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

Never mind the fact you’ve been a VR coma, making you more susceptible to them.

“Relax.”

She hated when he blew her off like that. “It’s really irresponsible for you to endanger yourself.”

He stopped and faced her with a smirk. “Irresponsible like heading to meet VisionTech to rescue Reed by yourself? I already have a mother, Ari. Please stop trying to be mine.”

As he turned to leave, Ari felt glued to her place in the hall. Her face warm with embarrassment. He was right, but it didn’t change how she felt. At the same time, he wasn’t cruel, just the same brother that always ignored the rules and her. Patrick came upon her, snapping her out of her stupor.

“What’s wrong?” Patrick placed a hand on her shoulder, a simple action that shouldn’t have felt so good. Especially not when she still had feelings for Reed. She may have left and tried to close the door on him, but her dreams and subconsciousness had other plans.

“Nothing. Just bickering with Marco like usual. Hey, did you know he was using the VRs?”

“Yeah.”

“What for? I don’t think he should risk—”

Patrick lifted a hand in the air. “I’m going to have to stop you. He asked me to keep it private and I’m respecting it.”

She started to protest again.

“Please don’t press it. You have your secrets, let him have his. If I thought he was in danger, I wouldn’t have allowed him access, I promise.”

“Okay.” She trusted Patrick, though she wasn’t giving up on what her brother was up to. Not yet.

“Great. Are you coming to the meeting?”

“Meeting?” She looked down at the HUB on her arm and realized she missed a message.

“Yes. Those lovely gathering everybody wants more of.” Sarcasm brought his mouth up in a grin.

“You know us so well,” she replied as they walked together.

A few others were already there, including her brother, who was already in deep conversation with Blur and Joe. Tricky stood by the drink station. She had just dumped one cup and began brewing another. No Sketchy this time. Ari sat next to Harini, who had her screen up, flipping through notes.

“Anything new?” Ari asked.

“Just flipping through the available VR ports and double checking the countries’ security.”

“Please say I’m going somewhere with a white beach?” Ari’s nervous energy came out in a joke.

Harini gave her a look and returned to her screen with a seriousness that unnerved Ari.

“Just joking.” Ari tried to ease the tension.

Once Tricky found a seat next to her brother, Patrick pulled up a chair at the head of the table. “Let’s get started. Joe, do you want to go over the schematics of the program?”

Joe opened the program he created and explained the basics. Everyone would need to upload the new firmware into the VR machine they used. Most of the older machines weren’t geared to access the well-known realms.

“How are we going to get Joe’s program installed?” Harini asked. “It’s not like owners will allow random programs inserted in their machines.”

Joe turned to Harini. “Hopefully with how old these systems are, they will have less security. But yes, that will add another layer to this mission. I recommend we go in pairs to make it easier.”

“I was thinking of pairs as well.” Patrick added and turned to Blur. “Do you have the requested skins?”

Blur pushed back his blond hair, which looked stringy and unwashed. “Yes. Some of them are pretty flimsy, but considering this is a quick attack, I figured they would be okay.”

“That should be fine. Send them out after this. Harini, what are our choices of machines?” Patrick asked.

She flipped her screen up onto the projector, the lights dimming to adjust. “I tried to find countries with easy access, where people would blend, and where there were limited warrants out for us.”

“With this group, that sounds near impossible.” Tricky played with a pen, spinning it in between her fingers.

“Nothing is impossible,” Harini said, with more optimism in her voice. “I have six countries to choose from. They are poor, so flying in directly may draw more attention. But they are near big cities, so we should be able to get there quick enough.”

Patrick studied the list along with everyone else.

“I’ll take Taiwan,” Joe said. “I’ll blend in there.”

“You’ve been before?” Patrick asked, worry in his voice.

“Not since I was a child. No one would recognize me.”

“Good,” Patrick agreed. “You take Marco with you since it’s the farthest away.”

Ari bit her lip, worried about her brother. He’s an adult though, and she needed to trust him to make his own decisions. And during their last mission, Marco proved he knew how to handle himself. He was an asset to this team.

Patrick continued to make assignments. Ari and Blur were assigned to a Spanish country not far from where she had her run in with VisionTech. Tricky was going to stay home. She was obviously not happy about it but didn’t look surprised either. Patrick probably talked to her outside the meeting. That left Patrick and Harini going together to India. It looked the sketchiest of all the locations. Patrick wasn’t the type of leader to send others to do the dangerous jobs.

“Now that the assignments are set, let’s talk about the mission. Even though the politicians have proved to be unreliable, I still want to get the information out to them.” Before anyone could interrupt, Patrick lifted a hand. “In addition, Ari has figured away to get the information out to the people, going around the government. Do you want to share how to distribute the information?”

Ari straightened as everyone turned to her. “I’ve been working with my friend Tessa. Using her gaming channels, we can release the information in the Americas, Asia, and Europe. It’s not everyone, but hopefully is starts a big enough push among the people that even Maxim can’t shut down.”

“Great. I’ll get you the message to send out today. Harini, could you help with that as well?”

“Of course,” Harini said with a smile.

Patrick clicked a button on his