Reality Matrix Effect (9781310151330) (15 page)

Wraggon looked around him. Disk modules lined
all four walls of the library, extending from the ground to the
ceiling three stories above them. A stairway to the left of the
main desk and an elevator to the right provided access to the
balcony-like upper floors.

 “
I feel like I’m standing at the
bottom of some kind of deep hole,” Wraggon said as he gazed upward.
“Shit!  I never realized how much information they keep in
these places,” he said.

“Oh, this is really nothing. You should see
the regional libraries. Then there are the archives, where they
store the master disks with all the information they’ve transferred
to computer storage over the years. And the originals. They’ve got
warehouses of the stuff—real books and paper records, too. Backups
for backups. We don’t have nearly enough manpower to destroy all
the records, but we can do a good job of screwing things up if we
handle this right.”

“How’d you get to be so smart?” Flynn
snarled.

Tauber ignored the sarcasm.

“Before I left Fleet, I made damn sure I
learned everything I could—anything I figured might be useful later
on. Fleet was very cooperative. After my big run-in with the brass,
they grounded me. Guess they figured they could keep me in line by
giving me some sort of desk job. Their mistake. Hank Tauber’s
nobody’s sheep. Anyhow, they gave me all sorts of training on the
Fleet computer system—which meant learning a helluva lot about CDN,
not to mention a few other things that are going to come in very
handy for us.”

“What now?” asked Flynn.

“Now we start putting our plan into
operation. Like I’ve been saying for weeks, the whole world depends
on information and energy these days. Take those away, and what
you’ve got is a nice, juicy apple, ripe for the picking.

“We’ve got an information-exchange node
coming up in about—” Tauber paused to look at his wristwatch “—25
minutes. First thing we’ve got to do is tap into the data burst.
Then we use the library’s master computer to analyze the burst and
isolate the transmission codes.”

Barnard scratched his head, a puzzled
expression on his face. “What transmission codes?” he finally
asked.

Tauber sighed and rolled his eyes.

“Come on, Barnard,” he almost pleaded. “We’ve
been over this 20 times. You’re a
merchanter
, for God’s
sake!  Didn’t you learn anything about how the CDN system on
Earth ties in with the one in the colonies?”

“Well, yeah, sure I did,” Barnard answered
somewhat defensively. “But I still don’t see what that has to do
with—”

“You explain it to him, Wraggon,” said an
exasperated Tauber. “Do me a favor, and translate it into this
guy’s language!” 

Tauber shook his head and snorted derisively
as  Barnard’s Fleet-issue merchanter boots suddenly caught his
eye.
Now, what kind of idiot wears merchanter boots when
he
’
s on leave?   
With
a quick mental shrug, Tauber shifted his attention to more
immediate concerns.

“Flynn, you go scout the upper floors. Better
take the flashlight. See if you can find the supply room, just in
case we need anything. And make sure the main office and the
receiving station are unlocked.”

Tauber watched Flynn walk deliberately to the
stairway, then bound up the steps two at a time.

“Look, Barnard, it’s real simple,” Wraggon
was saying. “The colonies are too far away for us to use the same
database. Communicating back and forth over that distance takes too
long. Slows the computers down too much. So instead of having just
one network, we really got two of ’em—one on Earth, and one out in
the colonies.”

“Yeah, Charlie, I know that much already.
What’s that have to do with what Hank was saying about data bursts
and transmission codes?”

“Well, think about it for a minute. When you
use the CDN, you’re supposed to be able to get whatever information
you need, no matter if you’re in Los Angeles or somewheres on
Ceres. Right?  But that means the colonies’ network and the
Earth’s network both gotta have the same information. You got to
update both networks. You know—like, Earth’s network gets a copy of
the latest stuff the colonial network has, and vice
versa.”    

“Oh, yeah,” Barnard said, his eyes
brightening. “That’s what those information-exchange nodes are….
 Aren’t they?”

Wraggon nodded. “They take all the
information they need to send to the colonies and put it in some
fancy electronic package, then send it out in a high-speed radio
burst. The colonies do the same thing with the stuff they need to
send us. They make an exchange like that about every couple
weeks.” 

“Right,” Tauber broke in. “And in order to
make the exchange as fast as possible, they time it for when Earth
and the colonial transmitting station are in their closest
positions to one another for the two-week period. Which in this
case happens to be in about—” he checked his watch once more “—17
minutes.”

Barnard nodded, apparently satisfied, and
Tauber lifted his eyes toward the upper floors, searching for
Flynn. Suddenly, Barnard caught Tauber’s arm.

“But what does any of that have to do with
transmission codes?” he said. “You said something about
transmission codes.”

Tauber closed his eyes and shook his
head.

“Oh, for Chrissake!” Wraggon erupted,
suddenly out of patience. “We’re gonna steal the transmission codes
so we can fake messages from the colonies!  Were you on the
sauce during the briefings?”

The pale yellow light of the glow lamp
emphasized the woebegone look on Barnard’s face.

“I ain’t had a drink since we started this
thing,” he said, drawing himself up to his full, imposing
height.

Wraggon studied the big man for a moment,
then smiled and clapped him on the back.

“Yeah, I know, Vince. Sorry. It’s okay. Don’t
worry about it. Just let Hank and me do the thinking for you.”

Tauber grunted. He’d have to watch Wraggon
carefully. He was crucial to this plan—and Wraggon knew it. But
Tauber didn’t want the man getting any ideas about who was in the
pilot’s seat.

“Hey, Tauber,” came a voice from above.
“We’re all set up here. Top floor.”

Quickly, Tauber headed for the stairs. “Grab
my satchel and follow me,” he told the others. “Bring the lamp,
too!”

Flynn met them at the landing.

“Kinda out of shape, aren’t ya?” Flynn
scoffed as Wraggon huffed and puffed his way up the last few steps
carrying the glow lamp.

“Never mind that,” Tauber exclaimed before
Wraggon had a chance to respond. “Where’s the office?”

“Over there,” Flynn said with stab of his
thumb, proceeding to lead the way.

“Who’s the cripple?” Wraggon asked as he
followed the others into a small room containing the library’s
central computer and communication equipment.

Tauber, already seated at the main computer
terminal, busied himself hunting through his satchel.

“I said, does anyone know who the crip is?”
Wraggon persisted, tilting his head in the direction of a large
framed photograph depicting a gray-haired woman

seated in a wheelchair.  

Quickly, Tauber glanced up, then returned his
attention to the satchel, from which he had now removed an
auxiliary dual disk-drive unit and a disk case.

“Oh, her. That’s Althea Milgrom.”

Wraggon gazed intently at the photograph as
Tauber began inspecting the expansion hookup connectors on the
terminal.

“That
’
s
Althea Milgrom?  The head of the whole
Consolidated Data Network?”

“That’s her,” Tauber said without much
interest.

“Jesus Christ!  It’s bad enough having a
woman in charge of one of the most important agencies in the world,
but a cripple, too?”  Wraggon shook his head. “This is just
what we’re fighting against. You take away the computers and the
robbies, and this dame is nothing. But the way things are, she has
all kinds of power. She makes decisions every day that can affect
all our lives. She controls the world’s information, and that means
she can control us.”

Tauber continued to study the terminal
connectors as he answered.

“She may have the power to control us,” he
said evenly, “but being a softie like the rest of the soft-heads
who run this world, she won’t
use
her power. That’s why we
won’t have any trouble taking it away from her.…

“Shit!”

The others looked at one another in stunned
silence. It was the first real burst of emotion any of them had
heard from Tauber.

“What’s wrong?” asked Wraggon.

“It’s the expansion connectors,” Tauber
answered tonelessly, making a studied effort to reclaim control of
the situation while projecting an image of cool self-confidence
under pressure. “Looks like the connectors were never used. Either
they were bad when they were put in, or else they were damaged
somehow and nobody ever noticed.”

“So what do we do about it?”

Tauber thought fast. “Flynn,” he said, “did
you see some kind of tool box in the supply room?”  Flynn
nodded. “Then go get it. And move!  We’ve only got about 10
minutes before the node!”

Tauber’s eyes darted desperately about the
room. They were so close!  He couldn’t let it all slip away
now because of some quality-control glitch on a computer assembly
line!  But the photocouplers were missing from the connectors,
and without those couplers, there was no way to link the
fiber-optic transmission lines of the auxiliary drive unit to those
of the terminal—in short, no way to tap into the library’s
computer.
For want of a coupler, the world was
lost, Tauber
reflected bitterly. All he needed were two little blobs of
creatinum. But how in space was he going to find a useable source
of creatinum at almost half past two in the morning in the middle
of the L.A. public library?

Suddenly, he brightened.

“Barnard,” he ordered, “give me one of your
boots!”

“Huh?” the big man responded.

“Listen,” Tauber said, rising and shoving
Barnard into a vacant chair. “I don’t have time to explain now.
Give me a boot!”

Without waiting for Barnard to react, Tauber
grabbed the merchanter’s right boot and released the clasp. Then,
slipping the boot off Barnard’s size-12 foot, he returned to the
terminal.

“Here it is,” Flynn announced, brushing
through the office door and setting a small tool box on the floor
beside Tauber. “What’re you gonna do?”

Tauber checked his watch. Seven minutes to
go. He might just make it.

Good old Fleet, he mused as he rummaged
through the tool box until he found a standard Ronex five-in-one.
First developed by Fleet for use in the colonies, the Ronex
multiple-function tool had proved so valuable for Earthbound uses
that it had become a staple of tool kits everywhere. And thanks to
Fleet’s belief in dual-purpose equipment, the clasps on
standard-issue merchanter boots were made of creatinum. The
creatinum not only made a sturdy, virtually unbreakable clasp, but
it also provided a ready supply of the substance for emergency
repairs.

Despite the cool, dry air in the library
office, beads of sweat began to dot Tauber’s face as he used the
Ronex to cut two small pieces of creatinum from Barnard’s boot.
After a quick adjustment to the Ronex, he used the tool’s setter
extension to carefully position the creatinum chips inside the two
recessed connectors on the terminal.

“Gimme the flashlight,” he said to no one in
particular, holding out his left hand but keeping his eyes focused
on the connectors.

He glanced at his watch—four minutes
left—then moved the flashlight beam control to “narrowest” and
switched the emission indicator from “normal” to
“stimulated.”  He swallowed hard, then aimed the flashlight
into the first of the two connectors. A ruby beam of laser light
fused the creatinum to the end of the connector, and Tauber allowed
himself a tentative sigh of relief. Now the second one. This would
be trickier. It was hard to find the right angle on this one, and
if he was off line, he could wind up frying the terminal itself. He
inhaled deeply, then held his breath as he fired another beam
toward the terminal.

“I think that’ll do it,” he breathed, wiping
the perspiration from his forehead and checking his watch
again. “Two minutes to go.” 

Quickly, he hooked the auxiliary drive into
the terminal. He removed a disk from his own disk case and inserted
it into one of the unit’s drives. Then, after quickly inspecting a
shelf above the terminal, he selected a disk from another case and
placed it in the auxiliary unit’s second drive. He took a slow deep
breath, then looked up.

“Okay,” he said, “it’s all set up now. When
the burst comes through in...let’s see, 50 seconds...when it comes
through, the computer here’ll do its normal thing. With this
auxiliary unit plugged into the standard connectors, nobody’ll be
able to tell that anything unusual’s going on. But the disk I put
in Drive A will record the burst for us. Then after the
transmission, we use the disk in Drive B to analyze the burst and
give us the access and special identity codes the colonies use for
transmissions to Earth. The same program’ll give us the codes for
Earth-to-colony transmissions, too.”

Tauber permitted himself a tight smile.

 “
Here it comes!” he said,
gesturing toward the terminal screen, which was flashing the words
“DATA-EXCHANGE TRANSMISSION IN PROGRESS.”  The
whrrrr
of the disk drive was sweet music to Tauber, who, despite his
efforts to appear confident, hadn’t been at all certain that the
modified connectors would work.

They all watched the screen, Tauber seated at
the terminal and the others standing in a semicircle behind him.
Moments later, the message changed:  “DATA-EXCHANGE
TRANSMISSION COMPLETE,” it read. Tauber pounded his right fist into
his left palm.