Bonds of Trust

Ms. Smarty Pants

Saheer accompanied Veera to her room to see what she did for a livelihood. To say he was curious was an understatement, that's because, a person of the demeanor of Veera being independent was surprising for him. No, he did not look down upon her, but we do have a perception about a person upon seeing them. That was the case with him.

"You see this laptop Saheer? It has been sustaining me financially and emotionally too.", she muttered the last two words in almost a whisper which Saheer would not be able to hear. It was too personal. And, it was too early for her to share that emotional part of her with him. She did not even know him yet.

"But what do you do exactly? Like, what's the nature of your job?", Saheer questioned inquisitively.

"Ahh, how about I show you something.", Veera clapped her hands excitedly. Saheer smiled at her enthusiasm.

"Alright, can you tell me your email ID?"

"Why, interested in sending me a business proposal?", Saheer attempted to joke or at least that's what he thought.

Veera glanced at him with a bored expression and with an even bored monotonous voice said, "Dude, that was so lame."

Saheer's ears perked up at the address 'dude' and he scowled at Veera.

"Yeah whatever. At least I tried to be funny. And again, don't call me dude."

"Don't call me dude.", Veera mimicked him.

Saheer's scowl deepened and he looked at her with narrowed eyes.

"_________@_____.___" , my mail ID. Now can you tell me what are you going to do with this."

(imagine whichever email ID you want. I am not adding any here)

"Patience Mr. Khanna.", she sad calmly. Saheer sat alongside her on the couch trying to peep into her laptop to see what she was doing.

She was typing something at a great speed, her laptop keys clattering noisily. He could make out that she was typing some sort of a code, but as a business analyst he never had to deal with that part and that intensity of coding.

"Alright, so your account had been hacked thrice till today..", she started.

Saheer interrupted her, "Hold up, thrice? As far as I know, it was twice." He was confused.

"Arre, I hacked it for the third time today.", she said as casually as picking up a pen from a desk.

Saheer stood up abruptly, "What? You are a hacker!", he exclaimed dramatically, a bit scared of her real identity.

"Dude, poora bolane to do tum" (Dude, let me complete)

"I am an ethical hacker, mostly a freelancer, because that very well fits my requirement of working from home. Worked with quite some big names, no, I am not bragging, just trying to make you believe my credibility. I know I hacked your account now, but I won't be misusing that. If you want, I can show you my license.", she tried to assure and explain him. She understood his reaction. Of course, telling someone about yours being an ethical hacker after illegally hacking their account is a weird thing to do.

"See this.", Saheer glanced into her laptop, his entire posture still wary of the things she had uttered until. Once he validated her words, his stiff posture relaxed a bit.

"Hmm, interesting.", he mused.

"Tell me more.", he demanded.

"So, what you need to do now, is clean up a lot of things here and work on your password too. There's a lot of company data in here too right? We need to get rid of these things you see here.", she pointed out the vulnerabilities effortlessly and even suggested some really good solutions which the IT guy in his company hadn't suggested him yet.