Read Genesis for Free Online

her own username and password at another prompt. The latter was a series of numbers she had literally picked at random. Lisa had always had a good memory for numbers—she never had to write down phone numbers, nor use a speed-dial for them—so she was always able to pick wholly random passwords, always the most secure. Her username was standard, of course: LBROWARD. All the usernames were keyed to last name preceded by first initial—the latter a necessity, especially since there was a guy down in Medical named Phillip Broward. In fact, just in the Hive alone there were fourteen people named Smith, ten named Jones, six named Clark (plus one named Clarke), three named Martinez, two named West, and, oddly,three named Milewski (all three unrelated to each other).
    Entering that username and password rewarded her with a series of commands and codes in another window on the left-hand side, right under the faux adorable face of a ten-year-old child that Lisa had never met yet desperately wanted to drown.
    She then Alt-Tabbed over to the other window, used the trackpad located between the main keyboard and the number pad to place the cursor in the username field, and entered “AABERNATHY.”
    â€œOkay,” she said to Alice, “enter your password.”
    This time, the clickety-clack that Lisa heard over her headset was matched by the appearance of several asterisks in the password field.
    â€œDone,” Alice said after fourteen asterisks appeared.
    â€œThat’s some password.”
    â€œIt’s my birthday,” Alice deadpanned.
    â€œRight—when you’re reincarnated in the year one billion.” Lisa followed the streams of code that flew past the window on the left-hand side of her monitor, even as the right-hand side once again declared access to be denied and cleared the username and password fields.
    â€œFuck,” Alice said again. “What’s wrong?”
    â€œYou’re gonna need a new birthday,” Lisa said with a smirk.
    â€œHm?”
    â€œDon’t you always complain that you’re bored shitless up in the mansion?”
    â€œYeah—mainly because I am always bored shitless up in the mansion.”
    â€œThen you should have plenty of time to read my memos.”
    â€œWhat memo?”
    â€œThe one I wrote six weeks ago that says you have to change your password every week, and anyone who goes eight days without changing it will be locked out.”
    â€œOh, that memo. You do know that there are seven days in a week, right?”
    Lisa laughed. “Yeah, but I thought I’d be generous and give everyone an extra day in case they forgot. Pretty pointless, as it turns out, since anyone who doesn’t remember for seven days isn’t likely to get a sudden burst of memory given another twenty-four hours, but I like to live the life of a cockeyed optimist.”
    â€œNo, you just like to be an even bigger pain in the ass by pointing out that we’re all too stupid to remember to change our password even when given an extra day.”
    â€œThat, too.” Lisa’s tone grew more serious. “All kidding aside, it’s a necessary concern. Most of the security problems on networks like this are because people don’t bother to take the simplest precautions. And changing your password every eight days is pretty damn simple, don’t you think?”
    Alice sighed. “Apparently not, since I haven’t changed mine in eight days.”
    Peering at her monitor and noticing a date on a particular line, Lisa said, “Nine, actually. Didn’t you log on yesterday?”
    â€œNo. Spence and I had—other things to deal with yesterday.”
    â€œAll day long?” Lisa grinned mischieviously. “I didn’t know he had that kind of stamina.”
    â€œVery funny.”
    Lisa noticed that Alice didn’t exactly deny her lascivious interpretation of what Alice and Spence had been doing all day.