Root Exploit

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A/N: In "Root Access", I mentioned an incident where Root kidnapped Ellie briefly, and a couple of readers have asked me about that. So, I wrote it. Enjoy!

Note: this is a fantasy story. Root's actions in this story are NOT indicative of a healthy BDSM relationship. Don't try this at home, folks. Or, if this kind of scenario turns you on, be sure to practice safe, sane, and consensual BDSM techniques, and work out all the details with your partner before jumping in. Never leave someone tied up unsupervised.

This story is dedicated to my best friend SW, whose absolute favorite character is Root.

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"So. What are you wearing?" Shaw asked.

I snorted. "Pajamas," I said. "And not even the sexy kind. They're flannel with little kitties on them."

With a quick patter of taps on the keyboard, I spun my damaged ship around and ejected, maneuvering my player character around into the perfect position to construct a missile turret while still keeping the bulk of the ship between me and the enemy vessel peppering outer space with laser beams. The damn thing had been hounding me for the past five minutes, and I was running out of materials to keep my ship in one piece.

"You can make flannel sexy," Shaw pointed out. "Also, it's two in the afternoon."

"Pajamas are eternal," I said absentmindedly. I managed to get the turret constructed, but now I needed ammunition for it. I used a nearby control panel to set the shipboard assembler to production mode and then considered how I was going to get to it, since the enemy ship had shot off the connecting transfer pipes...which I had foolishly not protected with armor. "Besides, I don't have anything to do today. Why should I bother getting dressed?"

"Good point," Shaw said. She lowered her voice and added, "You should be naked instead."

I laughed, even as a lucky laser beam from the enemy ship blew up an oxygen generator a few meters away. That'd be a pain to repair. "I'm sensing that you're bored."

"I'm on babysitting duty, what do you expect?" Shaw said. A moment later, in the background I heard a man's voice say, "Hey! I resent that!" He sounded whiny.

"Is this the guy with the hitman after him, or the guy who owes money to his corrupt landlord-slash-drug dealer?"

"The first one. John's dealing with the slum lord right now. Then he's off to find the hitman's boss. I bet he's having loads of fun without me. Probably shooting lots of kneecaps and growling out threats like Batman."

"That does sound like him." I finally managed to break through the armor and into the corridor where I had hidden the assembler. Loading up on sweet, sweet missile rounds, I backtracked to the outer hull.

"Meanwhile, I'm stuck with this...brogrammer. All he does is whine that he doesn't have access to Reddit."

"She won't let me access the Internet at all!" came the voice. "She took my phone! There's nothing to do!"

"Read a book or something," Shaw yelled back. "You've got four fucking shelves to choose from."

I smirked and moved the missile rounds from my backpack into the turret inventory and then armed the turret. All that was left to do was to spin the ship on its axis to bring the turret in line with the enemy ship, assuming my gyroscopes hadn't gotten damaged. Retreating back into the ruined corridor, I accessed another control panel and overrode the ship's gyro control, setting it to roll at 6 RPM. Almost five seconds later exactly, I heard the tell-tale sound of the missile turret firing, its explosive reports muffled by the absence of air and the distance between me and the hull.

I didn't hear the explosions, but I did hear the rapid ping-ping-ping of laser gun fire against the hull suddenly cease—and the fat red dot of the enemy vessel disappeared from my HUD a second later.

Hell yeah!

Sighing in relief, I paused the game and adjusted my gaming headset. Leaning back in my chair, I asked, "Are you sure there's nothing I can do to help out with a case today? Nothing needs hacked?"

"I'm sure," Shaw said. "It's a waiting game at this point."

"I gotta admit, I'm pretty bored too," I said. "It's been, what, three days since we've gotten a fun case?"

"I'm sure we'll get a case where you can hack something sooner or later. It'll be a nice change of pace—been dodging a lot of bullets recently."

"Mmm. Good thing you're so fit."

"You know," Shaw said slyly. "If you're bored, I can think of something you can do."

"Uh-huh. Been doing plenty of that already."

"Oh really?" Shaw said, her voice turning silky. "I'd love to hear about—ugh. Incoming call. It's probably Finch or something. Call you later?"

"Sure."

"TTFN." A moment later, my headset played a cheerful little jingle as the call ended. I sighed and hung the headphones up on the little stand next to my desktop tower. Leaving the game paused, I stood up and stretched luxuriously, reaching for the ceiling. God, it'd been weeks since I'd been this much of a couch potato—usually the cases kept me busy, but this drought of need for a hacker was getting to me. There was only so much Space Engineers, programming, stupid cat pictures, and porn a girl could take before getting stir-crazy, and I was well over my limit.

I padded out to my apartment living room. It was bright and airy, courtesy of the lovely day beyond my kitchen window. I decided to take a walk—the park near my apartment was bound to be lovely, and it'd do me good to be out in the sun for awhile.

It looked like the perfect weather for swirly skirts and summer sandals. I got dressed, grabbed my cell phone, and headed out, ambling down the sidewalk towards the park.

About halfway there, a sedan pulled up next to me. Out of instinct, I swerved away, until I heard a familiar voice say, "Hey!"

The passenger window rolled down to reveal Root, one arm draped casually over the steering wheel and a bright grin on her face. "Hi, Lizzy," she drawled.

"Oh my God, Root," I said, rolling my eyes. "We've been over this. It's 'Elizabeth', or 'Ellie' if you can't handle four syllables."

"Sorry," she said, sounding not very sorry at all. The stupid grin was still on her face. "But, now that I have your attention, how'd you like to help take down a very bad guy this afternoon?"

That piqued my interested right away. A case? Finally! But I bit back the affirmation, because the last time I'd gotten involved with Root, I'd had to shoot two people, and the memory was still fresh in my mind. Root was a huge unknown.

"I'll bite," I said carefully. "What kind of bad guy are we talking about here, and how likely am I to end up shooting somebody again?"

"For the second question, zero," Root said, the grin widening. "Trust me, it'll be perfectly safe."

I snorted. "Uh-huh. Sure."

"I mean it. You won't even need to touch your gun to help this time. And no one's going to be pointing a gun at you."

"Fair enough." I crossed my arms. "So what about the first part?"

"The guy—Alan Jones—he's tangled up in the dark web. He's running a DDoS-as-a-service venture. Almost broke the Internet a few weeks ago. You heard about DNS amplification attacks?"

"Yeah. Didn't they take down at least one IX?"

"For a few minutes, yeah. That was him. He controls one of the most powerful botnets in existence, and he sells it to the highest bidder. Fancies himself a professional businessman. He's not. He's a little boy touching things he shouldn't, and we're going to take him down." For a moment, Root looked personally affronted at Jones' actions, but a second later she was right back to her obnoxiously chipper self. "He's well guarded, but I've got a plan to get to him without anybody getting hurt."

"Since when are you concerned about people getting hurt?" I asked. "You including tazing people in that definition?"

"Pft." Root rolled her eyes. "You listen to Sameen too much. Contrary to what she says, I can get through a job without having to light anybody up."

"I didn't say anything about Shaw."

"You still listen to her too much."

"You also didn't say anything about not tazing people."

"There's a really good chance this plan doesn't involve actually tazing anybody, as long as they behave."

"Uh huh. Because the bad guys always listen and make wise decisions."

"Sure," Root said, which I thought was a bit of a strange response, but then again, Root was a strange person.

"So—what do you need me for in all this?"

"Oh, you know," Root said, curling a strand of hair around her finger, "a little social engineering here, some misdirection there. Maybe setting off a few alerts on purpose so I can slip in unnoticed while people are otherwise occupied. I'll be doing most of the legwork, so I could really use another hacker sequestered safely away somewhere in a comfy chair—no fieldwork necessary."

I perked up. This was sounding kind of thing I enjoyed the most—infiltrating the network, gathering info, putting on another persona and ringing up unsuspecting targets as "Tina from IT", and could you please go to this page and reset your password? Thank you very much, sir. And all from the comfort of a nice office chair, which meant no getting into gunfights or dodging punches. On the surface, it sounded like the perfect case.

But, again, this was Root sitting in the car with that stupid grin on her face, and the last time I'd seen that charming smile, my day had turned to shit within a half-hour.

She sensed my hesitation, and said, "I mean, it's probably more exciting than what you had planned this evening. Which is to say, nothing. And by that I mean, probably masturbating."

I scowled, feeling the blood rush to my face. Before I could get in a word in edgewise, Root added, "You can always do that later, if you still feel like it. Also, I promise you won't get shot at this time. Really. No guns."

I tapped my foot, considering. "And you'll drive no more than fifteen over the speed limit this time on the way there?"

"Sure."

"And no driving on the sidewalk?"

"Promise."

"And if I hear 'Banana Phone' on the radio, I'm taking a rolling dive out the door."

"That was a one-time lapse in judgment, I swear."

"All right," I relented. "Let me in."

True to her word—for once—Root behaved herself behind the wheel, mostly sticking to the speed of the traffic around us and not even once trying to take the Civic on any off-pavement "shortcuts". As she drove, we talked about the recent DdoS attack.

"...he started with a few gigabits' worth of compromised devices," Root said. "And then he pointed them at open resolvers and spoofed the source addresses so they'd send the packets to the victim instead."

"Gee, it's almost like running open, public DNS servers with no rate limiting is a bad idea," I said. "How'd he amplify the attack? Picking domains with big responses?"

"Yep," Root said. "Knocked a bunch of the big web sites offline because one of the DNS providers went down for the count. He targeted their upstream connections instead of going after them directly."

"And he did all this...why?"

"Because somebody paid him," Root said, shrugging. "And he has no compunctions about causing collateral damage. Some of the, ah, services he interrupted were very important."

I was expecting some examples, and when Root didn't provide any, I said, "Like what?"

Root hesitated. "Well, you know. Banks and stuff. Top secret things. Also, PornHub. I'm sure you noticed that one."

I spared Root a sideways look of annoyance and went back to gazing out the window.

"Say," I said, "where are we going?"

"We're almost there," Root said. "There's a converted safehouse in one of these old office buildings. Finch owns the whole office park, naturally."

"Of course he does," I said.

Root pulled into the lot and stopped the car next to a squat, aging two-story office building. It looked like it'd been built back in the seventies—a brick and tan concrete exterior, dark metal awnings, and vertical window blinds that hung from floor to ceiling behind darkened windows. There were a few other cars in the lot, but no one else around. If it hadn't been for the neatly maintained grass and shrubberies along the front walk, I would've thought the place to be abandoned.

"The wifi and cell coverage here is great," Root said as she unlocked the front door by waving her phone in front of a card reader. "It's nice and private here."

The overhead lights clicked on as we stepped into a small, sunny atrium, passing an empty reception desk and a potted tree on the way to a wide stairwell. I followed Root upstairs to the 2nd floor and down a hallway lit by skylights. We passed several doors and frosted glass windows before Root stopped at one door, seemingly at random, and pushed it open.

"Here we are," she said.

It was a spacious office—definitely on the retro side, with wood panel walls and clusters of globe lights hanging from the ceiling, a boxy leather couch along one wall, and a massive, intimidating desk with an anachronistically modern pair of flatscreens, a sleek mouse, and a keyboard set on top. The hanging blinds allowed only thin ribbons of sunlight through to spill over the thick beige carpet. There was a sturdy wooden chair with thick leather cushions set in front of the desk. Curiously, it had been rotated to face out towards the couch instead of the desk.

In retrospect, I should've paid closer attention to that.

Root leaned back out the doorway and peered down the hallway as I stepped further into the office, intent on examining the desk computer. It looked like a nice setup; the cables from the monitors were routed neatly into a hole near one corner of the desk and it looked like the keyboard and mouse were wireless. The only other objects on the desk surface were an old-school brass lamp with a green shade and, next to it, a compact wireless router.

The door snicked softly shut behind us.

"I hope you have a spare laptop," I said as I approached the desk. "Four hands, one keyboard only works on NCIS."

"Yeah, about that," Root said, and alarm bells started ringing in my head immediately at the sudden change in her tone. I spun around and found myself staring down the business end of a taser.

"Woah, what—!" Reflexively, I raised my hands. "What the hell is going on?"

"I was serious about needing a hacker in a chair and causing a distraction," Root said. She tilted her head. "The rest might've been a bit of a stretch. Sorry."

Oh, for heaven's sake, I thought, realizing that I'd just walked into a goddamn trap without suspecting a thing. Root had been leading me along the whole time.

"Are you kidnapping me?" I asked, gulping.

"I mean, technically, I'm imprisoning you—I didn't have to take you anywhere by force. You should really be a little less oblivious sometimes."

"Root, come on," I said nervously. "Can't we talk about this?"

"Put your cell phone on the ground. Slowly. Take out your hair pins, too. Then step back towards the chair."

Gritting my teeth, I pulled the phone out of my skirt pocket and complied.

"Don't do anything rash," Root said. She took one step forward for each one I took back, but she was being careful to stay out of range—I didn't think I could get to her before she could taze me. "Just play along, and you'll be safe and sound at home in an hour. Pinky swear."

"Why the fuck are you doing this?" I asked shakily. The back of my knee brushed against the chair and I froze in place.

"Sit," Root said. "Put your hands behind you. And please don't make this difficult for us. I did promise no bloodshed, but that assumes that you act smart."

I gulped and sat. No sooner had I put my arms behind the chair than Root circled around me and grabbed my wrists. A second later, I heard the distinctive sound of a zip-tie being ratcheted tight and I felt the smooth plastic bite into my wrists. Within seconds, my hands were bound to one of the cross-bars on the back of the chair. I tugged gingerly at the restraints, finding them disappointingly sturdy.

"Put your feet back," Root said. I hesitated, aware of the way my legs would be forced to spread on either side of the chair. I was suddenly feeling quite exposed in my skirt. But I didn't have much choice. Reluctantly, I allowed Root to pull my ankles behind me and fasten them to the back chair legs.

I shivered at the restriction of my mobility.

…was I imagining that sudden flutter of anticipation from my nether regions?

"Root, c'mon," I said, pulling harder at my bonds. They creaked but stayed disappointingly tight. "Let me go."

"What's the magic word?"

I had no qualms about humoring a dangerous psychopath who was armed with a taser. "Please?" I said hopefully.

"Mmm, no," she said. She stood and walked around in front of me, one hand on her hip. "Sorry. It's complicated."

"Complicated how? Why the fuck do I need to be tied up for whatever harebrained plan you've got going on?"

"It's actually quite a nice plan," Root said. She pulled the office chair out from behind the desk and sat down in front of me, sprawling with her arm and head propped up on one armrest. "See, I have it on good authority that Alan Jones is planning to flee the country within the week, and I don't know where he is. But I know somebody that does. Problem is, my soon-to-be informant had a falling out with some of his other...'business partners', and now he's got a price on his head."

Understanding clicked in my mind. "He's the guy you're after. Shaw's Number, I mean. The guy she's protecting. You're using me as bait to lure her away."

"Wow, look at you," Root said with fake awe in her voice. "You figured that out fast. See, this is why Sameen likes working with you. Brains and beauty."

She had the nerve to be smiling still. In fact, the expression on her face as her eyes flicked up and down my body was...a little concerning.

"You just made this kinda weird," I said, squirming in my chair. I could feel the blood rising to my face. I tried to ignore it. There was no way I was getting turned on by this.

"Sorry," Root said, and once again, it was completely unconvincing. "Just trying to give a compliment. I'm not very good at it."

"I'm flattered. I'd be even more flattered if you untied me."

"Sorry, no can do," Root said. She turned idly back and forth in the chair, pushing off with one foot. "Anyway. Usually I'd just go in and taze everybody and whisk Sir Whines-a-lot off to some nice quiet warehouse for a chat, but I'm supposed to be on my best behavior and I'm not allowed to taze Sameen any more. So, you're my bait. Sam will come running when she finds out her girlfriend's been kidnapped. She leaves the safehouse, I sneak in and kidnap the brogrammer, you get rescued, I get my information, nobody important gets tazed, and everyone's happy."

"Right, I'm super happy right now." I groaned in frustration and clenched my fists. "Look, can we get on with this? When do I get to go home? You promised an hour."

"I did," Root said. She stood, pulled out her cell phone, and checked the screen. "Hmm. But I'm a little ahead of schedule."

"If you make me miss Wheel of Fortune tonight—"

"Relax," Root said. "You'll get your chance to yell letters at a television like an old lady. But in the meantime..." She looked me over, once again making me feel like some sort of butterfly about to be trapped in a jar. "You don't look very comfy."

"That's because some crazy woman tied me to a chair with zip ties and they pinch my wrists when I move too much."

"I can fix that."

"By untying me?" I said hopefully. Root walked behind the desk and reached for something stashed underneath it, picking up a slim duffel bag. As she returned, she unzipped it and pulled out a bundle of rope.

My heart sank.

"Really?" I said as she stepped behind me again. "No, I'm fine, really. I was kidding. Root! Leave me alone!" I gasped as my struggles made the zip ties pinch my wrists again.

"I mean, I could leave the nice tight zip ties," she said as she coiled the rope around my wrists. "Since you like them so much."

"No, no, that's fine." There was a snap, and I felt the pressure on my wrists slacken. For an instant, I was tempted to use that brief moment to try and escape—but Root grabbed my wrist and said, "Don't try it." I sighed, remembering my feet were bound too. So I just sat there and grumbled while Root cinched the rope around my wrists. It was more comfortable than the zip ties, for sure, but now my chances of escaping were pretty much nil.

My ankles, as expected, soon got the same treatment. She tied each foot to one of the chair cross-bars, leaving my toes dangling off the ground. Then Root moved up to my knees, binding each one tightly to the front chair legs, which I thought was a little excessive. Then came the ropes looped under and over my breasts and around the back of my chair, trapping my arms further behind me.

"Okay, now you're making this really weird," I whined. By now it was clear that my body was responding a little differently to the situation than my mind. I fought against the ropes, squirming and wriggling, but Root patiently pulled them tighter, which had the unfortunate side-effect of squeezing my breasts between the ropes.

"Just making sure you don't go anywhere," she said sweetly.

"You can stop now." Root had yet another bundle of rope in her hands. I fidgeted under her gaze and tried to close my legs, but of course, the ropes and chair held them apart.

"Hush," she said as she looped the rope over my thighs and behind the chair, tying my lower body down, "we both know you're into this kind of thing."

I scowled. Had she—had she really just gone there?

"Are you seriously telling me you can't figure out the difference between consensual fun and getting kidnapped?" I demanded.

Root shrugged. "You're enjoying it, aren't you?"

Yes, said my nether regions.

"Like hell!" I said, bucking back and forth in the chair, but it was heavy and solid and the movement accomplished exactly nothing.

"Uh-huh. It's okay, you can admit you're getting a little turned on right now. Or a lot. Nobody here but you and me, and I'm not judging."

"Fuck off," I snarled.

"Hmm, you're pretty loud," Root said, tapping her chin. She reached into the duffel bag again, this time pulling out a fat ball gag, the kind with holes in it for breathing and safety. My stomach dropped at the sight of it. "Can't have you attracting too much attention."

"Woah, hang on, no," I said, pissed off at both the thought of Root gaging me and the smoldering arousal that had definitely reacted positively to the sight of the red rubber ball. "What the fuck, Root? Can you just leave already?"

"I will, in a little while."

"You realize those don't actually make people quieter, right?"

"Yes, but they're fun. Stop deconstructing my clichés."

"Goddammit, Root-!" I struggled uselessly against the ropes as she circled behind me and held the gag in front of my mouth.

"We can do it the easy way or the hard way," she said, and I stilled instantly, my shoulders drooping in defeat. She waited a moment to make sure I wasn't struggling. "Good girl. Open your mouth. Remember, it's just for an hour...unless you want it longer."

I didn't even bother responding to that one.

"It's not like it makes much difference for you, anyway," Root said as she popped the gag into my mouth and buckled it behind my head, guiding my hair out from beneath the straps with surprisingly tender touches before she pulled the gag tight. It was large, but not uncomfortably so. (A shiver of delight tingled down my spine, much to my annoyance.)

She brushed the hair out of my eyes and said, "There's no way you can talk your way out of this one. You might not understand now, but this is a very important case, and I really do you need you as my bait so I don't risk hurting Sameen. Sorry."

For an instant, Root sounded at least a little sincere. Or maybe it was my imagination. I rolled my eyes and cursed into the gag.

"Just sit back and relax," Root cooed into my ear. "C'mon." She put her hands on my shoulders, rubbing gently. "You're totally safe here. I made sure of that. And Sam will be along in an hour to rescue the damsel in distress. It might not be what you want, but as far as getting kidnapped goes, you gotta admit, you've got it pretty good right now. Might as well make the best out of the situation and enjoy it." She let go, and my shoulders tingled at the sudden absence of her warm touch.

I mean, she had a point, from a logical perspective at least, but that was a slippery slope towards justifying her behavior. In a way, I was glad I was gagged, because I would've been arguing with her otherwise. I settled for glaring and tugging angrily at my restraints instead.

Root apparently took my silence as agreement. She glanced at her cell phone and said, "Mmm. Still a bit early." She looked me over again, a dangerous glint in her eyes. "You know, I feel pretty bad for having to leave you here all alone. Can't even leave a TV on or something so you don't get bored."

Oh, I did not like where this was going.

"Go away," I tried to say through the gag. I was pretty sure Root got the gist, but she ignored me and instead reached into her duffel bag yet again, and the objects she withdrew this time sent a shiver of anticipation throughout my body, fanning the flickering arousal between my thighs into something much harder to ignore.

In Root's left hand was yet another bundle of rope, but in her right was a far more concerning thing: a back massager.

Eyes wide, I shook my head as she approached, making muffled "uh-uh!" noises. I tried frantically to free my hands, but Root had tied her knots well, and my wrists remained bound. Root just grinned and knelt down in front of me.

"What kind of friend would I be if I left you here with no entertainment?" she said, looking up at me with those stupid doe-like eyes as I struggled, straining against the ropes. She lifted my skirt, her fingers grazing along my inner thighs as she moved the fabric out of the way.

Maybe Shaw's right about wearing skirts all the time, I thought for a brief moment, right before Root's hand brushed against my panties. My mind short-circuited at the gentle caress, and I was suddenly torn between canting my hips towards her touch or squirming away. Ultimately, I did neither, because the rope around my thighs permitted very little movement.

"Wet already?" Root said, her voice cloyingly sweet. "You're really getting into this."

I huffed angrily through the gag. Root didn't seem to notice. She just held up the massager, waving it toyingly in front of me, and then she clicked it on. A low buzz filled the room, and I clenched in anticipation. She let me stew like that for a few seconds before she lowered the business end of the device, making contact with the inside of my thigh. She danced it around a little, touching it just long enough for me to feel that, while this toy meant business, it definitely wasn't turned up all the way.

Her touch was teasing, brief, and she kept the toy far away from my intimates. Even so, the sound of the vibrator alone was enough to fan my unwilling desire, especially as the toy spiraled nearer and nearer to my womanhood and I began to feel its reverberations in my core.

A soft whimper escaped my lips when she finally allowed the vibrator to make contact with my panties. Emboldened by the sound, Root grinned and guided the head of the toy upward towards my navel, pausing right on my clit, and that got a muffled squeak and a shudder out of me.

"I've always wondered if you're the strong, silent type or a screamer in bed," Root said dreamily as she repeated the motion, holding the toy tighter against me as I squirmed. "Just kidding. I know which one it is. I like the noises you make. They sound much better in person."

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't hold the moans back. By now my arousal was burning in full force and my body craved the stimulation from the device in Root's nimble hands. But it was so inconsistent! She gave and then she took, holding the buzzing device just out of range while I whined in frustration.

"We should've done this ages ago," Root purred. "We'll have to have dates like this more often in the future."

I had just enough resistance left to shake my head no at Root, who just laughed.

"But you sound like you're having such a good time! I—oh. Is it time to go already?" Still teasing me with the vibrator in one hand, she picked up her phone with the other. "Darn, it is." She clicked off the vibrator and set it aside. "Don't worry. I'll make sure you get your fun."

From the duffel bag she procured one last bundle of rope. She used it to tie the handle of the massager to my leg, working the head of the device between my panties and my body. The textured business end of the device rubbed against my clit, and even with the motor off, the sensation sent little bursts of pleasure up my spine.

"There we go," Root said happily. "Now you can enjoy yourself for awhile, and I can go find the guy who knows the guy who almost broke the Internet. Have fun!"

An instant later, the toy sang to life. I yelped and jerked in my restraints, startled by the sudden stimulation—it was running faster than before, and I didn't like that very much.

"Time to go," Root said, slinging the duffel bag over her shoulder and pausing at the door. "You have fun now. Shaw will be here in about an hour."

"Wait!" I begged through the gag. "Turn it off!" Root somehow made sense of the muffled pleas and said, "Sorry, got a tight timetable."

"Root!" I whined.

"Try not to cum too soon. You've know how sensitive you get! Anyway, bye now."

And she left.

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