Zero Days

I knew my voice was getting testy, and I tried to keep it calm. If you react, the person you're talking to reacts back. First rule of social engineering: stay pleasant and others are much more likely to do the same.

There was a noise coming from up ahead. Not footsteps, thank God, but the low hum of computer fans and of air-conditioning working overtime. You hear server rooms before you see them.

I honestly have no idea what my next move is. I didn't plan any of this, and now - now I'm stuck. My only way out is through.

I’m as swift as a fox. An old one. With osteoporosis. Run over by a 4x4. Ten days ago.

The wall around the perimeter was child's play.

... they were just one part of a vast dark web of unseen players ... And yes, they could be fought, maybe some individuals might even be arrested, but you might as well try to prosecute cancer. They would always exist. Slippery, shadowy, forcing their way through the cracks in our online security and the doors we left open for them in our digital lives.

He had that weird mix of swagger and self-consciousness that seemed unique to males in their late teens.

If I shut my eyes, I could picture him... The thought gave me a kind of peace, the idea that he could be out there somewhere-just beyond my reach. But it was a dishonest peace, and I knew that as much as I could fool myself if I tried hard enough, all I was doing was pushing the pain further down the line until the moment I stopped pretending and let the agony wash back over me.

He was grinning like a cat that’s found a particularly juicy mouse in a corner it can’t escape from.

It was a lie, of course it was. Nothing about Gabe’s death had been an accident. And I knew in my heart I would never recover from this. Maybe I didn’t want to. Because the more I thought about what lay ahead when all this was over, the less I wanted to face it. I just wanted to lie down, close my eyes, and wait for Gabe.

You go first :)” she typed back, with an uncharacteristic smiley—Hel wasn’t usually much of a one for emojis, but this wasn’t exactly a normal situation. “What’s your one lead?

Error: an unhandled exception has occurred. That was how I had felt. I had blue-screened.

It was like I’d always said: sometimes, often, to do nothing was to run a risk in itself.

remembered how my grandfather had been after my parents died. The way he would look around vaguely, ask for our mother, and Hel would say gently, “Mum’s dead, remember, Grandad? She and Dad died two years ago.” And then three years ago. And then four. And every time, he would react with the same grief, his face crumpling, his blue eyes filling with unexpected tears. The shock wore off a little as the years passed—as if the knowledge had lodged in there somewhere, in spite of his Alzheimer’s—but the grief… the grief never lessened.