“Professor Gritsch?”
“No, the TA, Linus. He teaches the class.”
“Linus? Don’t hear that one much. Like Linus and Charlie Brown.”
“Yeah,” said Jessie agreeably, all singsongy like Grace. “Like that.” Her mom looked at her, and she thought she’d gone too far. But then her mom picked up her car keys.
“You ready?”
Jessie nodded, trying hard not to appear too excited. “Good to go,” she said. It was one of her dad’s expressions from when he was in the army or Marine Corps or whatever.
“I’ll tell Grace.” Mary stopped when she was nearly out of the kitchen. “Jess?”
“Yeah, Mom?” Here it comes, thought Jessie, her heart sinking. She’s going to change her mind.
“Do you think you could stay at school until two? It’s pretty far for me to drive there and back, and I have some errands.”
Jessie forced herself to count to three before answering. “I guess that might work.”
“Good. I won’t be a minute later than that.”
–
The classroom was full when Jessie arrived. She slid her pack off her shoulder and scooted through the aisle to her seat. She felt all eyes on her. She wasn’t just the youngest student in the class, but also the only girl. Most of the others were a bunch of rejects or kissy-ups headed straight for Redmond. Except for Garrett. She saw him out of the corner of her eye. He was almost cute, if you liked the Abercrombie type-straight blond hair hanging in his eyes, tall, always smiling and talking to everyone. She noted that he was wearing a Mumford & Sons shirt. Dork.
Linus, the TA, walked into the room, carrying a coffee. Technically he was Dr. Jankowski, but he told everyone to call him by his first name. He was short and had a beard and wasn’t cool at all. Still, the class shut up the second he walked in.
“So, you guys,” said Linus, dumping his satchel onto the table. “Before we get started, Mr. Clark wanted to say something. Go ahead, Garrett.”
Jessie kept her eyes on her desk, only partially seeing him stand out of the corner of her eye.
“Umm…yeah,” said Garrett. “Jessie, we know this is a hard time for you. We all wanted to say we’re really sorry about your dad. We think you’re pretty awesome just for being in here in the first place. You’re, like, fourteen. It’s amazing. And you’re really brave to come back to school so fast. So, anyway, um…hang in there. It’ll get better.”
Jessie tried to say thanks, and that actually she was fifteen, but the words caught in her throat. She didn’t dare look at the others. She couldn’t or she’d cry. A few people offered condolences. She nodded and kept her eyes on the desk. Mostly she could feel Garrett staring at her. He probably hated her Zeppelin T-shirt as much as she hated his Mumford & Sons.
Linus announced that the topic for today was breaking encryption algorithms. He lectured for ninety minutes, filling up all the whiteboards with code. At 12:45 he dropped his marker on the desk. “For the last fifteen minutes we’re going to have a test. No, not a test-let’s call it a race. We’re going to see who can figure out a cool hack the fastest. Or, I should probably say, whether anyone can figure it out at all.”
Linus explained the rules as he wrote the challenge on the whiteboard. “Root the box with admin privileges and capture the flag. Simple enough. Winner gets a Heineken. You guys have fifteen minutes. Go.”
Jessie looked around the room. Everyone was already hard at it, heads down, tapping away at their keyboards like mad. Garrett glanced up from under his brow and saw her looking at him. He raised his eyebrows and made a horrified face, as if this were the hardest problem in the world. Jessie looked away. She thought about the chunk of code she’d found on her mother’s phone. No one in the chat room had had any idea what it was or what it was supposed to do. They did say, however, that it wasn’t NITRON. Whatever it was, it was unique.
After a minute Jessie turned her attention to the problem. She was good at rooting the box. She decided to give it a shot. What did she have to lose?
–
“Time’s up.”
Linus Jankowski surveyed the room, chuckling to himself as if he knew no one had gotten it right. “Who’s got my answer?”
Five students raised their hands, mostly the buttoned-up guys headed to Microsoft or Oracle. Linus called on them one at a time, displayed their answers on the whiteboard, and one at a time shot them down, sprinkling in comments like “Thanks, propeller-head, but no,” “Couldn’t be more wrong,” and “Seriously, that’s as good as you got?” When he’d finished tearing them apart, he took up position in the center of the classroom. “Anyone else?” he asked. “Don’t be shy. Abject humiliation and embarrassment await.”
Jessie kept her head down, her hands covering her answer.
“Garrett? Got something for me?”
“I could only crack five of the six hashes.”
“There are a dozen websites that could have gotten you the last one.”
“Sorry, Linus, maybe next time.”
Linus moved down the aisle. “Jessie? Anything? Anything at all?”
Jessie winced at the sound of her name. She felt Linus’s eyes on her and shifted in her seat.
“Nothing?” Linus prodded. “No one?” He chuckled some more, looking way too pleased with himself. “Okay, then.”
“Umm,” said Jessie.
“Miss Grant.”
Jessie raised her head. All the other students were staring at her.
“We’re waiting…”
Jessie met their eyes, accepting the challenge from each, something inside her growing strong.
“You’ve got our attention,” said Linus.
“It’s easy.” Jessie flashed her answer onto the whiteboard and went to the front of the class to set forth her solution. “There,” she said when she’d finished. “Captured the flag.”
Linus examined her work. “You’ve never seen this problem before, have you?” he whispered, his beard close enough to scratch her cheek.
Jessie shook her head.
“Swear?”
“Swear.”
“Okay, then. We’re done here.”
Jessie returned to her seat, dejected. She’d been sure she had the right answer.
Linus opened his satchel and took out a bottle of Heineken. He popped the cap with his teeth and guzzled the beer. He belched, then walked down the aisle and set the empty bottle on her desk. “Congratulations, Miss Grant. You nailed it.”
The class broke into applause. Garrett hollered her name.
Jessie kept her eyes straight ahead as her chest swelled with pride and her cheeks suddenly felt as hot as the sun.
Linus leaned down and whispered, “I didn’t say the beer would be full.”
38
“I hereby declare this closed hearing of the Senate Subcommittee on Intelligence in session.”
Ian took his seat at the witness table and adjusted his necktie. His attorney sat beside him and patted his arm as if Ian were the accused and needed reassurance. Ian figured the arm patting was included in the attorney’s $700-an-hour fee. Peter Briggs sat behind him, along with three of the attorney’s assistants. The assistants billed at $400 an hour. Maybe for that much, they’d hold Briggs’s hand.
“We are here to conduct our semiannual review of our cooperative assistance program with ONE Technologies,” said Senator Bailey Fisk of Tennessee, subcommittee chairman. He was old and vigorous and unrepentant about the steel-wool toupee he’d worn for the past twenty years. “Representing ONE Technologies is Ian Prince, founder and chairman. For the record, may I express our profound thanks for your presence here today and our recognition of your long-standing cooperation with the United States government. Welcome, Mr. Prince.”