The Nexus by Mitchell J. Kraft

Author:Mitchell, J. Kraft [Mitchell, J. Kraft]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-02-10T08:00:00+00:00

THEY circled the balcony overlooking HQ, passed through a small anteroom, and stepped into a dark, cramped chamber piled with very outdated technological devices.

“Welcome to our technology lab,” said Holiday. “And this is our technician, Dino.”

“Dino?”

“Not my real name,” said the funny little man. “Dino as in dinosaur—because I work with all this old technology. Real cute nickname. Mr. H came up with it himself.”

“Show her the videocassette,” Holiday told Dino.

“Right.” He handed her the narrow black box.

“See the dark magnetic tape rolled inside?” said Holiday. “For a time during the late twentieth century, this was essentially the only way to personally store video.”

Jill squinted at the video tape. “How did they store video on this thing?”

“The tape is full of images. A certain device would scroll through the tape and send the images onto a screen, along with audio signals to match.”

“This is the device here,” said Dino, patting the VCR Corey and Bradley had brought in. “You hooked this thing up to a television and put the videocassette in this slot. Of course, digital video discs pretty much totally replaced videocassettes by the end of the twentieth century.”

“Why would anyone want to use this old stuff?” asked Jill.

She realized she knew the answer before Holiday said it.

“It’s analogue data, Jillian; not digital.”

“So Sherlock doesn’t know about it,” said Jill.

“Bingo,” said Dino.

“Any form of data storage which is inaccessible to Sherlock,” said Holiday, “could not have been obtained legally, according to the Digital Information Exclusivisation Act.”

“So this thing was smuggled here from the Home planet.”

Holiday nodded. “In this case, the videocassette and others like it were being used to store illegal material.”

“Films banned by the Anterran government,” said Dino. “The guy was renting them out. Mr. Love, he calls himself.”

“That’s the least of our worries,” said Holiday. “Those videocassettes can record new data. Criminals who are interested in much more than bootlegged films could make good use of them—contacting each other, exchanging plans, sending illegal information, et cetera. We have it on good authority that this Mr. Love has been in contact with just such a criminal.”

Jill looked puzzled. “So you caught this guy even though Sherlock didn’t know about him?”

“Corey Stone knew about him,” said Holiday, “or at least, how to find him. Corey used to be an errander like you, Jillian.”

The realization hit her. “That’s why you need me. You want me to go undercover.”

“At times, yes. You have connections in the Anterran criminal underground—connections that will help us. But you have more than that.”

“Like?”

Holiday looked like he was trying not to smile. “Like an uncanny ability to get in and out of places without being caught.”

She shrugged. “You guys caught me.”

“We’re good at what we do. And you slipped through even our fingers, Jillian. Don’t be so modest.”

She thought of saying it was Corey’s incompetence that allowed her to slip through their fingers. Then she decided not to. Instead, she said: “As of this morning I was still a criminal myself. Now you want me to be one of the good guys.

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