The Turing Option

“Not for a while yet, not after the surgery you have undergone. But it may not be necessary.”

“Why?”

“Ben will explain.”

“My blood pressure must have gone as high as yours,” Benicoff said. “In the heat of the moment I just wasn’t thinking. There is no physical need to go to the house yet. I’ll have it searched again, but I doubt if they will come up with anything new. You said, Brian, that you used to store your backup files in your father’s computer.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, there have been major changes in communication technology that you can’t remember. For one thing everything is digital now and fiber optics have replaced copper wire in all but the most remote areas. Every telephone has a built-in modem — and they are already old-fashioned. All of the large cities have cellphone networks and they are expanding.” He tapped the telephone on his belt. “I have my own number for this. About most of the time it rings wherever I am in the continental United States.”

“Is it a satellite link?”

“No, satellite connections are too slow for most uses — particularly telepresence. Everything is fiber optics now — even the undersea cables. Cheap and fast. With plenty of room for communication with eight thousand megahertz band-width capacity available everywhere — and all of it two-way.”

Brian nodded. “I get your drift, Ben. What you’re saying is that there is very little chance that I had a local mechanical backup. It was undoubtedly an electronic one. Which will mean an electronic search.”

“Right. There are countless mailboxes, data base and communication programs now. You could have used one or more of these. But computer privacy laws are very strict these days. Even the FBI has to go to court to get permission for a search.”

“What about the CIA?”

“You’ll be happy to hear that they pulled one murderous trick too many and legislation has just been passed to put them out of the duty tricks business. Another victim of glasnost — and they won’t be missed. Particularly by the taxpayers who, it turned out, had been shelling out billions for a government department that produced nothing but inaccurate reports, started revolutions in friendly countries, mined harbors and managed to kill thousands of people along the way. They’ve been cut back to the original meaning of their name, a central intelligence agency, and are restricted to monitoring the peace instead of starting new wars. Now, if you will sign an agreement we can start the search at once.”

“Of course.”

It was not only papers that had to be signed, but there were numerous circuitry searches and phone-backs, as well as identity checks by three different government agencies. Benicoff sent everything off by registered fax, yawned and stretched.

“Now we wait,” he said.

“How long?”

“If it takes an hour that will be a long time. Before electronic transfers this would have taken days — even weeks.”

“A lot has changed in the ten years since — since I have been away,” Brian said. “I look at the news and some things haven’t changed at all. Others I look at, I miss a lot of the references.”

But it was done within the hour — and brought results less than ten minutes later. The printer hummed and rustled out the sheets of eternitree. Benicoff brought them over to Brian.

“You have accounts with six different firms.”

“That many?”

“That few. This one is a scientific data base, one of the ones that are updated hourly. They replace technical libraries — and work a lot faster. Access time is usually under a second. This one is a mailbox, this gets tickets for everything from baseball games to plane flights. These four here are the best bets. Would you try them first?”

“What do I do? Can I get out of bed, Doc?”

“I would prefer it if you didn’t.”

“No need to,” Benicoff said, going to the terminal and unplugging the keyboard. “This has an infrared link, you don’t need wires. And I’ll phone down for holospecs.”

Brian really enjoyed the holospecs. They were lightweight eyeglasses with a tiny bulge of circuitry in each earpiece. The lenses seemed to be just windowpane, though he guessed that they could have been ground with a prescription if he wore glasses. When they were turned on the image of a computer screen floated in space in front of him.

“Right. What do I do next?”

“Call up the data base, identify yourself and give them your code number. Then guess.”

“What do you mean?”

“Every account has a security code known only to the owner. Try any old ones that you remember. If that doesn’t work guess at new ones. These companies have been told what is happening and have switched off the alarm software. Usually, after the third attempt, the connection is cut and the police are given the number of the calling phone that is making the attempt to break in.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“A court order is needed to crack in. Which will take a couple of days at the fastest.”