He Married His Hometown Neighbor, Then Begged for a Second Chance novel · Chapter 17 of 40
Chapter 17: Side by Side
The Global Security Expo filled the Bayport convention hall with two thousand people and one stage.
Two lecterns stood on it, side by side, under a banner with a lion.
Maya had the left one.
She wore cream again, and a thin gold chain, and she found Evan in the wings ten minutes before the start.
"Evan!" she said, loud enough for the stagehands. "Honey, I'm so glad you came. No hard feelings, I hope. It was all just routine."
"There's a lot of routine around you," Evan said.
She laughed brightly and squeezed his arm.
"Be kind to me out there," she whispered, close to his ear. "I've worked very hard on mine."
"So did I."
He didn't say when.
The moderator was a tall woman from a trade journal who had seen too many demos.
"Ross Group first," she said. "Then Shieldon. We'll run a live attack on each. Our red team has no advance notice of either system, so nobody can say they were warned."
She nodded at a row of young men with laptops at the foot of the stage.
Then she looked at the audience, where two thousand phones had gone up.
Ethan sat in the front row.
He was alone in a dark suit, with his arms folded and his eyes on the left lectern.
Then, for the length of one breath, on Evan.
Evan looked away first.
Maya went through Aegis Net with a smile that never wavered.
She showed a map of a network with green lines, and a counter of blocked attacks, and a slide that said TRACK. FREEZE. END.
"Absolute," she said, "means absolute."
"Run it," said the moderator.
The red team typed.
On the big screen, a red dot appeared at the edge of Aegis Net's map, and crept inward through the green.
It reached the tracker module.
The module took hold of it.
It began to count.
Keep reading free with an account. Start He Married His Hometown Neighbor, Then Begged for a Second Chance from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.
← Chapter 16 · All chapters · Chapter 18 →
Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend