I'm thrilled to welcome back special guest,
April Zyon...
Blurb
Holly Smith has always had a certain affinity with computers. By day, she strengthens Internet security for corporations. By night, she’s a hacker. When she hits upon what she believes to be an author’s unpublished manuscript, she finds herself reading about a world where warriors of old wage war against a dark force bent on consuming everything it touches. Then she finds out it’s all true.
Demaratus of Corinth has seen a lot during his lifetime. And while many things prove useful, he finds technology to be a greater hindrance than a help. Sent to find the hacker who managed to penetrate their base’s security, he is stunned to realize who she is to him. As the darkness closes in on them, Demaratus and Holly will have to battle to survive not only the coming fight but the war that is gaining momentum.
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Excerpt:
Muttering under his breath, James gently pressed a button on the keyboard. When nothing exploded, he let out a relieved breath. Taking a chance, he pushed another one, then another. “I was born in the wrong time for this crap, Mercury,” he said over his shoulder.
“Quit bitching, cowboy, and keep looking. I’m older than you are and seem to have a better handle on this than you do.”
A glance over to the other man showed him to be using all his fingers to type on the keyboard before him. “Then why the fuck am I in here? One wrong push of a button, and I could kill this bloody nightmare of technology.”
“Because you have your task and I have mine. And until one of the ladies born of this time frame awakens with the power over computers, and has a clue what we should do, we continue to fucking hunt and peck our way through this.”
James stuck his tongue out, crossed his eyes, and shook his head at the other man. He got a middle finger in response. Oddly, it made him feel a lot better. “I get not waking them up at the crack of dawn when you figured out what was setting off the alarms. But why the hell haven’t you gone to get one of them now?”
“If I send you, you’ll never come back. If I go, the chances are good you’ll do something even I, with my mediocre skills, can’t fix. And don’t say go let Helen out to fix this. She could very well cripple us. The fact she didn’t while she had the opportunity still confuses me.”
“Especially since she was more than fine with selling our locations to the highest evil bidder,” James muttered.
“Precisely. So, she stays where she is, and we figure this out ourselves. Hopefully before whatever this is cripples us instead.” Mercury threw his arms up. “Yes! Finally.”
“What? You figured out what the beeping is all about?”
“Hell no, but I finally got into the right directory to see if there’s a problem with one of the systems.”
James could only blink at the other man. “Is that good?”
“Very. According to what I’ve learned leaning over Helen’s shoulder all this time is that she made the backside of the system very simple in case of an event like this. She gave me a tour of it all. She also told me that while the coding side is beyond complicated, the face of it is a simple point and click. That there would be flags of varying colors dependent on the threat level, or problem, which would appear on each of the directories that get you into various portions of this mess.”
Scratching at his jaw, James nodded slowly. “Hate to tell you this, but that there sounds like a load of shit.”
Mercury shot him a smug look and waved a hand at his screen. “Directories, folders, and nifty little flags to indicate problems. Take that, you old-fashioned, should-be corpse. Green means everything is good. Yellow means there may be an issue that’s easily resolved. Pink is for updates requiring a look-over prior to installation. Red means there’s a problem that requires immediate attention. Purple means a problem requiring attention but of a programmer level. And then there’s black, which is very bad. Catastrophic bad, most likely, from what she said.”
Sliding his chair closer to Mercury’s, James squinted at the screen. “Okay, so what does the little pirate flag mean?”
“What? Where?”
“There.” James pointed.
“She never told me,” Mercury said. He grabbed a binder off one of the shelves and flipped through it. “Hacker.”
“That would be bad, right?”
“Very. This is from an outside source.”
“Really? Well, isn’t that a complete shock?” James said sarcastically. Given everyone in the mountain was lucky to figure out a cell phone’s basic features, like calls, it wasn’t a surprise that they had outside trouble. “Why don’t you see if one of those Marines has some computer expertise? They all are used to top secret and shit like that. It would be better than one of us poking around in something that could screw us up.”
Mercury frowned, then nodded slowly. “They did all sign confidentiality clauses. And they know we aren’t kidding when we said we’d kill them for breaking it. First, though, we need to know what’s in this directory.”
Clicking on the folder, they then had to search for the little pirate flag again. It appeared that there were more file folders in the original.
“There,” James said, pointing at another one.
Mercury got them into it and discovered only two files. Both of which had the little pirate flags over them. Opening one, the big man began to curse in his native tongue. “We need someone with a lot of expertise, I think.” Pushing up from his chair, he moved for the door. He stalled there and turned to look at James. “Don’t touch anything.”
“Sir, yes sir.” He snapped a lazy salute, grinning when Mercury glowered at him before departing. James looked back to the screen. Figuring he’d better satisfy his curiosity before Mercury returned, he eased closer to the computer. His eyes went wide as he read. “Holy mother of God.”
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About The Author
Having been a lover of the written word all her life April has always wanted to expand her horizons and write something that could be shared with the world. Only one thing held April back, the fact that the letters and numbers mixed and jumbled more often than not. Diagnosed with Dyslexia when she was eight years old April had to work her butt off just to be able to keep up with the other kids in reading and writing, so her love for fictional writing was tossed to the wayside for the moment.
Time marched on, as it always does, and she forgot her childhood dream of becoming an author and instead focused on what she had to – creating a career for herself.
As the endless waves of time passed the shores became less rocky and more sandy, a place where she could find an even foot. That and Microsoft invented Word. Hallelujah.
This is where April began her journey into the written world, the world that her imagination had been ceaselessly creating for her entire adult life.
Now she has been given a chance to let her literary wings unfold and fly, thanks to the amazing publishers with Evernight Publishing and Secret Cravings Publishing.
Now its time to let the dream take flight and watch it soar!
Thank you H K, for having me on your blog! I appreciate you for allowing me to share my book with your readers.
As you well know I'm doing a giveaway as well.
As part of the release for Hacked I'm giving away the following:
First Place: $50 USD Gift Certificate* + 1 Free eCopy of HACKED
2nd Place: $25 USD Gift Certificate*
3rd Place: $10 USD Gift Certificate*
2nd Place: $25 USD Gift Certificate*
3rd Place: $10 USD Gift Certificate*
* Winner has choice between Amazon, All Romance eBooks, Barnes & Noble, iTunes, Bookstrand, Evernight or Smashwords
So, the word that you would need to email to me at april.zyon@gmail.com from H K's blog is:
"DC"
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