Page 50 of Nearly Roadkill
Cc:S_Dunlap
Subj:Your wish is my… etc, etc.
Shel and I have been talking about this for weeks. I have a prototype, but you’ll need some new hardware to accommodate it. Shel’s arranging.
By the way… you’re still using your generic department account? Haven’t you Registered yet? You’ll need a private account in order to work this thing I’ll be sending you.
—Booker
Register, huh? Soon.
To:Undersec’y LaBouchere
From:FBCS Investigations
Subj:Coughing
Ma’am,
I’ve got two fish I’m playing real gentle here. They’re using black market bypass codes. I traced the acquisition of the bypasses to the same distributor. No name there yet, but I’m closing in.
Looks to me like we’ve got an honest-to-God conspiracy going here, ma’am… that or first-class stupidity. I need some time to figure out which, and I don’t want to scare these folks off.
—W.
Wally Budge is putting it all together. His favorite task. What had Shelly called him? A garbage hound? Yeah, and two of his wives had been only slightly kinder with “pack rat.” Collect, think, catalogue, muse, compare, review, and ta-da: useful information. He loses himself happily for the next few minutes or so. It’s a shock when he hears a voice behind him, and the clock says it’s five hours later.
“Lieutenant Wallace Budge?”
Budge’s bloodshot eyes swivel themselves onto the workman standing in the doorway. “Yeah?”
“This stuff is for you; where do ya want it?” The workman wheels in a dolly loaded with sleek dove-gray boxes, a huge monitor, and a keyboard from the future.
Budge narrows his eyes. “Whassat?”
The workman shrugs. “New workstation. Merry Christmas, I guess.”
“Hold on, hold on, lemme check this out first.”
The man eyes Budge’s archaic desktop computer. “Sure thing, Boss. You fond of antiques or somethin’?”
Ignoring him, Budge punches numbers into his phone.
“Yeah, Walls?”
“Shel! What’s with the new computer?”
A husky laugh. Then, “It’s for Mary.”
“Huh?”
“Typhoid Mary… hell of a sophisticated search engine for the Net.”
“Huh?”
That chuckle. “Your virus, Wally. She’s got a graphic interface, so she won’t live in your old Unix box. She needs Windows at least, and a Mac at best. So I got ya an Apple PowerBook Duo, fastest machine this side of the Berlin Wall. Typhoid Mary is gonna dance before your very eyes. Speaking of which, we should go dancing sometime. Merry…”
“… Christmas, yeah yeah yeah. I like my old box, Shel!”
