K
"Damn it, damn it." Kerry drummed her fingers on the keyboard, then she made a decision and forwarded the message again, this time to Mariana, along with a request to forward the personnel files of anyone who was in the building over the weekend.
It meant a lot of work, and a lot of crosschecking. Kerry took a sip of her tea, the smooth cherry taste of the green tea leaves soothing her. "But I will find you." She promised the tale teller. "I will find you, and baby, I will make sure you regret ever putting one step into that marble lobby."
She took another sip. "That, I promise.
DAR SAT THERE, arms folded, hands tucked under her armpits and stared at the network overview she had up on her screen. The picture showed their entire infrastructure, routers and switches winking a reassuring green at her as she tried to figure out where to look next.
Kerry's remark about a distraction had rung bells with her, but if it was, then what was it distracting her from? Everything else looked normal.
She turned her eyes to a different window, running results from her new program. Every ten seconds, the system reported back to her from each router she had it installed in, a constant running monitor of the traffic it was seeing.
It was rough, and the monitor only a command line, but Dar couldn't help but feel a sting of pride as she watched it go. She knew it had a long way to run before it could be really used in production, but eventually--with a properly written front end and a ton more robustness--this would be a killer app for them to put on the market.
Even now, with just the barest of kernels running, it was bringing back scraps of information from what it was seeing out there that gave Dar insight into what was going on around them.
It was exciting, in a visceral way to her. But she was also frustrated right now because there was a piece missing here, and she couldn't find it. The hacker was still hammering at the front gates, but Dar had scanned each of the border routers, and she could find no other stealthy attempts anywhere on the outside of the network.
Was it just coincidence then? Kerry's suggestion had made bedrock sense when she'd heard it, but... Dar unfolded one arm and gave her trackball a spin, her brows knit together. She rocked forward and braced her elbow on the desk, leaning her head against it as she got closer to the screen.
A message box appeared, nearly startling her half to death. She glanced to one side, then straightened and pulled the keyboard back over to answer Mariana's hail.
Hey.
Mari answered quickly.
You got bitten by a BARRACUDA?
Dar's somewhat ghoulish humor surfaced.
Family reunion. What can I tell you?
She could almost hear the laughter on the other end of the connection, and had to smile herself.
You got kicked out of the barracuda family when you married Kerry, my friend, and you know it!
Eh, that was the truth. Yeah, well, I was chasing a Frisbee at the time. At least I didn't get nipped by a goldfish for it. Her eyes flicked to the monitor, taking in a few minutes of reports and not seeing anything remarkable.
Damn it. She turned her attention back to the instant message box. So is everyone freaking out?
There was a hesitation before Mari answered. Just a little surprise at our level, but I heard talk going around, so Ithought I'd better ask. Now that Kerry's sent me the scoop,and the possible culprit, I'll get on it and see what I canfind out.
Huh? Dar felt suddenly lost. "Hey, Ker?" She called out. "C'mere."
"Hang on." Her partner replied from the next room. "I'm reconciling a purchase order."
Dar reread the message, then just shrugged. Okay. Have fun. She ventured, figuring it was a safe answer and that she could get clarification from Kerry later. We may be down here for a few days.I'm getting more done without people barging in my officeevery five minutes.
Mari's response surprised her a little. Dar, take whatever time you need, okay? Let me handle the crap in the office.
"What's up, sweetie." Kerry ambled in and put her arms around Dar, giving her a quick hug. "More problems?"
Dar scrolled back up in her message box and pointed. "What is she talking about?" She asked, just as the screen underneath, her monitor, began to spit out lines in black on white letters, instead of white on black. "Whoops...hold it."
Kerry slid in behind Dar and watched over her shoulder as she typed rapidly. She could see where Dar was going in the system, but she was hitting keys so fast Kerry couldn't read quickly enough to get a sense of what she was doing once she got there.
And then, just as quickly as she'd started, she stopped, fingertips resting lightly on the keys. The monitor appeared normal again. "What was that?" Kerry asked.
"Good question." Dar murmured. "For a minute, it looked like something..." Her brow creased and she leaned forward a little. "Maybe the damn program just stumbled. God knows, there's a lot of rough code in there."
Kerry put her hands on Dar?s shoulders. She could felt he tension beneath her fingers, and out of habit she started a gentle massage.
"What did it seem to be reporting?" She asked. "Was it an attack, or--"
Dar propped her head up on one hand and used the other to scroll the mouse. "No, not...well, it looks like it thought its libraries were being accessed. But that's just a dud error. There's nothing touching them."
"Mm." Kerry knocked a little of the rust off her own programming memories. "Sort of like...someone was also using them? Or...something opened the files?"
"Yeah." Dar agreed readily. "But nothing's accessing them. Nothing we have even knows the program's there."
"Hmm." Kerry kept up her massage. "False reading?"
"Must be."
They both studied the screen in silence for a few minutes. Then Kerry cleared her throat. "Colleen overheard some slimy nitball in the bathroom talking to someone on a cell about screwing us over."
Dar straightened and turned her head to look up at Kerry. "What?"
"Mm." Kerry nodded. "Spreading rumors. So I have Mari sending me all the personnel files of the scumbags in marketing."
One of Dar's eyebrows quirked. "Why not just get the one who did it?"
"Colleen didn't recognize her, and she lost her outside in the hallway." Kerry informed her regretfully. "Anyway...so that's what's going on. Can I go finish my paperwork now?"
Dar tilted her head and kissed the back of Kerry's hand, still resting on her shoulder. "Sure," she said. "Sorry I dragged you over here."
Kerry returned the kiss and planted one on the top of Dar's head. "No problem." She gave Dar a last hug, then turned and made her way out of the office, leaving behind a faint scent of apricot.
Dar sighed and refocused her attention on the screen. The alert was now well and over and no trace was left of the disturbance that had sent her monitor off the scale. She was satisfied with the possibility that it had been a false alarm, but something niggled at the back of her mind anyway.
She went over the log in the router that had triggered the alarm. No attacks had been detected from the outside, and she confirmed again that no unusual traffic had been seen. The only thing in the logs themselves was a--
Huh. Dar cocked her head. TFTP requests weren't uncommon. They had servers that routinely copied the configurations and logs of the devices for safekeeping, but Dar knew something about that which made this one log entry catch her eye.
She checked her watch. It was seventeen minutes past eleven. She'd written that little collection program way back in the days when she'd supervised the ops center. One of her own peculiarities, generated by her years growing up on a military base, dictated that her timed requests always went off on even fractions of the hour.