The Starving Years by Jordan Castillo Price

Author:Jordan Castillo Price
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JCP Books LLC
Published: 2012-05-04T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

While the netbook didn’t carry Tim’s full contingent of custom scripts and macros, it was loaded with the important ones. Like the algorithm that cracked passwords, and the script that could erase traces of its user’s activity by overwriting it with innocuous-looking text files.

Two windows bisected the tiny screen: Javier’s fake résumé and Canaan Products’ Warehouse Division directory. Tim had meant to skim the job fair résumés while his algorithms did their work searching for password protected information at Canaan—but so far, good old “Joe” had access to anything he cared to view, thanks to Javier marching up to that laptop, bold as you please, and copying the credentials Tim needed to create him.

Javier…whose voice left Tim breathless, and whose kisses made him shiver.

A bachelor’s in Literature from Universidad de Costa Rica—was that real? Or a bending of the truth, something similar to what he’d done with a few details tweaked? Or was it a complete fabrication?

Tim could imagine Javier as someone who’d studied literature. Although the book of poetry his résumé said he’d published…Tim couldn’t quite picture that.

A beep drew his attention to the remote window. His algorithm had swept away evidence of his plunder of Shipping and Receiving, and so he moved on to the manufacturing directory of Canaan’s mainframe. The strings of formulae and scientific-sounding jargon meant nothing to Tim, but would probably be an easy enough read for a guy with a carbon molecule tattooed on his hipbone. A tattoo that extended down into his…pubic hair. Tim adjusted himself and began the download of the database, pleased with the extra ten terabytes of memory he’d added to the netbook. It was heavy, and it drained the heck out of the battery. But it was worth it.

Despite the ample free space, the download and subsequent cleanup would take some time, thanks to the sorry speed of the wireless connection. Another warning flashed. Someone else had logged on the same IP host.

“Marianne, are you on the computer in there?”

“Just emailing my mom,” she called back.

Tim hit OK, and looked a bit closer at Javier’s fake résumé. Judging by the year on his bachelor’s, he’d be about thirty—a year older than Tim. If he’d finished college in four years. If they even started at eighteen in Costa Rica, like they did in the States. If the degree itself wasn’t bogus. If that was where he’d even come from.

It wasn’t necessary to look at Nelson’s résumé again. Even though Tim hadn’t seen it since he’d copped a guilty look back at his apartment, that information was stamped on his brain as if a hot iron had branded it there. And given Nelson’s appreciation of the crystal structure of boron, Tim was beginning to suspect that the listing of his education or technical skills hadn’t been exaggerated in hopes of scoring a callback.

Nelson’s analysis, then….

Another warning popped up. The other computer was sending its email. Tim hit OK and considered disabling the warnings, but of course he’d never do something so crazy on a wireless network with such basic encryption.

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