Page 11 of Don't Game Me
“Yes.” With no choice, she took the envelope, closed the door, and sat on the bed staring at it. Would it be something awful like poison she was supposed to put into a drink? Murder, she wouldn’t do.
Heart pounding, she tore the easy-open tab. An entry-level smartphone in a plastic bag fell out of the envelope along with a flash drive and a cable that would enable her to hook the drive into the phone. She clicked open the phone’s home screen. It scanned her fingerprint and opened. Nothing but a bevy of standard, boring apps appeared. The “special” app—the one she’d helped code—wasn’t an icon, but she found it.
They wanted her to steal digital information. From Jake.
Her real phone rang. Pascal.
“Hello?” she answered.
“We got an alert that you opened the phone. Use the app you coded to get into Jake’s computer and past the NJ Legacy firewalls,” Pascal said.
“What are you trying to data mine out of his system?” A chill slithered down her spine.
“We need all financial information from the past two months for NJ Legacy. Put it on the flash drive.”
“Financials? That’s not going to be on his personal laptop. That’d be on the main server at the office. It means I have to get into NJ Legacy. I might not get a chance to go into the office this weekend. I’m only here three days. This is a wedding, you know. Besides, I’m not sure the app will be able to break through their firewall.” Stress rolled through her in hard waves to the point she tasted it.
“This is why you need to get close to Jake. If you hookup, give him a blowjob or whatever, then he’d probably go wherever you suggested for seconds. I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Disgusting.
It also suggested they never intended Stuart to make this trip. Why force her to go with him as a date? Distraction, perhaps. They’d lulled her into a weird sense of security at the idea of Stuart along. If Pascal had told her ahead of time they planned for her to do this to Jake, she wouldn’t have gotten on the plane, regardless if it was Noah’s wedding.
They used Stuart as a scare tactic. It worked.
Maybe Pascal knew the two of them had been working on an exit plan. They needed her in particular to do this because she could get access. Once she did, she had to assume they’d make sure she ended up dead too.
They couldn’t get this information without her.
“Why do you want financial information and not straight game code or other technology?” she asked.
“You don’t need to know. You need to do as you’re told.”
“If I agree to your plan, what do I get in return? You’re asking me to hurt my family and steal something from my brother’s company that Symphis will no doubt use to hurt him, maybe even bankrupt the company. I get that Symphis holds a grudge against Tori and Noah after they teamed up with the FBI against him, but this is insane. I’m not feeling inspired to do this just over the threat of you releasing a video that might or might not get me into trouble with the law. With a good lawyer, I can probably convince a judge of the truth. You tricked me by telling me it was a sister company.” All bluff, but it felt good—damn good—to tell the asshole his threats weren’t enough to keep her in line anymore.
When Pascal didn’t say anything, she forged on. “I want out of the gaming. Let me clarify. I do this, and if I’m successful, I want out of all gaming in the Stadium. Forever.”
Silence.
Finally, Pascal said, “I’m not authorized to approve that. I’ll have to get back to you.”
“You do that, or I’m not cooperating.” She ended the call with shaky hands.
She palmed the phone Pascal sent. Get it close enough to the target system and the program she helped write would worm its way in and could steal information or modify what was there. She’d been proud after twelve weeks to have perfected the program almost entirely on her own, but an idiot not to realize it wasn’t meant to be exclusive tech for the CIA as she’d been led to believe. Damn her pride for pushing her to beat out the other four men on the team to complete it first.
Her real cell phone rang again. Her mom’s image popped up on the screen.
“Hi, Mom. I’m planning to head over the house in just a bit.”
“Becca, oh honey, I couldn’t remember exactly what time you got in. Don’t go to the house. I would’ve called sooner…”
“What is it?”
“Your dad had an accident. He fell and bumped his head.” She rushed to say, “He’s okay. I ran him into the ER. Nothing broken and only a little concussion. They’re keeping him a few hours to monitor.”
“Oh my God. I’m on my way. Which hospital is it?”
“He’s asleep. You know how he is about things like this. He wouldn’t want you to see him this way.”
