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“And if you think I didn’t know that, you’re nuts because I’d have been all over what you’re working on, and instead, I’m just watching you do it.”
“You trust me.”
I swallowed. “I do.”
The smile lit up his eyes this time. “How hard was that to say on a scale of one—the Erymanthian Boar to five—the Kalydonian Boar?”
Snorting, I told him, “You’re such a nerd.”
“This shouldn’t come as a surprise by now,” he retorted.
“It was as easy as killing the Erymanthian Boar in Assassin’s Creed,” I mumbled.
“Easy? Hmm. That’s what I like to hear.” His chair squeaked as he rocked. “I’m almost done if you want to order some food for us?”
“My hero wants steak, then he can have steak. With shoestring fries.” He chuckled as I got to my feet. “Did you check your security logs, by the way?”
“I did. I don’t have to get Denny fired.”
“No break-ins?”
“None.”
“So how the fuck did they get your code?”
“I used the bathroom when I was there. It had to be then.” He frowned at me. “I pulled the kill switch, though, so it should have deactivated their devices.
“You’re the best hacker I’ve ever met, and I don’t think you’d have been able to tear apart the code on Nimue in the amount of time they’ve had.
“They’ll only have been able to duplicate and replicate, not mess around with the inner workings of it.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I wrote it in Velato.”
My brows lifted at the reference to the obliquely esoteric coding language that was nigh-on impossible to hack unless you knew the key. A key that was personal to each coder.
“That must have been boring as fuck.”
“It was but you weren’t in my life back then and I was in desperate need of a challenge.”
“Fuck, Conor, that’s the goofiest coding language—” I groaned. “You wrote it with noxxious songs in mind, didn’t you?”
I'd just bet one of my dad's songs was the key to decoding it!
“I love that you know I would.” He grinned at me. “Hey, the joys of esoteric languages is that few people ever give that much of a fuck about them.”
“True.”
“Have you heard of an emo kid who’s a hacker?”
I pulled a face. “Narrow it down.”
“Barely twenty. Her roots were auburn but she dyed it black.”
“Who is she?” I asked after I shook my head.
“She was the chick who was supposed to replace me as the NSA’s go-to cracker.”
