Runaway Heart by Stephen J. Cannell Page B

projects that DARPA was
interested in. There were two.
          One was [dna enhanced gene
splicing]. That could include the Frankenfood, Roland thought, the
corn, soybeans, all the other stuff. The second program was something
called [the ten-eyck chimera project].
          This was the first mention of the Ten-Eyck Chimera Project he had seen
in all of the browsing he had done in the Gen-A-Tec system, so he went all the
way to the root directory and gerped for the text string on ten-eyck chimera. This took him a
while, but the search came back:
     
    NO RESULTS
     
          The only mention was in the e-mails he already had. He looked for the
table of file systems and found it. There were two related files:
     
    /dev/hda8/chimera
    /dev/hda9/chimera
     
          So there was a Chimera file. He had no idea what the hell
it was, but Roland was getting jazzed. He was on the case. He issued a
mount-a-command to load up every related file in the system. Then he asked for
a complete list of file directories. What he got back looked like gibberish.
"What the fuck is this?" he wondered aloud.
     
    Inside the Gen-A-Tec building an alarm
went off and Lincoln Fellows walked over to his computer and saw that a window
had popped up, warning:
     
    TEN-EYCK CHIMERA
ACCESSED BY SASSON. MONITOR?
     
    Line was about to allow it when he
decided, just to be safe, to check the sign-in logbook. It was after 2 a.m. and, although some Gen-A-Tec
employees worked screwy hours, this seemed worth investigating. The Chimera file
was restricted to A-list in-building use. For Sasson to legally access the file
he would have to be in his office down the hall, and it was a little strange
for the CFO to be working here at this hour.
          Line checked the logbook. Dr. Sasson had gone home at five and had not
signed back into the building. Link resented it when corporate cheese thought
they could just walk in at strange hours and ignore his security system. He was
the one who would get reamed if there was a breach. So Lincoln Fellows left the
control room and walked down the hall to the corporate offices on Mahogany Row.
          Sasson's office was empty and dark.
          The guy was downloading secure files from his home computer. . . a
complete breach of security!
          Link stormed back to his control room and snatched up the phone.
     
    While Lincoln was waking up Jack Sasson,
Roland was downloading the corn file. He went back to the systems directory to
prowl around, and found another strange encryption: >@dA»p&AE01. This one was shorter, so Roland thought
he could break it with the encryption programs in his toolkit. He downloaded it
for later.
          Then, as the reshcorn files
completed downloading, Roland went back to the problem of penetrating the
Ten-Eyck Chimera file.
     
    "Yes?" Jack Sasson's voice was
thick with sleep.
          "Dr. Sasson," Lincoln said, trying to keep the anger out of
his voice.
          "Who is this? It's two in the goddamn morning."
          "This is Lincoln Fellows, the night systems administrator at
Gen-A-Tec. I need to advise you, Doctor, that you are in violation of our
security mandates right now."
          "What the fuck are you talking about?" More awake now, and
really pissed.
          "We, Doctor—you, that is, have clearance to work from home, sir,
but you cannot copy secure files off-site to your home computer."
          "I'm not working. I'm sleeping. I've got to be on the damn six-A.M.
flight to L.A. today for that silly butterfly trial, so leave me alone, you
idiot!"
          "You're not at your computer right now?"
          "No, dammit. Stop bothering me!" And Jack Sasson hung up.
     
    In his hotel room Roland now had the
Ten-Eyck Chimera file up on the screen. The entire fifty-two-page program was
completely encrypted.
          Roland knew that if the Gen-A-Tec systems administrator was on his toes
he'd certainly be aware of the security breach by