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“Just some scout work for an investigator I know who doesn’t mind hiring a fourteen year old girl.” She was always doing work like that, for guys with no scruples. “Don’t worry, I got half the fee up front like you suggested.”
“Maybe if we meet up in the real world, I could act as your body guard when you meet these people.” Yeah it was a coward’s way to ask her about meeting in person but I wasn’t ready for that kind of rejection.
“Maybe,” she said but she didn’t mean it. “It’s not like either of us can travel on our own.”
That was bullshit. “Well one of us does plenty on her own that she probably shouldn’t.”
“Which is why she can’t have people asking questions about unaccompanied minors staying overnight. I’m sorry Jeremiah, but not now.”
I sighed and nodded even though she couldn’t hear me.
I’d ask her to meet three more times over the next two years. Vivi always said no and when my mom caught a bullet from a deranged shooter in the hospital, I stopped trying.
I took the hint and stopped asking.
A few months later, I stopped messaging and calling her altogether.
Hers was the longest friendship of my life and it mattered more to me than I knew. Until it was gone. But she clearly hadn’t felt the same so when I walked into that Army recruitment center, I put all my thoughts of NextGen behind me and moved on with my life.
My single, solitary life.
Chapter Two
Vivi
The sun was high up in the sky and shining bright as I peeked through the blinds of my hotel room. I was high up enough that I didn’t need to peek but being on edge didn’t just go away because I’d checked into a luxury hotel in the flashiest city in the whole damn country. It was still hard to believe that I’d finally set eyes on Jeremiah after all these years.
He wasn’t quite how I pictured him. He was bigger and taller than I imagined, even when I added on a decade for age and life. His skin was dark and smooth, like mahogany silk and I bet it was just as soft to the touch. But Jeremiah had more muscles than I imagined a computer geek having. But, then again, I’d never imagined him as a solider or a biker.
I only wished it hadn’t taken a shit show of the highest order to finally get me to reach out to him.
But right now the shit show had to take precedence above all else because there was someone—at least one someone—who wanted me dead. This wasn’t your typical, I’m gonna kill you kind of death threat. I was used to those.
As a cyber security expert, and a woman, there was always that guy who got pissed when you breached his unbreachable wall or found the hidden, double encrypted folder he thought he was clever enough to hide in a partition. They always got pissed and then assured me that I’d regret it. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to regret.
This though, this was something different that stemmed from a pretty routine job. I worked with people with the most secrets to hide, massive international corporations. I hated them all, but they paid well to make sure no one could get into their secrets and tell the world. And on occasion I took some fun work just to keep life interesting. My latest was a routine deep dive for a government agency that shall not be named. They gave me the data to sort, clean and back up redundantly before I handed it over in exchange for a big fat … bank transfer. Didn’t have the same ring to it as check but the zeroes were fat enough for a clean getaway.
Like this one.
I’d been sorting and cleaning when I came upon a few photos that some asset whose name I didn’t know had somehow gotten access to and handed over to a handler—whom I knew—but called Bob. And since Bob was a woman, I was pretty sure that was an alias.
Riding from New York to Vegas on my Suzuki V-Strom had given me a lot of time to think about what I’d seen. Given the quality of the break-in that sent me running, it was down to the governor with the underage side piece or the snitching drug lord who met frequently with suits too ugly and cheap to be anything but Feds.
The break-in at my New York apartment was a pro job. Not so good that I didn’t detect it but good enough that someone less paranoid than me might miss the telltale signs. But now as I logged into the camera I’d set up when I started taking off-the-books work for the government—my paranoia at work—I wondered if it was as bad as I made it out to be in my head. But as soon as the feed came to life, I knew that I hadn’t. Not only was I not prone to overreacting but I prided myself for being levelheaded.
The decoy electronics I’d left behind, including a laptop, digital camera, a handful of flash drives and a virus-ridden external hard drive, were all missing. I eagerly rewound the footage to see who I’d be spying on later. My money was on the governor because I assumed a drug kingpin would just blow up the whole building to be safe. Those guys never worried about innocent bystanders; they dealt in certainty.
I think.
Going back twelve hours in the footage, I spotted an unfamiliar fa
ce. White male, approximately thirty with a bald head and a hint of a tattoo on one hand. Otherwise, he was unidentifiable.
I captured the image and sent it off to one of my sources. I knew it would be the best way to identify him. My source and I were close, but not like friends. It didn’t matter. People like me didn’t need friends, not when I was buried in a task like pulling up remote access on the decoy devices so I could see who had them and maybe even where they were. I’d made extra certain that the person who grabbed the devices would feel safe. The devices hadn’t been turned on, but I’d be alerted when they were.
Another task done, and I looked toward the window again, desperate for a few hours in the sunshine. Maybe poolside. But my life didn’t stop just because I was in danger. I had a couple of private clients I needed to focus on, especially if this current shit show put my security clearance in danger. It was easy work, just doing a regular sweep of the security footage to make sure none of his employees were stealing. It was a pretty solitary life and transferred just as well to a transient one, which made working on the run a cinch.
But even cynical hermits like me got hungry so I put on some clothes and went in search of food. It was early evening and I still hadn’t heard form Jeremiah so it was safe to assume I probably wouldn’t. Not that I could blame him. We were strangers to one another after all this time and if he had shown up on my doorstep, I might not have been as welcoming. In fact, I might have been damned hostile if some strange man came knocking asking for a favor. And it looked like Jeremiah and his friends had enough trouble of their own.
