Hard Wired Trilogy DeAnna Pearce (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📖

do. With that thought she climbed on the edge of the fountain and turned to face the crowd. A few people glanced her way, but no one stopped. A quick glance on her HUB and she realized she had two minutes. Taking a deep breath, she put the code in place, pulled up the speaker, and exhaled.

“To the people of VLEX.” Her voice boomed through the courtyard, startling her for a moment before she continued. People in the square now stopped with confused expressions. Ignoring their shocked faces, she stared at the building in the distance. “This is a warning. Warpers are rising up. We’re taking off the chains you want to bind us with. We’ll no longer be slaves to the highest bidder, no longer doing your dirty work. We’ll fight for the world we want to create. Starting now!”

A firm hand gripped her arm as she finished the sentence. A tall guard pulled her to the ground. “You’re under arrest.” He quickly slapped something metal on her arm.

After pulling back for a moment, she focused on the code, retreating to safety. As the code appeared around her, she realized the guard slapped her with something more than a mere restraining device. It was a tracking device of some sort. She didn’t dare take it back with her. If they traced her back to the real world, she didn’t have the means to relocate or escape. Anger and frustration boiled under her skin.

More security appeared in the courtyard, surrounding her. A myriad of thoughts colored in panic fled through her mind. The security guard locked her hands behind her, and it pulled her out of the code. Twisting, she kicked at the guard, and it took him by surprise. He stumbled back, and she took that moment to free her hands. She couldn’t flee though not until she took off the tracking device.

She saw the tool on the guard’s hip. She moved towards him and another pair of hands fell on her. The alarm she’d set on her HUB began beeping. If Antoine pulled her out now, they would know where she was. Rage exploded coloring her vision, and she struck out at the man behind her. Instinct must have flowed through her as the guard flew backwards ten feet or so.

Code flew in and out of her vision, mixing with the images around her. She didn’t think, just acted. She took the tool from the guard’s belt, some kind of program but made for an idiot. She hit the key which unlocked the tracer on her just as she was tackled to the ground. Others joined him, pressing down on her.

Pain struck at her, clouding her thoughts. Just leave. But fuzzy spots blocked her now. Her vision blanked in and out, a sharp pain stabbing in her mind, and fury exploded. She screamed, the sound echoing through the program, blocking out all conscious thought, but it gave her the out she needed to leave.

Soft hands pulled the cable out of the back of her neck as black stars danced in her vision.

Antoine’s dark eyes bore down on her.

“I got Kari’s information.” Her words slurred slightly.

“Wonderful, my dear. Some were surprised you’d go through all of that. They even doubted your power when they saw you dancing with me.”

He continued rambling on, and Ari wondered if that last trip caused some type of brain damage. Why was Antoine talking about dancing? She struggled to sit up.

“Give yourself time, my dear. You’ve been through a lot. We have time to rest, then I’ll take you back to the others. Sarah has a great remedy for our special kind of torturous hangover.”

Our? Our special kind of headache. Slowly sitting up, her vision finally cleared, and she struggled to put together the pieces of what was happening.

Looking up into his dark eyes, Ari remembered what happened after her first trip to VLEX and Niomi’s surprise that Kari had a boyfriend. A boyfriend who stuck with Kari despite Ari impersonating her, a boyfriend with amazing abilities to hack security feed, and a boyfriend who put her inside VLEX without much resistance.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I think you know.” A familiar smile flashed on Antione’s face, or who was also known as Emil. “Welcome to the team.”

To continue Ari’s adventure with HACKED, turn the page

Hacked

Hardwired Book 3

Chapter 1

Ari stood against the mountain face, trying to appear nonplussed. She knew it was only a program and that she wouldn’t die if she fell, but her body instinctively responded to the thousand-foot drop in front of her. Relaxing her clenched hands, she focused on her breath and tried to calm her racing heart.

“I forget how new you are to all of this.” Tricky stood next to her, dressed in the electronic skin of a young boy with ink black hair and olive skin. Nothing like the blonde beauty Tricky was in real life.

Ari, wearing the skin of a young native girl, narrowed her eyes with a sarcastic smile, tired of the newbie comments. She’d been with the team, mostly warpers, for a few months now, and this wasn’t her first mission. Yet, she assumed she’d be the newbie until someone else joined the team. Given the rarity of warpers, that could be years.

Ari motioned to the castle-type home in the center of this village. “Let’s focus on the job at hand, shall we?”

“We shall. We don’t want to be late for our meeting.” Tricky winked at her with a dark joy for the task at hand and disappeared. Using her warper abilities, Tricky could manipulate this landscape with the best of them.

Ari rolled her eyes, focusing on the code underlying the program, a rare skill in the world of virtual reality programs or VRs. Searching the code for her teammate, Ari found Tricky standing in front of the castle’s front door, dressed head to toe as nothing short of an exotic supermodel. Dark hair, full lips,