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Narrative

The Information Race

Lou Corlin usually did an afternoon bench tech shift, after his air shift at Shepardsport Pirate Radio. Today, he’d switched with someone on the early morning shift who needed some extra time to study for an important exam. It meant he had to have his breakfast sent down here, but it would give him a head start on sounding out some people about the problem of locating Brenda’s friend without breaking any data security rules.

Except he’d no more than clocked in when he heard a familiar voice calling his name. There was Juss Forsythe, tool satchel over one shoulder and a computer under the other arm, walking along like he wasn’t even burdened. Maybe it wasn’t one of the big tower workstations, but Juss was carrying a desktop box like it was a cheap laptop.

“So what’ve you got today, Juss?” Lou hoped he didn’t sound too irritated.

“Apparently the news department’s getting a lot of hate mail, and someone’s getting pretty serious about it.” Juss set the computer on Lou’s workbench. “Autumn was cleaning out her inbox, and she accidentally opened an e-mail she shouldn’t have. It had an attachment that was apparently some kind of auto-running malware.”

Lou sucked in his breath, not caring that it made a whistle loud enough that the other guys would be able to hear it. “That’s bad. Especially considering that a modern e-mail client is supposed to block that sort of stuff.”

“We got it powered down before whatever it was running could infect the whole network. But I’d suggest you pull its WiFi antenna before you try to do any diagnostics.”

Lou looked down at the computer, then back to Juss. “Which assumes that I’m even going to try to do it myself. From what you’re talking about, I’m thinking I could get in over my head real fast.”

And kicking this problem upstairs would also give me an opportunity to talk to some of the senior techs about just what latitude I’d have in locating Brenda’s friend before I’d have to take the matter to Betty Margrave.