“Fuck me,” I said quietly, but involuntarily.

  “Theo?” Dean, seated two terminals away with Cullen, looked at me.

  “Sorry, nothing. Missed something obvious. It happens.”

  “Maybe you should take a break,” he said. “You’ve looked like you want to climb inside the screen. Come talk to us about Four and then check on how the guys are doing on Three and Five. By then we should break for lunch.”

  “Gimme a few more minutes. Then I’ll take a break, clear my head, and work with you guys.”

  He nodded and returned to work.

  I flipped the page of the notebook over and scribbled the same code over again. There was no mistake and yet it had to be wrong.

  This appeared to be the missing file.

  Not only that, it had Keys’s signature in a few places.

  It didn’t make any sense, and yet it stared back at me from the screen and the notebook.

  No way!

  This time I managed to keep my mouth shut.

  It’d never been brought up that Keys had worked on the encrypted key. I wasn’t 100 percent sure this was the stolen file, but it met at least some of the specs I’d received. The bots were designed to look at surface characteristics, things that would be easy to spot quickly if the file was in a directory. Of course we weren’t looking too deeply at the code where Keys’s signature was.

  I needed to confirm what I had. I didn’t have the bots with me and, even if there was time, I didn’t have the information to recreate them.

  Why was this here? Why would anyone think high schoolers could crack it?

  A shiver ran through me. What if it was what Lorenzo and I had talked about? Was the weird stuff going on with my phone a way to get to me? Did someone know I’m here? It didn’t seem possible. And why would they think I’d just hack it if I recognized it? If not me, someone else? Dean had hacked in the past.

  Chet, at the front of the room, couldn’t see my screen. But I couldn’t risk implementing Wi-Fi on this machine since competitors weren’t supposed to be connected to the outside. The laptops were wired into the server at the front of the room, and it was plugged into the ethernet in the wall. The server had to be on the school’s network in order to provide information to the standings monitor in the hall.

  Depending on the network configuration outside the room, Lorenzo might be able to tap in to review the file and run the bots against it. We weren’t going to have much time to figure out—

  “Theo?” Jessie interrupted from her seat two rows back. “Can you come have a look at what we’re doing? I wanna make sure we’re not about to do something wrong.”

  “Sure.” Keeping these guys in the dark was critical. If I’d found the stolen item, whoever put it here would be close by.

  I stood behind Jessie and looked at her screen and she explained. She’d mounted a really good attack, well set up to come at the file from two different computers.

  “You weren’t kidding, this one is complicated,” Jessie said. “But it also seems haphazard at the same time.”

  They explained more of what they’d uncovered that helped form their course of action. I saw what they’d meant about sloppy. It was like the people who worked on it hadn’t talked to each other.

  I looked through their code for a few moments. “I think your strategy to pull it apart is sound. Each of you take a path, coordinate the final attack.”

  A woman came in the room and, without a word to us, went to Chet. He’d spent these first few hours reading a book, looking at the monitor next to him, and watching us. As the woman approached, he got up.

  “Okay, I’m going to get some lunch. Lauren will be with you for the next half hour or so.”

  Jessie looked at her watch. “How about we take lunch too and decide our strategy for the afternoon?”

  The group agreed. We exited the room and immediately saw signs that pointed the way to lunch.

  “I need to check in with a client. I’ll join you in a few minutes.” I grabbed my backpack off the table so I’d have all my equipment.

  “Be quick, okay? We need to know more about Six.” Jessie’s gaze conveyed her annoyance. I had no choice, though. Lorenzo had to be notified.

  Twenty-One

  “Doctor Possible, Winger here.” I called him from outside the building so I had privacy.

  “Winger. I didn’t expect to hear from you. I don’t have anything new.”

  “I think I do.”

  “That’s… surprising. Tell me.”

  “Did Keys work on the encryption for the file we’ve been hunting?”

  “Not that I know of. So much of this mission is need-to-know, though. I’ll ask Red Hat and see if she knows or can find out. Why do you ask?”

  “One of the modules that’s been submitted for the competition has Keys’s signature. It’s also got characteristics of the file the bots are looking for.”

  “Can you confirm it’s the file?”

  “Not with the visual inspection I’ve made. I’m going to modify my phone so you can use it to home in on the room we’re in. The server has sixteen laptops plugged into it, and it’s wired into the building’s network. You should be able to get in and see if it’s what we’re after. I have no idea why it’s here, but if it is, that means we’ve got minimum six copies here.”

  “Solid plan. How am I going to know you’re ready for me to start?”

  “I’m going on comms.”

  “I’m impressed. Bringing it with you like that.”

  “I carry stuff, just in case. Remind me to show you the custom backpack Mom and Dad got me for Christmas. It’s got hidden compartments so I can stash stuff.”

  “Very cool.”

  “I’ll get the phone set up and let you know when I’m on comms. I’ll do that now because I need to get back to lunch and work with the team so they don’t get pissed off.”

  “Understood. I’ll stand by.”

  I disconnected the call and went back inside. In the lobby, I sat on a bench so I had a surface to use my laptop. When it came online, I plugged my phone in. I modified the phone so it would appear to be powered off while actually being on and acting as a hidden Wi-Fi hot spot. It was easy to do given my previous work to give me precise control over its functions.

  Once done, I inserted my earpiece. Since Denver, I’d become a pro at getting the tiny device in place with tweezers. Using the comms app on the phone, I connected to Lorenzo.

  “Doctor Possible, Winger here.” I spoke barely above a whisper.

  “I’ve got you on comms and I’m piggybacking your phone’s Wi-Fi.”

  “Perfect.” I spoke with my phone to my ear, so it wouldn’t look like I was talking to myself. “I’ll let you know when I’m back in the room. I’ll do what I can to keep the team away from the file.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “I’m not going to mute my side. You’ll hear a lot, but that might be a good thing. Feel free to silence me if you need to.”

  “Until we know for sure what’s happening, I’ll leave the channel open.”

  “I’m headed back to the team. Look forward to your analysis.”

  “Thanks, Winger.”

  It’d only been fifteen minutes when I walked into the break room where lunch had been set up. Luckily I didn’t get an evil stare from my teammates when I joined them with a turkey sandwich and Dr Pepper.

  A screen with the standings stood adjacent to the tables that held the food. Not much had changed—the school that had zero now had one and another had reached two. Five schools tied in first.

  “Everything good, Theo?” Jessie asked.

  “Yeah. Things are under control. I told them I’d check in later. What’d I miss here?”

  “It sounds like we’ll knock Three off shortly after lunch.” Dean jumped in with the recap. “I’d like you to join us on Four to offer guidance so we can get that one put to bed. Then we can all move on to Five. We think Six will be the finale.”

  I nodded and pretended to think that through. “Let me spend no more than another hour on Six. I’ve got some ideas that might give us a place to start.”

  Dean looked to Jessie and they nodded. “Okay,” Jessie answered for them. “That’ll work. Dean and I will split up between Four and Five, then. It’ll be a divide-and-conquer strategy since Three is under control with Alice in charge.”

  The rest of lunch passed and the team peppered me with questions. Others answered the questions before I could even begin, and I sat there with a small smile of happiness. I’d managed to teach something, and that was pretty damn cool. The questions were also very smart. I wished we got points based on how the hacks were accomplished because I think we would’ve earned big points. The approaches they used were beyond how they worked when I first joined the team.

  I was a proud teacher.

  “Winger, I talked to Red Hat.” At least I’d used comms enough that I didn’t flinch when Lorenzo’s voice filled my head. “Keys worked on this. Apparently we were asked for help to create the security, and she was our liaison to the team. I agree it’s probably the file we’re looking for. I’ll confirm that once you’re back at your computer. Of course, we still don’t know why it’s there.”

  “What makes Six so difficult?” Alice asked.

  “It’s encryption like I’d expect to find for a financial institution.” I’d almost said government files, but that got too close to the truth. “It’s beyond anything that I put in front of you and blows the other five entries out of the water.” I decided to use the analogy I’d come up with earlier. “It’s like someone’s parent did the work.”

  “That’s not fair,” Cullen said. “How are we supposed to beat that? Part of the winning formula is to have an entry that takes a long time to crack.”

  “Maybe we can complain about the level of the entry?” Alice offered.

  “I haven’t given up yet. I’m looking for the way I can guide you.”

  “If we have an entry that’s not really fair, why not have you do the work?” Alice pushed.

  Even without access to my regular tools, I suspected I had an advantage knowing some things about how Keys worked, but this was no doubt more difficult than any of her puzzles. However, I didn’t want the file opened. I looked to Mrs. H, who watched us but wasn’t adding anything. I suspected she wanted to see what the co-captains came up with.

  “Let’s give Theo some time,” Dean said. “When we break for dinner, we can make the plan for how we’ll work tonight. We decided we didn’t want him doing the work for us.”

  “But if we’ve got an entry that’s clearly designed by someone who doesn’t belong here, why not use our ringer?” Alice demanded.

  I kept my mouth shut. In theory I agreed with her, and if I didn’t already know what the file contained, I would have gone forward and worked on it.

  “Let’s keep the plan we’ve got for now.” Thankfully Jessie backed Dean’s plan. “We’ll regroup as planned.”

  Alice did not look happy, but nodded.

  “Winger, do you know the school that submitted this?”

  Looking at the leader board, the names of the participating schools were displayed, but no clues on which file belonged to each.

  “Of the seven schools that are here”—I gestured to the leader board—“do we know who submitted the individual modules?” I looked to Mrs. H.

  She shook her head. “That’ll get revealed at the awards ceremony. They aren’t even numbered the same per room. What you’re calling Six could be Three for another team.”

  “This points more and more toward one of these schools submitting something that’s not from a student. If a team built Six, they should be ahead of everyone else with the decryption.”

  “Unless they are deliberately going slower to not show off,” Dean added.

  “True.” I shrugged. I had no doubt Dean held back. If he worked to what I thought his skill level was, he should’ve hacked another one before lunch—and maybe two.

  I pulled my phone from my pack, aimed it at the leader board, and snapped a picture.

  “A picture to mark the event and where we were at lunch time.” Some of the others decided to snap one too, including Li, who took a selfie with the board. Perfect. Now it wouldn’t seem odd that I’d done it.

  “Well done, Winger. I’ll pull that to see what I can find out about those schools and who’s on the teams. Meanwhile, standing by for you to get your phone back in the room.”

  “All right.” Jessie stood up. “Let’s get back to it.”

  Twenty-Two

  “No doubt, it’s the file.”

  It had been less than an hour since we got back from lunch.

  “I found it on six of seven servers. I assume the server it’s not on is the school that submitted it. I haven’t found out what school that is, other than they’re in room four.”

  I bit my lip because it was difficult not to acknowledge him.

  “I want to have some limited communication with you. I can see the laptops connected to the servers and the typing that’s going on across all of them. Can you type j k so I can lock on to you? It won’t take more than a couple seconds. I’m watching for it now.”

  I followed instructions and he quickly found me.

  “Perfect. Got you. Terminal three in room two.”

  “Hey, Theo, anything?” Dean asked. I’d been so intent on listening to Lorenzo that he managed to sneak up behind me.

  “I think I have a plan on how we approach this. I was about to come talk to you and Jessie.”

  “Cool.” He sounded pleasantly surprised. “Mind if I have a quick look? I haven’t even opened this one yet.”

  I slid my chair over, and he dropped into the one next to me and came close to the screen.

  He scrolled through the code, and as he did he went pale. When his mouth dropped open, I thought he might throw up.

  “Dean?”

  His mouth moved, but no words came out. His reaction didn’t make sense. No doubt he could see the intricacies of the code and probably even had ideas on how to crack it. But why did he look terrified?

  “Dean?”

  “We need to talk,” he said quietly and stood up before I could reply. “I need a Coke,” he announced. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  No one said a word as he went to the door.

  “I could use one too. Wait up.”

  The team watched but still said nothing. It must’ve seemed odd to them that the two of us suddenly needed a drink when lunch hadn’t been that long ago.

  He looked freaked. It reminded me of how he looked when he’d hacked my phone and took out the school’s computer.

  “Dean, what’s going on?” I asked once we got to the break room.

  His eyes darted around as he took a can of Coke from the container from lunch. The only people in the room looked like teachers. Mrs. H talked with two others, and there were other groups chatting at tables. Nothing looked amiss.

  “I’ve seen Six before,” he whispered. “That code. All of it.”

  What? My mouth dropped open just like his had.

  “How’s that possible?” I asked when I finally recovered from the surprise. “Do you know someone on one of the other teams?”

  He shook his head and lowered his voice further. “Let me be clearer. Locksmith has seen that code.”

  How did this day get so completely messed up? This was supposed to be a relatively easy weekend, and it turned into ground zero for a high priority mission. And what did I say to this non-TOS person?

  “What did he say? Is he one of your teammates? Damn, you can’t give me a clue. You moved away from your keyboard. I’ll keep listening.”

  My mind raced. I had to keep my cover, which meant I knew nothing about the origin of the file or its importance outside of this competition.

  “I don’t understand. Why would you have seen someone’s entry before the competition?”

  “Last week. Someone I used to hack with. She sent me a message to get my help.” Dean sounded freaked and his compulsion to look around the room only intensified that feeling. “I hadn’t talked to her in months because she got too aggressive. For her, hacking became about stealing and making statements rather than some fun and pointing out security holes. But… shit. Mrs. H is coming over.”

  He turned, grabbed a cookie off the table in front of us, and took a bite.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Just needed a pick-me-up,” I said as Dean tried to look normal, but failed.

  “You sure? Dean, you don’t look well.”

  “I’m fine, really. I, uh, didn’t eat enough at lunch.”

  “Okay. Don’t spend too much time out here. A couple schools have moved ahead, so you need to keep up the pace.”

  “I’m going to the restroom,” I said, “and then I’ll get back to it.”

  I hoped Dean would follow so we could talk more, but it gave me a few seconds with Lorenzo.

  “Locksmith is a hacker. You’ll find stuff on him in the files.” I spoke very quietly knowing the comms could pick up even the slightest whisper. “Dean tried to hack my phone during class, and in my analysis of what he did, I discovered his alter ego. I’ll keep digging on why he knows about the file.”

  “Understood. Standing by.”

  Once in the restroom, I looked around and found no one else. It didn’t take long for Dean to show up. Once again, his eyes darted around.

  “No one’s here.”

  Unless it’s bugged, it suddenly occurred to me. And I had nothing on me to detect for that.

  “Anyway,” he said, jumping into the story, “Violet Knight wanted me to help crack the file that’s here as number six. I took one look at it and knew it had to be something important. I had no interest in hacking it. She offered to pay 20K, and that was the other clue that she shouldn’t have it.”

  “You didn’t tell anyone did you?”

  He looked ashamed, then looked away. “No. Besides, if I came forward as Locksmith, I can’t imagine that would end well. I never stole, but I broke into systems.”