Grace monitors the cafeteria’s visitors, studying the face and body language of each new arrival. It’s lunchtime and therefore busy, which is both a blessing and a curse, but she chose the time slot to help support her cover. Her fine features — she’s been described as “haunting”—win the attention of males over twenty, many of whom underestimate her age, which is well north of that. She keeps her laptop screen angled slightly down; it wears a layer of plastic film that limits side views, but there’s a sweet spot she found from just above head height that concerns her.
She types a long string of commands. A year ago, she was fairly new to this cyber play, made anxious by it. Now she eats it up. Over the months, she’s grown addicted to these short bursts of information theft, much the way she imagines runners treasure their endorphins.
Working with remarkable speed, she moves through the root directory hierarchy, navigating to the security servers. In her mind’s eye, it’s like going down ladders and through tunnels, into anterooms and on to other tunnels and more ladders. Throughout the process, she raises her eyes, tracking newcomers, accounting for those already in place. Her memory is superior. Her mind has been trained to be nearly photographic. She has identified the two men back by the soda fountain, the woman by the trash can, another woman eating alone. Any of these could be a threat. There’s a male student who looks like he’s hoping to see up her skirt. She’d like to flip him her middle finger but keeps it on the keys.
One thing she’s learned about security servers: the systems are organized to accommodate and account for the intelligence level of those meant to operate them. Not every security guard is a Bill Gates in waiting. The video stream is labeled KAYMARA. Camera.
In seconds she’s opening a dozen video feeds, like surfing a traffic cam site. She closes them as quickly as they open. She’s not interested in the teller windows or the safe or the safe-deposit boxes. Not interested in the elevator interiors, the back hallway or the six exterior cameras.
All the while, a stopwatch app runs in the upper corner of her screen. She’s been online 2:07 minutes and counting. Even using a back door, she may be sniffed and identified for having an IP address outside the known database of approved users. She should be safe staying within five-minute usage intervals.
At 4:22, she clocks off.
The second hack, she heads directly to the camera list.
Her third breach hits gold: the camera is mounted behind four desks, with a view of the teller windows’ left side. One of the desks is occupied. Her fingers fly across the keys as she builds a macro that logs in, clicks through to the proper security camera, takes a video screen shot and logs out at the four-minute mark. The macro will loop until she shuts it down.
She hits Enter, angles the screen lower and is caught off guard by the young skirt-chaser’s approach.
Terminate or continue? These are the decisions that define her: when to run, when to admit temporary defeat, when to trust her instincts. Right now couldn’t be better — the hack is clean, the macro running flawlessly. She has the op teed up perfectly. She just needs the other two desks filled following lunchtime breaks.
This guy’s a problem. He asks in Cantonese if the seat is taken. It’s a dialect she has nailed but an accent she finds tricky even after two years living in the city. Her rebuff of him is polite but firm; her right pinky finger hovers over the F12 key while her left index finger covers the FN. These two keystrokes combined will log off the laptop and send it into a double-encrypted sleep mode that would require seventy-two hours on a Cray computer to have a hope of gaining access.
Appearances mean nothing. The boy’s approach is taken as a high-level threat. If he lifts a finger, she’ll break it like a twig, and his arm along with it. Apologies to cock-motivated boys like him are cheaper than excuses to Dulwich.
He offers a smile he’s practiced too many times in his dormitory mirror.
“Listen to me, cousin,” she says, losing her accent slightly to her temper. “I don’t appreciate boys…” she lingers on the word, savoring it, “looking up my skirt, or trying to. If you haven’t seen one before I’m not interested in you, and if you have, then you know it’s a woman’s secret treasure and she doesn’t wear it like a Shanghai billboard. If I wanted to share pictures of it, I’d post them on the corkboard over there by the register, neh? Back up and leave me alone or I’ll put my heel so deep in your crotch you’ll have shoe leather for a tongue.”
His sallow skin tone drains to the color of talcum powder.
The fact that he sits there, standing his ground, is cause for worry: he’s a cocky bastard.
She detests the thought of logging off when everything is going so well. She can’t bring herself to do it without further provocation. But her instinctive reaction is impatience and she’s trained to guard against it. Good things come to those who wait. She’ll have another shot at this data, she reminds herself.
So why can’t she bring herself to log off? It’s him and his obstinacy; she’s taken it as a gender challenge and she’s not about to cave.
She’s angled the screen too low to see what’s happening at the bank. The boy’s flirting will provide good cover, but the distraction has cost her: she’s lost track of who’s entering or exiting the cafeteria. Her best chance now is to keep this boy engaged for the sake of anyone who might be watching. The longer she has him with her, the longer her computer continues recording the bank’s video camera.
“A woman’s secret treasure, or her secret pleasure?” he says now, and draws the opposing chair back with his shoe, making space to sit.
“Pleasure cannot be kept secret,” she returns, suddenly enjoying the wordplay, “whereas treasure can.”
Keeping her prior threat in mind, he estimates the length of her extended leg and moves the chair far enough back to accommodate. He sits.
“Origin EON seventeen-S,” he says.
She wishes she could stop the blush that floods her face. John Knox has told her it’s a tell that could get her killed.
The boy has been lusting after her boutique laptop, not her crotch. She’s made a fool of herself, and he’s so smitten with her electronics that he’s played along.
He rattles off specs and she counters with the upgrades she’s opted for. Lunge. Parry. His eyes go wide — and then wider. His upper lip is sweating.
Has she misjudged his age? Is he too old to be a student? Teacher’s aide? Grad student? Or is he a risk-taking thief who dresses well and chats up girls on college campuses, snatches their laptops and disappears before they can rise from their chairs? The Origin is worth over four thousand USD. Mainland gamers would pay that or more.
If he manages to steal the unlocked laptop, she and Rutherford Risk would suffer. She plays the odds, pressing the two keys and protecting the data. She’s angry over being forced to do so, is tempted to knock the guy across the room.
Quoting a proverb, “‘Man’s schemes are inferior to those made by heaven,’” Grace casually closes the Origin. It’s heavy, but she one-hands it into the Trager Tru-Ballistic case.
“I was admiring it. And you. That’s all, cousin.”
“Next time you might consider antiperspirant on your upper lip, cousin.”
He holds up both palms in an act of surrender. Behind his eyes, he hungers to test her threats. That look convinces her he intended to steal the laptop. She has to wonder if he was hired.
She slings the case over her head so the strap, which will hold up to any box cutter or razor, crosses her chest, separating her breasts.
“I think I’m in love,” he whispers as she passes.
4