-squeal of the phone. 'Bob,' whispered Peri, 'have you ever been in jail?'

'No.'

'Have you ever been in trouble at all?'

'Worried about getting caught?' She wanted to grab him by the hair and shout, 'Of course I am, you moron!' but instead she just nodded. 'Don't be. What we really have to worry about is what Swan will do if she finds out who we are.'

'We're burglars! Can she really do worse things to us than put us in prison?'

'To the police, we've got things like rights and privacy, said Bob. And they don't have enough manpower to spend all day making our lives h.e.l.l. Swan's hobby is picking on people who've annoyed her.'

'Well, how?'

'Cancelling your driver's licence,' said Bob. 'Killing your phone and your computer. Wrecking your credit rating.

Sending pizzas to your house. Or taxis. Or ambulances.'

'She can do all of that?'

'The right computers can do all of it. Get into them, and you can borrow their power for yourself. I'd much rather tangle with the Feds than Sarah Swan.'

Peri looked around the stranger's office. Tonight they'd be at home with their family. Maybe peeling potatoes for Christmas dinner. She wondered if they would realise someone had been in their s.p.a.ce. That would be a creepy feeling. 'Have you actually ever done this before?'

Bob shook his head, flas.h.i.+ng a grin in the near-darkness.

'Never in my life.'

The phone said, 'Are you there?'

Peri gripped it. 'We hear you, Doctor.'

'Good. Since you're calling, I a.s.sume by now you're somewhere inside the building.' Peri felt slightly deaf in one ear. She s.h.i.+fted the receiver to the other ear, but the Doctor's voice was still annoyingly quiet on the other side of the test line. (He was calling from a payphone in the hotel lobby, his computer still connected to Swan's. ) 'We're here. What are we supposed to do now?'

'Swan will be busy for a little while. The item we're after is in a storeroom in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I had a.s.sumed she would keep it close at hand, but apparently she's locked it away where no-one would think to look for it.'

'How do you know that?'

'Hackers have one weakness,' said the Doctor smugly.

'They always want someone to know what they're up to. They need an audience.'

'Uh, right, Doctor.'

'Now, off you go.'

Peri put down the phone. For a panicked moment she wondered if she'd left fingerprints on it, before she remembered that she was wearing gloves. I could never do this professionally, she thought.

Two floors above them, Sarah Swan was physically disconnecting the computer from the ARPAnet. It was the equivalent of tearing the phone cord out of the wall.

Bob and Peri snuck out of the office that had been their hideaway and went back to the fire-stairs.

Halfway down, Peri grabbed Bob's arm, rather harder than she'd meant to. They both froze. In the empty building, the sound of footsteps was hard and clear above them.

The only way to go was downwards. They rushed down the stairs, sneakers pattering, hoping to G.o.d the firedoor was enough to m.u.f.fle the sound.