Dark Desires After Dusk (Immortals After Dark #6)(40)

“You’re telling me that many companies use codes?”

“Everyone uses codes. Or at least, anyone with a computer does. When you receive an e-mail, it’s encrypted, until your e-mail program decodes it. An online banking transaction and even paying a speeding ticket online are code-heavy applications.”

She turned, shifting her body to face him more fully, obviously loving this subject. Which disconcerted him.

If she was so keen on this stuff, then she’d want a partner who could discuss it with her. It pissed him off that she and that tosser spoke a language he could never know.

Once again—you can’t bloody have her anyway!

“Cadeon, are you even listening to me?”

“What? Yeah, was just thinking about . . . how http always turns to https when I carry out a transaction.”

“Exactly!”

Good save.

“Https provides an additional level of encryption.” She eyed him with new interest. Bloody good save. “But every computerized code is still breakable. Every single one can be decrypted by brute-force computing.”

“What’s that?”

“Imagine a thousand computers working twenty-four hours a day on breaking a single code. That’s BFC. So the general idea is to make a code so convoluted and complex that no one would have enough BFC available to crack it. But theoretically, it’s still hackable.”

“So what would your code do? Why call it barbed?”

“I want it to protect itself—by any means necessary.”

“How would that be possible?” he asked.

“If it senses it’s being decrypted, then it would cyber-attack the decoder.”

He gave a laugh. “Figures a Valkyrie would develop a combative code.”

Her eyes flashed silvery. “This is very serious.” He’d already known how devoted she was to her work, but had never seen her this passionate about it. “BFC won’t work if my code takes out those thousand computers simultaneously. And imagine the implications for other uses.”

“Like what?”

“Take, for instance, your antivirus software. It would no longer merely guard your computer against viruses, it could track the virus back to its origin, then send a mutated version to cripple the culprit’s own system. Even e-mail applications would be affected. If you received spam, your computer would dispatch ten thousand spam messages directly back to the sender’s real address, shutting down his system.”

“I do believe that this is serious. It sounds like it could completely wipe out viruses and spam in no time.”

“It totally could! The people behind them steal time from our lives, forcing us to defend against them or to deal with their fallout. And I resent it.”

“So what’s the holdup?”

She looked away as she said, “My code . . . attacks everything. Even friendly systems.”

“The warrior code goes on the rampage.”

She sighed. “That’s correct.”

“And you have to figure out how to make a code recognize a friendly from a foe.”

With a nod, she said, “Imagine sending your coworker over in accounting a virus times one million. The results would be catastrophic to chance a friendly.”

“So what are you doing now?”

“Trying to communicate with the code as a friendly to study exactly how it kicks my tail each time.”

“Until I met you, I always thought codes were about words and riddles.”

“Cryptology used to be the realm of linguists. Now it’s dominated by the geeks.” She said this proudly, as if she was one among them. “We’re going to rule the world, you know?”

What Holly didn’t understand was that when she said things like this, she didn’t sound like a geek—she sounded like a Valkyrie.





18





I refuse!” she told Cadeon as they waited for the tank to fill up. “I won’t do it!”

“You don’t know what you’re missing. Just a bite,” he said, easing his hot dog toward her mouth.

From her perch on the hood of the car—where he’d insisted on lifting her—she eyed the offering with disgust and put up her hand. “Forget it. Gas station food is foul. Gas station hot dogs are beyond foul. Do you know how long it’s been on those greasy rollers?”

“Long enough to taste good.” He took a huge bite.

“You might as well be eating pickled pig’s feet, fished from a jar.”

His eyes went wide. “They had some? And you didn’t tell me?” With a grin at her horrified expression, he said, “All right, all right. I had to give it a shot.” He set down his dinner beside her, then bent to a plastic bag by his feet. “Here,” he said, pulling out a bottle of orange juice. After painstakingly opening the top without touching the rim, he handed it to her. He also produced several packaged granola bars.

Cadeon could be unexpectedly thoughtful. For a demon. She took a drink. “Why haven’t you made fun of me for my . . . quirks?”

He shrugged. “Everybody’s got something unusual about them.”

Holly tilted her head. He was wearing that broken-in, leather hat. N?x had been right. He was sexy as the devil in it. She inwardly shook herself. “So what kind of gas mileage does a Veyron get?”