Firewall

by Sierra Riley

  All he wanted to do was get home and call Calder.

  “Calder, they fired me,” Justin gritted into the phone as he angrily paced his kitchen, his socked feet sliding along the laminate floor.

  “What? For what?” came the strong, familiar voice on the other side.

  Justin didn’t actually call Calder very often, preferring to text or chat on instant messenger apps, but this was an emergency.

  He needed to hear his best friend’s voice more than anything.

  “They claim that I breached their security system and let valuable information leak out to a third party.”

  “Can they back it up?”

  “They seem to think they can, but they didn’t tell me what they know,” Justin spat. “Why the hell would I do that? I had it good there! I wasn’t being challenged as much as I’d like, and my coworkers were a bit annoying, but...”

  “Hey, it’s okay. This is a stressful time. Look, just take a step back. Look into lawyers if you think you have a case against them. At least you don’t have to worry too much about finances, right?”

  “No...”

  Justin had had a decent six-figure salary with Sybil Industries, and he’d gotten bonuses from his excellent work. He’d resisted the temptation to buy old first-edition Marvel comics, his entire Steam wish list, and a life-sized TARDIS for the corner of his living room. He splurged sometimes, but he banked away most of his salary.

  Perhaps part of him had known that a good thing wasn’t bound to last forever.

  “Then breathe and take your time thinking through your next move. Is there anyone you can think of that might put the blame on you?”

  Justin paused for a moment. “Well, when I was out last night with some coworkers, a conversation about work came up. A coworker of mine, Wallace, was talking about finding work elsewhere.”

  “What would that have to do with the security breach?”

  “If he wanted to get in good with another company, taking some information with him would help.” Justin’s heart raced as he shook his head. “But that’d be stupid of him to steal information right after that conversation. Then again, if he wanted me out of the way, now would’ve been the perfect time to frame me.”

  When Justin had begun working at Sybil Industries three years back, Wallace and Elliot had been happy to help him get settled. They were the only two who’d been around since before Justin’s time. Everyone else had come and gone.

  It hadn’t taken long for the team to realize that Justin didn’t need their assistance, once he had his cubicle and his computer. In no time at all, Justin had surpassed them. For the last two years, he’d gotten almost all the best job duties and bonuses. He was great at what he did.

  Thinking back, he hadn’t paid forward any help getting others settled in. He’d expected everyone to hit the ground running like he had, not to arrive expecting on-the-job training. It wasn’t out of malicious intent, but because he loved what he did and he didn’t want to get bogged down training others all the time.

  Again, it was hard to think about others sometimes because of his condition.

  “That sounds really serious. You should definitely get lawyers, especially in case your work tries to get you arrested.”

  “Without the evidence, it’d be tricky, which is why I think they just let me go. I’ll definitely have backup in case, though, thanks. I guess I should let you go. I’m probably interrupting something.”

  “I’m never too busy for you. Well, except when I am.”

  “Thanks,” Justin grumbled as Calder laughed. After a few moments, Justin asked, “So, how are things at work?” When it came to Calder, it was a little easier to initiate conversations, although he still often had to really think about it.

  “I’m just wrapping up things with a client. Today’s the last day with them.”

  Justin laughed, his shoulders gradually relaxing. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll catch you later online.”

  “Definitely. Take it easy and keep me updated. If you need anything, let me know.”

  Justin blushed lightly as he leaned against his kitchen counter. “Thanks, I think. Okay, talk to you later.”

  “See ya.”

  When Justin hung up, he groaned and thudded the phone to his forehead a few times.

  What was he going to do now?

  5

  Calder

  Calder was worried about Justin. In the days after he’d been fired, he hadn’t come off as handling it particularly well. At least Calder had managed to soothe him whenever they caught each other online, and he always seemed cheerier after they talked.

  But Calder was really worried on Justin’s behalf. Dealing with security breaches was a serious business and could lead to charges of corporate sabotage. While it seemed like the wolves were being kept from Justin’s door, it didn’t mean he was safe.

  And who the hell did this Wallace guy think he was if he was indeed framing Justin? Justin had spoken about Wallace briefly in the past but it mostly had to do with his general creepiness. Since Justin was socially awkward, Calder wasn’t entirely sure how creepy Wallace really was or if Justin was misreading it. Still, he gave Justin the benefit of the doubt.

  Finally, with so many thoughts running through his head, Calder had to talk to someone about it. He grabbed his phone and called his older brother, Vince. Within seconds, Vince picked up.

  “Hey,” Calder said. “Are you busy?”

  “That’s quite the greeting. Is everything all right?”

  Calder was close with his older brother.

  “Things are a bit tricky right now.” Calder frowned as he flopped down onto his couch. “Justin got fired from work a few days ago. They think he leaked or stole company information. Justin knows he’s been framed but can’t prove it. At least, he can’t prove it yet.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot of stuff just thrown at me,” Vince laughed. “Okay, so what is he doing now?”

  “He’s been reeling from it over the past few days. I told him to look into lawyers, although I’m not sure he believes they can help him right now.”

  “Does he know who framed him?”

  “He has an idea, but no solid evidence. It sounds like there could be more than one person involved, too.” Calder rubbed his face as he closed his eyes. “You know how he is around people. He doesn’t make friends easily, so I’m worried that this is really a huge misunderstanding.”

  Calder knew it was hard for Justin to have an “invisible disease.” As far as he knew, Justin hadn’t told anyone at work about his condition. While Calder personally thought it’d be easier on Justin if he did tell some people, he was in no place to tell Justin what to do. This was something Justin had to deal with every day his entire life.

  “Man, that’s rough but what can you do about it?”

  “Not much except offer my moral support.”

  “I’m sure that’s more than enough right now. You can’t force him to accept help. He’s always been stubborn about that.”

  Calder made a face at this comment, but couldn’t deny it. After a few moments, he let out a breath. “And it just makes me wonder about my own work.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Justin’s coworkers so easily threw him under the bus. I wonder what mine really think of me?”

  Like Justin, Calder excelled at what he did. Underwood was the most in-demand private security firm in Los Angeles, and had been for five years. He was near the top of the food chain there.

  As much as Justin had poked fun at his soft-science degree, his degree in psychology had helped a lot in this job. It hadn’t been exactly what he’d needed, but he hadn’t known he wanted to be a bodyguard until after he got the degree. In the end it was just a bonus that helped make him more employable after he earned his proper bodyguard certifications.

  It hadn’t been long before Calder’s natural calmness, intelligence, and ability to adapt had him at the top of list in the firm. Everyone from celebrities to billionaires had dir
ectly requested that he work for them.

  Were there coworkers waiting in the wings to take him down like Justin’s had? Calder liked to think that he was on good terms with everyone. He was personable and made friends easily. He had been told that he had a kind of energy and charisma that people couldn’t ignore.

  “Don’t let what happened with Justin make you paranoid,” Vince warned.

  “I’m not,” Calder was quick to answer. “Okay, maybe I am a little, but that’s natural.”

  “It sounds like you might need a break, too.”

  That much was true. Being so caught up in work left Calder feeling like he had no free time of his own. He wanted to surround himself with something new and adventurous. He needed a change of pace and scenery.

  “Justin’s invited me to visit him.”

  “Well, there you go! You’ll kill two birds with one stone!”

  Calder laughed. “Well, when you put it like that...”

  “And you two haven’t seen each other in a while. It’d be good to catch up.”

  Calder’s heart rate picked up at the words. Images of sweet Justin floated through his mind. They only saw each other in pictures and videos nowadays, but Calder personally did best with direct interaction. What would it be like to see Justin again after all this time?

  There was something stirring deep down inside that Calder couldn’t yet place.

  “You’re right. I’ll talk to him about it again,” Calder promised. “Anyway, enough about me—what have you been up to?”

  While Calder was happy enough chatting it up with his brother, he needed that distraction to help tone down the heat forming at the thought of seeing Justin again.

  A week after Justin’s panicked phone call, Calder got another of those rare phone calls from him. This one didn’t come out of the blue, though, since Justin had texted first to check if he was home. Lucky for him, he was. Calder had only just arrived home after finishing with a client and was glad to have the night to himself.

  “Hey. What’s up?” Calder greeted as he answered the call.

  “I have an idea.”

  “Oh, here we go,” Calder teased.

  “Pfft. I’m making my own firm. Well, I’m going to freelance at first to try and build up my reputation outside of Sybil Industries, but I’ll be working on my own company in the meantime. Making sure I get all the legalities right.”

  “Oh, that sounds like a good plan,” Calder mused. “Make your own name instead of working for someone else’s.”

  “I still have lots to learn about getting this off the ground, but I’ll go to a few IT security conventions. I can learn from the best if I attend some of them. There’s one in Seattle that looks promising. It’d be an easy drive up from here.”

  “That sounds fun.” In reality, it didn’t. Calder had never cared much for conventions and crowds, especially working them as he usually did. Worse yet, there would be a bunch of tech nerds there—hardcore nerds whose language Calder didn’t speak rather than movie buffs and gamers, who he could relate to. But Justin had always been passionate. Right now, Justin needed support more than anything.

  “A little intimidating but fun,” Justin agreed. “I don’t do too well in crowds.”

  “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Calder assured him. “You can do it.”

  “Thanks. How was your day?”

  “Oh, you know, same as always. I just got back from a short job. I love the work but I kind of wish the firm would let me choose more of my own clients, you know? It feels like I’m always working. I don’t have much time for anything else.”

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

  “Justin?”

  “No, I’m here, sorry.”

  A prickle of annoyance rippled across Calder’s skin. Being friends with Justin was great, but definitely was not without its challenges. Here he was trying to talk about his own day and Justin was already distracted. While Calder had a lot of patience and knew why Justin acted the way he did, it was only human to be frustrated sometimes.

  “Right. Anyway.” Calder’s tone was clipped.

  “You should definitely come out like we were talking about before,” Justin spoke up. “That’d be the vacation you’d need, yeah? And we can hang out like old times.”

  Calder relaxed slightly. In that moment, despite his annoyance with Justin, he yearned to see him. He did miss all of the adventures they used to have when they were teenagers. They had been so close.

  And it sounded like reconnecting was just the thing they both needed in their lives right now.

  Calder made a note to ask about time off at work.

  “Oh, I’ve totally got to show you OMSI, which is the coolest museum you’ll ever go to,” Justin gushed.

  “What’s there to see?” Calder asked, then smiled when Justin launched into the entire experience. It was hard to stay mad at Justin very long whenever he got excited. He was just so cute.

  A random flash of the cute Justin stretched out rather suggestively across a couch crossed Calder’s mind. It had been so sudden that it jolted Calder. Images like these had happened throughout the years. How could they not? Justin was attractive and Calder wasn’t blind to it. Still, in all the years they had known each other, they had kept it in their pants. It was better that way.

  Or was it?

  Calder shook his head, trying to rid himself of such a thought. It wasn’t the first time he’d had it, and it wouldn’t be the last, but it was something he had to keep stuffing deep down inside.

  Calder quickly threw himself back into the conversation to keep himself distracted, his heart pounding the whole time.

  6

  Justin

  Getting his feet back on the ground after being fired turned out to be trickier than Justin had thought. After walking into a couple of other tech companies he’d freelanced for in the past, he was getting nothing. Stony faces or rejections outright instead of “we’ll see what our next project is and give you a call tomorrow,” like he’d heard before. Justin was used to being in demand.

  How fast had word spread. And, worse yet, what exactly was being spread? Had the incident with Sybil Industries leaked out? All it took was one pair of loose lips and companies wouldn’t dare trust him with their sensitive security information. And nothing had even been proven—in court or otherwise.

  It was all a bit much. Justin wanted to curl up in bed and bury himself in Doctor Who books. It felt so much easier to lose himself in fantasy worlds rather than face reality, but it had to be done. Justin was too prideful to let this take him down.

  Not for something he hadn’t even done in the first place.

  Justin needed to prove that he still had what it took, and earn a chance to salvage his reputation. He loved what he did too much to give it all up now. That was where his idea of creating his own firm had come from. He could put together a team of pentesters and hackers to rent out to companies for projects big and small.

  He didn’t know how he was going to do that yet, but he was working on it. It would be a hell of a lot easier if he knew what people were saying about him, though.

  As he wracked his brain at home, he browsed his usual tech forums. He didn’t really converse much with others, even there, but the forums were handy for learning new tricks. They were also good for following up on bugs and half-finished testing methods that others were too lazy to finish and use.

  Then, he froze as he read a thread title that made his stomach twist.

  “Sybil Industries breached, pentester fired!”

  He clicked on the thread and grimaced. The first poster was talking about the security breach, and it only got nastier from there. Apparently he didn’t have friends on this forum either. A lot of the comments were attacking him personally rather than his work.

  Serves him right. If it’s who I think it is... he looks down on everyone else.

  Yep. It was him. LOL. He’s really hard to get along with.

  Anyone remember wh
en he put people out of jobs??? Who’s laughing now.

  They only went on from there. Justin hardly knew what to do, his jaw tightening as he read the posts.

  He had to defend himself. If people were going to be talking about him like that, it’d look even worse if he didn’t respond, right? Putting a lid on his growing anger, Justin typed out a detailed defense of himself. He told them that he knew he wasn’t the best at socializing, like a lot of geeks and nerds, but he knew his job and he’d always done it. He had no idea who had caused the breach, but it definitely wasn’t him. Some asshole had pinned something on him, and he knew it.

  Just before he posted it, he hesitated, his cursor hanging over the “post” button.

  “Maybe I’ll send it to Calder first,” Justin muttered. He went to his email account and composed a new message for Calder. He copied and pasted what he had written into it and explained the situation.

  Calder was good at defusing situations. That was what he did for a living. The last thing Justin wanted to do was make things worse.

  After he sent off his email, Justin paced around his house, muttering to himself. He was so worked up that even the thought of tinkering with gadgets or playing games didn’t soothe him.

  A few minutes later, Calder sent back an email with an attachment. It was a revised version of what Justin had sent him, and a quick note.

  This will probably work a lot better for you. :)

  As Justin glanced over the post, he had to admit that it sounded a lot calmer than what he had originally sent. He didn’t know how Calder did it but he had such a good way with words.

  Justin grabbed that revised version and posted it to the forum, then let out a breath. There. The post was out there for these people to see—these... not friends, but also not strangers, most of them known to him after years in hacker circles. Apparently, not even friendly acquaintances.