(eng) Kristine Kathryn Rusch - Retrieval Artist 07 by Duplicate Effort

Author:Duplicate Effort [Effort, Duplicate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Twenty-three

DeRicci returned to the raw data from the reports she had been studying. She saw the same pattern the deeper she went into the data—information was missing—but she couldn’t discern its significance.

Much as she wanted to stay ahead of her underlings on security topics, this one was over her head. She didn’t have the technical expertise to examine the raw data here in a way that yielded an understanding of the potential security crisis.

The first report had highlighted information missing from the public records placed on the public net and from the Port itself.

She flipped to the next report. It showed the same kind of lost information. Only this time, it was hotel records and banking statements—things that shouldn’t have been on the public nets, anyway. She understood why those had vanished. Some bank or hotel had probably protested, and she was about to turn away from the report when she realized that this information had originated at the same time as the information about the Port.

Little more than fifteen years ago.

She frowned.

The report told her that the banks in question as well as the hotels had lost their records for that period. The hotels really didn’t care—fifteen-year-old records of payment and who had stayed where didn’t matter all that much.

But the banks were in a panic. They had approached a security consultant who was on retainer with DeRicci’s office. He was supposed to bring anomalous information to the attention of low-level analysts.

It had been his find—the missing bank records—that had started a wider investigation.

Not every bank in Armstrong lost its records. Nor did every hotel. And it wasn’t all records for that time period.

It was the transaction records, specifically in the case of the banks, the records that accessed off-Moon accounts.

Now DeRicci was starting to get worried. When she combined the information from reports one and two, something ominous started presenting itself.

Records of trips into and out of Armstrong had vanished, as well as hotel records and banking records from the same period.

If the information weren’t so old, she would immediately issue a low-level emergency notice to law enforcement throughout the United Domes.

But the information was fifteen years old.

She wasn’t sure how it mattered.

Except that someone had decided in the last few weeks that this information needed to be purged from the records.

Why was information fifteen years old worth tampering with?

More importantly, why was that fifteen year-old-information relevant now?

She didn’t know. And she wasn’t sure how she was going to find out.

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