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    Ultimate Hack
    Ultimate Hack
    Ultimate Hack
    Ebook71 pages51 minutes

    Ultimate Hack

    By Lance Erlick

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Hercules considered himself an ordinary anonymous geek with a special reason to remain in his mom's basement. Ignoring warnings from his best friend and his girlfriend, he pursues the hack of a lifetime into a top secret security system. What could possibly go wrong when he meets his match?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLance Erlick
    Release dateMar 2, 2017
    ISBN9781943080304
    Ultimate Hack
    Author

    Lance Erlick

    Lance Erlick writes science fiction thrillers for adult and young adult readers. In 2018, he launched his Android Chronicles series with Reborn and continued it with Unbound and Emergent. This series follows the challenges of Synthia Cross, wrestling with the download of a human mind and emergent behavior while confronted by humans who seek to control her. Xenogeneic: First Contact is about alien pilgrims who lost their civil war and come to our solar system. They kidnap aerospace engineer Elena Pyetrov to prevent her from discovering them. As their prisoner, she's the only one who can uncover their plot and stop them from decimating Earth. The Regina Shen series takes place after abrupt climate change leads to collapse and a new World Federation. As an outcast, Regina must fight to stay alive and help her family while she avoids being captured. In the Rebel series, Annabelle Scott faces a crisis of conscience after she's drafted into the military to enforce laws she believes are wrong. Find out more about the author and his work at LanceErlick.com.

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      Book preview

      Ultimate Hack - Lance Erlick

      ULTIMATE HACK

      Lance Erlick

      This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed herein are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any similarities to actual persons, organizations, or events is entirely coincidental. Also, though locations used in this work exist, for dramatic effect details have been altered. Accordingly, they should be considered fictitious.

      Copyright © 2017 Lance Erlick

      All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this ebook, or portions thereof, in any form.

      Smashwords Edition

      Finlee Augare Books, Chicago, IL

      ISBN: 978-1-943080-28-1 (print)

      ISBN: 978-1-943080-30-4 (e-book)

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      One

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      Also by Lance Erlick

      About the Author

      ONE

      Hercules launched his one-hundred-thirty-seventh electronic probe. Maybe this one would penetrate the fifth firewall on Krill Metal Enterprises’ private server.

      Weary from a week with little sleep, he scooted his chair away from the six flat screens that lined the basement wall. He stood to stretch and tripped over the battery backup sump-pump, the one he’d talked his mom into installing to protect his equipment.

      In the process of steadying himself, he knocked over the king on a nearby chessboard. This was where he tested new strategies for the matches he played on World Champion Games Online. He hadn’t made a move in over a week. In fact, he hadn’t left his mom’s basement in all that time.

      He replaced the king, tried to ignore the bad omen, and sat down. While waiting to see what his probe produced, he rummaged through foil junk-food bags for something to tide him over. The power bars had disappeared days earlier, along with the cookies and pretzels.

      What’s going on down there? his mom yelled from the top of the stairs. Her shrill voice rang in his ears. Did something crash?

      Hercules sank lower in his seat. It’s nothing, Mom.

      It didn’t sound like nothing. Are you drinking again?

      His mom slung loaded questions to trip him up, since no admitted that he had been drinking before. Not at home. I’m not drinking, Mom.

      Aren’t you going to work today?

      I am working. Just not on my boring intern job.

      Come have breakfast first. You haven’t eaten a proper meal in a week. You’re too skinny to skip food. You’re not doing drugs down there, are you? his mom yelled, as if a druggie might confess.

      Maybe to get the nagging to stop. No, Mom.

      Hercules had no use for anything that dulled his mind, which ached from a puzzle far beyond the chess or other hacking challenges: how to see what Krill was hiding. I need to concentrate. He hoped that would send her away for a while.

      After all, eating was a waste of time—except to stop his belly from grumbling. He emptied the crumbs from some cookie bags into his mouth and looked around. After a week, he’d scrounged all the food he’d brought downstairs and his mom refused to buy more until he joined her for a proper meal.

      Hercules, not his real name, drummed his fingers on his virtual keyboard, as if that could speed things up. At least it diverted attention from his empty stomach and how he’d failed to penetrate Krill’s last layer of security.

      He’d used every tool in his library, including the contents of both hard drives attached to his system and the ones he’d locked in a fireproof safe on a bowed plastic shelf because he didn’t trust centralize cloud databases. Rational thought begged him to give up this quest.

      A dead-end after weeks of work would be devastating, but something inside him wouldn’t let go. Okay, the challenge of breaking firewalls others couldn’t was a thrill,

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