I walk into the space, all of Dimitri’s stuff set up like normal. There’s a chair pulled out at the desk for me, and I sit down, a few other agents pulling up their seats to be closer to the screen. The monitor clicks on, thankfully restoring the last point where I had been running my flash drive software through the information that we bought off of Alek’s secret scheme.
“Just go slow,” Mccoy says. “We have some proof by this screen that he’s up to no good. I want the whole cake, though, Izzy. We’re looking for the search engine, the backdoor, all of it.”
I swallow hard, knowing it sounds like an easy request, but it’s not.
“I haven’t tried this before,” I warn. “I’m not too sure how I’m going to do it, just that I will give my best shot.”
“Good, then let’s get to it.”
So, I get to work. I fight through levels of code, rewriting and typing lines of code out like it’s my sole purpose on Earth right now. Everyone is watching my every step, and I fear they are judging me as I work. One of them points out a mistake, but although he’s technically right, I’m not going by the book here.
I fear that’s going to be the biggest hurdle to get over right now. They seem to think I’m a running, talking textbook, and I’m not. I have no real formal training outside of some college classes online, and while it was valuable information, it didn’t make me this good.
I’ve had years of practice and honing in my craft. I am a good worker, a decent coder, but I never quit.
They still seem less impressed with my work as the hours creep by, and I find myself digging into a deeper well of zeros and ones with no end in sight.
I lean back, stretching my sore knuckles while the agents seem keen on the same. Someone mentions lunch, and half of them file out of the room. Mccoy paces behind me, checking his watch before agreeing on a longer break. They all disperse, and I’m told not to mess with a thing without them being in the room.
The urge to defy them is so strong that my fingers begin to throb.
“Hey, you,” a light voice says.
I spin in my chair, Dimitri in the doorway where he smiles with two plates of sandwiches and chips in hand. Although I’m still pretty full from breakfast, I take the plate as something to pick off of later when I’m working, he bites into his sandwich, sitting down beside me while looking over the work I’ve done so far. There are notes scattered everywhere of my every move, the agents doing their job a little too intensively and writing down every stroke of a key I’ve made up until this point.
“Wow, you’ve been busy.”
“A little bit. What have you been doing?”
“Nothing, they won’t let me out of that damn breakroom. Even posted a guy at the door, like I’m going to run off. Like there is anywhere to run off to. I was shell shocked when they finally said I could see you. I grabbed you a plate of food and came right over. It’s like they’re trying to keep us apart or something.”
“I don’t know why,” I mutter. “You should be here with me. We wouldn’t have anything without your help and input.”
He grins, but waves my words off in dismissal. “You’re doing all the hard work,Kitten. It’s nothing for me to just sit by and let you work. I don’t mind it, but I do miss being able to kiss you as often.”
I blush and lean forward, meeting his lips halfway before the monitor starts going berserk. I hiccup in shock, pushing back to the monitor where the screen begins to display a new line of code, one that I’m not so sure is supposed to be there.
“Whoa, whoa,” I gust, needing Mccoy to get here now so I can get back into this. “Go get him.”
“I’ll be right back,” Dimitri says, hurrying out of the room.
The typeface comes against the screen so fast that I can hardly read it fast enough, the code unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s not code at all. It’s plain English, and a cursor on the other side of the system is moving through the inner workings of the system.
It must not know I’m here… or maybe it does and it’s trying to tell me something.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself, reading the text in a long dump of letters that finally make sense.
Someone is trying to tell me something, but the information isn’t good.
I turn around quickly, my back to the screen when Dimitri and Mccoy come back into the office, both of them panting haggardly. I pull as much of my body in the way, needing to hide the words as they come, but the agents swarming the room don’t let it last. One of them pulls me aside to see the text on the screen, and I fight to stay put, my eyes locked on Dimitri’s.
“No, no!” I bark, needing to hide it from his sight.
“Move, dammit,” Mccoy snaps, yanking me across the room practically.
“Hey! You don’t handle her like that, she’s helping you!” Dimitri barks, anger in is blue eyes.
“You better watch yourself, man.”