The Alpha I Was Sent To Betray

Kieran Voss They say curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. Which makes me understand why people only quote the first part. Because as inspiring as that sounds, you realize the satisfaction only works if the cat survives long enough to enjoy it. Unfortunately, the cat in question accidentally hacked a federal server at two in the morning because it looked poorly encrypted, and he wanted to prove a point. In my defence, I genuinely thought it belonged to some overfunded crypto startup with a superiority complex. In my other defence, their firewall was practically begging to be hacked. Which is why I'm currently stuffing boxers, two hoodies, my laptop, and a toothbrush into a backpack like I have a destination in mind while trying to remember whether the FBI breaks down doors immediately or if they send an email first. "You're doing the thing again." I didn't look up. Jamie was sprawled across our secondhand futon with an anatomy textbook open on his chest. He'd been asleep five minutes ago—or pretending to be. Medical students didn't actually sleep. They just closed their eyes and hoped for the best. "What thing?" "The thing where you pace and mutter and pack a bag like you're about to flee the country." "That's not a thing." "Og course it a thing. You did it last month when you thought the university found out about that database breach. And the month before that when you crashed the library system." He yawned. "And the month before that when—" "Okay, fine. It's a thing." Jamie sat up, the textbook sliding into his lap. All elbows and angles, six feet of exhaustion held together by coffee and spite. Dark circles under his eyes. Black hair shoved back with a headband he'd been wearing for three days straight. He smelled like antiseptic hand sanitizer and the honey candies he stress-ate by the handful. He was the only person in the world who knew what I really was. "Kieran." His voice dropped. "What did you do?" I stopped packing. The laptop sat open on the kitchen counter, its screen dark but still radiating accusation. The backdoor. The encryption that shouldn't have been there. The live surveillance feed. The logo painted on a crate in a warehouse full of tactical gear and federal agents. I'd closed the connection. I'd done everything right. But I'd left a footprint. I knew I'd left a footprint. My left wrist itched beneath my sleeve—a hot, chemical sting that always got worse when I was stressed. "Hypothetically," I said, "if someone accidentally accessed a classified government surveillance operation because it was hidden behind a municipal server with the digital equivalent of a screen door—" "Kieran." "—would the FBI send an email first, or is it more of a door-kicking situation?" Jamie stared at me. I stared back. He closed his textbook. Very slowly. Very deliberately. "Tell me you're joking." "The encryption was really bad, Jamie. Like, offensively bad. I thought it was a crypto scam. You know how many crypto scams have military-grade encryption for no reason? So many." I gesturedwith my hands hoping to calm him a bit. It didn't. "It's practically a genre at this point." I continued. "Kieran." "And technically, shouldn't the FBI label their files better? A folder called 'maintenance_port_3' is not exactly screaming 'federal investigation, do not touch.' That's on them. That's a user interface problem." "Kieran!" "Curiosity got the better of." I said defensively. "Curiosity or pride!" "How bad?" His voice was quieter now. Worse. "Scale of one to prison." I opened my mouth. Closed it. "Prison," I admitted. "Federal. Probably. I panicked and closed the connection, but I don't know if I closed it fast enough. I don't know if they—" A thud. We both froze. Okay maybe I did mess up. The sound came from the hallway. Heavy. Deliberate. The kind of sound that didn't belong at two-thirty in the morning. Jamie's eyes met mine. His face had gone pale. "The fire escape," he whispered. "What—" "Go. Now." I grabbed the backpack. My laptop. My glasses. Jamie was already moving toward the window, shoving it open. "Jamie, I—" "If you say you're sorry, I'm going to push you off this fire escape myself." His voice was shaking, but his hands were steady. They always were. "Just go. Call me when you're—" The door splintered. Just a single, precise impact and then the cheap wood was swinging inward and the apartment was full of bodies and motion and shouted commands. I saw Jamie drop. I saw hands on him—restraining, not hurting, but still hands—and I heard him yelling. "He didn't do anything! He's a student! He's just a student, you can't just—" Someone grabbed me. And I felt it. That particular weight in the air. A pressure against my instincts, a primal whisper at the base of my skull that said submit, hide, run. I swung anyway and missed and landed on the floor with my shoulder and my pride and the sharp, metallic taste of fear. My glasses skidded across the linoleum. "Kieran Voss." A woman's voice, calm and steady. "You're in a lot of trouble." I lifted my head. Mid-forties, sharp cheekbones, tired eyes. Behind her loomed a man carved from granite—broad, thick-necked, standing with the predatory stillness of something that didn't need to move to be threatening. His gaze was too focused. Too fixed. My shoulders curled inward without my permission. "Can I—" My voice cracked. "Can I at least tell my roommate I'm not dead?" Jamie was still shouting. Something about lawyers. Something about illegal entry. Something about my rights, which was sweet of him, but probably not relevant given the situation. The woman ignored me. "Get him up." The granite of a man grabbed me me too much force that needed and pulled me to my feet. His hand wrapped around my arm—controlled strength, the kind that could snap bone if he decided to. I didn't fight. My body wouldn't let me. I looked back once—just once—as they dragged me through the splintered doorway. Jamie was on his knees in the wreckage of our living room, his headband askew, his textbook face-down on the floor. Still yelling. Still fighting. And on the floor, where they'd fallen, were my glasses. Neither of us could reach them.