Metafire

When Sporkin had mentioned the possibility of a hacker finding the bombs, Jack was not worried. He couldn't believe that he had found himself a member of the central FBI group that was searching for the criminals. But the FBI was never close. He was the hacker. He was the criminal. But his secret was safe and seemed secure.

Sporkin called in George, "I think I found it! Come here. The hacker was Jack Martin." George sent email to John Ferguson. The email was to Ferguson@crc.fbi.gov, and the subject was "Jack Martin."

Jack saw the subject and did not release the mail. Instead, he ordered Metafire business to be shut down. So now, one more time, Erisa's lover had caused her to lose contact with the friends that she loved.

Jack, too, used open mail, both to Ferguson and George. No more communications were to be allowed because of "a pattern of suspicious activity."

Jack told Ferguson, "Maybe they will try to get me for this, John. You know they could fabricate almost anything to get me out of the loop."

So when Sporkin and George did succeed in communicating with Ferguson, Ferguson could only believe that Sporkin was fabricating the records. There were no confirming records left on Earth. Metafire's Earth-based copies had been erased by Sporkin himself.