InterstellarNet: Origins by Edward M. Lerner Page B

thought.
    “So where did hacking get you?” he finally asked the picture.
    An enigmatic smile was his only answer.
    ■□■
    “Lock,” Justin ordered.
    Recognizing Justin’s voice, his car chirped in acknowledgment. The chirp and the louder clicks of door locks engaging echoed in the cavernous garage beneath his building.
    “Dr. Matthews.” The stranger stepped from behind a pillar. He was dressed in gangster-chic: trench coat and fedora. One hand was in his coat pocket; the visible hand was gloved. “May I have a word with you?”
    Justin nodded. If the aim of the visit was intimidation, he was duly concerned. He was not, however, too spooked to think. He sidled toward his car and was rewarded when the stranger, turning to follow, presented a more face-on view to one of the security cameras.
    “Dr. Matthews, it would be in your best interest to be expedient in wrapping up your executor duties.”
    Matthews leaned against his car. “I don’t understand.”
    A humorless smile briefly manifested itself in the shadow of the hat. “Let’s not waste time. The names of executors are matters of public record. So are burglary reports.”
    “I see.”
    “A certain corporation would prefer that one of its consulting assignments remain confidential. They feel very strongly about this point.” The thug took his hand from his pocket. It clasped a thick envelope rather than the weapon Justin had been expecting. “Naturally the corporation wishes to reimburse… the estate…for past services rendered.”
    The estate, huh? Justin took the envelope, wondering about the etiquette of bribery. Was a verbal response expected? After a long silence he decided that it wasn’t.
    “We appreciate your cooperation.” With that his visitor turned and strode swiftly from the garage.
    ■□■
    Barbara peered dubiously from Justin’s living-room 3-V at the stack of thousand-dollar bills piled in front of him. The session was doubly encrypted, using his private key and hers. The computational load from double decryption made the image jerky.
    “I could use a little more input here,” he finally said.
    “This payoff is from TSC?”
    “My visitor hinted as much without making it explicit. I don’t know that I believe it, though. The mystery is in ISI’s clandestine use of the radio parts.”
    “Are there any hard facts besides the money?”
    Alicia’s long-ago annoyance at Justin’s career change had come mostly from the loss of a kindred spirit. Well, he may have chosen not to program, let alone hack, for a living, but he still had the knack. The security system in his apartment complex had been no match for his skills.
    Justin scanned backward through the garage’s surveillance records to earlier that evening. His subterfuge in the garage had not worked. The thug’s face was shadowed by the brim of his hat, his features indistinct. “Mr. X here is a fact, merely not a useful one.”
    “I’m not so sure. Maybe I can do something with that. Send me copies?” Barbara hummed to herself, toggling between digital frames of Justin’s visitor. “I have software that can probably clean up the images.”
    To his mystified look she explained, “I used to teach media studies at UCLA. Once upon a time movies weren’t digital. Sometimes I recover old film, dusty reels no one has seen in decades, stuff that’s cropped up in Hollywood estate sales. That old celluloid is generally in horrible shape. Allie did up some image-enhancement software to my specs. Give me a sec.”
    The humming resumed, ending after a while in a satisfied, “Ah.” Barbara transferred an enhanced image file to Justin’s workstation.
    The face of Justin’s caller, slightly blurry but now quite distinct, popped onto his 3-V.
    “Good work.” Justin studied the face, far clearer than it had been in person in the dim garage. Would TSC care if their dealings with Alicia became public? He saw no reason why they should. “Maybe it’s time to play a