Monday comes too quickly.
Being wrapped up in Kingston has made the world around me almost non-existent, if not for Ace and Micha showing up, I would truly believe only him and I existed in this city.
We spent most of the weekend lost in each other, learning what the other loved, what pushed us to the edge, what kept us there, never quite tipping us over that ledge. It was glorious and torturous, but the world still existed even if we didn’t want it to.
I’m pouring a coffee into a travel mug borrowed from deep within one of King’s cupboards when the call comes in.
“Yeah?” King says from behind me.
I add milk to the coffee as silence falls behind me. A couple of seconds later the call goes to speakerphone.
When I turn Micha and Ace are leaning over the phone listening.
“We have a way back in,” the voice on the other end of the line says.
“How?” King demands.
“The encryptions are tough but not foolproof, it requires getting close,” They say. King’s eyes meet mine but just as quickly as they do, he looks away, not willing to think about what is needed here.
Me.
“What needs to happen?” It’s Ace that asks.
“The servers are split into two on opposites sides of the building, they didn’t remove the bugs, as far as I could tell, they couldn’t find them, but they sent out a virus to disable them while keeping their own documents safe.”
“Is that possible?” I ask.
“Coding,” Micha says.
I wasn’t going to pretend I knew how that worked.
“I’ve created a host,” the voice says, “A Trojan that acts like their own virus, but once it’s in, it’ll release the virus and give us access, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t notify the host.”
“How sure are you?” King asks.
“I can never be one hundred percent, their cybersecurity is extensive, a lot of veins, but I’m almost certain we can conceal it enough to pass as one of their own.”
“So, how do we get it in?”
The voice sighs, “that’s the hard part, they have a huge network and what I have created isn’t strong enough to take it all. If we can get two hard drives plugged, we’ll be in. One will give us a town, two will give us the kingdom.”
“Tell me how to do it,” I pipe up.
It would only be me who could.
Silence greets me, but it doesn’t deter me, I look to King, to Ace and Micha, “Tell me how to do it.”
“The Trojans have to be inputted into both servers. Once inserted it’ll take five minutes to unload the data to overtake the system and to bypass their encryption unnoticed.”
“What are the servers?” I ask
I try to think about what I know about the IT in the building. There was a large team and there are two rooms holding machines that flash and beep and hum that I’ve never paid attention to.
“Server one is T and the second G.”
“Do I have to get into the server directly?” I ask.
No one else is speaking. They stare at me like I’ve grown a second head.
“No,” the guy says, “Just a drive linked to the server, the Trojan will do the rest.”
“Okay, I can do that. Can you send me the drives to insert?”
“On the way to you now.”
The guy hangs up and three pairs of eyes turn on me.
“No.” King immediately says.
“It’s dangerous,” Micha says, “You could be caught.”
“You remember what I taught you?” Ace follows up.
At least he has my back.
“You’re not doing it.” King growls.
“You have another idea?” I ask, “Do you have unlimited access to the building to be able to plant the Trojan, Kingston?”
“We talked about this,” King’s voice softens.
“But this could get you back in without them ever knowing,” I counter, “We could get what we need.”
“Eleanor, if you get caught, they won’t just sell you and use you, they will kill you.”
“I won’t get caught, Tobias trusts me.”
“No.” King says again but Micha is silent, and Ace is watching me with admiration.
“We need the in,” Ace says, “Being blind has delayed us.”
“And you think risking Eleanor is the way to stop that?”
“Eleanor is a big girl, let her make her own decisions. She has something to lose too.”
“I agree.” The second feminine voice is a shock.