Roger - Cyber Security Officer

When opportunity arrives, it does so without warning and at incredible speed. Actions that span only a few minutes can direct a mans life onto a new path, diverting his destiny toward a new future. Roger wouldn’t know anything about that though. His existence had, for as long as he could remember, consisted of one identical day after another. As he dropped his ever growing waistline down into his ergonomic office chair, his screen lit up and displayed the same program windows, in the same positions and showing the same content, as every other working day. He took a deep breath, attempting patience and instead caught the whiff of Brian’s egg breakfast from the communal kitchen. Slowly breathing out with a grimace, he wondered where it was along the timeline of life, that he had turned into such a dull excuse for a living being.

Nine in the morning and he had already found his daily email from Janice, asking him to come take a look at another file being blocked on her device. He glanced over the open-plan office floor, a modern change that he thought a little too social, and found her big, green eyes examining him over the rim of her glasses. She was lucky that she was pretty. It meant Roger actually quite enjoyed how often he had to help her. He especially liked how she placed her hand on his arm in thanks and giggled up at him when he managed to get her up and running. Yet, how one person could have so many issues, so often, he could not fathom. Despite it being his job at ‘Predator Credit’ to manage cybersecurity, he realised after ten years of service that this mostly entailed dealing with other employees complaining about that security getting in their way. When he had been fresh in the role, he had imagined battling active hackers in a race of wits or tracking down criminals who had stolen customers credit cards. Instead, he looked around the lines of grey, identical desks, acknowledged the reality of his duty and sighed. Only twenty seconds after arriving and taking a seat, Roger began to rise out of his chair to make his way over to the lovely Janice. He would run her accounting spreadsheet for yet another day, and she would grace him with an exciting arm touch. The highlight of his dreary morning. Before he could reach his feet, a deafening boom slammed into Roger’s eardrums like a hammer on a bass drum. The office doors blew open under force, smashing their glass interiors against the walls. Roger stared, wide eyed through the residual smoke to see four masked, gun-wielding men stride into the administration office of Predator Credit.

Roger had always been quick of thought. He had the ability to understand a situation before it had finished happening. It drove people crazy. Especially when he answered their questions before they had finished speaking. So it was, in that moment. He knew exactly what they wanted. Gone were the days that such men would rob banks. In the modern world, information was king, and a database full of hundreds of thousands of credit card numbers? Well, that was worth more than any cash vault. Alongside his instantaneous understanding of their motives, Roger again wondered how he had become so dependable and dull. He had done his job so fastidiously, that the only option for a cyber-attack against his employer was to literally blow in the doors and steal the server. He was almost proud that his rather tedious daily effort had resulted in such an extreme reaction.

In the movies, moments like the one he was faced with would move in slow motion for the main character. A rugged, body builder with a lifetime of military training would have plenty of time to consider his actions and plan his attack. But for Roger, who unfortunately lived solidly in reality, there was no such time for decision making. He simply acted. His body moved without a single conscious command, perhaps powered by an ingrained sense of responsibility over the data in his care, maybe out of a snapping psyche that was royally fed up with being a nobody, or it could be, simply out of unbearable boredom. Whatever the reason, twenty-five seconds into his work day, Roger rose from his chair.

He darted his bulk forward. Three of the thieves had already passed his desk, not even giving him a glance. They wore tactical vests and two of them even had assault rifles. Professionals.

“EVERYBODY ON THE GROUND!” The lead man yelled through the fabric of the patterned scarf that half covered his face, “NOBODY MOVES, NOBODY GETS HURT!”

They were so distracted with scaring his screaming colleagues into submission that none of them noticed when Roger slammed into the fourth, trailing attacker. He did so with such force that he took the poor sod off his feet. Roger angled him just right, so that a stray arm of metal shelving, protruding at a sharp angle, connected with the base of his skull. Roger winced as he felt the edge of the potted plant display penetrate the mans neck and breathed a sigh of relief when he went immediately limp. He dared glance over at Hillary, the health and safety officer, to shoot her a knowing look. She should really have taken his complaint about the broken shelf more seriously. Filled with a bolstering confidence at his early victory, Roger grabbed the pistol grip that protruded from the dead man's holster and moved to slip around the corner into the kitchen and out of sight. He really hoped no one saw the gun resist and pull him backward again when he refused to let it go. He made sure on the second attempt to un-clip the strap holding it in place and then ducked into the next room.

“WHAT THE FUCK!? JOHNNY!? JOHNNY!? WHAT THE GOD DAMN HELL?” An agonised roar erupted from the main office. They’d finally noticed. “WHO DID THIS? WHO IN THIS PENCIL PUSHER SHITHOUSE COULD EVEN-!?”

Roger, pressed hard behind the kitchen door, heard the lead attacker interrupt his own tirade with the terrifying clatter of his assault rifle firing. The falling plaster that followed blew all the breath out of Roger’s lungs in relief. He’d fired at the ceiling, not a person. “SWEEP THE WHOLE PLACE! FIND THEM! KILL THEM! I’LL GET THE SERVER ROOM KEY AND THEN WE’RE GONE! God dammit, Johnny…what will I tell your mother…”

Luckily for Roger, the server room key was where it always was, tucked inside his shirt pocket. That meant the data was safe and with only three attackers to go, he would soon be able to claim the title of the best cybersecurity engineer on the planet. Ideal, considering the business awards were scheduled for the following month. He focused, holding steady and listening intently to the footsteps that drew closer to his hiding spot.

“Die Hard it is” He mumbled to himself, with a wide grin blooming over his face.

When the door slowly creaked open, Roger waited. His breath was coming heavy, with both adrenaline and a touch of fear. But mostly adrenaline. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so excited. The gap drew wider, and wider, until it was just right. Roger launched Brian’s pan of boiling water, that held two exceptionally hard-boiled eggs, through the hole and heard the satisfying scream of shock from the man on the other side. Not to mention the double thud of two eggs hitting his face.

“Thank you Brian and your love of inappropriate breakfasts” Roger said, saluting the hob.

With that done, he dropped to the ground and laid on his back, letting the scalded and hopefully blinded man empty a full magazine of automatic rounds through the thin wooden door. The coffee pot exploded, the paper towels shredded, and the mix of second-hand mugs shattered. Only classical music would have made it more dramatic. Roger just laid there calmly, waiting for the barrage to end and for the enraged terrorist to push open what was left of the door. As soon as he did so, as expected, Roger raised his arms and fired a single round into the mans head. He fell backwards unceremoniously and Roger scuttled out and through the next door down, into the branch managers large, private office.

It was only a few seconds later that the third of his adversaries came running to the sound of the gunshots. He must have been searching farther down the corridor. As he passed the glass doors of Roger’s hiding place, he gasped and rushed to his dead comrade's side with no thought of the danger. Had these guys never seen an action movie before? They were acting like the moronic henchmen of any mindless blockbuster. Roger quietly sidestepped from the office doors, raised his stolen pistol and fired. Down the man went, like a sack of potatoes. So easy. Only one to go. As Roger stepped over the two bodies, and crept onward, he really wished he had a marker pen to cross a name off his forearm. Such a shame that everything was digital now.

When the thunder of gunfire had long faded to silence and the screams of fear from of his colleagues finally quieted, Roger heard a lone voice sing out. One that made his heart sink.

“Roger…? If you’re in there…oh god, please…if you’re in there, you need to come out. He just wants the key. Let him take the damn server, so we can all go home!”

Janice. Of course he would pick her. Who wouldn’t. Roger could hear the struggle in her voice, the battle she waged to keep her words steady under the crippling terror that she felt. It was enough to chip at his resolve. What was he doing…he had risked everything and for what? For a job? Except it wasn’t just a job, it was hundreds of thousands of peoples lives. The numbers held on that server, if exploited, could break the fragile balance that kept so many families afloat, plunging them into insurmountable debt. The potential loans and repayment deals, safely stored, kept roofs over children’s heads and food on their tables. Sure, there were probably a few sports cars and Michelin star meals paid with credit cards, but mostly what these men wished to steal was other people's futures. There was also, of course, his pride. His dignity. He was the cyber-security officer and he’d be damned if Janice would watch him fold. He stepped out into the awful, open plan area, with his arms raised high. Time to bet everything on a suspicion. An almost certainty, that these young men had never seen Die Hard.

Oh so predictably, the lead bad guy had Janice’s back pinned against his chest, gun to her temple. Of course he did. The fabric of the scarf that covered his face sucking in and out under his panicked breath. Strange. He was scared. No one had ever been afraid of Roger before.

“Roger! Thank goodness!” Janice wailed.

“QUIET!” The head honcho yelled, jamming the end of his machine gun harder into the side of her beautiful head, “KEY. NOW. And I might just let her live.”

“Look at me Janice,” Roger whispered, “It’s going to be okay.”

“SHUT UP AND GIVE ME THE GOD DAMNED KEY, YOU ABSOLUTE PSYCHO!” The man roared. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead. His eyes darted from side to side. When Hillary from health and safety couldn’t hold back a hysterical wail any longer, the fellow's anxiety couldn’t help but snap his neck to the side to locate the source of the sudden sound.

That was when, Roger, without hesitation, bent the elbows of his raised arms and grasped the hilt of the pistol that was stuck to his back with parcel tape. He was unfortunately not shirtless, which made the gun a little more awkward to free from under his work uniform. But come on, he wasn’t that brave. What he wouldn’t have given for a white vest instead. But quickly enough, he whipped the weapon forward and released a bullet that crumpled his enemy before his mind could even compute that he had fired true. All that was left before him was a trembling Janice, to take into his arms, as the hero of Predator Credit.

Alas. Before he could cross the distance to her, an army of police officers swarmed through the broken doors of the office and seemed to occupy every space possible. He immediately dropped his weapon and raised his hands for real, only to have a boot slammed into the back of his knees and several large men pin him to the floor. While they clacked handcuffs around his wrists and pressed one of his cheeks into the coarse carpet, he caught sight of the clock on the wall ahead. Five past nine. Normally he wouldn’t have even finished his coffee by that time. Instead, he had killed four people. Only then, as the adrenaline drained from his body under the literal weight of the law, did he realise there might be some consequences to having done such a thing. The movies always hailed the action hero, would a real court room see him that way? He had never thought to question it before that moment. As they dragged him out by his elbows, Roger’s eyes met Janice’s and rather than admiration or worship, he saw in them only more fear. That was a blow to his spirit, as was his current treatment from the cities finest. Yet he could still not stop smiling. He’d had the most interesting day in years, and he was sure there would now be many more to come.