Free No One to Trust by Julie Moffett

from the hacker term meaning a mode that allows a program to transfer bits directly from an I/O device. Grok was taken from a novel I’m nuts about, Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. In the Martian language, Grok meant, “To be with one.”
    After a few minutes, they tried to get me to join in.
     
    Grok: Hey, CryptHead. What brings you to our humble domain? Haven’t seen you here before.
     
    I needed information, so I took the plunge. Typing quickly, my fingers flew over the keys. That was one plus about being a geek—excellent typing skills. If this information-security job didn’t work out, I could probably get a job as a secretary. Except I had sucky phone skills and people annoyed me.
     
    CryptHead: I’m a STRUT virgin. It’s my first time here. What are you guys talking about?
    RawMode: I.E.
     
    If memory served me correctly, I.E. stood for Information Ecology. I wasn’t well versed in the subject, but at least I knew the basics. Sort of. Unfortunately, Mr. Terlittle’s T&A course (Technology and Anthropology) at Georgetown, where I had supposedly learned said basics, had been a real snoozer. He was fond of his pointer and slides, which meant a good portion of the class was taught in the dark. That also meant most of his students slept through his lectures, myself included. However, some vestiges of knowledge must have somehow seeped into my brain because I seemed to recall that I.E. represented people, values and technologies intermingled in the environment. Maybe I could keep up with them after all.
     
    CryptHead: Down with monoculture!
     
    I was pretty sure a slam against monocultures was the war cry for I.E. supporters.
     
    RawMode: Ha, ha. You still in high school, dude?
     
    I grimaced. Okay, so maybe I should have stayed awake a little more in Terlittle’s class, but I still hoped it would be enough to get me chummy with these guys so I could ask them if they knew anything interesting about Darren Greening.
     
    CryptHead: Okay, guess I’d better ’fess up. I.E.’s not my prime deal, but I did take a course on it at GU.
     
    I figured it couldn’t hurt to advertise my GU connection in case Darren logged on and went through the chat records and put two and two together as to my identity. I presumed he was afraid to contact me directly but that wouldn’t preclude him from logging on under an assumed name and getting a message to me somehow via a live chat. It was a long shot, but one worth pursuing. To my relief, it seemed that the GU connection had broken the ice.
     
    RawMode: GU? Cool. You had Terlittle? Heard he’s a zoner.
    CryptHead: Yeah. Can’t believe you’ve heard of him. You go to GU, too?
    RawMode: Nah, went to MIT. Met the zonehead at a conference. Impressed. NOT!
    CryptHead: Likewise. You go to GU, Grok?
    Grok: Nope. I’m from MIT, too.
    CryptHead: Where you guys operate now?
    RawMode: Me— at a pharmaceutical company in Boston, making drugs from RNA molecules.
     
    I didn’t have a clue what that meant. Already I felt way out of my league and began to understand why the twins liked to hang out here. Still it didn’t seem fair that I was an outcast even among my own people. I tried hard to fit in anyway.
     
    CryptHead: How about you, Grok?
    Grok: I’m into AI.
     
    Jeez, artificial intelligence. Things were getting worse. I was in seriously exalted company and now I understood why they laughed at my pathetic understanding of information ecology. I just hoped that for the rest of the chat they wouldn’t, like, ask my opinion on anything.
     
    RawMode: So, how about you, CryptHead? What’s your deal?
    CryptHead: INFO Sec now, but a former IT drone and cryppy.
     
    No one wrote anything for a moment and I watched my cursor blinking, wondering what I’d done to spook them. Then I followed their train of thought: cryppy = cryptanalyst = NSA = government = people not to be trusted. I waited, but when no one typed anything, I wrote:
     
    CryptHead: What? You