Basic Shadow Ch. 07

"Let's get in line."

Six "models" were preparing to showcase some of Millicent Knapp's fashions. Surprisingly, it was a pretty woman with medium brown hair who was acting as generalissimo of the presentation. She'd taken charge, and no one had thought to object. She did seem to have some idea what she was doing. Or maybe that's just the way she was.

"A few things. First, this isn't the fashion world even if we have some wonderful garments to show off, so smile. You're pleased to be showing off such fabulous garments. Second, don't thump. Step lightly. You're happy. Just stand tall - or tall as you can," she added, looking over at Moira, who brought up the rear, "and make sure it's easy for people to see how beautiful the things Millie designs truly are."

George had managed to talk Cassie into presenting the show, though she was too pregnant to model herself, or so she said. They'd decided they could probably get a fifteen-minute segment onto somebody's Lifestyles feature, especially if Angie was one of the models. With Dee Dee, Meredith, Francine, Julie and Moira, they had a half dozen models, and George figured if they could get four of them changed quickly, at a minute and a half each, they'd have their time. Angie was a quick change from experience, Meredith was wearing the beach wear under her casual clothes, Moira had surprised them all with her ability to shift into another of the children's wear collection so quickly, but there was one more slot to fill.

"You know, George, you could wear the cocktail dress we want to finish up with."

"Thank you, Dee Dee, but it would be a bit short on me."

"Your problem, George," Angie laughed, "is that you wouldn't fill out the bodice"

As it turned out, Julie was a faster change than either Francine or Dee Dee.

"Okay, ladies, let's move it."

George could hear Cassie's commentary from where he watched nervously behind the curtains. Many of the store staff and a goodly number of outsiders had shown up to see the presentation.

"Our first selection this afternoon," Cassie was saying, "is a lovely housedress, presented today by Angelica Graves, together with a matching dress for my daughter Moira. You can see that the full skirt allows plenty of freedom of movement for those housekeeping tasks we can't avoid, while at the same time being very attractive to the male of the species when he arrives home to help with the vacuuming."

Tommy's hug and kiss hadn't been scripted, but it was very effective.

"You'll notice as well that both dresses are in easy to clean fabrics, especially important in the event of a nasty spill." On cue, Moira spilled whatever she had in the cup on the skirt of the dress. As the two models retreated, to change into their next displays, Cassie drew a comment from Millicent.

"The clothes are all intended to be worn, and the fabrics have been chosen with wearability and comfort in mind. They are durable and can withstand repeated washings. If it can't live with your lifestyle, then I don't want to make it."

"Now we have dress casual, a pantsuit with matching jacket, worn over a white blouse for daily wear at the office, presented by Deirdre Foster."

"Cassie, if you change the blouse and the accessories, you'll find that this suit works for a day in the country, or semi-formal dining, even a cocktail party."

"Another set of choices is a casual blouse and skirt, presented this afternoon by Julia Martinson."

"These can easily be mix and match, Cassie," Millicent contributed. "Most of our styles are made to go with each other. Two blouses and two skirts could give you four outfits."

"Meredith Jones is showing us a lovely light sundress." And so the show proceeded. Julie was a touch slow on the change, but Cassie drew an extra comment out of Millicent so the delay was unnoticeable. Meredith got a couple of wolf whistles from the crowd when she showed off the swimwear part of the collection.

At the end, Cassie introduced Millicent as "the designer of all these lovely clothes", and she got a good hand.

"Remember, folks, these are all exclusive to Culderson's new Knapp Fashions boutique, designed, made and sold right here in our state."

The coverage over the weekend was good. They even got a mention on the evening news, part of the ongoing "New Businesses in the State" feature one of the stations had been running, and Cassie's station used it to puff up one of their regulars with a few shots of Cassie herself as she presented the show.

Monday morning sales were excellent. Millicent hung around the boutique and did a bit of "Meet the Designer" for the customers. There were already some requests on the internet.

George was pushed into planning a manufacturing arm already. Day 1, and it was beginning to look like they wouldn't be able to keep up with sales without it. Millicent was ecstatic.

***

The previous Sunday evening, George and Dee Dee had been at the airport to see off their New York audit team. Tony Dan was with them, half proud to see his daughter in such a responsible position and half fearful for her going off to the fleshpots of the metropolis. He'd been surprised, too, at seeing her in the fashion show the day before. Damn, but she was growing up. That was a mixed feeling, too.

The other members of the team included Bobby Francis, a computer expert Dee Dee had hired for audit work. The firm needed someone with expert code analysis skills since most fraud these days was based on telling computers to do something other than what they were supposed to do. There was so much information running around that computers were the only practical way to manage it, but that made tracking what was happening susceptible to people who threw in false data and fake commands. They needed someone who could sort that out. Bobby had been a whiz kid once, though now he had a couple of degrees and worked on the right side of the law, mostly.

The other, in addition to Meredith and Francine, was Gordie Harper. Gordie had a Ph. D. from a very reputable university, and had specialized in the detection of computer scams. Dee Dee had attracted him with the opportunity to apply his skills in the real world. Otherwise, he might have retreated to academia. It was his part of the job to tell Bobby what to look for and to make sense out of what he found. Together, they made a formidable team.

"Okay, guys," Dee Dee told them, "let's win one for the Gipper. We know it's a test. We know whoever set it up doesn't like us. Let's show them D. D. Foster is on a par with the big boys."

A chorus of assents and a lot of hugs and the team was safely aboard the corporate jet Iphigenia had sent for them.

Once down at LaGuardia, they'd been driven by limousine to a company condo. It had to be expensive, since there was at least a rumour that Central Park could be seen from the roof if you squinted your eyes just right. The unit that had been assigned to them was a remarkable four-bedroom job, though it looked like it might have been originally two units, and perhaps could be turned back into two if the need was there. Francine thought that it was nice that everyone had their own room but they were still all together. Being in a city this large was definitely a little frightening.

Monday morning they joined in the surprise seizure of everything from the target office. It was a wonderful show, actually, with corporate security being loud and noisy. Whatever else it showed, Meredith and Francine were agreed that whoever was behind whatever they were supposed to find, it wouldn't be the poor guy who'd just been given his walking papers. The company flunkies who directed them managed to take up the whole day before they were satisfied that the original office had been sealed for further analysis and the equipment and records taken had been deposited in the two rooms that had been allocated to the audit team.

Gordie and Bobby had spent time sealing off the computer memories and ensuring that no outside access would be possible. Bobby had checked and re-checked the actual machines before being satisfied that it would be impossible to access them remotely. Wireless accesses had been getting smaller and smaller. Francine had been surprised to see the magnifications he'd been using.

That evening, they more or less fell into bed after eating. Tomorrow would be their first real day on the job. It was the test, really. Was D. D. Foster capable of entering the big time?

***

Gordie and Bobby were bouncing around the analysis room - Dee Dee had insisted that they have a room for analysis and one for report writing. The women tended to gather in the reports room. They had determined from the written reports and accounts that, in fact, there was something fishy going on. Now it was up to the guys to find out what.

It had been pretty simple, really. They had the whole scam documented - one of the lessons they'd learned from the women - and were just fooling around, now, playing with the program, checking its edges, so to speak.

"Well, lookee here," Gordie drawled. "There's a self-destruct."

"Why didn't it erase the program?" Bobby wanted to know. "We weren't all that careful going in. We just by-passed the password protection, and there was this rather amateurish illegal trading module."

"I wonder," Gordie said thoughtfully. "Maybe we were supposed to find it. Meredith said they could prove losses like the ones the program would have produced, but she had a feeling there was a little more involved. It was a set-up, sort of an audit exam someone had created, but she could tell they didn't like us, and it was too easy."

"We are the best," Bobby boasted.

"Yeah, maybe we better get around to proving it. There's got to be another layer."

"Maybe we better check that out," Bobby agreed. "If you've found a self-destruct when you're just fooling around, I'd bet there's a second one buried deeper, plus an entry to the next level. So far, this stuff's as simple as a FORTRAN do-loop. Meredith's right. They'd never let us get away with something this simple."

"Frannie thinks they'd love to get us to demonstrate how good we are by finding the top layer. Then they can shut us down by disclosing the second layer we missed. Not too good for the hotshot forensic auditors, is it? Not the kind of really good people Iphigenia needs to hire, just some country bumpkins who lucked out a time or two. Not really up to city-class fraud."

Bobby grimaced. He and Gordie really were two of the very best, and here they'd been about to sit back and be taken in by the simplest trick. Or at least they'd been assessed at that level, which was quite insulting. They were better than that, for God's sake. They could prove that they were.

"Keep in mind, Gordo, that where there's one layer, there might be more."

"I think you're right, kid."

***

"What do you think, Francine?" Meredith asked, partly a test, partly because she wanted a second opinion.

"It's too good. Nothing is this good. The only holes in the accounts match what was being leached out by what Gordie and Bobby found this morning, exactly. They're fake."

"So why fake accounts that only show us what we're supposed to find?"

"Because we're so dumb we'll take that as proof we're right?"

"Yeah, gotta be it. Kinda insulting, isn't it."

"Pisses me off," Francine commented. "Let's go over the sealed room. Maybe there's an account or a password or a disk or something that gets behind this. This" - she pointed at the account files - "is kindergarten stuff."

"First thing after lunch we'll take a crack at that room. There's got to be something in there we missed the first time."

***

At lunch, Bobby had suggested a couple of places that they to look. Lots of programmers taped complex passwords under the screen or somewhere else near at hand since they couldn't possibly remember them all.

"Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose?" Francine asked.

"Yeah, it does, if someone has physical access to your space," Gordie explained. "It's a risk you run. If you lose your password, though, you lose access to your stuff. That's another risk. Or you use a very simple password, one that you can't forget, but then somebody else has a much easier time of guessing it, too. It's all a balancing act. One way to get around it is to change the password regularly. Some companies require it, but then they won't allow you to use the password you used the time before and include a bunch of requirements that you can't possible remember, so you have to write it down somewhere or risk losing access to your data or your email or whatever. The practice is likely not worth the extra confusion it causes."

"So we might find a bunch of codes somewhere around the keyboard?"

"You might."

"Another trick," Bobby added, "is to save them on a disk or other storage device, usually under a file that's called something other than password, and it could be protected by a simple mnemonic. You almost have to drop into the mind of the person using the device to get anything out of it."

"So Francine and I have to houseclean the office, saving all the bits and pieces, and bring anything useful to you guys for interpretation?" Meredith concluded.

"Yeah, it's what you have us for," Gordie laughed.

***

By the end of the afternoon, Bobby and Gordie had found and disabled the second destruct, had unwound the second level program, which involved doing unauthorized trades using other accounts, and were beginning to decipher the entry to what looked to be either the third level or a complex dead end constructed for the sole purpose of sidetracking anyone who had managed to break that far into the programs.

By 5:30 they knew the dead end actually disguised entry to the third level past some highly sophisticated traps and barriers. They were beginning to get the feel of the style the guy who'd set this one up used. They could tell that level 1 was a fairly raw amateur, level 2 was by a pretty competent professional, and what they were working around now was by a master. With luck, he wouldn't be able to hide what he was doing from their combined talents.

The two of them were settling in for a long night when Meredith and Francine came to collect them.

"Let's go, guys," Meredith ordered. "All work and no play etc. etc."

Once out of the building she explained.

"It's like this. I don't want to give them the pleasure of knowing we beat our brains out over this. Do you good not to go nuts the first day on the job, too, but mostly this is about image. So what've you got?"

Gordie explained that they'd been able to document the top program, but the whole setup was layered. They had a fair picture of the second layer and could easily finish documenting it in the morning. Likely both programs were meant to be found, the first by any halfway competent computer jerk, the second by someone with a good bit of sophistication.

"I don't think anyone was meant to find the third layer," Bobby added. "That was serendipity."

"The only serendipity," Gordie objected, "was that it was us who went after it."

"Keep calm," Meredith cautioned, "and look for more layers. We've picked up a few things that might be helpful. We can go over those in the morning. For now, let's just have a little fun and let off some steam."

They found a club for dinner and some dancing and some fun and relaxation. Meredith had them back home by eleven.

"We've got work tomorrow."

***

Their second night in New York the four of them had gone out to a club for a couple of hours, interested in unwinding. Francine and Gordie formed one couple, and Meredith and Bobby the other. Meredith noticed that Francine and Gordie were quiet together. They talked mostly with their eyes. Bobby was sending the same messages, she thought, but without the same depth. It seemed to her that Francine and Gordie were building something longer term. On the other hand, Bobby looked to be ready for fun, and since she hadn't had any fun for a while, she was up for it too.

Once back at the luxurious condo the company had assigned to them, Gordy and Francine took over the living area, leaving the kitchen to the other couple.

"You want to have sex, Meredith?" Bobby asked, nervous under his bravado.

"Want to convince me I should?" Meredith wondered briefly about the ethics of having sex with co-workers, especially one sort of under her direction. "Or maybe we need to avoid that sort of entanglement?"

"Surely I don't have to be your brother to have sex with you? Or is that an unwritten rule in this firm?"

"Not ever talking about what they do is the rule in this firm, dear. To see, to know, but never to speak. And that wasn't what I meant, anyway. You're sort of my subordinate. I don't want to mess up a working relationship."

"I'm sorry, that was a nasty crack at people who've given me a big chance. We're not really in the same chain of command, Meredith. You're a beautiful woman, and I'd like to get to know you better. I'm not ready for a serious relationship, and I don't think you are, either. It would just be sex. Or maybe a little more. I can't just have sex with any willing female; I have to have some regard for her, just not a lifelong commitment."

"I'd like to see where we can take it, then," Meredith conceded. "You're a pretty good person. And we have to get out of their way."

The two of them removed themselves to Meredith's room, where they had a long and sweaty and very satisfying night. The soundproofing was good, but not perfect. It was unlikely the others heard them, even so. They had other things on their minds.

Gordie couldn't take his eyes off Francine when they got back from the club. That was fine with Francine. She was looking at him, too. All over. Maybe he wasn't the biggest guy around, but he was solid. He was a little pasty from all the indoor work, but that could be fixed. Her planning session got a little jolt. Obviously she was looking forward to having him around for quite a while. She'd never really thought that way about a guy before. They'd never even had sex. Well, that was going to change, if she could trust what was in Gordie's eyes. If he asked, she'd say yes.

The sex wasn't going to be a deal breaker, though, unless it was horrid. Francine was more into caring, and she'd found that with Gordie. She liked the way he worried about Bobby, and how he paid attention to environmental issues, and how he looked at her. Especially how he looked at her.

He moved toward her with a lazy grace.

"Tell me if you aren't ready for this, Frannie," he murmured, "because it's all I've been thinking about since I met you."

"I think I'm ready, Gordie." She felt a touch of wetness between her legs. "More than ready."

No more words. Let there be no more words, she thought. Let there just be feeling. And so it was.

After moving into his room, they undressed each other carefully, sensually, both willing that nothing would break the mood. Then they were naked with each other in his bedroom. Francine ran her hand over shoulders that seemed broader than when he was dressed. There was promise there. He was warm, addictive. She slid her hands over his body again.

Gordie wrapped his arms around her waist. He stood there for a few moments, just enjoying the feel of her, a sensation that sent fire through her blood. He pulled her in for a kiss. They'd kissed before, but not like this. Not with the fire and heat of desire thrumming through both their bodies. His hands slid over the planes of her back as he kissed her, warm and loving. He pulled his head back.

"I put off getting serious with you because I thought it would be a mistake."

"How so?"

"I thought it would be a distraction. That I'd never get my work done. I was wrong."

"In what way?" She was fascinated by him. Here they were naked, hopefully about to have mad passionate sex, and he was apologizing for not making an effort earlier, instead of proceeding to make love to her until she was senseless.