Page 61 of Lying Lainey

Code UVEIL destroyer

“Holy shit, they were prepared for everything,” I mumbled as I selected the password cracker.

The phone vibrated once more, and an alert telling me not to touch the phone appeared on the screen as a spinning wheel whirled in the background.

Please type in: Bx$5goQ9*eq3

I entered the complex combination of symbols and hit enter, praying to whoever was listening to me that it would work. If this didn’t, I had no idea how I’d manage to get a group of men whose job it was to keep people like me out of shit to let me in. The screen went black then reappeared with the normal desktop main screen. I couldn’t help but smile at the silly picture of Tater with his body wedged in the corner of the couch on his back, legs up in the air, sleeping with his jowls covering his eyes.

Shaking my head, I needed to return to the task at hand and pulled up the search function. I typed in the code’s name, but nothing was found, so I tried Cyclone instead. Still nothing. Chewing on my lip, I tried to think what I knew of Kerian and what would be something logical he’d name this file. Taking a shot in the dark, I tried Reuben—nothing.

“Okay, think, Lainey… take a breath. We have time to get this done. Once I know what he calls it, finding it on all the other devices will be easier,” I coached myself. “Now he would need to get it from work, so it’s probably on some sort of cloud service not saved on the computer itself. So let’s search for what program that would be.”

I found talking myself through issues helped me to figure things out faster. I’m sure some therapist out there would tell me it had to do with my trauma and not having anyone else around, so I needed to hear the sound of my voice or some bullshit. Whatever the cause, it worked, and when I got stuck like this on a job, I couldn’t afford to freeze up. Pulling up the list of applications on the computer, I scanned the names until I came upon one named ‘Secure-IT.’

“Wow, could they make it more obvious?” I muttered then clicked on the icon.

The prompt for another password appeared, so I tried the one I’d already gotten, and it didn’t work.

You have one more attempt before this account is flagged and frozen.

“Fuck,” I swore.

Tapping my phone’s screen to wake it up, I saw a new password had already been created with the application’s name above. Yeah, that’s not creepy at all.

Once in, I tried my search again for the code, and it popped up immediately. I clicked on the file and went through the settings to see if I could determine how many devices had accessed this data and when. There was a list of five devices—a phone, two computers, a laptop, and a tablet. A note was left saying it had been sent to another user, but it didn’t say who or when so there was no way to tell where it went.

“Maybe he sent it to Halstead since he’s a good programmer as well,” I reasoned. “It’s best if I check all their computers anyway to be damn sure I don’t miss something and get fucked over. Now, for the next step, I needed to find a way to put this in a secure folder and delete it.”

While I could manage my way around a computer, I was by no means an expert. Could I simply download this and destroy it, or did I have to destroy it here while it was on the cloud? If I could destroy it here, then all I’d need to do is see if it was saved physically on the other devices. Goddammit, why did this have to be so complicated?

Looking again at the settings, I found an option to lock this folder, but I didn’t know if that meant I could access it again. Flipping to the internet, I searched the company and started scanning the webpage for the features they offered. Doing a quick read of the lock function, I found it was exactly what I wanted—a way to isolate the file so it couldn’t be accessed by any device but the one I was currently on or opened with a password. Returning to the program, I followed the steps then when it was secure, I shifted my attention to the phone.

Flicking my finger across the screen, the list of options appeared, and I clicked on the one to destroy the code. It asked for the file location, the website name, and the password I’d created. Once all that was input, I got another reminder not to touch the phone or mess with whatever was happening on the screen. Running my hands through my hair, I leaned back in Kerian’s chair and let out a heavy sigh.

The computer started to whirr and make funny noises like it was working hard or struggling to read something. Then the screen went black before yellow code appeared, scrolling across the blackness like I was suddenly in the Matrix or something.

“There’s been a breach,” a voice yelled outside the door before it was thrust open and slammed against the wall, nearly smacking Kerian as he rushed inside. “Shut down the rout—”

When he saw me sitting in his chair, he stopped. “Lainey? What are you doing in here?”

My gaze flicked to the screen, but there was no telling how long this would take, and it was quite clear what I was doing if he came over here.

“Oh… I just wanted to get online and check a few things since I’ve been a little MIA from life,” I answered lamely. “Unfortunately for me, you have a password on your computer, which makes perfect sense for a man in cyber security.”

Pushing up from the chair, I walked over to him, noticing how hard he was breathing like he’d been running. He also happened to be wearing skin-tight spandex bike shorts and shirt, which was an incredibly good look for him. “You were yelling something when you came in. Is something wrong?”

“No, well, yes, maybe?” Kerian answered just as Halstead and Quintin hurried into the office.

“I cut the router, so the Wi-Fi is off,” Halstead blurted, then realized Kerian wasn’t alone. “Lainey?”

I gave a little wave and smiled. “I think I might be the problem.”

“What do you mean?” Quintin asked, frowning.

“You see, I was trying to borrow Kerian’s computer to check my email and various other things, but it was locked. I tried to guess the password but only once to see if I could take a stab at seeing if I knew enough about Kerian to pull it off kind of thing. When it didn’t work, I just planned to wait and ask one of you if I could borrow a computer,” I explained, trying to keep my story simple and plausible.

“You should have just come to ask me. I wasn’t on a call like Halstead, and I could have given you my tablet or laptop to use,” Quintin scolded. “I realize we said you were welcome to anything and you could be in any room, but I suppose we meant personal things. These offices we use to deal with our business at the company. We have personal computers that we use for everyday use and then those we have connected to secure information within Enigma.”