Splicer (5 page)

A covey of pigeons threw themselves up into the muddy sky.

As the sound of their wings faded, Grieves worked the lock on the iron door that read WATKINS SUPPLIES SINCE 1891. He stood on an ancient loading platform, the rails just beyond it rusted from lack of use. The door, approximately ten feet across and eight feet high, rolled away from the opening on dirty steel tracks. Another pigeon, alarmed by the scream of metal against dry brick, took ragged flight.

"Filthy flying rats," spat out Grieves. He looked about, listened for a noise from the rail yard beyond and then stepped into the dark and pulled the heavy door shut. He locked the inside latch with the same padlock, his actions practiced in the darkness. He felt to his right and flipped a switch. A lone fluorescent tube flickered and buzzed as if annoyed at being woken up.

Along the back brick wall stood an oil-soaked workbench, which Grieves stepped up to, laying his package down. He pulled the brown paper bag away to reveal a new laptop computer, an expensive Sony with a swivel color screen. He swung up the display, which instantly flickered and came to life in a brilliant flash of reds and blues.

He reached behind a row of dusty bottles and retrieved a modular jack connected to a plastic cable. He snapped the jack into the rear of the computer, struck some keys and then moved into the dark north corner of the space.

On the floor lay a crumpled sleeping bag, a cardboard filing cabinet and a small camping refrigerator. He opened the door of the fridge and pulled out a drink box, shook it rapidly, and made his way back to the bench along the crumbling cement floor.

Grieves' father had instructed him years ago to buy this warehouse. Grieves assumed it was some kind of cagey investment move, because to this day, he couldn't be sure if it had ever been used. His part in the purchase was peripheral - just a messenger really. After all, in matters of finance, Grieves couldn't really be trusted. This made the tired programmer laugh to himself.
By those standards anyway, he was doing quite well, thank you very much
.

His father was an importer; an agent who made his home in a handful of American cities, returning occasionally to Toronto or his cabin at Red Lake in the wilds of northern Ontario. He claimed he came back only to renew ties with business acquaintances, but somehow he always found time for his favorite hobby - intimidating and berating his youngest son.

Grieves had felt at times in his life that he almost understood his father, but these were troubling experiences; the fear he saw in the eyes of one of his father's subordinates once when Grieves was a young teenager; the harsh language he used, his hand cupped over the phone or behind a closed door - using a voice that didn't feel like it was attached to anyone he knew, like the voice of a cruel stranger.

Being the youngest child also drew an unnecessary harsh scrutiny from his father that Grieves would often shrink from. And it was always there, even when the old man was a thousand miles away.

They spoke twice a year, always on the phone; the older man's voice mixed with the sound of airport noise or the traffic sounds of cities like Berlin or Washington. Grieves believed at one point that he could actually identify most major cities by the sound they made over a phone line.

The last time they had met in person was five years ago, probably longer.
Time flies when you’re planning the destruction of mankind as we know it,
Grieves mumbled to himself. He made a mental effort to push his father out of his thoughts. He didn't need the pain and he had an important task ahead. A deal had been made, and it was time to see that it was honored.

On the computer screen moved a small animated bat, its leathery wings folding and unfolding, fangs shiny white. Grieves chuckled to himself, proud of his creation. Years before, tracking down a secret password or username could take hackers dozens if not hundreds of hours of mind-numbing drudgery. When you think about it, it was all educated guessing, patience and a lot of keyboarding. At some point it dawned on Grieves - why not make the computer handle its own dirty business? The digital bat,
Dante
, was born. It was only a piece of simple animation, but it represented a computer program that went out into the real world, via the Internet, and hunted down what Grieves wanted - while he slept or roamed the streets.

"Dante, my little data sucking fiend. Let's go find
Rosenblatt.
" He punched in a set of possible DNS numbers, gave Dante a couple of hints on how to find the data file, and tapped in a series of locations for Dante's consideration. Rosenblatt had become uncommunicative again. He wasn't returning Grieves' e-mail and had changed all the passwords at
GeneFab
. He'd upped security on their computer network, too.
He didn't really think that would stop me, did he?

The bat smiled, flashed a wicked grin, and then dove into a black hole at the bottom of the screen. A banner unrolled that said DANTE HAS LEFT THE BUILDING.

Grieves watched the empty screen for a bit then shuffled off to his sleeping area, removed his scuffed loafers and crawled inside a sleeping bag that smelled vaguely of dust and urine. He listened for the scrabble of feet in the room, but only heard the wind whistling around the loading door. Through the gaps in the sides of the door, he could make out the smeared lights of the city just past the docks. He thought about Dante, pushing his way up the data stream like a little electronic juggernaut. He felt as proud as a papa. He thought about Redfield, the last missing piece of his puzzle. And he dreamed of Ludd, his eyes vacant and dull like those of a fish carcass left too long in the sun.

:

Two years before, the
great
Jeffrey Ludd had decided, in his wisdom, to press charges against two of his employees, now
former
, his Marketing Manager Rusty Redfield and his key programmer Malcolm Grieves.
Theft of company property
he called it. Hardware. Software. Client lists. Ludd really believed these two guys could hurt his company. There was a competition clause in Grieves contract; it was standard policy with programmers. With Rusty, they saw no need, he was only a glorified salesman - so it was going to be tougher to put him out of business. But Ludd felt confident, as he always did, that he would think of something. More importantly he felt that they had taken his property, his baby, and he wanted it back. Rusty was tired of the sweatshop atmosphere and reign-of-terror management style that
GeneFab
specialized in.

Ludd was paranoid. He felt that someone was always on the company's tail. But he was more worried about his key developer. The long hours, the cases of Red Bull, the constant revisions - led to a kind of break from reality for Grieves. Some days he would stare into space; others he would have these long manic conversations with himself. He was freaking the team out.

Then that pig Rosenblatt had begun to make separation sounds -
things aren't working out
-
we're not happy with your attitude
-
you'd be happier somewhere else, oink, oink, oink
.  When Grieves finally walked out, he took what they called 'the Project',
the Splicer
, with him. All of it.
It was rightfully mine
thought Grieves
- I worked on it for more than a year, sometimes seven days a week. Sixteen-hour days were the norm.

Ludd even believed that Grieves had gone as far as to break into one of the management offices at 3 AM and purge the complete computer network of all project data.
What Jeff didn't know was going to hurt him in a major way.

Ludd became sick with anxiety. He called the police again. They told him they needed more than just circumstantial evidence. He promised he would get it. He sent one of his employees into Grieves' new office. She snooped out serial numbers on the office equipment and brought it back to Ludd who had fake invoices generated in their accounting system. It was easy, after all, they had written the program.
And if it comes out of a computer,
mused Grieves,
people, especially cops, believe it
. They supplied the documents to Kozak, convincing him the equipment was stolen from
GeneFab
, who promptly arrested Grieves and Redfield on possession of stolen property. In the process, they cleaned out Grieves' home of every file and piece of hardware he owned.

Grieves fell further into a sleepless funk.

Now that Ludd had possession of a truckload of files and equipment, he felt safer. He had his baby back. Little did he understand the judicial process.

Dimbrowsky, the crown prosecutor, a bear of a man in a bad suit, attacked the two former employees like a bloodhound. He took the position that they were two opportunists; slyly taking
GeneFab
for everything it was worth. Ludd told him that the missing software had a value of ten million dollars. Dimbrowsky had swallowed hard. He wanted these guys. White-collar crime was in all the headlines lately - bagging these two would make him career points.

But there was no software. Grieves hadn't stolen it. He had destroyed
The Splicer
by erasing and eliminating every last trace of the code. He wasn't sure he had gotten it all until he saw Ludd's face in the courtroom. Ludd was in pain.

The court case became a long deadly bore. But the subterfuge over the so-called stolen hardware was going to stick to someone. Rusty wanted to testify, even though he was advised not to. After two hours in front of the judge, he was dismissed. The charges against him were dropped.

Grieves refused to take the stand. He had a record - a patchy distant one, but by taking the stand he faced cross-examination over it. It was apparent that the judge didn't find his refusal to testify as prudent. He gave Grieves two years on several counts of possession and fraud. Grieves wasn't sure, but he felt somehow that Rusty was responsible. He hated his former partner more than the men who had manufactured his arrest.

Two months after Grieves' incarceration, the prosecution delivered several boxes to Ludd's office. He tore through them, but found only various pieces of battered office equipment and dog-eared file folders. Grieves had outsmarted him. The software must be hidden. It was possible to rewrite the code of course, but with a programmer of even half the intelligence of Grieves, it could take four or five more years. Then it would be too late. He was certain that others were on the verge. If you weren't first - you were nothing. Hundreds of millions, even billions, hung in the balance.

And Ludd had important clients he had to keep happy. Very important clients. People with serious money invested in his start-up.

Shortly thereafter, Rosenblatt made a visit to Grieves in prison. Grieves looked thinner, tougher. His eyes were red and watery from some infection. They sat at a small table in a meeting room. A guard with a deeply pockmarked face stood in the corner, out of earshot.

"I'm here on my own," said Rosenblatt. He told Grieves he felt responsible - that events had overtaken them - that they had over-reacted. That, and an over-eager prosecutor, had put Grieves away. Grieves acted like he wasn't listening. "I think you were framed," said Ludd's puffy-faced partner.

"Yeah? By who?" asked Grieves.

"By Rusty"

"Just because he tried to break your nose once?"

"Who cares about that. Where do you think we got the serial numbers for your office equipment?"

Grieves' look was full of high-octane anger. "From that two faced bitch Marcy you sent down to spy on me."

"That was a cover. Rusty invited her,” he lied.

Grieves shrugged. "So who cares? A lot of good knowing that does me now."

"Then you don't know?"

"Know what, for Christ's sake. Does it look like I get out much anymore?"

"That Rusty's out on the street trying to sell your program?"

Grieves shook his head. "I erased it all. Burned the hard copy. It's gone." It was Rosenblatt's turn to be speechless. This was not going as planned. He was stricken. If this was true, then
GeneFab
could very well be finished. There was no time to rebuild.

Rosenblatt had planned from day one to cash in on
GeneFab
as quickly as possible. His idea was to build sales and get a good head of PR steam going, release a couple of new beta products, then go public. A few years later they would sell their stock and reap millions.

Rosenblatt could then move to Fort Lauderdale, buy all the young tanned bouncing flesh he could handle, 24 hours a day. But he wasn't going to get any of that salt-water taffy unless he was real bloody rich. All you had to do was look at him to figure that out. Without money, no one would be interested in him.

The big sell-off was his fantasy - pure and simple. He wasn't going to let it go.

"Are you sure you deleted everything?" Rosenblatt forced a smile when he said this. He wanted to appear knowing. Grieves was off in thought.

"It's possible. It's totally possible. That prick. He steals my software, then frames me and now he's out looking for the highest bidder. Christ I'm an idiot!"