“And the owners know?”
Jenna gave a one-shouldered shrug. “I doubt it. It’s like when you have some sort of utility box on your house’s property—the owner doesn’t know what it is or what it does, just knows he’s not supposed to mess with it. The owners of the art studio were probably told it’s a data server for the county or something. An inconvenience and an eyesore, but nothing exciting.”
Mark had a lot of questions, but she held up a finger. “Hang on. I need to see if the other sites the robots broke in to also have these servers.”
She was typing again, frenzied and frenetic, pieces of hair slipping out of her ponytail. He was certain her methods of searching for the info they needed wasn’t legal, but he wasn’t going to stop her. He would take any method they could utilize if it meant taking down Joaquin and saving the lives of other robots.
He started another pot of coffee in the kitchenette, having a feeling they would need it.
“Yes, I knew it. We’re right.” Jenna pushed back in her chair and spun to look at him.
“More servers?”
“Yes, one of the other sites had servers in the building like the art gallery. The other two were adjacent to remote government offices. Joaquin is trying to access something on these servers. I don’t know what, but I have no doubt that’s what he’s doing.”
Mark still had a lot of questions. He handed her a cup of coffee. “Are you sure? The door in the art studio wasn’t breached—that bookshelf we moved hadn’t been touched recently. And I’ve seen pictures of the other sites—there weren’t any signs of trying to access an adjoining building in those. Pretty sure that would have been obvious.”
“That’s the thing, though.” Jenna’s eyes were fully alive and dancing with energy. Caught up in the solving of a mystery and not blaming herself for things that weren’t her fault. Damned if he didn’t love seeing her this way. “Actual physical access to those servers wouldn’t be necessary. Joaquin would… Hang on.”
She turned back and started typing on the computer again.
“RATs,” she said a few minutes later.
Now Mark was even more confused. “Rodents?”
She smiled. “Remote Access Tools—hackers call them RATs. Joaquin’s robots aren’t computer geniuses—none of them would be able to hack into the government’s main systems—but they have enough basic knowledge to install RATs on these remote servers.”
“And the robots didn’t have to get on the computers to place these…RATs?”
“Yep. That’s why it’s a hacker’s friend. The key thing about the RATs is that you don’t have to be on the computer itself or even in the same room, just in a general proximity. Once a RAT is set up, it can siphon data without being detected.”
“This is one of the things you test for as a cybersecurity expert, isn’t it?”
“Absolutely. RATs are generally pretty easy to identify and eradicateifyou’re looking for them. But I doubt the US government is actively protecting these servers. They think hiding them is enough.”
“What sort of information leak are we talking about? What would Joaquin have access to?”
She spun to look at him again. “That, I’m not sure. I will dig deeper into each of the servers we know about, but undoubtedly there are more, and he’s siphoning different pieces of information from each one.”
He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Then, of course, he’s making it look like a smash and grab so no one suspects what’s really going on. There could be other break-ins we don’t know about.”
“I’m sure there are.”
Mark stood. “I’ve got to call this in. I’m not sure how law enforcement will want to tackle this, but Callum and Omega Sector definitely need to know all this, stat.”
His phone was in his hand when it rang. Callum’s name was on the screen as if Mark had summoned him. “Callum? We made a breakthrough, and you need to hear it.”
“It’ll have to wait for just a second,” Callum said. “We have another robot. The victim is alive.”
“Where?”
“Durango, Colorado. It will take just as long for you to drive as fly. It’s three and a half hours to the north. I’m sending directions as we speak. I heard we lost the last one, but I’m hoping there’s something that can be done to save this one.”
“We’re on our way.”
Chapter 14
Jenna worked while Mark drove toward Colorado.