Blown Away

Not That Girl Anymore

Summer arrived at Kamekona's half an hour early, thinking she would be the first one there, giving her time to think how to tell the team about her past. But, as she's approaching the familiar food truck, she realized that someone else was already there.

- "And here I was thinking that I was going to be the first one." – She said, approaching the table Steve was sitting at, smiling.

- "Hey Summer. Yeah, Danny dropped me off before taking Grace home to Rachael. Besides, I like to be on time or at least a little earlier." – He greeted her, offering the seat next to him, with a smile that could light up the whole island.

- "I'm the same way. I used to drive my parents crazy because I would insist on leaving the house a whole lot earlier than we were supposed to."

The conversation flew between them. Steve felt that it was so easy to talk to her. It had been a while since the last time that he had had a conversation as simple and as easy going like the one he was having with Summer. She could make him smile without even trying. He loved being around her, she made things feel so easy between them.

When he saw her, earlier that day, semi-hiding behind Danny with her backpack and laptop bag, his first thought was that she was in trouble and needed their help. And he was ready to help and protect her in any way he could. So, it came as somewhat of a shock, when she said that she was there to help them.

It was in that moment that he realized that he knew very little about her, and he definitely wanted to know more. He knew that, with her being Danny's baby sister, she was off-limits, but that didn't stop him from wondering what would be like to have her in his arms. "Knock it off. She's Danny's sister. Are you trying to have Danny kill you?", Steve mentally berated himself.

Slowly, as 8pm approached, the rest of the team started to arrive. First was Kono and Chin, then Lou and finally Danny. They all took a seat at the table where Steve and Summer were seated at. She was sitting in the middle of Steve, to her left, and Danny, to her right. Across from her, she had Kono, with Lou across from Danny and Chin across from Steve.

Summer got up and went to get the first round of beers, as promised, before telling them about her past. She needed those extra few seconds to compose and mentally prepare herself for what was to come. She didn't know how they would react.

Would they be okay with her being a former hacker? Would they see her in a different way because of it? She wasn't that girl anymore, but they could still perceive her as a threat, even if Danny was her brother. She went back to the table, beers in hand, took a deep breath and got ready to tell them about one of the darkest periods in her life.

- "Okay, now that everyone's here and we all have our beers, I guess it's time. Before anything else, you need to understand that there are two types of hackers: the white hats and the black hats."

"The white hats are the ones that use their knowledge for good, like work with law enforcement, the military, even private companies to protect their data, like your friends Toast and Bullwinkle."

"Then you have the black hats. These guys are like guns for hire. They will hack everything and anything for a profit or to create chaos. Me? I'm a white hat."

"So, this was back in late 2000, before the world changed and our lives with it. I started hanging out with the wrong crowd. I was rebelling. I was so tired of being the perfect daughter, perfect grades, perfect behavior, of hearing my parents saying to follow my brothers' footsteps, of how successful they were. I didn't want to be like them, I wanted to be my own person, make my own path, but at the time my parents thought differently."

"So, I rebelled. As I said, I started hanging out with the wrong crowd and, soon after that, I began dating this guy, much older than me, who just so happened to be a hacker. I was always very interested in those type of things, so when he told me he was a hacker, I jumped at the opportunity to learn from him."