Chapter 3

Four weeks later, Nico found herself empty and lonely. Due to that fact of not being in the middle of a project, Roy started tasking her with different diagnostic checks. It was easy; all she had to do was fix fragments and holes in the codes. After the first day, no one so much as looked at her. To say she didn't try would be a lie, as she had approached many of them during breaks for weeks. Finally, she had given up and resolved to work alone.

Now, on a Friday night in her fourth week of work, she sat cross-legged in her chair. A bottle of Mountain Dew sat her on desk, untouched. All around her cubicle, programmers were shutting down and going home.

Of course they go home. She thought. They've probably got spouses and plans.

And that's partly why she stayed where she was: all she had to go back to at her apartment was her neighbor, Ms. Miller, and the sweet old lady had gone on a trip, leaving Nico's own night bitterly empty.

Once she heard the door slam close and the voices disappear, she reached over and opened her soda with a psft. With a sigh, she took a drink and imagined feeling the caffeine hype up (was it slow down she thought) her brain. Whichever way, caffeine cleared her mind, allowing her to continue her work.

She bit her lip as she worked on a little malware she had found sneaking around. Keystroke virus: annoying but not as devastating as one that could shut down your entire computer, like those scams she had heard about online.

She jumped as she heard someone swear loudly. She stood and searched the dark room to find no one. She looked down to see that not only was her soda empty, but her hand was shaking ever so slightly next to her leg.

Maybe I'm hearing things…I have been here a while.

Maybe it's the caffeine….it would explain why I'm shaky….

She thought through all solutions to shakiness.

Water.

Water will do.

Sighing, she made her way to the water fountain near the front door. She pulled off a paper cup and filled it up with water. The cool liquid touched her lips and went down her throat.

She choked when she heard the loud swear again. Taking deep breaths, she quieted herself and listened.

The voice was young, male, and definitely frustrated, considering the swearing that kept coming out of his mouth. She couldn't tell exactly what he was talking about, but whatever it was, it wasn't working to his will.

"Why won't it work? The access worked last time_!"

He stomped off in frustration. After a moment, Nico opened the door and watched the figure disappear into the darkness. Frowning, she looked towards the direction he came from. Narrowing her eyes to a squint, she quietly closed the door behind her and started towards the corner of that hallway. Normally, she would've left it alone and gone back inside.

But there was a light on the floor, just down the hall.

Curiosity got the better of her, and she turned the corner to see….nothing. Just a regular hallway with regular doors. She let out her held breath and paranoia, but she didn't turn around. The blue light was still there, leading to a door that stood ajar. Quietly, she crept towards it, afraid another door would open. But none did as she found herself next to the doorframe. She grabbed the handle and opened the door slightly more to see inside.

There was a computer on a desk with a chair. That was all she could see upon looking in.

And that's all I need to know. A sane part spoke loudly within her.

She turned to leave when she realized the blue light was because the computer was still on. The frustrated guy had forgotten log out and shut down. If he doesn't come back for a while, there's a chance it could overheat….especially with all his work still open.

Sighing, she entered and sat down. She went to save and close his work when something in it caught her eye.

"A command string?" She said aloud. Now she could see what frustrated him. He kept access to some subroutine, but it kept denying it. Frowning, she ran diagnostic to see the flaw was a fragmented code piece around an external access. She pulled up the code and set to work, lost in the command strings and code bits.

Finally, she looked over his work and copied off what he had asked for.

With a sigh, she typed in the last part:

bin/LLLSDLaserControl-ok1

After a moment, instead flowing flashing the words "denied" there was a whirring sound coming from behind her. She turned to get a face full of a bright light before everything went dark.