“Hey!” I dropped my backpack next to the island and shared a quick fist bump with Dad. I took my usual hangout place in the kitchen, sitting on the counter.

  “Hey. How’s it going?”

  “Bad day. Weird stuff.”

  “Weird? How so?” He drained some spaghetti into a colander in the sink.

  “Missed lunch because Doc—” I stopped short since I didn’t know Dad’s clearance on the mission. “And, um, broke up a fight. Got asked to help the computer-science club at a competition in a couple weeks.”

  He stood at the sink with his back to me and shook the pasta. “I don’t know where to start with that.” He looked over at me as if trying to gauge how I actually felt. “I guess I’ll start with the easy one. I’m glad you stopped a fight. Everything okay with that?”

  “Yeah. Wes is a jerk. Caught him while he picked on some guy about homework. Eddie and I happened upon it. The training that Coach and John gave me helped put a quick end to it.”

  Dad turned from the sink with a smile. “You didn’t hurt him, I hope.”

  “He might take some aspirin tonight, but no permanent damage.”

  He nodded and had a proud that’s my boy sort of look that he got when I made choices he liked. “And what’s this with the competition?”

  I gave him the rundown, along with what Eddie and I talked about. He listened and stirred the noodles into the sauce.

  “Are you going to do it?”

  “I talked with my prof after class to make sure he approved the time away and to see what he thought. He said it seemed like a great opportunity to apply my knowledge in a different way. I get Eddie’s point too—that I’m eligible to be there. I feel weird helping like that since I can likely code circles around all of them.”

  “Can I give you some advice?”

  “Sure.”

  “I think it’s a great idea that you can share what you know. Don’t do the work, but help the team see how to do it themselves. Remember how much you enjoyed the time you spent with Lorenzo and the IT team during the summer? They taught you and you taught them. Passing on skills is a great thing to do. Maybe you build scenarios for them to hack as part of the lead-up to the competition and coach them on the processes to crack them.”

  Keys came to mind again. The puzzles we’d traded made me better. Anytime she’d take more than a day to crack something I’d sent her had thrilled me. The longer we’d worked together, the more I created encryption that slowed her down.

  In terms of the competition, Mrs. H had said sort of the same thing as Dad. He put a really good spin on it by reminding me of the summer. If I taught right, by the time the competition arrived, I might not have to do anything on-site.

  “You want some dinner? I made more than enough.” Dad went to the cabinet to get plates.

  “Sure.” I hopped off the counter and went to the fridge to get a couple of sodas. “Where’s Mom? And what’s got you cooking?” I put the sodas on the counter and Dad served the pasta.

  “I wasn’t in the mood for takeout, so I cooked what we had on hand. Mom got called out earlier today. John told me when I got home. I missed her by less than an hour.”

  I grabbed forks before I moved the sodas to the table and joined Dad as he sat with the plates.

  “Do you know how long you’re here for?” I dug into the food and it tasted delicious.

  “I don’t have anything scheduled right now, so we’ll see. I hope I’m here to see your game this weekend. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen you on the ice.”

  “That’d be cool.”

  I liked it when Mom and Dad made it to games. It was awesome that as busy as they were that they wanted to be at the games and did it as often as they could. Our family had been what most people would call odd for just about as long as I could remember, but it was okay. I knew guys on the team whose parents never showed up.

  My parents worked hard, and yet whenever we could, we did family stuff—whether it was them at my games, having dinner, or even a weekend camping trip sometimes. I had it good—different, but good—and I knew it.

  “You mentioned something about Doc. Everything okay? They don’t usually call you at school.”

  We held each other’s gaze, and I worked to keep my emotions in check. I didn’t want another outburst like I’d had on the bridge. Keys’s death wasn’t my fault, but it weighed on me.

  “The mission completed, but—” What could I say that wouldn’t violate security? “There were losses.”

  Dad put a hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I can listen to whatever you can tell me. You should probably call—”

  “Already done. We’ll talk later tonight.”

  “Good.” Dad squeezed before he went back to his food. He knew when to push me and when to let me manage on my own. Thankfully he knew not to push on this.

  The tracker hacker case had taught me to not keep things bottled up. I talked to Mom and Dad more about TOS now—always mindful of clearances. I also had a great counselor with Shields. I only knew her by codename, and we never talked by video, only voice. I didn’t have to edit for her because she had maximum clearance. It wasn’t the usual doctor/patient privilege, though. If she had any concerns about my mental health, she could contact Lorenzo, since he’s my boss, or, since I was a minor, my parents. She’d helped me a lot in the past few months to resolve what’d gone down in Denver, and with how to deal with keeping so many secrets from people like Eddie.

  “What’s happening for you tonight?”

  “I’ve got a paper I need to start outlining. I’ve also got calls with Lorenzo and Shields. I hadn’t thought beyond that.”

  Dad raised an eyebrow. “Where are you with Mr. Robot?”

  I thought for a moment. “Three episodes behind.”

  “We’re even. Want to watch one or two? I’ve got nothing pressing.”

  I smiled. “Yeah! Maybe around nine?”

  He nodded and we ate in silence for a bit—more like Dad ate and I scarfed, including a second helping.

  We didn’t watch much TV because all of us were busy with our own things, and frankly real life had enough drama. Mr. Robot had caught my attention because it was about a hacker, and I always liked to see how that played out on TV or the movies. I had quite a collection—from Hackers, Sneakers, and the original TRON to stuff like The Net, Disclosure, and Johnny Mnemonic. Mr. Robot, though, was the most realistic fiction I’d seen.

  Dad got into it because he caught part of an episode I had on. We watched together when we could, or talked about it when we were both at the same episode. Clever didn’t begin to describe the show, and its twists were pretty epic. We ended up with a running joke after each episode. Dad would always ask that I never become Elliot, and I’d assure him that if someone were going to take up residence in my head I’d give Henrik Zetterberg first dibs.

  He stood and cleared the dishes while I finished my soda.

  “I’ll get the dishes.” I went to the sink and nudged Dad out of the way. “You cooked after all. It was good too and exactly what I needed.”

  “It was nothing special, but thanks.” He left, and I got the water going to rinse things off before loading them into the dishwasher.

  Once I had the dishes done, I took my pack and headed upstairs.

  Five

  After I logged in to TOS, I got a message from Lorenzo saying I could ring him when I was ready.

  “Doctor Possible, Winger here,” I said. His face filled the screen and he looked haggard, which was far from normal. Even if he worked long hours on a project or mission, his normal demeanor was upbeat. Keys’s death no doubt weighed on him.

  “Hey, Winger.”

  “You okay?”

  “Been a long day.” Lorenzo shrugged and rubbed his hand across his forehead and eyes.

  “I’m sorry, man. I can’t imagine—”

  “It’s been a long time since we lost someone from IT,” he said. “We almost lost you in Denver and now Keys is gone. It’s… hard.”

  “How can I help?” I wished I were in the same room with him, to offer a hug or something.

  “That’s part of what we’ll talk about. Let’s start with debriefing on what went down today.”

  We talked through the mission and what I’d done, covering what worked well and what didn’t. Lorenzo also told me that overall, we were successful and the malicious code he’d deployed had done its job. We finished that part of our discussion pretty quick.

  “Before I tell you the new mission, I want to ask about having you take on more responsibility. I’ve already talked to Red Hat, and she agreed that you’d be ideal.” Red Hat, a.k.a. Joanna, was Lorenzo’s boss. “With Keys gone, you’re our top encryption expert. No one else on the team has the knowledge needed to replace her leadership.”

  Whoa. What? Security and gadgets were my dual specialties, but to lead?

  “Um… I….” Words escaped me. I hadn’t seen this coming. I assumed Lorenzo would take over until they found someone to replace Keys.

  “We don’t want you to have to deal with mission assignments like she did. You’d oversee our encryption technology and research so you’d continue to push the security team to find new, better ways to do things.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Think it over. Talk with Defender and Snowbird.” Of course Dad and Mom would have to be involved. “They have to approve it too since it puts you in a different status. If necessary, it can be interim until we find someone with the right qualifications for the job.”

  “Will do.” It was one thing to work as part of the team, but to lead? Did I know how to do that? “I can talk to Defender. Snowbird is deployed. Thanks for even asking. It means a lot that you think I could even begin to fill in for Keys.”

  “You’ve earned it for sure.” Lorenzo gave me a sad smile, which made me want to say yes if only to help ease his mind. “I know we really shouldn’t ask you. It’s easy to forget you’re a teenager because you’re so good at what you do. We’ve got redundancies across the staff in many places in case anything happens. In this case—” His voice faltered and he cleared his throat. “You don’t need to worry about that part. Let’s talk new mission.”

  I nodded and he displayed a destroyed laptop on my screen.

  “This laptop was in the possession of an executive with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. It was taken while a team posing as police in Houston detained him. As you can see, the laptop’s self-destruct initiated. However, analysis showed that data was copied in the seconds before the hard drive’s destruction. They stole a multilayered encrypted key. If it’s decrypted and used, it would allow the user unrestricted access to the North American electrical grid.”

  “Why would something like that be created? It sounds way too dangerous.”

  “It’s one of many fail-safes.” He reappeared on-screen. “There are only four keys. No one’s supposed to know who has them, and they’re distributed on a rotating basis. The theory is the key holders could manage the electrical system to stabilize the grid if something compromised or hindered personnel on a national or regional level. Investigations are underway on how the security breach occurred since this has worked for years.”

  “Are they taking steps to regenerate the keys to negate the one that was stolen?”

  “I wish I could say yes.” Lorenzo frowned, clearly not happy with the security lapse. “The keys are automatically regenerated and distributed every forty-five days. The system’s designers never took into account that they might need to generate keys on the fly, or that someone could subvert their security and steal a key. Apparently a security protocol either failed or fell victim to a hack because it shouldn’t have been possible to copy the key off the laptop.”

  “All right. So we need to redesign the system that creates the keys?”

  “I wish.” More of his frustration became apparent. “I’m told there’s a qualified team at work on that. For now, we’re one of the agencies tasked with recovering the key before it can be cracked.”

  “Have we put bots out looking for the file?” I leaned back in my chair and looked at the information Lorenzo shared across three of my screens.

  “Here’s everything that’s been deployed over the past few hours.”

  “With the file in the hands of someone who managed to get it off the laptop, they’re going to be smart enough to hide it well.”

  “Exactly.”

  “We need to design something that can sniff beyond firewalls, as well as into the deep and dark web,” I continued. “Given the encryption schema, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re going to have multiple groups trying to decrypt it. Let me see what kind of scripts I can create that are different from what’s already gone out. One more thing, how is this key decrypted for use?”

  “There’s a decryption key that they didn’t get. It self-destructed as it should have.”

  “At least something worked right.” I rolled my eyes, and Lorenzo gave a partial smile. I’d hoped to coax a laugh out of him, but I didn’t get it.

  “I’ll update you when I get more details. I’ll drop all this into your working directory.” Lorenzo sat quietly and looked into the camera for a moment before he continued. “I’m trying to put something together for the people who worked with Keys. I’ll let you know when and where. If nothing else, maybe you can virtually be there.”

  “I’d like that. And I’ll talk to Defender so I can let you know about your offer.”

  “Thanks, Winger. Be careful, okay?”

  “Will do.” Lorenzo disconnected and left me sitting in silence.

  I felt bad for him. His team had been through a lot in the past few months since the huge breach with the trackers.

  I shuddered in my chair; emotions threatened again. Keys was laid-back, quick with a joke, but super serious about the work. I could get into a pretty intense zone when I worked, but nothing compared to watching Keys go methodically through a problem and start to build code around it.

  I learned a lot from her. I’d asked her once why she chose TOS for a career when she could have been an amazing teacher or musician. “I teach people and help solve problems here,” she’d said. I couldn’t argue that point. I certainly got a lot from knowing her. Now TOS was asking me to carry on her work.

  Did I know enough to do it?

  I’d have to think on that. Later.

  I had a lot to get through tonight. Sadly, Mr. Robot time with Dad would have to wait.

  Six

  Two days later I stood in Mrs. H’s classroom to attend my first computer-science club meeting. To my surprise, the guy Eddie and I’d rescued from Wes was among the eight students present. Cullen Watson, a freshman I’d helped last fall, was also here.

  When I’d accepted Mrs. H’s offer yesterday, she told me the club had been prepping for the competition since October. She’d taught them various methods to encrypt and decrypt and how to test the entry they created.

  As she introduced me, animosity filled the room. Given my low comfort level already, this didn’t help my anxiety. It seemed Mrs. H didn’t completely sell them on why she brought me in.

  “Why do we need him?” one of the three girls asked. “Just because he goes to MIT doesn’t mean he’s better than us.”

  I held my tongue and let Mrs. H talk. I would’ve been happy to walk away from this so I could get back to my own projects.

  “Actually, in terms of the goals of the competition, Theo’s better than all of us.” Mrs. H leaned against the edge of her desk. “He’s got practical, real-world experience. He’ll make what we submit better, and he’ll make you better at exploiting weaknesses.”

  “Let’s see him crack what we’ve got, then.”

  “Good idea, Dean. Maybe it’ll show you we can use his coaching. Theo, you game?”

  The bullying victim had a name: Dean. If he recognized me from the other day, he gave no sign, but he seemed ready to test my skills.

  “Sure. Let’s do this.” I sat down at one of the laptops in the classroom. It wouldn’t be fair if I used some of the shortcut scripts I’d developed over the years. I’d show them exactly what I could do with no prep, much like they’d have to in competition.

  “Let me update your school login so you can access our part of the network,” she said.

  “No need. I’m almost in.” I looked up from the screen and we traded a smile.

  In no time I accessed the network’s admin. Some students gathered around to watch me work because I’d gotten into the network in less than a minute. Mrs. H typed on the computer at her desk and displayed my screen on the room’s big monitor to allow everyone to easily see.

  In another couple of minutes, I found what they’d built for the competition. The encryption job was decent, but I found a couple of exploitable flaws. Within fifteen minutes, I had the file of fake user data exposed on the screen.

  “Really?” Dean asked, clearly frustrated. “We’ve worked weeks on that and you destroyed it like it was nothing.”

  I switched to a view of their code and walked up to the screen to point out how I got in. “This is how you get better. Weaknesses are pointed out and you change your plan. What you’ve got is good. I assume it got to the point that not one of you could crack it on your own, because I see different coding styles in there, so you built on each other. But I’ve done this for years. I got my first job in cyber security when I was eleven.”

  That caused some chatter among the team.

  “Why help us, then?” asked Jessie, a girl I had history class with.

  “Mrs. H wants you guys to win. She thinks I can help.”

  “But what’s the point if you’re doing it for us?” Jessie crossed her arms across her chest and looked annoyed. “You could be a team of one.”

  Mrs. H had really not prepped them on anything. Maybe this was part of my team hazing. “I want to help you be better. Do you want to give it a go? Or should I walk away?”