Chapter #17The Confidence Game by: Seuzz   Becky Evans looks up in surprise as you enter the lobby. "What are you doing back here, Tom?"
"I had a sudden brainstorm," you say. "What's your excuse for still being here?" You check the time on your phone. "I thought the night staff took over at six."
"I'm taking overtime." She makes a face. "Not by choice, either. The night receptionist called in sick at the last minute."
"You're not going to be up here all night, are you?"
"No, just until security gets me a real replacement." She looks a little haggard -- no surprise, since she will have been on the job for thirteen hours.
You glance back into the darkened parking lot, and come real close to abandoning the infiltration. "They're taking their sweet time getting here."
"Tell me something I don't know."
You decide to press the gamble. "Well, I hope you're not still here when I leave."
"You going to be a couple of hours?"
"No, more like fifteen minutes if I can manage it. I just don't want to see you here longer than necessary."
She flashes you a brief smile, which you return before heading for the elevator banks.
You study your dim reflection -- Thomas Sutherland's reflection -- in the doors as you wait for the car. You're not nervous -- you've too much experience to be nervous. But it seems slightly improbable that Becky should still be on duty the night you're trying to infiltrate FutureThought's offices. And, given the details of this job, even the slightest improbability is deeply worrying.
Anthony, the security man, is already standing at alert when you step onto the third floor. Like Becky, he expresses surprise, and you give him the same excuse: "I had a brainstorm."
"Must'a been a big one if it brought you all the way back here," he says.
"I was in the neighborhood anyway, eating out." You slide your security card through the slotted reader atop his desk. "It's probably a shit idea, but -- " The card reader flashes the code "MOUNT6". "Batten," you say to Anthony, which is the countersignal. "I've been pulling my hair out over a bug, and I had a sudden inspiration."
"Be up here long?"
"Just long enough to check my hunch. There's no way I'm staying to fix it. You need me out by a certain time?"
"Just going to offer to make you coffee." He buzzes the door open for you.
There's hardly anything on the other side to distinguish this cubicle farm from any other cubicle farm. The carpet is as hard as concrete, and the beige fabric lining of the cubicle walls crackles softly with static electricity in the dry, machine-cooled air. Fluorescent panels cast a white, even light over everything. The loudest sound comes from the other side of the room, where you see the dark head of another keeper of late hours. He's got ear buds in, but the music is playing so loud you can almost make out the melody of the wailing guitar.
You find Thomas Sutherland's cubicle. It is instantly, boringly familiar to you, even though you've never been inside this building before. As the computer boots up, you idly roll a die-cast Delta Airlines toy airplane back and forth on the desk top. It's one of a handful of toys that Sutherland has decorated his space with.
The log-in screen appears, and you tap in his user name and password. The power-up screen fades to his desktop. You slide the cursor to the icon for Project Argus; you've the security card out even before you click on it.
A message box on the screen flashes the security code 1893. You insert your card into the USB-connected reader, and four more digits appear in the box: 4322. You rub your eyes as you try to remember the password that goes with that string of numerals. It's a rare one, and the grim thought will naturally come: Another improbability.
But the answer arrives after a few seconds: "To bear this tidings to the bloody king."
The machine beeps at you. You freeze.
Slowly, carefully, you type the password in again, being sure that you have hit the correct keys in the correct order. Again, it beeps at you.
You stare at the eight-numeral code. You can't be wrong. Once more, a single key stroke at a time, you tap it in. You hesitate over the Enter key before hitting it.
The machine beeps.
That ends the infiltration. You don't dare try a fourth time, for another wrong entry will lock the machine. You power down, and lean back to study your borrowed face in the dark monitor.
It was a tricky face to get, and trickier still arranging it so you could get in to its owner's work station, for several improbabilities had to come off just right. That should have been your first clue that certain occult machineries were already running. Failing that, you should have taken the hint from Becky's presence out front.
After all that, the improbably selected security prompt on the Argus log-in was just an insult.
So your usual bag of tricks isn't going to be enough for this job.
As for another way in ...
You drum your fingers on the desk, then realize you are on the verge of falling out of character. That's a jolting thought -- the final and worst improbability of the night -- and you take it as a saving prompt by your ousiarchs that you really should get out.
"Any luck?" Anthony asks as you pass him. "That's strange," he says when you shake your head.
"Why do you say that?"
He shrugs. "Guess I'm just an optimist. Would've bet you got it fixed. Whatever it was."
* * * * *
With restless fingers Hal Swann twists the cat's cradle into ever more complicated patterns. You wonder that he can see anything in this dimly lit basement apartment. Not that you're ungrateful for the lack of light. Hal's been residing here for only two days, and it's already a faintly stinking salvage dump of old machine parts and unwashed clothes. "If it comes to that," he's saying, "just get that security card off Sutherland again. I can insert a -- "
Joe interrupts. "It's not the security card that's the problem."
"Didn't say it was," Hal retorts, "and if you'd listen to me instead of -- "
Now you jump in. "No, Joe's right, it's not the card and it's not the code. It's the Laplacean Deep." You sigh. "It's active."
"Balls," says Hal impatiently. "And even if it is, just let me get my fingerprints onto their machines for a -- "
"Hal!" Joe says. "Could I slug you? Just once?"
"Like to see you try," Hal says slyly.
Joe pulls his fist back. But as he throws it, the slipcover of his chair lets go, and his blow flies wide as he pratfalls onto the floor.
Hal laughs, though not in a mean way. "Catilindria, my droog. Job one's always to wire a place." He weaves a new pattern into the cat's cradle.
"My point exactly," Joe retorts. "It'll be the same thing at FutureThought. If Will's right and they've got their machines embedded in this Laplacean Deep, or whatever they're calling it, not even you could get close enough to do your magic."
"I thought we didn't like the word 'magic'," you say.
"Did I apply the epithet to Hal's prodigies?" Joe archly replies. "Draw the inference, Will. What do I think of them?"
You glance at Hal to see how he's taking this, but that artist in controlled mayhem only grins back.
"I get what you mean, Franz," he says, and Joe stiffens at his long-since discarded name. "But i' tain't the same thing. If their Laplacean Deep's what's freezing us out, and perchance you're right, it'll be on account we're using the wrong strategy, to wit, one with an improbable chance of success."
"Are you calling my techniques improbable?" you demand.
Hal laughs again. "You're one in five billion, Will. Of course they're improbable. Think about it." He works again at the old shoelaces. "What are the chances the world's only shapeshifter would wind up at Thomas Sutherland's desktop computer?"
"We're Stellae, and they're Fane," says Joe. "I'd say the chances are pretty fucking high."
"That a Stellae would get there, that's got a high probability, I'll grant you that. But Will's the most improbable of our lot. Think how we found him, and think how he got so good at what he's so good at." Hal shakes his head, and his tangled locks bounce merrily about his ears. "No, it's got to be another one of us that gets at his machine, and that's why I'm telling you to get me that bloke's security card."
"But I'd still have to be the one to insert it into his computer," you say through gritted teeth. "And that puts me improbably perched in front of his work station again."
Hal pauses in the middle of a move, grimaces, and doesn't reply.
"So what's the solution?" Joe asks. "Who's the most likely person to log into his computer?"
"Tom Sutherland himself," you reply after a moment's thought.
"Okay. So if that's our way in, what's the likeliest way of getting Tom Sutherland to bring us the code for the Laplacean Deep? You've been inside his head."
You stare thoughtfully at Joe for a very long time. Long enough that he turns wary. "What's the answer, Will?"
"One you're really not going to like." You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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