My mom nixed any idea of skipping more than one grade in high school. She spouted nonsense about social integration and maturity, so here I am. She did compromise, however, and let me take some online computer science courses at Georgetown University to keep me academically engaged. I hope to go there next fall on a full academic scholarship, provided I survive the year.
The warning bell rang. I closed my laptop, sliding it into my backpack. I had three minutes to get to class. I strode to the door and took one step into the hallway before I collided with a brick wall.
What the heck? I rubbed my forehead and took a step back.
Mary Herman glared at me. “Don’t you ever watch where you’re going, Carrot Top?”
I had to look up to see her face. While everyone else had finished their growth spurts, I was still working on mine. On a good day, I stood five foot three and weighed 105 pounds soaking wet. I have shoulder-length red, not orange, hair—thus, the inaccurate carrot reference—and sky-blue eyes. Blue eyes and red hair is the rarest combo on Earth, which makes me a statistical freak of nature. My pale skin also makes the spray of freckles across my cheeks and nose look more prominent, which I hate.
The collision was no accident. Mary had been waiting for me—she’d probably spotted me in the courtyard and decided that torturing me would be the perfect way to start her final year of high school.
Mary was swim team captain. Her father was a senator, and she’d hated me from the moment she heard I was interning at X-Corp. The internship wasn’t the problem. The problem was Mary didn’t like the person for whom I interned, Lexi Carmichael. Lexi is a female geek kicking it in the tech world as the Director of Infosec at X-Corp. Lexi recently went undercover as a student and saved my high school from a group of terrorists, so I owe her my life. During the incident, Lexi stood up to Mary’s jerk of a brother when he would have gotten us all blown sky-high. Mary would be dead without Lexi, but she was either too dumb to realize that or too intent on making someone pay for her brother’s stupidity.
Unfortunately, my size and lack of athletic ability made me an easy target. As if I needed more trouble.
Flanked by her swim buddy Susie Manover, Mary gripped the fleshy part of my arm and jerked me across the hallway and into the girls’ locker room in a laughably easy gesture. No one in the hallway even paid us a passing glance.
“Feel like going for a swim?” Mary said, pushing me into a locker.
Oh, crap. I knew I should have gotten the waterproof cases for my phone and laptop.
She grabbed my arm again, yanking me toward the pool door. I could have shouted for help, but it would have been useless. Gym didn’t start until second period, so the pool would be as empty as the locker room. I was on my own. I’d better come up with a plan or I’d be taking a cold morning swim.
Mary was stronger and heavier than me. I couldn’t overpower her, but I could strike a spot on her body that would leave her temporarily disoriented so I could get away. That had to be the plan.
That was the only plan.
Susie already stood out in the pool area, conveniently holding the door open for Mary. How to disable her? Where was the best place to strike on the human body?
I gripped a locker handle and managed to shrug out of my backpack, dropping it to the floor. When we jerked to a stop, Mary narrowed her eyes and reached over to pry my fingers loose from the handle.
It was the opening I needed. When her head was close enough, I gave her a hard, openhanded slap to the ear. I’d read somewhere that an open slap to the ear was as effective as a right hook for smashing an opponent’s equilibrium. I could only hope that was correct.
As soon as my hand connected with the side of her head, Mary yelped, staggering sideways into a locker. I didn’t waste any time. I scrambled to my feet and ran. Snatching my backpack in one hand as I darted past, I burst out of the locker room without a backward glance.
I ran down the now-empty hallway, up the stairs and into my first-period class, Multivariable Calculus, which, to my dismay, had already started. Ms. Horowitz looked at me in surprise as I burst in, my green uniform skirt askew and my hair disheveled. I was breathing like I’d run a marathon.
“Everything okay, Ms. Sinclair?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
I took a moment to survey the class. There were only six other students, but all of them were staring at me wide-eyed. I smoothed down my hair and refused to think how furious Mary was going to be and what she’d be plotting next. While some part of me itched to tell Ms. Horowitz what had happened, Mary would deny everything. Punishment would then hinge on whom Headmistress Swanson believed. Better for me to handle it on my own.
“I’m good, Ms. Horowitz. I’m sorry I’m late. I was, ah, distracted.”
Sighing, she held up a pink tardy slip between her fingers. “I already submitted the attendance form. You’ll have to take this to the office and get it straightened out.”
I stepped forward reluctantly and took the slip. Great. My senior year was starting off with a bang.
Chapter Two
ANGEL SINCLAIR
I stepped into the main office holding the tardy slip. Ms. Eder, the school’s administrative assistant, was missing. No one was in the main office at all. I considered leaving the slip on her desk with a note, but I could hear voices coming from the corridor that held Headmistress Swanson and Vice Principal Matthews’s offices.
Figuring Ms. Eder was in one of the offices, I started down the corridor. If she wasn’t around, I could ask Mr. Matthews to take care of the tardy slip. He was one of the reasons I’d been able to endure Excalibur. In the short time he’d been at the school, he’d seen my boredom and restlessness and had worked together with a few of the teachers to form a couple of independent study projects in math and computer science that made my academic life at Excalibur bearable. I was eternally grateful to him for that.
He was also one of the toughest guys I’d ever met. One rumor I’d heard was he’d single-handedly pulled a kid and his mother from a burning car, kicking in a window and dragging them out seconds before the car exploded. I asked him about it once, and he laughed and told me not to believe everything I heard. But he didn’t deny it, either. One day I’d caught him doing one-handed push-ups in his office. I’d stood there quietly in the doorway and counted fifty-seven of them. He didn’t take crap from anyone.
That was what I liked best about him.
Sometimes I wished he were my dad. He was fair and listened when you spoke, treating you like a person with valid opinions. He was smart, too. Unlike a lot of adults I knew, he could speak tech and was well versed on many trending subjects in the field. He listened a lot to me, mostly because I had no one else to talk to at school. That was, of course, my choice. I’m a loner and a geek, and proud of it. But combined with the glaring red hair and social awkwardness, it is a lot for one girl to manage.
The voices became louder as I got closer to his office. I could hear Mr. Matthews speaking. He sounded angry, which was surprising, because I’d never heard him lose his temper before. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but his office door was ajar. Someone whose voice I didn’t recognize was talking.
“…overreacting about a minor thing.”
“I would hardly call this a minor thing,” Mr. Matthews said. “This is a serious matter.”
I hesitated at the office door, knowing I should walk away. Who could possibly cause Mr. Matthews to lose his cool? I peeked into the small opening and saw he was talking to a man in a dark leather jacket and blue jeans. The man’s back was to me and one of his hands was in his rear pocket. There was an unusual oversize ring on the third finger of his right hand.
Mr. Matthews was seated behind his desk, his face flushed a dark red. “You’re not listening to me, Vincent.”
“I am. You need to calm down. I said I’ll look into it.”
The man abruptly turned and took two strides to the door. Before I could move, he yanked it all the way open.
/> Crap.
A frown crossed his face when he saw me standing there guiltily.
“Who are you?” he snapped. The man’s dark hair fell over a pair of mirrored sunglasses as he bent toward me. It was unnerving that I couldn’t see his eyes.
I took a step back. “Angel Sinclair.”
“How long have you been standing there?”
My brain raced through a series of possible answers, none which absolved me from eavesdropping on a conversation that was clearly meant to be private.
“Um, I just got here.”
Mr. Matthews joined us in the hallway. “Angel? What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”
I held up my tardy slip. “Ms. Eder wasn’t in, so I thought you could sign off on it. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Mr. Matthews glanced at the man. “It’s okay. My visitor was leaving.”
The guy met Mr. Matthews’s eyes and gave him a nod. “Yes, I am. Remember what I said, Ryan.” With that, he strode down the empty hallway without a backward glance at us.
Mr. Matthews returned into his office and picked up a pen from his desk. He marked his initials on the slip and handed it back. “Go back to class, Angel.”
He didn’t even ask me why I’d been late. Usually I had to explain myself at great length. “Thanks, Mr. Matthews. Sorry to have bothered you.”
“It’s okay.” He didn’t even look at me, so I turned to leave, worrying that something bad had happened. As I stepped across the threshold, he spoke.
“There is one more thing, however.”
I paused and turned around. He smiled at me. “Make it a good year, okay? Especially since it’s your last one here.”
It sounded like a simple request, but he had no idea how tall an order that was for me. Or maybe he did. That was Mr. Matthews—always encouraging me to reach for the stars.
“Sure. No sweat. I’ve got that covered.” I hoped I sounded confident, because I wasn’t so sure I did.
“Yes, you do.”
As I left his office, I had no idea just how wrong I was.
Chapter Three
JIM AVERS
Cryptosecure Phone
Deputy Director of the Operations Division, National Security Agency
From: Chief, International Surveillance Branch (CISB)
Classification: Secret, No Foreign
0340 GMT
Message Follows:
Urgent! We have been contacted by the avatar Hidden Avenger via an old server. He is requesting a secure method to communicate. He says he has information he’d like to trade. Please advise.
End of Message
Jim Avers stared at the brief text on his agency crypto-secure phone. It was exactly 10:47 p.m., and he was at his bathroom sink in his pajamas, brushing his teeth. Quickly, he shook the water from his toothbrush before swishing some water around in his mouth and spitting. When he came out of the bathroom, his wife was already in bed reading one of her favorite spy novels.
“Was that your phone?” Lydia asked without lifting her eyes from the book.
“Yes.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean you have to go in to the office.”
He didn’t respond. After staring at the screen for a minute, he pressed his finger to the biometric reader and started typing.
From: DDIR, OPS
To: CISB
Classification: Secret, No Foreign
0348 GMT
Message Follows:
Are you sure it’s him? Any idea why he is contacting us?
End of Message
Jim waited for the answer, worriedly rubbed the balding spot on the top left side of his head. It was a nervous habit, and one he hated, but he couldn’t stop himself from doing it. A part of him hoped that one day he’d feel the prickle of new hair growing in, while another part had accepted baldness as an inevitable milestone of growing older. He’d aged a lot in his climb to Deputy Director of Operations at the NSA. It was a coveted position and one he’d worked hard to get. The agency had been through a lot of tough times over the past few decades. Accusations of unlawfully spying on US citizens, leaks that were damaging to the intelligence community’s reputation, as well as serious threats to agents. He’d handled every challenge that had been thrown at him…except one.
The Hidden Avenger remained an unresolved matter at the NSA. Fourteen years ago, the NSA had been able to spy on just about anyone in the world. Using a hidden back door built into the RSA encryption program—the program used by most of the world to transmit secure data—the NSA could open whatever encrypted messages they wanted from anyone, anywhere. Along came the Hidden Avenger, who, without warning or public fanfare, slammed the door shut with a patch he called ShadowCrypt. In other words, the hacker hacked the hackers and stole the key to the back door, effectively locking out the NSA.
For the first few weeks after he’d locked them out, it had been chaos at the agency while they tried to get back in. Despite their best efforts, it was futile. They were locked out for good, and there was no trace of the Avenger. Analysts spent hundreds of hours trying to determine if he was a hostile player. Would he sabotage the network? Make public the fact the NSA had the back door in the first place?
The Avenger had done neither. He said only that he took the action because the NSA was illegally spying on US citizens using the back door. He was right, of course, but the action cost American intelligence agencies a lot of leverage in terms of monitoring real-time threats.
The Avenger occasionally surfaced after that, but only to let various US companies or government agencies know they had been compromised by various security holes. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, he never took advantage of those security holes, nor did he use the back door into the RSA encryption standard for nefarious purposes. Regardless, the fact that the NSA had never gotten a single lead on the Avenger after fourteen years was a hard pill to swallow.
Jim considered the Avenger an enigma. For one thing, unlike many hackers who enjoyed the notoriety of a high-profile hack, the Avenger preferred to remain invisible and largely unknown to the public. He didn’t publish a manifesto or claim to act on behalf of any group or cause. No one knew much about him, even though the NSA had spent considerable time and resources over the years trying to track him down. The fact that he had approached the NSA out of the blue was significant, and perhaps even ominous. If, of course, this individual really was the Avenger, and not a copycat or a wannabe.
These days it was hard to be sure.
Jim’s phone beeped. He had to reuse his fingerprint reader and reenter his password. One of the hassles of working with classified devices. Scrolling past the message header, he read on.
He didn’t say, sir, only that he had information regarding a matter of national security and many lives were at risk. I’m passing it up the chain to you, as protocol demands.
Jim rubbed his temples, a headache starting to brew behind his eyes. Now it was up to him to determine if the guy was legit or not.
His wife put her book in her lap to study him. “Jim? Everything okay?”
“Yeah, sorry, honey. Everything’s fine. Just work.” He tapped a return message on his phone.
What does he want in exchange for this information?
The return message came back quickly.
I don’t know. He didn’t say yet. Maybe he wants to come in and wonders if we’ll offer him a deal. The national security part may be a ruse.
Jim stood and paced several times back and forth across the bedroom, wondering how to answer. He wasn’t an indecisive man, but at this moment caution seemed the wise choice. This wasn’t just any request. He had to be extraordinarily careful in the way he handled this situation. His position at the NSA, and possibly the positions of those who worked for him, could be in danger. If something went wrong, he had no illusions that he would come out of this unscathed.
After considering for another minute, he sat down on a bench at the foot of his king-size bed and logged back in
to his phone.
I’ve got to do this exactly by the book.
Jim had his own thoughts on how to proceed, but he was always open to fresh insights, so he added another sentence.
What’s your sense of how reliable this guy is and whether he has something meaningful for us?
Jim watched his phone for several minutes until the response returned.
Hard to gauge. If he is the Hidden Avenger, then I think he’s got something. He’s one of the most revered hackers out there. We’ve never been close to getting a line on him after all these years. He has no known partners or associates, and his reasons for doing what he does are a mystery. He’s so secretive we truly have no idea what he’s working on. He never broadcasts his successes, and I’m not sure the FBI could pin any crime on him, even if they tracked him down. Can they prosecute him for plugging a hole we weren’t supposed to have in the first place? At the same time, he clearly doesn’t understand the mission of the NSA is to monitor foreign threats, not domestic ones. Maybe he’s a highly misguided security savant. We generally only hear of him after he’s privately handed companies information on their security holes he’s identified. No one knows, of course, if he had already taken advantage of them before he gave them the information, but I don’t think so. There doesn’t seem to be a pattern of exploitation. The community assessment is he sees himself as some kind of avenger, protecting the ordinary citizen from…us.
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