Reason For Vengeance (Dark Vengeance Book 1)

by Adrian D. Roberts

  “OK, here we go.” Hanna said as the Quartz notified her it was ready. “Hmm, it looks like they didn’t use the usual idiots to set up the security here.” She continued to talk as it wouldn’t do any harm and it kept her mind off the cold. She didn’t expect any replies from Valerie and she didn’t get any.

  “I’ll start with the default version of my worm rather than the evolved one. There’s no point using that as it’s adapted to a different persons work. There it goes, it’s in the system.” She paused as she saw what the worm reported back. “Oh, I see what she‘s done. Let’s see, if I plant my Deco virus and Sneakers Chomper malware that will keep the security program busy, while the worm works its way in.

  “There we go, come on little one,” Hanna said, talking to the screen in front of her. “Here come the anti-viruses and Chomper is living up to its name. That’s a really beautiful bit of code by Sneaker. Chomper is making short work of the systems defences and Deco is doing its job. There, that’s it, the worm is in and there’s the password.”

  Leaning back Hanna admired her work as the system administrator screen came up. “OK, let’s start with the coms.” Hanna tapped away at her system before activating her com. “Sneaker. We’re in.”

  His voice came back instantly. “Excellent work, Hanna. Any problems?”

  Hanna glanced up at Valerie before answering. “Erm. No. Nothing Valerie couldn’t handle.” The woman didn’t even twitch at that. She stood watching the door without moving. With a sigh, Hanna turned back to her screen. “Rush can start heading this way. I should have everything ready for when they arrive.”

  “Excellent.” Sneaker said and Hanna could hear the joy in his voice. “Troll? Did you hear that?”

  “Of course I did.” The woman replied a little tersely. “We might be bored, but we’re not asleep. Rush has already started the truck and we are on our way.”

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes,” Rush added.

  Hanna didn’t stop working and continued to tap away on her virtual keyboard. “OK, their control room is now isolated and I’m turning everything over to you, Sneaker.”

  “Understood,” he said. Hanna rerouted any com calls in the building that would normally go to their control room, which was three doors down from them, to Sneaker. She then cut all outside communication and locked the room. The three guards inside were now effectively blind, deaf and dumb. “I’ll be listening but I’ll keep myself muted on our net while I deal with Safelife.” Sneakers com went dead.

  Muting her own com for the moment, Hanna carried on entering her commands. “Alright let’s put Rush’s truck into the loading schedule so the guards downstairs are expecting it. There it is, all set for a pickup in ten minutes. That will surprise them, but, as Sneaker found out, it’s not that unusual. Rush, Troll and Barney’s cover ID’s. I bet Troll won’t like hers.” Hanna said with a chuckle.

  When the guards ran her fingerprints it would show Troll as being a man in the process of a sex change. The guards wouldn’t care, though they might take a bit of a double take. Troll was a very attractive woman. She was also as heterosexual as they came and chased men very aggressively. No one had any problems with transgenders, Troll just wouldn’t want that rumour spreading. It would chase off the straight guys and attract those she wasn’t interested in.

  “That’s all set.” Hanna muttered. “Now we need the loading ticket for the warehouse. What have they got in there? Yep, there’s the iridium we were looking for, we’ll have all of that. Hmm, that’s a nice stack of tungsten. I’ll send that down to the loading bay. Hang on.” Hanna unmuted her com.

  “Sneaker they have ten tonnes of samarium. Do you want it? It’s not on the list.”

  There was no answer at first and Hanna wasn’t worried. He would be coordinating the Safelifes personnel and wouldn’t be able to talk. A typed message appeared on her datapad.

  Go for it. I have just the buyer.

  With his OK, Hanna uploaded a work order to the automated warehouse and it picked the samarium pallets. They followed the iridium and the tungsten down to the loading bay Rush was on his way to.

  “All done here, Sneaker.” Hanna reported. “I’m setting up the system crash.” She considered Sneaker’s plan to be brilliant. Once Rush loaded up and left, Hanna would initiate a catastrophic system failure. Sneaker, in his role as the central control room, would report a virus Hacking the system. He would play out a scenario of a valiant defence of the system, ending with the control room locking down and coms going down all over the building.

  The guards would be isolated and assume the attack just started. They hopefully wouldn’t realise it had already happened, until long after the Crew were gone. This was the hardest bit of Hacking so far for Hanna. She may have access to the system mainframe, but there were multiple redundant safety measures and programs in place, to guard against just what Hanna was trying to do.

  The program she now uploaded was a true work of art. One she and Sneaker crafted, sweated and agonised over for a month. They massaged its code to a level of perfection far beyond anything Hanna had ever heard of before. They named it Hydra.

  Hydra’s worms spread out in their thousands, multiplying as they went and burrowing deeper and deeper into the mainframe. The Hydra’s body stayed in the main operating system, lying dormant and ready as its heads did the work. Each of the protection programs needed to be infiltrated fully. They could not destroy any of them individually as this would cause a domino effect of red flags. Locking Hanna out and destroying the Hydra.

  The Hydra kept Hanna completely updated. A scroll of infiltrated programs passed Hanna’s eyes faster than she could read them. If she hadn’t been sitting in the mainframe itself, with all the hardware around her, this would not have worked. A smile grew on her face as she saw the infiltration percentage creep up, 70%, 80%, 90%, 92%, 93%, 94%, 95%, 95%, 95%.

  “Huh,” Hanna said in alarm. “That’s not good.”

  Something in her voice must have broken through whatever was going on in Valerie’s head. For the first time since entering the room she spoke.

  “What is it?”

  “My crash program can’t get beyond 95%.” Hanna told her, too worried about the Hydra to wonder at Valerie’s interest. “It’s blocked out of a complete set of servers.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard. “Why can’t you get in?” she saw the problem and leant back in frustration. “Damn, they put in a hard wall.”

  A presence at her shoulder almost made Hanna jump. Valerie was standing right next to her looking down at the screen. She then glanced around the room.

  “They’ve put in a firegate. Unless you’ve got something more powerful than that Quartz in your pocket, you’re not going to be able to punch through.”

  “Without that bank of servers, this isn’t going to work.” Hanna said, answering automatically before her brain caught up with what Valerie said. “Hang on, you’re a Hacker?” she asked incredulously.

  “No,” Valerie looked down at her. “I know how to destroy things,” she shrugged. “People, buildings, ships, computers. Whatever is needed,” she looked around the room again. “If you can identify which section is hard walled you can do a manual bypass.”

  Still trying to get to grips with a helpful Valerie, Hanna struggled to get her thoughts in order. It took a moment, but she soon realised what Valerie was talking about.

  “Shit. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?” Turning back to the screen and glad Valerie was back to her usual self and didn’t answer that. Hanna brought up the list of infiltrated programs. A search by server location allowed her to eliminate those where the Hydra had been successful.

  “There!” she shouted in her excitement. “Sections 1 to 90, row P. Damn that’s the entire row.” Looking around in desperation for a physical connector, she couldn’t see anything.

  “Cabinet under the desk.” Valerie stated and must have seen Hanna’s blank look. “They’re not supposed to, but most engineers are lazy. The chan
ces are they will have some cable to hand, The most likely place is in there.”

  Shaking her head in amazement, Hanna knocked her chair over in her rush and almost pulled the door off the cabinet. Inside were three coils of cable. Grabbing all three in case she would need them, Hanna dashed to server row P.

  “OK Hanna, think this through,” she said to herself breathlessly. “It’s a firegate. If you connect up the wrong sections it will still cut you out. I need parallel systems.” Walking sideways down the thin passageway between the servers, she brushed her hand along the cool, black boxes.

  “Here’s Q23.” She said stopping and placing her hand on one of the boxes. “That runs a E416 so if I connect that with P43, that should work.” Hanna plugged one of her cables in, thanking her small size and Thief training, as she squeezed around and inserted the other end into a server on row P.

  “Where else can I get in from Q?” She mused and then Troll’s voice came over the com.

  “We’re loaded and leaving now.” Hanna’s heart accelerated, she had minutes at most to initiate the crash.

  “Where are you, Hanna?” Sneaker asked over the com. “Are you on your way out?”

  “No,” Hanna replied desperately as she cast around for another place to link the two rows. “The Hydra isn’t ready. I need a few more minutes.”

  “You don’t have a few more minutes, Hanna. Come on!” His voice was harsh with stress.

  “I know, I know, just let me-”

  “Shut up, Sneaker,”, Valerie’s voice cut through the com. “Let her work and do your job.” Her cold and emotionless tone stopped all conversation.

  There was a silence and in it Hanna found the peace to see the next connection. As she was plugging in the cable Sneaker’s voice came back on the com far more subdued.

  “OK. I’ll get you the time you need.”

  Sighing, but not answering, it was better to use the time to think rather than talk. She edged her way out between rows P and Q. There was the temptation to send the Hydra in to P now, using the two hard connections. She looked at Valerie, who still stood next to the terminal with that emotionless face. No, three would have a higher chance of working and she trusted Valerie to get her out.

  Ducking into the next passageway that ran between rows O and P, she sought out section O52. Her subconscious had been whirring in the background and found the solution. Swiftly plugging in the last cable she squirmed round and inserted the end into P6.

  As ready as she could ever be, she darted out and back to the terminal. Valerie having righted the chair, Hanna sat down. “OK, Hydra,” she said, interlocking her fingers and cracking her knuckles. “Let’s do this. Worms to Q23, Q14 and O52, we’ll need a lot of them.” She glanced at the time display on her datapad. “That’s all we’ve got time for. Send them in, Hydra.”

  With a final press of a key, Hanna held her breath as she stared at the screen, willing with all her might for Hydras success. It seemed to take an eternity and then the reports started coming through. The infiltration percentage rose steadily.

  “Yes!!” Hanna exclaimed, pumping her fist into the air. Due to the limited access the Hydra had, it took longer to infiltrate the last row, but bit by bit, section by section, it did its job.

  “We’re at one hundred percent, Sneaker,” Hanna almost shouted into her com.

  “Good work,” he came back, his voice strained. “Set the timer to ten minutes and get going. You need to move quickly, the guards are asking me why their reliefs haven’t come back from their breaks.”

  “Timer set.” Hanna said and activated it on the terminal. She looked up at Valerie and wonders of wonders actually got a nod in reply. “Going now.”

  Unplugging her Quartz, she ran to the door. Slapping the button she paused as Valerie breezed past her and headed left, back to the roof. She moved fast and Hanna ran to keep up. As they passed one door she heard banging coming from inside, that was the control room. Hanna grinned as she imagined what they were going to say to their bosses when they got out. Safelifes reputation in Inferno would take a hit after this.

  While she was in the mainframe, Hanna set the doors they would need to be permanently unlocked for the next ten minutes. Sneaker also would have made sure the surviving guards were kept away from their escape route. They had a clear run and Hanna could see Valerie still didn’t take any chances. She may have been moving fast, but she was checking every corner as though there was a guard hiding in all of them.

  At the stairs, Hanna took them two at a time, the lack of a working lift in her apartment block giving her plenty of practice. She was slightly out of breath when she made it to the top floor and Valerie did not let up the pace. Down the corridor and then right to the last flight of stairs leading outside. Up those and Hanna was on the roof. Valerie sped up on the last bit and was already unpacking her Glide Suit.

  Hanna slid to a stop, her heart thumping and unslung her suit. She pulled it all the way out in one motion and the fabric caught in the wind. Frantically, Hanna fought the suit fluttering in the high wind, to get it back under control. It took precious seconds, by the time it was bundled into her arms, she could see Valerie was suited up and ready to go.

  The older woman stepped over to Hanna and held out her hand.

  “Give me that.” Passing it over, Hanna was amazed as the woman, as expertly as she seemed to do everything else, unfolded the Glide Suit and held the legs out for her to step into. As she put her first leg in, for the briefest moment, Hanna’s mind went back to one of her earliest memories.

  She had been very young and her mother had done much the same thing. Hanna had seen love and pride in her mother’s eyes as she looked at her. It was a unique experience, her mother rarely spent much time with Hanna. At the time she hadn’t known it, but in retrospect she realised it was one of the few times her mother was sober. It was not something she liked thinking about and pushed the memory away.

  Hanna looked now into the eyes of the woman helping her. She saw something similar going on behind them. Then the shutters slammed down and Valerie was as cold as ever.

  Sealing the suit and pulling the hood up over her unruly hair, Hanna nodded to Valerie. “Thanks.”

  The other woman didn’t reply. She turned and walked over to where they needed to jump from. Hanna followed and glanced at her wristcomps chrono.

  “OK. Sixty seconds until Hydra goes live.” She activated her com. “We are on the roof and jumping now.”

  “Gotcha.” Sneaker said. “I’ve started the storyline and will be leaving shortly.”

  Looking to Valerie, Hanna nodded to her and the other woman nodded back. They stepped up to the edge in unison and jumped off together.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Deni ran as fast as she could. Her lungs were bursting, her legs burning with the strain and her heart hammering in her chest, it felt as though it would explode at any moment. She pounded down the pavement, not caring that she was drawing attention to herself, not caring that this was how people died on these streets. There was only one thought in mind, she had to get to Sneaker right now or Hanna was dead.

  The streets were full of people. They exclaimed and swore at her as she darted around them or barged through them. A woman almost as wide as she was tall, stepped directly into Deni’s path and tried to grab her arm. Years of instincts gave Deni the slightest warning and she snatched her arm away, almost pirouetting around the woman, before continuing on as fast as she could.

  She came to Sneakers building, burst through the double doors at the front and took the stairs two at a time. Four flights of stairs to get to his apartment. It hurt so badly she was practically crying in pain as she made it to Sneakers door. With no breath left and her legs trembling, she hit the intercom button with her fist before pounding on the door. She wanted to shout for him to open it and let her in, but couldn’t, all she could do was gasp for air. Her lungs demanded that she pull in as much as she possibly could, with nothing left to talk let alone shou
t.

  Finally the heavy security door was opened by Sneaker and she staggered in past him.

  “Deni?” he said in surprise. “What are you doing here? Where’s Hanna?” Deni had been there a couple of times with Hanna, though never on her own. She only recently became part of Sneaker’s Crew and while he was fairly relaxed about these things, he certainly did not expect her to just burst in on him like this. He liked Deni though, she was smart, quick witted and he did have her in mind as a backup for Hanna on the Crew as a Thief, just as Hanna was his back up as a Hacker. Sneaker also thought it would be worth getting her trained as a Driver, a skill that with her reaction times, she should be able to get up to speed on quickly.

  Deni still couldn’t speak and activated the virtual keyboard on her wristcomp. She typed quickly into it, cursing in her head as her fingers didn’t respond as she wanted them to. They were practically shaking as her body struggled to recover. Deni showed the screen to Sneaker. THYE GOT HANA.

  “What? Who’s got Hanna?”

  TUMMBLER. Deni typed.

  “Shit,” Sneaker said with vehemence. “When?”

  Deni’s heart was starting to slow down, as was her breathing and she was able to start forcing the words out.

  “Minutes ago. In Forum street. Ran straight here.”

  “Shit.” Sneaker repeated, his eyes darting side to side as he thought quickly, trying to think through the possible scenarios. “How did you know it was Tumbler?”

  Deni took a deep breath, trying to get her lungs back under control. “Gaunt grabbed her. Stepped right out of a van in the middle of the street.” Another deep breath. “One second she was right beside me, next she’s gone.”

  “Shit.” Sneaker repeated for the third time, running his hand through his short blond hair. Any of Tumblers Enforcers would be bad, but Gaunt was her Chief Enforcer, with a very dangerous reputation. The man stood at a clear two metres tall, heavily muscled, scarred face and with his wild dark hair was hard to miss. He was extremely strong, taking steroids that, even on Blaze, were hard to procure. Rumour had it the drugs deadened his pain centres which was something many, who faced him in his favourite pastime of bar fighting, could testify to.