Page 6 of Protector Unmatched

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A latte in one hand, a large messenger bag slung across her body, Daphne fished out her ID card from her jacket pocket. To her dismay, the lanyard got tangled up with her cell phone, which she’d haphazardly stuffed into the same pocket, and pulled it out. It dropped on the stone floor before she could catch it.

“Crap,” she cursed, while she heard the security guard snicker. She tossed him an annoyed look and picked up the phone, careful not to spill the hot beverage. Inspecting the screen, she was pleased to see that the shatterproof casing had done its job. Nevertheless, she couldn’t resist reacting to the security guard’s snickering. “This wouldn’t happen if you didn’t make me show my ID every day. For God’s sake, Gus, you know who I am!”

Gus stood next to his desk and shoved his beer belly in her direction. “Company policy. You know it. No exceptions. Not even for you, Daphne.”

“I really don’t know why that’s necessary. I’ve been working here for six months.”

“True, but what if you got fired from one day to the next, and I don’t get the memo right away? Can’t let anybody unauthorized enter. Cybersecurity starts at home.” He pointed to the card reader next to him.

Grumbling a curse underneath her breath, she tapped her card. A green light blinked.

“See,” Gus said smugly, “now I know you haven’t gotten fired yet. Was that so hard?”

“You have a nice day, too,” she said, infusing her tone with a good dose of sarcasm. She dropped her messenger bag into a tray and shoved it through the scanner, where a second security guard inspected the contents via a computer screen.

“Try not to get fired today,” Gus called after her as she marched through the metal detector. “I would miss our little chats in the mornings.”

Behind the scanner, Daphne grabbed her bag again, then waited in front of the elevator doors until they opened with a ding. She cast a look back at Gus, but he wasn’t looking in her direction. She liked the clean-shaven fifty-something man, but she didn’t like rules. However, suddenly working in the corporate world meant she had to play by them now, whether she felt stifled by them or not.

In a way, she’d been lucky. Had her criminal defense attorney not struck a deal with Cyberhack, an international cybersecurity company, who regularly employed ex-hackers as a means to combat cybercrime, she would have done time in prison for hacking. To her surprise, the judge in her case had been lenient, and she’d gotten away with probation only. Part of the plea agreement had been a three-year employment contract with Cyberhack. And she had to keep her nose clean. The only hacking she was allowed to perform was in the service of the company to test their own software.

It was a good job, it paid decently—better than the laundry shop in prison, anyway—and she had relatively flexible hours. As long as she performed the tasks her boss assigned every day, she could set her own hours. But, of course, there were rules. She wasn’t allowed to consort with any of the other ex-hackers the company employed. She followed that edict, not because it was a company rule, but because she wasn’t interested in hanging out with them anyway.

She was done with that part of her life. She’d spent enough years in crappy apartments smelling of cold pizza and flat soft drinks, shacked up with like-minded hackers wanting to disrupt government, to change the world, to wake up people to the problems the world was facing. And where had it gotten her? Into court. And nearly into prison. She was out. Done. From now on, she would be on the straight and narrow. Follow the rules. Operate within the law.

The elevator doors opened on the fifth floor. Daphne got out and took a quick gulp of her latte, then walked down the corridor to her cubicle. Over half the cubicles were occupied with other cybersecurity specialists typing away feverishly. Others would arrive whenever they rolled out of bed. Daphne preferred not to arrive past ten o’clock, since she liked having her evenings to herself rather than stay late. However, this morning she’d overslept.

The neighborhood the office was located in wasn’t exactly the best, and once night fell, questionable characters loitered in the dark alleys around the building. She made a point of leaving work while the sidewalks were still teeming with other workers. No need taking a chance with her life. Even though she was a criminal, she’d never committed a violent crime, and she certainly didn’t want to be a victim of one. Since she was on probation, she carried no weapon to defend herself against the hoodlums that crawled out of their hiding places at night.

Daphne set her latte on the desk in her cramped cubicle, met the glances of several of her colleagues with a quick nod, then dropped her bag on the floor, plopped into her chair, and switched on the computer. While the machine powered up, she dug into her bag and pulled her noise-cancelling headphones from her messenger bag. At least she could listen to music during work, which helped her concentrate.

Once she was logged in, she quickly reviewed the work assignment her boss had sent to her screen. She shrugged to herself. If her boss knew that the tasks he gave her to work on would barely take her half a day, he would surely double her workload. But she never let on that she was capable of so much more. After all, why should she be punished for working faster and more efficiently than the other employees?

Daphne was about to put her headphones on when her cell phone vibrated in her pocket. She quickly lifted herself a few inches out of her chair to be able to see her boss’s glass-enclosed office. He frowned on employees taking calls on their cell phones, but luckily, he was engrossed in a conversation with another employee. Letting herself fall back in her chair, she reached for her phone and looked at the display.

“Fuck,” she cursed under her breath. Seeing her brother’s name show up on the display was giving her instant heartburn. She contemplated ignoring the call, but she knew he would keep calling and texting until she replied.

“What do you want?” she answered in a hushed voice, using her hand to shield her mouth so her voice wouldn’t carry across the office.

“Listen carefully.”

The command jolted her involuntarily. The voice wasn’t her brother’s. And it sounded muffled, as if somebody was speaking through a layer of clothing.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“My name isn’t important.”

“So you stole his phone, asshole.” It didn’t surprise her. After all, the kind of people her brother hung around with had a disregard for other people’s property.

“Borrowed it,” the man snapped. “But you listen to me now—”

“Put my brother on!”

“He can’t talk right now. He’s a little tied up.” Daphne could make out a chuckle in the background.

Great! So her brother had gotten drunk, and his idiot friends were playing a prank. She had no time for their games.