Monsters Like Us (Book 1 in The Huntress Series)

Chapter Fourteen (Part Two)

They reached the lab shortly before sunset, a sleek chrome and glass panel structure that seemed to naturally blend into the black rock around it, completely hidden from aerial view and obscured by thick groves of tropical palms. Orange light blasted from behind the mountain, the rays reaching up like outstretched arms. Pink and purple clouds sailed lazily over the sky, and ocean waves crashed and foamed on the shore below.

The girls sat huddled behind a large fern, a few yards away, staring at Luz's laptop screen. She had already inserted the USB from the Evil Maid attack, utilized the password, and gained access to the lab's WIFI. Meanwhile, Marisol sharpened her blade. "So, what are you doing exactly?" she asked.

"I'm performing a network scan to find IP addresses of running servers. If we're lucky it will find the address of the security system, and then I'll run a port scan to check which are accessible. In other words, which ones I'm able to hack into. My potential targets."

"And how does that work?" Marisol wondered. She looked impressed, although she didn't say so.

Luz paused, chewing at the skin around her thumbnail. Sometimes she did it absentmindedly, especially while on the computer, chewing at her nail or picking at her skin until it flaked away, pink and raw. "Most of it is automatic. There, see?" She shifted the laptop in Marisol's direction, showing her the list of commands that ran down the screen.

Marisol shook her head. "What am I looking at?"

Luz pointed to the numbers in the center of the screen. "These are IP addresses. One of these could potentially lead us to the lab's security system. Let's try this one."

She copy-and-pasted the numbers into the browser. It brought them to a mail server. Then she tried another one. "Come on," she coaxed the screen.

'IronGuard v.5

Username:

Password:

LOGIN'

"Gotcha!" Luz typed the version into an Exploit Search Engine on a separate browser and downloaded the exploit for the security system. Her fingertips tingled as they hovered above the keyboard.

Marisol had stopped sharpening her blade. "Did it work?" she asked. She swatted at the fronds tickling her cheek.

"With any luck..." A new window popped up. It was the control panel for the security system. Luz gasped. "We're in!"

Marisol chuckled. "When you said you fight with your laptop, well, I thought you were joking..."

IronGuard v.5 — Ethereal Labs

Luz accessed the floorplan. It was a 3D model that was a little hard to navigate, but she memorized the layout and identified the location of all security cameras, interior and exterior. "You have to go here," Luz informed Marisol, pointing out the helipad.

It was at the top of the mountain, built into the rock, just like the lab. A massive garage with a generous collection of helicopters and vertical lift jets. It doubled as a discrete landing pad. A black metal iris that opened like a camera shutter was constructed into the roof, and from above, the metal was completely indiscernible as anything other than part of the nature that surrounded it.

Marisol laid a hand on Luz's arm. "I have to warn you. I love to fly, but I'm not exactly the most careful or experienced pilot."

Luz blinked. "What does that mean?"

Marisol shrugged. "You'll see."

Luz suppressed the urge to prod further. Marisol was her only way off the island and if she was going to die in a fiery crash, she preferred not to dwell on it. Instead, she opened the live security camera footage and flipped through the channels. Scientists and technicians hunched over workstations in goggles and white coats, colleagues chatted over cups of coffee in the breakroom, a receptionist tidied up the front desk. The lab was packed.