His Reboot Girl (Emerald City #3) Read Online Free Page A

sounded as though he would enjoy doing that.
    The air jammed in my lungs. No. I wouldn’t let that happen. “I’m coming.” Who was she? I knew she was important. Could this be Dorothy? No. I knew Dorothy was blonde.
    Could I stumble and crash into Donny, and grab the phone and the gun? Or just the gun? Unlikely. What if I snatched up a piece of equipment and beat him over the head with it? I scanned the nearby surfaces, but there was nothing within reach.
    “I’m waiting, Scott,” he growled. My eyes were drawn to the pistol, as he tapped it against his thigh. I didn’t know how far I dared push him.
    As gently as I could, I eased the woman to the floor. She groaned, and my stomach tightened at the sound. I had to get her to safety. With a grunt, I pushed myself to a kneeling position, waited for the world to stop dancing before my eyes, and then slowly hauled myself upright, using the nearby counter as support.
    Donny stood there, gun in one hand, phone in the other. I couldn’t take him by force, so I’d have to be smart.
    I staggered over to the screen he’d been using earlier. A quick glance confirmed they’d been trying to break into my vault.
    This wasn’t my lab. I knew that. I’d been here, though. My best guess would be LindenCore was a subsidiary of CyGes, and they’d been subcontracted to do some of my testing. Their systems would be connected to the main data network, but with a smaller physical site, there’d be less in the way of on-site security. Especially in the middle of the night. 
    The second I started to log in, it would register in the main datacenter, but that alone wouldn’t send up any red flags. If I fluffed the login, it’d lock me out of the core network, but what would Donny do then? That wasn’t a great idea.
    “What do you want access to?” I asked.
    “Your vault.” The words you moron were implied.
    “Which part? It’s segmented. There are different logins for each area.”
    “The wetware protocols.”
    Could I remember the authentication sequence? I hadn’t even remembered my own name until I heard it. I flattened my palm over the reader, and extended my hand so all four fingerprints were read at once. The login screen appeared immediately, a winking cursor awaiting instructions.
    Fuck. What was the format? I swallowed hard, and then gazed at the screen, hoping for inspiration. I hovered my fingers over the keypad, unsure what came first.
    “Come on, you should know this like the back of your hand,” Donny said.
    Was it my name first? Or the vault name? Or a passkey? I closed my eyes and tried to visualize how it looked. How it should look.
    Nothing.
    I pushed at the black hole in my memory, and winced at how painful it was. Beads of sweat broke out across my forehead. What was the fucking access protocol?
    I know how to make it work.
    What had I been thinking of?
    “Get a move on, or there’s going to be more screaming.”
    I scowled at Donny. “If I fuck this up just once, I’ll be locked out of the system.” I spoke through gritted teeth.
    “Well you’d better get it right.”
    Think, Scott . The wetware protocols were based on the simple premise of linking up the human brain to others in a bio-neural network. Information could be shared at the speed of light. Instructions sent and received as a single thought. I’d struggled with the response times, but had cracked that problem some time ago.
    I swiped at my forehead. Think . Squeezing my eyes tight shut, I tried to blank out my thoughts. One name emerged from the darkness. Dorothy.
    I wouldn’t have used her name; that would be too easy for anyone to hack. Likewise, her birth date, registration number, or any of the other publicly stored information.
    “I said hurry . Who d’you want me to hurt next? I’m easy on that score.”
    Hurt . I’d hurt Dorothy. The black curtain lifted to show me a crowded room, family, friends and strangers, all dressed up and elegant. I’d sunk to my knees, a ring in