1
The New Guy
Bryce Thompson wastwo clicks shy of cracking the firewall on a militia group’s private security server, when Sawyer, his coworker at Redmond Guardian Service in New York City, yanked Bryce’s headphones off his ears, breaking his concentration.
“Hey, I’m working!” Bryce said, trying to grab back his headset as Sawyer jumped out of reach. “What are you, five?”
“What are you, five?” Sawyer mimicked. “Looks like you’re playing computer games.” Sawyer examined the headphones. “These are nice. Real nice. Is Rusty paying you more than me? Or is this from the hacker money they put you away for?”
“I don’t steal,” Bryce replied. “Anymore,” he muttered under his breath, and turned back to the screen. With his focus blown, it would take at least another half hour to figure out the encryption and get through the firewall to the militia’s emails, where Bryce suspected they were discussing targets, including one of his clients - a foreign diplomat.
Sawyer put the headphones over his ears and listened to the music Bryce had been streaming, leaning back with closed eyes and playing air guitar. “My kid sister listens to this when she plays computer games,” he announced, a little too loudly.
“If you want to call taking out the private server of a domestic terrorist group targeting politicians ‘computer games,’ then sure, I’m playing games.” Bryce turned back to his keyboard at his desk.
He considered adding something else – a joke, or anything to soften the exchange. He knew the other guys at work considered him young and prickly, an anti-social computer geek who spent all his time indoors staring at screens like some teenaged gamer who only ate Cheetos and hated sunlight. Bryce liked sunlight and hated Cheetos. He bristled just thinking about them – they were Styrofoam in a bag. Give him a can of caviar and a sleeve of water crackers any day. Not that Sawyer needed to know that; he’d only tease Bryce for being elitist. It was easier for Bryce to keep to himself at work, just like he’d done everywhere else. Friends got you in trouble. Or worse, arrested. It was a lesson he had already learned.
Soon after Bryce had started hacking private computers and checking accounts to pay for daily necessities, he caught the attention of a cybercrime group called Ambuscade. Together with his new friends, the group had stolen millions of dollars from financial institutions through the use of Trojan viruses and firewall breaches. Unfortunately, the good times were short-lived as the FBI picked up on their activities and arrested everyone involved. Hisfriendswere all too eager to turn on each other for plea bargains. Bryce had been the only one who wouldn’t give them up and insisted the responsibility for the crime was his alone. Impressed by the young man’s resolve, the prosecutor used his connections to the Military Intelligence Corps and offered Bryce a way out of prison in exchange for military service.
Bryce had only been with the Redmond Guardian Service for a month since leaving his previous job of digital security in the corporate world. He’d made good money working for banks and trading firms protecting their back end, but he’d never taken to the suits and corporate ladder climbing culture, finding their after-work cocktails or suburban lives in gated communities predictable and boring. Worse, the work had been soulless compared to what he’d done in the military, where he’d met Rusty, his new company’s founder. Rusty was one of the few friends Bryce had in his life, but even a dragon hoarding a mountain of gold and burning intruders would get along with Rusty.
Sometimes, Bryce wished he could just go back to what he’d been doing before he was arrested and recruited by the military: hacking bank accounts of millionaires too rich to ever notice anything missing, and using that money to book himself in the finest hotels to hobnob with (and fleece) foreign royalty and cocky high rollers, approving himself for financing on sports cars that cost more than his parents had ever made in their lives. He always returned the expensive cars; he just liked to take them for joy rides. Maintaining one would have been too much of a hassle, anyway. Bryce wasn’t a guy for high maintenance, beyond his own body. His obsession with bodybuilding grew stronger in the military during daily training sessions. He was never going back to the soft-bellied, pale-skinned kid he’d been when he first started toying with computers. Bryce liked toying with things to see how they worked.
Bryce had to earn an honest living, and he might as well not hate it, like he hated corporate work. His new gig at Redmond wouldn’t keep him in the same lifestyle of his hacker days or corporate days as the firm is still starting out, but he’d grown to like the idea of helping people while in the military, and was glad to be back in a field which gave him the job satisfaction even a big pay day couldn’t provide. Still, he didn’t like when people touched his stuff or called his work “games,” but Bryce knew Sawyer was harmless. Experience taught him that Sawyer only messed with people he liked, so Bryce put up with it. Bryce also knew Sawyer was a whole lot smarter than he put on, and Bryce respected a fellow conman. Never show your hand.
“This is some teeny bop shit you got on,” Sawyer drawled, handing the headphones back.
“It’s ambient and keeps me awake,” Bryce replied. “Perfect for desk work.”
“Desk work is boring,” Sawyer said. “Shooting range – now that’s the only training that matters. What do you say? You and me. I heard they didn’t teach guys likeyouto take a proper shot in the service.”
“I can hit a target,” Bryce scoffed. “It’s just math.”
“Come on, then.”
“I’m busy.”
“Busy? Or are you as soft as the teen girl music you got on?”
“It’s not teen girl music,” Bryce sighed. “It’s Hayley Wild.”
“You’re illustrating my point.” Sawyer straddled an office chair and swiveled it.
“She writes her own songs,” Bryce countered. “She’s doing innovative things with tonality and song structure.” He felt his face flush.
He knew he sounded like a nerd - he had spent most of his childhood being called a nerd or a geek when he preferred to take apart computers and learn how software worked, over trying out for the basketball team or riding bikes around his neighborhood.
The teasing mostly stopped, after he discovered weightlifting helped him haul big computer hardware he salvaged to and from his house, and prevented bullies from gaining an upper hand when they tackled him. By the time he was arrested and recruited by the military, he could already complete a marine obstacle course in under two minutes. The military had made him shave the blonde hair he liked to let grow over his eyes, but the high and tight had only accentuated his sharp cheek bones and wide, grey eyes.
He’d kept the cut after discharging, but let a thick stubble grow to hide the lingering look of adolescence on his young face. But even with his efforts to make muscles, facial hair, and clothes hide his true age, he was still seen as a naïve kid in professional settings; the stock brokers at the investment firm had liked to ask if his baby sitter was hot. Even now, at twenty-five, Bryce was still the youngest guy in the room at staff meetings.
“Let me finish up, and I’ll go with you,” Bryce finally said, typing furiously into the computer. He messaged Rusty and promised a printout of the militia group’s emails, which they hoped would outline the group’s plans to intercept a diplomat’s car through a rural area of upstate New York. Guys like the militia weren’t hard to hack. If a hacker was any good, when they made a mistake (and everyone made a mistake at least once in their life), they’d be recruited into government service as a white hat, and paid well for their skill set. None of the guys in the militia would be contenders for government work. Bryce grinned as he broke through the server and hit ‘print’ on every email exchange within the group for the past six months.
“Hey - don’t you have some paperwork to do?” Bryce asked Sawyer, wrapping the cord neatly around his headphones before tucking them into his leather bag.
“Nope,” Sawyer replied. “All done. Lila’s at work. I’m bored. You’re my entertainment. Let’s go.” he sprung out of his chair and started browsing on his phone.
Bryce didn’t know how Sawyer’s girlfriend Lila could keep up with him.
