Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [54]
“Like I said to Jack last night, real life isn’t like the cop shows on TV. We can’t just zoom in on a pin head and read the inscription written across it. There’s a little thing called pixilation that gets in the way. The more we magnify the image, the worse it gets. Especially when it originates on video.”
Jack nodded. “Video shot on a cell phone, no less.”
She punched another key and the image zoomed in even closer, now centering the parking sticker in the middle of the screen. All Jack could see was an unidentifiable black-and-white mass that could have been just about anything.
“So,” he said to her, “is that your not-so-subtle way of telling us this is a bust?”
Max shook her head. “I didn’t call you here to waste your time. We’re fortunate enough to live in a day and age when there are a lot of technical geniuses out there, doing what they can to fix problems like this.”
“Meaning what?” Tony asked.
“Meaning I have software that can help. We’ll never be able to get this sticker to the point it can be read, but we can do a lot better than this.”
Jack huffed impatiently. “How about we get to the bottom line already? Do you have something solid or not?”
Max arched an eyebrow at him. “No need to get snippy, Mr. Hatfield. I know you’re hurting, but believe it or not, I’m trying to help.”
Jack sighed. “Sorry, Max. I just want to know who these assholes are.”
“We all do,” Max said, then punched another key.
The screen went blank for a moment, then the image returned, the black blobs starting to shift a bit and take on shape. They gradually grew sharper, but even if he squinted at it, Jack still felt as if he were looking at a Rorschach ink blot behind a wall of pebbled glass.
Tony said, “Looks to me like your technowizards need another trip to the drawing board.”
“Be patient,” Max told him. “I’m not done yet.”
She hit a few more keys, typed in some numbers, and the image continued to shift, taking on more form and substance. When she was done, they were still blobs, but the blobs were defined enough to make a bit more sense out of them. A few nearly discernible numbers, the letters B and C, and—
“Is that some kind of animal?” Tony asked, pointing to the left side of the screen.
“That was my thought,” Max told him. “And I’m afraid this is about the best we’re gonna get out of this image.”
“So it is a bust,” Jack said. “We’ve got nothing.”
Max sighed. “Is that what I have to look forward to when I grow up? Zero optimism?”
“Honey, I hate to break it to you,” Tony said with a suggestive leer, “but you’re already grown-up.”
Max rolled her eyes. “Oh my God, there are two of you.” She looked at him. “You know, you’re supposed to call a doctor if that thing lasts longer than four hours.”
Tony’s jaw dropped slightly. A man without a comeback. He wasn’t used to Max’s quick wit.
Despite himself, Jack laughed as Max gestured to the screen.
“Here’s the thing,” she said. “That may not look like much to us, but a computer looks at it differently than we do. I’m pretty sure there’s enough here for an image recognition program to find a match.”
“Pretty sure?” Jack said.
“As sure as I can be about this stuff. I took the liberty of sending a copy of this to a friend of mine, an MIT grad who has some state-of-the-art recognition software—stuff he’s developing himself—and he’s promised to e-mail me the minute he finds something.”
“So how does this software work?”
“Without pounding you over the head with a lot of technical details, it interprets the pixels as numerical data, looks for patterns and sequences, then scours the Internet and several image databases, searching for the same or similar data.”
“I think I’ll stick to boat repairs,” Tony said.
“It’s not as complicated as it sounds.”
“When I was your age, young lady, we barely had ATMs. And I still haven’t gotten used to those.”
Jack laughed again, but he knew Tony was only half kidding. It was a miracle the guy had a cell phone, considering his aversion to anything you couldn’t fix with a torque wrench.
Max was about to respond