“How about the last one?” Megan cut in. “What did happen to Walter G.’s car?”
“It was a classic Corvette—1965,” Leif said. “A lot of people were turning to older cars in the 1980s because government regulations were adding all sorts of antismog equipment to the new ones. It took awhile before the technology got good enough so that the power drain wasn’t noticeable.”
“What a terrible idea! Antismog devices!” Megan said sarcastically.
“It wasn’t much fun at the time, if you wanted to drive a fast car,” Matt said.
“Shouldn’t be too hard to track down what happened to the Walter G.-mobile,” Leif said. “All we need is the vehicle identification number—”
He shut up when he saw Matt shaking his head. “I may not know about scandals, but I do know about cars. The V.I.N. system didn’t come into play until 1981. We won’t be able to trace the car that way.”
“That means a quiet visit to the dead files of the D.M.V.,” Leif began, then cleared his throat. “Oops, I didn’t say that. And nobody needs to hear about it from anybody in this room.”
“No witnesses,” David agreed.
“So we’re batting.500 in the ‘Deep Throat’ trivia game,” Andy said. “We had answers to about half of the questions.”
“Your ear’s blinking again,” Megan announced.
Matt activated the program again. A similar message to the previous one appeared.
Since you picked up my first message so quickly, I suspect you’re still linked in. Here’s an additional clue.
As the kids watched, an image began to appear under the words. It was a reproduction of a faded flatfilm color photograph — a young man sitting behind the wheel of a low-slung antique car, grinning through the convertible’s windshield.
“Computer!” Matt shouted. “Can you find the original source of that message?”
The computer displayed the name of a big and anonymous commercial remailing firm.
“Never mind, then. From the details available in the displayed image, can you project the make of the car?”
The computer was silent for a moment, then responded, “Probability, eighty percent or better.”
“Then enlarge the image, restore the colors, and add the car.”
Beneath the driver’s smiling face, a quick procession of ghostly cars flickered into and out of view. Matt’s hobby was virtual automobiles, and his computer had a vast collection of makes and models in its databases.
Finally the ghost car began to solidify. The faded colors grew more vibrant. The grinning young man now sat in a bright red sports car.
“Closest match — model 1965 Corvette Stingray,” the computer announced.
“Callivant’s car?” Andy asked. “Is that Callivant in the driver’s seat?”
“No.” Megan leaned forward. “Put on forty years of weight and wrinkles, take the hair away…and you’ve got Clyde Finch.”
“Finch!” Leif took a harder look, then began to nod. “You’re right. You know, we really do need to find out more about him.”
“Maybe,” Matt said. “But that’s not the person who interests me right now.”
“Who, then?” David asked.
Matt reached out as if he were trying to catch the image projected from the computer console. Of course, his fingers simply slipped through the hologram. “I want to know who the frack sent us this picture. Right now I have about as much chance of getting hold of him as I have of grabbing this image with my bare hands.”
14
“Your problem,” Leif Anderson told Matt, “is that you were thinking of the wrong tools. You don’t capture images with your hands. You use a carefully targeted computer program.”
“And you have a computer program that will catch Deep Throat for us?” Matt asked skeptically.
“I have one that will make a good try at tracing Deep Throat, if he or she virtmails you again,” Leif replied. He didn’t mention that the program would also alert him that such a trace was in progress.
In the end everybody had a job. Leif would get the tracing program to Matt — and it was unspoken but expected that he’d also try a raid on the D.M.V. records. Andy would take a whack at Clyde Finch and his background. Matt would get in touch with Mrs. Knox to arrange a look at her late husband’s computer. And he, Megan, and David would do the looking on Saturday.
Leif cut his connection, returning to his own virtual workspace, an Icelandic stave house. Wind-driven snow howled past the windows, but Leif ignored the show outside. He went to a set of floor-to-ceiling shelves, shallow ones, broken up into small niches. Each open box held a program icon.
Reaching the center of the shelves, Leif searched for and found an icon that looked like the carving of a Chinese demon in a very bad mood. Rather than picking it up, Leif hooked a finger behind it and pulled. A whole section of shelving swung away, revealing a hidden set of niches set into the wall. This was Leif’s combination treasure chest and armory. It held the tracking program he was going to lend Matt, and several tools that might make his visit to the Delaware Department of Motor Vehicles much simpler — and untraceable.
Leif’s first choice was an icon shaped like a fishhook. That was the program that would catch on and leave a line to the mystery virtmailer. Then he got one that looked like a miniature hand at the end of a stick, another that looked like a tiny statue of Dracula peeking over his cape, and last, a tiny gold badge. That one was a last resort. It was supposed to contain police codes for demanding information. That would get Leif in real trouble if somebody found it in his possession.
However, he’d have to be caught first, and he’d do his best not to be. Closing the door on his secret hideout, he went to the living room couch. Composing a virtmail message for Matt, he gave an order, holding out the fishhook. A second later there were two in his hands. He put one down, sent off the message with another order, and the icon in his hand vanished.
That was the easy part of the job. Next Leif commanded his computer to contact the long-term record storage system of the Delaware state government. “Maximum confusion,” he added, bracing himself.
The light show of the Net was hallucinatory enough when visitors traveled through it using their normal visualization techniques. Leif’s “Maximum confusion” order implemented a program designed to frustrate any attempts to backtrack his visit to the state government’s computers. To do that, the program bounced him at high speed from Net site to Net site to Net site, sending his connection randomly among millions of data and holographic transmissions. The experience was like participating in a really garish pinball game with a thousand paddles — as the ball.
Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, Leif’s virtual journey ended — right outside yet another of those blank-sided boxes where old, computerized information went to die. Leif didn’t want to try going in yet — if he had, his connection would have been tagged and recorded. Acting more on instinct than on any plan, Leif moseyed away from the front of the construct, heading around to the left side.
It was blank, of course — you weren’t supposed to come in this way. Leif got out the hand-on-the-stick icon. It represented a universal handshaking program, which he now inserted into the glowing neon wall in front of him. It sank in, and then so did Leif. The plan was to blend in with any regular information traffic and make his way to the records he wanted.
Along the way Leif activated his vampire program, which was supposed to make him invisible and help him suck up any information he wanted.
Now came the difficult part. Would there be any protection for information relating to the Callivants? Leif could imagine guarding sealed court records. But forty-year-old car registrations? It seemed safe enough. Still, the body count on Matt’s sim was getting awfully high — it might pay to be careful. And he’d hate to get caught hacking — it would get him booted out of the Net Force Explorers, at the very least.