Page 10 of Tinsel & Chrome

Holiday

“What are you doing, Hols?”

I sit at my desk, fingers hovering over the keyboard of the laptop as I talk to myself.

The blinking cursor on the screen taunted me.

Once I type in the codes and invade their system, there is no going back.

I keep telling myself I’ll jump in, do a quick sweep for his home address, then get out.

At one time, I had no problem hacking into any system.

I was fourteen when I backdoor’d a major grocery store chain’s mainframe and cut their product pricing list by half.

Before they could get the prices changed back, they lost a ton of money—at least that’s what the news reported.

Since I wasn’t caught, I upped my game—school board system where I gave the teachers raises—lowered interest rates in credit card companies’ systems.

Geez, I lost count of how many systems I hacked over a three-year span.

And I rode the high of going undetected as if it was a game of cat and mouse.

I’d barely turned seventeen when I answered the door and, on the porch, stood federal agents—my run had ended.

I had no one to blame but myself.

Well, and the damn TV show on unsolved crimes I had been fond of watching.

The episode on a child’s body, a stepfather who had been interviewed half a dozen times, and the agents who couldn’t find enough evidence to make an arrest, though their guts told them he was guilty.

Not my fault, my interest was piqued enough, I hacked into the federal agencies system to find the case and read over the interview notes.

It worked out in the end with a year in juvie and a job working for the feds when I turned eighteen and was released.

Of course, with the stern warning I would never under any circumstances hack into another system again—unless the order came from them—safety of the country and the rest of the bullshit they tried to feed me.

Can’t complain though.

The pay is good and the only responsibility with my job—keep other hackers from breaking into their system, which includes five other government agencies mainframes.

The cell phone on the desk rings, causing me to jump and jerk my hands away from my laptop.

I look at the screen and see my sister’s name. Geez, it’s as if she sensed what I was about to do. Picking it up, I use my thumb and swipe across before lifting it to my ear.

“Hey, sis. Whatcha up to?”

I ask in the most normal voice I can muster.

“I know we planned on celebrating Christmas Eve, but I need to switch it to Christmas Day. I pulled duty on Christmas Eve.”

“Because you work on a team with men who are assholes,”

I tell her, but what I should be doing is taking the opening to inform her of what I overheard. At least until I know the players and when and how they plan to set my sister up.

“Yeah, nothing new with this group. It’s always the same. I can handle it.”

“Just be careful, okay?”

Crap, I pray she doesn’t pick up on the change in my voice.

“Always am.”

She goes quiet for less than three seconds.

“Hols, do you have company?”

“Nope, just me.”

“Your voice sounds a little weird. Are you sure it isn’t a man, and you are trying to hide it from me?”

I chuckle, and it comes out a little nervous to me. Shoot, I need to get off this call before she interrogates me like only an older sister can.

“If you must know, I am gaming.”

“Oh, why didn’t you tell me that before? Or you could have let the call go to voicemail and called me back.”

“I... I thought it might be something important.”

She snorts, and I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Yeah, folding laundry and flipping the TV channels is important. I’ll let you go back to your game. I just wanted to tell you about the switch in days for Christmas while it was fresh on my mind.”

“Works for me. Love you, sis.”

She says the same, then the phone clicks and I know she’s disconnected.

Sitting my phone down, I glance at the black timed-out screen of my laptop. With one hit to a key, it comes to life. The same blinking cursor staring back at me.

I might have been second-guessing my decision earlier, but after hearing my sister’s voice—my only family—I won’t risk losing her. I thread my fingers together and bend them until I hear the familiar popping. As I start entering code, my fingers fly over the keyboard faster than ever before, and I smile. I’m one of the best hackers in the world; they’ll never know I was inside.