Prologue
Breathe in, breathe out. Just be calm. No one knows.
Zina Alden kept her eyes focused in front of her, a look of cool professionalism on her face. No one really smiled around here – it was something she’d learned pretty early on, and to be honest, itdidmake her life a whole lot easier. Neutral was a lot easier to fake than happy.
Her heels clicked on the floor as she made her way down the corridor, walking neither too slow nor too fast. She had to look like she wassupposedto be here – and to be fair, the ID tag hanging off her suit collar did give her permission to be on this floor of the building. She’d slowly climbed the ranks of Hargreaves Inc. over the past five years – she’d joined as a data analyst, but she’d been promoted quickly once people had realized where hertrueskills lay: in hacking and digital espionage.
Of course, Hargreaves had done a thorough background check before they’d hired her, so they’d already known about her skill set. Hiring in such a low-level position had just been a way of testing the waters with her – finding out whether she was a goodfitfor Hargreaves Inc.’s work.
Of course, none of that was real, though.
Well, her actualskillswere real enough. But the background info Hargreaves had dug up on her life definitely wasn’t.
She’d never been to prison for hacking into any major bank’s databases and wreaking havoc on their systems. She’d never, just for fun, snooped around in the FBI’s computer system. Though shehadactually been thrown out of college for messing around with an entire year level’s admissions forms – but that had been a youthful prank to show off to a friend, and she’d been planning on putting everything back how she found it, but the system had unexpectedly thrown her out before she’d had the chance! So thatreallyhadn’t been her fault.
That was how these things worked, though – you sprinkled a little truth in with the lies. Just enough to remember who you really were.
She nodded briefly at a couple of men in lab coats as they wandered past her, but they didn’t look up from where they were discussing whatever was written on their clipboards.
Reaching up, Zina ran a hand through her hair, even though it was pulled back into a tight bun, not a strand out of place. It was a nervous gesture, but she knew stopping halfway through would make her look evenmoresuspicious.
All right. Here we go. Not much farther now.
Soon, she’d be finished, and out of here.
But she knew that that was only the beginning. It was what cameafterthat was going to be the hard part.
Making her way unhurriedly around a bend in the corridor, Zina came to a large, metal door, locked and sealed, a fingerprint scanner the only way to get through the door to what was on the other side. A sign, white with massive red lettering, readAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.
Zina was definitelynotauthorized – but that was something she could fake. 3D printers could work wonders these days, after all, and it hadn’t taken much to get what she needed.
She’d quickly established herself as someone who didn’t mind getting her senior colleagues a coffee or two if they looked strung out. So it hadn’t struck anyone as odd when she’d started grabbing coffee cups from desks over the past few weeks, asking if anyone wanted her to go fill them up.
People left their fingerprints allovertheir coffee mugs, of course – they were there for her to painstakingly lift, using Hargreaves’s own technology against it.
It’d takenweeksfor her to get a clear enough print for her to use: one she could lift from a cup, scan, and then use a 3D printer to create a false fingertip from.
She didn’t know if it’d work, though – the fake fingerprint was rubber, after all. The 3D printer was precise – it needed to be, since it was usually used to create machine and weapons parts, where even a fraction of a millimeter could mean the difference between success and disaster – but Zina had never tried to use one like this before. It was possible the scanner would recognize the material as rubber, and not human skin. It was possible the print was blurry in some way she hadn’t noticed when she’d been examining it. It was possible that when she laid it down on the scanner it would trip an alarm, and everything Zina had worked for would be for nothing.
Okay. Okay. Calm down. Don’t think like that. Don’t think about it until it happens.
Zina let out a long, slow breath. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out a tiny plastic bag and a tiny pair of tweezers.
Keeping her breathing even, she opened the bag and, using the tweezers, reached inside and pulled out a thin sliver of rubber – the fake fingerprint.
With intense concentration, she laid the print down over her own right index finger, before putting the bag and tweezers back inside her pocket.
All right. Well, I guess it’s now or never.
Licking her lips, Zina pressed her finger down on the scanner.
Nothing happened.
Not at first, anyway. The scanner blinked, indicating it was scanning – or it wastryingto, anyway. Something didn’t seem quite right, though, and the blinking lights just kept flashing, as if the machine was confused.
Zina held her breath.
Come on, come on,she thought, resisting the urge to jerk her hand away and run back the way she’d come. There weren’t alarms going off yet – well, none that she couldhear, anyway – so she couldn’t give up.
