Memories End by James Luceno Read Free Book Online Page A

fore-finger. “The backup file of the EPA run. I managed to reconstruct some of it.”
    Tech leaped off the bed. “You rule! Let me see!”
    Marz coin-flipped the mini to Tech, who immediately slotted the disk into the laptop.
    “Man, you shoulda seen what I had to go through to decode even part of it,” Marz boasted.
    His eyes glued to the laptop screen, Tech could barely contain his excitement. “You are a friggin’ gen-ee-us!” An alphanumeric jumble began to scroll on the screen, then the image of the blue gremlin appeared, and its high-pitched, youthfully eager voice issued from the computer's small speakers, repeating in a loop.
    “MSTRNTS. MSTRNTS will know what to do.”
    Tech highlighted the short run of capitalized text that accompanied the image in a dialogue balloon and copied it to a separate file. When it was clear that the remainder of the download contained nothing more than indecipherable code, Tech opened the text file and studied the words.
    “What's a ‘MSTRNTS’?”
    “Could be a she,” Marz said.
    “A she?”
    Marz reached over Tech's shoulder, moved the cursor, unlocked the caps key, and inserted a period and space. “Ms. Trents. See?”
    Tech laughed through his nose. “Like the letters on a vanity license plate.”
    “Might even be a vanity plate.”
    Tech considered it briefly. “Then why not Ms. Trants, or Ms. Tronts. Or even Ms. T. Rents?”
    “Okay,” Marz conceded. “But those still make her a she.”
    “Not necessarily,” Tech said, typing. “If it's like a vanity tag, then maybe m-s-t-r is short for ‘mister.’ “
    Marz plucked his lower lip. “Mr. Nats, Nets …”
    “Nits, Nots,” Tech completed. “Could be any one of them, or something completely different. Maybe there's another hint in the download. We could run it through Codebreaker, or we could bring the mini to one of the cypherpunks down-town.”
    “We could,” Marz said slowly, “but I think our little blue gremlin is already telling us what to do: Bring it to ‘MSTRNTS.’ “
    They stared at the letters for a long while.
    “Ms. Tree Nuts?” they asked each other at the same time. Tech punched Marz in the arm and broke out laughing.
    As long as they were together, life didn't suck.
    Felix sat staring at the flashing countdown icon he had moved to the corner of the office's main-display screen—the only screen that was still working. Felix had exactly sixteen hours ten minutes to settle up with Network Security and the EPA, or Data Discoveries would be history.
    “How much money do I owe in fines?” he asked the computer.
    “$28,865,” the system replied in an electronic monotone.
    “Twenty-eight thousand?” Felix mumbled in disbelief.
    Most of that amount was in interest, springingfrom unpaid vehicular emission-control and garbage-recycling violations. He refused to even think about his soon-to-be-overdue rent and insurance payments.
    “How much is in the account?” he asked at last. “$301.27.”
    Hopeless,
Felix thought. He supposed he could throw himself on the mercy of the court and plead for a week's extension, but what good would a week do?
    He was angry with Jess and Marshall for adding to his financial woes, but he couldn't blame them entirely. He was the one who had allowed the fines to pile up and compound. The boys had deserved the dressing down they had received, but Felix already missed them and feared being estranged from them even more than being put out of business.
    He let go a prolonged exhale that marked an official end to the day that was supposed to have been the first day of his new life. Then he activated the office answering machine, which told him that he had had three calls—better than three times the usual number, zero.
    All three were routine requests from people who had fallen prey to the complexity of modern life. One woman's money-market funds had disappeared overnight. The bank claimed to have an e-authorization for withdrawal, but the woman claimed that