Page 58 of Twisted Enemy
“Not printing money…” she says. She reaches out to my keyboard, scrolling to look further into the code.
“No,” I say. “I’m opening doors. Decrypting any document in the world.”
Her breath catches. I’m showing her the Holy Grail.
She works her way through the code, fingers flying as her eyes scan what I’ve written. Most of it, she takes in with a single glance. Three separate times, she scrolls back, returning to the top of a screen, nodding as she untangles threads.
I watch her discover the end of the legitimate code. My fingers tighten on the arms of my chair as she dives deep into the con. She reads to the very end. Stares at the monitor. Scrolls up to the diversion point and works her way through again, much more slowly the second time.
“You’re using artificial intelligence,” she finally says.
I nod.
“The AI mimics the documents you’re breaking.”
“Exactly.”
“In real time. It creates its own backstory, embedding the fake story at the same time it moves forward with the decoding.”
“You’ve got it.”
“What do you call it?” she asks.
“Viktor.” The name fits, of course, because of the old-time con artist who was my inspiration. But it means more than that. It means I can be victorious. I can defeat Tarasov.
“Does it work?”
I reach around her, framing her body with my arms. Pulling up the simplest test case—an encrypted bank statement—I put Viktor to work. The decoded document scrolls across the screen in real time.
“Sweet Jesus,” she says.
I walk her through half a dozen other examples, increasing the complexity. The first two are good demonstrations of my actual decryption skills. The other four, though, are purely Viktor’s fabrication.
She pulls the keyboard onto her lap and starts typing. I recognize the back end of Barry Lynch’s system for the Canton Crew. A few taps on the screen, and she’s in. That was my legitimate work, building a system the Lynch clan can access when necessary.
She pushes her way into her father’s financial accounts without drawing on Viktor’s expertise. She’s relying on real access to the Baltimore banks she’s known about half her life.
Staring at the screen, she chews on her lower lip. Then, she tilts her head to cast me a sly smile before her fingers race over the keyboard.
It takes me a moment to recognize the site. It’s Banque Wagner Privée. Kate’s Red Cap Raiders did their best to break into the Swiss bank a few months ago, but I foiled every one of their attempts.
Kate throws Viktor at the firewall. Letters and numbers scroll across the screen for a moment, bits of data shifting into a pattern that can be read by human eyes. Banque Wagner appears to open, displaying complete access. Kate’s gasp of surprise makes me smile.
“Wait,” she murmurs, typing a series of quick commands. She pauses, studying the monitor, then types more. She scrolls down. Switches to a different screen. Types still more queries.
“None of this is real?” she finally asks. “The AI is generating all of it?”
“Every bit.”
“So that transaction I just entered, the transfer of funds into my personal account?”
“The registers appear to be updated at Banque Wagner and at your home bank.”
“And when I disconnect?”
“Banque Wagner’s actual files remain untouched.”
“And at my home bank?”
