Page 34 of Hacking the Holidays
The algorithm was moving faster than I’d expected, which either meant Sam’s security had a vulnerability I’d exploited, or I was about to trigger every defensive protocol he’d installed. Given last night’s attempt, I was betting on the latter.
PROGRESS: 35%
I could see Sam straightening up, brushing off his hands. Chloe was still apologizing profusely, but the cleanup was clearly winding down. She needed to stall him longer because I wasn’t even close to finishing.
PROGRESS: 50%
A loud, hacking cough echoed through the library.
Chloe’s signal that I needed to wrap up things.
But I haven’t done anything yet!
I looked over and saw Chloe thanking Sam.
PROGRESS: 51%
“No, no, no,” I breathed, my heart rate spiking. “Why are you slowing down? Keep going.”
I needed at least sixty percent before the program could establish a persistent backdoor and work its magic. Anything less and I’d have to start over—and I wouldn’t get another chance like this.
PROGRESS: 52%
Sam turned back toward his desk.
Toward me!
My hand hovered over the mouse, ready to abort the program and yank out the flash drive, but that would leave evidence of the attempted breach.
Luckily, Sam stopped to talk to Eleanor.
But for how long, who knew?
PROGRESS: 54%
This was how people got ulcers.
And anxiety attacks.
Or both.
At the same time.
Especially since Eleanor and Sam’s conversation was short-lived, and he turned to walk my way.
I had no other choice.
Halt the hack and minimize damage.
Live to fight another day.
I hit the abort button on his screen, and the program disappeared from view. I quickly reached for the flash drive to pull it from the USB port. That was when my elbow caught the edge of Sam’s oversized coffee cup. It tipped, rolled, and crashed to the floor with a ceramic explosion that sounded like a gunshot in the quiet library.
“No!” The word escaped before I could stop it.
I dropped to my knees, frantically gathering the broken pieces, but I also needed to reach over and pull the USB drive from the?—
“Rose?” Sam said.
