Aileen Erin - The Shadow Ravens Series Box Set

ISBN 9781943858538

Copyright 2019 by Ink Monster LLC

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

by Aileen Erin

One

Cipher

It had taken me three excruciating days of nonstop hacking to work my way into Alpha Citadels mainframe. My fingertips were raw, and the case of energy drinks Id downed to keep me awake was giving me the shakes. I leaned toward my monitor, my nose nearly touching the screen as I searched for anything that would make my hackfest worth it.

Breaking into any system was always a little dangerous, but going into Alpha Citadels mainframe That was taking the risk to an extreme level of insanity. People got killed for less. And yet here I was. Hacking where no one had hacked before.

Except my dumb ass had actually done it.

The first time Id tried it, I barely escaped with my life. If I got caught this time, Id be lucky to be shot on sight.

I wasnt a lucky person.

The alarm Id programmed alerted me that the Citadels Green Helixestheir DNA-modified tech specialistswere on to me.

Shit. I slammed my hand down on the table and my collection of anime bobble-heads started jiggling back and forth, as if telling me to calm down.

Good advice. I still had a little bit of time. I tapped the figurines to stop their movement as I assessed the situation.

I was bouncing my IP all around the world to hide my identity but that didnt really matter as a warning scrolled along the top of my screen. My bots in the Citadels com channels started picking up all kinds of bad news. Drones were being readied. The squads at every Void outpost had been notified and were now on standby.

A trickle of sweat rolled down my hairline and I brushed it off on the collar of my T-shirt. I had to find out what stopped the Red Helixes abilities. I was a ticking bomb without the intel, but staying in the mainframe much longer wasnt going to help anything.

I closed the alert window. The Green Helixes would find me if I didnt log out within the next nineteen minutes. They were that good. I started a timer on my monitor to count down, beeping every thirty seconds, and set it for fourteen minutes. That should give me enough time to leave the trailer park if I wasnt out of the mainframe by then.

I pushed a piece of my dyed blue hair behind my ear, and tried to focus on what I was doing instead of on the drones that could be headed my way any second. There were hundreds of databases here, too many for fourteen minutes. Running an automatic search would send the Greens straight to me. It was a crapshoot.

I blew out a breath, trying to calm my nerves, and started scrolling through manually. I mustve scanned nearly a thousand file names before I found one that could be relevant. Really fucking relevant.

Helix Research, I read the name aloud as if that made it more real, but it didnt disappear.

It couldnt be this easy. They wouldnt just have it there, would they?

The file icon had a lock symbol on it. I applied my trusty algorithm, and held my breath. Ten seconds and it opened.

I was in. This was it. It had to be. Only the need to be quick stopped me from bouncing in my chair with excitement.

Inside the folder was a list of nine files. Each named for the different helix classifications. The tenth file was unnamed. Probably a trash folder.

Holy fucking shit. But wheres the damned Red Helix folder?

The helix tattoos were a sign that a persons DNA had been monkeyed with. Each color-coded tattoo had a unique subcutaneous design built into it. No one could fake them. No one would dare try. Most helixes and the genes that went with them were covetedall except the only one that could be given at birth. Babies with unstable DNA got marked with a Red tattoo, tagging them for reprocessing.

Which was a nice way of saying they were killed at birth.

I understood the danger of the Red Helix well. Mine was on my left hip. I never found out whod gotten me out of the system alive, but I had a nice party trick from my messed-up DNAthe ability to harness electricity. Touching anyone when I was pulling voltage killed them. To keep the rest of the populace safe, I tried to stick to myself.

I rolled my shoulders back, releasing the tension, as I went through folder after folder. There had to be something about Red Helix abilities somewhere in one of these databases. I just had to find it.

The timer buzzed. Twelve more minutes.

A few keystrokes had me in the Black Helix database. If nothing else, grabbing the personnel files would help me figure out who was going to come after me. Knowing key players faces could mean the difference between getting away in time or being caught. A subfile was marked combat videos. I clicked play on the first one, and a new window opened.

The fighters moved blindingly fast. Ruthless. I knew some self-defense, but if I came up against a Black Helixexperts in warrior arts and military strategyId be screwed. Theyd been modified for strength and stamina and trained in about every form of martial arts known to man.

I copied the whole Black Helix database to my drive so I could study it later.

The timer beeped again. Ten minutes left. I had to keep moving.

Since there wasnt a Red database, I opened the next best one. The file was simply named Seligo for the immortal ruling class. They had the UV Helixthe ultimate in modded DNA. All aging and disease had been scienced away from them a couple hundred years ago and now they were like a plague of ruling roaches. The fuckers never died. The Seligo were the reason why society was on the verge of collapse, and they were clueless about it. Oblivious to anything that didnt directly involve them. Dipshits.

The clock beeped againeight minutes.

Why in the hell isnt there a file on the Reds?

I ground my teeth and moved on to maybe the next best thing. I opened the Seligo files. A list of sub-database files filled my screen. Each was named for a member of the Seligo class in alphabetical order. I scrolled down, looking for one name. Jack Parson.

I blinked a few times, wondering if it was a mirage.

Nope. This was the real deal and could make all my hacking worth it, even if it wasnt what Id wanted.

Jack Parson, my uncle, was the bane of my existence. He was the man who had my parents killed and the reason I was on the run. The asshole had almost caught me a few times, but almost didnt count. Not to me.

Inside the file were a bunch of subfiles. I open the first, and scans of Jacks brain filled my screen. Six of them were labeled Pre-DNA Modification along the top. The remaining six were Post-DNA Modification. Some of the colors changed in the scans, but I had no idea what the medical notes meant. I closed that file and found one that had his latest status update. I copied it, then scrolled down the list of remaining subfiles, quickly searching for anything else that caught my eye.