Stephen Cannell - Runaway Heart

Now Roland could go right through the front door, right past their bullshit security system directly into the company e-mail. He logged in with the user name JSASSON, then typed the password BRANDON. The e-mail host immediately displayed a Gen-A-Tec welcome screen. One of the choices listed was SYSTEMS PROMPT.

"Fuckin' A," Roland giggled. This system has more holes than a military rectal exam, he thought. Roland quickly clicked on SYSTEMS PROMPT and was immediately into their Local Area Network inside the Gen-A-Tec building. Roland was losing respect for this systems administrator at warp speed. The fool hadn't patched the known security holes in his software. He hadn't even guarded against frequently used passwords. The guy was a complete pant-load. Butt toast.

The Gen-A-Tec nighttime systems administrator's computer beeped a warning and Lincoln Fellows, a skinny, twenty-three-year-old African American, master geek and computer nerd, whose net handle was Darkstar, ambled over and pushed his ebony features down into the blue-lit screen.

"What have we got here, my man?" he said softly as a window popped up on his screen with the warning:

Lincoln clicked on OK and the alert window went away.

Line got one or two of these a day. Kids mostly, trying their skill against an organized security system, trying to see if they could break in. Everything here, the holes in the version software, the easy-to-crack password files, everything was put there intentionally by Lincoln Fellows. Just hard enough to seem real, just easy enough to let them in. Once the kiddy crackers thought they were in, they would bounce around inside his BS shadow system thinking they had found the real deal, but it was just an elaborate stage set designed and orchestrated by Lincoln Fellows, master of the game. The crackers would screw with worthless data, download dummy files, do their best to steal or change shit, and leave their mark on the system. But as soon as they logged off the shadow system went back to the way it was before they came in, waiting for the next moron to try. The cracker always left without ever getting past Lincoln's little funhouse to the real computer and data systems beyond. Brilliant. Unorthodox. Devastating. "I am de man. I rule." Lincoln smiled to himself as he watched the intruder move around in his shadow system.

Outside in the bushes Roland decided to try to find out how employees might be organized into work groups at Gen-A-Tec. He tried looking at the /etc/group file and the systems administrator let him do it. Roland's contempt for this SA was becoming enormous. The guy was a beast, a Barney, an e-jerkoff.

Roland could see that Jack Sasson's systems access rights were pretty high. In fact, he was on all the key user groups, including the one called RESHCORN, that probably stood for Research Corn. "There we go, my man. We is strollin' with Roland… hittin' wid Minton." Roland grinned as he downloaded the entire corn file, but as it came in on his screen it seemed pretty damned ordinary. The kind of stuff you'd find in the newspaper: descriptions of bio-enhanced corn, stories about its new insect-repellent qualities and increased vitamin content nothing that the Strockmeister could use in court. Roland shrugged. At least he got the goods as promised. Before logging off he downloaded a few of the company's "Mahogany Row" e-mail boxes for perusal later.

He disconnected his laptop, closed the phone junction box, packed up his equipment, then calmly walked back to his rental, got in, and pulled away.

"Adios, dickhead. You've just been kavorked," Roland said to the five giant blocks of blue tile as he drove off.

Lincoln Fellows watched as the cracker in the shadows logged off. The hacker had downloaded some newspaper articles and dummy e-mails. "Good crack, butt-munch," he said softly to the empty screen. "Come back any time."

"He's not converting as fast as I'd like," the

solemn-faced Dr. Lance Shiller said, slapping nervously the metal clipboard in his right hand against his thigh. He was looking at Susan Strockmire and she, not her father, was the one causing his nervousness. The woman was exquisite. He was determined to impress her with some medical wire-walking, maybe take her downstairs for a cup of mud and a little case consultation, get her away from the manic frenzy of the Cardiac Care Unit at Cedars.

It was hard to get any romantic traction with code blues going off all over the place, while crash carts whizzed by and cardiovascular post-ops rolled through on bloodstained sheets.

"If you want, we could explore some options,"

Shiller said. "Tell you what, I'm off in twenty minutes and I haven't eaten since this morning." He looked at his gold watch. "Holy Moley, that's almost eight-and-a-half hours ago. No wonder r m starved. How 'bout we jump downstairs now and get a bite. I think we need to discuss getting your father a more permanent result. The drug therapy doesn't seem to be doing it."

"Okay," she said nervously. "Okay… sure… whatever you think is best, Dr. Shiller."

"Right. Well, that's what I think is best… and I prefer Lance."

The windowless cafeteria was overlit and bustling with medical people of all shapes and specialties, as well as a few civilians from the four o'clock visitors crowd. Most were carrying trays or hunched over processed meals at institutional tables, looking uncomfortable in straight-back metal chairs. Susan and Lance were in one of the few leather booths along the wall. Susan only ordered coffee and Lance was poking at something called "The California Plate" that was just an avocado and chicken salad with honey-mustard dressing. He really wasn't hungry because, truth be told, he had eaten only an hour ago.

"What other kinds of things are you suggesting?" Susan asked, leaning forward, her beautiful, delicate features porcelain and perfect even under the harsh neon glare. But her pale blue eyes, the color of reef water, were clouded with concern.

God… I am falling in love, Lance thought, as he nibbled and considered. "To begin with, you have to understand how the heart works." He took a gold pen out of his hospital white coat, clicked it open, and started to draw on the paper place mat. "Your heart is shaped like this." He drew a rough oval and divided it into four quadrants. "The atria and the ventricles work together, alternately contracting and relaxing to pump blood. The neuro-electrical system of our body is the power source that makes this pumping action possible." He looked up and smiled. He thought he had a killer smile and he did. Susan smiled back.

"This electrical pulse is triggered in the sinus node, up here in your nasal passage." He drew a small circle somewhere above.the heart then traced a line down to the oval as he talked. "The impulse travels a special pathway like this, down and through your heart, where it then triggers the heartbeat. In your father's case, something age, maybe diet or alcohol, or even stress has interfered with this delicate process, and when that happens the heart fails to respond to the impulse and goes out of rhythm. It can then start to beat erratically. It speeds up or goes way too slow, even sometimes threatening to shut down, and this is the general condition we call arrhythmia." He clicked his ballpoint closed for emphasis. "Lecture over." He returned the pen to his pocket and smiled again.

"Doctor, I don't mean to be rude, but I know all of this. He's had four arrhythmias now. I've had the condition explained to me three times. I'm not looking for a description of his problem. I'm looking for a cure. Would you mind if we get to the bottom line? I want facts. I want an actuarial prognosis. I want survival percentages." A legal mind used to finding solutions jumped out from behind that angelic mask and surprised him.