The Anti Social Network by Sadie Hayes Read Free Book Online Page B

chronicling naïve Anais Nin’s sexual education by Miller.
    Patty was blushing horribly at what was happening on-screen—two naked women were kissing in front of a casually smoking Henry Miller—
    when she felt Chad’s knee press against hers. Her heart jumped. He just moved in his chair, she thought. It wasn’t intentional. It doesn’t mean anything.
    But a moment later, she felt his hand settle on her knee under the blanket. Her heart raced and she focused her gaze forward. Concentrate, she thought, just concentrate on the movie. Slowly, his elbow pulled back so that his hand was resting on her thigh. His thumb toyed with the edge of her shorts. He let his fingers ever so slightly stroke the skin along her thigh.
    She wondered if he could feel her pulse.
    “Oh, devastating!” Shandi shouted at the screen as Anais tried to capture Henry’s attention from his wife, June. “Oh, poor Anais!”

Chapter XIV
The Puzzle
    “H ey.” Amelia stuck her head into Sundeep’s office. “Do you have a minute?”
    Sundeep looked up from studying a large medical textbook. “Sure,” he said. “Come in.”
    Amelia sat down on the couch and exhaled.
    “What’s going on?” asked Sundeep from behind his desk.
    Amelia shook her head. “I have a problem. It’s a puzzle, kind of, that I’m stuck on. And I was hoping a new set of ears might help me think it through.”
    “Sure. Let’s hear it,” Sundeep said, leaning back in his chair.
    “Well I have a … code … that I’m working on that’s kind of complex.
    So, start with Node A, which has two options to follow. If I choose option one, there’s a chance that at Node B a malfunction will happen that has a likelihood of damaging the whole program. But if I choose option two, nothing will happen at Node B. In fact, nothing might happen at all. But if something
does
happen, it’ll likely be catastrophic.”
    “Is there any way to program around Node A?”
    “No. It’s inevitable. And it has to be addressed within two weeks.”
    “Well, it sounds like you need a third option at Node A.”
    “But there isn’t a third option. It’s binary.” Sundeep nodded thoughtfully.
    “What if you program something at Node B that overrides the malfunction caused by option one?”
    “You mean, like, create a malfunction through option one?”
    “Sure, I guess. Something that renders the threat of the malfunction moot.”
    Amelia’s eyes darted back and forth as she thought this through in her head. Sundeep watched her with a curious smile: what was it like to be in this girl’s brain?
    Suddenly Amelia looked up. “Yes! Yes! I’ve got it. You’re absolutely right! Sundeep, you’re a genius.”
    She darted out of the room. Sundeep grinned and shook his head. He hoped she would remember him after she made it big.
    Back in her dorm room, Amelia opened two windows in her browser.
    Through one, she hacked into Gibly. Through the other, she hacked into The Family’s personal bank account.
    With Gibly’s eyes on The Family’s information, she hacked into Indiana Central Bank and transferred fifty cents from their reserve funds into The Family’s account.
    Smiling at her work, she took a screenshot of the Gibly report, showing that The Family had just been on Indiana’s Central Bank website, where they had transferred fifty cents into their personal savings account.
    She logged out of all the browsers and attached the screenshot to an e-mail from an anonymous address, Bccing Adam, which she addressed to The Family.
    Dear Family,
    Not sure if you’ve heard of Gibly—it’s been on the news a lot lately.
    Anyway, they’ve got this smart technology that follows users’ web
activity. I wanted to let you know, because it looks like Gibly caught you embezzling some money from the Indiana Central Bank. Looks
like they only caught you taking $0.50, so they probably won’t notice,
but I’d hate for someone to catch you stealing more and alert the
authorities …
    Don’t you