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“Fast forward it to where you get out of the bathroom and then slow it to real time and keep both of you on the screen.”

They watched as pandemonium broke out and she peeped her head out from the little bathroom atrium. It was weird watching the same thing from two entirely different points of view. The system kept them both in view but from two different cameras. When she made her way toward the far exit, cap on and head low, her attacker was in the center, fighting the tide of panicked passengers, head swiveling looking for her.

She’d felt it. Even wounded and scared out of her mind she’d felt him seeking her out. But on the screen she could clearly see that he was never looking in the right direction as she made it out the doors.

Outside, the cameras weren’t so well situated. She caught a glimpse of herself, huddled over in pain, staggering toward one of the ambulances. Then the attacker showed up on the other monitor, a real full face shot since in his frustration he lifted his face, forgetting the cameras.

“Freeze!” Metal shouted and her finger tapped to freeze then zoom in. Instantly her program found the essential data points, a grid mapping his face. It looked like a veil with tiny lights had been dropped over his face, molding itself to him.

“Cool,” Jacko said admiringly.

“Never seen that actually done before,” John admitted.

Felicity’s fingers hovered over the keyboard. “Okay. We can put in a request to send this faceprint to the proper authorities. Either the FBI whose VICAP records are pretty extensive. Or maybe the CIA or NSA, they keep a good biometrics database. I can almost guarantee you that the answer will be no, we cannot use their system, that the answer will be weeks coming and that the very question will put ASI on some kind of watch list.”

“Or?” Metal asked, watching her closely.

“Or I hack,” she said simply. “And get the answer fast.”

“Hack,” Metal said decisively.

“Hack,” Jacko said.

John shook his head and smiled wryly. “Hack.” His eyes closed in what looked like pain.

“I’ll need my computer. No offense guys, but your system is as leaky as the Titanic.”

Again John shook his head. “No offense taken. Do you have your computer with you?”

She shot him a get real look and he raised his hands.

Felicity opened her laptop and flicked away a tiny mote of dust. The laptop had a dull surface and no logo. It wasn’t for sale anywhere in the world and its insides could send a man to the moon and back while hacking into Amazon. Completely untraceable, too.

“Gentlemen, please,” she murmured and they turned their heads away as she entered the password and brought up a special program she’d written. It took a little concentration and about five minutes but at the end, she brought up an internal FBI page. It had the dark blue stripe across the top with faded stars marching across horizontally and the FBI gold and blue logo in the center. Below, NGI. Next Generation Identifier.The new FBI facial recognition database.

“You can turn your heads back now,” she said and the three homed in on her laptop screen.

“Christ!” For the first time she saw John drop his worldly CEO expression. “Did you just hack into the FBI computer system in a few minutes?”

“They have crap security,” she said as she imported the biometrics of her attacker into the system and let it run. “Actually, I could have used my own ID as a free lance service provider to the FBI but it would never have let me get this far into the system and it sure wouldn’t let me run FR. This is much easier and faster.”

“You’re scary,” Jacko said, but he was smiling.

She rolled her eyes. Jacko had piercings, a giant tribal tattoo visible under his thin tee shirt, and he was as big as a refrigerator. You could probably hit him with a baseball bat and the bat would break. And she was scary?

“Okay, here we go.” Thousands and thousands of faces flickered on the monitor, faces flying by under the data point template she’d established.

After ten minutes Felicity sat back. It usually didn’t take this long. FR software was pretty advanced and the newest generations eliminated obvious non matches and only brought possible matches into the system.

Douglas came back into the room and jerked his thumb at John. “You’re going to get a call?—”

John’s cell pinged and everyone turned to him as he looked at his screen. “It’s Rajiv,” he said, raising his eyebrows to her. “Can I put him on speakerphone?”

Felicity shrugged. “Sure.”

Metal put his hand on her shoulder again, as reassurance, though she didn’t need it. She was lacking in many, many things and wasn’t too good in the real world, but in all things computer-related she felt strong and secure. Whatever Rajiv had to say wasn’t going to hurt her.

John pressed a button and lay the cell down. “Rajiv, my man. What’s your opinion of the software?”

“I want to hire this guy, John. Have him send his resumè stat and he can start work next Monday. I’d hire him sooner but I’m going to be at a security conference in Hong Kong. It’s like that software casts an Invisibility Cloak around your computer system. It was closed up tighter than a virgin’s?—”

Metal leaned forward. “Rajiv—this is Metal. There’s a lady here.”

“Oops, sorry.”

Felicity smiled. “That’s okay. I’m the one who wrote the program so I won’t take offence.”

“Wow.” Silence from Rajiv. “A nerdette. The cool factor just went up, like, a billion points. Will you marry me, lady, whoever you are? In California, so your program goes into our joint property?”

Metal rolled his eyes. “No, she’s not going to marry you, Rajiv.”

“And she’s not going to work for you, either,” John added. “She’s going to work for us. And you can consult with us instead of the other way around from now on.”

Felicity stared at John but he just held up a long finger. Wait , he mouthed.

“Hm. So what’s your name, mystery coder? And Metal, I haven’t ruled out marriage yet. Even if she is seventy years old with warts.”

“No warts, Rajiv,” Felicity said. “I’m glad you found the code interesting.”

“Frightening, more like it. So you used IEEE 802.1x? But it was an unusual variant.”

Felicity smiled. He was testing her. He had no idea what the program was based on. “Figure it out for yourself. Tool around with it a bit more, test it, see if you can crack it. You won’t but you might get some insights.”

Silence.

“Stanford?”

She shook her head, though he couldn’t see her. John had made sure the video camera was on him. It was very thoughtful of him.

“MIT.”

Rajiv moaned. “Oh God. I can’t believe you won’t marry me or work for me. John, treat her well because she’s going to make you a billion dollars. When the cyber apocalypse comes, your computer system will be the last thing standing.”

“Thanks Raj.” When the call was over, John turned to her. “That’s a real offer, Felicity. We desperately need someone with your skills in the company and I think we can make you a very competitive offer. But I want you to understand something, and I need to make this perfectly clear.” He pointed a finger at her. “This job offer has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that you are in trouble and this company will work to find your attacker and the reason behind the attack and will protect you in the meantime. We would do it anyway because of Lauren.”

“And me,” Metal growled. His presence beside her was almost overwhelming. He was, yes, big and broad and strong but above all he gave the impression of his strength at her service. An impression so intense she felt like she was being protected by an army, his army, conjured up for her.

“And Metal.” John nodded. “This company protects those close to us. So don’t think that you have to come to work for us as payment because that’s not how it works.”

“That’s not how what works?” a woman’s voice asked.

Felicity happened to be watching John’s face and the change when he heard the woman was astonishing. John was a formidable figure, physically and mentally. She wouldn’t want him as an enemy. He was visibly a hard man, all business, and yet when he looked toward the door his face changed, softened.

The reason why was obvious. The woman walking toward them, arm in arm with Lauren, was an astonishing beauty, like something out of Vogue. She had a Grace Kelly kind of beauty and poise. Incredibly elegant and graceful. She was exactly the kind of woman who had tormented Felicity all her life. She’d been the kind of girl whose hair was always mussed and whose cotton socks fell down around her ankles and the popular girls had always made her pay for being so good in school. Not to mention the fact that she was a late developer and was contemplating a trainer bra when every other girl had mastered makeup and boys.

Things had been completely different at MIT, geek central, but Felicity was very aware of the fact that she lacked elegance and, really, social graces too. Most elegant women looked at her through a faint veil of contempt, as if she was somehow lacking in something essential to womanhood. Or even personhood. It was the reason she frequented nerds who didn’t give a damn what she was wearing or what designer purse she had or if her hair was combed or even if she was a Martian. She could have two heads and they wouldn’t notice.

So she instinctively braced herself as the woman came closer but it turned out she didn’t need to brace herself or defend herself at all. The woman rushed to her and embraced her warmly. Felicity was so surprised it took her a moment to embrace her back, holding onto the incredibly soft expensive material of her pastel-colored suit.

The woman pulled back and smiled at Felicity, her eyes wet. “Felicity. I finally have a chance to thank you for helping Lauren. She told me what you did for her. Any friend of Lauren’s is a friend of mine. I am so glad to meet you.” She bent to kiss Lauren’s cheek, soft, perfumed, real. “Thank you so much.” Her voice choked. Beside her, Lauren sniffed back a tear.

Whoa. “That’s really nice of you, ah?—”

“Suzanne. Suzanne Huntington. John’s wife.” Well, Felicity didn’t need to be told that. John was looking at her as if she were sunshine itself after a long, cold winter.

“Nice to meet you, Suzanne. But I didn’t really do all that much for Lauren?—"

Lauren shrugged. “Just saved my life. No big deal.” She reached out for a hug, too. Felicity hugged her back. She’d hugged more people in the past three days than she’d done in the past three years. Not to mention, um, hugging Metal.

She turned bright red at the thought of how much she’d hugged Metal and he’d, um, hugged her. Thank God no one noticed.

“I understand you’re in some kind of trouble.” Suzanne shot her husband a hard look. “We’re going to help you. John and his company are going to help you, aren’t you, John?”

“Already there, darling,” he said, smiling.

“So, Felicity,” Suzanne turned to her with a soft smile. “As the guys would say, we have your back. You’ve got quite a team here on your side.”

“And me.” Metal put a heavy arm around her shoulder and squeezed so hard she was nearly pulled off her feet. “She’s got me.”

Suzanne’s eyes widened as she took in what Metal was saying. Lauren was beaming. Felicity was as red as Hellboy. Argh.

Just so no one was in doubt, Metal pulled her even closer and kissed her forehead.

And then, something weird happened. Something that was completely new to her. Instead of feeling awkward and embarrassed and the perpetual outsider, some kind of switch was thrown and she suddenly felt like an insider. Which was nuts because she’d only even been in Portland for a few days and most of that time she’d been asleep. She and Metal had had sex or…whatever they’d had, once. But somehow that didn’t make any difference. She felt a part of something bigger than her for the first time in her life, and she liked it. It was an odd feeling, but not. Actually, it felt natural, as if she’d stepped into the natural world from her virtual world and things were slotting into place.

There was Lauren, definitely a friend. Their friendship had been forged in trouble and danger and it was real. Suzanne—her friendliness was genuine, the warmth in her eyes was real too. The guys—John and Douglas and Jacko—they were on her side and John had offered her a job and it hadn’t sounded like a fake offer at all.

And Metal. Wow. Metal. Metal was giving off definite vibes that they were together. Most of her fleeting sexual encounters had ended with both of them backing away as fast as possible. Metal wasn’t backing away. He had his arm around her in front of his friends, his teammates, and he wasn’t backward about it either.

She leaned against him, just a little. He was a man made to lean against. Even knowing nothing about her, he’d leaped to her aid immediately. She didn’t remember too much about when she’d landed on Lauren’s doorstep but she remembered that. Remembered this big, rough man rushing to her, catching her, easing her gently down. Remembered the incredible care, the instant acceptance of the fact that she couldn’t go to the hospital.

He was attracted to her but beyond that he was a genuinely kind man. Sort of like Al Goodkind. A good heart in a tough man.

And he was hers. For the moment, yeah. It could end tomorrow. But that was true for everything. Right now, this guy was hers and she was very very lucky.

“Thanks, guys,” she said and to her horror her voice broke. Something happened to her chest and she couldn’t get words out. Something heavy and waterlogged was lodged in her throat.

Metal pulled her into a full frontal embrace and she found herself with her face against a thick warm neck and a big hand cupping the back of her head. She drew in a deep breath and smelled him, smelled Metal. That scent was now buried permanently in some deep part of her brain that was an unknown pleasure center that pinged to life when Metal was near, like a Pavlovian response. Sex and security, what a potent combination.

Being held by him steadied her. She’d had a weepy moment born of stress and maybe physical weakness, but it didn’t matter that she was still physically weak. She had Metal.

And the rest of the team.

And she felt much better.

“Okay?” Metal whispered in her ear. She nodded.

“Sorry.” Her head lifted from his shoulder. “Had a little moment there.”

“Had a few myself,” Suzanne said and put a steaming cup of tea beside her on the desktop, and touched Felicity’s shoulder gently. “Hot tea definitely helps.”

Suzanne seemed so magical that for a second Felicity thought she’d simply conjured a cup of tea out of thin air like a magic fairy, but no. There was a Thermos sitting on another desk.

But if there was anyone in the world who looked like she could make a cup of hot tea instantly appear, it was Suzanne.

Felicity jumped at the sound of a soft beep and turned to the main monitor. They all stared at it, frowning.

NO MATCH FOUND.

“That’s not right,” she said.

“How big is the FBI’s database?” Metal asked.

“About 92 million faces. Maybe more.” Felicity couldn’t figure this out.

Three male frowns. “ What? There are 92 million criminal suspects in the US?” John asked, looking appalled.

She shook her head. “No, it’s not like that. They start with mug shots, of course. From every level of law enforcement. But most of the faces in the database are non-criminals. A law was recently passed whereby anyone anywhere who applies for a job that requires a photo, that photo goes into the NGI database, together with your biographic data. When the database was set up, it included shots from what they called ‘civil images’ but those were never defined. There are other categories too that aren’t defined. There’s a ‘Special Population Cognizant’ category and a ‘New Repository’ category. Personally, I suspect they dip into Facebook too. Exclude kids under the age of fifteen and maybe seniors over the age of 60 and housewives and homeless people and illegals and I suspect this database more or less covers everyone in the US.”

There was a stunned silence.

“Son of a bitch,” Jacko said. He turned to Lauren. “You’re wearing your special hat when you go outside. I don’t want you ending up in anyone’s database. I’ve been in the military so I’m there, but you…”

“Absolutely.” Lauren was looking shaken, too. “Wow.” Suzanne was frowning and looking at her husband.

Metal rapped his knuckles on the desktop. “Whatever. This guy isn’t in the largest database of faceprints in the world, so we’re fucking nowhere.”

Felicity hesitated for a second. Because they could get somewhere, but it would be, um, illegal. Really illegal.

“Well, that’s not quite true.” She cleared her throat delicately. “There was this guy who gave a paper at the last Black Hat conference. It was a highly technical paper on collation of faceprint datapoints but if you knew how to understand the subtext you could tell that he has hacked into every single facial recognition database in the world. Including North Korea. Of course that would be, um, technically illegal. But still, doable. But before I ask him to do that, and I’d have to promise him something in return like my cyber security system or my firstborn, let me try something else.”

In a few seconds she had a screen up.

Metal peered at the Cyrillic letters up top. “Is that Russian or Bulgarian?”

“Russian.” She was digging, digging. “The guy who attacked me spoke with a slight Russian accent. I grew up with my mother who had that accent, only stronger. So he might be Russian or Ukrainian. But this database will pick up both.”

She pasted in the faceprint and started the system. “This might take a while and of course it’s probably a wild goose chase, but?—”

The computer beeped. They had a match!

Everyone leaned forward, including Suzanne who kept a hand on her shoulder. Without thinking about it, Felicity reached up and squeezed her hand. Suzanne squeezed back.

Up on the screen was the faceprint of her attacker and a couple of photos underneath.

“Gotcha,” Felicity whispered.

The first one was a shot of the guy in some kind of graduation ceremony. She peered more closely. There were four men in the shot, arms over each other’s shoulders. They looked happy. And drunk.

“INSEAD,” Metal read. “What’s INSEAD?’”

“An international business management school outside Paris. Our guy got himself an MBA in 2015. And his name is…” Felicity pulled up some more data. “Anatoli Lagoshin. Anatoli, what were you doing at the Portland Airport trying to kidnap me?”

“This other shot,” John said, pointing at the monitor. “Formal thumbnail portrait. I can’t read the writing but it looks like a business brochure to me. And the guy’s on the organization chart.”

“It is. A prospectus.” There was a tiny British flag on the upper right hand side. She clicked on it and the entire prospectus switched to English. She scrolled to the top. “Oh my gosh! It’s Intergaz! One of the largest corporations in the world! It’s a Russian natural gas company and half of Europe gets its gas from it. It’s immensely powerful and rich. What on earth would one of its officers want with me ?”

Metal’s finger hovered over the image of Lagoshin. “First thing we do is canvass all the hotels and motels in the area with a photograph of the prick.”

“I’ll get two of our men on that.” Midnight spoke quietly into the interoffice intercom.

“Now, let’s find out who runs it,” Metal said grimly. He used the mouse and came to a stop at a single photograph, at the top of a series of photographs. Even without reading the text, from the look of the face this was the top dog. “Vladimir Borodin,” he read. He turned to her. “Name mean anything to you?”

“Vaguely, I guess. I mean I’ve heard it before. I read Russian but I don’t keep up with the news there or anything. Let’s see what his background is.” She read, clicking through, then froze. Metal had placed his hand on her other shoulder and he must have felt her tension.

“What, honey?” he said, his voice low.

A chill had invaded her, penetrated her very core. She was freezing. Her parents had warned her thousands of times about them.

“His name is Vladimir Borodin.” Her voice shook. “Vladimir Borodin, formerly of the Komitét gosudàrsvennoj bezopàsnosti . Under the Soviet Union.”

“The KGB,” Metal breathed.

She nodded miserably, looking up at him. “My father and mother risked their lives to escape from the KGB and now someone from the KGB is after me.”