Chapter 31



I thought about our police officer... the one that I had taken to Spain, and placed back into the past. What did I know about him and the other guy who was with him? Nada. So I went back in time about a year, and starting trailing the good officer, from in the 'between'.

I learned that he was definitely as corrupt as the day is long, and so was his friend. My guess had been accurate. They were both part of an enforcement arm for the 'council'. By tracking these two, I was able to identify the 'Mr. Smith' they were talking about.

His real name was Roger Miller. He was a very interesting and enigmatic man. He was single, in his late fifties and worked at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He was a professor of science, specializing in electronics. Well, that explained his ability to get my number. I recognized his voice as being that of the one who had called me on my private line in my office. A line which hardly anyone had the number of yet.

His home was as amazing as he was. He lived about a forty-minute drive from the Institute, and commuted every day. He was a mild mannered looking man. A more absent-minded professor looking type, you couldn't find!

After I gained access to his house, I explored it from in the 'between'. He had more security than I would have believed any normal person could have! Most of it seemed homemade, too. While he had a home computer up in his den, it was the secret room downstairs in the basement, that intrigued me most.

He had partitioned off a part of his basement. You could only access that particular room through a secret door, disguised as part of a wall that held a rack of pool cues.

Well, it was no problem for me. I just went inside with him, from in the 'between', and made sure I waited till he left. Then I placed an object into the NTZ. But the secret room itself! Shit! It was as if I had stumbled into a sci-fi movie!

The guy had built his own computer. It was big, and it was powerful. I looked it over carefully and he had at least one terrabyte of hard drive space. I was itching to get into his system and look at it really closely, but that might be dangerous.

The room was air conditioned to keep his computer cool. The rest of the room was an electronics 'gee whiz' ad! I looked at several items, and was confused. He had designed things that I could not even begin to grasp what their purpose was.

I watched him type in his password. That was the screen that was on when we entered the room. His password was becky_thatcher0511312d2. That was a hell of a password! Well, it would be easy to get some form of access after he left. I now had the password to get in. But were there other protected files?

I noticed with interest that he had video conferencing available; and he had a scrambler set up, too. Now who would he have to scramble? Damn! But this guy had some stuff I wish I had. A lot of it was home made, and very hi tech. More 'gee whiz' stuff.

I quickly found out his telephone numbers after I returned to the 'now'. I checked 'in the now' with him, now that I had found him. I noticed he had not changed his password since I had first found it, 'a year ago', relatively speaking. Bad security for him, great news for me.

I had two things to do now. One was to start designing a new program, so I could invade Mr. Millers computer; and two, do a face-to-face with Rachael. We had a couple things to iron out.

Rachael arrived at my house several days after my victory, (or was it?) over the federal government in court. I led her into the living room and offered her refreshment.

"Rachael, we need to straighten out a slight problem," I started.

"I agree. I have been worried about you for a little while now," she replied.

"Thank you for your concern. Now then, are you under the delusion that I owe you explanations for anything I should happen to say or do?" I asked interestedly.

She sat back, her eyes widening. "What do you mean?"

"I mean a certain phone call, where you said you needed to evaluate who you worked for? If you don't like working for me, I will accept your letter of resignation. I am easy to get along with, I will be sorry to see you go, but I don't have to answer to you at all," I said sternly.

Her mouth tightened.

"I understand. If you want me to resign, I will have a letter on your desk first thing in the morning," she said and started to get up.

"Sit down!" I said sharply. She did.

"Rachael, when I first hired you, I told you what I wanted and expected from you. You have fulfilled, no more than fulfilled my expectations. I don't want your resignation, unless you want to go.

"But what I do with the information you get for me, how I use it, if I use it, even how I disseminate it, is not your concern. Yes, I leaked that list of names and also a couple of choice items of interest, to the national press. That's my business, not yours.

"If you can't understand that, then you should resign. I would miss you, as I have come to depend on you, and your abilities. The bottom line is that I am your employer, and you're the employee. Do I make myself clear?" I asked her gently.

She swallowed, and nodded. I smiled at her.

"Great! Are we still a team, or do you want to resign?" I asked her, dreading her decision to quit.

"No, I don't want to resign. I like this job," Rachael responded.

"Good. I am glad we see eye to eye, and that I still have a director of investigations. Here is someone I want investigated. I want a list of who he sees, where he goes, who he calls, if you can get that. I want weekly reports," I said, giving her Roger Millers name address and work place.

"Tell whoever you send to be very careful with this man. He is very, very dangerous. He is with the enforcement arm of the 'council'. Rachael, I can't stress how dangerous he is. It is possible he would go as far as to KILL someone who he deems even a minor threat. I am not releasing this information to the government, because we still don't have a complete list of who are members, and we have already seen a number of governmental employees and elected officials revealed," I told her.

She nodded, and we then talked about other matters. The meeting ended on a pleasant note. As I closed the door behind her, I sighed with relief. I was so glad I was not going to have to fire her or replace her. This was my first time of getting tough with an employee. I hated like hell to get tough with Rachael, but it had been necessary.

I now had six agents from my company protecting me, in one way or another. Two were watching over my home, two were watching over my office, and I now had two following me from place to place. That had been one of the matters I had discussed with Rachael after we re-established our professional relationship.

I started in on my new invasion program with a vengeance. I had to go under the assumption he knew, or possibly knew, of my invasions into the national press. He also had contacts. He had someone who was a damned fine computer programmer working for him, unless he was the one who programmed his own computer.

Usually the two were separate, though not mutually exclusive. I got very interested in the task of redesigning my program, and called in to work to say that I was working elsewhere, and if they needed me to sign off on a charity or exceptional problem to call and leave me a message.

I was in a music phase, and I had quite an extensive library of music from all over. Currently, I was fascinated with a singer from Canada named Loreena McKennit. She sings a lovely song called "Bonny Portmore".

So with that song looped, I started working my ass off to the haunting voice of Loreena. I don't know what it is about that song, but it causes my imagination to run, and it relaxes me as well as wrings something in me that is emotional.

Several days went by, and I was well into the redesign of my infiltration program. I would catch the news, and more was being unearthed concerning the 'council'. I was having a slight problem with interfacing a new addition to the basic program, that would tighten my program's security. There was no help for it. I was going to have to increase the program's size, to accommodate the new additions I wanted. I was also going to have to find a way through his firewall, or else go and install it directly onto his computer. His firewall was not a commercial variety. They come with nice holes in them to work through. This was how I knew he had access to a programmer, or was himself a programmer.

While this was going on, I received two updates from Rachael about Mr. Miller. He socialized with his colleagues, and went home straight after work or a function. If he met anyone, it had not happened while our investigators were watching.

I read the brief bio that was compiled to date, and it was not much. Just the schools he had attended and when he was hired by M.I.T. There was little of anything else, except comments and observations from our field agents.

I decided to go ahead and install my newly redesigned program directly into his computer. I did have access, after all. It would not be difficult to go back in time to put it in place. I was going to have a first hand look through this man's computer, into an upper level of the 'council'.

If everything went according to plan, I was going to download several of his files, also. Might as well kill two birds with one stone. I downloaded the new program onto a CD-RW, and then put myself into position to install my little surprise onto his computer.

I also brought a video camera with me to get as much information on the designs and the way the boards were set up, that were all over the place. Everything went as planned. I waited until he was gone, and then I stepped into his basement computer room, through the NTZ.

I spent some time videoing everything. There was a bench against one wall that held something he was working on. I got a close up of everything, and then I got to work doing my specialty.

The monitor showed a password screen. I put in the password I had seen him put in, and I was in! I couldn't help it. I accessed 'system information'. I was right. One terrabyte of hard drive space, FIVE gigabytes RAM, the operating CPU was TEN gigahertz! I drooled. I wanted this computer!

I installed my CD in his CD drive, and loaded my little program, no problems. I removed my CD and placed it in a holder and put it in the NTZ. I then got out a blank CD-RW, and started downloading his files.

The first files I downloaded were program files. Next were his document files. I actually ran out of space on my CD! I had filled a 650MB disk, and there was still far more to get! Well, that would be for later. I now had a big job ahead of me, just downloading this CD and seeing what I had.

I made sure there was no trace of what I had done in his computer. Man, I loved being the super administrator! If I had done everything right, he would never know I had gained total access to his computer.

As soon as I got back home, and back to my proper time, I popped the video I had made into my VCR, and watched it. I had good shots of electronics of unknown design. I was going to have to hire someone to decipher this stuff for me.

I retrieved my program CD, that I had stored in the NTZ, then I paused. It was perfectly safe in the NTZ! As a matter of fact, where better to store something I didn't want anyone to have access to? So I put my new invasion program with the additions back into NTZ.

I pulled out the CD I had used to download Miller's files, and started the process to view possibly dangerous programs. I created a partition for working with this, so my computer would not be infected if there were any surprises.

I had a gold mine here! I had the programs he used to do his video conferencing, his security program, his scrambler/unscrambler program, and more! I was like a kid in heaven. I also looked at some of the files. I found a list that had the police officer and his friends name on it! I had the names of the enforcers under his command!

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Edited By TeNderLoin

Volentrin

Chapter 32