Read Final Victim (1995) for Free Online

computer."
    "What cracking program are you using?" he added.
    "I downloaded Crack off the Internet. But I'm a hacker, not a cracker, and this stuff is tougher to break through than I thought."
    "Crack is a dictionary of computer passwords or something, right?" he asked.
    "Right. The way it's supposed to work is, you dial into the computer you're trying to penetrate, and this little program starts jabbering passwords at it. You're supposed to just leave it on. I'm using a dictionary of over ten thousand common passwords. Crack runs through the whole dictionary until it hits one that the other computer accepts. It's supposed to be eighty percent reliable, but I'm S . O. L . so far."
    "What's the problem?"
    "I don't know. I log in, I do the opening dance, then my Crack program shoots three passwords in, and I get this 'login incorrect' shit from Pennet in Oslo, and I'm out."
    "Lemme see . . ."
    She turned, typed li and hit Enter. The li command told the UNIX operating system on the host computer to repeat the last command issued:
    telnet ring2Ice . A non . P ennet . N o Trying 172.24.168. 10 . . .
    They waited. The room was very small and windowless, and he could smell her perfume. One detail intrigued him: She wasn't wearing any jewelry, not even earrings. Claire never wore jewelry, except for her wedding ring, until she threw it at him. After a second, the hookup was complete and the screen read:
    Connected to ring2ice . A non . P ennet . N o Escape character is 'AF
    SunOS UNIX (ring2ice)
    login:
    She typed in "darkstar." They waited. After a few seconds, Pennet responded with:
    password:
    She then activated Crack on her computer and it made three password attempts. After the third attempt the screen read:
    login Incorrect
    Connection closed by foreign host.
    Then some line noise put some garbage on the screen:
    *R#W8c^41%
    "What's all that jabberwocky?" John said, leaning in. "It's pissed. I think it's swearing at me."
    Then the screen shouted:
    DARKSTAR, you have excessiv e i nvalid logins. You are locke d o ut for fifteen minutes.
    NOTIFYING SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR.
    And the screen went black.
    "Cheese it, the cops!" Lockwood said, grinning.
    "Look, you may think this is funny. I don't. Why don't you just go get some coffee?"
    "You gonna keep trying with the Systems Administrator watching?" "What's he gonna do, jump on a plane from Oslo, come over here, and knock me in the dirt?"
    "Good point."
    They waited fifteen minutes. It was a strange lull, because she seemed to have nothing to say to him and he couldn't think of anything to say to her. So they waited in silence, with their eyes on the wall clock. The basement room was cramped and underlit. The ornate Customs building had once been Washington's Department of Labor building. It was a stone-faced edifice with Corinthian columns and a brass front door. But the decorating scheme ended below the first floor. The basement would have made a good set for a Bela Lugosi film. There were exposed pipes running along hard concrete hallways.
    The last minute clicked off the clock and, without saying anything to him, she telnetted to Pennet, again. They were back in the good graces of the remailer computer. The screen said amicably:
    Connected to ring2Ice . A nonspennet . N o Escape character Is ',V
    SunOS UNIX (rIng2Ice)
    login:
    She went through the same sequence and basically the same thing happened, only this time the Systems Administrator had a surprise waiting for them:

REDWITCH
    U . S . CUSTOMS GOV. OPERATOR
    YOU ARE LOCKED OUT FROM THIS HOST FOR 90 DAYS.
    ALL FUTURE PACKETS FROM YOUR SITE *WILL*BE*REFUSED*.
    Suddenly, she was dumped back to her own system prompt. "Busted," Lockwood blurted.
    "Shit," Awesome Dawson said.

    Chapter 5

CELLAR DWELLERS
    The Cellar was a brick-faced bar-restaurant on the first floor of an office building on Constitution Avenue. The interior was a cross between a fifteenth-century Dominican monastery and an Irish pub. Some fool had further