Linda turned to face Stone and fixed him with a rock steady gaze.
“Charles was your friend, and this thing you’re going to do matters to you — correct?”
“Of course,” Stone nodded.
“Well, if I’m involved with you, then it matters to me as well. So please — let me help.”
Stone felt his resolve weakening. Even with Ed Carter involved, he felt very alone. He realized that he really did want to keep Linda around. If only, so that he could talk with her and share his feelings. With a shrug of defeat, he took her hand and made a commitment he would soon come to regret.
“Ok. Let me talk with Ed today. He has more experience than I do in things like this. If he’s ok with it, then you can help.”
Linda gave a girlish ‘whoop’ and pumped her fist. “Yes!”
Stone jumped in quickly.
“But I will not allow you to put yourself in any danger — agreed?”
“Sure — of course,” she said with a nod. Then Linda leaned forward and kissed Stone firmly on the lips. “Now, you’d better get dressed or you’ll be late for your meeting!”
They exchanged phone numbers and Stone agreed to call Linda as soon as he was available. Then after another passionate kiss, they climbed into their respective cars and left.
The meeting was arranged for mid-day at Megan’s office, which was really just a front bedroom in her Harlow apartment. Although he was running late, Stone decided not to call ahead, preferring to limit communications by electronic means and reduce the risk of being intercepted. In any event he was confident that Carter would not mind if he was a few minutes late.
It was a beautiful and sunny day and the traffic was mercifully light. Stone was deliriously happy as he drove, smiling broadly, as he sang along to the radio. He was still smiling broadly when he rang the doorbell at Megan’s apartment. He was just thirty-five minutes late. Carter answered the door and immediately got down to business.
“Come in, Eric. Megan has some interesting stuff for us.”
Stone followed Carter down the narrow corridor and into the converted front bedroom, stepping over two tabby cats in the process. A familiar kitten ran out to greet him. It circled his legs twice before quickly darting out through the door. Eric smiled, happy to see that the little kitten was settling in to its new home.
The small front room was a tight fit for three people. Inside there were two desks, three computers with large flat screen monitors, two laptops and a confusing mass of twisted cables. Carter made the introductions.
“Eric Stone, meet Megan Smith, the best IT expert on the planet!”
Megan Smith was somewhere in her early forties, she was a large woman, a very large woman. She probably weighed over 300 pounds, but in some ways, it suited her. The phrase ‘larger than life’ came to mind as Stone saw her bright green dyed hair and lose fitting kaftan. The cotton shroud looked like a small tent, coloured white, with large blue and orange spots. With some difficulty, Megan turned her chair away from the computer monitor and studied Stone with a critical eye. He gave her a little wave to accompany his friendly smile and casual, ‘Hey’. She gave him a short nod and slowly turned away, before announcing to her computer.
“Well, someone got some last night.”
“Megan!” Carter exclaimed.
“Well he did. Nobody can smile that wide unless they’ve just had their world rocked.”
Carter turned to Stone apologetically.
“I’m sorry Eric, Megan likes to shock people. I think she’s over-compensating for her unusually warm nature.”
“Fuck off!” Megan said gruffly, “it’s ‘cos I’m jealous.”
Stone smiled and held up his hand.
“It’s ok, I understand. Anyway, as it happens, she’s right.”
“She shoots — she scores!” Megan pumped a fist dramatically, and then she sang softly, “Eric’s got a girlfriend.”
“Alright, that’s enough, Megan. Take no notice, Eric. It’s just her way of testing people, she likes to be outrageous,” Carter said.
“No problem,” Stone said honestly, as he walked to Megan’s side and offered his hand. “I’m genuinely pleased to meet you, Megan. Ed speaks very highly of you and your skills. I very much appreciate you giving a home to that kitten. Now I hope that you can help me with my problem.”
She considered his hand for a moment, then reached around and shook it firmly. Her hand was damp with sweat, and so fat that she couldn’t grip properly, but that didn’t concern Stone. He liked this woman — she had a fighting spirit. Megan looked at Carter and nodded.
“Ok Ed, he’ll do, but only because the cats like him.”
“Good!” Carter smiled in relief. “Now that we have the pleasantries out of the way, perhaps you can show Eric what you have found?”
“Sure. Make yourself comfortable boy’s, Ms. Smith is on the stage — and remember; it’s never over until the cat lady sings!”
There wasn’t enough room in the office for any other chairs, so Stone and Carter sat on the other desk together, their legs dangling like two schoolboys.
“Actually, what I didn’t find was more interesting than the things that I did,” Megan said, turning towards Stone. “Eric, how much do you know about how our browsing habits are tracked when we‘re online?”
“Not much really. I suppose that I’m rather a Luddite when it comes to computers,” Stone admitted with a shrug of his shoulders. “I know we leave traces wherever we go on the internet, but other than that, it’s all a bit of a mystery.”
“You and everyone else!” Megan said raising her eyebrows dramatically. “In fact, if the general public knew just how much data was produced by their online activities, most people would stop using the internet completely.”
“That sounds disturbing,” Stone said pulling a face.
“Indeed. Anyways — I’ve set up a little demonstration to make a point,” Megan said, indicating a laptop on the desk. She kept up a running commentary as she began typing.
“Now boys; this is just a standard garden-variety laptop. It’s connected to the internet using a local Wi-Fi connection — not mine I might add. It has some decent quality security software installed, which is up to date. Just now, I’m accessing the net with Firefox, but I could use any other browser; it wouldn’t make any real difference. I have left all of the browser settings to the manufacturers default for this first demonstration. Ok?” She looked at Stone and Carter to check that they were following. They both nodded enthusiastically.
“Good. I’m going online now.”
She began typing, carefully explaining what she was doing with each action.
“First, I’m going to check a dummy email account… ”
“And now I am looking for a book on a well-known retail site… ”
“Now I’m searching for a hotel deal in Glasgow… ”
“And finally, I will visit this site to look at some porn — don’t get too excited lads; it’s just some vanilla nudity!”
She turned and gave them a cheeky wink.
“Now in the background I was running a browser add-on called ‘Lightbeam’. It will show us what information has been gathered about this computer.”
Megan opened a second window on the computer and pointed to the search results.
“There… so Lightbeam is telling me that I was browsing for five minutes and during that time I accessed seven web sites. It also says that my computer loaded cookies from those seven sites and one-hundred and fifty-two cookies from other third-party sites that I did not access.”
She turned again.
“You understand what cookies are?”
“Err… well, I—” Stone stammered but Megan quickly interrupted.
“Cookies are basically little bits of code that websites install onto your computer as you browse. At best, they ‘help to improve the quality of your browsing experience’, or so they claim. At worst, they steal and share your data with anyone who is prepared to pay for it.”