Connected (20 page)

A quick glance at his online bank statements
revealed no irregularities, but he changed the passwords anyway. It took most
of the afternoon to back-up the data, format the disk, and then install Linux,
but the result exceeded his expectations, the machine booting in less than half
the usual time, and all the essential programmes running noticeably faster than
before.

The video editing software was quite basic in its
functionality, but being open-source, allowed Doug to view and edit the
underlying code. The issue with the fractal graphics was that they were
produced by an executable programme, and therefore didn’t exist as either still
or moving image formats. What Kal must have done, Doug realised, was to modify
both programmes so that the graphic output of the fractal generator was fed
directly into the image acquisition routine of the video editor. Once captured,
Martin’s audio could be added simply enough, and the two sources synchronised
to form a playable video file. It might take a few days to accomplish, but he
saw no reason for such an approach to fail. At that moment, an instant message
popped up on the screen. It was from Becky, and contained just a single link.
Doug clicked on it, intrigued. The browser opened to display what looked like a
personal web page of one Dmitri Zhirkov. In the top left corner was the photo
of a rather peculiar looking young man with long greasy black hair and
piercings through both eyebrows, nose and tongue, the latter of which was stuck
out towards the camera in an unconvincing pose of anarchic rebellion. The text
was mostly in Russian, but peppered with odd English words, which seemed to
stand out pretentiously from the screen. The phone rang. “So what do you
think?” came Becky’s excited voice.
“Don’t tell me you’ve nailed it down to this one guy.”
“He’s such an amateur!” she shrieked. “It was the easiest thing. He obviously
never imagined anyone would try to hack him back. The tracer led me straight to
this machine, which at some point in the past, he was stupid enough to have
used as a personal web-server.” She was sounding smug now. “He obviously hasn’t
used it for years though because none of the links work, and the most recent
update was eight years ago. He must have just forgotten to delete this one page
which I found in a hidden directory.”
“You know, it’s actually kind of scary how good you are at this stuff!” said
Doug, completely in awe at Becky’s mastery as a net-sleuth.
“And guess where this server is.”
“Not Moscow?”
“London! Now, if you want to see something really cool, login to Facebook and
accept Jasmine Bedfellow as a friend.”
“Who’s she?”
“My alter-ego!” replied Becky. “I have a real profile too, which you can add
later if you want, but this is the one I use for all my Internet stalking
requirements.” A nervous and slightly maniacal snort of laughter rattled down
the line. “Sorry, I’m just quite enjoying this,” she said apologetically.
Doug opened up Facebook and accepted the two friend requests. Becky had no
profile picture, which was understandable given the circumstances, and a mere
eleven friends. Jasmine on the other hand was a stunningly attractive
twenty-four year old model from South London with olive skin, dark sultry eyes,
and long, luxurious black hair. She had 957 friends, most of whom appeared to
be male and curiously indisposed to the wearing of shirts.
“Wow!” said Doug with a laugh. “You’ve been collecting men!”
“It’s amazing who’ll agree to be your friend when you have a profile picture
like this.”
“Yes, well, the darker sex can be a bit shallow at times,” accepted Doug.
“It’s not just men though…you’d be surprised what some women say they want to
do with me!”
“So who is she…really, I mean?” asked Doug, trying to eschew the image of hot
lesbian sex which had just entered his mind.
“A Columbian porn star.”
Doug burst out laughing, the former image returning more vividly than ever. “No
way!”
“Yes, but just forget her for now if you can. Try searching her friends for our
ring-nosed Russian.”
Doug typed in the name, and up popped the slightly fatter, older, but still
recognisable metal studded visage of Dmitri Zhirkov.
“Obviously don’t try and add him as a friend,” said Becky hastily. “Assuming
he’s the one who hacked your computer - and judging by all the black-hat forum
links in his profile, that would certainly fit - then he may just recognise
your name. But as a friend of Jasmine, you should be able to see most of his details.
He’s a bit of a show-off you see, and so his privacy settings grant almost full
access to friends of friends.”
“Fantastic! Not sure what I’m going to do with this information, but it’s nice
to put a face to this mysterious violator of my cyber-privacy – even if it is
such a peculiar one.”
Becky laughed. “Well I suppose you could go to the police, but it might be
difficult to explain how you tracked him down, or for that matter to prove that
it really was he, who hacked your machine. In any case, I think my part in this
is done. I’m afraid I have some real work to do now, so good luck, have fun
with Dmitri, and I’ll see you in lectures on Monday.”
Doug thanked her again, and began to delve into the social networking world of
his newly discovered hacker-turned-hackee.

Dmitri Zhirkov had 63 friends, the majority of whom
were male. There was an email address under the info section, but no phone
numbers. He was fan to a number of obscure heavy metal and punk bands from
around the world, and as Becky had pointed out, most of the links listed were
to various computer hacking websites. His wall posts were written in a mixture
of Russian and English, and largely completed Doug’s mental portrait of a
sexually repressed computer nerd into heavy metal and fast cars. He browsed the
dozens of photographs posted to the man’s profile. About half of these
portrayed the peculiar little man posing with various groups of similar types,
while the other half showed him leering luridly at the camera with an arm or
two looped lecherously around the shoulders of a succession of attractive yet
clearly unwillingly conscripted young girls. The profile status read “…off to
Snow Leopard tonight!” - added two hours ago. A quick search showed a North
London strip club of the same name.
“Yep, that looks like just the sort of place to find a wanker like you,”
muttered Doug under his breath. Then a thought crossed his mind. He looked at
his watch. If he caught the next train to Liverpool Street, he could actually
be at this club by around nine. He wasn’t quite sure what he would do when he
got there, but he imagined it would come to him one way or another. He knocked
on Brian’s door.

Peter wished to be
somewhere else.

After the initial excitement at his recounting of
the burglary the previous night, the conversation around the dining table had
turned even duller than usual. Was it he who had changed, or was it everyone
else? There had surely been a time when the purchase of a villa on the Costa
del Sol by a lunch guest would have piqued his curiosity for at least a few
minutes, but as the empty suit proudly expounded the acquisition of his
Andalusian abode, Peter saw only a precarious edifice of self justification. He
smiled and nodded politely at what he hoped were appropriate moments, but his
thoughts had already wandered back to Isabelle. That first sensation of her
soft warm flesh, separated from his by only two thin layers of cotton would, he
hoped, be burned into memory for eternity. He wanted to preserve every nuance of
the experience. Their shallow erratic breathing, as years of pent up desire was
carried to the threshold of gratification. The mutual knowledge of having
reached that critical line, beyond which nothing would ever be the same again,
and the agonising decision of whether to yield to the temptation to cross it.

“So Peter, what do you think?” asked the poison
dwarf.
Peter looked at the diminutive figure across the table, her smiling mouth
betrayed by the supercilious glint in her eyes.
For a mischievous moment he considered answering literally. I’m actually
thinking of the sensation of my sister-in-law’s breasts pressing against my
chest through her cotton nightdress last night.
“About what?” he answered instead.
Abigail tutted. “About buying one of the other villas in the same complex – oh
do pay attention darling!”
“Why would we want to do that?” asked Peter, genuinely bewildered.
“Well, as Craig has just explained, it could be a good investment for our
retirement - not to mention all the cheap holidays we could have in the
meantime.”
He considered this for a moment. “I’m sorry, but I really can’t think of
anything more odious than having to spend my retirement with the bilious,
beer-bellied Brits of Benidorm…”
“
Benalmádena
!”
interjected the empty suit resentfully.
“Present company excepted of course,” added Peter, rather too late.
“Peter, what on earth has got into you?” yelled Abigail.
“I’m terribly sorry,” said Peter, trying to keep a straight face, “I’m sure the
Brits in
Benalmádena
are far less bilious than those in Benidorm.”
“What does bilious mean?” asked Kate.
That was it, Peter finally burst into laughter while everyone else looked
silently on: the empty suit and poison dwarf with indignation, Abigail with
angry embarrassment, and Sam and Kate with an innocent combination of amusement
and confusion.
“I want to go to Turkey again for our holiday,” said Sam.
They all looked at the boy, and then at each other.
“Well it’s perhaps better if you do,” said the empty suit finally, looking down
at his empty plate.
“More vegetables anyone?” asked Abigail. “They’re organic!”
“I only buy organic as well,” chimed in the poison dwarf, apparently grateful
for the change of subject. “Don’t want any of those pesticides or GM in them.”
“GM means generically modified,” said Sam, “I learnt it in school.”
“Genetically modified!” Peter corrected.
“Whatever it is, we don’t want it, do we Sam?” said the poison dwarf curtly.
“Why not?” asked Peter.
She looked at him obstinately, her orange cheeks flushing pink. “Well, it’s interfering
with nature isn’t it. Can’t be good for you.”
“Well – that might be true for some GM crops - in the same way that some
‘natural’ varieties of a plant may not contain as many nutrients as others, but
that doesn’t mean that genetic modification is inherently bad.”
“Peter!” warned Abigail.
“What? I’m just saying that we shouldn’t reject something simply on the basis
of ignorance. We’ve been selectively breeding things for hundreds if not
thousands of years. Nobody questions that - except perhaps to lament the
trading of flavour for better shelf-life in things like tomatoes and
strawberries.”
“I find most supermarket strawberries completely tasteless,” said the empty
suit, looking pleased at the opportunity to contribute something to this new
conversation.
“Quite!” said Peter, wondering why he was even bothering to engage these
idiots. “The point I was trying to make is that the net result of GM isn’t all
that different to selective breeding programmes, which have been universally
accepted - at least from an ethical point of view.” He looked around the table
for signs of agreement, or at the very least, acknowledgement of the validity
of his argument, but his gaze was met with only confusion, irritation or both.
“Excuse me,” he said finally, in exasperation, “I’ve just remembered, I need to
make a phone call. Please just carry on enjoying all this wholesomely natural
bounty without me.” He then got up and walked out. As he headed up the stairs
to his study, he heard Abigail mutter an apology containing the words Martin,
funeral and mid-life crisis, and wondered whether she really considered that to
be an acceptable excuse. He had certainly been ruder than usual, but he felt
happily indifferent. After spending several days of the previous week reacquainting
himself with the latest progress on Superstring theory, he now had little time
for such banality. Why waste one’s hours with people for whom he had no
respect. Life was too short and precious for that. If Abigail wanted to
continue to see them, then she could do so without him. At least now they would
be under no illusion as to how he felt, and perhaps as a result would cease
inviting themselves round.

Yes, it was
definitely he who had changed.

As the train rattled out of Colchester on its way south
towards London, Brian listened, dumbfounded, and with an unnerving absence of
wisecracks, while Doug recounted the events of day.
“So what’s the grand plan then Sherlock?” he finally asked. “Drag him
out of the club by his ears and beat him to a pulp, until he tells us why he
hacked into your PC?”
“No, of course not!” said Doug indignantly. “We ask him nicely - and then we
beat him to a pulp!” He managed to keep a straight face for about five seconds
before cracking. “Seriously?” he continued. “I’ve no idea. Part of me wants to
confront him, and part of me wants to just spy on him, like he’s been spying on
me and…well…you know, see where it leads.”
“I suppose at the very least, we’ll get to spy some bare naked ladies,” said
Brian cheerfully. “The drinks will be expensive though. Do you think we should
stop for a couple of pints before we get there?”
Doug produced a hip flask from his coat pocket. “Why do you think I brought
this?”
They each took swigs and grimaced as the cheap cooking brandy burned its way
down their throats.
“So, talking of naked ladies, when are you going to see Susan again?” asked
Doug.
Brian smiled coyly. “Next Wednesday. She’s invited me to hers for dinner. I
think it’s going to happen!”
Doug nodded approvingly, already switching thoughts to Cindy.
“Don’t worry mate! She’ll be back,” said Brian, as if reading his mind. “After
you so heroically got yourself beaten up for her, how could she not?”

The train started to brake and the station of
Chelmsford slid gradually into view through the partly misted windows of the
carriage. On the platform, a huddle of teenage girls, shivering defiantly
against the chill night air in their skimpy tops, short skirts and sandals,
jostled towards the train. A middle-aged man in black tie and dinner jacket ran
his eyes lasciviously up their thin white legs as they boarded. The woman at
his side, in high heels and fur coat, followed, pretending not to notice. The
girls took their seats just across the aisle from Doug and Brian, and the train
lurched forward to resume its grudging progress toward the capital.
“I don’t even know where she lives,” said Doug, still gazing dejectedly through
the window. “And she’s not answering my calls.”
“You could try calling from another number so she doesn’t recognise who you
are,” suggested Brian.
Doug huffed. “That’s not the point though, is it? If she doesn’t want to speak
to me, tricking her into answering the phone doesn’t really advance my cause.”
Brian looked at him for moment, trying to think of something helpful to say,
then grabbed the hip flask and raised it in the air. “Some you win and some you
lose, but in the end there’s always booze!” He took a large swig and coughed
loudly. “This really is quite unpleasant, isn’t it?”
Doug nodded and reached for another sip.