Doctor Who (8 page)

Robert Link also had root privileges on the system. She phoned him at home and demanded his password. Encouraged by Christmas cheer, he was happy to hand it over. She logged into his account, sagging with relief when the mainframe didn't boot her out again right away. But she was already hammering in commands, checking to see what was happening on the mainframe.

Someone was downloading her email. Swan froze, hands rigid on the keyboard, as though if she didn't keep control of
her body, she was going to explode into a screaming cloud of blood.

The system itself was almost frozen, grinding along at a fraction of its normal speed. There was a process running that Swan didn't recognise. It had to be the monster that had taken over her machine. She killed it.

The system immediately sprang back up to normal speed. Again she called for a list of processes; a single command could stop the electronic theft. But the moment she typed in the command, the system logged her out again. She logged back in, this time tried listing the files on the system. Again, the machine's door slammed in her face. And all the time her private email messages were being sucked out of the mainframe by person or persons unknown.

What she didn't know was:

While Swan was glued to her terminal, struggling to defend her turf, Bob and Peri were quietly slipping through a back door of the TLA building.

Peri had been furious at being left out of the Doctor's doings yet again, while a mere interloper like me had been permitted to sit by his side and take notes. But a few moments after I left Bob's house, he called back with new instructions.

His hacking had two purposes: one, obviously, was to snatch Swan's email and scan it for information about the item the Doctor wanted. The other was to keep her distracted long enough for a couple of amateur thieves to try to snatch that item out from under Swan's nose.

Peri was doing her level best to enjoy their little adventure. Since Swan would recognise Bob's car, they were obliged to park in a near-empty strip mall lot a few blocks from the TLA
building. They walked through echoing near-darkness, slipping behind the row of offices into trashcan land. Peri wore camo gear: a pair of black trousers and a dark sweater under her black coat. Bob had reminded her to wear sneakers instead of high heels. He had simply wrapped a black leather jacket around himself, skinny legs sticking out underneath in their faded jeans.

Peri was somehow unsurprised when Bob picked a lock at the back of the TLA building. His amateur locksmithing had begun as a way of getting a closer look at the university's mainframes when they were wastefully idle in the middle of the night.

In her travels Peri had navigated many a labyrinth, cave tunnel and corridor of power. She steadied herself with a hand against the wall and followed the tiny beam of Bob's torch. The building had the unnerving quietness of any place missing its usual crowds – like high school after the school day was over, thought Peri. At least if anyone else was around, they were sure to hear them coming. They tiptoed up the fire-stairs to the first floor, then opened doors until they found someone's office. Bob looked longingly at the terminal. ‘Better not risk it,' Peri said. ‘We don't want to mess up whatever the Doctor is doing.'

He nodded and reached for the phone, but Peri had already picked it up. No-one had deigned to tell her the numbers for the loop-around pair, so she'd simply watched Bob dial the number in his study.

The high tone stabbed into her ear. Peri sat down in the chair belonging to whoever worked in the cramped room. It was actually kind of hard to do. In real life, she thought, you'd never just go into someone's office and sit at their desk. Bob seemed pretty comfortable, running his flashlight along the shelves to check out the collection of computer manuals. ‘Don't take
anything!' Peri said, alarmed. Bob snapped off the light and sat down on the edge of the desk.

They sat there for a while. The only sound was the squeal-pause-squeal of the phone. ‘Bob,' whispered Peri, ‘have you ever been in jail?'

‘No.'

‘Have you ever been in trouble at all?'

‘Worried about getting caught?' She wanted to grab him by the hair and shout, ‘Of course I am, you moron!' but instead she just nodded. ‘Don't be. What we really have to worry about is what Swan will do if she finds out who we are.'

‘We're burglars! Can she really do worse things to us than put us in prison?'

‘To the police, we've got things like rights and privacy,' said Bob. ‘And they don't have enough manpower to spend all day making our lives hell. Swan's hobby is picking on people who've annoyed her.'

‘Well, how?'

‘Cancelling your driver's licence,' said Bob. ‘Killing your phone and your computer. Wrecking your credit rating. Sending pizzas to your house. Or taxis. Or ambulances.'

‘She can do all of that?'

‘The right computers can do all of it. Get into them, and you can borrow their power for yourself. I'd much rather tangle with the Feds than Sarah Swan.'

Peri looked around the stranger's office. Tonight they'd be at home with their family. Maybe peeling potatoes for Christmas dinner. She wondered if they would realise someone had been in their space. That would be a creepy feeling. ‘Have you actually ever done this before?'

Bob shook his head, flashing a grin in the near-darkness. ‘Never in my life.'

The phone said, ‘Are you there?'

Peri gripped it. ‘We hear you, Doctor.'

‘Good. Since you're calling, I assume by now you're somewhere inside the building.' Peri felt slightly deaf in one ear. She shifted the receiver to the other ear, but the Doctor's voice was still annoyingly quiet on the other side of the test line. (He was calling from a payphone in the hotel lobby, his computer still connected to Swan's.)

‘We're here. What are we supposed to do now?'

‘Swan will be busy for a little while. The item we're after is in a storeroom in the basement. I had assumed she would keep it close at hand, but apparently she's locked it away where no-one would think to look for it.'

‘How do you know that?'

‘Hackers have one weakness,' said the Doctor smugly. ‘They always want someone to know what they're up to. They need an audience.'

‘Uh, right, Doctor.'

‘Now, off you go.'

Peri put down the phone. For a panicked moment she wondered if she'd left fingerprints on it, before she remembered that she was wearing gloves. I could never do this professionally, she thought.

Two floors above them, Sarah Swan was physically disconnecting the computer from the ARPAnet. It was the equivalent of tearing the phone cord out of the wall.

Bob and Peri snuck out of the office that had been their hideaway and went back to the fire-stairs.

Halfway down, Peri grabbed Bob's arm, rather harder than she'd meant to. They both froze. In the empty building, the
sound of footsteps was hard and clear above them.

The only way to go was downwards. They rushed down the stairs, sneakers pattering, hoping to God the firedoor was enough to muffle the sound.

Peri was still holding Bob's arm. She steered him into a narrow side corridor which led to a bathroom. Bob killed his flashlight as the firedoor opened up above them.

There wasn't time to squash into the cubicle. Instead they stood stock-still in the lightless corridor, trying to be invisible. A fluorescent bulb flickered into life, but its pale light only reached a little way into their hiding place.

Swan walked right past them a moment later, in a hurry. She had a fire axe.

Peri crept to the end of the brick corridor and risked a look around the corner. Swan was unlocking a low steel cupboard against a nearby wall. She swung it open and crouched down to look inside. The beige metal door was covered in warning stickers about dangerous chemicals and explosives. My God, thought Peri, is the woman making a bomb?

But when Swan locked the cupboard again, she hadn't taken anything out of it. Peri crept back into the unlit end of the hall just as Swan stalked past. They heard her steps going up the stairs, and the groan and slam of the firedoor.

Bob was about to step out into the basement, but something made Peri stop him. They stood together in the dimness, trying not to breathe audibly.

Then the firedoor closed a second time. Peri risked a quick look, but the stairs were empty. Swan must have been standing at the top of the steps, listening, wondering whether anyone had been waiting for her to leave.

‘She's so paranoid!' murmured Peri.

‘We
are
out to get her,' Bob whispered.

They crept across the floor to the locker. ‘Now, what do you suppose she might keep in here?' smiled Peri.

‘
A Scandal in Bohemia
,' said Bob.

‘What?' said Peri.

Bob gave her a ‘don't you know anything?' look. ‘Sherlock Holmes had Irene Adler show him where the letters were hidden by making her think her house was on fire.'

The stickers on the locker said HAZCHEM BIOHAZARD EXPLOSIVE CORROSIVE OXIDIZER CONTAINMENT ONE. Peri tugged gingerly on the cabinet's handle, but it was securely locked. ‘You'd better see if you can open it.'

Bob stared at the lock in embarrassment. ‘I can only do doors,' he said.

‘Well, what are we going to do?' hissed Peri.

Bob put his hands on either side of the squat locker and tried shaking it. Peri jumped back. There was a distinct rattle as something slid around inside the metal box.

‘Hey, it's light,' said Bob. ‘Give me a hand here.'

Peri got her hands under one end of the cabinet while Bob hefted the other. Awkwardly, they stood, balancing the near-empty locker between them.

‘Let's go,' said Bob.

They half-ran across the concrete floor, trying not to lose their grip on the box, and scuttled up the stairs like a pair of crabs.

Moments later they were outside, behind the building. ‘Wait!' hissed Peri. ‘There's no way we can lug this thing three blocks without somebody noticing!'

‘You're right,' said Bob. They carefully lowered the box to the ground. ‘You stay here, I'll get the car.'

He jogged off, leaving her standing behind their stolen goods.
Peri looked around. There was nowhere in particular to hide. She settled for squatting down beside the cabinet, her head sweeping from side to side as she checked again and again for cameras or guards or an axe-wielding hacker.

They stuffed the cabinet into the back seat of Bob's car and slowly, calmly drove behind the buildings until they got out onto the main road.

‘I'm pretty sure no-one's following us,' said Bob, five minutes later. ‘And no sirens. We've got away with it, scot-free.'

Peri burst into tears.

¹
I have omitted the details of some of the Doctor's methods to avoid encouraging would-be hackers – although this information is readily available if you know where to look.

PERI APOLOGISED TO
Bob about fifteen times for her brief session of sobbing in his car. He reassured her about fifteen times that it was no big deal, they were all under a lot of stress. Bob was acutely aware that he didn't know what to do with a weeping woman. He concentrated on driving back to his house.

The Doctor was waiting for them on Bob's sofa with a copy of Kliban's
Cat
in his lap and a pair of bifocals perched on his nose. (I was sitting on a wooden chair, watching TV.) ‘What have we here?' he asked, standing up.

‘Oh, Doctor,' said Peri, enormously relieved. They exchanged a hug. She's about chest height on him, seems tiny standing beside him. So do I, really. He takes up a lot of space, not just because he's a big man: he moves around a lot, he fills the air with words and gestures. He's the focal point of any room he's in.

Bob stared at him for about thirty seconds. Before he could say anything, the Doctor said, ‘Do you remember that thing I told you could happen?' Bob nodded mutely. ‘Well, it happened.'

‘No, man,' said Bob. ‘I mean, your
suit
.'

Peri exploded. ‘Where have you been all this time? Why all the secrecy? Why'd you rush off like that? I didn't know if you were alive or dead!'

‘Desperate expediency, I'm afraid.'

‘Oh, what's that supposed to mean?'

The Doctor said, ‘I'm sure that even you noticed the
restaurant we visited was more than it seemed to be. It acts as a meeting place and message drop for . . . unusual people.'

‘You could've at least left me a note,' whinged Peri.

‘The people I'm working with barely gave me enough time to catch my breath!' retorted the Doctor. They've objected all along to my involving anyone else – even trusted friends.' That seemed to mollify Peri, and Bob grew in height by about two inches.

I had the persistent feeling, listening to the conversations between the three of them, that I was constantly being carefully shut out of certain areas. It wasn't just that I'm a journalist, or that they had shady dealings with shadier characters. I had a real sense that there were things that Man Was Not Meant To Know – at least, man outside their small group. It wasn't quite the same feeling I'd once had talking to a group of UFO enthusiasts, who were keen to impress upon me that they had secret knowledge that they couldn't risk sharing, and so constantly dropped hints and fragments of that arcane lore. It was more like the feeling I had during a conversation with two desperately shy gay friends who were out to each other, but not out to me, and were frantic not to let me know.

Bob quickly recovered his poise. ‘We've got what you wanted right here,' he said, tapping the short cabinet with his foot. Peri looked nervous. Maybe Swan had been checking her blackmail photos or her Strawberry Shortcake collection.