Gunner: The Hacker's Code Read online

  ###

  The Previous Day

  Gunner stepped out of the shower, his shoulders slumped. Close to forty-eight hours had passed since he’d last slept. He should hit the rack, but restlessness ate at him and sleep wasn’t in the near future. It had been a hell of a few days, and he needed some getaway time. He grabbed the towel slung over the side of the glass wall, dried himself off, and then wrapped it around his waist. At the bathroom counter, he opened a drawer and searched blindly for a comb. Not finding one, he leaned over to look inside.

  “Shit,” he muttered. He peered under the counter and, spotting the comb, went to his haunches to pick it up. When he stood, he slapped his palm against the mirror and wiped the steam from the surface. Gunner shook his head, and his long dark brown bangs fell in front of his face. He pulled the comb through the wet locks, yanking it past the tangles. The length skimmed his shoulders.

  Time to get it cut again.

  Most times he loved being an immortal Anathergian, but his hair was a pain in the ass since it grew almost an inch a week. Having it long was out of the question, so once a month he had to get it trimmed. It was always a bitch, because he had to find different places to go. People tended to ask questions when someone’s hair grew three times faster than a human. And he—along with the rest of his fellow Anathergians—couldn’t let on to just anyone they weren’t human.

  Gunner tossed the comb onto the counter and traipsed into his bed chamber. He studied the clothes scattered on the floor. The place needed a good cleaning, but he’d been so busy lately, he hadn’t had the chance. Toeing a t-shirt, he picked it up and gave it a whiff.

  “Jesus!” He gagged. Yeah, a serious laundry day was in order. Gunner kicked around a few more pieces of clothing. A wrinkled, brown, plaid shirt sans sleeves smelled half-way decent, and he slipped it on over an almost white t-shirt. A pair of jeans with only one coffee spill on them, his shit kickers, and then his Texas ball cap, which he put on backward, completed his ensemble.

  He left his quarters, his boots clomping over the cement walkways of the massive complex that covered acres of underground and housed most of the local Anathergians. Gunner pushed the button for the door leading to the garage and bent over to sneak beneath it as it slowly rumbled upward. He grinned when he spied his customized Triumph Bonneville.

  “It’s been too long, babe,” he whispered to the motorcycle as he straddled the seat. Once his half-helmet was on over his cap, he kicked up the stand and started up the engine. With a strong grip on the throttle, he revved the engine a few times, reveling in the roar it made.

  He headed up the multiple layers of the garage and out into the fake storage unit used as the cover for the complex. Gunner looked over his shoulder to the east where the buildings from the Las Vegas Strip towered over him. On the freeway, he headed north and exited onto Sahara Avenue, and then made his way into an older neighborhood. The houses were built back when lawns and land were more plentiful in Vegas. The mature trees reached for the night sky, casting eerie shadows over the mature homes. The neighborhood was one of the few that reminded him of his home town of Austin.

  Gunner pulled in front of a house built sometime in the 1950s and later had a second story addition. He made it his business to know everything he could about everywhere he went. As the top intel person within the his king’s—Auden’s—crew, he had access to every government computer network in the world. It was a deal the Anathergians had with each of the entities because of the type of work they did.

  When his race first arrived on Earth, they’d sworn to protect the humans at any cost, since they’d lost most of their own people. Each Anathergian took up that mantle and did their part to make Earth a better place. They used their advanced tech to help fight against terrorism and other criminal elements. Once in a while, they received cases with supernatural elements. Gunner always liked those kind.

  He hunched his shoulders, thinking about the new threat they’d just discovered. Their old enemy who helped destroy their planet now threatened Earth. At the moment, things were pretty cool, but soon shit would hit the fan.

  Tonight, however, he would take it easy. His boots crunched on the dying grass as he trekked to the front entrance. He knocked twice on the thick wooden door and then entered. Glancing around the sparse formal room, he was surprised to find it empty. Usually the place brimmed with young people staring into computer monitors as they tested their latest code against someone else in the house or others throughout the world. The house was overrun with geniuses, which was probably the reason he’d been drawn to them.

  He’d found them on the interweb, doing their magic. They thought their methods were hidden, but so far the humans hadn’t developed anything Gunner couldn’t find. At least that he knew of. It helped he had the Anathergian machinery backing him up, but it wouldn’t be what it was without Gunner’s tweaks here and there.

  Gunner stepped into the kitchen. Two chairs hugged a table with a dirty paper plate on it. He returned to the formal room and glanced into the sunken living room. Finding it also empty, he jogged up the stairs. Two doors stood at the top of the small landing. One stood ajar, without any light coming from it. Unease made his nerves jump, and he let loose a small amount of power to allow his senses to flow into the room behind the closed door. His sensory abilities weren’t half as strong as his fellow Anathergian warrior, Nico, but they did well enough in a pinch.

  Finding nothing threatening, he reached out and slowly turned the doorknob, pushing the door open a few inches. The blue gleam of a computer monitor cast a straight line of light across his boots. Gunner leaned close to the opening to spy on whomever was inside. From the angle, he couldn’t see anyone. But his sensitive hearing picked up on the clicking of a keyboard and the sound of music coming from headphones.

  Gunner pushed the door open a few more inches and squeezed through the opening. On tiptoes, he eased his way to the person sitting on the floor whose back faced him. He stopped for a moment to admire the work displayed on the monitor.

  Speaking of geniuses.

  If he didn’t know better, he’d think this one was Anathergian. But, alas, no…

  Gunner bit his lip to hold down the laugh trying to make its way past his throat. He leaned over and gripped the narrow shoulders hunched over the machine.

  A piercing scream made his eyes water, and he jumped backward as the headphones flew through the air at him.

  “Crap, Gunner!” the girl yelled, facing him. “What the fuck are you trying to do?”

  Gunner tried to hold back his laugh, but it sneaked past his compressed lips, and came out as a full guffaw. “Sorry, Nay, I just couldn’t resist.”

  Nadine lifted her black rimmed glasses onto the top of her head, pushing back her wispy chestnut bangs in the process. She only used the glasses when she worked on a computer, which was most of the time. “You are such a loser, sometimes, you know?”

  Gunner shrugged and wondered if he should answer. Deciding he didn’t want to piss her off any more than she already was, he changed the subject. “So, where is everyone?”

  “Hackathon over at the Sting.” She leaned over to pick up her headphones.

  “Oh, that’s right. It’s that time of the month.”

  Her gently arched eyebrows raised, and she gave him a studied glance.

  “Uh, not that time of the month,” he stammered. “I meant… Well, you know, that time of the month for the hackathon.”

  Nay shook her head and turned back to her computer. “Seriously, dude, you need help.”

  Gunner slipped his hands into his jeans pockets. Nay was one of the few girls that lived in the house, and he sometimes forgot she was female, because she didn’t always act super feminine. Not that she didn’t look like a girl. In fact, far from it. Nay was most definitely a woman. She was tiny. Probably more than half a foot shorter than his six foot two inch frame. Her brown hair, cut in layers, swept around her pixie face, framing her wide green eyes. Beneath her slight
ly upturned nose were full lips, which she often chewed on while coding. She had a small waist that flared out around rounded hips. Her breasts were often covered with a sports bra. Gunner assumed she wore it to hide how well-endowed she really was from the rest of the guys, himself included.

  Nadine settled back in front of her laptop and placed her glasses back on her pert nose. He took a seat on the floor next to her. “So, what are you working on?”

  She shook her head as she sent her quick fingers over the keys, closing out programs. Gunner squinted at her. The dim light from the monitor showed discoloration beneath her eyes and chapped lips of someone seriously dehydrated.

  “What’s going on, Nay?”

  She cast a quick glance at him. “Nothing.” Nay opened a clean browser and went to a popular hacker’s site.

  Gunner inched out with his senses, sniffing for whatever she was trying to hide. Grief, horror, and fear bombarded him. He tried to hold on tight to the reigns of his power to protect himself from the blast, but the overwhelming sensations made him choke.

  Nay’s brow crinkled. “You okay?”

  He nodded, trying to catch his breath. “What in the hell…” he wheezed, “is going on with you?”