• He dragged the girl in by her elbow. She had the defiant look on her face of a child on the verge of a tantrum, which looked odd in this room full of apathetic looking businessmen. Her pink jumper seemed even more comical in the grey rows of endless files.
    “Yours?” a man asked, raising his eyebrows over a pair of thick glasses.
    “Oh gods no. She was sitting outside, said she was waiting for her father. Didn't want to let her in, but some techs were harassing her. Real nasty looking, didn't even bother to cover up those disgusting ports, as if having them in the first place isn't bad enough. One even kicked her.”
    “Well, she can wait for her father over there. Some of us have work to do.”
    She was ushered over to a stiff chair, which she sulkily slumped into, neat pigtails bouncing with indignation and teddy bear clutched tight to her stomach. The businessmen walked back into another room, leaving her alone in the hallway. As soon as the door clicked shut, the girl jumped to her feet and began to run down the hall. She counted the doors carefully. The numbers were falling off too much to be properly read. After fourteen doors, she went quickly into one and shut it behind her.
    The rusty zipper on the teddy bear took her second to undo, but she soon pulled out a chord, a pair of goggles, and two gloves. Chord to the wall, green plug to the goggles, gloves over the hands, yellow chord from gloves to goggles to speaker and headphones. Red light on, check the power, flip switches nine, three, and six, and prepare for the shock. It took her less than thirty seconds, one well practiced motion. She pulled her hair back from her neck and stuck the remaining part of the chord to the metal port behind her ear with a shudder as the electricity hit her. As soon as she plugged in, a worried voice played over the headphones.
    “Are you alright? I think I kicked you too hard back there, and-”
    “Shut up and send me over the codes,” she said quickly. “I wouldn't be plugged in if I wasn't alright.”
    Sketch laughed.
    “Right to business then. Now, I don't want you modifying my hacking again. This is too important to mess up, and your still a squirt. Just run the program and-”
    “Yeah, yeah, I get it. And I'm not a squirt.”
    “I know you're older than you look, but middle school is still a squirt. Is the program running?”
    “Just a second,” she told him, tapping her fingers. The glove tips registered what she did, matching the patterns the the patterns across her goggles. She heard the alarms going off and smiled. It was nice to have power like that. “It's running now. See you in five.”
    “Careful,” he told her. “Zii'll kill us both if we end up having to go in and rescue you from the suits.”
    She ignored him, cutting the connection and stuffing everything hurriedly back into the Mr. Bear. The alarms blared as she ran down the hallway and into the room. They hadn't even closed the door. She grabbed the folder from the table and sped out the door.
    “Hey kid, where are you going?”
    She jumped, then sighed. Swallowing her pride, she turned around with wide eyes, holding the file behind her back.
    “I- I was looking for my Mom, but the alarms went off, and I don't want to be here anymore,” she sobbed, letting a few tears leak down her face.
    The man looked awkward. It was emergency protocol, so he couldn't afford to wait. He glanced guiltily and continued his run to the upper floor. She continued towards the door to find Sketch standing there waiting for her. While she had been gone, he had changed into a nice outfit that covered his port. The rest had already gone ahead. She held the files out to him.
    “Here you go. Now remember the deal, you have to teach me how to get through a firewall next week.”

    Her mother came home to find her and Sketch playing Scrabble on the living room carpet. She handed him a few dollars and gave a stiff smile.
    “Thank you for babysitting on such short notice Sam. I don't know why our computers suddenly went down like that. They're saying it could have been hackers.”
    Sketch looked at her sadly.
    “Yeah, those techs are all over the place these days. It's a real tragedy.”
    The woman bent down to look at her daughter.
    “Did you have a nice day honey?”
    “Yup! We played suits and techs.”
    The woman looked at Sam in concern.
    “Sam, I'm not sure I want my daughter playing such violent games.”
    “Don't worry,” the girl told her with a smile. “I won.”