The Wellington Zoo

The sign that inspired it all.

Zebras will crush your head. Aren't they cute?

A story in warning signs.

The Wellington Zoo

The sign that inspired it all.

Zebras will crush your head. Aren't they cute?

A story in warning signs.

NZ in WWII

A member of an expatriat list sent this out yesterday.  I have known some of the amazing NZ story in WWII, but this brief summary demonstrates the pride and power of the Kiwi's much better than I could tell...

Hi all

Given that the 70th anniversary of the German invasion of Poland to start World War 2 was last week, it might be useful to very quickly recap what New Zealand did in World War 2 for those not so well versed in NZ history.
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3 September 1939: New Zealand Declare War on Germany after ultimatim for Hitler to withdraw from Poland expires. Britain follow suit when the ultimatim expires in London. At this time the British Commonwealth very much functioned as one unit when it came to military issues - Britain was expected to provide security and supply the armaments

September 1939-May 1940: NZ troops arrive in Britain and France.

December 1939: NZ cruiser Achilles participates in Battle of River Plate where the German pocket-battleship Admiral Graf Spee confronts three British cruisers (Achilles was still a British ship but crewed by Kiwis). Graf Spee scuttled a few days later.

10 May 1940: Germans invade France, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg. NZ soldiers caught in the trap and are involved in the massive evacuation at Dunkirk.

July-September 1940: NZ fighter pilots join other Commonwealth, French, Czech, Dutch, Belgian, Polish and Norwegian fighter pilots in the Battle of Britain to defeat German Luftwaffe

September- November 1940: Blitz - German bombers bomb London for 57 consecutive nights with as many as 500 planes a time; NZ fighter pilots join the aerial defence of the UK.

November 1940: African campaign begins. British begin rolling back Italian gains in North Africa. 2nd NZ Division deployed there.

January 1941: Fears starting to grow about Japanese militarism in Pacific. NZ Division stays in Middle East.

6 April 1941: In response to Yugoslavia toppling pro-Nazi Prince, Germany invades Yugoslavia and Greece. Ferocious fighting on Crete between Commonwealth forces and Germans costs nearly half of German invasion force on first day, but the aerial support is overwhelming and the island falls.

Early April 1941: Rommel counter-attacks in Africa with a German-Italian force, and rolls back all British gains in 3 weeks to the Egyptian border, surrounding Tobruk which is subject to 7 month siege. NZ Division joins in the battle after being evacuated from Crete.

November-December 1941: Commonwealth forces counter-attack in Desert. Fierce fighting all the way back to Benghazi in Libya. Rommel becomes aware of how the Commonwealth fights around this time - impressed by common fighting spirit; Commonwealth troops recognised Rommel as a brilliant commander when other German field commanders in Europe and Russia developing track records that would incriminate them at Nuremberg.

7 December 1941: Japan bombs Pearl Harbor - you all know that. Simultaneous invasion of SE Asia begins. Despite rapidly growing danger, NZ stays in Middle East.

21 January 1942: Rommel counter-attacks to complete horror of all in the Desert - again British gains rolled rapidly. NZ Division being rebuilt after bruising campaign and not involved in this phase.

15 February 1942: Singapore falls. The British fortress island which was supposed to last three months in a siege falls in two days after Japanese come through back door. New Zealand starts preparing for invasion at this point with home guard forming, fortifications being built and requests for American assistance with personnel - Japanese plans actually did exist for an invasion of both Australia and NZ.

27 May 1942: Rommel attacks - again, dismantling incomplete British defensive line. NZ division is recalled from Syria where it was being rebuilt.

4 June 1942: US Navy planes destroy 4 Japanese carriers at Midway - NZ probably would have been invaded if the US had lost this battle.

21 June 1942: Rommel captures Tobruk. Suddenly the whole British position in the Middle East and the security of Middle East oil - yes, it was as important then as it is now - is in jeopardy.

3 July 1942: First Battle of El Alamein starts. About 4 New Zealanders won Victoria Cross's for exceptional bravery during this event, including only the third time a Victoria Cross and Bar has been awarded.

7 August 1942: Americans invade Guadalcanal. The Japanese airstrip there would have put Australia within bombing range if it had been completed. It is now the airport for Honiara.

23 October 1942: General Montgomery launches major offensive against the Germans at El Alamein. After 2 weeks of fierce fighting, Rommel finally retreats - Hitler never reinforced him after Tobruk and eventually paid a huge price for it. New Zealand Division leads one of the major break throughs in Rommel's defensive line.

April 1943: Japanese naval operations try to regain initiative in Solomons. First and only NZ naval involvement in Solomons results in mine sweeper being lost.

February-May 1943: Rommel retreats into Tunisia. One final attack launched at Kasserine but defeated after NZ Division cuts off the advance. African campaign ended with 250,000 prisoners on May 13.

July 1943: British Commonwealth and American forces land in Sicily.

September 1943: British and Commonwealth forces land on mainland Italy. Slow slog up the boot (thats what Italy looks like on the map), instead of a "jolly romp to Rome" begins.

January 1944-May 1944: Cassino. A five month slog through a town of only a few thousand people, but every pile of rubble fought over with incredible tenacity. More than 800 New Zealanders killed in one three assault in March. Single biggest NZ mistake of the war was that a senior officer thought the Germans were fortifying it, so he asked for the place to be bombed. None were there, but now that it had been bombed large numbers of troops did move in.

6 June 1944: Five NZ squadrons of fighter pilots participate in D-Day attack.

December 1944: NZ fighter bomber crews active in Allied air campaign in support of the ground forces fighting off the German Ardennes offensive.

May 1944-January 1945: Slow slog up Italian Peninsula continues. NZ'ers help break German defensive line in August. Progress hindered badly by onset of winter.

29 April 1945: Germans surrender in Italy. Mussolini hanged. New Zealand soldiers reach Trieste which becomes first flash point of Cold War when Yugoslav partisans try to claim the Italian town.

15 August 1945: Emperor Hirohito tells Japan to "endure the unendurable" and announces that it is folly to continue the war.

2 September 1945: Japan surrenders. NZ navy representatives present.
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It needs to be said that for a nation with a population of about 1.5 million, New Zealand sustained very high losses. 10% of the total population mobilised. 12,000 were killed.

Rob

Strange Dad Karma

Well out of the blue, my mom catches me at work to say "something has happened".  This is never a good thing.  But just minutes before we were joking over statuses in Facebook.  So really in the back of my mind I'm thinking, "How bad could it be?"  But she was being pretty serious.  I had a meeting starting in 5 minutes, but when mom says "something's happened" I couldn't go through a meeting worrying about what it might be so I pressed her to tell me.

My real Dad is in the hospital with terminal lung cancer--just diagnosed.  Our first tiny bit of info is only that he had a few days to a week.  But this is all still very early information.

In light of just making contact with my half-brother, Nathan, I really can't believe the coincidence.  But then I don't really believe the Universe is random.  Nathan needed to find me before Dad died. 

It is all a bit of a mess of odd feelings right now.  In no particular order it goes something like this... I haven't seen or talked to my Dad in about 8 years.  You could measure the time we've spent together in the last 14 years on one 12 hour clock.  My Dad has smoked unfiltered Pall Mall's (at least a pack a day) for at least 40 years.  I don't think he smoked them because he couldn't quit... I don't think he ever really tried to quit.  I don't hold this against him really.  He wanted to be a smoker and he was.  I could rush home to catch him before he goes and probably stay for his funeral, but I find myself questioning why I should do such a thing.  Not saying I will or won't... just questioning.  Questioning is conflicted on many levels.

I called my Dad in the hospital.  We talked for about 15 minutes.  He wanted to make sure I knew he always loved me.  That was good--I did always know this.  I told him that I had moved to New Zealand and I wasn't sure what was possible yet.  I told him I found Nathan and we were talking.  I told him I'd make sure Nathan knew what was happening.  I asked him who was with him.  He said just his nurses and doctors.  I asked about his brother, John--where was he? He said he didn't think John would be awake.  That was a bit surreal.  Dad said he was used to being alone now.  He said he had mellowed and now had more friends than enemies.  Hey, that's good... but where were they?  I don't think Dad will tell them.  He's not a great communicator.

I still have a lot to think about.  To friends and family that may read this and worry about what to say... don't worry.  I'd rather talk to y'all than have you stay away!  Take care!

An inconvenient memory

When I was 15, my Dad picked me up for a summer vacation.  He was a truck driver at the time and really it was just a chance to ride with him while he worked.  I had not seen him in a couple years before this.  My folks divorced when I was 7 and Dad seemed to come by less and less often until it just seemed he wasn’t coming back.  But here he was ready to take a long trip.

I wasn’t a kid with a grudge though.  I was happy to go with him.  The truck was cool and a long road trip sounded like fun.  It was really a pretty cool vacation.  I think we crossed the country about 3 times in 6 weeks.  Dad drove and I would ride as a passenger when there was something cool to look at.  I would sleep in the cab when there wasn’t.  Truckstops always had something new and cool to look at.  That year the “High Speed” pinball machine was released.  I played a lot of that game.

Somewhere in the middle of that vacation we stopped in Oklahoma.  My Dad had a new son with a gal he met on the road, Diane.  His name was Nathan and he was only about 3 months old.  I was 15.  My mom had my sister when I was 11.  I was pretty good with babies.  Nathan seemed alright.  I got to hold him a few times before we left.  I didn’t know what was going to happen next.

Eventually the trip ended and Dad dropped me off at home.  It had been a great adventure.  But Dad seemed pretty upset.  He wiped away some tears with an old towel in his truck.  He didn’t really want to come to the door.  I thought I understood.  We hugged and he said goodbye.

When someone completely exits your life you don’t really know it the moment it happens.  Dad had been away for a couple of years.  I didn’t expect to get phone calls right away.  Months went by… then years… Dad more or less disappeared.  I’d hear a rumor or two that he’d been in town.  Someone would claim to have seen him somewhere.  But he never called.

Soon I was 19 and moving out.  Life was so busy and full.  So many things just happen.  Where Dad was didn’t bother me too much.  When I did think about it I would just assume he was around and would show up again someday.  More months and more years… No Dad.

At 24 I got a phone call from a cousin on Dad’s side of the family.  I didn’t really keep up with them much as there was no one really to take me around to visit.  My Dad’s family wasn’t all that close anyway.  It had been a pretty hard life for most of them.  She called to tell me my Dad was in the hospital.  He was going in for heart surgery.  She thought I should go talk to him.

I did.  I sat with him in his recovery room and we talked a while.  He was in pretty great spirits.  He was happy to see me and we talked like it really hadn’t been 10 years since I’d seen him.  More months went by… more years… No Dad.

I began to hold a grudge.

About 10 years later I tracked him down and went to see him.  We talked on the phone a couple times first.  I brought my kids by to see him.  He was so happy to see his grandkids.  But we didn’t stay all that long.  Dad was still heavy smoker and the kids were little and were in to everything.  Dad’s apartment was cluttered with little hazards—like insulin needles.  I suppose it wasn’t really these hazards that kept me away though.  If I had to be honest, I’d have to admit that I felt cheated.  I think he would have loved to spend more time with the kiddos.  It wasn’t fair he wanted to see them and had let so many years of my life go by with so little.

I think I must have recognized this as an “unresolved problem” and I sought him out again—without the kids.  We talked a bit.  I can’t even recall what we talked about.   I gave him a NASCAR jacket.  I knew he would like it.  It felt good to give my Dad a present.  We went to one of his AA meetings.  It was emotional like those meetings often are.  So many years gone by, so much wasted.

By now I had moved to Kansas City.  Visits home were packed with family and friends and just always seemed too short to visit Dad.  Months went by… then years.

I had to go through my own divorce. After a couple years I re-married.  I adopted my wife’s son.  I moved to New Zealand.  I didn’t share any of this with Dad.  As far as I know, he’s still back home doing whatever he’s done for 30 years.

But remember Nathan at the beginning of this story?  Three months old then he’s 23 years old now.  He is married and has a daughter on the way.  He found me on Facebook and sent me a note.  Dad pretty much disappeared on him too.

There is far more about Nathan that I don’t know than I know.  But I am glad he found me.  While I live a bit too far away to stroll down to Oklahoma to visit, I won’t lose him.  I won’t lose more months and more years. He doesn't deserve that--neither do I.

Threshold Introduction - Version 2

I went back to re-write the openning to Threshold--the book I started to write last year...

Section-9-Agent looked around the shabby, dirty apartment and considered real cleaning, but it had been a long night and it could wait.  She dumped her bag on the cluttered floor and flopped into her tattered hammock.   The space was only an apartment in the loosest sense of the word.  It was a simple cube of space holding piles of salvaged components and a few bits of serviceable urban gear.  In another more gentle time it might have been considered a prison cell.  The walls contain no windows.  The toilet, while probably the cleanest thing in the room, was exposed in one corner.  A utility bench that was desk, cooking surface, kitchen, and work bench ran along one wall.  Communal showers were down the deserted hall.  This squat-plex had been mostly abandoned for as long as the tired “free-lance” contractor had lived here.  But then that had been only six months give or take.

She called up her internal operating system menus.  Various options were presented against her closed eyes.  When the computer was in your head, the interface became your own optic nerves.  Navigation of options was entirely mental.  Her interface contained a number of customizations and lacked the more typical easy-AI that gave less gifted “users” more help at running the hardware in their head.  Section-9-Agent issued a command to her cube’s server.

 

[Command: init Tranquilty-script-114>

 

The dirty walls flashed and became lush hanging gardens on a sunny day in a light breeze.  The image of these things was painted over the reality.  The apartment now seemed to be an open atrium with the ocean rolling over white sand beaches on all four sides.  Three suns set on the horizon in a spectacular rainbow sunset.  Small exotic birds flitted silently between branches.  She breathed in the flower scents and reached out from her comfortable hammock to touch the virtual controls on her mini-nano to order strong cappuccino.  A steaming cup appeared on the decorative white table which was really just a wooden box.  The images were far from perfect.  No one would wake up in a hyper-real environment confused about what it was—at least, no one with her out-of-date, squat-plex hardware.  Still, the virtual environment was far more pleasant than the reality.

A similar bit of reality had been left behind long ago when she picked up the moniker, Section-9-Agent.  Her real name belonged to a system of control she had managed to escape.  Section-9-Agent was free, strong, and someone to be carefully dealt with.  Her old name had belonged to frightened orphaned girl.  She had left it behind when the last person who knew that name had died.  But a name like Section-9-Agent sounded so formal.  Friends (she did have a few) began to call her Nine-A and from there it was a short hop to Nina.  She reserved her full sig for formal posts.  Sometimes to her friends she was just Nine.  Some of her deebees (Deep buddies) liked to call her Sexy-9, but that generally got them a meme bomb.  If she was feeling particularly rushed or the transmission was charged, she would simply sign S9A. Then there were the jobs like last night that you just didn’t sign your name to.  Still, as the golden oldie said, freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose.  Nina had the clothes on her back, the hardware in her bag, a few nearly empty anonymous bank accounts, and little else.  Even the apartment was just an empty squat-plex.  The cherished mini-nano had been a lucky find and saved her from having to hit the public depots for food and clothing.

She was still subconsciously aware of the clutter around the apartment, but it was cleverly masked by potted plants or vines.  Her real clothes were frayed, but sturdy.  Her virtual clothing was near the same style although sharper and not frayed.  Lean, hard living kept her reasonably physically fit, but her avatar definitely had enhanced feminine curves without tipping in to silliness.  Her many real scars were smoothed over.  Casually she selected a few color and accessory options.  Her eyes were piercing blue with black eyeliner.  A few tribal tattoos appeared around her upper arms.  Her hair was coppery and straight.  Her face was least altered.  Other than the make-up effects, her nose, lips and jaw line was original.  Most would call her beautiful, but then the streets were full of genetically modified beautiful people now.  In a crowd she would not stand out from the throngs of other desperate, poor, flawless people.  Her real scars marked her as a survivor and fighter. 

The stimulant mixed with painkillers and masked as a cappuccino was finally having effect.  She felt nearly human again. A virtual dragonfly hummed just outside the apartment as she opened a pipe for a new command.

 

[Command: init news-daemon>

 

Blue text faded in to view all around her.  She scanned various headlines, feeds, logs, IMs, short-texts, mail accounts, and forums for traces of what she had done just last night.  There were two forum posts on underworld blogs about rumored data break-in at Shinjo, but no one could confirm it.  She smiled.  “Good… if you didn’t see me… I didn’t do it.” She thought.  She kept a few of the main feeds visible while shutting down the minor feeds.  Two of these churned the daily shock and gloom.

The Indian-Pakistan war which had all be destroyed both nations was now spilling over in to neighboring states.  Small nuclear exchanges we occurring more often.  Various Corporate Alliances were denouncing the chaos as crippling profits in the region.  Several cities were announced as being under digital siege—firewalled off from the world.  Super-flu 49-alpha-10 was wiping out unprotected populations throughout North America.  This story was blatantly adverted by pharma-corp ads for vaccine—only $1000 standard per dose.  The litany of death, rape, and scandal scrolled by mostly ignored.

The third feed was a string of humorous memes that had been circulating.  Cats remained endlessly amusing.  Humanity seemed to never tire of moronic mishaps and drug induced bravado gone wrong.  Nina would snork occasionally as she forwarded her favorites out to friends.  Between sends she tweaked her hyper-environment.  The vines became more organic.  The suns radiant colors changed hues slightly.  The dragonfly was troublesome and buzzed over her shoulder.

It had taken Nina about three days to fully code Tranquility version 1.14.  It wasn’t a proper SPORE (Small Purpose Online Reality Engine) that would force its code on a visitor, but it was a nice USE (User Specific Environment)—a world just for her eyes.  She had stolen an old copy of Tranquility beta 0.7 and made all the usual custom modifications.  She liked her version better than the market version.  But as she finished off her cappuccino a nagging thought crept in to her computer aided brain… Her version of Tranquility didn’t have dragonflies.

She kept calm and keyed another cappuccino with more stimulants but no painkillers.  She carefully considered her options.  She had to assume that someone had taken an interest in her and sent the bug to find her, but who?  That was the 64 KLOC question… Given her recent activity, it was probably safest to assume it was Shinjo.  But Shinjo was a military contractor.  If it was them, then it was time to leave this hideout and find a new home.  But Shinjo wouldn’t be the type to only send bugs to tap her feeds.  There would be a physical team as well.

Just then her proximity monitor triggered.  A four man squad had entered the building through the restricted shafts.  They were descending to her level.  It was definitely time to go.

She grabbed her bag and kicked a “plant” that was actually her apartment’s firewall and server.  Her version of Tranquility melted as a crash of background net noise flooded in to the virtual space.  Thousands of messages flooded the space from the Deep.  Ads for everything mundane to ridiculous, viruses vectoring for an open host, meme clips, emotes, banners, contests, news, and more seemed to fill the air of the room.  Her personal firewall flared blocking out the worst of it all.  But the full force of gigapulses of spurious data instapopped the dragonfly.  The input overload would cram down the surveillance pipe.  She hoped that whoever ghosted the bug in had not thought to firewall the connection.  That would teach some n00b Shinjo system slave to blip in to her cube in lowtown.  Satchel in hand fled in to the hallway and down the stairs.  At this level of the city infrastructure all was concrete, exposed duct work and steel.  The stairwell only had two comatose bums in it—a record low.  On the way she mentally triggered more “one-click” defenses.  These would hopefully do some damage to the jarhead team on its way.

The real street was a haze of fumes and smog.  She had to pull a breather over her face as she signaled her eyes to drop their protective lenses.  Most Upside folks didn’t consider the anti-irritant lenses worth the investment, but most of them didn’t drop below the 100 meter line in a versicar, let alone get out and walk around.  Despite being an unlivable fume, the street still contained the usual breed of predators.  Nina pulled her shiny, double-barreled, “scatter and shatter” shotgun and swept it around.  That would keep the shadows in the alleys.  She paused in the doorway to case the street.

Without the Deep a body would be lost without a clue in the lower city sprawl.  The ever present smog cut real vision down to only a dozen meters.  Even if you could see, real signs had been abandoned long ago.  But digital signals radiated at every corner to her blended vision.  You could completely navigate in the dark with just the Deep enhanced tags and icons.  Buildings with Upside access blinked with civic tagged red entry markers.  The nearest was three blocks away.

She set off at a medium jog with the shotgun prominently displayed.  Her TAP picked up other people near by, but none of them exposed themselves enough for her to shoot at them  She spiked a mental query in to the traffic database to see if any heavy machinery had logged flight plans in to lowtown.  That would take a few seconds to process.  She focused on smooth navigation of the alley ways avoiding obvious ambush spots.  When she got to the last block a subroutine from city AI responded “No records found”.  She swore.  They had probably already jammed the civic systems down here.  No one would have a record of the strike team or their quarry tonight. 

When she reached the relative safety of the street elevator she put the shotgun away.  The air inside the building was filtered and theoretically non-harmful.  But she kept the breather on anyway.  The lower levels of public access buildings were generally more secure, but only in a rudimentary way.  There was a single sec-cam with an unshielded access interface.  It was locked of course, but locks only kept honest people out.  Nina reached out with her TAP and manipulated the virtual lock software.  In seconds she had it bypassed.  Five seconds later the sec-cam was looping last week’s visual access file. 

She needed a safe place to reboot.  She tried the janitor closet, but (wouldn’t ya know?) it was an all physical lock—no software.  Nina never had time for things that didn’t have an interface.  The lobby would have to do.  She mentally loaded her “get away clean” Avatar and keyed reboot.  The next 6 seconds felt long with no input from the Deep.  Being disconnected was like being dead and without the Deep, it wouldn’t take long.  Life was easy when you could always order up what you wanted and pipe the charges to some dweeb middle manager or faceless corp expense account.  But if she had to work for a living… with stuff that didn’t need RAM or CPU’s?  She’d be a goner.

 

[Initializing WetWare ADBIOS GenTech 0.92alpha…>

[UltraTAP GT9100.03 5.9KGHz Cluster 512>

[RAM check…… OK>

[CPU Matrix…. OK>

[Comm beacon… diabled>

[Hardware test… skipped>

[Boot avatar (1, 2, 3)… ? 3>

[Modules loading…………OK>

[Initializing netcomd>

 

Twelve seconds later and she was in the lift feeling pretty fine.  This Avatar was packed with “don’t look at me” mods.  It was as tight and light as she could make it.  Of course if it really was a Shinjo cleaning crew she ran in to, it wouldn’t be enough.  She hoped that the booby traps she left back at her ex-home worked as well as she’d been told they would by her deebees.  They were typical black-market log sweepers, virus bombs and meme scramblers.  Nothing fancy, but also nothing traceable.  She just needed to put some distance in and hopefully even Shinjo would be left with nothing.

She mulled over the idea that maybe she was just being paranoid.  It was only one spy bug.  But she knew what happened when you decided you didn’t need to freak out and they really were coming for you.  She had a file of names—all contacts that now didn’t answer messages anywhere—dead contacts.  The list was long.  She kept it on the corner of her visual workspace all the time. 

The lift chimed its cheerful arrival to midcity and Nina pulled her hood over her head and stepped out in to the aerial streets.  The lights of MC advertised happiness, bliss, easy loans, and cures for loneliness in all its forms.  Whether your solution was pills, bang up, VR derailment or just straight up sex, it was here for you.  Nina looked up and down the busy streets where only customers and hook-ups made eye contact and before anyone could really take note she stepped in to an alley and disappeared.

 

[Command: init Seek –F@Section-9-Agent –ndr>

[Command: object not found…>

 

“Sir? She’s not in midcity.  She stepped in to the Jackson Street public access, but didn’t get off.  I’ve dispatched a physical team to lowtown.  She must have hacked the lift system.”

The Captain looked at the Backup Technician in a disturbingly unemotional way.  This made the BT uncomfortable—usually upper level stiffs got upset when they lost an “objective”.  The Captain nodded slowly and then glanced over at the Primary Tech.  He was spinning in his chair chanting an advertisement for Chinese food over and over while both hands were jammed down his pants.  Viruses and memes had overrun the techs TAP.  It would be relatively simple to repair him, but why bother?  That’s what backups were for. 

“Take him to Bio-Labs 3 and have him slated for genetic development.”  The Captain said calmly without malice.  The Backup Technician paled.

The Captain stared in to the weakling tech hoping for some sign of backbone.  But the man was only afraid for himself.  The Captain knew in an instant the BT wouldn’t speak up for his ex-superior.

“Yeh… Yes, sir…” The BT stammered while nodding to two security men to drag the babbling Primary Tech away.

The Captain held the BT’s gaze, “You are now the Primary Tech in charge of finding our mysterious hacker.  I expect report of your success at your earliest convenience.” 

The new PT nodded and looked away. The Captain turned and strode off.  Truth be told, he found the whole situation rather funny.  The USE bomb had been brilliant.  He had to suppress laughter when the Primary Tech popped.  This ghost had better instincts than most.  Hackers had a tendency to believe they really were Gods of the Deep.  They almost always overestimated their abilities to counter-code against attackers.  But this hacker was probably nothing.  Another no-name burn-out hired to do a one-time job for which she certainly had no clue about.  He doubted she would even remember exactly who hired her.  She would discover, just like the other hackers had discovered, that the account which had looked full of cash was really empty and their contact ID for the buyer would be replaced with only the phrase, “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was…” and nothing.  But each new lead had to be pursued.  He felt no malice for Section-9-Agent, but he would kill her and data dive her deep memory for the few clues it might offer.  He had no choice.