cakewalk.
Lawless pushed his hands onto the table. “The security room no longer exists.”
“Don’t need the security room.” I strolled out to retrieve my prized possession. Returning to the galley, I pulled out the mini laptop I used on missions. “I’ve got this.”
“A computer?” Doubt filled Tilly’s voice.
Walker came to my aid. “Justice here is a genius.”
Thank you very fucking much.
“He says.” Storm cut through my gloating moment.
I flipped open the computer I’d rigged with more personally coded programs than my tablet. I popped my knuckles, bent my fingers to the keys, then looked around at everyone watching me.
“Give me some space?” All hackers had their rituals. Their twitches. Their hang-ups.
Me? I needed room to think. I worked alone. I couldn’t stand someone breathing down my neck.
If that made me a paranoid motherfucker when it came to cyber ops, so be it.
Everyone backed off, and I went to work.
My fingers flew across the keys as black screen after black screen popped up on the monitor. White letters and digits and random-looking symbols fed from my brain into my fingertips and onto the screen, taking me deeper and deeper into an encoded maze that branched out in infinite directions.
I’d already investigated the embassy and the residence’s systems to test my theory about how we could escape. This time I focused on the vital organs of the binary structure.
Bringing the intel to life on my monitor was like bringing a person back from the dead. A code here. A stitch there. A plug-in. Then the nirvana of a heart beating, an impenetrable citadel spread out and open and all for the taking.
Infiltrating a secure system was a high. Sometimes I binged on piggybacking into datacores, funneling through wormholes just for the fun of it before deleting all traces of my presence when I backtracked the fuck out.
Sometimes I timed myself. Like now.
Forty seconds later, and we were operational with three viewpoints from cameras scanning the grounds outside the building.
I spun the computer around and sat back in my chair. “The fourth camera was shattered, otherwise we’d be seeing its feed too.”
“ Holy shit .” Storm looked impressed.
“Genius. Told you.” Walker smirked.
“So he’s really not just a pretty boy,” Bane added his shitty two-cents.
I flipped double middle fingers in their directions, but I felt pretty damn pleased with myself.
Lawless narrowed his eyes at the monitor in front of him. “So you could spy on other places. Any other place you chose to?”
“ Um. I guess so. But that would be a serious breach of privacy.”
“And we never do that, sir.” Walker rolled his eyes.
They studied the visuals, live and on-screen. I rounded the table to join them, found myself standing way too close to Tilly, and moved waaaaay to the other side of the group before her scent had the chance to hit me way down hard.
The chanting we heard was echoed on the computer. It was louder for one reason only. The embassy compound was completely overrun.
Bonfires.
Tanks.
Militants.
And they were crawling all the fuck over our building. What remained of it. Which wasn’t very much aside from our enclave.
“They’re swarming.” Storm swallowed beside me.
“Must be a hundred or more out there.” Bane did the math.
“A full-fledged army.” Walker blew out a long low curse.
“I am not liking the tanks.” I pressed a button and zoomed in on an armored vehicle heavily loaded with machine gun turrets.
We all swore then.
Zooming out, I rotated one of the cameras. The field of vision filled with trumped up Houthi troops dosing on imminent victory. Burning American flags. Hanging effigies of Lawless. Shouting louder and louder.
A hoard. A hundred’s strong hoard with one bloodthirsty goal.
“Looks like a scene from The Walking Dead , ” Walker, of all the fucking people, said.
“I liked The Governor,” Bane mentioned. “He was
Lawless pushed his hands onto the table. “The security room no longer exists.”
“Don’t need the security room.” I strolled out to retrieve my prized possession. Returning to the galley, I pulled out the mini laptop I used on missions. “I’ve got this.”
“A computer?” Doubt filled Tilly’s voice.
Walker came to my aid. “Justice here is a genius.”
Thank you very fucking much.
“He says.” Storm cut through my gloating moment.
I flipped open the computer I’d rigged with more personally coded programs than my tablet. I popped my knuckles, bent my fingers to the keys, then looked around at everyone watching me.
“Give me some space?” All hackers had their rituals. Their twitches. Their hang-ups.
Me? I needed room to think. I worked alone. I couldn’t stand someone breathing down my neck.
If that made me a paranoid motherfucker when it came to cyber ops, so be it.
Everyone backed off, and I went to work.
My fingers flew across the keys as black screen after black screen popped up on the monitor. White letters and digits and random-looking symbols fed from my brain into my fingertips and onto the screen, taking me deeper and deeper into an encoded maze that branched out in infinite directions.
I’d already investigated the embassy and the residence’s systems to test my theory about how we could escape. This time I focused on the vital organs of the binary structure.
Bringing the intel to life on my monitor was like bringing a person back from the dead. A code here. A stitch there. A plug-in. Then the nirvana of a heart beating, an impenetrable citadel spread out and open and all for the taking.
Infiltrating a secure system was a high. Sometimes I binged on piggybacking into datacores, funneling through wormholes just for the fun of it before deleting all traces of my presence when I backtracked the fuck out.
Sometimes I timed myself. Like now.
Forty seconds later, and we were operational with three viewpoints from cameras scanning the grounds outside the building.
I spun the computer around and sat back in my chair. “The fourth camera was shattered, otherwise we’d be seeing its feed too.”
“ Holy shit .” Storm looked impressed.
“Genius. Told you.” Walker smirked.
“So he’s really not just a pretty boy,” Bane added his shitty two-cents.
I flipped double middle fingers in their directions, but I felt pretty damn pleased with myself.
Lawless narrowed his eyes at the monitor in front of him. “So you could spy on other places. Any other place you chose to?”
“ Um. I guess so. But that would be a serious breach of privacy.”
“And we never do that, sir.” Walker rolled his eyes.
They studied the visuals, live and on-screen. I rounded the table to join them, found myself standing way too close to Tilly, and moved waaaaay to the other side of the group before her scent had the chance to hit me way down hard.
The chanting we heard was echoed on the computer. It was louder for one reason only. The embassy compound was completely overrun.
Bonfires.
Tanks.
Militants.
And they were crawling all the fuck over our building. What remained of it. Which wasn’t very much aside from our enclave.
“They’re swarming.” Storm swallowed beside me.
“Must be a hundred or more out there.” Bane did the math.
“A full-fledged army.” Walker blew out a long low curse.
“I am not liking the tanks.” I pressed a button and zoomed in on an armored vehicle heavily loaded with machine gun turrets.
We all swore then.
Zooming out, I rotated one of the cameras. The field of vision filled with trumped up Houthi troops dosing on imminent victory. Burning American flags. Hanging effigies of Lawless. Shouting louder and louder.
A hoard. A hundred’s strong hoard with one bloodthirsty goal.
“Looks like a scene from The Walking Dead , ” Walker, of all the fucking people, said.
“I liked The Governor,” Bane mentioned. “He was
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