The odds against me turning out to be a crime fighter were one in a million, to say the least. I’m just your garden variety of a driven and spunky MBA, except that I need to get a haircut and have my highlights done. Currently, I’m perched at a high-top table at a trendy coffee shop nursing a cappuccino like all the other entrepreneurs here. The major difference between me and them is that I have annoying parents and an appalling lack of a love life. I’m also female and sort of cute, but most importantly, I have a unique kind of vision and have been working on my business plan for a major hacking program called OMG.

OMG will be like a cosmic Ouija Board with massive spying fingers. If I’d had this program as an undergrad, I would have known that Andrew was fooling around with my best friend. But this is going to be so much more than a romantic tool. It will wield all kinds of power just by the information it can deliver. OMG could change the world, if it gets into the right hands, and I am pretty sure those hands belong to Bill Reinstadt, a candidate for senate. He’s an environmentalist, very pro-women’s rights, and when I see him on the news, I love every word that comes out of that man’s mouth. If I can get him to use OMG, I think I can help get him elected. He’s a guy that one day could be president and change the country for the better.

My phone starts to vibrate on the table, and I drop it into my backpack just as this geeky guy approaches my table. He looms over me, holding a coffee and a laptop.

“Hi. I’m Simon Whitehead,” he says. “Can I sit down for a minute to talk?’

“I’m kind of busy. What’s this about?” I give Simon a once over. He hardly looks old enough to be drinking coffee. His baby face has sprouted some whiskers reminiscent of stray weeds popping out of the sand. Otherwise, he has the look of a precocious and unkempt middle-schooler.

Simon slides into a seat anyway. “How’s your business plan coming?”

I suck in my breath. I haven’t told anyone about my plans. “How do you know about that?”

“So, I consider it my job to know what’s going on here. I picked it up on Wifi.” He gestures wildly in the air with a hand as if my business plan is floating up there. “Looks to me, as if you’re going to need a developer. And, this definitely looks like something that’s right up my alley.”

I gulp and nod like an idiot. “Fair enough . . . evidently, you’ve got some chops. What are you, a hacking predator? You’re just hanging out at Jolt looking for projects?”

He nods and smirks. “Something like that.”

After a grueling interview, I decide to give Simon a whirl against my better judgement. He does after all, have the skills I need, and I need someone to build this quickly. Still, I did learn a thing or two in business school and ask him for some references. Simon has worked at Visiozyme, a leaning biotech company, but when I call his previous boss, Natalie Saltz, I learn that Natalie has died. Worse, Natalie was murdered at work. No wonder her name sounded familiar. I’d heard it on the news.

I trot over to Visiozyme, hoping to ask HR about Simon. There, I discover that Simon’s records have disappeared from their system. Simon is trouble. No doubt about it. Then, sitting on a park bench near Jolt, I find out that my entire hard drive has been erased, including my business plan. Talk about a bad day.

I text Simon. “Very cute trick. You are sick. Knock it off or I will call the police.”

In a second, he answers. “Will fix, but now you see how talented I am.”

I am furious with him, but Ironically, I do—and feel a surge of excitement, realizing that he possesses exactly the skill set I need. Then, out of nowhere, Simon plops down on the bench next to me and sets his laptop on his legs.

I look up, not totally surprised. This kid is crazy. “What are you doing, stalking me?”

“Yeah. No. So actually, I just tracked you on an app I

designed. It told me where you were.”

I shake my head. “You’ve got some balls, but deleting my

files crossed a line. I could have you arrested.”

Simon shrugs. “Hard to prove, right? Especially, if I fix it, which I will. Sorry I did it, but I wanted to show you I have the tools to find out what I want—and I will use them. Think about it. I saw your business plan, and if you hire me, I can build OMG. I’d be like your secret weapon—your private guerrilla database team. And I’m very loyal. It’s a brilliant idea, by the way. I’m into it, totally. So, you can consider it like an audition.”

“Yeah, but you’re a spook. Who does that?” I am all at once furious, wowed by his audacity, and a tiny bit flattered. Still, he is a nut case. “How do I know you didn’t kill your boss? You’re just nuts enough to do that.”

“Look, you’ve got to take my word on that one. I didn’t do it.

True, I didn’t like her much, but I wouldn’t have killed her.”

“How do I know that for sure?” I ask, starting to realize he was probably a different kind of crazy.

Simon shrugs with his hands in the air: half-apology, half nonchalant. “I may be a hacker, but I’m not a killer. It could have been anyone in the department, and who knows about her personal life, or if she even had one? She was a clueless bitch. Everyone hated her. Okay, maybe I wanted to show you what I could do, like kind of an audition. And I did. But I swear, I’ll never do it again—but I’m not a murderer. But man, you’ve got a killer idea.”

That was the day that my life changed. OMG was a killer idea, but in ways I never could have guessed.

Giveaway: Jenny is giving away ten (10) audiobook copies of OMG for free to the first ten people who ask. I will send them a code for Audible if they email me. Contest ends December 27, 2019. Good luck everyone!

OMG is a technothriller, released March 24, 2019.

Kylie Maynard wants to make the world a better place—and she’s willing to break the rules to do it. This spunky Boston millennial struggles with independence and relationship issues—while trying to solve a heinous crime through her tech startup called OMG. The ambitious entrepreneur has just conceived a hacking program to elect her idol to the Senate and save the environment. Her startup idea, called OMG, will be akin to a Ouija Board on steroids, with massive spying fingers. There’s just one problem: finding the right developer to build it. While plotting her scheme in a coffee shop, a dubious “programmer” named Simon sees Kylie’s idea through Wi-Fi and applies for the job of building it. Kylie is more worried about her parents than hackers and avoids them. They have no idea she’s blown half her trust fund on her business. But when Kylie begins to doubt Simon’s loyalty, she hires an attractive Russian encryption expert and uncovers a conspiracy to unleash a biological weapon in Boston. She works with the FBI, surviving being kidnapped, burglarized, and attacked as she struggles with her trust issues.

Purchase Link
# # # # # # # # # # #

Meet the author
Jenny Pivor, a designer, writer, and artist, creates from her observations of contemporary life. Her previous experience as founder of a Kendall Square-based startup, plus decades of experience creating websites provided insight in the worlds of technology and entrepreneurship. Currently, she lives in seaside town in Massachusetts with her cat and her dog.

All comments are welcomed.