Autumn Belfontaine was no stranger to controversy. The whole point of creating Shepardsport Pirate Radio had been to confront the Flannigan Administration on its various malfeasances.
However, she had not expected such an intense response to her report on the removal of children from impromptu fostering arrangements in the homes of friends, to be placed in makeshift group homes in converted school buildings. To read some of the hate mail that was pouring into the station’s mailservers, one would think that she’d gone on-air claiming that the various state child protection agencies were carrying on satanic rituals at the stroke of midnight, not just carrying out an ill-conceived bureaucratic mandate.
At least there was one advantage to being on the Far Side of the Moon — threats had very little impact. Had she still been on Earth, working on a dirtside radio station, some of those death threats would’ve been truly frightening. Instead, she rather doubted there was any real chance of them making a launch any time soon. Even threats to dox her held little power, given that Shepardsport was a tight-knit community steeped in the astronaut tradition, and since the Kitty Hawk Massacre, everyone’s financial records were carefully locked down, so even publishing her Social Security number and her bank accounts wouldn’t enable anyone to upend her life.
She was about halfway through her inbox when she heard voices out in the corridor. She looked up, out the newsroom door, to see Spencer Dawes and Juss Forsythe talking. Juss had a big tool satchel slung over his shoulder, which suggested he was in here for some kind of maintenance. On the other hand, what Autumn could hear of their conversation did not exactly sound technical.
However, she wasn’t their supervisor, so their personal conversation was not her business. She returned her attention to cleaning out her e-mail, but not closely enough to realize the screen was refreshing just as she clicked.
She realized just what she’d hit. “Crap. That’s got a payload.”
Before she could force the browser to quit, the whole screen turned into a chaos of colors and symbols. From within the computer’s guts came a high-pitched whine. Whatever was in that attached file, it must’ve been a doozie.
“Quick, crash it.” That was Juss, who’d jumped clear across the newsroom like his ur-brother jumping over a fence.
Autumn wasn’t sure which one of them hit the power button, but it worked. The screen went black and the whining sound ceased.
“That thing could’ve infected the whole network.” Juss’s voice remained matter-of-fact, with no blaming.
“What do we do now?” Autumn looked at her computer. At least this wasn’t the computer she used for writing up news stories, or any of the other important stuff she couldn’t afford to lose. But being without her e-mail computer would mean needing to read it on a computer she considered less expendable.
“Not much we can do.” Juss unplugged the computer and began disconnecting the peripherals. “I’ll have to run it down to IT so they can clean out whatever malware was in that e-mail.”
Damn, Aunt Steffi’s going to be so pissed.