doubleZero | Page 8

where there was no time. And you could feed it the time manually... Only I never fed it in, so inside that bubble it's the year zero."
"But with two thousand years' interest the bank's general ledger would go off the scale! Surely they'd see that."
"Naw, they wouldn't. 'Cause from inside it always looks like a hundred and fifty bucks. Only an outside computer making a transaction would see it as, well, this," said Fix, taking the slip from her hand.
"Okay, so as long as you don't touch this, is it safe?"
"Actually, it's safe as long as I'm the only one touching it. The bubble kinda has this bar of soap property, like, if anyone tries to touch it, it'll slip away from them. Well, it'll slip away, but it'll also change itself to stay hidden. Maybe 'bubble' is a bit too cute an analogy, 'cause it's made of a smeg."
"Please," Julie moaned, "tell me that's an acronym."
"Yeah, it is. Simulated Multimorphic Encryption Generator. Back in '94 it caused a bit of trouble. That was the 2.0 form. This is version 3. It's a virus that can change itself to avoid detection. But this bubble is self-contained. It won't spread."
"For sure?" Julie asked, screwing Fix down with that uncomfortable look again.
"Well, not unless someone tries to burst it. But it won't show up to the regular virus-checker programs. Lloyd's the only person there who could catch it. He wrote all the date-harmonizing stuff. I just stitched the bubble around it."
"So," Julie thought aloud, "first we have to tell Lloyd."
"Are you sure that's such a good idea?"
"Fix! He's the only one who can undo this."
"If I could get to my computer I might be able to get rid of it. Oh god--" Fix halted, his jaw dropping, "My computer is still there, right? They haven't shifted our offices around yet, have they?"
"No, they're still too busy dealing with the Euro thing."
"Good."
"Why good?" Julie leaned back on her arms, uncrossing her legs to stretch them on either side of Fix. She was surprised to find herself getting used to all these potential calamities.
"'Cause the program that made the bubble is still sitting on that computer. And," he paused, "if someone tried to break into it, well, it might just burst the bubble. Ever look at a bubble up close? Just before it bursts you can see all the rainbow-coloured drops barely holding together," Fix got lost for a second in the image. Julie, losing her calm, tapped him with her foot. "Well, each of those little drops goes flying off into the system."
"Get your bike," Julie commanded, getting up, grabbing her heavy black leather jacket from a chair.
"Where are we going?"
"Get your fucking bike!"
Fix ran across the loft and got his bike from the spot where he'd leaned it against the wall. Julie hoisted hers over her shoulder and headed out for the elevator. He hurried out of the apartment after her. "And lock the door behind you," he heard her say from down the hall. He went back and, this time, locked the door.
Julie slipped her passcard into the slot beside the door to their department. It would look suspicious in the logs, her entering at this time of the evening. And the cameras would pick her up with Fix. She wasn't comfortable with that. But she'd figure out something to say later, once this was all cleared up.
Fix pulled a chair up to his old computer. Switching it on, he said, "Good. No one's even touched it. It's a piece of shit machine, but right now it's a rather loaded piece of shit machine." The screen prompted him to log in.
"How do you like this?" Fix asked Julie, holding up a picture of his face that he'd pulled from a drawer.
"Pretty funny."
"Har har," he replied dryly, "It's the key to the encryption algorithm that the bubble uses. I used a steganosaurus program to hide the key in my picture."
"Were you ever actually working on this project while you were here?"
"Baby, this was the project to me. If I hadn't worked all this out we would never have been able to do what we did."
"If you do say so yourself."
"Am I right?" Fix asked, cocking his head coyly.
"You're right. But you were almost very wrong, fucker! Get going on your stupid bubble."
Lloyd turned the corner, coming from the Control Room. Looking up to find Julie and Fix, he jumped slightly. "Hi, guys," he said, composing himself, "what are you doing?"
Julie quickly jumped in, "Fix was just getting his personal stuff." The excuse fell flat the moment it left her lips: they all simultaneously looked at Fix's graph paper drawings and napkin notes. Neither Julie nor Lloyd had ever seen anything of Fix's that could be described as 'personal'.
"I don't think you should