Mutation

“She was all right,” Harry said. “She was a pretty good kid. But she lied a lot. She lied a lot about me.”

“She never said anything to us about you,” Marsha said.

And after a curt handshake, she was gone.

“You sure you don’t mind?” Victor asked Louis Kaspwicz.

He’d called the man at home to ask him about the discrepancy regarding his hard disk on the personal computer.

“I don’t mind in the slightest,” Louis said. “If your hard disk has no storage space available, it means the existing storage is filled with data. There is no other explanation.”

“But I looked at the file directory,” Victor said. “All there is listed are the operating systems files.”

“There have to be more files,” Louis said. “Trust me.”

“I’d hate to mess up your Saturday afternoon if it is some stupid thing,” Victor said.

“Look, Dr. Frank,” Louis said, “I don’t mind. In fact, on a rainy day like this I’ll enjoy the excuse to get out of the house.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Victor said.

“Just give me directions and I’ll meet you there,” Louis said.

Victor gave him directions, then went out into the main lab and told Robert that he was leaving but that he’d probably be back. He asked Robert about what time he’d be calling it a day. Robert said that his wife had told him dinner was to be at six so he’d be leaving about five-thirty.

Louis was already at the house by the time Victor got there.

“Sorry to make you wait,” Victor said as he fumbled with his keys.

“No problem,” Louis said cheerfully. “You certainly have a beautiful house,” he added. He stomped the moisture off his shoes.

“Thank you.” Victor led Louis upstairs to his Wang PC.

“Here it is,” he said. He reached behind the electronics unit and switched the system on.

Louis gave the computer a quick look, then lifted his narrow briefcase onto the counter top, snapping open the latches. Inside, encased in styrofoam, was an impressive array of electronic tools.

Louis sat down in front of the unit and waited for the menu to come up. He quickly went through the same sequence that Victor had early that morning, getting the same result.

“You were right,” Louis said. “There’s not much space left on this Winchester.” He reached over to his briefcase and unsnapped the accordion-like file area built under the lid, pulled out a floppy disk, and loaded it.

“Luckily, I happen to have a special utility for locating hidden files,” Louis said.

“What do you mean by hidden files?” Victor asked.

Louis was busy with manipulating information on the screen. He spoke without looking. “It is possible to store files so that they don’t appear on any directory,” he said.

Miraculously, data started to appear on the computer.

“Here we are,” Louis said. He leaned aside so Victor could have a better view of the screen. “Any of this make sense to you?”

Victor studied the information. “Yeah,” he said. “These are contractions for the nucleotide bases of the DNA molecule.” The screen was completely filled with vertical columns of the letters AT, TA, GC, and CG. “The A is the adenine, the T is for pyrimidine, the G is for guanine, and the C is for cytosine,” Victor explained.

Louis advanced to the next page. The lists continued. He advanced a number of pages. The lists were interminable.

“What do you make of this?” Louis asked, flipping through page after page.

“Must be a DNA molecule or gene sequence,” Victor said, his eyes following the flashing lists as if he were watching a Ping-Pong game.

“Well, have you seen enough of this file?” Louis asked.

Victor nodded.

Louis punched some information into the keyboard. Another file appeared, but it was similar to the first. “The whole hard disk could be taken up with this stuff,” Louis suggested. “You don’t remember putting this material in here?”

“I didn’t put it in,” Victor said without elaborating. He knew that Louis was probably dying to ask where it could have come from and who was the person logging onto the Chimera mainframe last night. Victor was grateful that the man held his curiosity in check.

For the next half hour, Louis rapidly went from file to file. All looked essentially like the first. It was like a library of DNA molecules. Then suddenly it changed.

“Uh oh,” Louis said. He had to hold up hitting the sequence of keys that scrolled through the hidden files. What appeared on the screen was a personnel file. Louis flipped through a couple of pages. “I recognize this because I formatted it. This is a personnel file from Chimera.”

Louis looked up at Victor, who didn’t say a word. Louis turned back to the computer and went to the next file. It was George Gephardt’s. “This stuff was pulled directly out of the mainframe,” Louis said. When Victor still did not respond, he went to the next file, then the next. There were eighteen personal files. Then came a series of accounting files with spread sheets. “I don’t recognize these,” Louis said. He looked up at Victor again. “Do you?”

Victor shook his head in disbelief.

Louis redirected his attention to the computer screen.