The Kraken Project

38

“Stop pacing,” said Melissa. “You’re driving me nuts.”

Ford flopped himself down in a chair. It had been two hours since Dorothy had disappeared. Wait my call. What kind of call was she talking about? Skype? Was Dorothy telling the truth or trying to con them? Had she been caught? If so, who had caught her?

“You’re drumming your fingers.”

Ford picked up his hand, made a fist. How was Dorothy even planning to call them, when they had no cell phones?

Melissa rose from the computer, pulled a bottled water she had brought out of the motel fridge, cracked the cap, and took a deep drink. “It looks like the algo traders activated a massive botnet against her. She seems to have disappeared in California, somewhere around Silicon Valley. Her trail just vanished.”

“So at least we know she was telling the truth about that.”

“I got my hands on one of those bots and decompiled its source code. Whoever did this knows Dorothy’s ID and wrote a virus for it, a virus designed to incapacitate Dorothy. They’re one hell of a good programmer. And they must have had a copy of the Kraken Project programming manual.”

“Do you think they trapped her?” Ford asked.

“They had her cornered. I can’t find any evidence that she escaped.”

“If they really did get their hands on Dorothy … what would happen?”

Melissa sat down on the bed. “I assume they’d rewrite her code to make her do their bidding. They could make a lot of money with her. Imagine an extremely intelligent mind roaming the financial markets, able to break through most firewalls, crack passwords, scheme, plot, lie, steal, blackmail, maybe even kill.”

“They’re traders. They’d just want to make money.”

“Sure, but how long before they get bigger ideas? Or they copy and sell Dorothy?” She paused. “Think what North Korea or Iran might do with a program like this.”