Asprin, Robert Lynn – Catwoman – Tiger Hunt (With Lynn Abbey)

At times like this he was, essentially, a computer hacker. A technology wizard shining lights through the back doors of every major data bank in the world. Over the course of several long days, he’d extracted enough raw information to keep a hundred data-gnomes busy for a lifetime. Thirty-six hours ago he’d thrown it all into the cybernetic equivalent of a centrifuge. Since then he’d been spinning the data down through a bewildering series of customized algorithms. He was fully aware that his eyes were glazed and his mind was numb. It was at times like this—when his brain was reduced to its most primitive processes—that his mind was best attuned to subtle variations in pure pattern or rhythm. He was waiting for the neurons in his visual cortex to erupt and alert the rest of him to a deviation in the data flow.

“I’ve sorted it on every variable. Hit every correlation. Nothing stands out. He’s there—I know he is. These are his deals. I recognize them. I come so close, and then he’s gone into a web of corporations and money transfers. He’s tickled the Wayne Foundation more than once to clean up his profits. Never the same way twice, never overt. He does things in pieces that look harmless enough—“

Wayne’s fingers clattered across the keyboard, bringing up a frozen section of prior data. After he tapped the screen with an optical stylus, a second window opened—the reincorporation papers of what appeared to be some sort of food-processing facility.

“Here’s a little juice factory in Florida that was shut down after the mid-eighties freezes wiped out the orange groves. Suddenly it’s got a contract to process second-rate apricots from California. Fifty honest people get jobs rendering bruised fruit into generic fruit syrup and by-products. What do you think happens next?”