INTRUSIVE

CHAPTER 1

The sound drove most people crazy, but to Ember Manchester, it was music to her ears. The sound was progress. Money. Prestige. Not everyone could do what she could do, and none of them could do it this well.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard faster than eyes could follow. And they always hit their mark. She often bragged to her colleagues that she didn't even know what the backspace button was used for. She was that good, and everyone knew it.

That's why she had been hired to complete this job.

"How much longer?" her partner asked from his console on the opposite side of the desk. She could see him peering over the top of the monitors, so she looked up at him.

"Patience, Luke," she told him, their eyes meeting briefly. Her fingers never stopped typing. "You can't rush perfection."

It was a cryptic enough answer, but it seemed to please Luke. He leaned back into the chair and waited on her to finish. His job was already done; all he had to do was DDoS the network and sit back while she attempted to access the mainframe through the backdoor. She'd set up remote access weeks ago, inserting a keystroke logger into the system.

That would have been the end of it, if her target wasn't so paranoid: they changed passwords on a daily basis. Using the password patterns she'd deciphered, she was now brute forcing the firewall. Once that was over, she'd insert the code that would allow her and Luke to withdraw enough cash to let them retire comfortably on the beach somewhere.

To many, all of the technical hacker jargon was gibberish. But to her, it was like a second language. She loved what she did, and it showed.

"Just about there," she whispered. Then she smiled as she glanced at the clock: this had went even quicker than intended.

With a final keystroke, she punched the enter button and watched as she was granted access to the mainframe. With an almost nonchalant attitude, she took the flash drive that was looped around her neck, twirled it on its string, and inserted it into the USB port.

Then she sat back, smug, as the code from the USB did the rest. Everything had worked perfectly.

Luke was grinning like a little kid, almost giddy with excitement. That was something she didn't like: it was okay to be happy about what had just happened, but letting your emotions get the best of you in a time like this was an easy way to get thrown in jail. She shot him a glare and his grin died. He gave her a sheepish look and put his head down.

"Just keep your cool and this will all work out," she told him. He was older than her by nearly 10 years. He'd been in the game since he was 13. He'd been hacking for nearly twenty years and she had surpassed him in only two. She didn't know how he felt about that, but she knew how she felt: great. She would never show it, though.

Ember's eyes traced the code that was running across the screen. To most, it looked like nothing but numbers, random letters, and symbols, but to her it was a language even more readable than English. The code looked perfect, but that wasn't a surprise.

It was nearing the end, so she looked up at Luke and told him, "It's good. Let's get ready to go."

He started picking up his briefcases and putting his assortment of laptops and gadgets back into them. Ember watched as the code finally completed, knowing there would be a small delay as the money transferred into their accounts. One second passed, then two, and finally on the third, just when the FUNDS DEPOSITED alert should appear –