Effacement by Hieronymus Hawkes

Author:Hieronymus Hawkes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hieronymus Hawkes
Published: 2021-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18 - Elbow Deep in Code

TESLA CHECKED THE TIME in the edge of her vision — nine in the morning. She hadn’t slept. Her migraine had morphed into a living thing. The pain in her right eye was so severe she had to close her eyes for a few minutes with her head back against the headrest of her desk chair. She’d already dimmed all the lights as far as they went without being turned off completely. A few hours ago, she’d finished going through the entire patch and had pulled out everything added by Rita’s insertion. She spent the last hour going over the code itself, and it was some shit programming. The code was so sloppy that it leaked into other areas it wasn’t meant to; at least she didn’t think it was meant to. The new programming could cause some real problems for people using the older hardware, maybe even kill them.

Cole had been right.

She was close to figuring out what the invasive code was supposed to do, probably had another hour of work.

But Tesla was left with some hard choices. Did she tell the world they were responsible for all those deaths? Did she simply tell Lounis and drop this problem in his lap? She could quietly pull the patch, with no explanation. That would trigger its own problems. Somebody would notice. There were always hackers who went over the code with a fine-tooth comb. Tesla was certain that parts of the code had been accessed in secret organizations, places that even she didn’t know about. So far nothing bad had come of it. Nobody had been able to recreate what they did, though a few companies were trying to break into their market sector with cheaper versions of their chips, a sort of Samsung to their Apple comparison of the smartphone market from back at the turn of the century. News like this would be an enormous setback. It would cost market share.

Max’s weakness, or perverted vision, whatever, had set them on a course that Tesla had no chart for, like she was in a dark, unfamiliar house, searching for a way out. And she wasn’t alone; she needed to find Cole and drag him to safety, too.

Tesla was close to figuring out what this thing was supposed to do, some search protocols, like targeting individuals for something. It might actually be an assassination tool. That made the hair on her neck stand up. There was some complex code she needed to untangle. Her head still pounded, making it hard to think clearly. Another hour of work and maybe a nap. Then she could cope better with the ramifications of this patch chunk, think straight, and make the call on what to do. But Cole ...

She’d expected to hear from him last night. She had no idea where he was hiding. He’d told her to call him later, but she was elbow deep in code and lost track of time, as often happened, and when she thought to check, it was after two in the morning.

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