Page 30 of The Honeymoon Hack

Claire cleared her throat. “Ken, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I need to continue the tour. We can introduce Brie to everyone properly during tomorrow’s shift.”

“Of course, of course.” Ken stepped back, still smiling. “Just wanted to make sure she felt welcome. It’s a great team here, Brie. You’re going to love it.”

As we moved away, I caught Claire glancing back at Ken, her lips tight. Her pleasant demeanor had cooled. Did they have history?

“Sorry about that,” Claire said quietly. “Ken’s… a lot. He gets worked up about expanding the team.”

“It’s fine,” I said.

Claire introduced me to several other staff members who smiled and nodded in greeting, none of them as keen as Ken had been.

The open floor plan was perfect for collaboration, but acoustic dividers and noise-cancellation panels also ensured that call center staff didn’t interfere with each other’s conversations.

But it was still open.

That would be a challenge for covert operations. If I needed to exploit any vulnerabilities, I’d be exposed to anyone standing at the correct angle to view my screen. And now Ken had already singled me out. So much for flying under everyone’s radar.

“Other than Ken, everyone here is finishing their rotation tonight,” Claire said. “I’ll be your shift lead for this rotation. We have a one-hour overlap at the end of each shift for handover and a quick standup meeting to discuss any issues.”

“When do shifts change?”

“Three shifts daily—noon, eight p.m., and four a.m. The schedule allows everyone to get up to Little Haven during daylight hours.”

Reasonable.

“Let’s get you logged in, and I’ll show you the basics so you can hit the ground running tomorrow.” She led me to an empty workstation and gestured for me to sit. “You need to select a PIN in addition to your card’s access. You need to leave your card in the slot beneath the monitor. Take it out, and the computer locks.”

“What if I forget it?”

“You won’t get far around here without your ID badge. All the doors past security need it to open. During your probationary period, all access is reactive. You take a client’s call, and the system grants you access to their files. After you upgrade to yellow, you can start doing more active work.”

I removed my lanyard and inserted my ID card into the slot Claire had indicated, then entered my PIN when prompted. The console flashed a single line:Connecting to secure key vault…

Secure key vault?

My heart did a little flip.

That message confirmed exactly what I’d been hoping for—they were using Hardware Security Modules as their authentication backbone. It was as good as finding the architectural blueprints to a building my team was about to break into.

HSMs were essentially ultra-secure vaults where all the security credentials lived. I’d encountered similar setups on prior jobs—and always found their weak spots within days. The HSM guarded the master keys for everything from user sessions to server access controls, and they usually included multiple layers that sounded impressive on paper.

But all HSM implementations had critical weaknesses.

The security credentials might be locked in Fort Knox, but the messengers carrying them between systems? Those could be intercepted, manipulated, or cloned if you knew where to look.

And I always knew where to look.

It would take time, but cracking the HSM might be the key. I’d be able to give myself yellow permissions or higher. Then I could search the system and access whatever I wanted, long before the three-month probation period ended.

The monitors had privacy filters that darkened the screen when viewed from angles—good for casual glances, useless if someone walked directly behind me. The Bridge suddenly seemed less like NASA Mission Control and more like working in a fishbowl.

I’d need to time any security probing perfectly, probably during shift changes when everyone was distracted by handovers.

Unless they had an AI monitoring it as well?

Slow and steady wins the race, Brie.

“Our first shift starts tomorrow at noon,” Claire said, pulling me back to the present. “I’ll walk you through the phone system now. Tomorrow, we’ll start with the training videos.”