Page 39 - Unlikely Stories 5

The Robert N. Hood Foundation

strength and ultimate weakness. But our philanthropy is real:
protecting the planet’s lungs from the depredations of your corporate
masters requires a king’s ransom—and who better to provide it than
the profiteers themselves? Unknowingly, to be sure. And what has
been promulgated in the popular imagination as ‘identity theft’ is, for
most citizens, a mere skimming of the data leaks in the monstrous
cache of personal information government and corporations have
already stolen to control and manipulate the lives of the oppressed
citizenry. Your masters, Gisbourne, have committed grand theft,
looting the earth of its identity and leaving it in ruins. We are merely
redistributing their ill-gotten gains. You were clever enough to
correlate our donations with losses suffered by your robber baron
patrons. Unfortunately the evidence in your computer points to you
as the mastermind, not us.”
Gisbourne’s attention had been primarily directed to his
performance of a Houdiniesque escape, not the meaning of what he
was hearing. Not now.
“Nonsense! I’ve pulled together records from every database in the
world. I have an airtight case against you. All I needed was a few
pertinent names and addresses from your hard drive. You’ve got an
unbreakable firewall on that machine, I’ll grant you that—and very
tight security in this building.” He nodded at Firetruck. “No way to
get at your records but subterfuge. If I don’t make it back, others will
find my file on you crooks. You might as well let me go and not add
to your list of crimes.”
“Ah, yes, your file.” The executive walked over to his desk. His
computer was reassembled and operating. Gisbourne had a
parallactic view of the screen. “You mean this?”
Gisbourne started, the movement finally pushing apart his wrists
enough for him to compress the bones of his right hand and slip it
free.
“Surprised, aren’t you?” Hood cocked an eyebrow imperiously.
“You told us quite a bit while you slept, thanks to an injected alkaloid
you know quite well. Our own software expert, Johnnie Little, used
your passwords to make a few alterations in your Argus files. It now
seems that our foundation was falsely identified as the thief of
billions to misdirect attention from the actual miscreant: you.

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