Data Runner Read Free

security panel worth its salt is going to put at least two inches of reinforced steel between the front-side scanner and the logic board. You wouldn’t even be able to access it without some heavy-duty cutting tools.”
    â€œWhat’s a MOSFET?” I ask.
    â€œMetal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor.”
    Okay, that’s a few steps above my knowledge base. If integrated circuits are like Legos then I can use them to build anything to spec and, to a lesser extent, to create things on my own. But Martin isn’t limited by what comes in the box; he can mix his own polymer and pour his own custom-designed Legos. His building blocks are the molecules and compounds that make up my building blocks, which allows him to build on a whole other level than me. Where I see a single EEPROM, Martin sees the transistors and semiconductors holding that integrated circuit together.
    â€œI hate to say it,” says Martin, “but cutting off a thumb is still probably your best way in.”
    Hacking off arms. Cutting off thumbs. It was a very strange morning in Martin’s basement. Normally our day doesn’t start with so much dismemberment.
    Martin rolls across the basement to a worktable covered in felt and turns on the card shooter. After a brief mechanical whir, the machine spits out six hands in a perfect parabola followed by a seventh with the bottom card down. I know at once what this means. Blackjack at the syndicate gaming parlor. “I thought you were banned from that game?” I ask.
    â€œThe pit boss owes me a favor. He convinced Vlad to let me in for one more game.”
    â€œWhy would he do that?”
    â€œThey made an event out of it. They’ve bumped it up to a thirteen-deck shoe, so people are going to show up just to watch the game. A lot of whales.”
    Whales. Suckers with fat wallets. “What are the stakes?”
    â€œIt’s a zero-sum game. Fifty grand, heads-up.”
    â€œFifty grand? Where did you get fifty grand?”
    â€œOn margin.”
    Of course. If we had fifty grand to start with, Martin wouldn’t need to play. He was playing to win that fifty grand, which meant he had to borrow the buy-in to win the pot. If you think that sounds crazy, it’s only because you’re not Martin Baxter. His system reduces the gambling coefficient down to nearly zero. In that sense, Martin Baxter doesn’t gamble—he works the numbers and trusts the math. For him, blackjack is like a cash machine.
    â€œSee that?” Martin glances at me as he wins five out of six hands against the card shooter. “They haven’t invented a shoe yet that can beat me.”
    That much is true. That’s the thing about people like Martin—even when they’re unemployed they’re never really out of work. How could they be? Minds like his are far too active to ever go limp; they’re always cooking up something, and they always find a way to get by. That’s one thing Martin always says and I believe: when you’re smart, you can always think your way out of a jam. And it isn’t just true of mental smarts either. It applies to physical smarts as well. You know, muscle memory.
    â€œPK training in the Free City today,” I remind him as I turn and hoist myself up the stairs.
    â€œOkay,” he says. “Stop, drop and roll!”
    Stop, drop and roll . It takes me a second to figure out why that sounds so familiar. Until I realize…“that’s what you’re supposed to do if you’re ever on fire. But I guess the principle applies to PK as well.”
    â€œBowling too, I would imagine.”
    â€œSure, why not. Why waste a perfectly good mnemonic?”
    â€œWhy, indeed.”
    â€œGood counting,” I say as I reach the door at the top of the steps.
    â€œGood jumping,” he replies behind me.
    We don’t say luck . Martin and I are both dedicated to math, logic, and the laws