Deep Storm

41

The man calling himself Wallace limped quietly through the maze of passages making up the science facilities of the refitted Storm King oil platform. He moved more quickly than usual: he had only now received a message in his quarters-a coded signal, transmitted via low-frequency radio-and he had to pass it on to the operative on Deep Storm immediately.

The Tub left in twenty minutes, bound for the ocean floor. If he hurried, he might just make it.

Reaching his office, he turned on the light, then shut and locked the door. The courier bag sat on his desk, ready to be delivered to the Recovery Chamber on the lowest level of the platform. He opened it, rummaged through its contents, then pulled out a CD hand-labeled RADIOGRAPHS 001136-001152.

Image files-precisely what he needed.

He inserted the CD into his computer, loaded one of the images at random into memory. He removed the CD, placed it back in its jewel case, and returned it to the courier bag. Next, he wrote a short routine that would embed a message into the least significant bits of the pixels of the radiograph image. It was the work of five minutes to type in the computer program and double-check it for bugs.

The man pressed a function key, causing the short routine to execute. A question mark appeared on screen: the routine was requesting input. He carefully typed in the message he'd been ordered to relay. Then he paused, finger hovering over the enter key, while he examined the message for accuracy:

Satisfied, he pressed the key. The message disappeared from the screen; there was a brief pause as the program converted the message into its binary equivalent, then hid it within the digital code of the radiograph. A short chirp indicated that the process had been completed successfully.

Wallace smiled.

Opening a drawer, he pulled out a writable CD, slid it into the drive, and instructed the computer to burn a copy of the doctored radiograph. While the machine worked, he sat back in his chair, cleaning his glasses with his shirttail. The image was not large, and within a few minutes the new disk had been burned. He ejected it and quickly powered down the computer, instantly destroying all traces of his work. Pulling a fresh jewel case from the open drawer, he inserted the CD, wrote the recipient's name on it with a black marker, then slipped it into the courier bag.

He stood up, slung the bag over his shoulder, glanced at his watch.

Twelve minutes to spare. Excellent.

Unlocking his door, he stepped out, whistling to himself as he made his way to the Recovery Chamber and the waiting Tub.