Page 155 of The Daddy P.I. Casefiles: The Second Collection
Lindy sits down next to me, pops on a pair of black rim glasses, and sets up his devices swiftly. “Didn’t trust me to arrange the meatspace, huh?”
“That was all the paranoid psycho you let restrain you,” I respond, logging into Snarlzilla and letting everyone know I’m in the safe room.
I ignore Lindy and De Leon sniping at each other for a few minutes while I open a secure chat with Kinofoo and CenturyGirl.
DM4XX: Parameters have changed. Blackhat is a known player. We’ve negotiated personal safety.
Kinofoo: What assurances do you have they won’t burn you?
DM4XX: Nothing solid. But I’m not sure I want to livestream anymore. If I bring him into Snarlzilla, can you watch to make sure he doesn’t poke around, doesn’t install malware? Record the hack as insurance, but no livestream?
CenturyGirl: Ah, I’m surplus to requirements again. But yes, no problem.
I close out the chat and delete the log, just to be safe. Then I invite Lindy into Snarlzilla.
“What is this?”
“Proxying server. It’ll cover our tracks. Even if they catch us mid-hack, they won’t be able to trace us here.”
“Dark web?” Lindy lifts his eyebrows at me. “Naughty, Maxie.”
“Like you didn’t find Sasha and his crew on the dark web.”
“MercsRUs dot com.”
I scoff at him and get to coding.
There are layers and layers to this bastard. First, I have to find Lumpstone’s virtual network. It’s no surprise that Lumpstone has competent IT support who have changed the access port from the default to hide this gate into their virtual fortress. The second scanner program I use finds the open port. Once I have the gate open, it’s a straight brute-force hack to get the server password. While that runs, I check the fridge. As Escher promised, it’s fully stocked. A deli container holdschicken salad that smells surprisingly good. I make sandwiches for me and De Leon and a garden salad for Lindy.
Lindy’s looking unusually smug when I bring his salad and bottles of water to the table.
“Don’t get used to me waiting on you,” I say.
“I’m in.” He grins.
“Dick. I should have taken that one. How’d you get in?”
“Summer intern bragged all over social media about his internship, then used his girlfriend’s name as part of his password.”
“Idiot. It’s nearly October, though. Why’s he still got a user account?”
Lindy shrugs. “Used to take Orelo months to shut down interns’ accounts, too. Some of them come back on school breaks. Easier to just leave their account dormant for a couple of months than to set them up a whole new account every time they come back. I figured if Orelo did that, Bluett might, too.”
“Intern doesn’t have administrative-level server access, though, does he?”
Lindy shakes his head as he takes a big bite of salad and chews. “Got me right into the company directory, though, and either the VP’s Executive Assistant is banging the boss or he’s been a naughty boy on company time, because he did. Ten-character mixed password? RazorBlaze cracked it in less time than it took you to make our lunches.”
He pats his laptop. He must have the chips optimized the way I do.
“No lockouts?”
“CAPTCHA,” Lindy snorts.
“Stop lights?”
“Fire hydrants.”
“You are ridiculously lucky.”
