Doctor Who_ Blue Box - Kate Orman [23]
although she still had no idea he was the man who’d delivered her a Lisp Machine just the day before. She simply wanted the abilities of his root account so that she could find out who was sniffing around her mainframe.
Swan was halfway through a series of guesses at Bob’s password when the system slowed to a crawl, and then abruptly and rudely tossed her out.
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 password. 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 snatch 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 snatch 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