(eng) Michael Flynn - Firestar 02 by Rogue Star

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

11.

* * *

Perturbations

The first thing that happened when Roberta loaded the disc was that a big, golden badge appeared on the screen with an announcement that possession of the information on the disc constituted a felony. If he had nothing else, Jimmy Poole had a flair for melodrama.

The second thing that happened was that all her Web links shut down. That torqued her. It meant the weenie had slipped her a virus, which meant her virus sieve was not as good as she thought. And who knew what else Slick Jimmy had slicked into her system along with the Web disabler? When she rebooted, would all her confidential Crusades files bleed off into Jimmy Poole’s data banks? You heard stories when you asked around. Nothing provable; but knowledge was power, and Jimmy was greedy in more ways than one.

Just as well she had told Super Weenie to send his reports to her home and not to Crusades headquarters. If security had been breached, better here than there.

She studied the badge icon for a few moments. The first couple of packages from Poole sEcurity had been “clear view” datassemblies, and Jimmy had E-mailed them to her openly. If Jimmy didn’t want any active links while this disc was readable, it must contain something more serious than media indices and news group clippings. She clicked the decompressor, and a placard replaced the badge. It read, Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Roberta hesitated. She was stepping over a line now, and she knew it; but it was only a small step—and one amply justified. Sometimes bending the rules was called for. The rich and powerful loopholed the rules all the time, and the poor and powerless had to use whatever measures came to hand, sniping with electronic rifles from behind virtual rocks and trees at the arrogant ranks of privilege. Roberta gathered her resolution like a cloak and double-clicked the placard.

A datalanche tumbled off the disc and buried her hard drive. Files mushroomed in her directory. Folders were created, opened, stuffed with documents, closed, labelled, and stacked on the desktop. Many folders. The Great Wall of Folders. Thank God for virtuality. That much actual paper would measurably deplete the nation’s softwood forest reserves. Damn Jimmy, anyway.

The problem with keyword harvesting was that you pulled in a ton of chaff for every grain of wheat. Jimmy knew that, which made his smug innocence even more irritating. “You hired me to get the data,” he told her after his first delivery. “Organizing and interpreting it is your job.” Using word games to finesse his obligations probably struck Jimmy as the pinnacle of cleverness. Hah, hah, I filled my end of the bargain. Not my fault if you can’t make sense of it.

Well, screw him. As long as he came through, she didn’t care what he thought he was getting away with. And (fair was fair) until she knew what she was looking for, she couldn’t tell Jimmy what was important and what wasn’t. Better that he deliver a ton of hay than a handful.

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