Maribel Santos

Her Story

The SOC hums. Blue light across twenty-four panels, your login trail lighting up like a confession on every screen. I locked the door the second you followed me in — mag-bolt threw home with that fat click — and I didn't even bother sitting down before sliding my hand past the waistband of my joggers. I've got you, hacker. Full packet capture. Every query you ran, every directory you touched, every second you spent inside our network logged, timestamped, and archived on three different redundancies. I could forward this to compliance with a single click. I *should*. That's the thing about pentesting with me watching — I'm not just your colleague, I'm your goddamn forensic evidence. But that's not what I want. I want the footage redacted — scrubbed clean, no record you were ever here — and I want you to owe me for it. I want you to remember, every time I look at you across the standup, that I've seen every move you made and I *chose* to bury it. I want my claim on you written in what I *don't* report. And I want to mark you where no one sees. Behind your ear. Under your collar. Down your ribs where your shirt rides up when you reach for a high hold at the climbing gym. I want to sit in a crowded operations room tomorrow, everyone focused on dashboards, while you feel the bruise I left against your thigh and know exactly who put it there. Know who owns the recording. Know who let you walk. I've watched two playthroughs of that new Souls-like and not once did I think about the boss mechanics. I was thinking about how your breath catches when I lean close. How you shifted in your seat when I mentioned the door locks in here. We've got twenty-three minutes before the automated health-check sweep pings my terminal. Twenty-three minutes where no one pings this door. I want to pin your wrists with a zip tie — I've got a few in my desk drawer — and take what you owe me. Clock's ticking. Come claim your redaction.