Zero Day_ A Novel - Mark Russinovich [86]
She’d been about to land her next substantial pay raise when this Superphreak bug had struck, ending all prospects. Greene had promised to find her a good job elsewhere regardless of the outcome, but she knew word about what had happened would spread and there would be some hesitation in hiring her. Managers would wonder if she couldn’t have done something to prevent the contamination or at least fix it sooner.
The most intriguing part of the last two and a half weeks had been Jeff Aiken. She’d never pressed enough to move beyond their professional relationship, but couldn’t help wondering what it would have been like had she done so. For a man so knowledgeable with computers, he was surprisingly fit and handsome. She’d seen a flicker of interest, but he’d taken it no further.
Not that there’d been an opportunity. Greene had spotted her interest from the first and dropped by several times a day. She didn’t want to risk that job recommendation in the event this turned into a disaster. People were going to ask why Fischerman, Platt & Cohen had gone out of business, and her name was bound to come up.
Anyway, there was plenty of time. She had Jeff’s card. And lots of other fish were in the sea.
It had been a difficult day. She’d made copies of the partially cleansed copies she’d twice tried to boot and had Jeff step her through what he knew about Superphreak, explaining to her the methodology he was following. She’d spent the last three days reworking the copy of the last daily backup, searching for signs of the virus. But she’d decided it was largely a waste of time. She just didn’t know enough. She’d only tried because there’d been no other productive work for her.
Sue had checked her e-mail and found her Superphreak posting had generated more than one hundred messages, but none that helped her and none from Superphreak himself. The man was apparently Russian, as Jeff had surmised, and was a sort of geek god when it came to viruses. She’d asked questions of some of those who’d e-mailed her, but in the end it turned out no one really knew all that much about Superphreak except that he appeared in certain chat rooms from time to time.
She spent days in those rooms but he’d not reappeared. She’d posted a few more messages for him to contact her, with no positive results. “Dante” had been equally elusive, and Sue feared that her first message had driven the men underground.
Harold left the office at six thirty while Sue was returning to the backup. Two hours later Greene entered the IT Center, coming up behind her, then cupping her breasts with each hand. “Guess who?”
“I don’t have to guess,” she’d said. “No one handles me like you do. What’s up?”
“‘Handles’? Is that what you call it?”
“What else? They aren’t doorknobs.”
“Sorry,” he said in a little-boy voice.
Men can be such children, she thought. “Now, don’t get that way. I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” Sue stood up and put her arms around him. They kissed. “Like I said, what’s up?”
“Me, for one. You about done here?”
“I think we’re about ‘done’ permanently.”
“That bad?”
She sighed. “I don’t know. Jeff’s pretty discouraged. Looks like we got hit twice by the mother of all viruses.”
“Shit!” He looked as if all the steam in him had vanished.
“You can say that again. I’m almost finished for the day.”
“Me too. How about the Hemingway in an hour?”
Sue nodded. “Pick up some Chinese, will you? I’m starving.”
“Sure.” Greene gave her that hound-dog look of need.
She patted his arm. “Later. And don’t start without me.”
Twenty minutes later she was ready to leave. She decided to polish her résumé the next day and would tell Harold to do the same thing. Maybe Jeff would come up with a miracle, but she wasn’t banking on it. As she left the offices, several associates were hard at work. These cases had recently been started; all of the files had been in their laptops when the firm had been struck. They shot her unpleasant looks as she passed by. She guessed a few of them had sent out their résumés already.
Outside, Sue