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"0wnz0red" | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 He flexed the muscles, great and small, all around his body. His fat index was low enough to see the definition of each of those superbly toned slabs of flexible contained energy -- he looked like an anatomy lesson, and it was all he could do not to stare at himself in the mirror all day. But he couldn't do that -- not today, anyway. He was needed back at the office. He was already in the shitter at work over his "unexpected trip to a heath-farm," and if he left it any longer, he'd be out on his toned ass. He hadn't even been able to go out for new clothes -- Liam had every liquid cent he could lay hands on, as well as his credit-cards. He found a pair of ancient, threadbare jeans and a couple of medium t-shirts that clung to the pecs that had grown up underneath his formerly sagging man-boobs and left for the office. He drew stares on the way to his desk. The documentation department hummed with hormonal female energy, and half a dozen of his co-workers found cause to cruise past his desk before he took his morning break. As he greedily scarfed up a box of warm Krispy Kremes, his cellphone rang. "Yeah?" he said. The caller-ID was the number of the international GSM phone he'd bought for Liam. "They're after us," Liam said. "I was at the Surrey border-crossing and the Canadian immigration guy had my pic!" Murray's heart pounded. He concentrated for a moment, then his heart calmed, a jolt of serotonin lifting his spirits. "Did you get away?" "Of course I got away. Jesus, you think that the CIA gives you a phone call? I took off cross-country, went over the fence for the duty-free and headed for the brush. They shot me in the fucking leg -- I had to dig the bullet out with my multitool. I'm sending in ass-loads of T-cells and knitting it as fast as I can." Panic crept up Murray's esophagus, and he tamped it down. It broke out in his knees, he tamped it down. His balance swam, he stabilized it. He focused his eyes with an effort. "They shot you?" "I think they were trying to wing me. Look, I burned all the source in 4,096-bit GPG ciphertext onto a couple of CDs, then zeroed out my drive. You've got to do the same, it's only a matter of time until they run my back-trail to you. The code is our only bargaining chip." "I'm at work -- the backups are at home, I just can't." "Leave, asshole, like now! Go -- get in your car and drive. Go home and start scrubbing the drives. I left a bottle of industrial paint-stripper behind and a bulk eraser. Unscrew every drive-casing, smash the platters and dump them in a tub with all the stripper, then put the tub onto the bulk-eraser -- that should do it. Keep one copy, ciphertext only, and make the key a good one. Are you going?" "I'm badging out of the lot, shit, shit, shit. What the fuck did you do to me?" "Don't, OK? Just don't. I've got my own problems. I've got to go now. I'll call you later once I get somewhere." - - - - - - - - - - - - He thought hard on the way back to his condo, as he whipped down the off-peak emptiness of Highway 101. Being a coder was all about doing things in the correct order: first a; then b; then, if c equals d, e; otherwise, f. First, get home. Then set the stateful operation of his body for maximal efficiency: reset his metabolism, increase the pace of dendrite densification. Manufacture viralized anti-viral in all his serum. Lots of serotonin and at-will endorphin. Hard times ahead. Next, encipher and back up the data to a removable. Did he have any CD blanks at home? With eidetic clarity, he saw the half-spent spool of generic blanks on the second shelf of the media totem. Then trash the disks, pack a bag and hit the road. Where to? He pulled into his driveway, hammered the elevator button a dozen times, then bolted for the stairs. Five flights later, he slammed his key into the lock and went into motion, executing the plan. The password gave him pause -- generating a 4,096 bit key that he could remember was going to be damned hard, but then he closed his eyes and recalled, with perfect clarity, the first five pages of documentation he'd written for the API. His fingers rattled on the keys at speed, zero typos. He was just dumping the last of the platters into the acid bath when they broke his door down. Half a dozen big guys in martian riot-gear, outsized science-fiction black-ops guns. One flipped up his visor and pointed to a badge clipped to a D-ring on his tactical vest. "Police," he barked. "Hands where I can see them." The serotonin flooded the murky grey recesses of Murray's brain and he was able to smile nonchalantly as he straightened from his work, hands held loosely away from his sides. The cop pulled a zap-strap from a holster at his belt and bound his wrists tight. He snapped on a pair of latex gloves and untaped the interface on the back of Murray's neck, then slapped a bandage over it. "Am I under arrest?" "You're not cleared to know that," the cop said. "Special Agent Fredericks, right?" Murray said. "Liam told me about you." "Dig yourself in deeper, that's right. No one wants to hear from you. Not yet, anyway." He took a bag off his belt, then, in a quick motion, slid it over Murray's head, cinching it tight at the throat, but not so tight he couldn't breathe. The fabric passed air, but not light, and Murray was plunged into total darkness. "There's a gag that goes with the hood. If you play nice, we won't have to use it." "I'm nice, I'm nice," Murray said. "Bag it all and get it back to the house. You and you, take him down the back way." Murray felt the bodies moving near him, then thick zap-straps cinching his arms, knees, thighs and ankles. He tottered and tipped backwards, twisting his head to avoid smacking it, but before he hit the ground, he'd be roughly scooped up into a fireman's carry, resting on bulky body-armor. As they carried him out, he heard his cellphone ring. Someone plucked it off his belt and answered it. Special Agent Fredericks said, "Hello, Liam." - - - - - - - - - - - - Machineguns-and-biometrics bunkers have their own special signature scent, scrubbed air and coffee farts and ozone. They cut his clothes off and disinfected him, then took him through two air-showers to remove particulate that the jets of icy pungent Lysol hadn't taken care of. He was dumped on a soft pallet, still in the dark. "You know why you're here," Special Agent Fredericks said from somewhere behind him. "Why don't you refresh me?" He was calm and cool, heart normal. The cramped muscles bound by the plastic straps eased loose, relaxing under him. "We found two CDs of encrypted data on your premises. We can crack them, given time, but it will reflect well on you if you assist us in our inquiries." "Given about a billion years. No one can brute-force a 4,096-bit GPG cipher. It's what you use in your own communications. I've worked on military projects, you know that. If you could factor out the products of large primes, you wouldn't depend on them for your own security. I'm not getting out of here ever, no matter how much I cooperate." "You've got an awfully low opinion of your country, sir." Murray thought he detected a note of real anger in the Fed's voice and tried not to take satisfaction in it. "Why? Because I don't believe you've got magic technology hidden away up your asses?" "No, sir, because you think you won't get just treatment at our hands." "Am I under arrest?" "You're not cleared for that information." "We're at an impasse, Special Agent Fredericks. You don't trust me and I don't have any reason to trust you." "You have every reason to trust me," the voice said, very close in now. "Why?" The hood over his tag was tugged to one side and he heard a sawing sound as a knife hacked through the fabric at the base of his skull. Gloved fingers worked a plug into the socket there. "Because," the voice hissed in his ear, "because I am not stimulating the pain center of your brain. Because I am not cutting off the blood-supply to your extremities. Because I am not draining your brain of all the serotonin there or leaving you in a vegetative state. Because I can do all of these things and I'm not." Murray tamped his adrenals, counteracted their effect, relaxed back into his bonds. "You think you could outrace me? I could stop my heart right now, long before you could do any of those things." Thinking: I am a total bad-azz, I am. But I don't want to die. "Tell him," Liam said. "Liam?" Murray tried to twist his head toward the voice, but strong hands held it in place. "Tell him," Liam said again. "We'll get a deal. They don't want us dead, they just want us under control. Tell him, OK?" Murray's adrenals were firing at max now, he was sweating uncontrollably. His limbs twitched hard against his bonds, the plastic straps cutting into them, the pain surfacing despite his efforts. It hit him. His wonderful body was 0wnz0red by the Feds. "Tell me, and you have my word that no harm will come to you. You'll get all the resources you want. You can code as much as you want." Murray began to recite his key, all five pages of it, through the muffling hood.
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