She must have read his confused silence. “You haven’t ported into the system in several years, right?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re used to a keyboard. Well, I brought you a keyboard.”
She didn’t get it. She completely misunderstood how porting worked. “I, ah, appreciate what you did, but I can’t use a keyboard for this hack.”
“I’m not an idiot, Ash.” There was a bite to her words. “I know you can’t use it for the hack. It’s here for your mind to use it.”
“What the fuck are you taking about?” He needed to end this conversation and refocus on Caspar.
“You’ve trained your brain to think about hacks in terms of the keyboard, right? That’s how you do what you do now. Since you’re rusty, put your hands on the keyboard like you’re used to, then channel those actions into the network.”
It sounded crazy. But sometimes the craziest plans worked.
Did he trust her enough to try?
Yes. Definitely.
Ash placed his hands on the keyboard. It felt weird because of the missing keys, but he found a familiar position.
He blew out a long breath. “Okay, here goes.”
Before Caspar had shown up, he’d been trying to get through the second-level firewall. Mendez’s defenses had been giving him fits. He hadn’t been fast enough to beat them.
Putting Taryn’s theory into practice, he imagined what he’d do if he were countering the attack from the control room. The commands came easily to his fingertips.
Fingers flying across the broken keyboard, he imagined the commands in his head and manifested them on the network. Was it faster?
Maybe. He wasn’t getting as hung up thinking about what he needed to do instead of doing it.
This time he was able to slip past Mendez and could sense Caspar on his tail. Two more barriers and he could spring one of the more dangerous traps on Caspar.
Bridging the gap between his port and the keyboard got easier with each command. With every keystroke, Ash envisioned the command and it manifested in the network.
He used all the knowledge he’d learned from defending the corporation to attack it, ignoring the pangs of guilt. He’d deal with the fallout later.
At the next barrier, he threw up a shade to blend in with the surroundings, a trick he’d learned from one of the hackers who’d tried to compromise the Tremaine system. He’d studied their moves and taught himself to do them.
One millisecond he was fighting Tremaine cybersecurity, the next he’d gone invisible, bypassed their counterattacks, and entered the final level. “Can’t see me, can you,” he murmured, making sure to keep that thought out of the network. While security searched for him, he stepped into a data stream.
The data stream would take him close to where he wanted to go. And close enough to what Caspar wanted that maybe Ash could convince him that was where they were.
“Neat trick, boy.” Ash heard Caspar but couldn’t see him.
Did that mean he couldn’t see Ash?
He still didn’t have a plan. That didn’t matter, now that both Taryn and Hope were safe. Taryn would take care of his sister if something happened to him. He could be as ruthless as necessary.
Ash hadn’t expected his strange friendship with Portia. He would do his best to protect the company.
He raced toward another stream of data. He knew where he was now. And he knew how to beat Caspar. He just needed time and maybe a little luck.
Whatever tricks Caspar had up his sleeve, Ash could counter them. Taryn had given him a new perspective and he would use every analog trick he’d learned.
With that confidence wrapped around him, Ash triggered Caspar’s piece of code and let himself truly slip into the zone.
Chapter54
Ash’s headflopped back against the chair, his eyes closed and his breathing shallow. On the chair’s health monitor screen, his pulse was fluttery.
Oh shit.
