DeathWeb (Fox Meridian Book 3) (27 page)

‘Twelve now. The body found outside the conference centre was the latest. All the victims used LifeFit and their last route was recorded.’

‘So NAPA would know precisely where they were abducted. I’m surprised no one’s found something to stop this guy.’

‘It is, indeed, an odd problem. However, I came across a picture posted to LifeWeb which showed a victim, on the day they were taken, but not on the route LifeFit claimed they ran. I then tracked down more evidence that others were not on their recorded route.’

‘That’s… interesting. I get the feeling you’ve got more.’

‘I have,’ Kit beamed. She stood there, smiling happily, as Dillan began to organise some cereal and coffee. ‘I examined all the last routes and discovered, in
every
case, that the same route had been run a few days earlier. This is not strange in itself since the recorded routes are usually favourites. However, in each case, the elapsed times to the route waypoints were precisely the same.’

‘So they managed to run the same times on those runs, that doesn’t sound–’

‘
Exactly
the same times, Detective Dillan. Exact to the millisecond.’

Dillan paused, looked at Kit, and then reached for the fridge where she stored her synthetic milk supply. ‘To the millisecond? Okay, now we’re talking impossible.’

‘No, but the statistical probability is… Let’s just say that it’s small. Spread across twelve cases it’s…’ Kit paused, trying to come up with a suitable adjective.

‘Ludicrous? That’s either an act of God or someone faked the data.’

‘I was hoping you’d say that. Do you always wander around your apartment in the nude?’

‘Environmental controls are flaky. You won’t be able to tell, but it’s like a sauna in here.’

‘I’d imagine you are keen to move into your new apartment.’ Kit glanced at the milk Dillan was pouring. ‘The dairy products in the MarTech buildings are significantly better too. The problem I have is deciding on how this data could be faked. Data is transmitted at each waypoint from the LifeFit application to the LifeWeb servers. There it is logged in real time. I have theories about how the trick could be achieved, but they seem far-fetched.’

‘Okay… Hold on.’ Dillan sat down on one of her slightly forlorn sofas and spooned cereal into her mouth, munching for a few seconds before chasing it down her throat with coffee. ‘That is better. I’m not a tech, but you’d need to hack the servers, hack the LifeFit app, or pull a man-in-the-middle intercept. The last of those would probably be next to impossible over a public network, so someone’s hacked LifeWeb or the app. I’d say the app is the easier option. Some sort of virus or worm.’

‘You don’t think it’s far-fetched then?’

Dillan shrugged. ‘Kit, I’m not the detective Fox is, but I think she’d tell you the same thing. And that is that if a theory fits the facts you have, you work on that theory until you get facts to disprove it. Cant’s the lead on those murders, isn’t he?’

‘Yes. Fox has been quite surprised at his openness concerning the case. He seems determined to solve it. She believes that it irritates him that this killer got away from him.’

‘Cant can hold a grudge. Sometimes that’s a good thing. Why not put together the evidence you have and send it to him? Suggest he has the last victim’s computer checked for any viruses. If they can’t find anything, someone’s going to have go talk to LifeWeb about their server security.’

‘I will do that. Thank you, Detective.’

Dillan grinned at her. ‘You should probably start calling me Helen.’

‘Thank you, Helen. I believe that it will be a pleasure working with you when you join Palladium.’

‘Thank you, Kit. Do you think they could get me one of your series as a PA?’

‘Why not ask? You are going to a spa with my designer.’

~~~

Marie lay with her eyes closed and enjoyed the rather warm, comfortable feeling of the morning after a night of enthusiastic, amazing sex. Then she opened her eyes, remembered who had been her partner, and the guilt hit her like a blow to the stomach. And this time she was quite sure of what had happened even if she was not quite sure why. Sam did not generally engage in recreational sex. What had happened last night to result in them fucking like bunnies when they both knew it was going to cause problems?

‘We’re adults,’ Sam said from the other side of the bed, ‘so we’ll deal with it.’

‘How did you know I was awake? And thinking about that?’

‘You were lying there, calm as could be, and then you stiffened like you’d been shot. Reading body language is part of the job.’

‘Oh. What happened? You’re gorgeous and all, but… I mean, you’re not like that and I was so worried about it when I got drunk. I should’ve been more…’

‘Controlled? I have a theory on that. I’ll do some research.’

‘O-okay. I, uh, I think I should tell her. I think it’s my job.’

‘If you wish. She’s my friend too and we are both to blame, if blame is the right word. Don’t take this on yourself.’

Marie considered that for a second. Probability was that she
would
try to shift all the blame to herself, but she was not going to say that. ‘What happens next?’

‘Next? A shower and breakfast. When Fox gets back, we can worry over what to do about current events.’ He pulled back the sheets and sat up, and then paused. ‘You did enjoy it, I hope?’

‘It was incredible. I’m not sure whether that makes it better or worse.’

‘No,’ Sam agreed, his tone a little puzzled, ‘neither am I.’

5
^th
July.

Cant was looking grumpy when Fox walked into his office. His expression did not change noticeably on seeing her, but he waved her into a chair.

‘Your little friend gave me some information,’ Cant said. ‘I assume you’ve been briefed.’

‘On the way back in from Topeka. You managed to persuade the techs to look at Coolidge’s implant?’

‘Wiped. Someone got administrative access to it and erased everything. Presumably the killer did it, so he’s got computing skills, which works with your PA’s theory, but we still have no evidence of how this trick is being pulled.’

‘She was an LWOS user, right? All her email traffic and messages–’

‘Techs are working on it. Not my first rodeo, Meridian.’

Fox let herself smile. ‘You know, I do know that. How about I look into LifeWeb while you track that down? I’ll get my people to look into their security.’

Cant gave her a shrug. ‘Can’t hurt, can it? And you’ve got “people” like Jackson Martins to do the looking. Compared to him, the entire NAPA technical department are amateurs.’

‘Oh, Terri’s in town working on the new detective assistance AIs. Jackson and Terri together… They could find a pinhole poked in the side of a barn.’

~~~

‘Okay, Kit. Before we go to Jackson and Terri with this, I want to know all about LifeWeb.’ Fox settled onto her sofa with a mug of coffee, crossed her legs, and settled down for a long haul.

‘The software or the company?’ Kit asked.

‘Let’s start with the company.’

‘LifeWeb was founded in March twenty twenty-three by Leonard Dandridge and Reginald Grant. Dandridge remains the public face of LifeWeb, very good with people, a good public speaker. He proselytised the product and, supposedly anyway, came up with the idea of tying it to the new electronic voting system. New at the time, that is. The launch in August of twenty twenty-four was timed such that users could use LifeRight, the only add-on available at launch, to track voting among their friends and handle the delegation system in a manner many found superior to the government app.’

‘And Grant?’

‘The technical genius. Not quite to Mister Martins’ standard, but he had very good computer skills and a talent for analysing social interactions. His skill with individuals is considerably less developed and he avoided the limelight. Rumours suggested this was deliberate. He fits the stereotype of the “nerd.”’

‘You’re mixing tenses, Kit. That’s not like you.’

‘Mister Grant, R. A. to his friends, is alive, but has been taking an increasingly less active role in the company since twenty fifty-six. He officially retired in May of this year. The company’s stock value did not waver. Mister Grant was responsible for the LifeWear line of wearable computers and for all the software variants, but there has been talk of him being reluctant to improve the LWOS software as the board believes should happen. With him out of the picture, a number of analysts are predicting a rejuvenation in the LifeWeb product list.’

‘That’d be nice, I guess. Where are they based?’

Kit floated a map of Long Island with a flashing dot next to the LI-line, somewhere around Old Westbury and Jericho. ‘LifeWeb have a number of offices worldwide, primarily handling local tax issues, localisation, and LifeWear shipping. Some technical work is done outside America as well, but the main focus of the company is the LifeWeb Tower which sits on part of the old SUNY college at Old Westbury. Mister Grant did a postgraduate course in sociology there before it closed. When the company wanted to put up an arcology to house their main business offices, he bought the site, keeping several of the buildings in place.’

‘Of course. I’ve seen it from the maglev on the way to the MarTech towers.’ Fox looked at the map for something to look at while her brain worked. ‘Okay, so LifeWeb itself is basically a sociometric networking tool with a bunch of glue-in modules to handle fitness, music, voting, uh…’

‘The LifeRight voting app was rolled into the core system in twenty forty-five. There are also applications for handling blogs of all types, through LifeWeb of course, dating, and a number of other social tools. A subscription service is available which blocks advertising and works as a distributed memetic filter, using the user’s preferences combined with those of their friends to mask inappropriate memes which arrive by indirect means. The music and dating apps are also subscription-based. My research indicates that the primary use for the dating app, LifeMeet, is finding immediately available, casual sex partners. I assume the name is, therefore, ironic.’

‘LifeBootyCall probably didn’t pass muster at the marketing meeting. The servers?’

‘A major data centre in the tower here, several distributed centres worldwide.’

‘Which would surely make hacking them more of a problem? I mean, where do you go looking for the data you want to change?’

‘If the data has been changed post facto, we could detect it if we had access to the system,’ Kit said, frowning, ‘and the data would be stored relatively locally so that would not be an issue, but I do not believe our perpetrator would risk that kind of cyberattack.’

‘Oh? Reasoning?’

‘Changing the data after the fact, even almost immediately, risks someone seeing the original data before it can be changed. It would take only one instance of that for suspicions to set in. Our profile suggests a man who mitigates risk as much as possible and the easiest way to do that would be to fake the data at source.’

Fox nodded slowly. ‘You’re betting on the app being altered.’

‘I am, but my expertise does not lie in cybersecurity. I’m simply an AI with an interest in the matter. I would be interested in hearing Mister Martins’ opinion.’

6
^th
July.

‘You compiled all this yourself, Kit?’ Terri was sounding more than a little impressed.

‘She is
very
good at handling large amounts of information,’ Fox pointed out.

‘And I did have some help,’ Kit added. ‘I requested aid from Detective Dillan, Helen, in the interpretation. Though she did confirm my thoughts on the matter, I suppose.’

‘Of course, the idea of using an AI for detective work is hardly without foundation,’ Terri said. ‘I just didn’t expect it to be one of mine, and one intended for general purpose assistant work.’

Fox shrugged. ‘She’s
my
assistant. She was bound to end up doing things like this. And aren’t AIs good at memetics work too?’

‘Their insight into the way their own minds work tends to allow them insight into the general working of thought systems. So profiling
would
be a talent embedded in Kit’s nature. Yes.’

‘There you go. I keep saying Helen will be my first employee, but I really have detective staff already. Kit just doesn’t get the acclaim and the salary.’

‘Perhaps,’ Jackson said, ‘we should consider a stipend of some sort for our young detective in the making.’ They were all in Jackson’s office, which was a room designed for the most private conversations, but also one equipped with a huge screen upon which Kit had been presenting her evidence.

Kit looked at him, blinking. ‘What would I do with my own income, Mister Martins?’

‘I have no idea, young lady, but wouldn’t it be interesting to find out? Now then, I also concur that some corruption of the application is the most likely source of the erroneous data.’

‘It seems like the simplest way of doing it,’ Terri agreed, ‘and it would explain the erasure of the woman’s implant.’

‘But so would making sure no recording of the killer remained. No, I’m basing this on data you don’t have, Teresa. LifeWeb has exclusively used MarTech servers since twenty forty-nine. They insisted on their own software for everything then, but we build the best equipment and they gradually phased out all their other suppliers. In twenty fifty-six, they replaced their security solutions with MarTech systems as well. Technologies supplied the equipment and software, and Services integrated it, so we have some in-house knowledge of the difficulty of penetration.’

‘And it’s not easy?’ Fox asked, knowing the answer anyway.

‘I would hope not. We have discovered and patched a few vulnerabilities since fifty-six, of course. No software system is entirely invulnerable. However, twelve instances of this kind of attack spread across several years… I find it difficult to believe that no one noticed any of them. I’ll initiate an investigation anyway. We have tight timeframes for the invasions, if there were any, so examining traffic in those timeframes should not be too hard.’