“The Universal governments genuinely feel threatened by Utopials? It’s a Cold War for our century?”
“Technically, that fits. But I’m thinking: just one team? Even if you’re completely paranoid, that isn’t how a government works. They have backups, fallbacks, hungry acolytes in training, whole departments given over to an ideological enemy’s downfall.”
“Okay: one rich bigoted billionaire, or a globalPAC. They don’t care, and don’t think logically. Or there’s something else altogether going on.”
“Urrgh.” Kandara tensed up. “You know you’re preaching to the converted, right? It’s just that I can’t figure out exactly what’s wrong about this.”
Jessika shot a glance at Kruse, who was staring glumly at the kitchen table. “Logically, given a poor cost-return, the sabotage is a diversion.”
“For what?”
“Exactly the question we should be asking. When I raised it, I got shot down.”
Kandara raised her gaze to whatever heavens occupied the sky above Akitha. “Oh, great. You want me to be your patsy.”
“That’s Trojan horse. But I think messenger is more accurate. Sie might listen to you. You are the expert, after all.”
“I fucking hate office politics!”
“Me too.” Jessika drained her glass and sauntered back into the villa. Kandara glared at her back, but she knew she was right.
—
“The attacks are a subterfuge?” Kruse said incredulously half an hour later when Kandara had changed back into her singlet and shorts and rejoined everyone in the kitchen.
“I don’t know. But we have to cover all possibilities. Especially this one, as it might offer a route to tracking down the team launching these attacks. You cannot overlook this opportunity.”
“But…what are we looking for?”
Kandara was pleased she managed to avoid looking at Jessika. “I’d suggest you review the networks that have suffered the attacks.”
“We already have,” Tyle said. “No other secure files were cracked.”
“Even if you could guarantee that, which I don’t believe you can, that’s not what I want.”
“So what are we looking for?”
“Some kind of pattern. Something common to every attack. Start by finding out what other science projects were using the same network.”
Tyle gave Kruse a questioning look. “It wouldn’t hurt. We haven’t got anything else.”
“All right,” Kruse said. “Do it.”
—
It must have been something about the bed, or maybe planet-lag time difference. Kandara slept for almost three whole hours, waking at four o’clock local time when the town was still buried beneath the clear night sky.
She lay flat on her back, eyes open but unable to see the ceiling behind the dense grids of fluorescent data that Zapata splashed across her tarsus lenses. The other four had spent most of the night reviewing the affected networks; there were hundreds of research and development projects sharing each one. The Bureau’s G8Turing had sorted them into categories and attempted to match them, but there was no real pattern—not with the types of projects involved. Even the amount of resources they’d been allocated had no relation to where the attacks took place. She grinned at that grid column, suspecting Jessika had been the one insisting they provide a cost analysis. But in the end there was nothing. That was the problem with pattern analysis; you had to define the parameters correctly.
So she began to feed in her own parameters, sending the columns twisting into new formations.
—
At five o’clock Kandara stalked down the villa’s main corridor, banging on the bedroom doors. The team appeared grudgingly, rubbing sleep from their eyes, robes and PJs disarrayed as they ambled into the kitchen. They found Kandara operating the sleek coffee machine; she’d already filled a teapot with English Breakfast tea, allowing it to brew.
“What?” Kruse demanded.
“I’ve found the pattern,” Kandara told hir.
“What is it?” Jessika asked sharply.
Kandara grinned. “Weapons.”
“We don’t have any weapons projects,” Oistad protested.
“Which is why you didn’t find the pattern.”
Kruse sat at the big glass table and snagged a cup of coffee. “All right, show us how smart you are.”
“I’m not smart. I got paranoid.”
“Ah,” Tyle exclaimed. “Developments that could potentially be adapted for weapons usage.”
“Damn right.”
“Which are…?” Kruse asked.