RESTORATION (a science fiction novel) (RESTORATION (the science fiction trilogy)) (14 page)

“Well, no, it’s complicated.  I’m married with children remember?”
         “Right, right, I understand.  Can you send me a copy?”
         “Of course, and by the way, how in the world do you dream this stuff up anyway?”
         “It’s what I do.”
         “Well bravo, my friend.  All right, lets see, I got the contents of the file up right now.  Oh great it’s just a bunch of hieroglyphics.” 

“Yeah that sounds about right.  That’s because your viewing compressed and encrypted program code in a text window.  Did you work on this hardware design file at home like you worked on the software at home?”
         “Yes, how did you know?”
         “All over achievers cheat by working at home on stuff that’s not supposed to leave work.  I do it too, that’s how I know.  Pull up a copy of the file from the last time you edited it.” 

“Okay just a minute.”  Dodge laid his phone down and ran over to the sill again, retrieved his key, and ran back to the desk.  He slung open the bottom drawer and grabbed his fire box and unlocked it.  John could hear him digging around.
         “Man what the heck are you doing?” 

Dodge grabbed the phone while he continued to dig.
         “Well I’m digging through a whole pile of old Microdrives looking for it.”
         “You do know Microdrives aren’t that reliable long-term right?  You should keep these files on your PC.”
         “No way that’s my system, I don’t . . .” 
         “You don’t what?”  .
         “I just remembered something that may have some significance in light of what’s going on.”
         “What is it?”
         “About eight or nine years ago we had a break in and the only thing taken from the house was my PC.” 

There was a long silence on the other end as John was absorbing what Dodge had just implicated.
         “Do you think it’s connected to this?”
         “I don’t know, maybe, they didn’t take anything else.”
         “Did you have the design files on the PC they took?”
         “No, only the editors and assemblers, I have always kept the actual files on Microdrives in my little fire safe that I hide in my bottom desk drawer.  Back then I even had a false bottom in the drawer and I kept the fire safe under it.  I even hide the key in a separate place.  The thieves didn’t find my fire safe.”
         “What was on the computer anything important?”
         “Nah, lots of personal stuff but nothing from work.” 

“Okay, good, now don’t panic it could just be a coincidence and even if it isn’t, they obviously know where you live and you’re not dead yet.  It’s been nearly ten years and nothing has happened, even if they were after intellectual property they’re probably just a bunch of cyber crime Geeks not cold blooded killers.  Don’t get all twitchy on me we still have to figure this thing out.  Did you find the drive?” 

“Oh, yeah, hold on.”
         Dodge set the phone down and dug through a few more drives. 

“Yes, I got it.”  He put it in port two and pulled up the contents.
         “Ah yes more hieroglyphics,” he said. 

“Okay if you have both files open look up in the right-hand corner and click the file size.”  Dodges’ eyes flashed across both screens to the right-hand corners.
         “Crap! That’s not good.  The one I had in storage is only 250KTB’s and the one off the server at work is 478KTB’s.” 

“All right, go to the larger file from work and then scroll down to the bottom of the page, are there any blank pages?” 
Dodge began scrolling down but it was a very large file.
         “Hold on this is gonna take a second.”  He scrolled for a good long while and suddenly hit blank screen just like with the other file. 
“It must have been tampered with in the same way.”
         “Looks like the same thing all over again it’s just like the other one I gave you.  It’s got tons of blank pages after the last viewable command and the smaller file doesn’t.”
         “Okay, compress it and upload it to your phone.  Go into that message I sent you earlier at work with the birthday email in it.  There is a cloaking program built into that message so we might as well reuse it.  Just select reply, attach the compressed file and send.  I’ll start working on it right away but don’t expect a call until tomorrow.  I’ll have to come up with an entirely new way to decode it because the assembly software is totally different from the first one.”
         “Okay will do,” he said, as they ended the call.

Dodge lay awake that night for several hours.  He was wondering if that break in years ago had anything to do with this security breach in his design.  What could those behind this possibly intend to accomplish? 

If they wanted the technology why didn’t they just steal it and sell it to their competitor?  If it was fast money they were after, that would have certainly been the way to get it. 

Could it be that the thieves simply wanted a really fast computer and nothing else in the house?  Maybe they got spooked and grabbed the computer and ran before they had time to get more stuff? 

He lay there and thought about the team and the files and the secrecy and the huge payoff that he had coming in just four years.  He couldn’t help but worry that it might all be lost.  Tech Companies that have security breaches don’t survive.  On top of that whoever did this was good, really good, and that scared him to death. 

If the people behind this whole mess actually did something with it, something bad, then chances are he would be going down in flames.  All his hard work lost, his multimillion dollar bonus gone, and maybe even a prison term to face if he was implicated as a conspirator. 

Cyber crimes were getting cracked down on hard in recent years.  Some cyber criminals had even received life sentences.  He
wanted to sleep but thought he couldn’t.  Sometime between two and three, he finally drifted off.

Chapter 8
   
 
Dodges phone began vibrating across the night stand at 6:45 a.m.  He was not surprised that it was John but was surprised that the call came so soon.  He was so hyper aware of the potential call and he answered it so quickly that it didn’t  wake Linsey who was generally a light sleeper. 

He set it to vibrate just in case John called but he really didn’t expect a call until later in the morning or maybe even afternoon.  He slipped out of the bedroom as quietly as possible and into the bathroom where he answered the call.

“Hey John, what’s up?”
         “Well buddy, I have good news and bad so I’ll give you the good first.  I was able to crack it faster than I thought because it seems that the perpetrator used techniques similar to that of his first job which made mine a lot easier.  I would guess it was the same person or group involved with the code files.  The commands used to execute the cloaking function were very different because it uses two entirely different software packages for viewing and editing.  But the basic idea of how they accomplished the cloaking was nearly the exact same approach.

I took a copy of your circuit board layout software that you were using at that time and sort of worked it backwards based on the text and font and color codes that it uses to display things on screen.  Then I used the same idea of it being super fast and loaded it into a little bit newer machine that I had here with a customizable front side bus speed controller.  I also tripled the actual clock speed of the PC so that the clock on the PC would move from 1p.m. to 4p.m. in only one actual hour.  It’s a time trick.  The program thinks it’s running too slow so it speeds itself up to match the clock.”

  Dodge went down to the kitchen during this long explanation to get some coffee going.
         “John, Dude, you’re a genius, but ya gotta dumb it down.”
         “Right, sorry!  Anyway it should be done in the next hour can you come over and take a look at the files?  I have an exact copy of your layout and design software from that period loaded on one of my faster stations.  I could look at it but wouldn’t have a clue what I was looking at and you’re the hardware guy that does.  Be about like you looking at my code from one of these crackers.”

“Yeah, ya know what, I’m gonna call off work.  I’ll be over in about forty-five minutes.”
         “Hey, if you haven’t eaten anything yet don’t, I’ll have Jeeves whip up some gourmet coffee and Eggs Benedict.” 

Dodge knew that the timing was just about right and Linsey would think he had gone to work.  He finished making the coffee just to look legit.  “
Eggs Benedict and gourmet coffee, John really knew how to live.” 
Knowing John his new gal was probably a super model too.

He jumped in and out of the shower with a quick shave and dressed in record time.  Linsey and the kids were downstairs fixing breakfast when he came down.  He filled his travel mug with a cup of coffee to go.  He talked briefly with them but really had a one track mind to get over to John’s.  He got up from the table where he had perused the daily digital for only five minutes.

  He was just about to say goodbye when Linsey noticed he was getting up.
         “Hey you, where ya think you’re going?  We’ve got breakfast goin here!”  He smiled at her and stuck his gut out as far as possible and pointed to it with his free hand.
         “No thanks Babe, your cookin’s great but its startin ta show!”  Bobby couldn’t resist.
         “Wow Dad, you expecting?  When you gonna pop that kid out?”  Linsey got a quick kiss as Dodge grabbed his phone and headed out.  He couldn’t resist messing up Sarah’s hair as he passed by.
         “Daaad!”
         “Oh you’re still beautiful!”  He said as he went out toward the garage.  She really was too, with her light brown hair and blue eyes, not to mention an athletic build thanks to strict gymnastics training.  He could see some Linsey in her but even more of his own mother.  He remembered pictures of her when she was a young and there was a good resemblance.  

As Dodge entered the garage, he spied his own private piece of nostalgia under the car cover in the far bay.  She hadn’t been out on the road in several weeks.  He couldn’t resist, he had to drive the GTO.  He whisked off the cover and tossed it up on the workbench in front of the car.  He grabbed the keys out of his
hiding place in the toolbox and hopped in.  He fired it up, backed it out, and took off, it felt great! 

He loved old hot rods, nothing like the crisp throttle response of a fast retro head turner with a sweet exhaust note.  He had the paint redone on the old 69 Pontiac in Baltic Silver with three coats of dark blue pearl on top.  He had them add some very light ghost flames down the hood and sides.  They were barely visible because they were only two shades darker than the base coat.  The boys at Mitch Smith Performance in Anderson wrenched new life into the old 400 cubic inch block and drive train a few years back.  It set him back over twenty grand, but boy would she run!

He arrived at John’s in record time and wondered how he avoided a speeding ticket.  The gate was closed so he had to push the little button and talk to Jeeves.  He was pretty damn sure that Jeeves wasn’t his real name and John was just being entertaining as usual. 

“Good morning Sir,” said
Jeeves, as his face appeared on the monitor.
         “Morning Jeeves, JC expecting me?”
         “Yes Sir, I’ll open the gate for you, oh and by the way Sir, nice piece of iron!”  Wow, Jeeves, while butlerish and rather old, did know the proper terms for classic muscle cars.  He sped up the curvy driveway that made a fairly tight left right left turn through some trees and then opened up into the magnificent meadow that contained John’s ridiculous house.  Instead of stopping at the front he went on through the breeze way and around back to the garage area.  He goosed the throttle just as he shut it off to show off for John.  He had already come out of the garage when he spotted the GTO coming.
         “Whoa!  Man!  That’s nice!”

             
“You like her?”

             
“What’s not to like, she’s beautiful.” 

He was glad to see that John appreciated his classic hot rod.
         “Okay, why didn’t you tell me about the Goat?  Classic GTO, smoking hot wife, and perfect kids, you know Dodge you’re truly a rich man!” 

Dodge was flattered by John’s comments.  On the way in he realized that John was right.  While John had lots of nice things and loads of cash, he didn’t have the wonderful family that Dodge did.  That truly was something.

John’s Mother had passed away very young, and his Father was estranged for years.  John was an only child so he was an island really, but he did have his friends. 
        “Hey John, seriously, Jeeves isn’t really his name, is it?” 

             
John laughed so hard that he nearly choked on the drink of coffee he had just taken.
         “No, no, I’ll never tell, you’ll just have to figure it out,” he said, as he continued to laugh and shake his head. 

They went around the garage and worked their way through the complex and into the downstairs kitchen.  A middle aged Spanish woman was working over the massive stove.          “Dodge this is Miranda, Miranda Dodge Kerrington.”
         “Hello,” said Dodge.  She only nodded and smiled in a nice gesture.
         “Miranda, we’ll be on the Patio by the pool, please bring the food out when ready.  Thank you.”  She nodded and smiled again.
         “Oh, you do like Eggs Benedict right?” asked John.
         “Oh yes, eggs over medium please,” Dodge said as they were leaving to go sit on the patio with their coffee.