Chapter 7

Susan and I are ready to graduate from high school. She went through the regular grind of attending normal classes, but I had the advantage of finishing up early by having home schooling and a private tutor. Susan is 19, but I am only 16. Susan wants to go to college and get a BA in business so that she can eventually manage some big conglomerate.

On the other hand, I just want to make my software business, Winning Software, grow into a successful company. Actually, I don't want to mess with the business side of things, I much prefer to work on the software development part of the job. One thing is for sure, there is no way that I am going to a conventional college, since my sense of balance is shaky at best, and I never have regained my ability to speak in a normal voice. I still have to confine myself to mental communication, but I have to be very careful with that, because as soon as I enter someone's mind to communicate, I instantly convert that person to my slave, well ... sex slave if the truth be known. So far, I have limited myself to very few people, and I currently have no interest in enlarging that group.

I am a successful programmer in C++, Pascal, Forth, COBOL, and assembly for the Intel series of processors. Therefore, I can see no need to attend college; in fact, I see college as a total waste of time for me. Besides, my lack of a speaking voice would make attending college a very difficult thing for me to do. If I had to, I could take one of the computer/internet college courses in programming, but I honestly don't see that as necessary.

Mary, my mother, has quit her job at a brokerage firm to take over the management of Winning Software, but her heart is not really in it. I hope to recruit Susan to run the company once she has her degree. Oh, well, that is three or four years in the future, so I don't need to worry about it right now. I have asked Mary on several occasions if she would like to quit managing Winning Software, since we could hire someone else to do the job if we had to, but she says "no," she will stay with it until Susan makes up her mind.

At least, there is a college in our town that offers the business degree that Susan wants, so she can live at home while attending her classes. Based on that experience with Nancy a few years ago, I wonder if Susan would be able to leave us to attend another university. We are all glad that she doesn't, and I think that Susan feels the same way.

Dammit, those terrorists are becoming a real problem. They just blew up a building in our city, and, for the life of me, I can't figure out why. The only explanation I can come to is that they wanted to kill some people, but were afraid to do it where they might get caught. I think they figured that we were far enough out in the boondocks that they could get away with it here. I hope that the bastards are caught pretty damned soon!

However, the situation has gotten personal. Susan was taking public transportation, an electric bus, to class when she was hurt by another terrorist bomb. This one was aimed I don't know where, if anywhere, since it was a parked car bomb. Susan was hurt pretty bad, but not killed. However, she will have to spend weeks, if not months, recuperating. Well, since the regular authorities don't seem to be able to stop the nonsense, I guess that I will have to see what I can do.

I have now been able to extend my abilities to reading minds without taking over and enslaving an individual, so I plan to start my investigation by learning all I can from the government investigators who have been working on the local terrorist problem.

The local police don't know anything useful. I'll let them get back to correcting traffic snarls and that sort of thing which they do so well. Homeland Security and the FBI aren't doing much better, though they do have some physical evidence that I might be able to use.

Let's see ... The vehicle used as the car bomb was stolen from a suburbanite five nights before the bomb was set off. That must mean that the bomb was assembled locally. My first guess is that they used an empty building somewhere to do the assembly. I hate to use a stereotype, but my guess is that the bombers were Moslem. There is a fair sized community of Moslems in our city, so they should not have any trouble hiding among that crowd.

Therefore, I will try scanning the city hall records for suitable empty buildings owned by somebody with a Moslem-sounding name. My best bet for a search would be the tax records, since they are all stored in the computer used by the city. They lease computer space from an outfit in Chicago. I'll try hacking into that computer for the information I need.

Dammit, they have some pretty secure blocks to keep out hackers, but I wonder what they do for their clients? Most of the people using the data stored on the computer don't know from third base about how computers work, so any interface for them has to be very simple. There is a secure hardwire line running from city hall to the computer, so I need to break in from city hall. I'll bet that all I need is a simple password, and I can get in.

Locally, they do use a computer to log in to the Chicago computer, and that local computer is hooked to the internet. I judge from that that I should be able to hack into the local computer and reach the Chicago computer via that route. If I have to, I will take over one of the city hall clerks, but I will try to avoid that if I can.

Aha! I got in! The local computer has a lousy firewall and other protection, so it was easy to break through that way, now to look for the Chicago connection. Oh my God, here it is filed under 'tax records.' I wonder if some fool has loaded a file of passwords? Why not? There it is, a file labeled "passwords!" My God, how stupid can some people be?

Yep, there is the password. Oh, shit, while I'm here I might as well download the whole password file. No telling when I will need it again.

Now, let's see. OK, I'll open the Chicago line and act like a regular employee, except that I will try not to do something too stupid. Ah, here is a file labeled "empty buildings." I'll just download that so that I can work at my own convenience on my own computer.

Now, I can take that file and sort it with "Filesense" to find the buildings that I am interested in ... There are 12 buildings that fit my tentative specs. OK, Three of the buildings are obviously unsuitable, so I am down to nine, already. Are there any duplicates in the names. Yeah, here is an "Abdul Muhadi." I'll check his buildings first.

Having gotten the list I was looking for, it was now up to me to take a look at the buildings to see if anything useful showed up. Normally, I would assume that the FBI or somebody else had already done the leg work, but with budgets so tight everywhere, they might not have gotten around to it yet.

I guessed that my first excursion as a pseudo-Spiderman had better be done at night and in black clothes. I needed what amounted to a Ninja suit. OK, I'm not completely stupid, I know when I need help. I called all of the women together to tell them what I had in mind doing, and what kind of help I needed from them. The first thing I did was to send Mary, my astute shopper, out to find me the makings of a Ninja suit.

Tina was handy with a sewing machine, so I had her make me a small bag that I could load with sand to make a simple and less deadly blackjack. Nancy, I sent to a theatrical-supply store to fetch me some black to cover my face. Everything was ready by nightfall, so I figured to make my first trip out tonight.

I waited until midnight to begin my preparations. Mary had found a black pantyhose-like affair but made of heavy cloth and a black sweatshirt with pockets. She had also found some black shoes and socks. I loaded my blackjack with damp sand and had Nancy coat all espoused skin with the black greasepaint.