Breaking Point by John Macken Page A

temporary. Enjoy it while you can. If and when they do appoint, you’ll be older and wiser, and capable of anything.’
    Mina tugged at a small piece of skin surrounding a fingernail. ‘Look, there’s something else I wanted to pick your brains on. Some software has been run through the network, stuff I didn’t know still existed.’
    ‘What kind of software?’
    Mina hesitated, using her nails like a pair of pincers to yank the skin clean off. It left a tiny track of red in its wake. Reuben noted that it wasn’t the only one.
    ‘Your software.’
    ‘Mine?’
    ‘The project we were working on when you were sacked. Psychopath Selection.’
    Reuben sat bolt upright. ‘But I thought it got deleted.’
    ‘So did I.’
    ‘Commander Abner’s purge, getting GeneCrime back on track, stamping on anything unofficial, anything that I had been messing around with outside my official remit.’
    ‘This is my point. Lots of things changed after you were sacked. We did get back to basics, back to doing what we did best. Your name was dirt for a while. Your directories were deleted, your belongings thrown out, your papers shredded. You might remember that you brought a lot of very unwelcome attention on the division.’
    ‘And how.’
    ‘Which is why I was amazed to see a program that looked very like Psychopath Selection installed on the mainframe.’
    ‘You’re saying that this hasn’t been there all along?’
    ‘I don’t think so. For various reasons I’ve been spending a lot of time trawling through the IT system. Maybe I’m just noticing things I wouldn’t have spotted before. But that isn’t what really matters.’
    ‘It isn’t?’
    ‘What really matters is that it has been used. A batch test, data dragged through it. And recently.’
    ‘How recently?’
    ‘Days.’
    Reuben blinked rapidly, a series of unsettling images darting through his mind. Someone messing with Psychopath Selection just as he had resurrected it himself. His own technology being used and abused. Surely Mina was wrong.
    ‘So you’re saying that a member of GeneCrime has actually loaded DNA profiles into it?’
    ‘All I can say for certain is that—’
    ‘But what about the DNA chips? We only printed a few preliminary ones.’
    ‘I know. It seems a bit weird to say the least.’
    ‘And you’re sure this isn’t just idle curiosity on someone’s part? If there’s one thing computers are good for, it’s idle curiosity. God knows I’ve clicked on things I shouldn’t have in my time.’
    Mina finished her cup of coffee, grimacing slightly, showing her teeth. ‘If this is curiosity, it isn’t the idle sort. This is active. Files look to have been created and then destroyed. Someone has been putting some time into this.’
    ‘I still don’t get how they could have got access to the code. I mean, you and me were the main people working on it. Are you sure you didn’t keep a spare copy that could have fallen into someone else’s hands?’
    ‘I didn’t get a chance even to back it up. It was sickening after all that work, but CID went through everything on Abner’s orders, making sure the whole division was legal and above board, and not, you know …’
    Reuben flashed back to the time before his dismissal. Things getting out of hand. Pressures and deadlines, catching serial killers, desperately researching ways of making crime detection better and faster, lines becoming blurred , fantastic possibilities hampered by rigid protocols, being increasingly pushed to introduce unproven technologies. ‘Yes, I know,’ he answered quietly.
    ‘Look, I’ve had an idea, a way to test this.’
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘It’s going to involve some fairly intense legwork on your part. Several long hours glued to your lab machinery, a whole day or so of activity.’
    Reuben grimaced. ‘It’s what I do best.’
    ‘Here,’ Mina said, reaching inside her handbag. ‘You’ll need these.’
    She glanced around and then pulled out a bright