The night air was lively with ocean spray. Two FBI agents sat in a black '66 Plymouth Valiant parked at Bob's Beanery in Half Moon Bay. They were decked out in surfer dude clothes, Agent L with a burr haircut and a Larry Mullen, Jr. stare (the look copied right off a U2 album cover), and Agent M with a Mike Mills haircut and glasses (off an R.E.M. album cover). Just like two nerds from Mountain View, except that both were smoking Camel Filters -- an immediate tip-off to anyone hip enough to notice that they were Feds out of uniform.
"We got the passwords, we got the intruder installed," the butch Agent L said between coughs from the last hit of his cigarette.
"An' we got the fuck outta there without anyone knowin' it. Shit." rasped Agent M, in an uncharacteristic Brooklyn accent for a guy who looked like he came from the Midwest.
Agent L pressed a key on his laptop to bring it back from sleep. He had a wireless high-speed connection to the Internet through a special antenna installed in the trunk. But the connection wasn't working. Cursing, he got out to check the rig in the trunk. After tinkering with it a bit, he came back to the driver's seat, thumping the top of the car with his fist as he got in. "Best car ever made, the '66 Plymouth Valiant." He looked at the other agent, expecting an argument.
"Is that why you requisitioned this piece of shit? Shit." Agent M looked out the dirt-streaked window.
"Best car ever made," he repeated, smiling broadly. "Ever. And that's what's important. American-made, the best quality. They stopped making 'em after this. It's been junk ever since."
"See, that's where you're wrong. Mercedes, BMW, those are the best cars. Those Germans know how to make cars, shit."
"Yeah but would you put your life on the line for Germany?"
"Shit no," Agent M laughed, slapping his knee. "I wouldn't put my life on the line for fuckin' Indiana, shit."
"Indiana, fuck, I hate Indiana."
"Me too, shit."
"Looks like he took the bait," said Agent L, watching the status of the digital intruder.
Agent M smirked. "Yeah, well, he's got nothing to lose. Or so he thinks. Shit." Agent M was always good with the last word on a subject. That last word was usually "shit".
"OK, let's put our report up," said Agent L, who then switched to their report, scrolling the text so both could do a final read-through.
"You didn't mention those bums Tinker stopped to talk to, the bag lady and Buckskin Bob. Shit." rasped Agent M, with a hint of swagger.
"Bag Lady and Buckskin Bob, sounds like a rock combo," Agent L smirked. "Well, since we didn't get anything outta them, I don't wanna mention them. It makes us look bad. And they stunk up the backseat."
"Stunk it up bad, I mean bad. Shit."
They waited in sullen silence for their software to start up and connect them to the protected FBI network.
"That's funny -- the connection's gone. Shit."
"Huh?"
"Yep, the two-hundred-thousand-dollar extranet connection is gone, zip, gonzo," shouted Agent M, shaking his head ruefully. Then, "No waitaminute... Here it is. Oh Shit. Shit! SHIT!!!" He slapped his thighs repeatedly.
Agent L craned his neck to see the laptop screen. In the center was a cartoon of Bill Gittelson, the Chairman of Aggregate Networks, with a bouncing smiley face and a cartoon finger repeatedly pushing his glasses back up his nose. It appeared where the usual FBI logo would be on this supposedly top secret network page.
"Jeez," Agent L moaned.
"He's not only on to us, he's fucked us," said Agent M, resolutely, staring out the window. "I wish I didn't have to tell Cheney. Shit."
Agent L sighed again. "'G-Men Foiled by Webomber' -- that'll be the headlines."
"And that'll be our jobs, shit."
After a pause, Agent L spoke up again. "Shit. Let's go. Let's get a beer."
"Yeah, if the webmaster don't already know by now, he ain't worth a damn, shit," said Agent M. They both nodded and got out.
"Y'know, he ain't worth a damn!"
"Yeah, tell me something I don't know. Shit."
"No really! Once I walked in there, in the IT Lab, and he had these machines running, and the hard disks were just dangling from the machines by their wires, man. And that was our fuckin' mail server."
"Yeah well, I got somethin' better 'n that. O'Brien's porn site? We couldn't copy the files over a secure network to the NSA. The fuckin' NSA people were pissed! We had to burn a CD and hand-carry it the fuck over there. That sure as hell embarrassed the chief. Shit, we've had a pretty fuckin' hard year. Shit."
Bob's Beanery assaulted all senses with beerish humidity and the overpowering aroma of refried beans left burning on the stove. The two ordered brews and sat on stools with a view of the TV. The sound was turned down, but they could tell that the news story was about this new electronic terrorist, the Webomber. The intranet of a prominent San Francisco hospital had been worked over by the Webomber, rerouting X-rays, pharmaceuticals and procedures for hundreds of patients, some of whom died before the mistakes could be corrected.
Agent L asked the bartender to turn up the sound. "-- is perhaps the first Webomber incident that actually hurt people," the announcer was saying. "Over 50 patients received incorrect procedures ranging from enemas to open heart surgery, and over a hundred received the wrong drugs..."
"So does this mean our surveillance plans are changing?" Agent L was concerned. He hated to do work that would not be useful later on.
"You know better than to talk about it here, shit!" snapped Agent M.
"Sorry..."
"Nuthin' personal," said the agent, a bit softer. "I'm just pissed about this shit. I mean, Cheney knows all about O'Brien and the Pot Page and the connection to Smolder. Shit, Smolder's the key to this Webomber shit. He's out there somewhere, and Cheney probably knows it. This hacker, whoever he is, or maybe it's a she -- whatever, he's got balls. And he knows what we know. And that's shit."
"So, what. You don't buy the official story?"
"That Smolder's dead? Not for a minute, shit. Not with all his connections and all this shit that's going on." He turned the key, but the Valiant wouldn't turn over. He tried the ignition again, and the starter kicked in again, but wouldn't turn over. "Shit."
"Best damn car ever made, huh?"
"Ahh, nuthin's working right anymore, shit."
* * *
Mal Contour, reporter for the Bay Radical, wore a raincoat with its collar up, sitting in his Chevy van watching the hookers go by, straining every few seconds to keep the young Latino gang member in view. He had checked the police records on Pico and knew where he hung out. He owed a favor to the vice squad anyway, and anything he turned up would immediately be turned over to the undercover cops in the white Buick.
He was following a tip from the cops in an effort to get to the bottom of this mysterious Smolder suicide and the subsequent hacking of his Web page suicide note. He knew something was fishy about this guy Pico -- why hit that car, why not any other car in the lot? Maybe he took something, or maybe he planted the note on the front seat. Contour was an avid reader of conspiracy theories. Years ago he headed an investigation of a CIA-related crack cocaine epidemic for an Oakland newspaper. Then he fell victim to a scandal of his own, bribing witnesses to a police action in an effort to get them to tell the truth. Now he worked the Radical beat, for peanuts. He had a lot to prove, and not much time to prove it. The Rob Smolder story would be his meal ticket.
He picked up the trail of the young Latino on Eddy Street in the Tenderloin. He watched as this guy did his thing, which was mostly hanging out in doorways, meeting people one on one, walking a bit up the street with them, then out of a pouch on his hip came something handed over to the people, who popped it immediately into their mouths while handshaking folded dollar bills to him. A drug dealer, no doubt. Contour knew this lowlife had no business ransacking Smolder's car. Someone paid his bail in cash. It was Contour's only real tip.
Then he saw the Toyota, a familiar-looking one. Contour shot upright in his car seat, eyes front. Someone looking a lot like Charlie O'Brien was leaning out of the driver-side window. Sure looked like his car, sure looked like him in profile, but hanging out here? A gorgeous blonde dressed like a hooker got out of the passenger side. Contour watched as the girl walked up the street. As she passed Contour's van, he lowered the window and beckoned to her. She walked over to the door, leaned in, said "Huh?"
"Can you tell me the name? Just the first name, I mean -- of the john you're with?" Contour asked her abruptly. She gave him a quizzical look, caught off guard, what kind of question is that? She stepped back, continued on her way up the street. Contour continued to watch as the girl met with the Latino, and they walked around the corner into a dark alley. Sensing that this was a dead end, Contour decided to leave.
* * *
Pico glowered in anger as he glanced up and down the street from the apartment doorway, hidden in its shadows. That crazy Chevy van tailing him, he didn't know what to make of it. He'd seen the guy before, talking to vice. He must have already seen him dealing, why doesn't he just get on with the bust? Pico was not afraid, he could just drop the drugs he had in his possession right there on the street; they'd have no case. He watched out of the corner of his eye as he walked on.
Now what? Tiffany is talking to the guy. Sure enough, Tiffany is talking to Mr. Fucking Chevy van. Pico's blood boiled with anxiety. Eventually Tiffany walked past his doorway, looked at Pico and stopped. "Hey" she said, "How 'bout that notebook?" She was holding two folded $100 bills.
"Sure, follow me" he said, a bit too surly, still just barely holding his composure.
She followed him into the alley, out of view of the street, which was not standard procedure for any kind of conversation or transaction except a drug deal. She wasn't paying close enough attention either, because suddenly she was on the ground, tripped, and Pico's arms were pinning her down, his breath in her face. He asked over and over, who is that guy in the van? She had no idea, she cried hysterically that she didn't know, he just asked her the same stupid question, but her answers were not enough to keep her from getting the worst beating of her life.
Fortunately he didn't rape her, though a look had crossed his eyes that suggested he had considered it. All this bullshit surveillance on him, all because of this one gig for these white assholes from the suburbs, was killing his bread-and-butter street business. Now he'd have to move his business uptown, find new cops to bribe. He took the $200 and the contents of her pocketbook and left her semi-conscious in the dark alley suffering from a concussion and a broken jaw. He threw the notebook she wanted so badly, the notebook from that car near the Bridge; he threw it directly at her head, and it bounced off her shoulder into the street.
After a while, the strength came to her legs, and she walked out closer to the edge of the alley, and slumped to the ground. The crazy homeless man with the streamers on his glasses and the gray flannel suit with sneakers -- a regular in that part of the City -- stopped to see if she was alright, and gave her a bent cigarette. As she smoked, she began to feel a bit stronger.
Charlie O'Brien was nowhere in sight. She had finished her shift with the film crew for Charlie's porn site, and he no doubt had thought she'd be safe, since she lived in the neighborhood. Besides, he didn't know about the special assignment or about Pico. Rosemary DeSantis, or "Tiffany" as Pico and others knew her, had a little nighttime business on the side, the oldest profession, and one of her "clients" had given her this assignment -- a fortyish, tall, fat, and balding man named Peter. He was a friend of Charlie's who had met her at Charlie's studio. She didn't know his last name and really didn't need to, as he paid cash, twice. The first time was for posing as a tourist at the Golden Gate Bridge and giving a videotape to the police, and the second time was for springing Pico from jail and getting the notebook. That second time, Peter had said something about recovering from a mistake, and that she might be needed again if Murphy's Law struck again. Apparently the notebook had been left by mistake and Pico had been enlisted to grab it. Peter had met Pico once, in her apartment, so it all made sense, except the part about Pico beating her up.
Eventually the cops found her on the sidewalk and took her to the hospital, where she was treated in a special guarded ward reserved for crime suspects and witnesses, as the cops assumed she had been plying her nighttime trade when it happened.
* * *
The next morning Tinker awoke with a fear that mottled his brow and saturated his t-shirt with sweat. In the dream, he had had an urgent need to speak at a press conference, announcing… something… what was it? Anxious and dressed in uncomfortable mod clothes, he had grabbed his executive briefcase and struggled through a phantasmagoria of fast driving, running with someone chasing, slipping out of the grasp of someone else, falling into a window, running out to a hall, and down the hall to a great auditorium where there were hundreds of press flashbulbs. John Lennon and the rest of the Beatles were up on the podium in their mod suits, their hair even longer than expected. Ringo looked bored; George's eyes were piercing the eyes of a woman in the front row. Paul was concerned. John was apologizing to the press about his "better than Jesus" remark, quoted out of context. John's remark was read aloud by a journalist who looked a bit like Brendan Barcode, the wild-haired three-piece-suited eccentric videographer. "We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first -- rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary..."
John stuttered his apology. "I apologize for what I said, it was wrong, or it was taken wrong, and now it's all this!" He was practically in tears, naked in a way that was worse than nude; a very frightened human caught in the menacing glare of a hostile press in a dangerous world. Lennon had spent more time in the death glare of the public eye than anyone comparable in his time… Thick and ordinary… Tinker tried to elbow his way up to the podium. The dream abruptly ended as he felt hemmed in on all sides by wool-suited journalists, claustrophobic in the media throng, with Lennon's off-camera remark floating by, "I never meant it to be an anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done."
Awake now, Tinker shivered until he changed his sweat-soaked shirt, then went out to the living room to find his 10-year old boy crouched in his pajamas, yawning fiercely, studying his Pokemon cards while the TV series of the same name blared on TV. His five-year old stumbled out of the bedroom to join his brother, rubbing his eyes. They looked so innocent in the morning, but within a few minutes they were bickering about Pokemon card trades, their arguments interrupted every so often by an action sequence on TV. Asch, the human trainer, had to be rescued from the jaws of some giant dinosaur-like creature with an arrow for a tail. The characters all blended together, humans and creatures, all somehow equivalent.
Tinker, too jittery from his dream to meditate in his denim polka-dot mushroom jacket, watched the show for a while, and studied a few cards. The trading of Pokemon cards is not unlike trading baseball cards, except the cards are more colorful and exotic. It is an escape hatch, a door into another world. Like father, like sons; they instinctively sought out escape, and used the talisman-and-ritual approach to focusing their concentration -- with father it was the polka-dot mushroom, and with sons, images of Pokemon characters. Charlotte continued to snore lightly in the bedroom.
Eventually Tinker turned to his magazines. The cover article of this month's Fizz was about digital agents that scurry about across the net looking for things you might want to buy, so you don't ever have to leave your desk. The question never raised was why you'd never want to leave your desk. As a child, Tinker had been taught to hide under a desk in the event of an atomic explosion, to save his life. It was amazing how wrong an entire generation could be.
Tinker rubbed his eyes, sipped his steaming coffee, and tried to focus on the article, but he kept thinking about the big picture. How far would the high-tech industry go before it left the vast huddled masses completely behind? It was already leaving behind some of its best foot soldiers and wrecking the economy for everybody else. There seemed to be no top or bottom to this thing. In only five years, many people Tinker knew had gone from one high-tech failure to another, as if somehow his dark cloud had spawned a terrible progeny. So if he were jinxed, would it be possible to spread this jinx around and maybe even take it to the heart of the industry itself? Selft-destruct and take the industry with it?
With that in mind, he went to his noon meeting with Jill Metrose, editor-in-chief of Fizz. Outside the South-of-Market café, Tinker waited in the glare, looking uncomfortable in a navy blazer, beige chinos, and a Beatles tie, waiting for Metrose. He'd known her from the old days, writing articles for computer magazines, and he thought he might cash in a favor.
They greeted and took a corner table, ordering coffee. Jill Metrose was, as usual, stunning in corporate way, smart and sexy in her tight pin-stripe skirt, frilled blouse and ample bosom. She looked a bit like Jackie Kennedy Onassis -- a Connecticut heiress with a Jewish father and a Greek mother. The combination gave her a kind of garlic-tainted chutzpah lubricated with retsina. Tinker always thought he had a way with women, but not with Metrose. She intimidated him at all levels.
"The first thing is, you have to get a haircut," she told him over sips of blistering hot coffee, smiling.
"I thought creative types have to look more authentic," Tinker replied bleakly, looking around the café at people in long hair, jeans and flannel shirts, or in black or strange outfits, kinky hair, ear rings, and the odd girl with purple hair sticking straight up. Java programmers, Web designers, sound engineers, commercial artists. And hidden behind a potted plant in the corner, a trio of businessmen in dress shirts and chinos.
She followed his gaze, anticipating his reply. "None of the real ones make more than sixty thousand a year, and the rest are imposters."
He didn't reply.
"You want a creative job?" She pressed on. "You want to stay underpaid? You have to think larger, aim higher," she crossed her arms and leaned forward, a friend lending a helping hand.
"You're right," he replied lamely.
"You have experience, and I know you're smart. The problem is, you don't sell yourself. You have to get out there and promote yourself." She punctuated each point with a dainty sip.
"I'm certainly not big on salesmanship."
"And you have to be," she pounced. "People won't take you seriously unless you demonstrate that you have style, grace. Enthusiasm."
"Yes well… excuse me for whining," said Tinker, warming up. "But things have changed, as you probably noticed. A guy in his forties… I mean, I have a lot of experience, a lot of hands-on experience… But what happens is, I get no respect. No one thinks of me as management material. The more they find out what I can do with software, the more they want me to just do that."
"Well… now you are whining."
He stared out the window at a homeless person in dreadlocks, carrying a decrepit sleeping bag. What was this preoccupation with the homeless? Then he turned back, leaned forward in his chair just like her, just two friends trying to work out a problem. "Yes, I'm sorry…" He shot her a meat-eating grin. "It's just that I can see myself doing great things, running companies, or at least running their new business development efforts. I'm a pathfinder. I know a lot about technology and how to apply it properly."
"Yes, you do," she responded warmly. "And you have to figure out how to capitalize on that."
"Any ideas?"
"You mean, at Fizz?" she sat back suddenly, and gave off just a hint of displeasure, but then resumed her nice-gal close friend attitude. "You don't want to work there. You don't want to work for me, and you don't want to work for the Web team either. We'd just use you for your technical skills and we wouldn't pay you enough even for that. The pace is just too quick, you'd burn out in a month. Besides, we're actually cutting back."
"Preparing for Armageddon?" Tinker asked casually.
"You can do something…" she paused, sipped. "You could write an article for us, about Mort Gill and the C-Dome."
"You mean, about encryption?"
"Encryption, yes. And the impending meltdown. You know, when security fails everywhere." She was smiling wickedly at him, as if doing this article was somehow a key to unlock something. "We have a name author writing a feature article," she explained. "What we want from you is a personal perspective, of who you know and what you know about them. We want the personal angle on this, any anecdotes, anything juicy about them as the encryption freedom fighters."
"You bet," said Tinker, thinking, it's the formula… And when I turn in my first draft, they'll rewrite it so much that the "personal angle" will be lost, replaced by some mythical "South of Market" point of view, in which the world is presented as everyone's oyster ready to disgorge pearls. "So I'd be a sidebar to someone's feature article. About encryption. You need me to write that part because it is the technical meat of the story, while someone else gets the feature article by-line writing anecdotes and the usual preachy nonsense you find in general interest magazines."
"Don't complain," she muttered as she stood up to leave, reaching for her pocketbook. He was going to let her pay, for sure, and without complaining. "Maybe if you had your own idea for a feature article…"
"I do," Tinker retorted, perhaps a little too fast. "We already know there is a vast difference between the haves and have-nots. What we don't know is the true value of philanthropy. We don't know which projects will actually help those on the other side. Computers in the classroom? What for? Today's kids need to defend themselves against automatic weapons. They need to learn how to hack their own personal identities and credit histories. Now there's an angle on encryption you probably didn't think about. The real power of strong encryption technology will pass to the next generation of hackers who will use it to organize themselves and start a revolution."
"Oh come on…" She had already given up. "Where's the angle? What's the hook?"
"No, listen. This is a good idea. Why do we think the Information Age is progress? It seems like our society has more or less reverted back to something Darwinian, it's all now the 'survival of the fittest'. Information seems to have displaced human compassion and reason. Democracy has become a tyranny of the majority, as Thomas Jefferson warned. There is no free market, with corporations fixing prices and forging monopolies. There is no innovation, with a company like Aggregate Networks dominating every sector and shutting out competition. There is no privacy now that the government can dictate the type of encryption we use. But there is plenty of unrest in the land. There's an 'impending meltdown' for sure, but it's not the one you think it is."
She laughed, looked down at the remains of her coffee. "You know we'd never run an article like that. Go talk to the Bay Radical or the Vanguard Voice, or Soirée."
"Well, neither the Radical, nor the Voice, would pay well enough to cover all the research I'd have to do, and those smug bastards at Soirée would probably rewrite it and add quotes from the usual industry pundits and lightweights."
"Now you are really whining. I'm outta here." She picked up the tab. "So let me know, really, if you want to do that sidebar. Take care."
He watched her briskly dodge a beggar on the sidewalk on her way to work. At one point in his life he was attracted to her, but now, watching her leave, she seemed more and more like a general heading into battle. Tinker sighed and sipped his coffee, waiting for time to pass before his next interview. The café played enduring 1960s music. "A little dream to build my world upon…"
Can I cry, a little bit?
There's nobody to notice it…
-- Blood Sweat & Tears, "Just One Smile" (Al Kooper)
* * *
The Webomber's attack on the San Francisco hospital the night before had generated little news outside the Bay Area. The Webomber had left a signature, a link consisting of the phrase "Your inside is out and your outside is in" (from the song "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" by, of course, the Beatles). When clicked on, the link connected you directly to a page listing the largest pharmaceutical companies on the planet, with the comment -- "This is my favorite list, the Webomber" -- added to the bottom. For the first time, the newspapers now had the correct spelling.
For many of the patients, procedures were scheduled and medications prescribed that were utterly wrong. The Webomber must have gotten some kind of kick out of prescribing drugs to people who didn't need them -- mostly addictive opiate-based painkillers -- and procedures that were embarrassing and uncomfortable, such as enemas and hemorrhoid surgery. However, if the Webomber cared, this prank was a public relations disaster, as some people were seriously injured by procedures not meant for them.
But for "Tiffany", whose real name on the hospital form was Rosemary DeSantis, the prescription for Delaudid was just right, if only they'd increase the dosage a bit.
Earlier that day cops had swarmed through the hospital. One of the cops that had brought her in the night before stopped for a brief chat, offering cigarettes. She craved nicotine almost above everything else -- in particular, Kools, known as the junkie's brand. It seemed that every junkie was also a cigarette smoker, and even if they quit junk, they would still be addicted to cigarettes, which are more harmful than shots of heroin. Junkies typically die of something else, such as emphysema or lung cancer, or an overdose of junk because they don't know its purity. She remembered a "recovering" addict employed by the government's DARE program that gave a speech to her high school class, telling the kids how it was wrong to be addicted to drugs while he chain-smoked cigarettes. Kools, in fact.
The cop told her that the hospital had been attacked by a hacker. The records were all mixed up. He was there helping detectives look for any accomplices that might still be in the building, as the hacker would have needed inside help to get the passwords. "We're conducting a full search," he said, smiling and running his eyes up and down her bruised body wrapped in a hospital gown, her butt nearly exposed. "We'll arrange for your trip downtown in a few minutes." He then left to join the search.
As she smoked in the bathroom, the nurse wheeled in a new patient for the other bed, who seemed distracted but awake. When Tiffany came out of the bathroom, the other patient, a woman with raven-black, spiky hair, no eyebrows, and two rings through her ruby upper lip sat upright on her bed.
Tiffany looked her over. "You a working girl?" she asked the patient. The patient just looked at her, not comprehending fully, just shaking her head. So Tiffany pressed on cautiously. "What're you in for?" she asked, then laughed. "I mean, what are you in the hospital for?"
"The electrodes implanted in my breasts, one of 'em caused an abscess," said the woman in an intonation that reminded one of North Beach and, at the same time, Brooklyn.
Tiffany nodded. "So that must hurt," she said with genuine sympathy, as the woman smoothed out her hospital gown to emphasize the bandages over both her breasts.
"Yeah, they both had to be replaced," she said. Then she quickly added, blushing, "Not the breasts, but the electrodes, had to be replaced."
Tiffany nodded, but after a moment, she had to ask. "So why didja have -- whaddaya call 'em -- 'lectrodes in your tits... what for?"
"Oh it's the coolest thing," the new patient said right away, still blushing, and yet smiling. "Quite stimulating. Y'see, they've got processors and memory, and you, or your partner," she squealed, "can program 'em to do all kinds of things, to stimulate you right there..." she paused and looked upwards as if in a swoon.
A nurse came in and looked at the charts on their beds. "Rosemary," she addressed the new patient, "you have an enema scheduled for an hour from now, but with the computer attack, all the procedures are mixed up, so I will check first to make sure." Then she turned to Tiffany, who's real name was Rosemary DeSantis. "Sybill, you can get your valuables from the front desk, you're ready to go. You have an outpatient clinic visit scheduled for this afternoon." Then she left.
The two patients looked at each other. "Obviously they screwed up, and they think you are me," said Tiffany.
"Yeah, well, I don't want an enema!"
"Too bad, girl. Don't let them do it." Tiffany was already half into her street clothes. She snatched the chart with Sybill's name. "Thanks for the loan." And before the real Sybill could complain to a nurse, Tiffany had gathered some bills from Sybill's wallet and taken off. That hacker attack had been quite convenient for Tiffany; not only did it prescribe the right medication, but it also set her free.