The Attachment
I am a first-class dummy about computer technology. Nonetheless, I write historical fiction novellas with some success. My editor, Hemione Fatima, is a top-notch editor. That is, when she is sober from her narcotics addiction. Otherwise, her editing is chaos — usually couched in a phantom code. Usually easy to crack.
Yesterday, I sent Hermione the opening chapter of my in-work manuscript as an attachment. To ensure a save transit, I task Jimmi, my contract IT tech wizard, to sprinkle magic gold dust on my attachment. With a flick of his hand, the gold dust suffused through my computer. With a precision click, the attachment entered the ether aiming for Hermione’s digital machine of unknown origin.
Two days later, my edited manuscript arrived as an attachment. Gadzooks! The text was gobbledygook squared. My manuscript was couched in a mysterious code, I reckoned. I tried to contact Hermionie by various communication schemes. To no avail.
Jimmi reviewed the gobbledygook and mouthed words incomprehensible. He spewed occult incantations, waved his magic wand in curious maneuvers, and applied various nostrums on that attachment. To no avail.
He would not despair. Convinced that he could crack that code, he darkened the room, lay on the carpet, and spewed libation of unknown contents. I heard the sounds of Snap, Crackle, and Pop. I reckon it’s a secret Kellogg configuration marketed only on the underground. Electric-type bubbles floated about emitting a damnable odor I could not recognize.
Jimmi appeared to be a trance. He muttered arcane mumbo-jumbo to conjure Beelzebub to crack that code. Jimini indicated that this denizen of the underworld has the immutable fitness for these matters. Several minutes later, the demon growled in frustration. As he skedded. he snapped “Go to Hades.”
I wanted that edited first chapter. And I would not concede. I had several contacts from my days in the intelligence community.
I sent that attachment to Bill Tell, Deputy Director of the National Security Agency in Washington, DC. Two hours later, the agency’s senior cryptologist said that their super-duper deluxe computers could not crack this attachment’s code. “Try elsewhere.“
I recalled that Vladimir Kuznetsov and I were friendly enemies during the Cold War with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was a KGB officer and their senior cryptologist. He responded to my email. “Send that attachment and we’ll crack that code in jig time.”
About forty hours later, I received a response from the Russian Security Service in a flash Особой важности (Top Secret) message. “Nyet.”
I reckoned that my ol’ poker-playing pal, Ling Su-ming — a senior officer in the Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China, had influence with the Ministry of State Security. His email response was, “For my four-deuces friend, send it. Our senior cryocoolers and our new powerful Po Tan Xir machine will have an answer quickly.”
Two-days later, a Chinese security agent was at my door. He suggested that I travel to Hong Kong for a “good time” at the Chinese Communist Party’s expense. No fool, I declined the offer. Shortly an email arrived from China. “Stay home.”
I have other contacts. Years ago. I worked with Reginald Owen-Smyth, then an agent in the Secret Intelligence Service and now a consultant to British intelligence, MI6. In those days, we traipsed the jungles of Malaya in search for Chinese agents that were stealing the liquid rubber. We found them and our special squad took extrajudicial action. We left the remains for the cobras.
I sent an email to Owen-Smyth. He responded “Send it along, ol’ fellow. Our cryptographers will crack that code in a jiffy.”
Three days later, I had an email from the Director of MI6. “Surely. you jest, ol’ man.”
I had one last option. My ol’ high-school chum, Pedro Sanches Navarro. What fun we had. What troubles we had. Pedro now was the Director of Mexico’s Nacional de Intelligencia. His response was chockfull of great times. “Our code breakers are the best. They will open that attachment as if they are pealing a banana.” I did not hear from Pedro for almost two weeks. His reply was curt. “¿Quen sabe?”
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That’s it. Nothing to be done until Hermion sobers. I leaned back in my chair, closed my eyes, and pictured various solutions to that attachment’s code. Time passed. “Awake dad,” my oldest daughter whispered in my ear. She spotted the attachment. “You are playing games in your declining years?”
She shoved me out of my chair, dug deep into her purse and extracted something that appeared to be a large ring. She enlarged the gobbledygook, and in a few minutes, my perfectly edited manuscript was displayed.
“Gadzooks! Madaline, what is your secret power?”
Dear reader, please scroll down for her response.
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