SPYWARE BOOK (2 page)

“No!”

“Go watch TV,” said Ray, feeling the instant pang of guilt all parents feel when they utter those words.

“No!”

Sarah mumbled something into her pillow. Ray slapped her rear lightly.

“What did you say?”

“Spongebob is on!” she said more intelligibly, raising her head from the pillow for a moment.

“All right!” said Justin, and he was gone in a flash.

Ray struggled out of bed. The bulldozer tumbled off the sheets and he found it again with his feet. “Ouch.”

He smiled at the shapely form of his wife in the sheets. Her dark hair flowed over her pillow in disarray. He thought of climbing back into bed and curling up to her, but there wasn’t time. With a sigh, he touched the snooze button on top of the clock radio to silence it for ten precious minutes as he headed for the shower.

Thursday had begun.

#

Sarah filled a bowl of cereal for Justin and managed to get most of his clothes on. His shoes were still off, however. Shoes were never easy to get onto Justin, it was always a careful negotiation. That was Ray’s job, as he didn’t have to be to work until nine for his office hours, while Sarah had to be in by eight.

“You’ve got to drop him off at school today,” said

Sarah, passing him in the hall on her way to shower. “I don’t think he should be walking this early, it looks like rain.”

“Yeah, daddy. I don’t want to walk,” chimed in Justin.

“No problem,” mumbled Ray, forcing a smile. He was determined not to let his true state show through. Sarah had been asleep when he came in last night and didn’t know just how late he had stayed at the lab. In truth, the shower had made him feel almost human, but now he was fading again fast. He knew he needed to eat, that would keep him going for awhile.

Sarah halted in the hallway and turned to look at him. She narrowed her eyes. “You sound like a toad in a well,” she remarked. “Are you sick?”

He shook his head, grinning weakly.

Her suspicions grew, and she came up to him, looking up at her tall husband critically. She laid a hand on his chest. “Just how late were you out last night?”

Ray shrugged, feeling like he’d been caught at something. “Uh, maybe midnight or so.”

“Or so? Maybe one—or two?”

Ray shrugged again, but made no denial.

“Hmm...” said Sarah, frowning now. “You don’t need to kill yourself to run that lab, you know, Ray. They only give you twenty percent release time for it and you spend eighty percent of your time there.”

“We had a problem. There was some weird activity on the net. We couldn’t shut down for maintenance,” said Ray. He kissed her on the top of the head and escaped to the refrigerator, where he got out the milk and poured himself some cereal in a paper bowl.

“You know,” said Sarah, following him. “If Brenda was more attractive, I’d be wondering about you two.”

“Yup,” said Ray around his spoon. “You know me, I’m a chubby-chaser.”

“Chubby-chaser! Ha!” shouted Justin, looking up from his half-eaten, half-spilled breakfast. Then the commercial ended and the cartoon pulled his attention back like a magnet.

“What kind of weird activity?” asked Sarah.

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready, Babe?”

Sarah frowned and crossed her arms.

Inwardly, Ray groaned. When Sarah felt protective, she turned into a detective. “It was Nog. He was eating up twelve gigabits at once and FTPing all over the place.”

“
Twelve
gigabits? You mean
the
Nog?”

 
“Yup, the very one that followed you around after night-classes in college and sent you all that e-mail.”

“Yuck,” said Sarah. “Does he still have a forked-tongue?”

“I imagine so. Old snake-man, they used to call him.”

“I never knew how that happened to him.”

“No?” asked Ray, smiling. “It’s his braces. He worries at them with his tongue while he’s coding, sort of a nervous habit. After getting the tip cut a thousand times, he’s developed that V-shaped wedge of missing flesh. You know, I don’t think he’s even had those braces looked at for years. They should have been removed ages ago.”

“Gross!” shouted Justin. Sarah made a face and shuddered. Walking fast, she headed down the hall to the bathroom. “Well, I don’t think you need to stay so late, not even for Brenda, and certainly not for Nog.”

Ray smiled blearily into his paper bowl, quickly tipping it up to drink the remainder of the milk while his wife was out of sight. For some reason it upset her when he did that. He looked over and noticed that Justin was doing the same thing for the same reasons. They grinned at each other.

Then he glanced at his watch. “Oh shit!” he whispered.

“Daddy said a
bad
word!
” shouted Justin.

They were all going to be late.

... 83 Hours and Counting ...

John Nogatakei, known to most people as Nog, or
The
Nog, sat in the dark den of his apartment. The majority of the light in the apartment came from the combined screens of his four computers, all of which were running, even the notebook on his lap. The room glowed from many soft sources of light. Odd shadows shimmered on the walls when Nog or one of his screens shifted. Only one sliver of clear white light could be found in the apartment, a sliver which filtered through the cracked-open refrigerator in the apartment’s tiny kitchen. Nog had been in such a hurry to get back to his computers the last time he had taken a brief break he had left the door hanging open. The fridge hummed quietly to itself, attempting in vain to cool the entire apartment.

Nog didn’t like natural light. His pale skin was clear evidence of this. During the day, when Nog slept, offensive sunlight was kept at bay by layers of aluminum foil and duct tape, which covered every window, even the sliding glass doors.

All activity in the apartment centered around the living room, which had evolved into a combination of office and bedroom. Shelves climbed every wall to the ceiling, each tier overflowing with software boxes, video disks, manuals and magazines. The forgotten bedrooms at the back of the apartment were used as further storage. The kitchen, besides the ajar fridge, contained only a microwave, paper plates and cups and plastic utensils. If food couldn’t be microwaved on a paper plate, Nog didn’t eat it.

Unexpectedly, the largest of the monitors came to life. It spread over an entire wall and was paper-thin. The screen flickered wildly for a moment and somewhere a speaker chimed. The big screen paused, and then the notebook on his lap began to flicker. Someone was trying to get in touch with him using a chat utility over the net. Nog worked his tongue around in his mouth. Talking to unknown strangers, even over the net, made him nervous. He didn’t open a communications path right away, instead he got the userid of the person calling and checked it out. It was from a student account. Nog frowned and worried his tongue against his teeth. Why would a student contact him? Why tonight, of all nights?

He checked further. Something flashed by on the screen that caught his eye. He scrolled it back up and learned that the student had not logged in for months, in fact, the account had never apparently been used before now. Nog wriggled his tongue. There was a familiar twinge of pain and a tiny amount of blood oozed into his mouth. It tasted salty.

He opened a pathway.

Who is it?
he typed.

The reply swam into being on the screen:
It’s me.

Nog considered dropping the connection. He didn’t like people who fooled around and played coy with him on the net. He liked to do it himself, of course, but not when he wasn’t the one in control.

Identify yourself or be switched off.

It’s your own personal Santa Claus, you fool. The one who gets you the things you don’t know how to get yourself.

Nog chuckled to himself, and stopped lacerating his tongue. He relaxed back into his chair and switched over to his notebook for easier reach.
Like what kind of things?
he typed.

Things with panties and rubber sheets.

Nog laughed aloud, a croaking sound that the world rarely heard. He immediately felt a rush of arousal. Nog had long since tired of porn. He had been raised on it, but it had little effect on him these days. He had made million of dollars and he liked women, but they didn’t like Nog. Worse, he was too chicken to hunt for the ones who might hold their noses and cash his checks. He had finally found a fixer, someone who had fed him the women he wanted but didn’t have the guts to go find for himself. They would come to the door and knock discreetly. Usually, they be shocked at his wreck of an apartment and the grim realities of Nog himself. But they didn’t run screaming. They must have been briefed, Nog thought, by his benefactor.

Nog paid for these women himself, while his friend did what he didn’t have the guts to do, he arranged for their delivery. What his benefactor wanted in return was something quite different.

Why the secrecy?
he typed.

I want no record of this conversation, not now.

Nog nodded to the screen.
Okay, smart enough. Good move, using a student’s dead account. From now on, I’ll just use your handle: Santa.

Fine. Santa it is.

So what do you want tonight, Santa?

Status report.

Right on schedule and target. How about you?

Good. Everything is prepared. We won’t speak again unless we must.

Alright, but send me another lucky lady tonight.

There was a pause.

I think we should wait on that. This is the moment we’ve worked toward. I would prefer you stay on station and handle anything that comes up.

Nog sighed disappointedly. He didn’t really care about this special software job. He was in it for the women. But he didn’t want his source to dry up for him, so he decided to go along.

Agreed. Bye.

Bye. 8-)

And that was it. Nog touched a key to break the connection. He then went through several files to eradicate the text of the conversation as best he could. Not all traces could be eliminated, but it should all look innocent enough, if someone were to check up on it.

He began the final process to finish the night’s work. Nearly half an hour later, the main monitor flared into life again. “Download initiated. Upload Complete,” the computer said in a soft, feminine voice. The computer made the words sound almost human. Nog started the next step by activating an icon on the screen of his notebook with the tiny wireless mouse. He patted his notebook affectionately. It was smaller and less powerful than the others, but he was fond of it because he could take it with him on his quarterly trips to Japan. He felt it was the most loyal of his machines.

“This sure beats taking graduate classes,” Nog said aloud to himself and his humming computers. He chuckled, thinking about all the time he had wasted in school.

 Nog had graduated from U. C. Davis with a degree in computer science, but had never finished his masters. He had made his first million—and his second and his third—writing hit video games. After that he found he had little time left for school.

As his electronic minions continued to work, Nog considered the rumpled sleeping bag on the couch that served as his bed. He rubbed his burning eyes and blinked. It had been a long time since he had last slept. What was it now, two days? Two days and this was the third night. He was exhausted, but everything was working as planned now, everything was moving ahead.

Nog patted his laptop absently. He was ugly and he knew it. People shunned him, but his machines never did. The acne that cratered his face, the belly that overflowed his pants, the thick lenses that covered his eyes and the odd V-shaped chip that was missing at the tip of his tongue, none of these things had ever bothered his computers.

Deciding it was time to rest, he set his notebook’s alarm clock software to awaken him when the transfers were complete. He rose with a grunt, aimed his backside at the couch and collapsed onto it. His notebook soon went into sleep-mode, causing images of a flapping pterodactyl to bounce around the screen in an endless, mindless fashion. Nog fell asleep thinking of flying pterodactyls. An exhausted smile played on his lips. Soon, people would regret shunning him.

... 82 Hours and Counting ...

Classes had begun for Ray, and he was indeed burning.

His eyes and throat burned, even the skin on his back seemed to burn. As he had often pointed out to others who said things like:
Well, teaching doesn’t pay much, but it sure beats working!
the one catch about teaching was that you had to perform when it came time for class. In college, there weren’t even any substitutes. It was a live show, mostly improvised everyday, and there were rarely any rehearsals. You went to class and you performed, or there wasn’t a show. Everything you did was stared at and evaluated by many sets of eyes. A bad day for the professor was a bad day for everyone.