The Geneva Factor by Jacob Allen

Author:Jacob Allen [Allen, Jacob]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2015-04-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8

Three excruciating days. Morris waited three long, excruciating days before resuming his investigation. Not nearly long enough to completely allay any suspicions, but it was all he had. In those three days he had seen Blankenship more than he had in the entire month prior. Turning a corner, stopping by the base exchange, grabbing a beer at the pub. Wherever he went, it seemed like Blankenship was there. Maybe he was just being paranoid. It could have been a coincidence, but he doubted that.

In that time there was just one quick conversation via comlink with Director Corradi. She called to commend him for his swift handling of the “Dyne matter,” as she called it. No mention of the audit. No mention of the fact that they still didn’t really know what had killed him.

Leaving his office, Luke made his way to the east hoteling center. To anyone watching, his convoluted path would look like a normal security patrol. There shouldn’t be anything to indicate the hoteling suite was the destination he had in mind. Arriving 20 minutes later, he found the suite to be about seventy five percent full. Technicians and scientists throughout the facility used these hubs to access the base’s computer systems for non-priority work. Families used them to communicate back and forth with Earth and supplement the systems in their quarters. The centers bustled with the coming and going of just about everyone on the base at all hours. It was perfect.

Scanning the room, Luke identified a vacant workstation along the east wall of the room with a clear view of both entrances. He’d used the time over the last three days to generate a false computer identity he could use to access the system without triggering any kind of flag that might have been issued for his credentials. It wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny, but it should be all he needed for a one-time hack.

Sitting down at the station he ported to a machine on the far side, logged in using the false ID and began to open a variety of portlets—data links back to earth, video downloads, random keyword searches—all to keep the system busy while he did the real work. Tracking back through one of the video downloads he exploited a vulnerability that was usually benign, but allowed him to link into an Earth-based company archive.

The revelation that Julia was Dyne’s replacement allowed him to bypass the issue of motive and focus on how Hooper had accessed the station and the SciLab. Every evening the base sent a burst transmission to the Earth archive dumping the contents of the system as part of the business continuity and disaster recovery plan. Most people assumed that the backup was a complete transfer of all data in the network. Luke knew that the reality was that, to minimize bandwidth and cost, the system was really a progressive transfer of only those sectors that had changed since the previous burst transmission. Once a quarter, a full core dump was transferred physically back to Earth.

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