Kill Process by William Hertling Read Free Book Online

off the bottom of the bucket. Primitive yet functional. I usually go out if it’s more than pee, which is a huge process, because then I’ve got to disconnect all my network connections, move the van to some place without security cameras, use a coffee shop or restaurant bathroom, then move the van again, find new wi-fi connections, and reconnect to the onion network. Better to hold it in that case.
    Once I’m done, I return to reading the clerk’s email. It takes a while before I finally find a weakness. One of the three doctors doesn’t officially work on Fridays, but he apparently handles patient calls on his day off, because he occasionally emails in a request for patient data. Which the clerk sends him via his personal email account in clear violation of the PMA policy. Lovely.
    Today’s Wednesday. It’s two days to Friday and his day off.
    I shut down my computers and pack them away, start up the van, and drive east to a new part of town. I leave it parked between a commercial and residential neighborhood where it won’t attract attention. I put on my prosthetic arm and don my bike gear and a backpack.
    With a bulky rain coat, helmet, bike shoes, wrap-around sunglasses, and second arm, I’ve changed my profile and gait. I return to my bike left outside a coffee shop, clamp the prosthetic onto the right handlebar, and ride back to the apartment building where I keep my bike locked up alongside dozens of others belonging to the residents. I shrug off my prosthetic, and slip it into the backpack with a practiced move. From there, it’s a quick walk back to my place.
    *     *     *
    On Friday, early in the morning, I email work and tell them I’ll be working from home again. In reality, I already finished today’s work. I slaved away sixteen hours yesterday and left half my work sitting on my computer, with scripts standing by to check in code and send emails at predetermined times. I won’t reply to any emails, but I can claim to have been buried in code changes.
    I head back to the van, reversing my steps from two days before. I check the bike and van for radio emissions to ensure my equipment hasn’t been hit with a GPS transponder. Someone would need to suspect me to do that, and to date my perfect record stands: everyone I’ve eliminated has been classified as some form of natural or accidental death, never murder, so it’s unlikely anyone is onto me. I play it safe, nevertheless.
    I flip a hidden switch in the Tomo mobile app for both the clerk and the doctor. Well, technically, I flip a debug switch on their accounts, and the next time their Tomo mobile app checks for updates, it sees the change, and begins broadcasting continuous telemetry data, including their GPS location, to our servers, where it goes into a log file associated with their account. Later, when I turn the debug switch off, the log file will be deleted. This clever little feature, ostensibly to help the software engineers troubleshoot bugs, perfectly fits my needs without requiring security exploits on my part. Which is why I indirectly requested the implementation in the first place.
    I know from previous emails the doctor golfs in the early morning, does a light workout at the gym, and then swims with his wife in the afternoon. Sounds like a lot of activity to me, but then I’m not a cardiologist. I guess if you spend your whole day surrounded by unhealthy people, you’re going to overcompensate.
    I need to create an email appearing to be from the doctor, wait around for the clerk to reply, and then receive the reply. This has to happen while the clerk is in the office. I’m worried she might call him for clarification (his phone log suggests this sometimes happens), and I can’t take the chance he’ll answer the call, so I need to time it for when he’s away from his phone. The doctor starts golfing before his office even opens, which makes sense, considering summer temperatures in Tucson. I take a deep breath. So