18 | SHARKS
The Sharks’ wing scraped tightly around the back of the net, cut inside the defender, and flicked a reverse shot past the goalie’s outstretched glove into the net.
The blind man in front of Sam roared with excitement and leaped to his feet.
Sam checked the scoreboard. That put the San Jose Sharks ahead of the Anaheim Ducks with just two minutes to go. It was his first hockey game, and it was pretty exciting stuff.
One of the Ducks’ players had taken offense to something, though, and had jammed the Sharks’ center up against the fence, pummeling him with heavy blows.
The Shark took it for a moment, then responded with a deep uppercut that caught the Duck under his chin, cracking his head backward and knocking him flat on his back on the ice.
The blind man thrust a fist in the air, almost as excited by the fisticuffs as by the goal, but all his jumping around must have upset his neuro-headset, as he sat down again quickly and made some adjustments to it.
The man’s cameras were built into heavy-framed glasses, feeding the image to a portable receiver on his belt, then directly into his neuro-headset.
With neuro, blind people could see; deaf people could hear. Some said it was the greatest step forward since the invention of language itself. They were even producing neuro-caps now that let you see in the dark, access street maps, or just listen to music.
Sam had heard that the portable neuro-sets could also pick up the video feed from the TV cameras, so the man would have instant access to all the camera angles, slow-mo replays, and high shots that the TV audience at home saw.
“Why don’t we use neuro at CDD?” Sam asked.
Dodge half turned his head, keeping his eyes on the ice. “You figure it out,” he said.
“Been trying,” Sam said. “Doesn’t make any sense to me. I can work much faster on my laptop back in the hotel with my neuro-set than I can in the office using a keyboard and mouse.”
The Ducks had two quick shots at the Sharks’ goal, but their quick-handed goalie deflected them both, keeping the Sharks in front.
“Okay, see that man three rows in front of us?” Dodge asked, pointing discreetly.
The man was tall and balding, sitting next to two young boys who were probably his sons. On the other side of the boys, a woman, perhaps the man’s wife, was engrossed in the game. The man, however, had his cell phone concealed in his lap.
“Yeah.”
“Texting away on his cell phone, in the middle of an exciting ice hockey game. What could be so important to keep him from watching the game?”
“Beats me,” Sam said.
“Let’s find out.”
Dodge produced his cell phone and slid up the front panel to reveal the miniature keyboard underneath. He tapped a few keys, then aimed the stubby aerial of the phone right at the man.
“Blue rifle, built in,” he said. “I’m bluesnarfing his cell.”
He showed the man’s cell phone number to Sam.
“From his phone company, I’ll get his home address and find out his Internet service provider.”
Sam watched, intrigued, as Dodge worked. A moment later, he held up the phone triumphantly. “Got him.”
“Okay, he’s got three computers on his home LAN. A laptop, a desktop, and one other that I think is his sons’. Let me check his e-mails and chat history,” Dodge said.
Sam looked on with interest.
“Interesting. He’s recently deleted a whole bunch of chat history. Let’s recover that and see what it says.”
Dodge looked up after a moment. “I suspected as much. He’s having an affair. Probably chatting to his girlfriend right now. Right in front of his wife, the dirty geezer.”
“Let’s have a look, then,” Sam said.
“Too right.”
Dodge pressed a few more keys, then held his phone up for Sam to see. “Here are his last few texts.”
Sam’s eyes widened. Dodge was right. The man was texting his girlfriend, in intimate, flowery language, with his wife sitting three seats away.
“Watch this,” Dodge said, and worked away for a moment.
A sudden roar of laughter came from the crowd, and Sam followed the movement of heads toward the huge electronic scoreboard.
In the space for messages and announcements, the man’s texts, sent and received, were now slowly scrolling up the screen as he typed them.
U R da luv of my lyf
I cnt wait 2 CU & run my fngrs thru yr hair
I wnt 2 kss U rite now
On it went, getting steamier by the line.
The man was still texting, unaware that every word was being displayed in huge letters to everyone in the stadium, including his wife.
The woman looked at the scoreboard, then at her husband, noticing the cell phone. She reached over and snatched it off him in a deft movement, comparing the screen of the phone to the scoreboard.
The man started to whimper something, but his wife wasn’t having a bit of it. She grabbed the boys’ hands and stormed off, the man, red-faced, trailing in her wake.
The crowd erupted into hoots and cheers.
“And that is why we don’t use neuro,” Dodge said with a smug smile.
Sam looked at the retreating family, then turned back to Dodge and raised an eyebrow.
“Took me thirty seconds to find out everything worth knowing about that guy,” Dodge said. “We can hack into anything. You plug your brain into a computer, who’s to say that someone can’t hack into that too?”
“You’re joking.”
“Serious as a heart attack. The headsets have got a special neuro-firewall, specifically to prevent it. They even have a term for it: brain intrusion. But since when has a firewall bothered people like you and me? There’s no way that the Oversight Committee is going to—”
Dodge’s cell phone emitted an urgent bleeping noise. A half second later, Sam’s started woofing.
“Bleedin’ hell,” Dodge said. “It’s begun.”