Page 379 of Hell Hath No Fury
“I only got one more attempt,” I explained calmly, even though my thoughts were racing.
The lock was seemingly impenetrable. I couldn’t crack it using brute force attacks, phishing, or social engineering. I couldn’t even use an encrypted injection or DNS leak tactic.
If I could have raised my hands above chest level, I would have scrubbed them over my face.
“Three minutes,” the man behind me growled.
“Fuck off,” I replied calmly.
If he thought his physical intimidation was enough to cow me, he was wrong.
The thought lit a fuse at the back of my brain as a new idea exploded with light.
My fingers flew across the keys, teeth gritted as I furiously typed code into the machine. If I could connect to the network running the entire arcade I could launch a DDOS attack (Distributed Denial of Service) using IoT (Internet of Things) devices like the arcade machines, the webcams attached to the security feed and some of the consoles, the POS system, anything using the same network in the building. I’d launch every single one of them at the door like a battering ram. It would overwhelm the network the lock was built into, like shattering the doorframe, and the whole thing would collapse.
Or, I hoped it would.
“One minute, thirty seconds,” the guy grunted, his gun slipping on my sweat slicked neck.
I barely heard him.
My fingers cramped, but I ignored them.
“Almost there,” I whispered. “Almost there.”
“Gotta get therenow,” he snapped.
On the screen the time began to flash as it counted down from one minute.
Above the arcade I found three stories of offices.
Fucking perfect.
Every computer, printer, scanner, webcam, telephone left at work by mistake over the holidays, were all routed to the cause.
Thirty seconds.
Twenty-five.
Twenty.
“Do whatever it is you’re gonna donow,” Brawn demanded.
A second later, I pressed the big red fucking button and launched my cyber-attack with a hope and a fucking vehement prayer.
For five seconds, the timer kept ticking down, leaving only ten seconds on the clock.
“Fuck,” the guy behind me breathed, the one syllable filled with anguish.
But I still held my breath.
I’d worked for a year to get to this point, to the gate that barricaded all the answers from me. Not just about Crystal and her murder, but about S1gn3t and 0bs1d14n Sw4n, about my friend.
I refused to believe after everything, I could fail them both.
A second later, the entire arcade went dark as the power cut out.
CHAPTER FOUR
