Love Hacked (Knitting in the City #3)(69)
Author: Penny Reid

Luke S. scratched his elbow, then his ear. He frowned. “That one is really expensive.”

“I didn’t ask whether it was expensive,” I said.

He rolled his eyes and reached into the case, fiddled with the price tag. “It’s six thousand dollars.”

I didn’t hesitate. “I’ll take it.”

He didn’t move to retrieve my purchase as I fished through my messenger bag. He didn’t move until I pulled out the thick envelope of hundred dollar bills and began counting them.

Then he jumped. “In cash? You’re paying in cash? Now?”

I placed the first pile of ten hundreds on top of the glass case. “Does the six thousand include tax? Or is it six thousand, five hundred and fifty-five?”

“What?”

“Nine point two five percent sales tax.”

“Oh. Yes. I mean, no. It doesn’t include the tax. I’ll have to calculate that for you.”

I shrugged, ignored his slowness. He hadn’t picked up on the fact that I’d already calculated and stated the total inclusive of taxes.

The model was an original, 1978, large-scale replica of Darth Vader’s TIE fighter from Episode IV, A New Hope. I was going to assemble it. Then, I was going to put her new engagement ring inside it.

She had no idea.

Nico and Elizabeth had helped me pick out a ring a few weeks ago. I was starting to like them. This surprised me. But he was a good cook and, as far as I could tell, a nice person. Elizabeth was neurotic and bossy. However, her generosity, her seemingly altruistic desire to help people, and her biting sarcasm made up for the other defects in her personality.

“I need a bag,” I said. “If you have a vintage one with Star Wars on it, that’d be great.”

He was moving quickly now, retrieving the sealed Lego Star Wars model box from the case. He also glanced behind the counter, I assumed for the bag I’d just requested.

At first, as I walked into the small shop, I had trouble trusting my eyes. Star Wars paraphernalia covered every surface, littered the walls and the floor. I had to hold the messenger bag in front of me to fit through several tight spots. At one point, I knocked over a Darth Vader mask, and it told me that it was my father.

I would have to bring Sandra here; maybe in a few weeks, after the wedding was over and things were back to normal.

“Uh, I have a canvas tote from Episode II.”

“Nope,” I said, now on my fifth stack of hundreds. “It has to be from one of the earlier movies, Episodes IV, V, or VI.”

“Those are expensive,” he said.

I lifted just my eyes. I looked at him. Waited.

“Uh, right.” He nodded, catching on. “Let me see what I have in the back.”

***

What most people don’t understand about computers is that their defining and primary design objective is to receive and store stimuli. Yes, they provide output—via monitors, printers, and so on—but output is not their main function.

Ninety percent of how computers are used is to receive and store data. Nine percent is to modify the data. One percent is to output the data.

You don’t need a computer—or even the Internet—to hack into a network or move beyond firewalls. Consequently, it’s possible to hack a computer that isn’t connected to the Internet. In order to break through, you just need a stimulus that the network or individual computer is configured to receive.

As an example, when I hack these days, I use high frequency sound waves.

In this way, I suppose, computers aren’t much different from people.

We’re wired a certain way, especially men. When presented with a stimulus of a particular type and quality, we receive the signal whether we want to or not. Typically, we just store it. About nine percent of the time, we learn from it, which means the stimulus changes us in some way. About one percent of the time, we respond to it.

Being in love is a lot like being hacked.

Depending on the hacker, non-essential or essential systems start to fail. Performance lowers in some areas and increases in others as CPU priorities are rerouted. Behavior is unpredictable and, essentially, influenced a great deal by the whims of the hacker.

No one wants to be hacked; at least, that’s what they’ll say if you ask them. I didn’t. Unlike most of my counterparts, I’m not configured to receive certain types of stimuli. I’m not built that way, not wired that way.

This is because of my past, because of how I spent my childhood, because all three stories that I told Sandra on our first date were true.

Until now, until Sandra, I was numb to what most would consider basic stimuli.

The last time I felt remorse was when I killed my roommate at the foster home.

The last time I felt fear was when my biological father attacked me in my room, then died in a drunk-driving accident that he caused.

The last time I felt happy was when I was accepted into a hacking group called PackHackers, which was run by a Japanese programmer named Wolf.

I was an old school mainframe with no network or Internet connection; an island of computing power with minimal ports for reception or retrieval of data.

Regardless, two things I now know for certain: I’ve never met a computer I can’t hack, and I’ve never met a person who is immune to Sandra Fielding. I suspect that everyone who meets her falls a little in love with her.

I hid the large vintage plastic bag behind the bench in the hallway as I entered our Cloud City apartment. Sandra was cooking, or had just cooked something. I knew this because I was surrounded on all sides by the smell of onion and garlic.

Since we’d moved in together, she was always cooking. She admitted to me that she liked to cook before, but that her old kitchen was too small. I didn’t complain. I’d never considered food as anything other than a means to an end. But that has changed.

I’m not of a fanciful nature or disposition. When I retreat to my fortress of solitude, it’s a cold place, with cryptograms to solve and code to break. I have no desire or innate ability for daydreaming. I never saw the point of envy or wishing on gas giants some hundreds of thousands of light years away.

My previous outlook could be summed up as follows: Life is shit. Math makes sense. Fictional characters are superior to real people because real people are equal parts pitiful and predictable.

But that’s all changed.

And it’s all Sandra’s fault.

“Alex?” Her voice carried to me from beyond the hallway, and I smiled. She has a great voice; like the rest of her, it warms me up. “We’re in the living room. Don’t come in! Ashley, Elizabeth, and I are indecent.”

I rolled my eyes at her bluff and shrugged out of my jacket. It was a new purchase, an olive green Northface windbreaker with fleece lining. One of Sandra’s few demands was that I wear it outside, at all times, until the temperature broke fifty.

“I don’t mind,” I called back. “Maybe I’ll join you.”

I heard a few squeals and running footsteps, but ignored the sounds and strolled into the living room.

Then I stopped, my mouth falling open and my blood pumping fire, and I turned away. “Sandra! What are you guys doing? You’re all in your underwear!”

“Well, she told you not to come in here.” I heard Ashley’s flat tone over my left shoulder.

“We’re having a panty dance party!” Elizabeth called from somewhere behind me. “Or, we were going to have one until you showed up early.”

Sandra launched at my back, wrapped her arms around me, and she was laughing. “Oh my God, you should have seen your face! Did we shock your delicate sensibilities?”

I pulled her by her wrist until she was facing me and marched her backward into the hall. When I had her cornered, I held her wrists on either side of her face and indulged in my desire to look at her body.

She was wearing a white lace bra and matching underwear. It had small, delicate, sparkly things woven into the edge of the bra cups and at the waistband of the panties. I’d never seen it before. I would have remembered it.

“Where did this come from?” I couldn’t seem to lift my gaze any higher than her chest.

She shrugged. “The girls gave it to me. It’s a wedding present. Do you like it?”

My throat was dry, so I swallowed. “Tell them to leave.”

“You’ll have to compromise and let go of me first.”

My eyes met Sandra’s, and hers were full of mischief, as usual. She always looks like she’s planning something, or she knows a secret. I’m halfway convinced that she has the recipe for pixie dust.

She can be blinding, and I’m not the only one affected. Doesn’t matter where we go, people are drawn to her, to the striking light within her, to her humility and kindness, and her compassion and humor. It’s as though she loves everyone, forgives everyone; they can sense it and want part of it.

They want a part of her.

And it pisses me off.

I hate it.

I stepped away, released her wrists, but couldn’t stop thinking of all the different ways I was going to compromise her after her friends left.

She didn’t move at first. Instead she stood, back against the wall, wrists where I’d left them, framing her, and watched me. I know she likes it when she thinks I’ve lost control. I think I even like it.