Disclaimer: I do not own the LINK series. These books were written by Lyda Morehouse, and her own “fan fiction” of these stories can be found here.
Prologue:
Matt, the Guard
I hate work.
Work here is boring. What would you expect from a bank? Why do they even have a hack guard? The tech on the firewalls they have for their accounts and databases now are incredible. I couldn’t even hack them, and I practically know them backwards and forwards. Not that I’d want to hack a bank, mind. Like I want to end up in a bioluminescent four by four cell for the rest of my life.
Might as well be in one now. I look out the window of my office. The city stretches out before me, and from here I can see the white beach and the sparkling blue-green water. Shit on Sunday for only coming once every seven days. Would that I was out there, among the beautiful tourists and catching some real waves, not just these info ones. That’s why I moved to Honolulu in the first place, to get some of that beautiful island living. Ha.
I surf the entertainment channels, trying to see if there’s anything interesting. God, even the damn LINK can be boring. 313 entertainment lines and not a single one has anyth--hello, ladies.
I tell you what, there is nothing like a little girl on girl action to get your mind off of a boring day just after lunch hour. Oh, yeah.
Stupid souped-up porn music. I hate that shit. Isolate audio feed 05, I command. The music stops, leaving just the other sounds. I cruise rapidly through my own musical library. I stop at the K’s. There’s this musician, Mai Kito, that a friend of mine just turned me on to. Boy, is she hot. I swear, I have such Asian fever. And her music...not really my style, but the haunting melodies of that cello just might be the missing variable from this love equation. I select a continuous play of all the tracks I have of hers and set them to the video. I lean back, arms folded behind my head, closing my eyes. I love it when I’m right.
“Damon!”
I jump, my feet flopping to the carpeted floor from where they were propped up on my desk. I instantly minimize the porn window, even though I swear it’s not the one I was just watching and I know that McGregor can’t see it.
“Yeah, boss, what is it?”
“What is it?!” I have never seen McGregor’s face so red. What, did he hack onto my entertainment feed? A little porn shouldn’t make him this mad. He is nearly shaking, and he can hardly get the words out. “You goddamn moron! You’re fired!”
I stand up, fists clenched at my sides. “I’m fucking fired?!” What the hell?! “Why the hell am I fired, McGregor?”
“Oh, might it be because you weren’t doing your job, you ingrate!” Spit flies from McGregor’s mouth and hits my shirt. Ew.
“So I dozed off, what’s the big deal? It’s the first time I ever have!” That he’s caught me, that is. But he doesn’t need to know that.
“You dozed off?! No wonder half the credits in the bank are gone, you idiot!”
Half the credits?
We have just lost cabin pressure.
I sit back down in my chair, bewildered. “What d’you mean half the credits in the bank are gone?”
“Exactly what I said! Some fucking wire criminal has hacked their way into the database and taken half the credits in the whole damn bank!”
I turn to the monitor that lays flat in my desk. I hurriedly pop the little catch in the surface next to it, exposing the extendable connection wire. I moisten the receptor pad and stick it to my LINK implant in my forehead.
The bank’s main database is now at my command. I navigate my way through, looking for the lowest level, firsthawaii.sys. If I can find that, then I can find out where this supposed hacker got into the database in the first place. That’s supposed to be impossible.
My avatar is running through the system, which is set up like a wide corridor lined into the distance with black filing cabinets on either side, looking for the back-up files for the accounts as well. If those are still in tact, then these people will have proof that they had as much money as they say they did, before this whole fiasco.
Suddenly I pass through something, rather like walking through the advertisements they have set up in the traffic tunnels on the mainland. It’s almost exactly like that, a 2D image, something completely flat, just passing through you, but this is different. Suddenly the images of the filing cabinets are gone, and there is just the corridor, stretching endlessly into the distance in both directions.
On the tiled floor at my feet is a package, like a manilla envelope. I run my virtual hands through my short, sandy-blonde hair. What the hell is all this? I bend down, picking it up. Written on it, almost as if by hand: alicesaysimnaughty.gif.
“The hell? “
I flip it over, looking at the back, and unwind the string binding it together. When the red thread is finally undone from around the two circular binders, I pull the flap open cautiously.
The envelope tips forward, and pixels fall out of it like sand. They fall exactly and precisely to form a little grey kitten. It looks up at me, it’s blue eyes big and precious, and suddenly I receive a perfect .wav of it mewing. I don’t even realize that I’m still holding the envelope still until more pixels rain out, forming a little ball of blue string. The kitten beings to play with it, rapidly getting entangled.
I LINK to McGregor.
“Get someone bigger than the police,” I say, staring, fascinated, at the kitten playing at my feet. “Tell them it’s Dinah.”