Page 19 of Left of the Slash
Okay. They're all listening. Time to fuck shit up.
“I apologize for calling a meeting first thing in the morning,” I start, anxious to get to the end, but planning to enjoy the journey. “But after everything went down yesterday: Annette’s financial analysis, Miss Lucero’s command for all of us to do our jobs to save the company, and the accusations being hurled our way after the meeting, something inside me was set off. Now, Iknow I should just let some things roll off my back. I shouldn't be so temperamental, and I certainly shouldn't be so vindictive. Admittedly, these are traits I get from my father, who was a notorious cyber criminal. He's in prison now, and has been since I was eighteen.”
“Typical,” I hear Stephen whisper to Jon, who chuckles under his breath but maintains eye contact with me.
Little bitch ass motherfuckers. They don't even realize how quickly karma is going to grab them by their fucking necks, and I am karma.
“Before my dad committed the crime that got him sent to prison for the rest of his life,” I go on, savoring the moment because I know how it ends. “He made sure to teach me a few things. He may have been a gangster, but he was a great father, who had to raise me by himself. He's the reason I was interested in computers and programming, because the things he showed me made my jaw drop. It wasn't until later that I learned all of the things he was showing were illegal. For example, it was my dad who taught me how to backdoor systems to bypass and exploit authentication mechanisms to gain access. It’s highly illegal, I know … yet I still tried this little trick out on Obsidian’s internal security system last night.”
A literal chorus of gasps comes flying out of the group’s collective mouths.
“You didwhat?” Jon barks, just like I knew he would.
Olivia sits up in her seat, her brows quickly closing the distance between one another as she stares at me in shock. Even the mild-mannered Eden glares at me with saucer-sized eyes. I dropped the first bomb, but I’ll never get the rest of them off if I don't move quickly.
“Don't worry yourself to death, Jon,” I say, hoping antagonizing him will slow down his brain and make him focus on responding to what I'm saying now instead of what I did lastnight. “I was unable to get into the system, because Obsidian Cyber has ironclad protection in place that thwarts such attacks. The breaches we’ve had would suggest otherwise, which is why I tried to hack into the system myself. I did it to test it, and in doing so, I learned that something simple won't get you in. No, breaking into Obsidian’s system and getting deep enough to move half a million dollars around requires some real skill … and detailed knowledge of the system.”
The room pauses, wide eyes shrinking into squints of confusion.
Olivia is the first to speak this time. “Wait. So you did this to test the system? To find the cause of the breaches?”
“Yes,” I answer quickly. “I wanted answers about what’s happening here.”
“But you didn't find them?” Jon asks, and he does a terrible job of hiding the hope in his tone.
I smirk. “I never said that.”
Jon’s enthusiastic body language quickly deflates, and I do everything in my power to suppress my laughter. We’re not even finished yet.
“So, once I realized that you can't get into the system that way without setting off the security alert and shutting the entire system down,” I go on. “I realized it would take something special to get in, and I don't mean illegal means.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Quinn?” Jon says, just as a new bead of sweat forms on his forehead.
That’s it. Sweat for me, bitch.
“The only way to get into the system with the threat analysis so high, would be to use an active account’s username and password.” Jon flinches, but I keep going before he can speak. “So, I logged into my own account and did some digging, looking for the threat analysis program for the company. When I foundit, it told me I needed administrative access in order to make changes or see the log of changes.”
“Administrative access,” Olivia chimes in. “You mean, me. Then why didn't you call me once you got stuck? I could've helped.”
“Because I didn't need to,” I answer. “Once I got stuck, I used a brute force attack to hack into your account.”
“Are you kidding me?” Jon snaps, standing up and holding his arms to his sides. “So you're just going to stand up there and admit in front of us all that you broke the law, not once, buttwice. You hacked into the administrative account. The CEO. You're going to fucking jail, Quinn. I can't believe you would do something like this.”
“I can't believe he’d call a meeting and confess to it,” Nick adds with a humorless laugh.
“I agree with you, Nick,” I reply, nodding along. “It would be very stupid to call a meeting and confess to crimes. Unless, of course, I learned through Miss Lucero’s account that the threat analysis program had been lowered to allow a certain someone plenty of time to go into the operating budget of the company and transfer money to an offshore account. The threat analysis has a log, showing anytime it has been viewed or changed. But don't take my word for it. Allow me to put it on the screen for you all to see it yourselves.”
Jon’s eyes nearly bulge out of his head. “What? No, no, you can't do that. You broke into the system, Quinn. You're done. Eden, call security. I'm putting an end to this.”
Jon pushes his chair back and tries to move to the front of the room, but before he can, I mirror my laptop to the big screen and show everyone the log details, where I have his name highlighted along with the timestamp. Jon freezes once the screen is populated.
“As you all can see here,” I continue. “The threat analysis program was lowered by none other than Mr. Jon Reid himself. And for my final act—the final nail in the coffin,” I minimize the threat analysis log and pull up a scanned copy of Annette’s report. “Here is the report from the financial department, detailing when the transfer took place. As you all can see, everything went down after Jon used his command station to lower the threat analysis. Once the transfer was complete, he raised the threat analysis and logged out to cover his tracks. So, yes, I broke the law to get this information. But I didn't steal anything. It wasn't me who moved half a million dollars to god-knows-where. It was you, Jon.”
I stand at the front of the room and watch as the dark clouds roll in. They settle in the center of the ceiling before moving directly over Jon as everyone turns to look at him. His mood darkens like a starless night sky as he glances at each person, wondering if they believe the web I just spun. But the evidence is right on the screen next to me. There is no denying it and he knows it, so instead of denying, he snaps as he focuses his gaze on me. He’s shaking with rage, and I fucking love it.
“I promoted you,” he growls, his jaw tensing. “I brought you up here, and you have the nerve to accuse me of this? You think that little list is proof? I’m the goddamn CISO of this company, and checking the threat analysis is well within my responsibilities. So, all of this was a waste of time, and I'm going to do everything in my power to make sure you and your little whore are fucking out of here. You think I don't see what’s going on here? You think the little glances you two share are invisible to us? I know you're fucking, and maybe it’s time I make a trip to the bottom floor to pay HR a visit, since you're trying to fuck your way into another promotion. I’ll make sure everyone knows what you're doing, and even if it’s not true, the world listenswhen I speak. I will be CEO of this company before the sun goes down tonight, you motherfucker.”
I smile at Jon. “Ouch. Motherfucker? Geez, Jon, you're so hostile and emotional. I feel threatened, and I figured you would play up this act of victimhood, because you're right about the list. All it does is show a strange coincidence about the threat analysis being tampered with at theexacttime the money was being transferred. You're absolutely right. This is not concrete proof … which is why I had my friend, Rob Vaughn, the cybersecurity lead, confiscate all of your work equipment while we were in this meeting. His team is going to run an analysis on all prompts and keystrokes on your devices, and then they’ll reverse engineer everything you did on the night of the breach. Oh, and they’re also going to check the data on your security badge to see if you accessed the building last night. It won't take long for all of the results to come back, but when they do, you're fucked, Jon.”
