Hacker (15 page)

Maybe that was my problem. Maybe
I
was trying to please too many people. Gib and Chaucy, Maggie and Gayle. And in trying to please everyone, I’d end up pleasing no one.

‘All right then,’ Dad said, his tone of voice changing to become more firm. ‘Now, tell me all about this maths-exam business. From the beginning.’

Picking my way carefully through the words, I told him – leaving out the bit about opening the letter! I implied that Miss Hiff had told me what I was supposed to be guilty of in her office.

‘You said downstairs that you know who the real culprit is,’ Dad said when I’d finished.

‘Yeah, I guess …’

‘Are you guessing or do you know?’ Dad asked sternly.

‘I know.’

‘Who is it?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘It’s someone you know from school?’ Dad asked after a moment’s silence.

‘Yes …’

‘A friend …?’

‘She’s not my friend any more,’ I sighed. ‘I told her that if she didn’t tell Miss Hiff the truth then I would.’

‘And are you going to?’ Dad asked.

Slowly, I shook my head.

‘Victoria, I can understand that you don’t want to tell tales but …’

‘I can’t tell you, Dad. I just can’t,’ I pleaded.

Dad frowned.

‘Why does Miss Hiff say in her letter that you admitted to breaking into Mrs Bracken’s answer file?’ Dad asked, after a moment’s pause.

‘’Cause she asked me if I’d got the answers by using a program and I did.’

‘Oh?’

‘I used the programmable calculator you and Mum bought me for Christmas to get the answers,’ I said reluctantly.

‘You wrote a program on it?’ Dad asked.

‘That’s right. And when she asked me, I thought she was talking about writing a program on that …’

‘When instead she was talking about Mrs Bracken’s PC,’ Dad concluded.

I nodded.

‘Victoria, you know you shouldn’t have used your calculator like that in a maths exam,’ Dad said. ‘That’s not why we bought it for you.’

‘I know. I just thought … I thought I was being clever,’ I admitted. ‘It didn’t occur to me until Crackly Bracken went nuclear that I maybe shouldn’t have done it.’

Dad’s lips twitched.

‘There’s no “maybe” about it. You shouldn’t have done it. I trust you’re not going to do it again?’

‘No fear,’ I replied instantly.

‘Right! I’m down that school first thing tomorrow morning to get this sorted out.’ Dad stood up. ‘Now you finish your homework and then come downstairs and I’ll give you a game of chess.’

He walked to the door.

‘Dad, was Mum … was Mum upset?’ I had to know.

Dad said, ‘A little, but she’ll be all right.’

‘I … I’m sorry,’ I whispered.

‘That’s OK, pumpkin,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t be my daughter if you didn’t get strange ideas sometimes.’

I smiled as he left the room. I felt a lot better now I’d had a proper talk with Dad. No sooner did my bedroom door shut, than it opened again.

‘Hi, Vicky, are you OK?’ Gib asked, hovering just inside the door.

‘Yeah, I’m fine. What do you want?’ I asked ungraciously.

‘You said you had an idea about how to prove Eric’s the crook, not Dad,’ Gib replied.

I sighed. Would it kill Gib to say he was sorry – just once? If he ever apologized to me – for anything – I would pass out from severe shock.

‘I was thinking about it today,’ I said, bouncing off the bed. ‘I reckon I’ve worked out why the date and time of the
TIMETRV
object file are a whole day after the program got linked.’

‘I’m listening.’ Gib came into the room and sat down in my chair. I sat at the edge of my bed.

‘Well, I was thinking about how I’d try to get money from the bank,’ I said eagerly. ‘If I didn’t have access to the cashiers’ user accounts and I could write a program to do it, I reckon it would be quite simple – if I knew exactly what I was doing.’

‘Go on.’

‘I’d change a noddy program days before it was needed, to contain one of those time-trap things Dad was talking about. One of the programs that runs every night. Then, on a certain day at a certain time, the money would get transferred.’

‘I get you,’ Gib said, leaning forward. ‘But how would you get round the acceptance testers? They check all the source programs to make sure there’s nothing in them that shouldn’t be there.’

‘Ah, but suppose I changed a noddy program that did something pretty boring to include the time-trap code I wanted, to transfer money about? I could compile it so I’d have an object file, then re-edit the source code to take my time-trap code out.’

‘And that’s what you’d give to the acceptance testers …’ Gib said with a slow smile. He always was fast on the uptake.

‘Exactly! I’d wait for them to check the source program and compile it, and then I’d overwrite their object file which doesn’t contain the time-trap …’

‘With your object file which does.’

Gib and I smiled at each other.

‘And it’d be that object file that they linked and ran. Of course, they wouldn’t see any sign of the time-trap because that bit of code wouldn’t run until the date and time I’d already specified.’

‘Very clever.’ Gib whistled. ‘But what about the object file? Why was it dated one day ahead of the linked file?’

‘Think about it. You’ve fiddled about with all these files and you know they’ve all got different dates and times. The only file that you want left on the system that contains any of your time-trap program would be the linked file. So after TIMETRV has been linked, you then overwrite the object file with a clean version of the same thing. Then there’s less chance of the fiddle being detected.’

‘Except that the date of the object file is different in the batch library,’ Gib pointed out.

‘But who would notice that? Why would they even check that? Once it goes through the acceptance testers, all anyone cares about are the files on the live system, not the development system. And only the linked files get copied across to the live system,’ I said, practically bouncing off the bed by this time.

‘And if it wasn’t for you printing off the batch library file on the development system accidentally …’ Gib grinned.

‘And your brilliant eyesight,’ I beamed.

‘Then no one would be any the wiser,’ Gib said. ‘That’s terrific!’

‘That has to be the way it was done,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think?’

‘I don’t see any other way it could be done,’ Gib agreed.

For the first time in ages, I actually began to feel good. We were getting closer and closer all the time. I felt sure that that was how it was done. I couldn’t help feeling a bit clever.

Then my smile faded. ‘Now that brings us to Eric and
why
he put that million pounds in Dad’s account.’

‘Do you think more than the million was taken?’ Gib asked.

‘I’m sure of it,’ I frowned. ‘The thing is, why hasn’t the bank discovered more missing money yet?’

‘They knew pretty quickly that Dad had the money in his account,’ Gib said.

‘And we must be talking about an awful lot of money being taken out if Eric can stick one million pounds into Dad’s account, just like that,’ I said.

‘Not yet …’ Gib said slowly.

‘Pardon!’

‘Maybe the rest of the money, the real money that Eric was after, hasn’t been transferred
yet
.’ Gib’s eyes sparkled.

‘Of course,’ I breathed. ‘If you can set up one time-trap, why not set up two? That way you get the bank chasing in the wrong direction until it’s too late.’

‘So Eric put the money in Dad’s account just to get the bank going round in circles.’

‘It’s more than that. I think he didn’t want Dad’s checking program to run either. He must’ve been afraid that it would pick up something.’

‘The way we did,’ Gib said.

I nodded.

‘So what about Eric and our proof?’ Gib asked.

‘I need a PC to find any,’ I sighed. ‘This is pure speculation. And if we did tell Dad and the bank, Eric could cover his tracks with no trouble at all. Then Dad would still be in trouble.’

‘Where are you going to find a PC?’ Gib asked. ‘The ones at school are out. The computer club is on tomorrow lunchtime and the computing evening classes will be running tomorrow night. Unless we try to get into the school in the early hours of the morning.’

‘I don’t fancy that much.’ I grimaced.

‘To tell the truth, neither do I,’ Gib admitted.

That made me feel a whole lot better.

‘So what do we do?’

Our heads in our hands, Gib and I gave it some serious thought. Then I had the best idea I’d had all year.

‘Gib, Aunt Beth’s got a PC – she can log onto the bank’s computer from home the same way Dad can.’ I sprang off the bed.

‘She’ll let us borrow it – no problems,’ Gib said enthusiastically.

‘But we can’t tell her why we want to use it,’ I said fiercely. ‘That’s between you and me until we have something Dad can take to the police about his so-called friend, Eric.’

I didn’t want Gib to get any funny ideas.

‘All right! Don’t take my head off,’ Gib protested. ‘When should we ask her?’

‘We’ll pop round tomorrow, after school,’ I said.

Gib frowned. ‘But aren’t she and Sebastian going to Rio the day after?’

‘So?’

‘They’ll be busy packing and stuff.’

‘They’re not going to pack the PC,’ I said. ‘And we’ll tell them we’ll be quick. We can use the same homework excuse you used with Rosa, the evening-class tutor.’

‘Yeah, it was good, wasn’t it!’ Gib said modestly.

I ducked down.

‘What’re you doing?’ Gib asked curiously.

‘Just trying to get out of the way of your big head,’ I told him.

Gib laughed. ‘You’re just jealous,’ he replied. ‘Right then. Let’s get this sorted. We’ll meet up at the school gates after school and go to Aunt Beth’s together.’

I grinned. ‘You’re on. Tomorrow night, we’re going to get Eric, good and proper. Once and for all!’

‘ARE YOU GOING
to be excluded then?’ Gib asked.

It was after school and Gib and I were walking to Aunt Beth’s house. It was a strange day – one of those days when it rained on and off. But that didn’t stop the sky from being mostly blue and the sun from shining anyway. I, for one, was glad school was over. Dad had embarrassed me something awful.

‘If my daughter said she didn’t do it, then she didn’t do it … are you accusing my daughter of telling lies …? Of course, Victoria’s calculator is programmable. I bought it for her myself … are you telling me what I should and shouldn’t buy my own daughter …?’ And all the time I’d just been sinking lower and lower into my chair. Miss Hiff made me show her how I’d worked out my program. Then she’d tried out the program on my calculator herself. After that, she looked like she wasn’t sure what to think. But that worked in my favour.

‘For your information,’ I told Gib loftily, ‘I got a week’s detention for writing a program to do what I should have worked out in my head.’

‘So she believed you?’ Gib said.

‘Of course. She had to. Dad wouldn’t let her do anything else.’

Gib smiled.

‘And I didn’t even have to drop Maggie in it,’ I went on.

‘Maggie?’ Gib frowned. ‘What’s Maggie got to do with this?’

I looked at Gib. ‘This is between you and me – right? Maggie’s the one who hacked into Mrs Bracken’s exam file to get the answers. She’s going through a lot at home right now and she didn’t have a chance to revise properly.’

‘That’s no excuse for dropping you in it,’ Gib said with gratifying indignation.

‘I don’t think she meant to. I just happened to be showing off that I’d finished the exam when Crackly Bracken was looking around to see who finished before everyone else.’

‘Even so …’

‘It doesn’t matter. It’s sorted out now. I’m to get a week’s worth of detention and that’s it,’ I interrupted. ‘I’m just glad it’s over with. Now Maggie needn’t try to turn everyone against me.’

‘What d’you mean? Is that what she threatened you with if you told anyone?’

I nodded.

‘You wait. I’ll sort her out,’ Gib muttered.

I looked at Gib and laughed. ‘My hero!’ I teased.

The tips of Gib’s ears went bright red, which made me laugh even more. He’d never stuck up for me before. I kind of liked it!

‘Hi, Aunt Beth. How are you?’

‘Hello, Aunt Beth.’

‘Gib, Vicky, what on earth are you doing here?’

The puzzled frown on Aunt Beth’s face wasn’t very flattering, to say the least. In fact, she looked almost unwelcoming.

‘Can we use your PC for our computing homework?’ I asked. ‘Mum said that if you didn’t mind, then we could.’

‘Why didn’t you phone me first?’ Aunt Beth asked. There was no mistaking the impatient tone in her voice.

‘Er … we tried phoning you at lunchtime but your phone was engaged,’ Gib told her. ‘We thought we’d take the chance and come straight from school.’

Aunt Beth frowned down at both of us. She looked like she was sucking on a lemon.

‘I wish you hadn’t,’ she said bluntly. ‘We’re right in the middle of packing and the house is a mess. I don’t know whether I’m …’

‘Beth, who is it?’

Sebastian emerged from the shadows and foliage of the hall to stand behind Aunt Beth. His steel-blue eyes looked surprised then strangely guarded as he looked at us. When he wasn’t smiling he looked totally different. Very serious and reserved.