One Good Reason (Boston Love #3)(2)

Well, mostly happy.

Fifty percent happy.

Fine. Forty percent.

Final offer: one quarter happy, three quarters miserable?

Okay. Whatever. I’m not happy at all.

So?

Thing is, I don’t really believe in “happy.” People who say they’ve found true happiness — a mythical, eternal state of bliss — are either delusional or drugged out of their minds on those bath salts that inspire cannibalism. Perpetual joy is about as real as the fairy unicorns I used to play with in my backyard at age four.

Life is one long series of punches to the gut. You either learn how to duck, or you figure out how to hit back. I’ve been hitting back so long, at this point I’ve got a mean left hook and more than my fair share of scars.

My fingers fly over the keyboard so fast I know they’d be nothing but a blur if I looked down, but my eyes are otherwise occupied — fixed firmly on the screen in front of me as I maneuver around a particularly difficult firewall, making sure to cloak my code so they can’t detect a breach. Last time I did this, I was a bit careless — read: cocky — and tripped up some of their internal safeguards. Not my smartest move of all time.

Turns out, the Feds don’t throw a pi?ata party when people hack their secure, top-secret servers. Whoopsie.

There are a few more security layers in place than last time, but as hacks go it’s not a particularly difficult one. Not for me, anyway. Government agencies are freakishly easy to crack into, if you’re fluent in Python and know how to find even a tiny fissure in their seemingly impenetrable networks.

Firewalls are like thick-stitched wool blankets, insulating a server from anyone outside. Code — even the encrypted, super secure code used by the FBI — is just like that woven fabric: over time, like any old blanket, tiny pulls and snags appear. Glitches. Inconsistencies. Insecurities.

Run your hands over the wool long enough, you’ll find one eventually. A few tugs of a loose thread and the whole damn thing unravels to create a hole big enough for me to stroll inside, put my feet up on their metaphorical coffee table, and peruse their files at my leisure.

It’s called a backdoor hack.

And it happens to be my specialty.

The goal is remarkably simple: get in, get what you need, and get out without leaving any traces. (That last part is often easier said than done.)

I reach out blindly to grab the can of Diet Coke on my left as my gaze scans the stream of content. A few more clacks of my fingers against the keys and I’m past the final firewall. I’m in. The unmistakable round seal glows bright from my monitor — blue and gold, bearing a logo of weighted scales and the words FIDELITY, BRAVERY, INTEGRITY. For a few seconds, I let the familiar rush of endorphins wash over me. There’s nothing like it in the world — adrenaline mixed with danger, and just a hint of pride in my own skills.

My lips twitch.

Never let it be said that I don’t enjoy a little backdoor action.

(I’m talking about computers. Get your mind out of the gutter.)

I click through from the desktop to the hard drive and begin my search, just as I’ve done every few months for the past three years, since the day I learned how to hack. Most of the files I’ve gained access to are encrypted or heavily redacted — with my system, which is in sore need of an upgrade, I’m lucky I was even able to crack into a lower-level consul in the federal building in Government Center. Hacking a top FBI official’s computer would give me better security clearance in spades… but doing so would require a much bigger server than my four-year-old laptop possesses, along with something a bit more stable than my loft’s occasionally spotty WiFi coverage.

One day, maybe I’ll be able to afford an upgrade.

I type a familiar name into the search queue and hold my breath as the results fill the screen. Or, should I say, result.

One.

A single file — ninety percent redacted, one hundred percent useless to me.

Nothing new. Not since last time.

Not since all the times before last time either.

The breath slips from my lips, a gust of disappointment I can’t contain. I should be used to it by now — this life without answers. But no matter how many times I do this, no matter how many times I’m let down by the dead ends in that file, I can’t stomp out the tiny flare of inextinguishable hope that one day, I’ll hack my way in here and find something new. A new lead. A new hope. A new answer.

It’s almost certainly a lost cause. A sane person would give up.

I never said I was sane. And after twenty years of wondering, there’s no way I’m going to quit now. Some day, I’ll find out what happened that cold December night.

My eyes close as memories dance across my mind — faint and flickering, like a candle throwing shadows in a dark room.

My winter ballet recital. I’m dressed as a SugarPlum Fairy.

Mom kissing my cheek, handing me a bouquet of roses.

Dad scooping me up into his arms, tickling the breath out of me as we walk home on snowy streets.

Pain swamps me — I snap my eyes open, hoping it will drive back the memories, but it’s no use. I can still feel the way their mittened hands engulfed mine as they swung me between them, how my boots skimmed across the thin layer of flurries coating the sidewalks.

Zoe, our little Sugar Plum! Can you believe Santa will be here in the morning?