Lines of code trickled along the walls beside her, numbers and symbols dribbling like hieroglyphs in a never-ending stream of information.
Their orange glow tried to entice her eyes, but she didn’t need to check. The code was correct, and the quiet of the room reminded her of that.
No sirens blared, no lockdown screens. Just her, a half-drunk cup of tea, and the quiet hum of computers.
Her fingers flitted across the keys, blurring, playing. Only, instead of Beethoven’s Fifth, it was Becon’s Demise.
Hair up in a bun, with black-rimmed glasses framing a perfectly pleasant face, she bore no deathly-white skin, greasy hair, or hoodie.
She wore a plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows and folded just the once, as if she might change her mind. Sharp eyes and tinted brows betrayed no expression as she continued to tap away.
Less programmer and more professor, Vanessa knew exactly what people thought of her, and that suited her just fine.
It had made getting down to Level-4 all the easier. Less sneaking, more sauntering. No-one suspects a thief who stops to chat to the security guards about Monday Night Football. Less so if she’s familiar with their names, and even less so if she ever-so-gently puts on the charm.
Go Vikings, indeed.
Three draining hours in the dark, drenched in blue monitor light, and nearly there.
Another sip, another spiral inserted into the database, just waiting to be let out.
How it would crawl.
Fourteen of the digital serpents, curled up innocently amidst billions of symbols that no-one at Becon would bother to check.
Vanessa exhaled, standing gingerly, as if afraid that any sudden movement would undo all her weaving.
“Finished?”
The question hung in the cold air, amused with itself.
Luke. No chance of running. He was close by, shrouded by servers.
“You know, if you were going to stop me, you could have just saved me the trouble.”
“Like you say. If I was going to stop you.”
He stepped out of the dark, leaning over the desk to inspect her handiwork, delicately lifting his coat to avoid her cup.
She considered swinging.
“Don’t bother Vanessa. I’m faster, and to be honest, I’d rather not damage hands that can create chaos like this”, he said, gesturing to the twin monitors.
“So if you didn’t come here to…”
“You need two cards to activate. The one you swiped from Carl only gets you in the door”, he said, flashing his own.
Ah. So there had been safeguards.
“What, you thought you were the only one who wanted to see it burn?”
“You never gave me a reason to think otherwise”, she shot back, drawing closer.
“Then I did my job well”, he smiled, motioning for her hand.
“And you watched me do it all on my own?”
“I couldn’t risk screwing it up. Not this. On the count of three, yeah?”
Vanessa hesitated just a moment, then slid her card into the metal slot.
“Light it up.”
A/N: I love the constraint of a micro-fiction, but hate having to cut my words down. This one is a submission to a random contest that got advertised on my Instagram (yes, a useful ad) yesterday, and caught my eye. Just a picture of a girl typing at a computer screen with orange code around her, and a 500-word limit. I "finished" it at around 600, and painstakingly had to pare it back, word by word. This feels like the cleanest, sharpest version, but what you gain in pace, you do lose in detail. Always happy to take constructive feedback on board, so let me know what you reckon works or doesn't.
About the Creator
Joe O’Connor
New Zealander
English teacher
Short stories and poems📚
Please be honest- I would love your constructive feedback, as it's the only way I'll get better. Would rather it was pointed out so I can improve!
Currently writing James The Wonderer
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Comments (5)
This ending left me wondering, do Vanessa and Luke actually trust each other, or are they both setting the other up for the final strike?
Snakes pulled me in and didn't let go. It takes a lot to capture my full attention. Love it.
I think the whole thing works, pacing especially is top notch. I have a very ADD brain, so I often get bored or gloss right over scene and character details anyway-- but this was perfectly balanced. You gave enough or me to imagine the scene, character, and action without any extra fluff, which is the kind of writing I prefer to read. I guess the only thing story wise that felt a little jarring/ immersion breaking for me was her going from wanting to swing at the guy to willing to work with him in what felt like one or two heartbeats. But I think you explained the switch pretty well considering the word count restriction (both his explanation that he was trying not to blow his cover and the fact they'd need two cards, help make the collab necessary). Still, I think if you end up finding space it might be good to get some hints as to why she's there to begin with, why she feels Becon deserves to get hacked/ cyber-attacked. maybe ramp up the urgency or desperation on her part, factoring in to her willingness to trust him? Then again, with flash fiction, oversharing the details/ backstory/ exposition can kind of hurt the reader engagement. The way it reads right now allows us to fill in the blanks in whatever way we find most compelling. I will say, I like their dialogue. It progresses the story, feels smooth rather than clunky, and actually reads like two distinct voices. I like the description of her sleeves being rolled half way, like she might change her mind. And I also really like the half drank tea, a little mundane thing like that makes the character feel like she's actually real/ breathing.
Absolutely gripping, once I'd started reading, I couldn't stop. Excellently written, deserved top story! Honestly I can't imagine where you've cut words out, you've done it so well! I love the ambiguity of the story, not knowing where/who/what/why, and yet still having a basic understanding of what's going on, where are they? Who is she stealing from? What is she stealing? And why? All unnecessary questions when it's laid out in the format you've written. Although I wouldn't call myself a critic, I just enjoy the reading 😂
ooh, I really like this! VERY tight, and that's a good thing. At first, I didn't know what "Becon" was, so I'm happy that it came back in a more specific context. I simply adore this line: "She wore a plaid shirt, sleeves rolled to the elbows and folded just the once, as if she might change her mind." It's beautifully specific, while doing the additional work to characterize Vanessa, just a little. I pictured her feeling somewhat hesitant in her mission, just at the back of her mind. Not enough to change her action, but enough to give her nuance. And you need lines that this in such a short story. So well done on that! There are other lines that you did that with; this one just stood out to me. :D When you said she's "less programmer and more professor," what kind of professor were you referring to? I pictured a programming professor but on my second read though, I noticed the line comes soon after "instead of Beethoven's Fifth, it was Becon's Demise" (GREAT line too, btw), and I wondered if she was a music professor instead. I'm not entirely sure if understand the impetus for Vanessa's actions here, nor why Luke is onboard with them. I find myself wondering if we need more clues about what Becon is/does? And possibly what Vanessa does too. They seem like they might be connected, which would create the aforementioned impetus. Also, maybe if Luke was mentioned earlier on, his arrival wouldn't have led me to have questions about him. Now, I'm not sure if these questions are necessary for you to address. If your intention with it is to tell a riveting story with high stakes and an unexpected team-up, you succeeded with flying colors! It's also funny, has great descriptive elements, and is paced really well. However, if your intention is to leave the reader with as few questions as possible (AND do the other stuff), then I do think those issues I mentioned deserve some attention. I really really like it, Joe. Very well done. Micro fiction is so difficult, especially with the world-building aspect, if that's the right term. You have almost no descriptive space, right, so how on earth do you establish location, relationships, motivation?? (One last thing is a correction of dialogue formatting. Punctuation is always inside quotation marks. I noticed a couple lines where the commas were outside. :D )