by Brooks, Tori
Closing the door behind Jess, Dev sat on the edge of his bed. Jess leaned against his desk across from him with an attentive look on his face.
“What’s on your mind?” Jess asked.
“Bryan.”
Jess paused. “Okay. What about him?”
“Lin said Bren was frustrated.”
“So you’re warning me?” Jess asked. Dev noticed Jess crossed his legs when he mentioned Bren. He wondered if Jess knew he did that.
“No. Well, I think you might want to know. If she’s frustrated, maybe . . . I don’t think she’d lash out at us.”
“Yeah,” Jess said, but he sounded doubtful.
“You don’t get to be mad at Bren. You earned it when she smacked you.” Dev glared at Jess.
“I didn’t earn that. The only people who get to touch my junk is the girl I’m seeing and me.”
Dev stared at him and smiled. Jess blushed slightly and shook his head. “In the shower. To wash, you jerk.”
“I knew what you meant. I didn’t ask you in here to discuss you manhandling yourself. Lin said Bren’s frustrated because she hasn’t gotten pregnant yet. Did you know Bryan was trying to have a baby?”
Jess crinkled his brow and shook his head. Then he smoothed his expression and shrugged. “They’ve been together long enough, and married. I suppose it isn’t a surprise.”
“But that’ll change everything,” Dev protested. “I mean I get it that it’s not our business, but it really will change Bryan and . . . well, everything.”
“Chill, Dev. Yeah, it’ll be weird, but it was bound to happen. And I hate to tell you this but someday, in the not too distant future, you and Kenny are bound to get married too. When you do, the little women will want miniature versions of you. It’s the natural order of things.
“And don’t worry about Bryan having less time to deal with your crises. I’ve known him a long time, longer than you, and I’ve seen the way he holds us all together. He’ll make time for your emergencies and to play the referee.”
Dev nodded. Jess managed to pinpoint the problem Dev wouldn’t admit to himself: that Bryan wouldn’t have time for him anymore. Although Dev didn’t care for the picture Jess painted. His crises? His emergencies? No, he just turned to Bryan for advice. He wasn’t going to argue the point with Jess right now, however.
“Dev, seriously, don’t worry about it,” Jess continued. He sounded sincere. “We’re in this together and we’ll deal with it as it comes.”
“I know. It’s just . . . it feels weird. Bryan eloped, we weren’t there when he married Bren. Now they’re trying to have a baby and he didn’t mention it.”
“Because it takes a while sometimes. Not just the nine months to cook, getting there in the first place can be wham, bang, oops, it’s done, or it can take forever. From what you said about Bren being frustrated, I’ll guess they’re in the latter category.”
“Shouldn’t be long now then,” Dev said. He just wished Bryan would have mentioned it. Prepared them.
“Not necessarily. I don’t know a lot about it because I’m obviously trying hard to avoid this scenario. I get the impression it’s common for couples not to advertise they’re trying. If everyone knows then they’ll expect results and it adds pressure. Pressure is exactly what Bryan doesn’t need right now.”
“All right.” Dev nodded.
“Out of curiosity, why me?” Jess asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You have a problem you can’t go to Bryan with, I get that. But why choose me? Kenny reads all the psych books. Not that I’m not flattered, but you know . . . Kenny.”
Dev shook his head. “Flynn makes me see a shrink in Boston already. Psychoanalysis is what I don’t need. No offense to Kenny.”
Jess nodded. “Makes sense I suppose. Talk to the shrink about it anyway.”
“Are you going to tell Kenny?” Dev asked.
Grinning, Jess shook his head. “Nah, it’ll drive him nuts if I don’t.”
Returning the grin, Dev answered. “I hesitate to point it out, but it’ll drive him nuts if you tell him what I wanted to talk about, but not why I chose you.”
Jess considered this. “I’ll go with plan A, then let him wear me down to plan B then. Let’s see if we can get him committed by spring break.”
“Deal.”
Chapter Eleven
The holidays ended and the next semester seemed easier. Dev was getting the hang of balancing his school, music, and modeling responsibilities. He devoted as much time to Lindsay as he could, trying to show her what she meant to him. He even had flowers delivered to her at school for Valentine’s Day in an attempt to show her friends their relationship was serious. Concerned that might backfire, Dev had more sent to her house. He also sent her a pink diamond heart necklace that Jess huffed cost entirely too much. Their brief bonding over Bryan’s attempt to have a baby was limited, Jess was still as pig-headed as ever when it came to Lindsay.
When the single he recorded with Erika Atlas hit the top ten and he agreed to make a video of the duet, Dev sent Lindsay pink diamond earrings to make it up to her. Then he failed to mention Erika flirted with him the entire time they filmed. Jess had a girlfriend that week and didn’t show for filming the video, damn him. Dev couldn’t decide if Erika was flirting with him because she hoped it would get back to Jess, or because she was as bad as George. Since Erika wrote the first single, Kenny wrote another for Dev and Erika to sing together.
Dev recognized a second single made sense, but he wasn’t happy with the decision and assumption he’d go along with it. He broke the news to Lindsay at the beach over spring break, then bought enough sea foam candy to build a castle on her coffee table. Dev had doubts his petite girlfriend could eat that much of the airy, chocolate-covered toffee. Seeing was believing, however, and Dev had to admit Lindsay never failed to amaze him.
Upon returning to school after break, Dev received another surprise and he really wasn’t sure how he felt about it. The study group was over at his townhouse as usual, gathered around his dining room table, everyone at their computer working hard and helping each other as needed. A massive project in one class loomed over them and they were working late even though it was a weeknight. Empty cola cans sat in the middle of the table and mugs with clever sayings held coffee as the group kicked up the effort to focus a notch.
Noah passed out to the side of his laptop and they all agreed to let him sleep for an hour before waking him. Krista genuinely gave in to the impulse to nap and stretched out on the sofa in the next room, falling asleep to the soft clicking of fingers on keys.
A single harsh beep sounded on Dev’s computer and he froze in shock. His fingers hovered over his keyboard for a moment before the meaning of the warning registered: someone crossed his computer’s security perimeter.
“What was that?” Kevin asked, leaning over to look at Dev’s computer from the left. Without a word, James did the same from the right. It wasn’t that Dev’s computer never made a sound before, he knew it was his reaction that got their attention.
Shaking his head, Dev didn’t waste time answering. He closed every program he had running with a single set of pre-programmed strokes, leaving only his security programs active. Another set of hot-keys opened another pair of programs, and Dev looked to see exactly what was going on.
“Nice graphics,” George whispered behind Dev. He jumped slightly, not having heard her get up from her normal place across the table.
His screen showed a graphic representation of the computer, with layers showing his firewalls and security features. He knew his friends would recognize the lines designating the firewalls for what they were, it was too standardized, but the other features . . . probably not, which was fine with him.
Dev didn’t actually consider the outer firewall to be a barrier really, just a tripwire. He had several tripwire programs, and the hacker trying to invade his computer was being moderately careful because he missed the first one. Although, h
e was about to trip the third . . . and the computer beeped again as he did.
“How far are you going to let him go?” Kevin asked.
“I want to know who it is,” Dev answered. He tapped a couple more keys and his screen flashed, leaving a thin white border around it confirming the resistive touchscreen was active. Dev rarely used it because it drew attention to his computer as being modified well beyond the norm for the model. Besides, people always assumed they could use their fingertip on the screen like most devices now. It wasn’t that type of touchscreen and Dev didn’t feel like explaining the difference or why he chose to install the one he did.
Using his fingernail as a stylus, Dev tapped a short gray line with a hook on the end of it and pulled it over to the red line working its way through his tripwires. The red line disappeared.
“Scheiße!” Dev said, throwing himself to the back of his chair.
“What?” Kevin asked.
Dev shook his head and closed the window with another series of taps on the screen. His fingers felt stiff on the keyboard when they returned, a sign of his failure to slip a line on the hacker who thought he could invade his computer. Did the invader know it was him? Or was it just someone picking on a random computer?
The unknown hacker was being careful. Very careful. He tripped the second and third alarms, but missed the first. A novice would have hit the first. And he recognized when he was caught and bugged out. Whoever it was knew what he was doing, it wasn’t his first stroll in cyberspace. So was he after him – Devin Giles, bassist for A Thousand Words – or was it someone challenging him as Pugmire the Purple, Web Wizard?
There was little Dev could do at the moment if someone was challenging him professionally, except . . . He turned around and looked at George, raising an eyebrow in question. An almost imperceptible shake of her head told him what he needed to know: that she wasn’t aware of any of them being targeted. Fine, so whoever it was must be after him as a fan.
Returning his attention to his computer, he brought up another window showing a map of sorts. A pink square was blinking.
“Seriously?” Dev asked the unknown assailant in frustration. He tapped the square on the screen and it zoomed in, showing a system of firewalls and barriers much like the one he had on his own computer.
The red line indicator showing the invasion had bypassed three of Dev’s tripwires and had set the computer running a protection program Dev set up. It was experimental and Dev was curious as to how well it was going to work. Also how mad Lindsay was going to be when she tried to log into her computer in the morning and find every file seemingly corrupted. In truth, they were only encrypted, but they wouldn’t look like it and trying to run the files through any of the usual routines to recover lost data really would destroy them.
“I’m going to be up all night fixing this,” Dev sighed. He glared at the red line and tried the hook program again. This time he was able to grab the intruder as he fled.
Dev smiled, but his victory was short lived. The program brought up a global map and he watched as the line bounced around a little before disappearing in Malaysia.
“That’s not where he is,” James said.
“No. He just killed the connection. Probably physically pulled the plug on the Internet or power all together. I wonder how close I got,” Dev mused.
“Fan?” George asked. He heard the concern in her voice the others might not: musical fan?
“That’s what I was originally wondering,” Dev said. “This isn’t random. Someone targeted me. They went straight from my computer to Lin’s. Not many people even know about Lin. Professionally I’ve never mentioned her, although I have been seen with her around Seattle. It’s possible the local fan base there know I have a girlfriend, maybe even who she is. Her friends know we’re dating. Mine do, obviously.”
“Seattle. That narrows down the group of people to filter through for who could be good enough, or bold enough, to do this,” James said.
“Not enough.” Dev would ask Becky about it in the morning, just in case. “Well, I better fix Lin’s computer before she wakes up or I’ll hear about it.”
“If she’s so smart, let her do it,” George said, returning to her chair.
Dev shook his head. “She doesn’t have the encryption keys. It takes so little time to make a hard drive look like it’s been corrupted by a virus and so much time to set everything straight again. The worst part is Lin would recognize the virus I used as an inspiration, and she’d be insulted.”
“Inhabits the red light district of the Internet?” Kevin asked, mild amusement clearly evident in his voice.
“That’s one way of putting it.” Dev set to work running the programs needed to fix Lindsay’s computer, resetting the tripwires, and adding new alarms to both to warn him earlier. It didn’t look like anyone else’s was breached, at least not yet, but Dev doubted that would last.
Then he brought up his original windows and got back to work just as George nudged Noah awake.
○ ○ ○
Over the next few days, Dev was so distracted he started skipping classes. His friends covered for him, James went so far as to do some of the busy work that Dev didn’t have time for. While Dev should have been in class or asleep, the unknown hacker attacked Cassie’s computer, both of Alec’s computers, Kenny’s computer, Bryan’s computer, and Jess’s.
Dev considered letting him into Jess’s just to teach both the arrogant lead singer and the hacker a lesson. Jess never listened to Dev about updating his security programs and the hacker was only going to get useless crap anyway. The most important information on Jess’s computer were lyrics in his email. But there were unreleased lyrics and music in Jess’s email, and Kenny would be upset, so Dev blocked the attack.
Clearly getting desperate, the hacker went after Sophie, which Dev found amusing; and Tiffany, like he was going to learn anything from Cassie’s best friend; and Brenda, as if Bryan’s wife had anything besides recipes on her computer. Maybe baby information since she seemed to want one so badly, but Dev doubted there was anything important to anyone but Brenda on there.
He intentionally left Flynn’s computer almost wide open. The hacker didn’t go near it and Dev couldn’t figure out why. He was monitoring it, so he knew his opponent wasn’t taking the bait. In frustration, he called Lindsay.
“Hey, hacker-boy. How goes your game of cyber-chess?” Lindsay asked, answering the phone.
“Peachy. Is Becky around? I sent her a text.”
“Do not tell me you called me to talk to my sister. You will get in so much trouble.”
Dev laughed. “No. Not quite that stupid. I need to pick your brains and it’s easier if you’re both there.”
“Fine. Hold on.” Dev waited a moment and finally Lindsay came back on the line. “You’re on live with the Caffey sisters. How can we be of service, oh hot one?”
“I’m glad this isn’t a video chat. Listen, you both know about this hacker I’m playing with, right?”
“Bring me up to speed. Who’s he hit so far?” Becky asked.
“Long story short? Everyone except Flynn,” Dev answered. “I need to know why.”
“It’s a trap,” Becky answered.
“It is,” Dev said. “Well, actually, no it isn’t. It leads to one.”
“Maybe he just knows you and knows not to bother,” Lindsay said. “If he wants more information on you, why go to Flynn? You two obviously don’t get along.”
“He tried Tiff’s computer, she’s my sister’s best friend. And Sophie, she’s a kid. And Bren. Long shots, all of them.”
“Not really. Tiff’s practically like a second big sister. Sophie is your sister and you call her regularly. Since you joined the band, you saw Bren regularly too. She was like your first band groupie. Anyone local could know all of that,” Lindsay said.
“If he wants information on Dev, and he’s local, he’d also know that Flynn was Dev’s guardian briefly. Before that he was the band’s mentor, w
hich everyone knows,” Becky said. “There could be pictures, videos, and notes from the early days of the band on there.”
“There was,” Dev agreed.
“Was?” Becky asked. He caught the edge of a warning in her voice.
“I backed it up and moved it somewhere more secure. After it’s all said and done, I’ll put it back and protect Flynn’s computer. Ideally, he’ll never even know. I just didn’t want it leaking, some of that is sort of embarrassing.”
“I want to see,” Lindsay demanded.
“Fine. I’ll show you sometime. First, how do I tempt this idiot into snooping on Flynn’s computer?”
“Maybe he’s not looking there because it’s wide-open, Dev,” Becky said.
Dev considered that, he’d blocked the hacker everywhere else after tripping the first alarm, at worst the third. His opponent hadn’t even tried Flynn’s computer. “No. He doesn’t know it’s open. He hasn’t checked.”
“How do you even know it’s a man?” Lindsay asked.
“Statistics,” Becky answered her sister. “We don’t, but we’re going to use the male pronouns until something implies we’re dealing with a woman. Anyway, Dev, I’d make Flynn’s computer at least look like you care a little.”
“I wouldn’t,” Lindsay argued. “You don’t. You wouldn’t. Don’t leave it completely open, obviously. Flynn’s spent enough time with you that he wouldn’t run a computer without decent security, but don’t have anything on there that isn’t widely available. The good stuff though. Flynn’s not cheap. The hacker wouldn’t expect anything less, he’d get suspicious.”
“Won’t he get suspicious that he’s tried all these other targets and Dev’s been on him like glue and when he tiptoes into Flynn’s computer – nothing?” Becky asked. “I would.”
“Because you know it’s a trap. Dev doesn’t like Flynn. He wouldn’t care if the hacker hits Flynn’s computer. If I were in Dev’s place, I’d be cheering the hacker on and saying, sure, have fun with him. It’s like offering a sacrifice to the volcano god.”
