that looked like hieroglyphics. Andrea was impressed at the ease with which he wormed and manipulated, with only a browser at his disposal. She knew she’d never had that kind of hacking skill. The public record office was more her level. He was the brain, she was the brawn. She laughed. Dorian never noticed.
After long minutes, Dorian shifted. “I’m in. We can stay here about two hours, but then we have to leave. We’d be crazy to stay longer than that. Especially because they know we’re in the New York area most likely. They can narrow—”
“I believe you. Get going.”
“Ok, ok.”
USER Code ENTERS CHANNEL
Code: I’m back. Miss me much?
“You’re being light-hearted. This is serious shit.”
“Don’t worry. They expect it to be light. Just watch.”
And they watched.
Code: Hello? Why’s everbod so quiet? Sumbod makin’ pixes?
Code: HeLLOOOOOOOOO?
“Man, you turn into an illiterate twit when you get online. What kind of slang is that?”
“Shut up. That’s the way we communicate. We’ve always talked this way. It started as a way to disguise our own voices.” He smiled to himself. “Then it started to be our own personal language. Like a secret handshake almost.”
“Whatever,” Andrea interrupted, furrowing her brow. “Are you sure there’s someone there?”
“Oh yes. Twenty-four seven. We’re always online.”
“Not right now.”
“I know. I don’t understand.”
“I understand. Something isn’t right.”
Code: REDALERTGuys. This is an emergency. Response now, dudz.
“What was that?”
“It sends an emergency signal to everyone who’s signed up to the site. If they are there, sleeping or anything, this will get them. They have pagers on that signal or at least a text message.”
They waited anxiously.
“I don’t think anyone’s coming.” Andrea said some minutes later. She felt her teeth hurt, realizing with a start how badly she had wanted someone to answer. It would feel like the world was still stable, still working the way it was supposed to, if only some of those Deep Noders were there. “We’ve been waiting almost an hour. They’d be online by now.”
Dorian’s hands twitched as they hovered over the keyboard.
“I’ll get you a coffee,” Andrea said, afraid of how Dorian would react next. He needed a bit of mothering right now. So did she. Too bad. “Where’s my mommy?” She whispered under her breath.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m going to start a data mining algorithm,” Dorian said. Andrea overheard him saying to himself: “I should have done this sooner. Damn!”
When Andrea got back with two Starbucks coffees in her hands, Dorian had four windows open on the computer, simultaneously spewing characters across the screen.
“What the hell is that?” Andrea asked.
“I’m running a distributed data mining search. It’s the only way to get the records off the IRC encrypted channels after the chat is over, and we can only get fragments.”
“But I thought the history was lost forever.”
“Not exactly. It officially is, but because of all the search spiders on the internet, like Google, and Yahoo, constantly trawling for information, secured channels get cracked open a little bit. Or more accurately, the encrypted channels will leave a character here or there, sometimes a word, and that will get absorbed into the search engines. What I have to do is come up with the right search engine spider trajectory, which tells me where the spider was when, and I can piece together the conversations.”
“That will never work. It’s crazy.”
“It should be. But it’s part of the entropy of systems. You know how every action has a reaction. It’s a basic thing in physics. Newton’s Third Law.” He smiled at Andrea. “The internet is no different. Every piece of information dents the world around it, even encrypted information. It’s those traces, the dents, that the spiders pick up, not the actual data. They store it, even though to them it’s pretty much a waste product. It’s easier than trying to eliminate it.
“What I do is: I search the engines, picking the right pieces of returned information, and with that I can take an impression of the words.” He looked back at her, her furrowed face frowning over his shoulder. “I have to pull logs off the routers that connect to the IRC servers of course. That’s what gives me the telemetry which links in with the spiders. Also some of the words leak out there too.”
“That sounds like bullshit. How do you get access to the routers. They’re supposed to be secure.”
“It’s our IRC server. So I have access to those routers. And any other ones, I break into.”
“But seriously. Can it really work?”
“Totally. The third law makes encryption that much harder, since you pretty much go around it. You don’t look at what’s encrypted, you look at what’s not encrypted, and see what’s missing. You use the equal and opposite reaction to the encrypted data. You look at the dent.”
“So how long do we have to wait?” Andrea said, unconvinced.
“Another fifteen minutes.”
“So keep talking gobbledygook. No, actually, drink your coffee. Here.”
Dorian took the drink, sipping slowly through the tiny plastic slit on the white lid. “We have an hour left.” He shook his head. “I need to remember the adcryption ID that 70mm gave me. It was for emergencies, but it’s on the laptop. I know it. Given this weird situation, I’m sure he would have used it.” His eyes scanned back and forth. “It’s something like: already decided.” He looked over at Andrea. “All one word. But reversed of course.”
He typed into the search box:
alreadydecided
He typed the characters reversed
dedicedydaerla
He hit the return key.
Your search – dedicedydaerla - did not match any documents.
“It’s something like that. Can’t believe I forgot it.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“70mm would have bought an ad using the key phrase.”
“So?”
“Since no one will ever search for that word—well, the backwards version, I’d be the only person ever to see the advertisement.”
“Advertisement?”
“Yes. He buys a search advertisement. As soon as I search for the word, and click the link, I go to a web site with the secret information.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Then the ad disappears because he only paid for one click.”
preordained
deniadroerp
Return key.
did not match any documents.
wellknown = nwonkllew
No documents.
And so on, for easilyunderstood, freelyadmitted, trulyobvious. Nothing worked.
foregoneconclusion went to oisulcnocenogerof. Again nothing.
“Hang on, you missed the first letter. Are you getting tired?”
“Where?”
“Conclusion, note the ‘N’.”
“Oh shit.
noisulcnocenogerof
Dorian hit the return key. Just then, all four of the other windows on the computer started beeping.
“I think we’ve got a reconstruction. The dots are the characters it couldn’t find.”
Words stood out among the long rows of characters.
..long trip..
..striptz..
..nil8..
..meetin’ up fo once, not too shabby..
..fuck..
..how could it be code, he’s..
..there killing?..
..run for it..
..no joke..
..is it safe..
They stared for a long time.
“So that explains why we couldn’t find anyone online. They’re running away,” Dorian said finally. “They think it’s me.” He thre
w his hands through his hair, clearly shaken. “Someone is saying I’m responsible. See where it says ‘how could it be code’? That’s me.”
“Are you sure these aren’t some other random conversations.”
He turned slightly red. “Don’t you trust me to get it right?”
“I do. I totally trust you.” Andrea didn’t like touchy Dorian. She was a techie and this was about her too. “I’m asking a legitimate question if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind, ok?”
“So those phrases all come from the same discussions?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure about that because that’s how the algorithm works? Or you’re sure because you’ve done it before?”
“I’m sure because that’s how the algorithm works and because I designed the algorithm and because I’ve done it before. So yes, Andrea, I’m sure.”
She shook her head. “Touchy touchy. But ok, I understand now.” She couldn’t help adding, “But still, that doesn’t change that you seriously need to stay calm if I question you on something. My life’s on the line here just like yours.”
“Sorry.”
“So anyway, to confirm: according to them and these reconstructed phrases that you’re sure are all from the same conversation, you’re the one responsible for the killings.”
“Exactly.” He looked at her. “And I really need you to believe me here.”
Andrea swallowed. She was being a bit passive-aggressive, wasn’t she? But she did have a right to have a bit of control, didn’t she? Ok, so she liked to be in control, was that so bad?
“So can you trust me?” Dorian stared into her eyes.
“Yes. I promise.” She tossed her hair and clamped her lips together. “Ok, so moving on. Not only do they think you are responsible, but they are going somewhere. Where are they going? Can we find that out?”
“I don’t