The Twins Paradox Read online

"Most of it anyway. All that you're going to learn from me."

  He studied her carefully. She wasn't lying. Somehow his carefully crafted warning about the destruction of Washington hadn't gotten through.

  “Good. I’ll need a spare room, not yours, where I can make some calls while you work,” she continued, still dangerous.

  “Second floor, first room on the right.”

  “You know how I hate cameras,” she smiled.

  He considered that. “Better make that the last door on the left.”

  After she had left, he walked to the couch and lay down. Saving the world suddenly seemed impossible without telling TJ and the government about Dave 2 and the Twins. Then they would take the Twins, along with the easy money and easy women, away. They might throw him in jail too. Knowing the future could be considered insider trading, or something felonious.

  He struggled to his feet and crossed the room to the large windows. A party boat cruised slowly by a half mile out, full of revelers without a care in the world. All he had ever wanted from the Twins was no troubles. Now he had them in spades.

  “Hey.” He addressed his reflection in the window, “tell me how to solve this. I have a really hot babe to get back to.”

  He waited expectantly, then continued. “At least tell me if I don’t figure it out and Washington goes boom so I can make a little money and get on with life.”

  His phone chirped. A message through the Twins.

  “Bend the future enough that I can find an answer.”

  He felt foolish talking to his future self, but responded anyway.

  “And how do I do that?”

  The phone chirped again. “Hack the Global exchange for the account number.”

  Dave 2 was talking with him. This was amazing. He wondered if he should be noting the times of these responses so he could reconstruct the conversation in the future.

  “Ok, Dave 2,” he smirked, “How do I hack the Global Exchange?”

  The phone chirped again. “FTP to administration.globalx.com, ID: jkesler, Password: e92vC8yTgRsDb45”

  He stared at the phone. “But how do I know this?”

  He waited, but received no reply, so he got to work.

  New Threat

  Wednesday 2:27 a.m.

  Mitch Emerson shoved the last slice of pizza into his mouth and wiped the grease from his hands on his blue Marlins tank top. He typed a quick command, installing the listener, then watched the security monitor in the corner of the screen. Nothing happened.

  "Wahoo," he shouted, and then belched.

  The new Global Stock exchange had some of the best security in the business. He should know; he had designed much of it personally. But even the best security couldn't keep out a hacker who knows the back doors.

  He quickly typed another command and activated the listener. It would record everything communicated over a few key ports. With the information, within a few weeks he would be intercepting and manipulating enough trades to earn a cool $5 million. Then he would erase his tracks and disappear into the south seas.

  He grimaced. He would disappear, after making a sizable payment on his Las Vegas condo development. What had seemed like a good way to launder money had turned into a black hole that was quickly vacuuming up all of his cash.

  The listener showed activity. A process was being authenticated through the firewall and the data started to flow.

  "Son of a bitch," he muttered.

  The process had gained access to the main transaction database and was copying the entire contents to the outside. The data was going out unencrypted, so the process must be a hack. Someone was beating him to the punch.

  He copied an address from the listener, opened a tracking module, and pasted the address in. Five heartbeats later he discovered that the data was being routed through a server in Cyprus. Forty-five minutes later, he had traced the hacker to the Grand Cayman.

  He swiveled in his chair and opened the refrigerator positioned directly behind his workstation. He belched again, and withdrew a platter of ready-to-heat nachos. Then spinning another 90° in his chair, he popped the nachos into a microwave oven, set the timer, and leaned back to think.

  Someone was already weeks ahead of him. They would pull some scam on Global, and then he would never get in.

  He twisted the bill of his Marlins baseball cap to the back of his head, then slumped forward to watch the cheese bubble as a microwave oven finished warming the nachos.

  Since he wasn't going to be the one to rip off Global, and he had 10 days to pay the bank or lose all his equity in the condos, there was only one thing to do. He would find the hacker, and steal from him.

  The microwave chimed. He opened the door, removed the nachos, and tossed to chip into his mouth.

  Ripping off the hacker could get violent. He grinned. This was going to be fun. It took another hour to find out who if would be fun for. .

  "David Richards," he read. The name was familiar, but he couldn't place it. Dave owned a nice house, and a boat. He seemed to have plenty of money, but why was the name familiar? Ten minutes later he found the connection.

  Garg's student.

  Suddenly it all made sense. Two years earlier he had hacked into the servers at the University of Minnesota and learned that a Dr. Garg was closer than anyone had imagined to building an operational quantum computer. He visited the good doctor, and his wife, and encouraged him to divulge the technology.

  He shook his head. Garg had been a stubborn, frustrating man; it was unfortunate what had happened. But it looked like he was going to get a second chance. This Dave Richards had obviously walked away with Garg's technology after the professor's untimely death. He smiled, and promised himself that he would not lose his temper with Mr. Richards until after he had the goods.

  Deception

  Wednesday, 7:32 a.m.

  Monique climbed from the pool and toweled off, bending artfully to show off plenty of cleavage and ass. The mark wasn’t around, but she was a firm believer in always staying in character. She slipped on the large robe and settled herself at the table. A woman emerged from the house bearing silver server.

  "Here you are ma’am," the woman smiled, and setting the server in front of Monique, lifted the lid.

  "Merci, Mademoiselle Trickett,” she beamed, inhaling the aroma of fresh tartines and pain au chocolat. "Will Mr. Richards come soon?"

  "That's hard to say, ma'am," Mrs. Trickett responded flatly. "When he works all night, he often doesn’t come down until noon."

  "Poor man," she sighed.

  “Enjoy your breakfast ma’am,” Mrs. Trickett responded, and turning, returned to the house.

  Monique took a small bite of the pain au chocolat. She decided that she would like living here.

  The American woman emerged from the house walking quickly, and looked at her suspiciously. She was still wearing her suit. Monique studied her carefully. She had a nice figure and wholesome face, but looked pushy and demanding. A powerful man would be repelled by her.

  "Ah TJ, come sit," she smiled.

  "I'm looking for Dave, have you seen him?"

  Monique smiled wickedly. "Oh yes."

  She paused for effect. "Monsieur Dave had a late night. Who can say when he will recover."

  TJ glared at her. "He was working on a very important project. Do you know if he finished?"

  Monique smiled coyly, "I don't know, but if you have questions, I can have him call."

  The American glowered, grinding her teeth.

  "Perhaps Madame would like some Le petit déjeuner? I'll have Mrs. Trickett brings some. I'm sure you like it. She is such a good cook, and she cooks French."

  The American opened her mouth, then thought better of whatever she was going to say and slumped into a chair. Mrs. Trickett emerged from the kitchen.

  "Ma'am, would you care for some breakfast?"

  TJ smiled weakly. "Yes please. Anything but what she's having."
/>   Monique smiled, crinkling her nose. Disposing of this one would be fun.

  She daintily sampled each of the delicacies that Mrs. Trickett had brought while the American fumed, drumming her fingers on the table.

  "So, you and Dave are friends," she asked sweetly.

  TJ pursed her lips "Yes. Good friends, from graduate school."

  Monique nodded knowingly, and continued with her breakfast.

  "And you are on David's crew?" TJ asked.

  "Crew," Monique responded innocently, then after a moment's hesitation she continued, "Ah yes, the boat. Yes, I am often on the boat."

  Monique smiled again, certain that the American was fuming.

  The door banged open, and Dave stumbled from the house, still dressed in his clubbing clothes from the night before.

  "Good morning ladies," he declared with feigned cheerfulness.

  “Bonjur, Dave," Monique beamed, rising from her chair to give Dave a gentle kiss. "I’ll have Mrs. Trickett bring you some coffee."

  Then Monique glided into the house, leaving TJ to explode. In the kitchen, she secured a pot of fresh coffee, a cup, and another plate of tartines and pain au chocolat. Then she waited by the door.

  "I don’t care if you’re sleeping with her, just tell me if you have the information,” she heard TJ shout. That was her cue. She emerged from the house to find TJ standing, hands flat on the table, glaring at Dave.

  “Voila” Monique declared, setting the plate before Dave, filling the coffee cup, and placing the cup in Dave's outstretched hand.

  Dave sipped the coffee and smiled, gratefully.

  Monique watched TJ and Dave bicker with quiet amusement. The American woman clearly didn't know what men were good for. Her phone buzzed. She withdrew it from her