Delete me if you can

DR

equipment behind. If someone wants to play games with my daughter's life, t

th crowbars and small explosives. Parents scream names. Teachers sob into

ace. The source is close – computer lab, probably. Hid

on running familiar code. My code. Frank'

ot close enough. Your daughter is very brave. She's trying to keep the other chil

plug my laptop into the workstation and begin the di

min

I'm not being careful anymore. Not worried about preserving evidence or maint

sed as routine maintenance protocol. But it's booby-trapped. Disarm

n mi

U

e water is getting deep but she's helping scar

twenty-four children face death and sending m

tead of disarming the kill switch safely, I'm going to overload it. Blo

min

erous for anything but absolute emergencies. It's designed to cascade through networked sy

work. It will cause hundreds of thousands of dol

n't

e mi

Smoke begins rising from servers throughout the building as circuits overl

ctronic death rattles, every door in

CLICK

s. Parents rush in. Emergency

ill clutched in my hands, following the signal trace that's st

s still here. Still watch

rd Room 15 and see some

y from the chaos, disappearing through an emergency

the confidence of a p

e I re

d turns

my daughter's near-death experience

-

R

hout knocking, which means some

ctions that look too good to be real, when she appears in my doorway

ve a p

offee's gone cold anyway

their contracts. Simultaneous

trol. Three clients could mean anything from a minor revenue hit to complet

ch o

nd Security, and

uc

legitimized my company, that turned us from a scrappy startup into a global cybersecurity

son did t

erns. They won

fically for our security expertise. It's like bein

t work phone. I glance at the screen expecting spam,

e one you think nobody knows a

spam or online shopping. But there's one I set up in college, back when I thought email addresses were permanent things you'd keep

funny articles at two in the m

that account. There's one new m

hought you

m: A

ed out of my life eight years ago without explanation, leaving nothing

open the

ra

ulnerabilities. Thought you should k

A.

- Ca