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Rating: G, Story...Summary: Cancerman finds that he's not the baddest guy on the block...
Bad Connection (1/1)by Sheryl Martin
He sat in front of the computer, the unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth.
>ACCESS DENIED
What?
Not possible...
He typed in the request again; nothing complicated - just a simple deletion of certain files.
>ACCESS DENIED
A frown creasing his face, he licked the end of the cigarette before typing in his password again and asking again for the deletion.
>ACCESS DENIED
Shaking his head, he sent out the command to see who else was online.
>HELLO...
>WHO ARE YOU?
>JUST A FRIEND.
>REQUEST YOUR ID NUMBER - YOU HAVE DENIED ME ACCESS TO FILES THAT ARE NECESSARY TO MY OCCUPATION.
>I DON'T THINK SO... BESIDES, YOU DON'T NEED TO DELETE THOSE ANYWAY - WE ALREADY DID IT FOR YOU.
>BEFORE OR AFTER YOU COPIED THEM?
>I CAN'T TELL YOU THAT - YOU'RE NOT CLEARED HIGH ENOUGH.
>WHAT? I'VE GOT A VERY HIGH CLEARANCE - DON'T EVEN THINK OF TELLING ME THAT...
>NOT NOW. I JUST DUMPED YOU TO A MINOR CIVIL SERVANT. HOPE YOU HAVE A GOOD TIME TRYING TO EXPLAIN THIS ONE TO YOUR BOSS.
>I CAN TRACK YOU DOWN. I WILL.
>SURE - LIKE YOU DID THE SAUCER AT ROSWELL. OR THE MAN ON THE GRASSY KNOLL. AND THEN YOU'LL MAKE ME DISAPPEAR, RIGHT?
>HAVE NO DOUBT OF THAT.
>AND THE MIBS WILL SHOW UP AT MY DOOR AND ALL THAT, RIGHT?
>I'M TRACKING YOU BACK THROUGH THE SYSTEM, YOU LITTLE...
>ACCESS DENIED - FILES ALREADY DELETED
>BE SEEING YOU...
Slumping back in his chair, he stared at the blinking letters on the screen; signalling the failure of the trace. And the files were gone, at least.
Although into who's hands he wasn't sure.
And he still had to figure out how to get his clearance back without revealing the fallibility of the system. Or that they had been hacked, probably.
Well, the kid had no idea of what he was getting anyway. No one would want that obsolete data. Stuff years old; information he should have done away with years ago - historical trivia, at the best.
A small bead of sweat broke loose from his forehead, mingling with the moisture gathering on his upper lip.
Obsolete.
********
"Frohike! You coming or what?"
"Yah, as soon as I dump these files into the archive - hacked them right out from under the nose of some civil servant."
"Cool... anything important?"
"I don't know yet - but we'll get to them after dinner, okay?"
"Man, he must have been pissed..."
"Well, when I zapped his clearance he was."
"High up, was he?"
"Dunno - just cleared him down to Mulder's level."
"Oh, that's gotta hurt..."
***********