Black List Read Online Free PDF Page A

learn, and an abused animal learns very quickly how to defend itself. It also learns very quickly to trust very few people—if any.
    The handful of people the little man had allowed himself to get close to knew him as Nicholas. It wasn’t his given name, but seemed to him just as good a name as any. It was an odd choice, though, for someone who had been forsaken as a child to choose the patron saint of children as his namesake. Again, a study in contradiction.
    The man was also a study in deception, one of the primary talents necessaryfor survival in his field of endeavor. While his coterie of friends might know him as Nicholas, to the rest of the world he was an ephemeral string of aliases and assumed identities. He wove lie after lie after lie and had an amazing ability to keep the entire Web straight. It also made him exceedingly adept at ferreting out other people’s lies. At this moment, though, certainty eluded him. He couldn’t tell if he was being lied to or not.
    As he descended from the jet, he reflected on the woman he had come here to see.
    For many reasons, most notably his size, Nicholas was a committed recluse. The Internet had been a boon not only to his business but also to his social life. In the digital world, he could be a king—a god among men. There he was judged not by his physical stature but by the power of his mind.
    Many of the people he met in those early days of the Internet saw the world in much the same way as he did. They were misfits like him, people who felt more comfortable in front of a keyboard than at a cocktail party.
    So enjoyable were the friendships he had struck up there and so strong were the bonds he had formed, that after years of saying no, one day he agreed to meet his digital comrades in person at one of the annual hacking conferences.
    It was a long time ago now, and the event had been held at a large hotel in a major American city. It was the most excited Nicholas could remember having been in ages.
    He had arrived two days early to help get over his jet lag and didn’t leave his room. He didn’t want anyone to see him, not yet.
    Attendees started arriving late Friday afternoon, and his circle of cyberfriends had arranged to meet in the hotel bar before attending the welcome reception.
    Nicholas was so concerned about what kind of impression he was going to make that he changed clothes five times before settling on what to wear. Once dressed, he sat on the edge of his bed and waited until it was time to go downstairs.
    When the moment finally arrived, he straightened his clothes one last time in the mirror and then turned and left the room. He could feel hisheart pounding in his chest as the elevator opened and he stepped inside and pressed the button for the lobby. Two floors later, the car stopped and a group of young men, who had already been drinking, got on. Judging from their matching attire, they were part of a large contingent staying in the hotel for a highly anticipated college football matchup.
    As the elevator descended, there were a handful of snickers, but Nicholas ignored them and faced forward. It was just as the car arrived at the lobby that one of the drunks asked, “Hey buddy, where are you from?” but by then the elevator doors had begun to open and Nicholas could pretend he hadn’t heard the question. Nodding politely once more, he stepped out of the elevator and headed toward the bar, where he found his online friends all waiting for him.
    They were a collection of every “hacker” stereotype one could imagine. Some were younger, some were older, and some fell right in the middle. They ran the gamut from obese to dangerously underweight. There was a mix from post-punk-geek-chic with plenty of piercings and hair dye, all the way to a guy with a black cowboy hat and Buddy Holly–style glasses.
    He had never shared his photo with the group, so no one knew what to expect until Nicholas showed up. When he arrived at the table, the conversations