When Grace Cho's parents unexpectedly move the family from vibrant Seattle to sleepy Gallatin, Montana, the seventeen-year-old isn't surprised the locals treat her as an outcast. Wanting nothing more than to finish her final year before college in p...
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September 30th
It was the first time he'd worn a suit since his mother's funeral. Shit. Was that already six years ago? Well, at least now the pant legs had been properly hemmed and the jacket's shoulders were tailored. They'd better been. He'd spent forty-three hundred bucks on the two-button, Savile Row bespoke creation. Of course, he'd never actually been to London. He hadn't been much of anywhere, really. At least not in person.
Walking through the cubicle farm, he frowned at the techies in their ill-fitting khakis and logo-emblazoned polo shirts hammering away at their wireless keyboards. Feckless bastards. Not quite experienced enough for one of the coveted managerial positions in the private offices on the perimeter and not mature enough for a work-from-home deal. At least they were able to ditch the monkey suits.
Stopping at the elevator, he tugged at his collar. Its confinement was the price he'd have to pay for the chance to supervise the twenty security analysts on this floor of one of the country's biggest banks. Sure, he needed to get the offer first, but he'd crushed the interview. There was no way they'd let him get away.
He could never publicly admit it, but his work had led to the development of the software they were now using to keep their systems secure. Work. He scoffed as he stepped inside the elevator and pushed the button for the lobby. It had never seemed like work. Accessing data - about people, businesses, and countries - was a hell of a lot of fun. And for someone like him, it was easy, too.
The anonymity didn't bother him. It was a comfortable cloak in an industry where the ability to keep secrets depended only on how good the other guy's own code breakers were.
He rode down in silence, exiting the impersonal glass and steel building after passing by the security desk. The faint glow of six, black-and-white monitors with closed-circuit images of various entry points into the facility shone onto the faces of the two guards. Their dour expressions showed that they either hated their jobs or their lives.
Maybe it was both.
Walking to the nearest bus stop, he stood out of earshot of the people already waiting there. It was somewhat absurd, really. He had no qualms about digging into anyone's most personal information online, but when it came to real life, boundaries mattered. When the crosstown express arrived, he waited for the Spanish-speaking woman and her young son, as well as the graying, retired couple to get on before also climbing aboard. After dropping four quarters and a dime into the fare box, he only sat when the machine beeped its approval and the driver nodded.
It would take him forty minutes to get home. Parking in the city was too sparse to own a vehicle and car services only took payment with plastic. Until they accepted bitcoin, he was stuck using the cash-based public transportation. The last thing he needed was someone to track his movements via the cyber trail left from credit card purchases.
