3.
The office she worked in was big, but it didn't seem like it because of how much it was stocked. There were five different computer screens on her desk, a printer, scanner, trackers and god knew what other gadgets all over the place. She was organized and very careful about where she put her things. She always knew exactly where to look when she needed something and that was the reason she never let anyone into her office, not even the cleaning lady. She did everything herself, this was her kingdom.
Currently, She was working on the new Bosco account.
Mr. Anthony Bosco was one of the usual over-wealthy businessmen that was were either paranoid or self-flattering enough to want to spent hundreds of thousands of his dollars on top of the line security. Either way, Kate didn't care what he wanted it for, it was her job to devise them, so she did her job.
The catch was that his house was in the woods, so that had been a small challenge that had amused her… for a couple of days. It had taken her a that long to come up with blueprints of sensors that would not go off if some wild animal tried to approach the house. A little more than that to set them up and the cameras, the heat detectors and to test all of them in every way possible before closing the account. Right now she was running a last trial on the program that was supposed to handle the security set of the house. It would be automatic, a direct line with the closest patrol in the area. She had programmed it herself, even updated the police program to fit it.
A knock sounded on her door.
"Come in." She said without looking up from her typing.
Ben poked his head inside.
"Kate, we may have a problem." He said swiftly.
"Talk me into it, I'm almost done here." She murmured, as if she was talking distractedly as she typed. But she still listened to every word – the FBI had contacted them as a liaison for another case: the needed to retrieve any kind of data they could from a few pieces of burned tec. The computers were not that badly damaged from the fire, the real problem was that the encryption on them was state-of-the-art.
Ten minutes later she was into the conference room, listening to the brainstorming going on.
"Is there no back-up?"
"No. The FBI didn't find anything. This is all we have."
"Do we know how big his unit was?" Marcus, their technical engineer asked from his desk as he tried to dismantle a burned laptop and find something in it that could still be savaged. There were several more pieces of technology that had seemed to be caught in the fire.
"We could ask, but in my experience most men lie about that." Jessica said from her chair as and Kate chuckled along with the rest.
"So… where do you want me to look first?" Ben asked as he finally got through the firewalls on the first one. They had been told that that one was the one the suspect used most often so there was a chance that there was something to be found in there.
"I want a full scan, see for anything that got caught between files, a ghost in the machine, anything to give us a hint of the matrix to decipher the encryption on this thing. I'll work on the cracking this baby here." Kate said as she patted the Mac Book in front of her. the computer was so tightly hardwired that the FBI agents hadn't even been able to go past the first firewall.
She took the computer and holed herself in her office for the next five hours.
oOoOo
Tuck walked out of the store, the few groceries in his hand and trying in the mean time to light a fag as he went. His eyes scanned his surroundings, waiting for the time to go 06.03 so that, as previously accorded, he could call FDR. Frank then would fake deep sorrow from a very bad news and would need consoling, which would lead him to the girls apartment in no time, at least according to Franklin.
But he didn't doubt his friends ability to manipulate himself into women's beds. He had seen it happen enough times to take FDR's word for it.
06.03 had come and gone and now Tuck had to make a different call, to make sure that FDR succeeded in hacking into the target's internet line so that they could keep track of her net movements and who she contacted with n the privacy of her home. Whipping up a device that would help them do that had been tricky, but Drew had come through in the end.
Three weeks… and they hadn't even found anything relevant on this female. If this had been any other job, they would have been pulled out (if this had been any other job, they wouldn't even be there…) Liz was really going overboard with this whole punishment thing.
Tuck took out is phone and dialed his only real contact in there.
"Hey my man." FDR's voice came clear from the other end of the line. Tuck cut to the chase.
"Did you do it?" he asked as he threw his cigar on the sidewalk and stepped on it.
"Are you seriously asking me that"?
"No, I called to flirt." Tuck deadpanned. Frank chuckled in his ear
"Relax man, I got it." FDR droned and Tuck sighed. "You sound uptight, whasup?"
"I'm not uptight, I'm bloody bored. We need to wrap this up and move the fuck on."
"Wow… you need to chill my friend. Think of it as a well deserved vacation."
Tuck rolled his eyes, already irritated. He was about to snap that he didn't want t freaking vacation, he wanted his job back, his life back. But just as he was about to do that, a black bike came to a sudden stop right next to his feet and did so way too fast for comfort. Immediately he took a step back, tense and ready to act.
Tuck felt his muscles tense and he fixed his eyes on the rider. It had to be a kid: he had no muscle mass whatsoever, so much that he seemed a hermaphrodite. Black pants, black Caterpillar boots, black leather jacket, black cask over his head… Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that it even might be a woman, going from that nicely shaped rear… and the light, easily maneuverable model of the bike, but it was not a serious afterthought. It didn't really matter.
"Gotta go." Tuck said stiffly and closed the call, his eyes never leaving the rider's helmet. The glass was dark so he couldn't see who it was behind the thing.
Just when he was about to decide whether he was going to walk away or not, the rider took off his helmet… and Tuck was left there, gawking like a fish out of water, stunned speechless for the first time in years.
"Kate?"
Her chuckle was warm, pleasant, amber eyes sparkled as the wavy dark hair cascaded down her back, free from the helmet that had been holding them up.
She seemed so different from the girl he knew, who wore fluffy bright-colored socks, baggy sweats and wool sweaters over lace-bordered tank tops; a girl who always had a sunny smile and a hello for him whenever they bumped into each other in the stairs or in the elevator. This girl now in front of him, with the leather jacket and biker wear seemed like a wholly different person. He would have never imagined Kate like that, but he had to admit that the ways he seemed to have so many layers to her person was intriguing.
"Hey Tuck. You looked ready to kick my ass for a moment there." She said lightly as she stepped off the bike, smiling at him openly.
That was when he reminded himself that he shouldn't be so surprised, that he had seen the toughness in her eyes since the first time he had seen her. And her open smile was the same as ever, her eyes sparkling, so much that he found himself smiling back at her easily, without even realizing it.
All of a sudden, the frustration that had been darkening his day simply ebbed away, like a headache you forgot about.
"Well, you were about to run me over, so I was justified."
She laughed as she unzipped her jacket and then the dark gray hoodie underneath, as if she was too hot all of a sudden - her cheeks were flushed, her eyes shiny. The black tank top underneath had lacy borders and he was reminded again of the girl he knew.
"Yeah, sorry about that. I saw you as I came here and decided to startle you a bit." She said with a wide smile and winked at him. He chuckled.
"It's alright, I needed it." And he meant it. "What are you doing around here?"
She nodded towards a big electronic store on the other side of the street. "Had to pick up a few things. Are you going home afterwards?"
"Yeah."
"Do you have a ride?" She asked with a smile.
Tuck eyed her bike suspiciously and she laughed again. "I think I'd rather walk." He said but then laughed as well.
"Come on Tuck, I'm a fantastic rider. Never had an accident, I swear."
Yeah, he already knew that. She'd never had so much as a speeding ticket.
"Alright, but only if you promise to take it easy on me."
"I promise." She said solemnly, eyes twinkling with amusement. "Wanna come with me to the store? I'll be just a few minutes."
"Sure, I'd love to see a little more of what you do."
"Oh yeah? Well come one then, I'll show you all about it."
Tuck smiled and walked along with her and chatted idly until they went into the store and she started fishing for what she needed without wasting time. He notice how she nodded the helping boy away, seemingly perfectly capable of orienting herself among the electronic gadgets and whatnots. She knew exactly what she wanted and she didn't hesitate.
Tuck was starting to get the feeling that she was like that in every aspect of her life.
"It looks like some serious technology in here. What do you need all this stuff for?"
"Work." She answered simply as she went over to the end of the island and picked out some stuff that he had never seen before – and he'd been trained for that kinda stuff.
"What kind of work do you do? I've never asked."
"I have my own company, a small one; we deal in high-tech security and investigation."
Tuck's eyebrows went up in an obvious show of surprise. He already knew that of course, since he's already gone through her background (her small company was in fact one of the most demanded in its field, since they had a reputation for being fail-proof. None of her systems had ever been breached and that was a record), but surprise like this had been his first reaction so he reckoned simulating it now was appropriate.
"You have your own company and you're what, 23, 24…?"
"I'll be 24 in a few weeks." Kate said with a smile, looking up at him from over her shoulder – she had been crouching down, scanning some stuff he had no idea what it was for.
"That's amazing." Tuck said, meaning every syllable. She was amazing, in a lot of different ways…
She shrugged. "It's alright. Work is never short for sure. Lots of paranoid people out there."
"Yeah, you can never run short of those. And what do you do exactly?" He asked and this was an honest question because he actually wanted to know. She had just downplayed her job but he knew better than to believe her. That was part of the information that was not in her background check. The details were nowhere to be found, not unless he went full on CIA on her life – and Tuck hadn't wanted to do that.
She was not a target, she was just a girl he had been curious about. Going any deeper in her life than he already had would have been completely immoral.
"I develop motion detectors, heat sensors, or update preexisting ones, make them better. I write computer programs that control environments to made sure nobody goes where they are not supposed to go. I program firewalls and computer protection against foreign attacks, from viruses or other agents, like hackers. I'm pretty sure that my encrypting techniques are some of the top in the market right now… I can do other stuff as well, but that is classified and on need to know basis only." She looked at him with a strange secretive smile, and he knew that she was only joking but he could not help a chuckle. It felt so strange having her say those words to him.
This had to be what people meant when they talked about the touch of serendipity.
"You like your job huh?"
Her smile stretched wider. "I love my job."
"And you're good at it."
She shrugged. "Yeah, that's one of the reasons I love it so much: I can do it well."
She put the stuff she'd bough on the counter and looked at him waiting for the boy to give her the receipt.
"How did you start? Frank said you were some kind of genius or something since you were a kid."
She rolled her eyes. "Franklin exaggerates, as per usual." There were a few moments of pause, during which she seemed to think on the best way to put her thoughts.
"I don't know how it started, I've just always loved everything electronic for as long as I can remember. I was always tearing stuff apart and putting them back together, wanting to know how everything worked - I was five when I learned how to build a radio."
His disbelief was obvious in his expression, as was his awe. "Are you serious?"
She chuckled at his earnestness. "Yeah. It actually worked, I couldn't believe it myself!" She laughed at the memory.
"My mother kept it for years. She was the best teacher I could have had, always had the answer for everything. She was a mechanical engineer, could built anything from scratch if she wanted." The pride in her voice laced with an intrinsic sadness that seemed to scratch at the edges of her tone, at the corners of her eyes.
That's when he knew that she had loved her mother very much. Knowing that her mother had died when she was 15 was not the same as hearing it in her voice.
"And computers… I loved computers. My best birthday present was when I was eight and got my first Mackintosh. That was when I knew I wanted to do with my life."
"What's that?" he asked softly, almost right by her ear - so much closer than she had expected him to be that she had to look up at him, and when she did, her smile melted off her face. He was staring at her so intensely that for a moment she forgot all about what she had been doing, saying... almost forgot to take in her next breath. She simply let herself be drawn into him, into him, there was no fighting it. Looking into his eyes in that moment felt impossibly irresistible, like falling off a trampoline with no lifeline or security net…
It was a strange mixture of frightening and exhilarating.
"Miss…"
The voice hanged in the air like a call that had been repeated several times before finally filtering in. They both startled, Kate a little more than Tuck because she had not realized what had happened at all. But she covered it with a nervous smile and movement, as she took out the money she needed to pay. But Tuck was not so quick to brush off his momentary distraction. In fact, he was deeply disturbed by it, because he literally could not, under any circumstance, afford to be that careless in the field.
"I'm so sorry, but…" The boy looked at his left and Kate was a little embarrassed to see that there was a line they were holding up. She laughed then, freely and shocking almost everyone within earshot – Tuck included.
"That will be 479.35$." the boy said a little hesitatingly, looking at them with an apology written all over her face.
"Almost 500 dollars? What have you got in there?" He asked once they were out of the shop.
"Blah, I don't wanna bore you with the names, they're useless until I actually do something with them."
"What are you planning to do with them?"
"Work. I have a new case from the FBI – they contact us from time to time, to help them with the high-teck stuff. I have to hack into a uber-protected computer, retrieve anything I can from it."
"FBI huh. Sounds serious." He observed. Because this time he was thrown. He had not read that in her background check. Surely, the FBI liked to keep their resources sealed, so he doubted he'd even find it in a deeper search.
"It's my good deed for the day." She explains frivolously, downplaying what mattered to her again. She put her stuff in the pocket of her bike, and reached to him for his groceries as well.
Then she zipped up her hoodie, her jacket, put on her leather gloves and hopped on the bike, looking at him with a challenging expression. Tuck smirked, came closer and threw his leg over, sitting right next to her, so close that her back was right against his front, his thighs pressed against hers. There was no other way of sitting and quite frankly he couldn't really think of a better way. He could feel her alive and close to him and it was exhilarating… and a little daunting, feeling how easily breakable she was despite the inner strength of her. It reminded him how easily he could hurt her, because of who he was, of how he lived.
Who he really was and what he was doing here and now were an oxymoron, incompatible - and Tuck had never been more aware of that than in this moment, with Kate so close to him he could feel her breathing. His life, his real life, was a mixture of violence and fast paced action and no rest; blood, death and gore were the main players in his existence during its worst moments; constant danger and vigilance at its best. There was no time, no opportunity for anyone else in that kind of life. Pretending that it was any different was the most selfish thing that he could ever do.
So what the fuck was he doing now?
Tuck didn't really have an answer for that. Maybe, he reasoned, he just needed a break, a clean getaway, a pause from himself.
What he was doing right now was not reality, even thought it felt more real than anything in a long, long time. This was a slice of something else… and he liked this something else. He liked it right now more than he had liked anything for a long time and it was surprising to find that out so suddenly.
He leaned forward and put his hands on the smooth plastic cover of the taillight, practically wrapping her in a loose embrace. Kate felt the heat of him seep through her clothes, through her skin and smiled. When he spoke, his deep voice was right by her ear.
"So, where am I supposed to hold on?"
She felt her breath leave her lungs in a rush. The sound of his voice so close she could feel the vibration of it from his chest was just… oh, wow…
Kate felt a little giddy and for a moment, she just wanted to laugh to let the butterflies out. She liked this. She had not had this much fun out of something so silly in a while. Tuck seemed to be like that – easy fun. Kate leaned back, pressing herself against him even more and turned her head a little to the side, finding his lips a few short inches over hers. He was smiling.
"I'm the only thing you can hold on to right now." She said with a smile, without realizing that her voice had gone a little more husky than usual.
They stayed like that for a moment and then Kate couldn't hold back her laughter anymore. She was not laughing at him, she was just laughing. She was happy and to her it was simple: when she felt like this, there was no reason in the world to hold back anything. His chuckle vibrated through her and that cut the laugh short, because it started something else, deep inside her gut. But the smile remained, even though now it was there for another reason.
Kate handed him his helmet and put on the first gear. When she spoke again, she was serious, even though the hint of a smile was still in her tone, in her eyes.
"Have you ever been on a bike before?"
"Yeah, I have."
"As a passenger?" She asked doubtfully. Tuck smiled.
"That too."
"Alright then. Hold on."
He should have known from the pleasure she took in warning him that this was one of the worst ideas he'd had in a long, long time.