“You think the message from Mercer is legit?” Toller asked Warren as she eased the car into the parking space—the wheels crunched over a carelessly discarded soft drink there. The side of the ASU Bookstore loomed large in front of them, the sun had already fallen far from its zenith in the sky and now … Read more
“Boss,” Hadaly said, her voice projected from the speakers on Elaine’s Enoch so that Frog could hear it as well. “I think that Operation Honeypot has revealed something interesting when correlated with the bitcoin transactions related to the Tango’s professors.” Elaine and Frog had crossed most of the campus between the Math buildings and the … Read more
Morehouses’s office was occupied. When Frog opened the door she thought it had been unlocked by the KNOCK spellcode earlier; but instead of it being empty, she discovered a male student hunched over a computer screen, headphones on, tabbing through charts. The tinny sound of his loud metal music could be heard spilling wicked bass … Read more
Every lock in the entire hallway in both directions simultaneously unlatched itself after Elaine ran the KNOCK program on the Enoch. The initial gong chime produced by the program triggered a cacophony of rattling locks that chunk-chunked down the hallway across each door. The group stood stunned in front of the door they wanted to … Read more
“She won’t die, exactly,” Elaine said. “Hadaly-Actual is here and she’ll live on.” “Aren’t we obliged to at least try?” “No,” the two AI’s said in unison. “It is Hadaly’s persona, her decision,” Elaine said. “I know we don’t have time to get down to brass-tacks about the definition of what-is-alive, but right now Hadaly…Eigen … Read more
“I can’t upload a sample of the virus,” Elaine said. “It’s extremely contagious and I cannot let it escape the quarantine. I activated the Tesla-Faraday-Voynich barrier for that purpose. And the eldritch EMP generator has been at red-line since I activated the seal; it’s on a tripwire discharge failsafe. This virus is not escaping this … Read more
“Coming in loud and clear,” Frog said. “What now?” “I have established the diagnostic net,” Elaine said as she caught a rolling chair, sat in it, and then slid it across the room to another workstation. Her fingers danced across the keyboard like a concert pianist at a recital, flourishing single-handedly time-to-time to gesture in … Read more
[Vulnerable by Kyt Dotson is a short story in the Black Hat Magick series. It is the second-in-sequence after Invincible, published earlier on this blog.] — The Machine Bay beneath the basement of the Engineering Center sat in a state of potent silence. Its various machines and workbenches waited in sepulchral quiet until a single command from the … Read more
Roger Powers walked like a cat stalking prey. Adam had retreated from the front of the hall, two cell phones in hand, and headed for the elevators—or perhaps the restrooms, Roger hoped he wouldn’t have to double back and lose him if that were the case. The fact that he’d taken out a second cell … Read more
“I found out something interesting about Tango’s professors,” Hadaly said. “Is it related to your cheating ring investigation?” Elaine asked. She’d been engrossed in data collating behind her goggles—the empty antechamber and the stairs had become her personal data laboratory. On the ground floor, Frog fielded phone calls with other colleges pretending to be an … Read more