Technosis: The Kensington Virus by Morgan Bell Page A

adolescent violent offenders with court databases.”
    “How, exactly, is that going to help?” Marshall asked.
    “If there are sealed records, convictions or adult court filings, then that is not our subject. Ours will show up in a print media or news item, but there will be no further record,” Jamie said.
    “If this phantom can make himself disappear at the levels he has, what makes you think we can find him in a database he could have hacked?” Dennis asked.
    “Because you can take yourself out of the picture, but you can’t take out your victim. That is one step too many and too far back to do.” Jamie said.
    It took Dennis an hour to run the database cross checks between media reports and court record – open and sealed – on juvenile offenders for the time period they were looking at. After that it took another hour for the hard copy media files to be retrieved. When the hard copies were delivered there were thirty case wheeled in on pallet.
    “Everybody grab a box and get started,” Jamie said, picking up a box.
    “Damn,” Rosen growled, shifting through the files. “I didn’t even know that they kept hard copies anymore.”
    “I’ve got a mother from Wisconsin who was asphyxiated,” Angie announced after the group had been going through boxes for twenty minutes.
    “I’ve got a father killed in a microwave related accident,” Dennis added a moment later.
    “Asphyxiated on the ‘No’ pile, microwave on the ‘Maybe’ pile,” Jamie advised.
    The group continued triaging the files for another hour.
    “I’ve got a chef killed by a rogue drone,” Marshall said coming to the end of his box.
    “That goes on the ‘Yes’ pile,” Jamie said.
    “We’ve got ninety files on the ‘Yes’ pile,” Marshall complained.
    “Given what we started out with on a country wide database, that isn’t bad.”
    “Hey, wait a minute,” Rosen said. “Listen to this: ‘Heart attack previously ruled natural causes under review following postmortem review of pacemaker by manufacturer.”
    “Where is the kid connection?” Jamie asked.
    “Automotive Executive Fredric Thompson, of Bloomfield Hills Michigan, was a recipient of an experimental pacemaker unit by Triream Technologies. Following his death, a report from Triream prompted the prosecutor to open a criminal investigation. According to his obituary, he was preceded in death by his wife Gail and was survived by their adopted son whose name isn’t published.”
    “Put that one up on the board,” Jamie said, “and let’s keep going through these files.”
    After three more hours there were five news reports stuck to the board and Dennis and Angie had narrowed the “Yes” pile down to 11.
    “I’m pretty sure our unsub is on the wall,” Angie observed.
    “The chef killed by the rogue drone, what do we know about him?” Dennis asked.
    “He was forty years old, he was going to his car, and was shot and killed by a civilian police force drone that then crashed,” Jamie said, reading the report from the file. “A data retrieval team found an access code installed in the software that had been transmitted using a radio frequency that the drone normally communicated on. It uploaded the chef’s profile as a ‘Deadly Force’ target and then cut out further radio contact. They were able to back track the point at which it had been intercepted and narrowed down the area where the hijacker had transmitted from. Turned out to be near a high school. Later they would find it was a kid who lived near the chef.”
    “Do we have a name?” Marshall asked.
    “No, and no court record,” Jamie said, going through the file.
    “You think that’s the one?” Angie asked.
    “You sound skeptical,” Dennis noted.
    “Here’s the thing; we’ve got levels of complexity to think about. That was complicated, but it was not genius level.”
    “But the file is missing,” Jamie pointed out.
    “Go through the other four,” Angie said, and handed files to