by Ravenna Tate
To research this, she decided to spend one morning surfing the same types of message boards that Atticus’s hacker teams used to look for clues and names. She wanted to read the comments of gadget enthusiasts, but she needed sites that went back several years, or ones where people liked to talk about gadgets that were once used on the surface.
The members of his hacker team gave her a list of sites to try, so she started there. They also gave her a list of top usernames they were looking for, in case she came across any of them in her searches.
Emma hadn’t done more than give the list of usernames a quick glance before returning to her own work. While she appreciated the need to find that last hacker, Atticus already paid his team to do that. She needed to focus on her project first.
Most of the sites the hacker team had given her hadn’t been around long enough to contain any discussion of what she was looking for, but she did find references on a few of them to the kind of features she was thinking of putting in the design.
She finally found a site on her own that had been around for over twenty years, and where there was even a sub-forum dedicated to devices such as GPS systems. After spending a couple of hours poring over threads that didn’t give her what she needed, she stumbled on a small one that proved to be what she was looking for.
Emma made notes, intending to put them into a graph to determine the best way to go about designing the features she had in mind. She worked without really thinking beyond collecting responses, when a username popped out at her. She’d seen that name before. She had tracked InkStain, AKA Shawn Castle, multiple times in her former job for the police in NorthEast.
Shawn had been arrested for cyber crimes in that city more times than Emma could count, but somehow he’d always either been acquitted, or the DA hadn’t been able to prosecute for one reason or another. It was rumored the officers in one of the NorthEast district stations had named an interrogation room after him because he’d been in it so often. He used the moniker InkStain because he was literally covered in tattoos from his face to his toes, front and back.
But where had she seen his username recently? She knew she had, which was why seeing it again had pulled her out of her work. Was it on this site? He had only posted a few times in this particular thread.
Emma did a search for his username, but it didn’t come up on this site except where she had noted it. That must have been where she’d seen it today, but the question nagged at her because she knew she’d seen it somewhere else.
She leaned back in her chair and stretched, then glanced at the items on her desk, including the lists the hacker team had given her. The lists… She stared at the one with the usernames on it while the hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
“No fucking way,” she whispered.
Emma picked up the list with shaking fingers. InkStain was on it, right at the top. She’d glanced right over it earlier, and it hadn’t even clicked. “It can’t be…” What if she hadn’t seen his name on this site? She’d have completely missed this. She was so damn focused on her own work that she had nearly passed this right over.
She picked up the phone, intending to call Atticus, but knew he couldn’t be disturbed except in an emergency. And while this could easily be classified as one, she first wanted to be absolutely certain, so instead she called one of the hacker team members.
“InkStain is one of the hacker names you’re trying to find, correct? I mean you’re trying to find his real name, right?”
“Yes. He’s the final hacker. Why?”
“I know his real name, and I know where he lives.”
****
There was pandemonium at Yates Industries for the remainder of the day. Atticus was called out of his meeting by the hacker team. When he heard how Emma had found InkStain’s real name and whereabouts, he picked her up and twirled her around until she became dizzy and begged him to put her down. Atticus had champagne brought in for the entire building, and the hacker team gathered in one of the large conference rooms on the top floor for an impromptu party.
Atticus brought his laptop into the room and hooked it up to the large monitor on the wall so everyone could see and hear his video call with the other Weathermen. Emma had never felt so proud in her life. If she had decided to simply wing it with her design, or use different features instead, she might never have learned that Shawn was the final hacker they’d been searching for. She might never have come across his username in her surfing.
She had asked Atticus why they hadn’t found it by searching criminal records, and he told her it had never occurred to them to do so. The other hackers didn’t have records, and had hidden their identities so well that they all assumed the fifth one had hidden his, too.
Once the call was connected, Atticus reiterated Emma’s question to the others, as well as his answer. “I feel foolish now that we never thought to search criminal records for any of these people.”
“We can search them now,” said Dominic. “I’m betting Shawn Castle isn’t the only one with a record.”
“He was right under our noses,” said Viggo.
“All of them were right under our noses,” said Barclay, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Not having a record doesn’t make their behavior any less criminal.”
“Agreed,” said Oliver. “But the important thing is that now we have all five identified.”
“What’s the next step?” asked Ace. “How do we want to proceed?”
Emma glanced around. Granted, they had found the fifth hacker and he wasn’t on Atticus’s team, but was this something they should be listening to? Was it something she should be privy to?
She caught Atticus’s eye and realized he was thinking the same thing. He addressed the Weathermen. “Hang on a moment. I’m going to let my team take the rest of the day off, and then we’ll decide where to go from here.”
No one on his team seemed upset by being asked to leave, and Emma started to follow them out the door but Atticus stopped her. “You need to stay.”
“Why?”
He gave her a look of incredulity. “Why? Because you found him, Emma. Without you, we wouldn’t be here right now.”
She leaned close, even though they were far enough away from the laptop that it was unlikely the other Weathermen could hear her. “You trust me that much?”
Atticus gave her an intense look filled with desire. “Emma, I would trust you with my life.”
The urge to kiss him was strong. She lowered her voice even further. “But do they?”
“They will if I tell them that I do.”
She gave him a quick kiss then walked back in front of the camera on the laptop and sat down next to Atticus. It wasn’t the first time she’d been on a call with all the Weathermen, but this was different because now she felt like part of their inner circle. Before, her calls had been to talk about software and apps. This was a strategy meeting, and it wasn’t meant for others’ eyes or ears.
When Angela Davidson, Rissa Kerry, Valerie Garfield, Blair Adams, Harper Easton, and Liane Radcliffe joined the call, she realized these women weren’t simply married or engaged to one of the Weathermen. They were part of their respective teams, and integral members of this group of dedicated people determined to take back their planet.
She was in awe of everyone on this call as she listened to them plan their next move. She also learned more about what had really happened during the days that Barclay and Grayson had visited HCS headquarters in Central. Bonnie was more of a first class bitch than Emma had realized, and she hoped the Weathermen wouldn’t now have trouble from her.
Apparently they had the go-ahead from key personnel at HCS to do whatever they wanted with the hackers once they found them, on the condition that they let HCS know they had them. It sounded shaky to Emma, but the others on this call were ecstatic, so who was she to offer a dissenting opinion? They’d been in on this from the beginning. She had not.
They also discussed thirteen other usernames that had b
een intercepted on a snippet of conversation that Barclay and a team at HCS had both accidentally come across. They knew the real names of all but a few now, and as they talked about them, Emma realized those remaining usernames were also on the list Atticus’s hacker team had given her.
The Weathermen knew all thirteen had once worked for NSSL, and they had access to the information on the servers that the hackers would have had to know in order to do what they had done. The Weathermen also wanted to find these thirteen, but for now they made plans to move forward.
Their immediate plan was to work on a scheme designed to get all five in the same place. They agreed it might be awkward to do that for Shawn and Clyde Medici, who was HeadHonchoYDNNTST, because they didn’t work for one of the Weathermen like SmartGuy2102, TornadoTess, and SDCowboy did, but they were determined to come up with a plan.
Before the call ended, Angela asked where they were on reversing the magnetic fields, and then they discussed where Corbin and Harold were in their research. Emma was skeptical on the whole reversing magnetic fields theory, but she had to admire their willingness to think outside the box and try anything.
Even gathering the hackers together in one room and threatening them was no guarantee they’d give up a solution. And the absolute truth was that there might not be a solution. No one had been able to hack back into the program. The failsafes that had been built into it, and had been overridden once, were now impenetrable.
If someone—hacker or not—didn’t figure out a way to break back in and stop it, and if reversing the magnetic fields didn’t work, all the work, money, and effort the Weathermen had put into finding the hackers would be for nothing. They’d all die underground from lack of oxygen in less than three years.
Chapter Thirteen
That evening, after Emma and Atticus had eaten dinner and discussed the excitement of the day again, Emma wanted him so badly that she didn’t care to wait until they were in a more private place. She had grown used to his staff hovering and then discreetly disappearing when it was obvious she and Atticus were about to have sex, so she’d also grown more bold in her sexual adventures with Atticus.
This particular evening, she waited until they were finished with dessert, then rose and shut the door to the dining room. Atticus grinned as he watched her. She took off her sweater and bra, then pulled down her jeans, taking the panties with them, but she left on her short boots.
“Oh, I like that.”
His voice was filled with lust, and as usual, it sent shivers up and down her spine. He started to undo his own jeans but she stopped him.
“No. You just relax and let me do all the work.”
“Baby, do you have any idea how fucking sexy you look right now?”
“I love to hear you talk to me like that.”
“And I love it when you do things like this.”
She knelt in front of him and brushed her hands up his legs, smiling into his eyes the entire time. Then she buried her face in his crotch, her pussy growing wet as he groaned softly and grasped her hair.
He pushed her face closer. “Please don’t tease me, Emma.”
“I like to tease you.”
Atticus tugged on her hair, which never failed to excite her. She undid his jeans and took out his dick, but tortured him a bit more by licking up and down the length before she finally took it into her mouth.
“Oh, God!” Atticus gave her hair another hard tug, then held onto her head with both hands as he inched more of his cock inside her mouth. She didn’t mind. She loved doing this to him so much because she was always rewarded afterward with the most powerful orgasms he could give her. Not only that, but she loved to please him in this way. She loved him, but he didn’t know that. Not yet. She was still too afraid of his reaction to say the words.
“I’m going to come, baby.”
She braced herself, then tried to swallow all his cum but some dribbled onto her chin. When he finished, he shook his head slightly then helped her stand. Placing one hand on each shoulder, he gazed into her eyes with what Emma swore was love. She almost let the words spill out, but fear held her back.
“That was amazing. Thank you so much.”
She smiled in return because she knew if she spoke right now, she’d tell him how she felt.
“Your turn, my love.” He kissed her, then took her hand and led her from the room. She was still naked except for her boots. They’d left her clothes on the floor in the dining room, and Atticus hadn’t tucked his dick back into his pants. He seemed completely unaffected by this as he crossed the apartment to the library.
He closed the door behind them and grinned at her in a way that made her pussy even wetter than it already was. She’d only been in here a few times, but loved the atmosphere. Old, dusty, and very quiet.
“We haven’t been in here often enough.” He pushed her down on the leather sofa, then knelt between her legs and licked her pussy and clit until she was certain she’d go out of her mind. He pushed two fingers into her wetness, moving them in and out at precisely the correct speed and rhythm until she came, screaming his name.
She clutched at his hair, riding the waves as he kept it up long after the contractions finished. He was determined to force another orgasm out of her, and she could do nothing but give over to it.
When it happened, all she had left were whimpers and soft moans. She lay there, unable to move or think. Atticus gently crawled on top of her and gathered her in his arms. “Emma, you’re an incredible lover.”
“So are you,” she whispered. Everything about you is incredible.
“We’d better go and retrieve your clothes.”
She smiled. “But I don’t want to move right now.”
“I suppose we could simply sleep here.”
“What a wonderful idea.”
She snuggled back against him and didn’t realize she’d fallen asleep until a noise woke her. She had no idea how long she’d been out.
Atticus was in the room, talking, but he was no longer next to her. She sat up, wondering when he’d retrieved her clothes. They were folded neatly on the coffee table, so she put them on and then crossed the room to where he was on his phone. His laptop was open on the desk.
Emma sat next to him, and he gave her a concerned frown. She was afraid to look at the screen so instead she listened to his side of the call. It was Emmett on the other end, and although she couldn’t make out all the words, he was clearly very upset.
“I’ll speak with Emma and see if we can’t make sense of this, but first I need her permission to tell all of you about her prior relationship with Leland.”
What? Emma moved his laptop so she could see the screen. At first, she had trouble concentrating on the words, mostly because she was still focused on what Atticus had just said to Emmett.
The article wasn’t posted in one of the rag mags. This was a legit news source based in Central. It was a small one, but that meant nothing. It would go viral because of the content.
No! This had not happened. It couldn’t be true.
“Right,” said Atticus, his gaze trained on her. “Got it. I’ll let you know what she says.” He disconnected the call and then reached across the space between their chairs to put an arm around her shoulder. “It’s all right.”
“No. No, it’s not all right. What the fuck is this, Atticus?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“What? Why would I know anything about this?”
He didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. He believed she had something to do with this.
She forced her brain to function and read the article again. An unnamed source who worked for HCS had told reporters that the Weathermen knew the exact location of all the hackers who had sabotaged The Madeline Project, and were deliberately keeping the information from HCS.
It went on to say that one of the civilians who used to work in the Fourth District police station in Central tracking down criminals across the country now worked for one o
f the Weathermen, and had fed him inside information that she’d gleaned from the Central police so they could find the hackers. It intimated that this unnamed woman was in on the scheme to hide the hackers’ identities and whereabouts from HCS.
“Oh my God. Bonnie. Who else would have done this?”
“Leland.”
Emma moved her chair so she could face Atticus. “To what purpose?”
“Revenge.”
“Bonnie has more reason for revenge against me and all of you than Leland does.”
“Unless he found out you went back on your word to him.”
“But how would he have found out? You didn’t tell him, and you’re the only person who knows besides me and his wife.”
“I said nothing to either of them.”
“I know that, but neither did I. Bonnie found out I was here another way.”
“Or Leland did.”
“I don’t see Leland doing something like this.”
“And I don’t see Bonnie doing it. She’d lose her job with HCS.”
“Only if they find out it was her.”
Atticus laughed, but it wasn’t a soft or easy one. It was snide and derisive, and the sound made her want to cry. “Emma, you’re naïve where HCS is concerned. Whoever the source was, they will find out.”
“Then let them do their investigation and the truth will come out.”
“That’s all fine and good, but what the fuck do I do in the meantime? What do the rest of us do? Do you understand what this means? It means Mindy Tesserone, Dante Herrera, and Sam Preston, as soon as they read this, will start comparing notes and examining every nuance of anything said to them, anything they read in company memos, and every action that Barclay, Grayson, and Oliver have taken in the past six months or longer.”
He slammed his fists on the desk so hard Emma was surprised the computer hard drive didn’t crash.
