"Gresh, Lois - Termination Node" - читать интересную книгу автора (Gresh Lois)

1
Judy Carmody's legs ached. It was three in the freaking morning, and here she was, still staring at some stupid computer screen in an office hellhole. The room left a sourness in her mouth. Not enough air circulation in this dump.
Certainly not enough for the beefcake hardware that controlled the money of half the population in Laguna Beach. This kind of beef-cake required sterile living quarters,
Not dust on the tiled floors.
Not gray fabric walls enclosing it in a ten-by-ten prison.
She stroked the top of the monitor. Warm, too much heat. Beneath the desk, the disk drives whirred, emitting a nice low technothrum that rose to a whine, A sonata played on a broken instrument.
"These babies are at risk." Her voice came out scratchy, the wordy all frazzed.
"Could be," Jose said, "but, you know management, they won't
4 THE TERMINATION NODE
spring for better digs unless I'm a grade fourteen. Like that'll be the day."
Jose Ferrents. Senior security programmer at Laguna Savings Bank. One of Judy's best customers. She was stuck here until he was satisfied that she'd thoroughly checked the computer for security leaks. New passwords had been granted to marketing guys the day before. Like passwords would matter to some hacker. Jose was one paranoid quack.
He leaned back in his chair, waiting for her to finish the job. Thick black hair streaked with green Etch-o-Oil. Red lines painted beneath bloodshot blue eyes. Jose went in for the Dracula look.
The monitor flipped to the screen saver: swarms of infinitely regressing cubes and triangles, a neon blaze set against black. Dracula got off on the forever realm of fractals.
"Look, can we finish up? I'm really tired, Jose," It was creepy being cramped next to Jose in his lair, the gray walls plastered with posters of microchip circuits and lanky blondes in goth bikinisЧlike he really knew anything about circuits or bikinis. Duh . . .
"Sure. I have more important things to do, too." Jose graced her with a little smirk. She knew better. Jose never had anything more important to do than play with computers.
Judy shut her eyes, brushed her long, auburn hair out of the way, rubbed her neck. Damn, she was getting cranky. It was just too late to have to deal with Jose. She'd had one hell of a long day, grinding Internet security code for Steve Sanchez, fielding hysterical E-mails from that programmer at Widescreen DVD. But as a computer security specialist hanging five hundred dollars an hour, Judy could cope with a stiff neck a little longer and put up with Dracula.
He touched the screen. The fractals disappeared, replaced by the log of Internet transactions that had been executed by the bank's corporate customers.
Jose had done a good job on the bank's World Wide Web site. A customer entered a password, then processed debits and credits against authorized accounts. All transactions were encrypted before transmission, then decrypted at the bank. Crypto chips and digital cash. When
Jose had first installed the system back in '02, Laguna Savings had quickly become one of the top Internet banks in the country.
Jose rolled his chair across the room to the other computer server. The clanking of rollers on tile cut into the disk drive whine and made Judy's body jerk. If only her nerves would settle, if only she could stay awake, if only she could find a method other than coffee, which she'd given up five years ago, or Methamorph, which she'd given up in high school.
But there'd be no drugs for Judy; not like Jose, twitching in his chair over there, nerves atwanging like snapped guitar strings, body gaunt, hollow eyes a million miles deepЧtubular twin tunnels to nowhere.
No. She'd finish this job, then sack out for a few hours before facing another long day tomorrowЧno, today.
She checked the first Internet transaction in the log, a withdrawal made by a small investment firm down by Laguna Beach. Jose checked the firm's account on the other server and confirmed that the withdrawal had been correctly subtracted.
They moved to the second transaction, and on down the list, until finally Jose said, "Two more transactions and we're done."
Her eyes shifted from the screen to the shelves over Jose's head. Micro Utility CorpЧnow a subsidiary of SonyЧdouble-reinforced units, part number 3B12G14, the screws holding them together, part numbers 3B75I28 and 3C72I25. The shelves were crammed with Ethernet boxes and punchdown blocks.
Just two more transactionsЧ crank 'em and get out.
One more.
"What the hell is this?" Jose's shoulders quivered more than usual.
The Methamorph freak. Jumping at ghosts. "Gut it out, Jose. It's late, and I want to go home."
"Penetration." One word, tight and low.
"Cut it out, Jose."
"I said, penetration. Big one. A half-million-dollar withdrawal from each of ten accounts, all made by Hirama Electronics."
What? Was he, like . . . serious?
She pushed herself from the desk, cringed as the chair rollers ground across tile, then stood and peered past Jose's shoulder. "That's a lot of money, but doesn't necessarily imply penetration," she said.
"Hirama transactions never come across the Net. They're always made in person by some top management guy in an Italian pinstriped suit."
He redisplayed the Hirama bank accounts. All ten had zero balances.
In the middle of the night, someone was wiping millions of dollars from Hirama's accounts. Penetration: a hacker. Judy grasped the back of Jose's chair. She was too close to the Dracula green-streaked head, too close to the new-plastic reek of Etch-o-Oil.
Jose massaged his right fingers with his left hand. His pupils were wider than Metha-normal, his forehead creased, his mouth trembling. "Fingers, can't move 'em."
Judy crouched beneath the blinking red Ethernet lights, the multicolored spaghetti wires dripping off the punchdowns. Her chin brushed against the Etch-o-hair. It was stiff, like scouring pad bristles. Mercifully, he rolled his chair to the side to give her space.
She closed the Hirama file, then accessed it again to see if the changes remained.
The accounts no longer had zero balances.
She had to be losing her grip. It was late; she was tired. Try again. She redisplayed the Internet transaction log, This time, it showed a huge transaction that had deleted several million dollars in Hirama funds.
A freaking break-in hacker at play in the black void of the Internet.
"A superhacker" she whispered.
Hot damn.
She hardly felt her legs move as she returned to the first computer, on the other side of the room. She was only faintly conscious of her socks padding across the tiles. Faintly conscious of the screen saver fractals. She touched the screen, kind of like touching God or something. Her whole body was numb. Brain in high gear. Ice-cold focus.
On the Laguna Savings Internet transaction page, real-time, right here and now, some freakzoid was deleting Hirama funds, then replac-
ing them. What if this was no kid, out for a computer joyride? Breaking through a bank's firewalls was a federal offense and came with a mandatory jail sentence.
"Do a trace." Jose was behind her now, his breath hot on her neck. She hadn't even heard him cross the room.
She squinted and started typing.