Black Dawn

by Cristin Harber

  Well, this was her work, and the deep, dark hacker underground wasn’t a security-clearance type of job. Without even asking, she knew there was no way Matt would allow her in this world. Her world. Where she was literally the best of the best.

  But seriously, when did she have to ask to have a job? To do what she’d done for years? Simple answer—the second he’d slipped a rock on her ring finger.

  Phiber tried again with his dance moves and a smile that highlighted a scar above his lip. “If not a drink, then just want to party?”

  She held up her left hand and wiggled her fingers to highlight the engagement ring. “Thanks, but I’m good, Phiber.”

  The guy smiled, probably because she knew his handle. “Tonight’s really a rager.”

  Apparently her subtle “no thanks” hadn’t indicated that she wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Though truth was, she could use a chat. Not that she was lonely. She had friends. Maybe. Just online now, it seemed. She was falling further away from the girls she’d once been close to. All except for her foster sister, but even Meredith hadn’t seen Lexi in weeks.

  “Yeah.” She bit her lip and nodded at Phiber instead of focusing on her troubles. “It’s crazy tonight.”

  “You hear SilverChaos did all this?” Phiber slugged back his drink. “Mad props to that guy.”

  She stepped back. “Yeah.”

  “Think he’s here?” He laughed. “Could be me. Could be you.”

  “Except you’re Phiber.”

  He shrugged. “But who are you?”

  She needed an exit now. There was no way the guy would pin the elite handle on her, but why risk it? She clapped her hand on his back, patting him like a dude. “See ya, buddy.”

  Lexi tugged on her leather string bracelet, fidgeting, and moved away. She felt Phiber’s eyes still on her, and even though he couldn’t know she was Silver, she had the heebie-jeebies. She melted through the crowd, chatting with others who didn’t creep her out. One weird guy wouldn’t ruin her fun as she hid from home, avoiding her jerk of a fiancé. Though he was so much more than that lately. Her fingers brushed her tender eye.

  Stop thinking about him. Shaking her head clear, she tried to focus on the music, dancing to the beat from the sidelines of the makeshift floor, but her heart wasn’t in it. Why did she lie to herself? It wasn’t Matt’s attitude anymore, nor was his drinking just a random occurrence since losing another job. Matt had crossed the line. More than once. A push. A slap. All came with an apology and excuse. He shouldn’t have been drinking. He’d never do it again. She made it happen, and God, she knew better.

  But it happened more and more often. Not every day. Not even every week. That would be, like, abuse. This was more like… abuse. Shit. She couldn’t even admit it out loud, couldn’t even tell Meredith. Nope, like a little wimp—like nothing who she was—Lexi could only hmm and hum when anyone asked questions. All she did was bury her face in her computer. Well, that wasn’t entirely true—she’d also rescued Bacon Byte, her cute, slightly morbidly obese pug. But even Bacon’s sweet sneezes and snores didn’t turn Matt into a civilized human being.

  Who threatened to hurt a dog? Whether it was off-handed jokes about letting the poor thing gorge herself or jumping at Bacon to scare her, Matt made Lexi’s heart race. Awful people were mean to puppies. Now when she went out of town for her “web security” meetings, she asked Meredith to puppy-sit. So much for Operation Melt-Matt’s-Blackened-Heart.

  How did she have a man’s ring on her finger when she didn’t trust him alone with her dog?

  “Easy,” she murmured to herself.

  She was the queen of abandonment issues. Bouncing from one foster home to the next had really done her in, which was why she showed up to these absurd competitions and kept next to no winnings, donating as much as she could afford. If she could make one little girl’s world happy with stupid money, then yeah, she didn’t need to bring home major dough. But all of that charity still didn’t make her comfortable with the idea of walking away from the only man who claimed he’d never leave her or let her go. Ever.

  Lexi wandered through the crowd. A few high fives and a couple hellos later, she was posted in another corner, eyes peeled for Shadow. Her broker dealt with the upper echelon of the hacker world. As a rogue independent contractor, he knew every important corporation and government contact interested in buying her high-tech projects: patches, programs, codes, and exploits. Over the years, he’d made himself her father figure as well as her business adviser.

  Lose the douche. Those were Shadow’s only words of wisdom when she mentioned the engagement.

  As if it were that simple. Shadow had been by her side since she was seventeen. Last year, for their ten-year working relationship anniversary, he took her to Paris, where they disabled the security and paid off the guards for a private tour of the Louvre. Shadow had a lot of friends in dark places.

  “Silver.” His familiar voice caught her from behind.

  “Hey.” She smiled then watched him nod hello as he handed her a fresh drink, switching out the one in her hand. “Good times, right?”

  “Not bad. How’s life?” He always asked the same question, recently with undertones about concern over the wedding she hadn’t started to plan yet.

  For how close she was to Shadow, it was peculiar that he hadn’t met Matt—that she knew about. Actually, now that she thought about it, given how confident his dislike of her fiancé was, Lexi was sure that Shadow had met Matt.

  “Same as it always is.” She stared at her new cup.

  Carefully, he touched her chin, turning her face, and pushed away one messy curtain of platinum hair. There was a fading bruise on her eye that she’d caked makeup over. In the dark strobe lights, it’d be hard to see, especially given the smoky smudges of black and gray she’d painted over it, but nothing ever got past Shadow. He prided himself on it. Steal from him, he’d steal back. Lie to him, he’d force the words back in your mouth. Ignore the truth—even if it was a black eye that was impossible to avoid—he’d make sure that it was most certainly not ignored.

  “Care to explain?” he asked simply.

  “No.” She toyed with the leather strings on her wrist.

  Shadow would read into that and would be right. Nothing had changed, at least not for the better.

  The lines around his eyes tightened. “You ready for Monarch?”

  “Absolutely.” The website hack that exploited the social media site was her best work to date. Flawless maybe, definitely untraceable. Program had been absurdly complicated to put together, but it was a beautiful work of code.

  Monarch’s social media site had a security hole. Lexi had mapped out and rewritten the code to access and/or fix that hole. It would go to auction if the company didn’t want to purchase the program. Shadow had made the offer privately, but they’d declined, as expected.

  That was how those things worked. When Shadow put the code—which she generally just referred to by the site’s name, Monarch—on the auction block, it would likely sell in a hotly bid contest. Her cyber creation would give its new owner access to all of the data the social media site housed: names, ages, credit cards, family, locations, and more.

  Everywhere she went, Lexi wondered how many people around her plugged their information in Monarch. It was just as popular as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but offered a slightly more niche focus for military families. Every time she caught a glance of someone in the real world using Monarch, she wanted to tell them not to post that picture, not to notify the world of where their significant others were stationed, details on their kids, or when they left on vacations. Just stop with the oversharing.

  She almost wished Monarch bought the program just to be safe. But even had she given it to them, they might not have touched it. So typical of a mega-corporation. Most of those companies didn’t buy the fixes to their website problem on the zero day market. It was cheaper to let a malicious, black-hat hacker steal consumer data than it was t
o fix mistakes. A public apology and a year’s worth of credit monitoring, and they were out of trouble in the public eye.

  Lexi wasn’t malicious, but she did earn a living in that shadowy area between right and wrong. Exploit sales were huge business. Governments bought various hacker programs like they were equipping an army—because they were. She was a manufacturer of cyber bullets. Every country with an intelligence agency bought them to spy on everyone. Their own people. Foreigners. Governments. Allies. Enemies. Whoever.

  The auctions were as legal as buying a can of mace, and Lexi happened to be really good at creating products for Shadow to sell.

  He bent to her ear to fight off the loud music. “I put out some whispers. Everyone’s curious. Uncle Sam is salivating. They want Monarch in a bad way.”

  No surprise. That was almost the clichéd response. Even though she’d known it was a good patch, hearing potential bidders respond was a boost to her confidence. And here Matt thought she played on her computer for shits and giggles. Nope. She was aiding in cyber spy craft. Too bad sometimes she wasn’t strong enough to protect herself.

  She sighed, fidgeting with the long, skinny, metal-and-leather necklaces draped over her chest. “I have a couple more weeks of work. But yeah, let’s start looking at the calendar for Monarch’s auction.” She released the jewelry and took a sip of her drink, noting that Shadow had had the bartender go heavy on the ginger ale in her bourbon soda mix.

  “I’ll want you there in person, Silver.”

  She nodded. She loved any excuse to get out of the house, but he would expect her to sit on a hard chair all day, bored, just in case there were questions. “Sure.”

  “Sure? How about a hell yeah. A sale this big? It’ll move fast, lots of intel flying. It’ll be exciting.”

  Placating him, she nodded. “I love in-person, but I love even more that you love handling the business side.”

  Shadow stepped even closer and dropped his chin to give her a fatherly stare. “I’m telling you, this one will be off the charts.”

  “Off the chart. Got it.” She nodded, giving his stare right back. “I said I’d be there.”

  “But you’re not appreciating it, Silver. Fast and furious. Split-second decisions, immediate approval and counters. Exciting stuff.”

  Lexi groaned. “Got it. Super exciting. Where are you thinking?”

  “Probably DC this time.”

  “So close to home.” She chewed the inside of her mouth, wishing she had another excuse to get away. “Couldn’t we do Maui? I heard there are tons of tourists to steal cell signals from.”

  He smirked. “Looking for a reason to get out of the house?”

  Her stomach jumped as he called her out. “No.”

  “You and Bacon could always come stay with me for a while.”

  “Where’s home these days? Canada?” She and Bacon Byte didn’t handle the cold well in Virginia, even with all of Bacon’s padding. “Think we’ll pass.”

  “That little roll of pudge would keep you warm. I’ll throw in a couple T-bones, and the pooch would be sitting pretty.”

  She tried to hide her grin in her drink. “Aw, leave Bacon alone.”

  “Alright.” His face sobered. “If you want to talk….” He shook his head as though he couldn’t believe this conversation was still required. “I get where your head is.”

  The base dropped on a new beat, and Lexi embraced the living, breathing energy that pulsed around her. “Ha. You have no idea where my head is, Shadow.”

  “I know where you’re from. I know you. But—”

  “Enough.” The strobe spun, and she tried to let a streaming jet of red lights blind her. A headache from that would be preferable to making eye contact with Shadow. “Please don’t give me the I’m-worried-about-you conversation.”

  “I am.” His voice rose over the beat then dropped along with the bass. “And I’m also worried about this sale.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s going to be epic. Third-world dictators and freakin’ who knows who else will want it. It’s getting a lot of attention.”

  “They always do.”

  He sipped his drink slowly and sighed. “Not like Monarch.”

  “So… what do we do differently?” Shadow was at her level: elite. There were very few salesmen out there like him, so she trusted his suggestions.

  “I might see if we can get eyes and ears on the deal, just as an added layer of security. Someone to watch all the modes of communication for anything sketch.”

  “Have anyone in mind?” she asked. She could think of a few contacts he’d use. A couple of them were in the room, and she’d heard one of them once claim SilverChaos’s accomplishments. So not out of ego but more annoyance, she wanted to be part of the decision-making process.

  Shadow tilted his head. “Maybe your partner-in-crime?”

  Wait… no. Shadow couldn’t mean…? “I don’t know if we’re thinking about the same guy.”

  BlackDawn wasn’t even on her short list, though he was actually more talented than anyone she had initially thought about. Combined. The request seemed a little novice to ask of him, but who else would be considered her partner-in-crime?

  She’d never met him in person but chatted with him almost every week. Years ago, they’d formed an alliance because sometimes hacks needed more than one set of hands. Sometimes code needed another mind mulling it over. BlackDawn was one of the very few hackers who could hold their own at the highest echelons. But she and he were also slightly competitive.

  He wasn’t one for these parties, never came to the hacker events—not that people knew who she was when she showed. So maybe he was in the room. Her eyes skimmed the crowd.

  “Silver?” Shadow asked. “Scowling at a party?”

  “Just thinking…”

  His eyes narrowed. “About?”

  “No. Not him.”

  “Have a reason?” he asked, leaning in for whatever she would divulge.

  Which wouldn’t be much. Black was a talented hacker somewhere in the world—US-based, she presumed, because they’d worked on what she could only assume were American military cyber offenses. That was his specialty. But still, he was her competition, and while they might play allies in the field—occasionally butting heads in heated discussions over who was right and wrong on things that had no right and wrong—business was a whole other world. She didn’t want him helping when it came to securing her sales.

  Lexi shook her head, wrapping the long string of necklaces around her fingers again. “Not particularly.”

  Shadow chuckled as if he could read her mind. “Alright, Silver, get out there and enjoy your party.”

  With a nod, he melted into the night, leaving her to survey the scene. The place rocked out—lights bouncing, bass dropping, and bodies dancing and drinking. Phreaks, gamers, hackers, and groupies. Matt would hate it. The people—the geeks, the nerds—he’d blame for ruining his night out. Didn’t he see she was one of them? Didn’t he see anything about her? She looked at her engagement ring. It wasn’t even a style that she ever would have chosen. But she wasn’t the girl who pined over the perfect ring or the perfect dress. She wanted a perfect love who held her tight, promised security, cherished her, appreciated who she wanted to be more than who he could put on display.

  Shifting her gaze from the ring to her drink, she wondered if maybe there was more alcohol in that glass than she realized. Growing up the way she had, she knew just how lucky she was to have a man who’d promised to never ever leave… right?

  Still, surrounded by hundreds of people who didn’t know her given name, she was more comfortable there than at home. They accepted her. Respected what she did. They didn’t hurt her.

  Not that most times she’d even admit that to herself.

  ***

  Phiber kept his eyes on the waif of a woman. She was blond, confident, and watched the crowd of dancing bodies under the makeshift strobe lights as if they were her people. His gut said they were
—she was in the know, dropping his handle and chatting with the likes of Shadow, who was almost infamous for the amount of deals he’d brokered and connections he had.

  After weeks of crawling into every dark corner, trying to pin down SilverChaos through all of the hacks attributed to that handle, Phiber had wormed his way into enough intel that said the woman who’d declined his drink offer was Silver. How about that? Silver was a woman. Not that he was sexist. He didn’t care who Silver actually was as long as the bank transfers from his mysterious Taskmaster continued to arrive, along with the codex message for his new tasks.

  Each request from the unknown sender had grown in difficulty, almost as though the first ones were tests. As he completed each challenge, Phiber became more interested in what the end goal was. Though by now, he had a guess. Whoever had contracted him wanted the Monarch exploit. They wanted to worm into Monarch’s website and siphon data about its users. Their intent had malicious undertones, and their means were obviously sketchy. No way was his employer legit—otherwise they would just bid in the upcoming auction. SilverChaos was one of those hack snobs who cared who bought their—her—product. She wanted good people, which wasn’t Phiber or Taskmaster.

  At this point, he guessed Taskmaster was positioning him to steal Monarch’s zero day patch, either online or in person. Lifting a laptop or hacking her system? Both would be simple. He was elite enough, even if his peers hadn’t yet given his handle that designation. The most concerning thing would be if she kept her creation in pieces until the auction was complete.

  He watched Silver continue her conversation with Shadow. That guy had some secrets and a vat of industry knowledge.

  Rubbing his hands together, Phiber itched for the opportunity to find all the parts of Silver’s program, in both hard copy and hidden in the crevices of the cyber world. A physical file extraction wouldn’t be problem; breaking and entering was almost a hobby for him, as his rap sheet showed.

  He pulled out his phone and tapped out a quick message. Silver identified. Send bank transfer and next job.