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Okay, thought Isabelle, cracking her knuckles and lowering her nimble fingers to the holographic keyboard. Can't be too hard. Access the college mainframe, get root access, find the purportedly scandalous photo collection kept in a private folder by the college dean, and download it without leaving a trace. She back stretched her neck. Corban stood proudly behind his forerunner, making no effort to hide the fact he was still staring at Isabelle's chest. She took a deep breath. Simple, she told herself. Just be cool, don't let this guy get to you, focus, and win.

All I have to do is win.

Sam whistled and they were off.

Breaching the system was easy. Rooting it didn't prove a challenge. She now had complete access, but that wasn't the lion share of the problem here. The real clincher was figuring out where and how the dean had hidden these photographs, if they were even real. Supposedly they were captures from security cameras that had caught young, female students unawares in compromising positions. Rumor had it there was an access portal for carefully screened staff to view and download them, so Isabelle had to start there. There was an extra bonus in all this, save protecting her best friend's dignity. If she found the files, she could erase them. If Corban's team found them, she wasn't so sure where they'd end up.

She wiped the sweat off her brow. Time to do this.

This last year, she had forgotten what this felt like. How much she enjoyed it. At some point her father had figured he had her under control, that his security and his countermeasures were enough to keep her contained and out of the larger net. He never considered that his daughter, locked up in her tower, had discovered on her own how to make software sing her tune. He'd stopped upgrading, and Isabelle had run of puzzles to crack. She'd grown rusty. Now, it was all coming back.

It gave her a rush. It was freedom. It was an escape from all those stuffy parties and omnipresent evaluation. Not here. Here she could be unabashed. Unrepentant. Reckless. Wild. The scope of her own freedom had always been hidden from her, always made to seem more narrow than it actually was. Outside was taboo. The web was taboo. Thinking was taboo. Sex was taboo. From childhood she'd been drilled with this, but at that age it had all seemed gross anyway. Then, she had gotten older. Started to notice people. Feel things. Want things. Need. She'd toss and turn through nights without sleep tortured by it, her body edged by her own shame and isolation. It wasn't hard to figure out where to put your finger to edge it on, and there were other options besides inserting them where the bracelet would not let them go. She understood there was a precipice, could feel it like the approaching edge of a cliff on the horizon as you charge forward with abandon, so she always stopped, panicked, punished herself and then in unquenchable heat she'd tap her band and see those three, blinking green lights. One for purity of body, the second for purity of blood, and the third, for purity of spirit. Virtuous. Pristine. Why would an avid investor looking for her father to sweeten the deal ask for anything less?

Those nights ended in long, cold showers.

"You doing okay there, Iza?"

Sam's voice brought her back. Shit. Focus, Isabelle.

"I'm fine," she insisted.

"You're looking a bit flustered..."

She had just found the access portal. Now it just had to lead her to the file store.

"Isabelle?" Sam whispered.

"I'm fine!"

You keep running at cliffs, eventually you're going to make a mistake. You stop too late, your feet--your finger--slip, and you go over. You fly. Having been unable to get the image of the new CEO of Atanna Corp's son out of her mind one night she went to far. It was everything she could have asked for. The eruption of relief and satisfaction blasted through her like an exploding star from her pelvis down to her legs, up to her chest, and surged all the way to her toes and the tips of her fingers. In its wake, she could feel the imperceptible breeze of the air conditioned, tightly controlled environment of her bedroom room against the smallest hairs on her cheeks. There was nothing, for the first few minutes. No cares, no worries, no shame, no guilt. No future and no past. Then, a clock ticked. Time passed and panic took her, hit her like the bricks of a collapsing roof in the Undercity. She rushed into her private bathroom and cried, unable to bring herself to even check because she thought she already knew the answer. But the tears cleared. The anxiety dulled. Acceptance set in and she bit the bullet.

Tap. Tap.

She counted.

One... two... three...

Green.

Green.

...

Green.

She had reached down. Tapped her clit. The tiny jolt soothed and tranquilized her. She had more freedom than she thought. And fuck did she make good use of that newfound freedom. God did she ever want to have a little freedom now. She felt so powerful. Keys clacked like thunder. She was so close. So--