The Insider. Ava McCarthy

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СКАЧАТЬ tried to analyse how she felt when she started an exploit. ‘Okay, well, maybe I love to break into things and be somewhere I shouldn’t.’

      ‘So you like taking risks. Why? Does it make you feel powerful?’

      Harry thought of the way the hairs stood to attention on the back of her neck whenever she felt close to cracking a system. She thought of the exhilaration that pumped into her bloodstream like a drug as she unlocked the final door into someone’s network. He was right. Hacking made her feel powerful in a way no other part of her life ever could. But there was something else.

      She shook her head. ‘That’s part of it, I suppose. But mostly I just don’t believe people when they tell me I can’t break into a system. Just because it says it in the manual doesn’t make it true.’ She rubbed her nose, as if that would unscramble her thoughts. ‘I know there’s always a way in, if I stick at it long enough.’

      ‘So it’s about the technology? You want to find out what makes it tick?’

      ‘Yeah, in a way. It’s like … I dunno.’ She looked into his face. ‘It’s like finding the truth.’

      Dillon’s eyes glowed and he sat very still. ‘That’s exactly what hacking is all about. The search for truth.’

      Then he leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands in front of him. His face was inches from hers.

      ‘People think hacking is all about destruction, but nothing could be wider of the mark. It’s about exploring the technology, about pushing it to its limits and sharing the knowledge. A true hacker expands his mind beyond what’s in the books or what he’s been taught. He finds a way to do things when conventional thinking fails.’ Dillon locked eyes with hers. ‘Hacking is good. It’s people that are bad.’

      He grasped her hands in his. A flash of heat shot through her and something jolted inside her chest.

      ‘Think of hacking as an attitude,’ he said. ‘We don’t just hack computers, we hack our whole lives.’ He squeezed her hands, pumping them for emphasis, and his eyes burned into hers. ‘Never let yourself be limited by what other people tell you. Never accept their version of how things have to be.’

      Harry listened, mesmerized. Limited. That described how she felt every minute of her day. Boxed in by her mother, who was always so disappointed in her; labelled at school where she failed to measure up. With a flash of insight, Harry realized he was telling her how to cope with her life.

      Without warning, Dillon dropped her hands and sat back, as though suddenly embarrassed at his own intensity. ‘End of lecture. Thanks for talking to me.’ He jumped to his feet and headed for the door. ‘I’ll see myself out.’

      Harry stood up, dizzy at the sudden change. ‘But wait – what happens now?’

      Dillon shrugged. ‘Probably nothing. I’ll need to inform your parents about everything you’ve been doing, but no one’s going to prosecute a thirteen-year-old girl. Do it again though, and you’ll be in trouble.’

      He stood with his hand on the doorknob and looked over at her, his eyes still slightly feverish. ‘Someday I’ll have my own company, with the best engineers in the country.’ His lips twitched, and he winked at her. ‘Stay out of jail long enough and maybe I’ll hire you.’

       12

      Cameron stood outside the wrought-iron gates. The girl was inside the house, and had been there for almost an hour. He pressed himself up against the bars. He badly needed to finish what he’d started.

      He dug his fingernails into his palms. The train station had been such a fuck-up. She’d been so light, like a child. But the instant he’d broken contact with her, the mob of commuters had barged in front of him, blocking his view. He’d heard the shrieking trains, seen them crashing by. But the crowd had robbed him of the sight of her fear.

      Without that, it wasn’t finished.

      He peered through the gate. The driveway looked like a landing strip with all those fucking lights. He made out the shape of the house ahead, two lit windows glowing in the dark. He leaned his face against the cold metal and imagined the girl in one of those rooms. Heat filled his groin.

      But he’d been told to back off.

      He shook the railings, testing their strength. They stretched at least twelve feet into the air, welded on either side to a concrete wall that rolled away into the shadowy road. A pole-mounted surveillance camera rotated above him, panning its way down the driveway back towards the gate. Cameron ducked to one side, out of its line of sight. Houses like this were all the same. Prison walls, fence-mounted sensors, infra-red cameras. Maximum perimeter protection. For all the good it did them. There was always a way inside.

      He began to circle the property wall, trailing his hand against the ivy that had stitched itself into the brickwork. He could smell the damp woodiness of the forest around him. Something rustled in the undergrowth, a small mammal on the move. Cameron reached a side gate and gazed again at the long L-shaped house. How spectacular it would look swallowed up in flames.

      But he’d been told no fire. Not yet.

      Not many people understood fire the way Cameron did. Mostly they were afraid of it. But Cameron had spent time getting close to flames, so close that he could almost touch their trembling colours and slender tongues.

      He moved further along the wall, caressing the ivy leaves. Trapping someone in fire was so much more satisfying than shoving them in front of a truck. You got to stay in the shadows and watch the effects of what you’d done. Not like a road accident, where everything was over in a single scream. With fires, the build-up of euphoria was gradual, ending in a trance-like state that sated his need to see things burn.

      He’d heard that many serial killers were fire-setters in their adolescence. Son of Sam, for instance. He’d started thousands of fires. Cameron smiled. He wasn’t in that league yet. One day, maybe.

      He tried the latch on the side gate. It was locked, but the steel bars felt crumbly, the paint peeling away in his hands. He took a closer look. The gate was older and rustier than the other one, the welding not so secure. Cameron’s breathing quickened.

      He might have been told to back off for a while, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t get close to her.

       13

      The wardrobe turned out to be a walk-in closet bigger than Harry’s own bedroom.

      She padded over to the rail that ran the length of one wall and browsed through the hangers. The clothes seemed to come in a variety of sizes, but all bore the same designer labels and glitzy evening style. Harry sighed. With her bruised face and battered shoes, it wouldn’t be a good look.

      She turned to rummage in the shelves behind her and found a pair of men’s jeans, a wide belt and some crisp white shirts still in their cellophane wrapping. A few minutes later she was dressed, the shirt tucked in and the belt cinched tight over the loose-fitting jeans. She made her way downstairs, wondering about the women who’d left their clothes behind.

      Harry found the room СКАЧАТЬ