Free Emergence (Fox Meridian Book 5) by Niall Teasdale Page B

posts on a number of private music websites, along with his accounts on those sites, were deleted.’
    ‘But nothing on LifeWeb,’ Palomino said. ‘After all that scandal about LifeWeb’s security, your hacker didn’t get in there.’
    Kit looked over at the manager. ‘Minotaur’s campaign against Musikkritiker happened to coincide with that scandal, Mister Palomino. MarTech bought out LifeWeb and instituted systematic upgrades in security just before the BeastOfKnossos account was blocked. Musikkritiker uses MarTech’s European internet service provider. I was able to confirm an attempt by someone to cancel his service around that time. The false data was detected and the matter reported to the German police, but the attack could only be traced to America. No one was identified as the attacker.’
    Returning her gaze to Sakura, Kit went on. ‘Then there is the matter of your personal address being used. We understand that there are very few people who know it.’
    ‘Maybe twenty,’ Sakura said. ‘I trust all of them.’
    ‘There are twenty-two, Nishi-sama,’ Misaki said, ‘since you gave it to Charlie-sama.’
    ‘So that’s twenty-two places he could have hacked to get the information,’ Fox said. ‘Though my money’s on someone at IMC. Minotaur was likely looking for information on the concerts, unreleased music, or personal information he could use.’
    ‘Now wait a minute,’ Palomino growled.
    ‘It’s nothing personal. He will have put a lot of effort into infiltrating your network and there’s no such thing as absolute security. But why did you switch to Palladium for your security at these shows on such short notice?’
    ‘That was my fault,’ Sakura said. ‘I added the Tokyo gig at the last minute. It’s the first time I’ve been back to Japan since… Well, since I left. IMC didn’t think they had the right kind of resources in Japan and it seemed stupid to contract Palladium for just that one date.’
    ‘Okay. Look, this could be nothing. The guy could be a crank and no real danger, but I don’t think you should ignore this. I’d like the emails Minotaur sent via IMC and the one he sent direct to Miss Sakura. We’ll go through and analyse them. Kit’s pretty good with abnormal psychology. Once the threat is assessed, we see where we go from there. If he sends any more emails, I want those too.’
    ‘He already has. I’ve had two more this week.’ She turned to Iberson who was narrowing her eyes at her lover. ‘I didn’t want you worrying. I didn’t consider it worth worrying over.’
    ‘Balls,’ Iberson snapped. ‘Something in that first one had you worried. If I hadn’t seen that, I wouldn’t have pressed this so hard.’
    ‘He… I was annoyed that he had got my address. Brett, I want Palladium to have full access to my IMC mailboxes and any other data they need. Misaki, you can recover those messages and forward them, right?’
    ‘Of course, Nishi-sama,’ Misaki replied.
    ‘I’ll arrange a connection and transfer them directly,’ Kit said. ‘You’re a Harriet dash four zero one, aren’t you, Misaki?’
    Misaki bobbed her head and gave a timid smile. ‘Yes. Miss Sakura kindly secured a series seventy-two server unit for me last year, however.’
    ‘I run on a seventy-two at home. You have all the latest security patches, I assume?’
    ‘I am up to date as of the December sixteenth patch. I have not been notified of anything else.’ Misaki actually looked a little uncertain, as though she was worried that the clearly newer AI model might know something she did not.
    ‘That’s good. It is the May emergency release which I was most concerned with. The seventy-two is one of the most secure individual servers MarTech produces at this time.’ Kit looked at Sakura. ‘You made a wise investment, Miss Sakura. It is unlikely that Minotaur will gain entry to Misaki’s server without triggering alarms.’
    Misaki looked rather pleased at Kit’s praise. Sakura