The Liberation Paradox

Some Kind of Computer Breach

Marcio

04:08

Marcio was truly and properly screwed.

The whole mess started just after 04:00. Marcio had been asleep in his room on the fourteenth floor of the Paradox Hotel when he was awakened by one of Mr. Daniau's goons. The enforcer had used his security key card, entered Marcio's room, and woken him up from a dead sleep. The goon had scared Marcio half to death. He demanded that Marcio get his clothes on and come to the server room immediately.

Marcio needed coffee.

"What's going on?" he asked the goon. Vice, Marcio thought, remembering this particular ogre's name.

"Dunno," Vice answered him, "Boss hisself is in there. Says one of the other nerds found some big security breach."

Marcio's blood stopped cold and he thought for a moment that his bowels might actually let go. He knew all about the security breach, of course, because he was the one who'd perpetrated it. A million questions raced through his mind in quick succession. How did they discover the breach? Did they know it was him? Did they know what was taken? Did they know why? Did they know who he was really working for? What could he do? Could he just slip past Vice somehow and get out of the building and off the planet?

"We're in lock down," Vice continued, unwittingly answering Marcio's last couple of unspoken questions. "Nobody gets in or out of the secure zone without Mr. Daniau's say so."

The Paradox Hotel was actually a fortress, disguised as a hotel, from which Eddie Daniau ran his illicit empire. The first thirteen floors of the seventeen-story building operated like a normal hotel, but that was just a front. The building's real business was carried out on the four upper floors. Floors fourteen through seventeen made up the "secure zone" and were off limits to the hotel's guests. The secure zone housed Mr. Daniau's penthouse and offices, the crime syndicate's computer servers, apartments for Daniau's lieutenants, safe houses, and an armory stocked for war. Marcio had even found and hacked into Daniau's secret hidden camera network. People who make their living through graft and intimidation seldom think the skinny nerd in the computer room can pose any great threat to them.

Marcio threw on some clothes and followed Vice out of the room. "What kind of breach was it?" He was fishing for information. He needed to know how much they already knew. He needed coffee.

The dumb oaf just shrugged. "Some kind of computer breach."

Idiot. I'm an information security contractor and we're going to the server room. Of course it's a computer breach. Why else would they be calling for me? "What kind of computer breach, I mean?"

"I dunno. Somethin' with files and stuff."

Oh yeah. Vice is a live one, all right. Easy enough to see why he hurts people for a living. Marcio's momentary sense of smug superiority was immediately cut short, however. It occurred to him that by the time this day was out, Vice might be directed to hurt him. They might kill him. And it wouldn't be quick.

It was an open secret why Mr. Daniau was called "Eddie The Mushroom." Supposedly he had a collection of crudely amputated penises, taken from people who'd wronged him over the years. Supposedly he had them dried out and he kept them as macabre souvenirs, sometimes killing their former owners and sometimes allowing them to live out their days sitting to pee.

Marcio knew he'd been as careful as he could be. He'd even hidden the data he'd collected in a place that was pure genius. But even with all the precautions, he knew eventually someone would figure out it was he who'd stolen the information. Any belief that he could go undiscovered indefinitely would be the height of hubris. He had to figure out a way out of this hotel and off this planet before they could unravel his crime. He had to do it soon and he had to make sure he got the data out with him. Without that data, the Boaters would kill him.