Excerpt: Fail Code

**Here's my terrible excerpt. Just note that I know nothing about hacking so please forgive any mistakes in terminology/method/whatever in the things I post here.**

Chapter 9
I Don’t Wanna Walk Around With You

Ethan sat down at the computer with a sigh. Lacing his fingers together, he pushed away from himself and twisted his wrists so that his palms faced out. After he got a couple of audible cracks from his knuckles, he unlaced his fingers and went to work.
All of the codes had been downloaded onto his computer and kept in a file. He opened up the biggest two and started working on implementing them. He had waited long enough. The first was to get past the password. He had gotten that from Katz weeks ago. But he hadn’t had a reason to use it until that moment. There was no point in getting past the preliminary security if he had nothing to use to go any further or to actually utilize all of the information floating around.
The first code worked well enough to get him in. He was now in the CIA’s server so that he could potentially get into the files sitting there, waiting for him to use it. Without even trying he knew that if he so much as clicked on a file it would send up a red flag. He didn’t have the correct authorization. He plugged in the second code, this one from Helms, and managed to unlock all of the information. Now it just needed to be decrypted and downloaded. He motioned for a computer geek standing in the corner to come over. His resident computer guy. Not that Ethan needed one. It was just nice to have someone to stare at the computers and do all of the tedious work.
The geek, Terrance, came over, “Yes, sir?”
“Sit down. Download and package those codes for me,” Ethan stood up. “If anything goes wrong, feel free to call me back over.”
“Yes, sir.” Terrance sat down to work. He clicked on the first file to download. Immediately, a dialogue box popped up and the computer emitted a very annoying beep just as Ethan had taken his third step from the desk. “Sir? Something went wrong.”
Ethan turned around, “What is it?”
“It says I don’t have permission.”
Ethan walked back over to the desk and leaned over Terrance to read it more carefully. “That bastard sent us a fail code! Dammit!” He turned around. “Has anyone found those kids yet?”
The security guard standing at the door shook his head. “No.”
“Find them and bring at least one of them alive. Doesn’t matter which one as long as they can fix this.” Ethan stormed out of the room.

* * * * *

Chapter 11
Was It A Dream?

David woke up on the floor. He had been untied but he was still in the closet with the uncovered light bulb still on. His head hurt in four different places. As he rolled over to push himself up onto his feet he got a painful reminder of what had happened when the so-called Ethan Roeper had come in the last time. He gave it another couple of seconds of effort before falling back down on the floor with a groan.
He rolled back over onto his back only to find himself staring up at the one the he hoped he wouldn’t see.
“Welcome back. Time to answer a few more questions. This time, let’s be a bit more honest,” Ethan smiled down at David.
“I told you the truth – I swear!”
Ethan shook his head. “Did you know that if you kick someone in the shin in just the right place it can cause almost debilitating pain.” He walked around David slowly as he spoke, stopping in almost the exact same spot. With a smile, he smashed his right foot down on David’s right shin.
David let out some sort of half-yell half-yelp as he lurched forward to grip his shin where Ethan had stepped on it.
“Listen to me, David, whether you like this or not you’re here, we know who you are, and you’re going to do what we want. There’s nothing keeping me from killing you besides my desire to keep things simple.”
“Oh, really? What else are you going to do?”
“Samantha Anne Taylor.”
David closed his eyes, rocking a little as he continued gripping his leg. There was no way he was getting out of there and as little as there was for him to do he felt like he had to try to do at least something to try and protect Sam. “Don’t touch her.”
“What was that cheesy bullshit bout you only wanting to do her?”
“I lied.”
“About what exactly?”
David shook his head. What could he say without getting Sam in trouble? “I was a student of Katz. I wrote the code. And I care about Sam. Not that we’ve known each other very long. It’s just… I can’t stand the thought of getting her into trouble like this.”
Ethan stood back up and stared down at David. He knew that David was lying about Sam. There was no way a guy like David would talk that way about anyone. It was almost as bad as the previous lie he had told. “Good enough.” He leaned down and pulled David up by his right arm. “Come on, David.” He pulled David out of the closet and into the computer lab.

* * * * *

Chapter 12
My Mathematical Mind

Sam sat in the chair, reading the sixth brief of yet another code to help hack into yet another potentially dangerous network, when she heard the footsteps. The walls were ridiculously thin and she could hear just about anything through them. Which is why she was glad that there was no one else at the hotel. However, the fact that there was no one else there made her wonder why it was she could hear three people walking past her door. She slid her laptop back into her messenger bag and looked out the peep hole in the door just in time to see the last man walking past, a moderately sized pistol in hand. She took a couple of steps away from the door, unsure of what to do. Maybe they were there for her. Maybe they were just there and happened to have a couple of guns.

She started gathering up her things just in case. The fact that there were only two other rooms between her room and the office. As she finished shutting down her laptop she heard a gunshot. Despite herself she jumped at the sound. She slipped the laptop back into bag and slipped it into the back of the TV. She flicked the lights off and jumped into bed, covering herself with the dirty covers and shutting her eyes. The pillow smelled like sweat and other things she tried hard not to think about but still couldn’t stop herself.

The footsteps came back a couple of seconds later. Seconds after that she heard the sound of someone trying to unlock her door and then the door swung open with a loud creak. She tried hard not to breathe like she had been running around or like she was scared. She could clearly hear four men. Two heavy men and two normal-sized men. All of a sudden she was scared again. What was she thinking? Why hadn’t she just run out into the parking lot earlier?

Someone pulled the covers away from her body and she forced herself to react the exact way she didn’t want to. She opened her eyes, looked up and twisted her body around, swinging her arm up and aiming quickly. She pulled the trigger three times, shooting the first guy in the chest. Two of the guys had fallen to the ground, trying to get out of the line of fire. But a second guy was still standing. He had pulled out his own gun. He was a skinnier man. Not too thin and not very tall and but a little bit thinner and taller than the average guy. He had already aimed carefully and in some impossible way Sam could see his finger growing taut. She pulled the trigger two more times in the head. She lied on her belly and quickly crawled over to the edge of the bed, gun in hand. The two men lying on their stomachs looked up just as she got to the edge. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other overweight man moving his arm to try and get a lucky shot in. She moved her arm a little and hit him in the back. His head went down and she managed to hit him there as well.

“I’m sorry,” Sam muttered as she moved her arm over to aim at the last man lying there on the floor. He was looking up and he had his arms up. Despite what she had thought when she was younger, she actually did feel sorry for them. She didn’t’ want to kill them. But there had been a choice that she had had to make. Them or her. Her finger grew taut on the trigger and she wanted to pull it. It wasn’t safe to let one live. He could follow her. He could come and get her when she wasn’t expecting it. But there was an even bigger part of her that didn’t really want to kill him either. She closed her eyes and pulled the trigger.

Opening them back up she saw him lying on the floor, gripping onto the back of his knee, cursing.

“Don’t follow me.” She got up off the bed and walked over to the TV, pulling out the messenger bag. She really didn’t care about him at that point. Getting shot with a bullet proof vest was bad enough she had a feeling that there was no way he was going to try and get her at that point. As she turned around to go walk out the door and leave him there, bleeding from the back of his leg she saw him inching over to try and take the gun from one of the dead bodies. “Oh, so you only gave up to me because you came in without a gun? That’s real nice.” She stepped on his hands with her spiky heel on his wrist and the flat part of the shoes on his fingers. She leaned down on the fingers, hearing several audible cracks. “Well I really don’t think it’s fair for you to try and kill me after I spared your life. So we’ll just have to rectify that.” She pulled the gun back out of her jacket pocket and shot him once in the head.
She stepped off the dead man’s hand, grossed out by the puddles and splatters of blood all over the place. Within seconds the cold exterior she’d adopted like an A-list actress to deal with them had faded and she rushed out with her hand to her mouth, wishing she hadn’t had to see that. Sure she wasn’t going to throw up, she wasn’t going to have nightmares about it, but it had been the least pleasant experience she could imagine in the middle of America – barring being a sex slave.

She walked out of the room and stopped in the middle of the parking lot. With a sigh she realized she’d have to go back in there. Those men had to have been sent by the same person that had kidnapped David and there was no way she was leaving them there without at least taking their guns or something moderately useful like that. It took a moment for her to gather up the courage to turn back around. Glancing around as she walked back to the motel room, she couldn’t see anyone or hear any sirens. So she wasn’t in too much trouble. Yet.

She walked over to the first man and picked up the gun, sticking it in the front pocket of her messenger bag. She grimaced as she realized that the blood had gotten all over him since she’d shot him in the back as well as the head. She grimaced as she stuck her hand in his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. She rolled him over. A small bulge in his front pants pocket looked like a cell phone. She stared at it for a moment, trying to decide if it was worth it. With a small roll of the eyes she decided to go ahead and do it. Just stick your hand in there and get it over with, she thought as she plunged her hand deep into his pockets. She pulled out the cell phone and dropped that in her messenger bag as well, careful not to get blood on the outsides of her messenger bag.

Her stomach churning already, she decided to move over to the next guy and try to make it quicker. No more inhibitions, she told herself. Though that was probably going to end up being a petty little lie she couldn’t follow through with. There was no way she was just going to plunge her hand into some dead man’s pocket without worrying about the blood on her hands. The second man had absolutely nothing on him and she wondered if maybe that was the point. If maybe it was a trick to keep her there, checking the guys’ pockets until the police came. Until, of course, she got to the third guy and found plenty in his pockets. A set of keys, a cell phone, a wallet, a wedding ring, and a spare mag for the gun she promptly took from his dead hands. The fourth guy had a wallet and a gun.

By the time she left the room for the second time her bag weighed almost twice as much as before. She walked over to a small patch of weeds that had taken over what had once been a bed of flowers or bushes and wiped her hands on the ground, hoping to get most of the blood off of her hands before she tried getting into any cars. Within a few seconds she realized it simply wasn’t working. Now she could hear sirens in the background. Which meant trouble the way her ears were ringing.
“Shit,” She muttered. All of a sudden it occurred to her that she had been cursing. A lot. Generally she didn’t curse that much. It wasn’t really attractive, or so her mom had told her. However, for whatever reason, everything was going wrong and that was the only way she could think to describe it. “Stop getting sidetracked,” She told herself as she walked over to the big van – the only car that hadn’t been there when she’d first gotten to the motel. She was slightly shocked when she tried the driver’s door and found it unlocked. Stepping up into the big, tall boat-like car, she found the small, scrawny guy’s wallet. “Nice.”

It took her a minute to get through all of the items in her bag before she got to the keys she’d found on the third guy. There were only four keys on the key ring. Luckily, there was only one car key on the ring as well. She stuck it in the ignition, praying it would work as she turned it. The car started up, only putting along at first before it stabilized to an inconsistent hum. With a sigh she pulled out of the parking lot and drove out onto the street, turning to her left. She drove for three minutes before the sirens stopped.