The Liberation Paradox

A Lucky Guess

Sky

19:08

(13%)

Before they'd even been able to start decrypting the hidden partition on Mika Claire's cell phone, they'd needed to kill the AI that Marcio had put in place to evade them. Every time they found the hidden partition on the phone, that cunning artificial intelligence just moved the data to another sector of the phone's memory and they had to try to find it all over again. It all would have been so much easier if they had the actual phone down here in the server room. Then, they could hardwire it into the servers. Instead, Mr. Daniau had insisted that they hack into the phone remotely. For reasons unknown to Sky, the boss wanted to know what exactly was on the phone before he retrieved the actual device from Miss Claire.

The process had been infuriating, but eventually they'd managed to corner the AI and the data it was protecting on a particular section of the phone's memory. There, with nowhere left for the AI to hide, Sky had finally been able to kill it. Once the AI was dead, Sky and his team (for they were undeniably his team at this point) set the decryptors to work dismantling the encryption protecting whatever was hidden on the phone.

Of course, Sky already knew what would be hidden there. It could only be Mr. Daniau's stolen data and it would have metadata and access logs showing Marcio had stolen it. It had been a half an hour and even with all of the servers crunching the complex algorithms, the partition was still only 13% decrypted. No way did any Estrellan write this encryption. Marcio must have bought it somewhere. Maybe that was what he did on his little private datasphere domain.

Sky had broken into Marcio's room earlier and snooped through his personal data terminal hoping to find some trace of the stolen data in there. Unfortunately, he hadn't found anything useful, but he did notice that Marcio spent a lot of his off hours in the datasphere, in a private domain interacting with some advanced AI called "Clovis." This AI file was almost certainly a sexbot. Figures Marcio would turn out to be some f*g that can't even get a real man.

People like that disgusted Sky. It was like they couldn't even run their own station without imploding their reactor, so they needed to come to his station and mooch off of the system. And they brought all of their crime and their depravity with them. Gonaways used to be a nice place, the biggest, most prosperous, and most powerful of all the station worlds in the Darklands. That had all changed three years ago when thousands upon thousands of Estrellans had flooded in and set up their dirty refugee camps in the corridors of the Lower Stem section of Gonaways Station. Sky was a proud Gonian patriot and he hated all of the scum and riffraff that was ruining his home world. At least Marcio wouldn't be going with them back to Gonaways when their contract was up in a few more months. There would be one fewer dirty Estrellan on Gonaways. Sky was proud to have played some small part in that.

He stared at the progress bar. He stared unblinking, willing the bar to move until it eventually did. 14% now.

Sky glanced back and forth between the progress bar and the password entry field on his display. If only he knew what Marcio's password was, there would be no need to wait for the decryptors. What could the password be? It would certainly be something complex and impossible to guess.

Sky figured it wouldn't hurt to try to guess Marcio's password. Sky tried typing the name of Marcio's sister, "Lyssa" into the field.

INCORRECT PASSWORD!

Next he tried "Marcio."

INCORRECT PASSWORD!

"Ruiz"

INCORRECT PASSWORD!

This was probably pointless. The password was likely something fifty characters long which could never be guessed. Next, he tried "Marciosucks" just out of frustration.

INCORRECT PASSWORD!

Then a thought occurred to him. He knew it wouldn't work, but he typed "Clovis" in to the password field.

There was a momentary delay and then the encryption fell away revealing the complete file structure of the partition hidden on Mika's cell phone. It took Sky a moment to understand that here, at last, was the data which Marcio had stolen from Mr. Daniau's servers. And the stupid Estrellan had protected it with only a simple, six-letter password. That beautiful and difficult encryption algorithm yielded to a simple, proper name password. Figures. Stupid Estrellan.

"What the...?" Camilla said over his shoulder. She'd been silently watching him the whole time. He'd forgotten all about her being there. "How did you guess that?"

"Just a lucky guess. I looked into Marcio's data earlier and the word 'Clovis' showed up pretty prominently."

"That's a pretty stupid password," Camilla said.

"Marcio is a stupid guy," Sky answered her.

Sky got up and went over to the phone. He tried calling Mr. Daniau on his cell phone, but the call rang to voice message. He left a quick message letting Mr. Daniau know that he'd recovered his data and that Marcio Ruiz was the thief.

The big guy, Vice, at the door looked up over his trashy novel at Sky. "The tall, skinny nerd that got sick? He's the one that stole from Mr. Daniau?"

Sky looked up and addressed Vice. His voice emanated contempt. "Yes, he's the thief and you let him go. He's not sick; he just used that as an excuse to get past you. He's been using it all day. Something he ate at breakfast didn't agree with him, he claims."

Vice looked confused at that. "Nuh-uh. Mr. Daniau says some joker named Stone is the thief. I heard he's got the guy cornered upstairs. Probably has him in custody by now. Besides, I'm the one that woke Mr. Ruiz up this morning. He came straight here. Skipped breakfast."

That surprised Sky. This idiot, Vice, had had the evidence all day long that Marcio was faking his illness and was just now putting it together. Vice was a certified moron. But who was this "Stone" guy...and why did that name sound familiar? Then it clicked. Sky hadn't thought about Sid Stone since early that morning. He was the conman whose phone Mr. Daniau had wanted Sky to search. Sky glanced at the countertop where he'd left Stone's cell phone that morning and wasn't the least surprised to see it missing. How had he not noticed that?

He hated himself for not seeing it until now, but clearly Marcio and this Sid Stone were working together. Then, Sky remembered Marcio leaving the server room with the electrician. And then the electrician had disappeared. Had that been Stone in disguise? Yes, of course it had been. Sky saw how Marcio had manipulated him into calling for the electrician. Somehow, Marcio had faked those brownouts. Sky saw that he'd been an unwitting accomplice in the whole thing. Sky had even vouched for the "electrician" when Stone had first stepped off the elevator.

Ah, crap!

It occurred to Sky that Marcio and Sid Stone were trying to blame their crime on him! He'd played right into their hands! Sky felt foolish. He needed to clear his name. He needed to talk to Mr. Daniau right now. Mr. Daniau needed to know that Marcio, and not Sky, was the thief. Sky decided to try Mr. Daniau on his office phone. The phone rang and rang until Sky lost count. He was about to give up and assume that Mr. Daniau wasn't in his office, but then the ringing stopped as the line picked up.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Daniau, but this is Sky Meussen down in the server room. I just need you to know that we have unlocked the data hidden on Miss Claire's phone. We can now prove that Marcio Ruiz is the thief and we believe he was working with the conman from last night. That Sid Stone guy."

At first there was no response on the other end. After a long silent moment, Sky heard something that made his blood run cold. Without another thought, Sky ran past Vice, out the door, and down the hallway to the front stairs.