Free A Philosophical Investigation: A Novel by Philip Kerr Page A

you have to find out which set of rules or protocol the target system is using so that you can interface with it and speak the same computer language. That’s where the protocol analyser comes in handy. It has got some ingenious software that examines the other system’s entry port to see which of the many data communication protocols is in use.
    But I’m getting ahead of myself, because I encountered my first major difficulty the minute I buttoned the Brain Research Institute’s telephone number. They weren’t even on the public switched telephone network. They were using a private leased line - the newly installed ECDN, the European Community Data Network. This included records for all member governments and their various departments on one exclusive network.
    I was still not thinking properly, and it was at least another minute before I recalled that the computer system at work was on the ECDN. All employers in the public sector, Police, Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise, Medical, Information, Employment, Women, Conservation were on it.
    I tapped my head with the flat of my hand. It was obvious that if I really was going to do this and use the computer system at work, I was also going to need some juice. So the first thing I did before unplugging the analyser and going out to the van was to find my cognitive enhancement pills.
    Nobody at work was surprised to see me. I’m often working late at night, catching up on the administrative paperwork for which there’s little time during the course of an average, underpaid and over-working day. Anyway, I switched on the computer, and while it was warming up and coming on line, I started swallowing. Dilantin for sustained periods of concentration. Hydergine for a general intelligence increase through the drug’s creation of extra synapses. And Vasopressin, a neural hormone which helps to improve the memory. To be honest, I’ve been using a combination of cognitive enhancers for a while now, so I was just topping up the dose. The effect on the human brain, while we’re in the way of talking about computers, is that of upgrading a machine from say 40 to about 50 terabytes. But to really get myself warmed up, I finished this cocktail of drugs I had swallowed with some cocaine.
    Have you ever shot coke in the vein? It hits that medullar brain centre like electro-convulsive therapy and switches you on like the Christmas lights on New Oxford Street. For about fifteen minutes you’re in the seat of an F26 with all your cannons blazing, your laser-guidance keeping you locked onto the tail of some enemy plane. As an aid to pure concentration it’s terrific. No wonder Sherlock Holmes found it an aid to investigation. You feel as if there’s a new intelligence working within you. If you were to inject some into the computer’s software port you would not be surprised if the machine were literally jolted into life itself, like something dreamt up by Mary Shelley. Normally I’ll use about .20 of a gram, however I had the suspicion that I was going to need a longer flight than normal if I was to be able to run where I wanted within the Lombroso system. So I made a solution that was twice my normal percentage and pushed the needle into the skin.
    Using the ECDN, and with a legitimate identity, I was interfacing with the BRI in less than a minute. They must have anticipated having to deal with unauthorised entrants to the system, because the very first thing that happened was that a nude Marilyn Monroe graphic appeared on my screen and, with a wiggle of her lifelike bottom, asked me if I felt lucky.
    ‘Because if you can answer just three little old questions you and your reality approximation software get to fuck my brains out.’
    Marilyn was referring to the software which controlled the computer’s optional body attachments and which enabled one to enjoy an approximate physical sensation of whatever kind of reality was being created. This kind of Reality Approximation program