I couldn’t share that information with anyone. Shay would be pissed. Sage always got upset and ran to our mother at the mere mention of our sister’s name. Sapphire was the one that always believed me when I said she was still alive out there somewhere, but the last time I’d gotten close she’d cheered me on every step of the way. When it hadn’t panned out, I feared my older sister was going to slip into a real depression.
I couldn’t do that to her again, so until I had something concrete, I wouldn’t discuss it with Sapphire again no matter how much she suspected I was still on the hunt.
So, I kept this to myself and shouldered the additional burden just like everything else in my life. I couldn’t let myself truly think about it or else I would be crushed under the weight of it all.
Every single night I meticulously searched following even the smallest crumb of a trail that could lead me to Sonnet, and finally last night, I’d struck gold.
It was a complete accident really, an unnamed firewall that appeared to be an easy block in the road. Most unobtrusive obstacles were simple to breech, but when I pressed forward, I found this one was different. Very different.
What looked like a simple setup was one of the most difficult hacks I’d ever seen. Curiosity alone had kept me going, but when I broke through a layer to discover a file titled Raglan my heart had nearly leapt from my chest.
It took everything in me not to scream out in frustration when someone kicked me out. I immediately tried to get back in, but everything had changed. I knew this had to be a group of professionals I was dealing with. The excitement of that made the day drag by. I couldn’t wait to get back to my laptop. I had to know what was in that Raglan file and there was nothing that was going to stop me now.
Tarron
Chapter 3
My alarm went off and I reached over to smack it. Nothing happened.
Groggily I opened one eye and saw it was two in the morning.
I groaned. Had I dreamed it?
The noise sounded again. This time I was just coherent enough to understand it was my phone, not my alarm clock.
I picked it up and saw an alert. There was a breech to the firewall.
I bolted upright, fully awake now. I nearly fell out of bed getting tangled in the sheets. This was the third time this week.
Exhausted, I pulled myself up from the floor where I’d fallen and grabbed my briefcase. Shoving my feet into slippers, I ran from my room and down the hall to the elevator.
I’d been contemplating getting a house in town something small and near Nonna. If this continued, I’d be scrapping that plan for sure. There was nothing I could have done from home without leaving a hole in the firewall which could leave it even more vulnerable. It was too big of a risk.
Of course, Archie lived on site as well and would always be able to hold the fort down until I could arrive. I hated the thought of that though.
The elevator felt like it was running in slow motion. I couldn’t get down to the top-secret basement and Westin Force headquarters fast enough.
As soon as the doors opened, I took off running again stopping only long enough to swipe my card and get past security.
“Talk to me Archie, what’s he doing now?” I called out, but the place was dark.
I looked around in confusion momentarily wondering if I had dreamed the alert. I checked my phone again and it was definitely there.
I headed straight for the datacenter. It was dark, but the lights were motion detected so each segment lit up as I walked. I could have made it even without the lights. That was one benefit of being a fox shifter.
The wolves could all see well in the dark, but foxes had almost catlike eyes and my fox and I were in perfect synch, so the second I hit the dark, I channeled his night vision. Actually, the overhead motion censored lights were more annoying than anything. They blinded me as I walked.
I went to the small desk in the corner that I had setup just for this purpose and plugged my laptop directly into the system. I was inside our firewall within seconds.
My fingers flew over the keys as I punched in my access codes and started my search.
“Where are you, you sonofabitch?”
I knew it had to be the same hacker I’d been battling for much of the last week. He was getting on my every last nerve. I could appreciate that he was good, but I knew I was better.
This time instead of immediately kicking him out, I started a reverse trace. He had setup several blockades of his own, but it was nothing I couldn’t get past.
“Come on. Come on.” I knew time was not on my side. I had to act quickly. “There you are.” I quickly activated the command I’d worked on programming the last two days. It launched a nearly undetectable trojan that would not only give me access to his system, but also contained a tracker. I was going to find this piece of shit once and for all.”
Silas had laughed and told me I was being obsessive. Archie and I had worked countless hours securing Westin Force systems with the highest most current technology possible and then we’d personally coded in several additional layers.
Sure, there had been breech attempts before. Taylor had even taken a few swipes at us before she joined Bravo company. I often used her to test any new programs we implemented. Even I could admit she was good, really good, that’s why we had hired her, but even she hadn’t gotten through the way this asshole had managed.
“What are you looking for?” I asked aloud.
I watched for a minute to see what he was up to. A highly classified file simply titled Raglans was opened. That couldn’t be good. I’d been watching the Raglan for the better part of the last year since an unexpected mission had landed me the chance to plant a trojan on their servers.
I could feel the color drain from my cheeks. Had they found it?
After all this time I couldn’t imagine how or why now, but if this was our biggest enemy, I had to shut this down even faster than I thought.
I pounded my keyboard as I punched in a command to shut him out. He countered and I blocked him again, and then again.
“Jesus, this guy is relentless.”
Archie came scrambling in.
“Is it him again?”
“It has to be. No one else is this good.”
“Did you get the bug in place.”
“Yup. He’s after the Raglan file.”
“Raglans?”
“It’s possible.”
“What has he found?”
“Just the folder. I’m manually blocking his attempts. I need the tracker to complete before I shut him out entirely.”
“How much longer?”
“Could be up to ten minutes.”
“Okay, I’m going to setup and help you. Maybe it’ll confuse him having two of us attacking back,” he said.
“Yeah, good idea.”
Archie and I didn’t always see eye-to-eye, but when it came to Westin Force security breaches, we were always on the same page.
“I see him,” he confirmed.
Together we worked in silence as we threw up ridiculous barricades and distractions from multiple angles. I had no doubt that this hacker was frustrated as hell and that gave me great pleasure.
I grinned just imagining the look on his face as he tried to figure out just what was happening. Unfortunately, Archie and I couldn’t sit here day and night every day keeping our data safe. Luckily, it was rare that anyone got through even our first layer of security.