Chapter 2:Lines crossed
1106 Words
The risk report stayed burned into Lena’s mind the rest of the afternoon.
At home that night, she sat on her bed with her laptop propped on her knees, chewing on a cold slice of pizza, rereading every line of the VISTA-Red audit.
The casual way the risk had been brushed aside made her skin crawl.
AetherCorp was about to flood homes with an AI system that could listen, watch, collect — all without people’s knowledge.
And no one was stopping it.
She thought about going public. Posting the files anonymously, sending them to a journalist. But something gnawed at her.
Thomas Vale’s name echoed in her head.
He wasn’t a ghost CEO hiding behind lawyers. He was the public face of AetherCorp — young, charismatic, and respected for his technical brilliance. Vale had graduated top of his class from MIT, fast-tracked his PhD in computational systems, and still found time to lead humanitarian tech initiatives.
Not exactly the profile of a heartless villain.
Maybe... he didn’t know.
Maybe he needed to know.
Lena spent the next day obsessing over the decision. She couldn’t hack into his private channel on school Wi-Fi — too risky.
So after school, she barricaded herself in her bedroom with an energy drink and her fastest laptop.
The hack wasn’t easy.
Thomas Vale’s personal lines were wrapped in layer after layer of encryption — much more sophisticated than the general company systems. It took Lena hours just to map the external architecture, another three just to find a crack in the secondary firewall, and a solid two more to punch through without setting off alarms.
By the time she found an access point — a hidden secure messaging server that linked directly to Thomas’s verified personal address — the sun had long since set, and her eyes burned from staring at code too long.
It was nearly midnight.
But she was in.
---
Still, Lena didn’t send a message right away.
Instead, she shut her laptop with a snap, heart pounding.
She needed to think.
Really think.
Because once she crossed this line, there was no taking it back.
She spent the next two days stewing. Going through the motions at school, ignoring the stares, tuning out Madison Clarke’s snide comments.
By Thursday night, she knew she couldn’t sit on it any longer.
Sitting cross-legged on her bed, she reopened the connection, drafted the message, and after another hour of hesitation — finally hit send.
> Subject: VISTA-Red - Critical Risk Ignored
You are about to launch a system with a major privacy breach risk.
Check Internal Audit VISTA-Red 11.3.2025.
Your staff buried it.
You should know.
-- N
She closed the laptop immediately after, heart hammering.
And waited.
---
It wasn’t until Saturday evening that she got a reply.
An encrypted ping woke her laptop from sleep mode. Lena fumbled to connect, heart skipping.
> From: thomas.vale.direct@aethercorp.private
Subject: Re: VISTA-Red - Critical Risk Ignored
I read it.
Where did you get this?
Who are you?
Lena hesitated, then typed:
> **Anonymous.
Doesn't matter.
The issue matters.**
There was a long pause.
Then a new message appeared.
> **Secure video link. One-time use.
I need to see who I’m speaking to.**
Another beat of hesitation.
Talking to him... face-to-face — even through screens — was dangerous.
But something told her it was necessary.
She clicked the link.
---
The call connected, and Thomas Vale appeared.
He wasn’t the glossy, polished CEO from the magazine covers. His dark hair was slightly messy like he’d been dragging his hands through it all day. His sharp green eyes locked onto the camera with a focus that felt almost invasive.
He looked... real.
Lena kept her own camera blurred, an extra layer of protection. Only a shadowed outline of her was visible.
He frowned slightly but didn’t comment.
"You," he said slowly, leaning forward, elbows on his desk, "are either the best white-hat hacker I’ve never heard of... or something worse."
"Neither," Lena said, keeping her voice low, calm. "Just someone who noticed your people screwed up."
He exhaled, running a hand down his face.
"I’m digging into it," he said. "Quietly. Very quietly. You were right — the report was buried. I cross-referenced it.
The engineer who flagged it? She resigned two months ago."
Lena’s chest tightened.
"They’re scared," she said.
"Maybe," he said, eyes darkening. "Or maybe they got too comfortable."
He leaned back, studying her blurred silhouette.
"You didn’t have to tell me this. Why did you?"
Lena didn’t answer right away.
Not because she didn’t know.
Because it was hard to explain.
Because for once, someone had to do the right thing. Because even if no one ever saw her, she refused to let something this wrong happen on her watch.
Instead, she just said, "Because you deserved to know."
Another long silence stretched between them.
"Thank you," Thomas said finally. And he meant it.
"I’ll fix it," he added. "No matter what it takes."
Lena nodded once and cut the connection without another word.
---
For the next week, the messages started.
Not intrusive. Not demanding.
Just small, encrypted pings at random hours — personal ones.
> Monday night:
Wish I had your skills. Would’ve caught this myself.
> Tuesday afternoon:
Wonder if you sleep at all. You move like a ghost.
Lena found herself smiling at those messages, in spite of herself.
Slowly, without realizing it, she started replying — short, dry, a little teasing:
> Better to move like a ghost than like a mule.
Or:
> Sleep is for people who don’t have enemies.
Each time, Thomas would send back a small laughing emoji or a clipped reply, as if savoring the connection.
The strange, cautious dance continued — a hacker and a CEO, orbiting the same secret.
And though neither of them said it aloud, a fragile thread of trust was forming.
---
By Saturday — a full week after their first call — Thomas sent a longer message.
> **Internal fixes aren’t working fast enough.
I'm thinking about bringing in outside help.
Someone smart.
Someone already ahead of my team.
Someone like you.
Will you consider it?**
Lena stared at the screen for a long time, heart thudding against her ribs.
Thomas Vale — the billionaire tech genius — was asking her for help.
Not just because she caught a mistake.
Because he trusted her.
Or maybe because somewhere along the way, he had seen the person behind the blurred silhouette.
For the first time in her life, Lena Morgan wasn’t just hacking into systems.
She was hacking into something else.
Something far more dangerous.
- Writer
