The Media Candidate (23 page)

Saturday morning found Guinda at home, but this
wasn’t a day for relaxing. She rummaged through her electronic
notebook from graduate school for a specific piece of data. She
hoped this web address would help unlock some of the mystery
surrounding Terra Halvorsen’s death and give her some insight into
the mysteries of COPE.

After a few minutes, the number appeared. Guinda
jotted it down along with the word following it. It was a password
into a special computer account that the University maintained for
a number of professors doing research at facilities remote from the
University. The account was with a private computer networking
company, and it allowed a faculty member at some location off
campus to access a computer network for collection and storage of
data without entering the University network. It was a security
issue for the University to limit access to the campus network
while still providing a computer network for its off-site research
faculty.

Few faculty members used this service because of
the hassle of maintaining two separate systems of computer files,
but Terra had looked at it differently. To her, it was an
opportunity to isolate her files from the University. In fact, she
did most of her work on the private network and kept a modest
collection of files on the University network, more for appearance
than for function.

When Guinda worked for Terra as a graduate
assistant and thesis student, she’d become familiar with Terra’s
system and had used it frequently herself. She felt there was a
good chance that Terra’s account would still be active since it was
probably paid for annually or semiannually. It was certainly worth
a try. She entered the address at her computer, and the display
immediately responded with: WELCOME TO LEASNET. PLEASE ENTER YOUR
USER NAME.

Guinda responded with: HALVORSEN.

The computer responded: PLEASE ENTER YOUR
PASSWORD.

Guinda replied: TJESSEH

Her display responded: INVALID LOGIN.

Okay. She changed her password. Not
surprising. Let’s see, what is her other nephew’s name? … Richard …
she always called him Ricky … or was it Richy? Well, here goes
one.
Terra always bracketed some word with her initials for a
password. Guinda entered: TRICHYH.

INVALID LOGIN.

She tried: TRICKYH

INVALID LOGIN.

Then she tried: TRICHARDH

INVALID LOGIN.

Let’s see. What else might she use for … her
cat. That’s it.

She entered: TSAMANTHAH.

WELCOME TO LEASNET, PROFESSOR HALVORSEN. YOUR
LAST LOGIN WAS 3:45:26 PM; JULY 21, 2048. PLEASE MAKE A SELECTION
FROM ANY MENU.

What’s going on? That was just yesterday. Who
else has been nosing around in here?
She selected LAST
TRANSACTION from the menu.

LAST TRANSACTION WAS 3:45:26 PM; JULY 21,
2048.

NO FILES WERE ADDED OR MODIFIED.

14 FILES WERE DELETED.

0 FILES REMAIN.

DO YOU WISH A LIST OF THE FILES DELETED?

Rats! All the files are gone. Somebody beat
me to it by just one day.
She entered: YES.

11 FILES DELETED:

ARIS

CANDIDATE 1

CANDIDATE 2

CANDIDATE 3

GAMES 42

GAMES 44

GAMES 46

GAMES 48

HOLO/ANIMATION

HOLO/BLOCKBUSTER

XBLOCKBUSTER

Guinda tried to open several files, but was
never surprised by the computer’s response: THAT FILE HAS BEEN
DELETED.

Guinda logged off in despair. Someone had beaten
her to it by only 18 hours, but who? Was it someone like her,
searching for truth? Or was it someone suppressing truth?

The blank computer screen mesmerized her. It was
a luminous atonal poem that sterilized her thoughts. But a puzzle
piece emerged from the blur. One moment she was transfixed by the
electronic blizzard; and the next, she pondered a puzzle piece,
then another, and another. She knew COPE was related to Terra’s
death and Elliott’s surveillance. She was stuck. The pieces
wouldn’t stay together.

Her gaze wandered from the computer screen to
the nearby phone. There was no one she could turn to for advice now
except … Could Elliott help? Could she trust him? If Sherwood
feared him, maybe he was okay.

The sound of her phone startled her. She tried
to ignore it, but it begged like a child whining. She looked at its
answer icon, making the connection. “Hello.”

“Good morning,” replied a gentle voice. “Is this
Guinda?”

“Yes.”

“This is Elliott Townsend. How are you this
morning?”

“Where are you calling from?” Guinda asked
nervously.

“Don’t worry. I wasn’t followed, and they can’t
tap my call. That little robotic car they put on my tail doesn’t do
well on sidewalks and stairs. I just cut down a sidewalk between
houses with my bike, went up a flight of stairs to the EL level on
University Avenue, and biked over to my old office here at the Lab.
They let me have the use of it for a year, for transition they
said. So I thought today was a good time for transitioning.”

“You wouldn’t believe what’s going on! My old
professor has been murdered, and I think COPE had something to do
with it. I don’t know what to do next.”

“If we put our heads together, we might be able
to figure something out.”

“Don’t take COPE too lightly, Elliott.”

“Their surveillance car couldn’t follow me.”

“There’s more to COPE than surveillance,” she
said. “They have spiders—killer spiders.”

A long pause followed. “Yeah, I’ve heard of
them.” Another pause followed as Guinda’s hard swallow came over
the line. “But I’m just a nobody, Guin.”

“You’re somebody to COPE—and Sherwood. I’ll tell
you about him, but just be careful. I don’t think Terra was careful
enough.”

“Terra Halvorsen?”

“You knew her?”

“Sort of. Guess I need to look out for spiders,
too.”

Guinda checked her front door display and opened
the door.

Her eyes met his in silence. Elliott was the
first to speak. “I’m so sorry about your professor. It must have
been a terrible shock to you. I knew of her through my daughter,
and I read about her death in the paper.”

“She and I seemed to understand each other,”
Guinda said. “We liked each other. Maybe it was more respect than
anything else. But I’m afraid that what happened to Terra may be
just the tip of a much bigger iceberg.”

“I’ll help you any way I can, Guin.”

“You know, that’s what’s so funny. I hardly know
you, and we come from two worlds that could hardly be more
different.”

“And I’m old enough to be your grandfather.”

“Yes, that too. And yet, here I am talking to
you about this. Do you understand how that can be?”

“You know, there’s so little I understand
anymore. Maybe you’re coming to the wrong person for help.”

“I hope not.” A long, uneasy silence
followed.

“Let’s sit down, and you can fill me in,”
Elliott suggested.

Over the next few minutes, Guinda told Elliott
all about her discussions with Sherwood, about the death of
Halvorsen, and about her experience with the computer files. She
expressed her frustration about the present situation and her
uncertainty about a course of action.

“It’s kind of coincidental that our paths came
close to each other. I’ve met Sherwood, at least the guy I met
sounds like him, and I too tried to retrieve Terra’s files, but on
her computer in her office. There was nothing there. It sounds like
you might have come closer to pay dirt though.”

“But the files I found were all deleted. They’re
no good at all to us.”

“Maybe I can at least help you with that
problem,” Elliott said. “Those files that were deleted may not be
gone after all. When a file is deleted from a computer, it doesn’t
necessarily erase what is there. It merely makes that part of the
computer’s memory available for another file to be written over it.
There are utility programs that can access those memory locations
where the deleted files were stored and, if they haven’t been
written over yet, you may be able to retrieve them.”

“You mean if we can get there before somebody
else puts something else in its place, we may be able to get it
back?”

“That’s the idea, so let’s get started. There’s
a chance we can do it since the files were deleted only yesterday,
and this is a weekend.”

Guinda got them back into the Leasnet system,
and then Elliott took over. He investigated several menus to find
the proper application to do the job, but he was unsuccessful.

“It was a good idea,” Guinda said despondently,
“but I guess they just don’t have the right software.”

“Not so fast. I know we have the software at the
lab. I’ll just upload a copy to Leasnet.”

Elliott worked the menus and the keyboard for a
while, and the next thing they knew, they had the message: PLEASE
SELECT THE FILES YOU WISH TO RETRIEVE.

They selected all 11 files, and the computer
responded: 7 OF THE 11 FILES ARE 100% INTACT, 4 ARE PARTIALLY
INTACT. WHICH ONES DO YOU WISH TO SAVE?

They responded: ALL.

The computer replied: ALL 11 FILES AND PARTIAL
FILES SAVED.

“Fantastic!” shouted Guinda. “You’re a
genius!”

“Well, I’m not exactly a genius, but it did work
out pretty well,” Elliott said with some pride. “We aren’t quite
done yet. Now we need to get these files transferred here.”

“Why don’t we just read them where they are?”
questioned Guinda.

“There are a couple of problems with that. The
most important reason is that we’ve changed the configuration of
the database by rewriting those files. Suppose whoever deleted them
checks back for some reason and sees them back in the system? It
would be obvious that someone has been into the database, and
there’s probably a trail that leads right to you. The best thing is
to delete the files again as soon as possible, and there’s no
better time than now.”

“Okay, I should have plenty of storage left in
my cube for that stuff. Let’s do it.”

Elliott proceeded to download all the files to
Guinda’s computer. Then with them safely in residence in their new
home, he deleted them from Leasnet. Next, he uploaded them to his
computer at the lab so there would be another copy for safety. The
only thing left to do was to wade through the files looking for
anything interesting or incriminating.

The next few hours were spent looking over each
other’s shoulders at page after page of occasionally interesting,
but usually totally boring, text and pictures. ARIS was nothing
more than a collection of dozens of papers relating in general to
the modern political process. CANDIDATE 1 and CANDIDATE 2 were
collages of vitae and other biographical data about dozens of
candidates for political office. They searched in vain for earth
shaking political dirt but found only the usual. Little was news,
and none was interesting. They decided that CANDIDATE 3 was
probably more of the same and just skimmed it.

It became clear that this marathon session had
to end. It was now late afternoon, and they had searched only four
of the fourteen files. So far, none of it contained anything
written by Halvorsen, nor was there any personal correspondence
with her. It was nothing more than what a zealous student would
have uncovered in a library search. This was not the stuff of great
intrigue. Neither of them could take any more of the political
trivia for a while.

“We need a brake, Elliott. This stuff looks like
it could go on forever.”

“I never thought being a detective could be so
boring,” Elliott admitted. “I wonder why Halvorsen saved all this
junk.”

“I don’t know the answer to that, but I do know
that she didn’t do things for nothing. She was an extremely orderly
and fastidious woman. If it hadn’t been for her wisdom and
encouragement, I would have never finished my thesis. She was
pretty incredible.”

“It’s good that you had someone like her to help
you,” Elliott said. “A lot of professors in grad school are so
focused on research they lose track of their responsibility to
their students. It sounds like you had a pretty good experience in
college.”

“Well, I have to admit that Terra was unique in
that respect. She wasn’t even my thesis advisor, but she worked
with me as if she were. My actual advisor was a guy named Joe
Geper. He was the department chairman at the time. He lived in his
own little world and didn’t seem to understand why I was hanging
around there. One time I thought I’d go to see him about something,
I forget what the problem was anymore. But anyway, I walked up to
his office door, which he always kept shut, and knocked, and
nothing happened, and knocked again, and I finally started to walk
away because I figured he wasn’t in. I got a couple of steps away,
and I heard this, ‘Yeeees?’ and so I went back and opened the door.
He was sitting behind his desk peering at me through his bifocals
with his feet propped up and some journal open on his lap. I was
sure I woke him up, but I proceeded to tell him about this problem
and asked his advice.

“After listening politely to me, he put his
journal on the desk and stood up. ‘You know, Greta,’ he said, ‘It’s
neither fish nor fowl.’ He walked toward me scratching one of his
chins. ‘It’s neither fish nor fowl.’

“I stood still and looked down at him. He
shuffled past me to the outer office and stopped and scanned every
direction looking for something. He said, ‘Now where is my cup? I
know it’s here somewhere.’ He stumbled around the place for a while
looking everywhere. Then he walked out into the hallway, turned
left, and dragged himself down hall still muttering, ‘I know it’s
somewhere. I know it’s somewhere.’ That was the last time I ever
spoke to him. I finished my thesis with Halvorsen’s help, and I
graduated, and he never even spoke to me again, and I sure as heck
didn’t want to talk to him. So that was the extent of my
relationship with my thesis advisor.”