Page 17 of Learn For Me
Locking the door, she shuffled over to the computer, noting it had been upgraded at some point, and booted it up. Hesitating before she logged into the system, she made the choice not to use her own details. It wouldn’t be long before Atticus came looking for her, and he’d find her faster if she was in the system under her log-in.
She doubted he’d look down here for her yet; the search would start upstairs, until he scanned the CCTV footage and found no trace of her.
Still, better to be cautious.
Bypassing the company log-in, Olivia set to work hacking through the security until she slid into the overview of available computers. Picking one, she assumed its IP address and broke a few laws—federal and company—by jacking the employee data and logging in with it.
The pressure in her chest built, her eyes burning.
Shoving through it, she accessed the task list and chose a project based on priority. Within moments, she was delving into the life and criminal activities of a potential terrorist in Ohio, sifting through his financials, and noting his recent purchases at several gun stores in his area.
Compiling everything the agent in charge demanded, she dropped it all into a secure folder and zipped it back to the system, marking the task as done and moving on to the next.
She might have been gone a long time, but she was back in her element.
Time flew past. Her fingers rattled over the keyboard, picking up speed as the ball in her chest expanded.Thiswas what she understood,thiswas where she belonged. Holed up in a dark, quiet space where she wasn’t seen or heard, just doing the job like the good little worker bee she was.
Someone knocked on the door; she went still, silencing the clack of the keys.
After a few minutes, she resumed her frenzied attack on the task list, picking one that required more in-depth hacking. One worthy of her heartbreak, her entire focus.
The in-house IM system pinged.
ATTICUS: My office.
With a stroke of the keys, she dismissed the summons and continued. Her life wasn’t going to be a game to him, handing her off to his buddies because he thought transferring her like a pawn wasbestfor her. She wasn’t a fucking toy to be played with and cast aside when the newness wore off.
Another ping.
ATTICUS: That wasn’t a request, Sonic. In my office, now.
Olivia hesitated. Sonic was her office name, which by rights should mean he wanted to see her for business reasons, but call her suspicious, she was a hundred percent certain that her work wasn’t on the agenda.
Goddamn ambush.
Rather than replying, she dismissed the message again, and deciding to be a bad girl, disabled the IM system. Imagining her boss calling her all the names under the sun and marching down to her office to break the door and its shitty manual lock, she went one step further, hacking deeper into the company network to access the electronic locking devices that were only used in case of a breach of headquarters.
In case of such a breach, employees were required to go to the nearest office if they were in the cubicle section or conference rooms and hit the panic button. Every door was made of steel, with a wooden veneer to prevent employees feeling like they were working in a prison—and it was a successful con.
Once the electronic locks kicked in, only authorization codes could disable them.
She heard the snick, snick, snick as her door sealed, and immediately isolated the coding, shielding it from anyone trying to override it, then buried it where it would take days for someone to uncover.
There, now she could work in peace.
It took ten minutes before someone began hammering on the door, shouting her name.
Zeke.
The dam in her chest cracked, spilling a few tears before she shut her emotions down until she felt dead inside. Yanking open a drawer, she pulled out a pair of wireless earbuds and synced them to the new unit as she brought up the music program she’d used constantly before she left.
Shoving the buds into her ears, she selected one of her favorite playlists, and let Evanescence blast her hearing into oblivion. She took a moment to wipe her cheeks dry, to take a calming breath, before she plunged back into the job at hand.
Two hours later, as she was fighting through security protocols protecting some very shady data on the Italian mafia she needed, the IM system popped up again.
ANARCHY: Hey, sweetheart. Got a minute to chat?
SONIC: No.