only
tampered with one of them. Moving a short distance down the edge of the roof,
he took aim at what he was sure was the correct window, caught himself, shifted
his aim upwards, and fired again. The piton sailed across the gap and impacted
the wall of the building, embedding itself easily in the surface. Bruce glanced
at the piton gun’s display: a solid hold.
Designed for rock climbers who mucked about and occasionally
died on the exposed faces at either end of the garden well, the nano–piton’s
holding capacity was highly variable, dependent upon how squarely they had hit
whatever they were fired at. Their average loading capacity was supposedly
three hundred and fifty pounds, but the standard deviation on that figure was
wide enough that Bruce, and the two hundred and fifty pounds he carried with
him at all times, was always reluctant to use it. Bruce attached the piton gun
and cable to a second gun using a jury–rigged binding. He fired the second
piton at the wall of the roof access staircase he had climbed up, then reeled
in the gun until the whole apparatus — cables, guns, and ramshackle binding —
was taut.
The next part of the plan was where things got stupid. To
describe it to any right–thinking man was a guaranteed way to see him wince and
inhale sharply. It gave even Bruce, no stranger to ill–advised schemes, some pause.
Grabbing one of the piton guns in each hand, he flipped the setting of one to
reverse, then triggered them both simultaneously. The apparatus of madness
whirred forward slowly. Bruce sat up on the roof’s edge and spun his legs out
over the edge. He grabbed both piton guns firmly. “This will not seem like a
better idea the longer you wait,” he said, then lowered himself off the roof,
putting his weight on the apparatus. The pitons, cables, guns, and makeshift
binding all held. He swallowed, adjusted his balance slightly, then pulled both
triggers. With a faint whir, the large man sailed through the night sky.
Ten seconds later, Bruce had crossed the street and gently
set some of his weight down on Charlotte Redelso’s windowsill. After a few
frantic moments fumbling with the window’s edge, he finally felt it slide up.
Quietly, Bruce lowered himself into the apartment and its blessedly solid
ground.
The plan entered its marginally less crazy second phase of
snooping around to see what there was to see. Bruce trusted that like most
people, Ms. Redelso kept some information about herself offline. Every device
on board the ship was networked, sharing a common, instantly accessible storage
space. All totally private — every desk and terminal was capable of identifying
immediately who was using it, rendering private information inaccessible to a
malicious third party. Yet, few people trusted this security with their most
personal information, and almost everyone stored some information offline on
dumb, non–networked terminals, even paper in a few cases. This desire for
enhanced privacy ironically made the information much less secure, at least for
someone with a knack for prowling around the physical world.
Bruce pulled out his own terminal and flipped the camera to
scan in infrared, a useful utility familiar to few people other than
maintenance workers. A light glow from the bedroom was Charlotte, still
evidently asleep. He surveyed the apartment, picking out the few locations he
had already spotted as potential hiding places, then switched from the infrared
scanner to another, far more interesting application. He placed the terminal in
his chest webbing and proceeded to search the apartment, checking all the
drawers, cupboards, and other nooks and crannies.
Ten minutes later he had found it: a dumb–terminal stuffed
in a desk drawer. Although the main interface of the terminal was password
protected, this security feature had been broken two hundred years earlier. No one
capable of fixing the problem had ever been willing to do so, leaving all such
terminals highly
tampered with one of them. Moving a short distance down the edge of the roof,
he took aim at what he was sure was the correct window, caught himself, shifted
his aim upwards, and fired again. The piton sailed across the gap and impacted
the wall of the building, embedding itself easily in the surface. Bruce glanced
at the piton gun’s display: a solid hold.
Designed for rock climbers who mucked about and occasionally
died on the exposed faces at either end of the garden well, the nano–piton’s
holding capacity was highly variable, dependent upon how squarely they had hit
whatever they were fired at. Their average loading capacity was supposedly
three hundred and fifty pounds, but the standard deviation on that figure was
wide enough that Bruce, and the two hundred and fifty pounds he carried with
him at all times, was always reluctant to use it. Bruce attached the piton gun
and cable to a second gun using a jury–rigged binding. He fired the second
piton at the wall of the roof access staircase he had climbed up, then reeled
in the gun until the whole apparatus — cables, guns, and ramshackle binding —
was taut.
The next part of the plan was where things got stupid. To
describe it to any right–thinking man was a guaranteed way to see him wince and
inhale sharply. It gave even Bruce, no stranger to ill–advised schemes, some pause.
Grabbing one of the piton guns in each hand, he flipped the setting of one to
reverse, then triggered them both simultaneously. The apparatus of madness
whirred forward slowly. Bruce sat up on the roof’s edge and spun his legs out
over the edge. He grabbed both piton guns firmly. “This will not seem like a
better idea the longer you wait,” he said, then lowered himself off the roof,
putting his weight on the apparatus. The pitons, cables, guns, and makeshift
binding all held. He swallowed, adjusted his balance slightly, then pulled both
triggers. With a faint whir, the large man sailed through the night sky.
Ten seconds later, Bruce had crossed the street and gently
set some of his weight down on Charlotte Redelso’s windowsill. After a few
frantic moments fumbling with the window’s edge, he finally felt it slide up.
Quietly, Bruce lowered himself into the apartment and its blessedly solid
ground.
The plan entered its marginally less crazy second phase of
snooping around to see what there was to see. Bruce trusted that like most
people, Ms. Redelso kept some information about herself offline. Every device
on board the ship was networked, sharing a common, instantly accessible storage
space. All totally private — every desk and terminal was capable of identifying
immediately who was using it, rendering private information inaccessible to a
malicious third party. Yet, few people trusted this security with their most
personal information, and almost everyone stored some information offline on
dumb, non–networked terminals, even paper in a few cases. This desire for
enhanced privacy ironically made the information much less secure, at least for
someone with a knack for prowling around the physical world.
Bruce pulled out his own terminal and flipped the camera to
scan in infrared, a useful utility familiar to few people other than
maintenance workers. A light glow from the bedroom was Charlotte, still
evidently asleep. He surveyed the apartment, picking out the few locations he
had already spotted as potential hiding places, then switched from the infrared
scanner to another, far more interesting application. He placed the terminal in
his chest webbing and proceeded to search the apartment, checking all the
drawers, cupboards, and other nooks and crannies.
Ten minutes later he had found it: a dumb–terminal stuffed
in a desk drawer. Although the main interface of the terminal was password
protected, this security feature had been broken two hundred years earlier. No one
capable of fixing the problem had ever been willing to do so, leaving all such
terminals highly
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