“You can’t be,” I tell her, folding my arms over my chest.
She points to one of the screens in front of her, and I see her logged onto a system, my bloody system.
I freeze.
What the fuck! This is not good.
As if sensing my rising panic, Pen looks over her shoulder.
“Don’t worry. I’ll fix it. Believe me, it wasn’t easy. It took me over four hours. I only broke through just before you arrived.” Pen says before returning her attention to the screen.
“Pen,” I say, my voice elevating in both pitch and volume.
Pen stops and pivots to face me. Her eyes take in my expression and soften.
She reaches forward and grips my forearm.
“I have mad skills and the equipment to do this. I’m not trying to show you up or your company. When I leave I’ll make sure even I can’t get in.”
I shoot her a look, and she shrugs.
“Remember, I helped to design the original code.”
“That was over fifteen years ago. Not much is the same,” I huff, sinking down into the chair next to her. “Stop trying to make me feel better. You just hacked your way past a firewall I state can’t be hacked. Of course, I’m going to be pissed.”
“Fine, be pissed, but can you park it for the next few hours? We need to solve one problem at a time, and I think identifying what this mystery code and person are up to probably trumps your damaged ego.”
“It’s got nothing to do with my ego.”
Pen turns her head and rolls her eyes.
“As I said before, it’s taken me hours to get in. We need to do what we are here to do, and then we can fix your exposure. Believe me, it wasn’t easy to find, and I nearly called to tell you we were going to have to sneak into the office.”
I don’t respond. Instead, I let her return her attention to the screens in front of us.
I watch as Pen’s fingers fly over the keyboard.
Memories of late nights spent coding, of celebrating problems solved.
She lets out a little grunt, her brows furrowed.
I know I’m being petty, but the fact is she broke through my firewall, a firewall I’ve prided myself on, and sold as being hacker-proof. If Pen can get through, then who is to say someone else can’t? They clearly have. Someone has changed my code. I’m still struggling to believe it could be anyone on the inside.
Who is this woman?I’m not sure I recognise her anymore.
I sit and watch her work, and for the first time in months, I feel energised. Her confidence is galling, but then it always was. I want to know more about her, and my curiosity has been awakened.
She picks up her necklace and captures it between her lips, sliding her pendant back and forward. She sucks it into her mouth when she needs two hands.
Shit, I am staring!
I turn to one of the three screens in front of me and start scrolling through the logs I brought with me on a flash drive.
“What have you looked for?” Pen asks, her eyes never leaving the screen.
“I scrolled through. Some of the code is dead, dummy code. Goes nowhere and does nothing. There are definitely some lines that call to other code. It was taking me time to track them down and link them.”
“Do you have an example?”
