Doctor Who_ Cat's Cradle_ Warhead - Andrew Cartmel [16]
‘Oh, for Christ’s sake.’
Mulwray was through the door now, holding his gun like Christian. Like Christian, he immediately began to lower it. ‘Great,’ said Mulwray. He glanced over at Christian and together they walked across the office, putting away their sidearms. The cleaning woman, Maria, was staring up at them, frozen with surprise. She was sitting in front of the big screen of one of the Apollo workstations, her hands still poised in the air above the keyboard. She was in the middle of keying something in. Looking guilty as hell. Christian wanted to see what was on the screen but Mulwray was blocking his view.
‘Caught in the act,’ said Mulwray.
‘My God,’ said Maria. ‘You scared me.’
‘You’re going to have to be more careful than that, Maria. You were ringing bells all over the network. We got a security flash down on 51.’
Christian could see what Maria was doing on the screen now. She had the E-mail slingshot open. She was typing a letter, ready for the system to shoot right across the continent. He knew what the destination was because Maria already had the address menu set up. ‘Who the hell lives in Los Angeles?’
‘Old boyfriend,’ said Maria. She was blushing fiercely as Christian began reading over her shoulder.
Dear Jerome, I miss you more than ever these days, in the cold out here. I especially miss you at night. I miss your arms around me and the weight of you on me
‘Doesn’t sound like you get all that cold at night,’ said Mulwray. ‘Thinking about that sort of thing.’
‘Woman your age should be ashamed,’ said Christian.
‘Do you have any idea what a phone call costs these days?’ The cleaning woman was squirming in her chair, looking from Mulwray to Christian. ‘I’m not doing any harm. I’ve done it before.’ She was trying to be apologetic, you could see, but it didn’t come naturally.
‘Well, don’t do it again, and definitely don’t do it on this node.’
‘I’m sorry guys.’ Maria was staring down at her hands, resting on the keyboard. Christian didn’t think she sounded sorry. He thought she was keeping her eyes down so they wouldn’t see her natural expression. A lot of anger and defiance. She must have been trouble when she was young. He tried to avoid looking at those fingers of hers. The nails were really short, ending way back in the skin in the top of the finger. It didn’t look like they’d been chewed or anything. More like they’d been melted.
‘You’re going to get fired when somebody finds out,’ he said. ‘Unauthorized use of company resources.’
‘Come on, we’d better get back to the lab.’ Mulwray’s arm was on his shoulder. Christian turned away, a little reluctantly. He was tired all of a sudden. It was like that when you got ready for action and nothing happened. He wondered if Mulwray was free for a beer after work. They could go round to his place. Christian had some new videos, from the Philippines, which you had to see to believe.
When they’d gone the little man came out and sat beside Maria. ‘I didn’t know about the alarm on that terminal,’ he said.
‘Neither did I.’ Maria was typing on the keyboard. ‘There it is.’ On the screen was an open folder containing a symbol which she recognized, although she’d never actually seen one before. A cartoon padlock with bulging Basil Wolverton eyes sticking out on stalks. A Norton Smartlock. ‘They must have put that on here last week.’ It was a security package and a very expensive one. The little man was leaning close beside her, inspecting the screen. He was nodding.
‘Stupid of me,’ he said. ‘I could have avoided that.’
‘No you couldn’t. Anyone using this machine would have been detected.’
‘Not necessarily.’ The man clapped his hands and the cat came running out of the shadows and jumped. He caught the cat and held it to his chest. ‘Not everyone,’ he said. The cat’s face was pressed close to his and as he turned to look at Maria the cat turned, too. Two pairs of strange cool eyes regarding