Roland downloaded the file on human testing, which consisted of not one single test, but just a bunch of scientific opinion. Then he went on a search to find out what the fuck DARPA had to do with this private-sector lab. He started back in e-mail and screened the executive boxes. Several e-mails cropped up with DARPA in them. He read them all and finally saw the same fragment of the message he had seen in the shadow system:

We should put in a request for additional funding before darpa closes its budget in the fall.

Below the message were listed the Gen-A-Tec projects that DARPA was interested in. There were two.

One was [dna enhanced gene splicing]. That could include the Frankenfood, Roland thought, the corn, soybeans, all the other stuff. The second program was something called [the ten-eyck chimera project].

This was the first mention of the Ten-Eyck Chimera Project he had seen in all of the browsing he had done in the Gen-A-Tec system, so he went all the way to the root directory and gerped for the text string on ten-eyck chimera. This took him a while, but the search came back:

NO RESULTS

The only mention was in the e-mails he already had. He looked for the table of file systems and found it. There were two related files:

/dev/hda8/chimera

/dev/hda9/chimera

So there was a Chimera file. He had no idea what the hell it was, but Roland was getting jazzed. He was on the case. He issued a mount-a-command to load up every related file in the system. Then he asked for a complete list of file directories. What he got back looked like gibberish. "What the fuck is this?" he wondered aloud.

Inside the Gen-A-Tec building an alarm went off and Lincoln Fellows walked over to his computer and saw that a window had popped up, warning:

TEN-EYCK CHIMERA ACCESSED BY SASSON. MONITOR?

Line was about to allow it when he decided, just to be safe, to check the sign-in logbook. It was after 2 a.m. and, although some Gen-A-Tec employees worked screwy hours, this seemed worth investigating. The Chimera file was restricted to A-list in-building use. For Sasson to legally access the file he would have to be in his office down the hall, and it was a little strange for the CFO to be working here at this hour.

Line checked the logbook. Dr. Sasson had gone home at five and had not signed back into the building. Link resented it when corporate cheese thought they could just walk in at strange hours and ignore his security system. He was the one who would get reamed if there was a breach. So Lincoln Fellows left the control room and walked down the hall to the corporate offices on Mahogany Row.

Sasson's office was empty and dark.

The guy was downloading secure files from his home computer… a complete breach of security!

Link stormed back to his control room and snatched up the phone.

While Lincoln was waking up Jack Sasson, Roland was downloading the corn file. He went back to the systems directory to prowl around, and found another strange encryption: ›@dA»p amp;AE01. This one was shorter, so Roland thought he could break it with the encryption programs in his toolkit. He downloaded it for later.

Then, as the reshcorn files completed downloading, Roland went back to the problem of penetrating the Ten-Eyck Chimera file.

"Yes?" Jack Sasson's voice was thick with sleep.

"Dr. Sasson," Lincoln said, trying to keep the anger out of his voice.

"Who is this? It's two in the goddamn morning."

"This is Lincoln Fellows, the night systems administrator at Gen-A-Tec. I need to advise you, Doctor, that you are in violation of our security mandates right now."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" More awake now, and really pissed.

"We, Doctor-you, that is, have clearance to work from home, sir, but you cannot copy secure files off-site to your home computer."

"I'm not working. I'm sleeping. I've got to be on the damn six-A.M. flight to L.A. today for that silly butterfly trial, so leave me alone, you idiot!"

"You're not at your computer right now?"

"No, dammit. Stop bothering me!" And Jack Sasson hung up.

In his hotel room Roland now had the Ten-Eyck Chimera file up on the screen. The entire fifty-two-page program was completely encrypted.

Roland knew that if the Gen-A-Tec systems administrator was on his toes he'd certainly be aware of the security breach by now and would be trying to run a back-finger search program to trace Roland to this computer site. He had to get out of the system pretty soon. He downloaded the fifty-two-page encrypted file, wondering what could be so important that the file would be in code inside an already secure system… secure that is, to anybody but Roland Minton.

Once the file was downloaded Roland logged off the Gen-A-Tec system. He knew he hadn't been back-fingered, because the alarm in his hard drive, set to detect such nastiness, hadn't gone off. He shut down his laptop and lay back again, lacing his fingers behind his head. "Chew me, dickhead," he said to his opposite number in the control room back at Gen-A-Tec. But he had developed some respect for the guy. Whoever it was, he was pretty good. He just wasn't the best. He wasn't the "master of the game."

Lincoln Fellows knew he had been breached and knew he was about to get toasted for it. He launched a back-finger program to try and trace the cracker, but, as he feared, the guy was already a ghost.

Lincoln knew he couldn't call Vincent Valdez at DARPA with a bag full of apologies. His only chance of saving his job was to come up with some counterintelligence to give to Mr. Valdez, some critical piece of the puzzle. He turned to the Gen-A-Tec exterior security cameras and accessed the video tape decks, starting with the late-afternoon shift change. He ran the four camera platforms high-speed, fast-forward, scanning all four screens. There were three cameras on each platform: one regular, one light-enhanced, one infrared. There were also two front gate camera positions. Lincoln figured that in order to phreak the system so effectively the cracker must have, at some time, been working from the telephone company junction box up the street. He watched as cars and trucks zipped past the gate in fast-forward. After twenty minutes he saw him-a figure moving past the front gate, a telephone repairman with a white hat and tool belt. Lincoln froze the tape with the man in midstride.

"Is that you, Clarence?" he said to the dark image of the man whom he had frozen, left heel down, right toe pointed up.

In the shot the sun had just disappeared behind the hills, throwing the street into shadow. The picture was too dark to get a good look. He switched to the infrared camera. It didn't improve the shot much, so he went for the light-enhanced. Instantly, the shadowy shot lightened. Lincoln could now see what the guy looked like-rail-thin, with wisps of hair escaping from under the brim of the white hard hat. A geek-a-thon. Lincoln released the tape and fast-forwarded. He saw the guy driving away in a white Camry, hat off, purple hair blazing. Lincoln froze the shot with the car still in frame. He looked hard at the rear license plate, couldn't quite read it, but he figured this was all he was going to get. His security command sheet said any breach on DARPA projects had to be communicated first to the DARPA A.D. in Washington.

With a shaking hand he called the emergency number. It was 2:45 a.m. here, which meant 5:45 a.m. in Washington, D.C., but he had been told that Mr. Valdez always got in before sunup.