Hacker (12 page)

‘So what do the acceptance testers do – exactly?’

‘Vicky …’ Mum said warningly.

‘It’s all right. I’m glad she’s interested.’ Dad smiled. ‘Once a programmer is happy that his or her program is working, they give the source code to someone in the acceptance testing team who then checks the code, compiles it and links it and tests the running program on the development system. If that all works then the final version – the linked file – gets copied across on to the live system,’ Dad said. ‘Why all the questions?’

‘Just interested,’ I bluffed. ‘Mum, please can I borrow your laptop?’ I asked, trying to change the subject.

‘Oh yeah!’ Gib breathed.

I glared at him. What a moron! What was he trying to do – give me away?

‘What d’you want it for?’ Mum asked.

‘Part of my homework,’ I replied, crossing my fingers behind my back. ‘You can have it back in about an hour.’

‘No, I don’t need it tonight. You can take it.’ Mum shrugged. ‘Just bring it back downstairs tomorrow.’

‘OK, Mum. Thanks.’ Mum’s laptop was ancient with a prehistoric version of the operating system. She had word processing and spreadsheet software on it and that was it. But it’d be enough.

‘Wait a minute, Victoria,’ Dad frowned. ‘How did you know there’s no batch file on the live system?’

That was the one question I was hoping Dad wouldn’t ask.

‘Er … from what you and Aunt Beth said earlier,’ I replied, mentally crossing my fingers.

‘I think I
will
go and do my homework now,’ Gib said quickly.

Dad’s frown deepened. He put his hand on Gib’s forehead. ‘What? No arguments? No complaints? What’s the matter, Gib? Are you ill?’

And just like that, Gib got me off the hook. I could have kissed him!

‘Get off, Dad!’ Gib said, pulling away. ‘I do my homework sometimes you know.’

‘Not according to your school report,’ Mum said. ‘Gib, I wish you could be more like your sister.’

I caught Gib’s bitter grimace before he turned away from me.

‘You shouldn’t say that, Mum. Gib doesn’t like it,’ I said quietly. ‘You shouldn’t keep comparing his schoolwork to mine. You shouldn’t keep saying he should be more like me.’

Surprised, Mum looked at me and Gib. I looked down at the carpet. Gib looked across to the opposite wall. I felt rather than saw Mum and Dad exchanging a glance.

‘Sorry,’ Mum said seriously. ‘I’ll stop comparing.’

I picked up the laptop from behind the armchair and left the room. Gib was behind me. We ran upstairs.

‘Walk! Don’t run!’ Dad yelled.

‘In here.’ Gib pointed to his room, once we got to the landing. He barged in front of me. I followed him, shutting his bedroom door behind me. Stepping on the few remaining bits of exposed carpet, I picked my way through the comics and clothes strewn all over the floor, trying to make my way to Gib’s one bedroom chair.

‘Right then,’ Gib said. ‘First of all, what were you doing in Aunt Beth’s room earlier?’

‘Mind your own,’ I snapped.

‘Which is obviously what you
weren’t
doing?’ Gib’s tone was really snide.

I tapped my nose but said nothing. Gib flopped down on to the floor.

‘What about that letter from Miss Hiff? Are you really going to give it to Dad and Mum?’ Gib asked.

‘I haven’t got much choice,’ I sighed. ‘I’m just waiting for the right moment.’

‘Rather you than me,’ Gib said drily.

‘Never mind that. What about the listings we got yesterday?’

‘I spent half the night going through those,’ Gib said. ‘I couldn’t see anything. But then I wasn’t too sure what I was supposed to be looking for.’

‘Let’s have a look,’ I said.

I cleared some space on the floor – which took ages – and lay down on my stomach, going through the first listing Gib gave me. It was the transaction log file for the early hours of Friday morning. It was later on that same day when the million pounds was found in Dad’s account.

‘You can check through Friday’s and Thursday’s listings and I’ll do the beginning of the week again,’ Gib said.

‘OK,’ I replied.

And we started reading.

Two hours later, my neck ached, my eyes ached, my back ached, even my blood ached. Gib and I had swapped listings to check each other’s checking, and although I still had one more listing to check, as yet neither of us had found anything useful. Friday’s transaction log had a line which stated that the money had indeed been put in David P. Gibson’s bank account, but there was nothing about which cashier had entered the details and which cashier had verified the details, the way there was for every other transaction in the file. The lack of cashier information was the bank’s so-called proof that the money was transferred using Dad’s checking program. After all, they reasoned, no one would write a program to put money in someone else’s account.

I rolled over onto my back and stretched out.

‘Every muscle in my body is hurting,’ I complained.

‘Shall I get us something to eat and drink?’ Gib volunteered.

‘If you’re offering,’ I said, surprised.

Gib stood up, shook out his legs and off he went. He came back ten minutes later with two scrubby sandwiches he’d made, a packet of chocolate biscuits and two glasses of apple juice. Not a bad effort, I thought.

Without a word we carried on reading through our listings. I checked, double-checked and triple-checked each line on each page until my eyes felt like they were only being held in my head by a single thread. I had the beginnings of a really bad headache and I still hadn’t found anything.

‘Wait a minute …’ Gib said slowly.

‘What? What is it? Have you found something?’ I asked eagerly, shuffling across the floor to where Gib lay, surrounded by listing paper.

Gib looked at me. ‘Let me check something first.’

Impatiently I waited as he flicked through sheets of listings.

‘Well? What is it?’ I asked again.

‘I was just looking at this batch library file we got from the development system.’

‘Why are you doing that? It’s a total waste of time. We should be checking the printouts from the live system.’

‘Do you want to hear this or not?’ Gib snapped. He can be a real toad sometimes!

‘I’m listening,’ I replied.

‘You remember when we were going through this in the garden? You said the first column gives you the name of the program, the second column shows when the program was first created, the third column shows when the object file was created, which means when the program was compiled or translated, and the fourth column shows when the program was linked with all the other programs. Is that right?’ Gib asked slowly.

I nodded.

‘Look at this.’ Gib pointed to a page in the middle of the printout directly in front of him.

‘What exactly am I supposed to be looking at?’ I asked as each line began to merge with the others as I read.

‘Look at that program
TIMETRV
,’ Gib ordered.

I looked at him. He was ready to burst. His eyes were on fire as he watched me. I turned back to the listing with a frown and read the
TIMETRV
line again.

‘I don’t see anything.’

After all the time I’d spent goggle-eyed going through the listings, I wouldn’t have seen Mount Everest if it was perched at the end of my nose.

‘Look at when
TIMETRV
was linked.’

I read the listing. ‘May the fifteenth, at eleven minutes to ten. So?’

‘Now look at when the object file was created.’ Gib’s eyes gleamed.

‘May the sixteenth, twelve minutes past …’

Then I got it.

‘You see! You see!’ Gib sat up quickly. ‘You said you have to compile the code first which produces an object file and then you link the object file.’

‘That’s right,’ I nodded, the blood rushing in my ears. ‘In which case …’

‘How could the object file be created a whole day
after
the linked file was created?’ Gib said.

‘That’s not possible,’ I mused.

‘But there it is.’ Gib pointed to the line again.

‘
TIMETRV
… I wonder what that program does?’

‘Dad will know,’ Gib pointed out.

‘Do you think anyone else has noticed this?’ I asked.

Gib shrugged. ‘I haven’t a clue. But I bet everyone’s looking on the live system and no one’s paying much attention to the development system. Why should they?’

‘But you can’t transfer money from the development computer, so why fiddle about with the programs on that system?’ I asked.

‘That’s what we have to find out,’ Gib replied.

I stood up. ‘I think we’re definitely on to something.’ My voice was shaking.

‘There’s another thing,’ Gib grinned.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, all ears.

‘Take a look at the programmer’s name! It’s
ejones!
’ Gib said smugly. ‘Eric Jones, the Systems Manager.’

I stared at Gib. I couldn’t believe it. Eric … Eric had put all that money in Dad’s account … Of course! It all made sense. And being the System Manager, Eric was in the ideal position to fiddle the system.

‘What are we going to do?’ I asked. ‘Should we tell Dad?’

‘What do you think? Should we? Is the batch library listing enough proof?’ Gib asked.

I shook my head slowly. ‘I doubt it. Eric’s probably got a perfectly reasonable explanation for it. We have to find out what it means, or even if it means anything at all. It could mean nothing. We can’t afford to give ourselves away and warn Eric that we’re on to him. We must check it out first and if it does mean something, then we’ll tell Dad what we’ve found.’

Gib and I ran downstairs to the living room, leaving the listings upstairs.

‘When will you children learn to walk and not thunder down those stairs?’ Dad sighed as we entered the room.

‘Dad, does Eric at the bank write programs that get tested by the acceptance testers and put in the batch library file?’ Gib asked.

I licked my lips. My heart was hammering. So close …

‘Of course he doesn’t!’ Dad laughed. ‘Eric’s not a programmer. He’s in charge of the operators and the computers.’

‘But he
could
write programs if he wanted to?’ I asked eagerly.

‘No, he couldn’t.’ Dad frowned. ‘He doesn’t know how to. Besides, why would he want to?’

‘Are you sure?’ I asked.

Dad nodded. ‘What are you two up to?’ he asked suspiciously. ‘Why all the questions about Eric all of a sudden?’

‘No reason in particular,’ Gib replied quickly.

‘How can you be so sure, Dad?’ I persisted. ‘Eric might write programs …’

‘Eric hates programming. He thinks it’s the most boring part of computing.’ Dad shook his head. ‘He always says he’d rather beat himself over the head with a metal tray than write a program. Now what’s all this about?’

‘Vicky and I are doing a project for school,’ Gib replied immediately. ‘What does the
TIMETRV
program do?’

‘Gib, don’t you start.’

I could see Mum was getting annoyed now.

‘I wish I knew what you two are up to.’ Dad’s eyes narrowed as he watched each of us in turn. ‘If you must know, the
TIMETRV
program is part of the transaction log report program – if memory serves. It uses the computer system clock to time-stamp all the entries in the log file.’

‘So it doesn’t transfer money or anything like that?’ Gib asked.

Dad shook his head. ‘No. It’s just a noddy program that runs each night when the transaction log file is created. And just where did you two learn about the
TIMETRV
program?’

‘Aunt Beth must’ve mentioned it,’ I said, crossing my fingers behind my back.

‘Now, that’s enough.’ Mum stood up. ‘Even if your father isn’t getting upset, I am.’

‘Sorry, Dad, sorry, Mum,’ Gib said quickly. ‘Come on, Vicky.’ We went out into the hall and ran upstairs.

‘WALK! I give up!’ I heard Dad exclaim.

In Gib’s room I turned to him. Gib beamed at me.

‘We’re finally on the right track,’ he said happily. ‘I just know we are.’

‘But Dad said that Eric …’

‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ Gib interrupted. ‘I’ll bet you anything that Eric
does
know how to write programs. I bet he’s an ace programmer. I think we should tell Dad. Then he can tell the bank and the police and they can arrest Eric and …’

‘Whoa, Sherlock!’ I pursed my lips. ‘Now tell me how we
prove
it. That money was put in Dad’s account, not Eric’s – remember?’

‘But it says
ejones
in the batch library file,’ Gib frowned.

‘So what? Eric could have a perfectly good explanation for that and, even if he doesn’t, the bank and the police will say that Dad could’ve put
ejones
in the file himself to throw everyone off the scent. We need proof that Eric put that money in Dad’s account and we need to know
why
.’

‘Hmm!’ Gib’s smile faded.

He sat down on the floor. I sat opposite. Our heads on our hands, we both had a long, hard think.