Chapter Ten
CHAPTER TEN
Going to work the next morning had Olline’s body doing funny things. There were the heart palpitations that rattled her chest like a rockslide, the slightly nauseous feeling which was super fun when all she wanted was to enjoy her coffee in peace, not to mention she was certain everyone could see her clammy hands.
She wasn’t a naturally paranoid person, but she felt like everyone could see the revelations of the other night flashing on her face as obviously as the neon advertisements on the mega sky-towers. But Brayden and his trusty security bot merely waved her on like they did every day, his sleepy, bored expression never altering. He merely grumbled once again about “fucking morning people”.
Was she disappointed? Maybe a little.
She had never been involved in something like this, and the virtual simulators made it seem so romantically daring. But mostly she was relieved no one noticed her.
Olline scurried to her office, tossing furtive glances over her shoulder with almost disastrous results. “Excuse you,” a soft, but curt voice snapped just before Olline collided with the woman who worked next door to her office.
“Oh! Sorry, I wasn’t looking, my bad.” Olline twisted, her feet skidding on the floor, making an obnoxious squeaking sound. To her credit, the woman didn’t bite back on how obvious it was that Olline hadn’t been paying attention. The woman tilted her head, eyes trailing over Olline, as she planted her fists on her hips. She was a pretty woman. Smooth black skin, warm brown eyes, and a delicate septum ring in her button nose. She had diamond dimple piercings that sparkled when her full pink lips tilted up in a smile. “You’re the new girl?”
Olline bobbed her head. This would have been great any other day except today. All she wanted to do was dive into her office and hide lest she say something that could alert the ever-present security drones to what she now knew. “Olline Tavos,” she said in way of greeting, hoping the woman would leave it at that and let her go.
“Briallea Jensen,” she said, and stuck out her hand. Olline hesitated before quickly shaking it, hoping Briallea couldn’t feel the sweat on her palms. “Sorry for not saying hi sooner. No one sent a data package telling us you were even here. Management can be shitty about stuff like that,” she said, chuckling good-naturedly. Olline nodded again, but before she could even wonder if it was odd no one was told she was working here, Briallea tilted her head, and a flash of silver illuminated her eye. Her gaze became hazy as Briallea absently scratched at the tight, ebony curls hugging her skull. Olline wondered what kind of cybernetic modification she had that connected her to the building, but it would be rude to ask.
With a huff, Briallea refocused her attention on Olline. “Sorry to cut this short. Meetings first thing in the morning are the absolute worst. Am I right?” She gave little laugh that reminded Olline of wind chimes, which was impossible not to like. “Let’s grab lunch sometime, okay? Us girls have to stick together down here. Goodness knows there’s precious few of us in the sub-basements.” Briallea stepped away, waving over her shoulder. “Nice to meet you, Olline.”
Was it nice to meet me? Was it really? Olline wondered viciously. She had barely said a word! Under different circumstances, she would have been mortified by her manners, but the panic to get inside her fucking office was still too strong. Her hands were still shaking as she waved her credentials in front of the lock. When the door slid up, she all but flung herself inside.
Only when the door shut behind her did breathing get a little easier. Which was silly. There were cloaked security devices monitoring every office, including hers, but she felt . . . safer here. She wasn’t sure if that was her magic, not sensing anything from the devices in the room, but she wasn’t going to question it.
Sinking into her chair, Olline powered on her devices, cracked her knuckles—that’s what all the hackers in the holo-vids did—and got to work. She was hoping she wouldn’t need Casimir’s help the way he insinuated she would. She was determined to figure out what Under Senator Etzel Straub was hiding, and how he was getting all these powerful people under his control, all on her own. Not that Olline didn’t want to work with Casimir, but, well . . . all right, she didn’t want to work with him. But oddly, not because she didn’t trust him.
The last person she had worked with had crushed her, destroying a confidence that had just begun to grow. Working alone was the only way she knew to prevent a repeat of Achan from ever happening. Not that she and Casimir were even close to what she and Achan had been, even before she knew what was really happening with that . She didn’t even like, like Casimir. He was just attractive and . . . where was she going with this again? Oh, right: proving that working with Casimir wasn’t necessary.
Olline shook her head, tried to focus, but all she could think about was last night. Before he had dropped his bombshell, the night had been lovely. She would have been happy to tell her father and brothers all about it. Then, well, then nothing made sense anymore.
If she hadn’t found those files, would she be where she was now? Would it have been better to remain ignorant of what was happening? Knowing she was aiding in a coverup . . . well, now she felt responsible for the mess. She should clean it up herself, and more importantly, she could . For all his cool charisma, Olline knew that, on a technical level, Casimir could not help.
The only tricky part would be breaking the encryption, so she could actually access the chips.
“It sounds so easy when I think of it that way,” she murmured, grinning to herself. Olline leaned over her keyboard, finally able to focus. The first thing she needed to do was to pull up her administrative prompts and search for another sneaky way around all the layers of encryption encasing these chip files.
Olline had, long ago, devised her own decryption software. Not for any malicious purpose, just for fun and to prove she could. And it had worked great! Not that she could show it to anyone without actually breaking into a secure file. Until now. Loading her software into the administrative prompt, she let it get to work while she sat back and, once more, absently gnawed on the collar of her jacket.
The process was slower than she expected. As the minutes trickled by, the lines of code her software was detangling flowing by like a waterfall, Olline wondered if she should keep working. If the rest of the files she was moving were as full of potential corruption as this one, would she make things worse if she did her “job”? Or would it help her keep some semblance of a cover? Which made her wonder if everyone on this floor was part of the scandal. Was Briallea? Karter? She didn’t think so. The bigger a secret got, the harder it was to keep, but you could never really be certain where power and politics were involved. That line of thinking was making her dizzy though. It was better to focus on what was right in front of her for now. Which was the lines of code her decryption software was going through. Fun . . .
She sighed, boredom about to win out, when the door to her office slid up. Olline jumped, grasping for her magic out of reflex, letting it tug around the iron piercings.
The piercings morphed in less than a microsecond, sliding out of the holes in her ears and eyebrow one by one, until they spun like a tornado in her palm. She was ready to throw the projectiles, her paranoia already expecting the worst, when a pale hand curled around the doorframe and stopped her cold. Casimir poked his head inside and stared at her wide eyed with such a look of panic on his face that Olline stopped breathing for a second.
“What’re you doing here? I thought being seen together was dangerous.” Slowly her surprise ebbed away to suspicion and, narrowing her eyes at him, she released her magic. Her piercings reclaimed their shape and hooked back into her ears and brow once more. “Wait, did you have a key pass to my office this entire time?”
Casimir stepped into the server room, his movements stiff, shoulders tight with fear. He took a deep breath. Casimir had always appeared so in control, so unconcerned, that the hairs on Olline’s arms stood on end, a chill raced up the back of her legs to tickle her neck. She looked behind Casimir, but she didn’t see any danger that would warrant him coming here, let alone with such open alarm.
He blinked rapidly at her from behind his opaque protective visor for a moment. “I opened it the old-fashioned way. Everyone puts too much faith in technology, especially here,” he said quickly, his words clipped. Casimir took a step toward her, his eyes darting about the room as if looking for an assailant. When they settled on her holo-tablet and the string of code still scrolling through the projection, he froze. “Whatever it is you’re doing, you have to stop it. Now .”
Her heart thundered against her ribs with renewed vigor. Icy dread poured through her chest. “What? Why?”
His forearms were strained as he leaned down on the table next to her, his mouth so close to her ear that the tickle of his breath had her shivering for other reasons entirely. “I’ll explain once we’re safe,” he said, his words a shaky whisper. “But you—we have to leave. Immediately. Whatever you’re doing tipped the wrong person off. Security’s on their way. Right now .”
Olline’s mind couldn’t keep up, but there was no mistaking the urgency in Casimir’s rigid posture. She killed her decryption software, aggressively swiped her screens off, and began unplugging everything. “What are you doing?” Casimir fumed, watching her pack up. “There’s no time for that!”
“If I don’t take my stuff, Casimir,” she snapped, “then we’re truly and deeply screwed. Okay? You can go if you’re so worried, or you can help me pack up so we can both get out of here together.”
That gorgeous bastard actually hesitated at the door, the muscle along his jawline flexing, as if he were truly considering leaving. With a growl, he said, “Fine.”
Casimir moved surprisingly fast. Well, it wasn’t that surprising. She had seen him move quickly. He just wasn’t as stealthy about it now. Under different circumstances, Olline would have been bothered by how roughly he handled her devices. As it was, she cringed each time one of the holo-tablets cracked against a keyboard. Objectively, they had everything disconnected and put away within twenty-seven seconds. Subjectively, it was twenty-seven years.
They left room two-hundred and twenty-three and nearly barreled into Brayden and his little bot. Only this time, he didn’t look sleepily exasperated to see her. The puffy little man was all business and steel and glaring at them like Brayden had never seen Olline before in his life.
Briallea poked her head out of the office next door at the commotion. She glanced from Brayden to Olline, and frowned. Olline swallowed, thinking she had lost yet another potential friend before she could properly start. Only Briallea’s warm brown eyes settled on her instead of Brayden, and she mouthed: “all good?”
Olline did not know if it was “all good”. If Casimir’s panic was any sign, they weren’t. But whatever was about to happen, Olline didn’t want Briallea to be a part of it. Discreetly, she gave her neighbor a thumbs up and a little nod. Briallea still frowned, eyes narrowing, unconvinced. Eventually, the woman shrugged and ducked back into her office as Brayden came to a stop in front of Olline and Casimir.
She swallowed and met the security guard’s gaze, forcing a smile despite his suspicious glare. Neither she nor Casimir said anything to Brayden as he continued to block their path in chilly silence, his hand gripping the butt of his pulse-pistol on his hip. Her eyes bulged at the sight. Why is Brayden holding on to his gun?
The sound of her heartbeat thrashed in her ears, black spots danced in her vision. Reflexively, she reached for the comfort of her magic, but no sooner had it curled around the natural metals in the room than the security bot trilled loudly. It must have a magitech sensor attuned to casters pulling on the raw materials they needed for their magic. Olline’s ethereal fingers dropped the tendril of magic as if scorched. Brayden, reacting to the sound, widened his stance, readying for a fight.
Shit, shit, shit! Deescalate this, now!
Olline didn’t know what was happening, or why the guard’s response needed to be violence, or how Casimir had gotten there so fast, but she did her best not to show it. Her life depended on convincing Brayden that whatever he thought was happening was definitely not happening.
Casimir kept his face obscured in shadow behind the high collar of his black coat. The visor, now darkened instead of opaque, shielded his unique eye color. Olline thought it was unnecessary at this point. So many of the spy-drones along the ceiling would have already caught sight of him and run his face through facial reconditioning software. Whatever made him feel safer, she guessed.
“Oh hey,” she fumbled, trying to sound nonchalant. “Is uh, everything okay?”
Brayden glanced from her to Casimir and back again, the security bot vibrating at his side. But something about her earnest expression seemed to soften Brayden.
“Got a call from the big wig IT guys,” Brayden grumbled, his eyes narrowing. “They got a notification about something fishy getting installed. Didn’t seem to know what it was, but they’re too busy to check it out themselves.” He didn’t elaborate further, merely shifted his glare from Olline to Casimir. His fingers curled even tighter on the butt of his pulse-pistol and inched it out of its holster.
The guard seemed to lose focus. Something in his eye went hazy, and with dawning clarity, she realized he was running facial recognition software through a biotech chip installed in his eye.
Olline and Casimir didn’t have a plan for what to do about Etzel and his encrypted files and the chips yet. But the cornerstone of whatever plan they would devise had, and would always be, that Etzel couldn’t know Casimir was involved. If Brayden did flag him well, Olline didn’t know exactly what would happen, but she assumed it would result in the guard pulling his gun completely free of his holster.
She would have to use her magic then, to hurt people. The thought stabbed at her gut, a million tiny thorns curly and squeezing. That wasn’t the point of magic. A sour taste coated her mouth over the utter shit they were in.
Think, Olline! Think faster!
“Oh, that!” she blurted, the glint of metal from the gun forcing Olline to run with the first thought she had and pray it worked. “Someone was bored and installed something dumb on their rig. Some bootleg virtual card game to help pass the time. They didn’t realize it was full of junk code that left the system vulnerable. You know how it goes.”
Brayden’s eyes remained narrowed, but the hazy quality was gone so at least he had stopped using his cybernetics. Olline laughed nervously, running her hands along the sides of her head, smoothing her hair to hide how much they were shaking. “This um, intern,” she said, putting a hand on Casimir’s tense shoulder. “He saw it and didn’t know what to do about it.” Brayden seemed dubious of this, so Olline quickly amended, “He went to Camirin first, but she didn’t want to bother with it. You know how Camirin is.” Well, she hoped she knew how Camirin was. The IT woman had seemed bored, not really wanting to do more than necessary for her job. Or that was the impression Olline had gotten from their one not-quite-meeting.
Apparently, she was correct, as Brayden’s stance relaxed some, and his brows pinched in annoyance. Sorry for throwing you under the bus, Camirin, Olline thought, and quickly pressed on before Brayden could ping the woman. “So, the intern came to me. It was a nasty little virus, let me tell you!” Olline shifted the satchel that held all her gear. “I managed to isolate the program in my system, but it’ll take some time to erase and make sure no backdoor was opened to let hackers in through the junk files.”
The guard’s gaze lost focus as she babbled. Olline’s explanation had, like it usually did with non-tech minded people, begun to bore him. “Someone downloaded a game with a virus?” But Brayden’s eyes remained narrowed in suspicion.
She nodded enthusiastically. “Yup, happens all the time! I really should have notified IT. I’ll be sure to do that. No worries,” she added hastily, actually full of worries. “But I figure it’s best I take this all back to a clean room and wipe the system where it can’t do any damage.” She waved at her satchel again and gave Brayden the brightest smile she could muster, and hoped it didn’t look like a grimace. “All good? Can we, uh, go now?”
Brayden glanced from Casimir to her once more, his hand still poised on his pistol. Why is this, whatever this is, something to get shot over? “You’re taking all your equipment out of the building. To wipe it of a virus. That someone got from downloading a game. Because they were bored.” Brayden parroted again, his tone flat. Olline got the distinct impression he didn’t believe her, and fear made her legs shake. This was about to get messy . . .
“Yeah, exactly,” Olline tried to say brightly, like none of this was a big deal. “Better safe than sorry and all that, right?” Brayden dropped his gaze to the security bot at his side. It still vibrated and hummed in place, but no longer trilling an alarm as long as she didn’t call for her magic.
Finally, the bot stilled completely, and Brayden lowered his hand, giving a long-suffering sigh. “You tell them IT nerds it’s handled then, and to not bug me with this the next time some old-timer gets bored, got it? Fucking, lazy-ass Camirin.”
Olline bobbed her head. Before she could say anything else, Brayden was toddling back down the hallway, all steel and malice gone like it hadn’t ever existed, and into the elevator bays. He didn’t bother to offer an apology for being a heartbeat away from shooting them.
Casimir was so deathly still at her side, she wasn’t even sure he was breathing. He didn’t move until the guard was out of sight and the murmur of people at work filtered out through the closed doors again. “We have to go,” Casimir whispered urgently. Without being fully conscious of the action, she found herself walking as quickly as she dared toward the elevators, Casimir a half step ahead of her.
It wasn’t until they were clear of the Government Plaza, its hulking height fading in the distance, that Olline felt safe enough to speak. “What just happened?”
Casimir slowed, finally stopping and giving her his full attention. “Whatever program you were running got flagged through the system’s security.” He ran his fingers through his hair, twisting them around the curls and tugging as if that would ground him. He took a deep breath. “I know one of those bored IT personnel you mentioned that would pass off a security flag to literally anyone else, so they didn’t have to deal with it. Not Camirin, but good to know that she’s the same way.”
“What would have happened? If you weren’t there to warn me?” Olline whispered, afraid to know, but she had to.
Originally, she thought this would be a fun little challenge, well, a dangerous challenge, but Olline happened to find those fun. She was weird like that. But if this, whatever they were attempting to do, could elicit a reaction where someone tried to shoot them first, apprehend them second, well, she should know that, right?
“To you? That depends on your termination and non-disclosure clauses.” She could feel the color leach from her cheeks and Casimir continued, “By your expression, though it seems like your termination clauses are less than ideal. I’m sure that was by design, Tav. Dazzle you with the offer, so the fine print didn’t seem so ominous.” He didn’t even bother to try and grin to lessen the bite in his words.
“For me? You’d never see me again,” he said matter-of-factly, and her heart sank to her stomach. “I’d be erased. No better than a broken tool to be discarded. I’d be removed so thoroughly that no one would ever even know I existed. Shall I go on?” She swallowed, not saying anything, her eyes wide in disbelief. “I mean death, Olline. They would kill me,” he snapped, as if she didn’t understand that well enough already.
“Yes, I got that!” she bit back. She placed her hands on her hips to keep her fingers from trembling all over again, her thoughts racing. She thought her decryption had been too obscure, too well made to have tripped any of the security protocols. Had she been too confident in her abilities? No. But that didn’t matter when, regardless, her actions had almost gotten Casimir killed.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured, the dullness spreading in her chest doing nothing to untangle her knotted belly. “I should’ve known my program could’ve been flagged like that. I won’t be so careless again.”
The hard edges around his eyes softened and the firm line of his lips relaxed ever so slightly as he looked at her face, heard the regret in her voice. “You covered it well though, I have to say,” Casimir said, his tone gentle. “It was brilliant, truly. It buys us time and another crack at Etzel’s entire operation. So, well done there.” She raised her eyes, trying not to be as comforted by the compliment as she was, but she couldn’t stop her core from warming all the same. “There’s just one problem with your cover.”
Instantly, her stomach fell again, and she licked her lips nervously. “What’s that?”
“Intern?” Casimir took a step back, waving a hand down his hard and lean body, and Olline did her best not to notice how well the lines of his tight-fitting black attire hugged every dip and curve of muscle. “Do I truly look like an intern to you? I’m far too magnificent to be so low on the corporate totem pole.” Casimir scoffed and Olline couldn’t help but laugh.
“You’re such a drama queen,” she said, her laughter dying off. “Come on, I was able to isolate the files we want before the shitshow started, so there may be a way for me to fix this that doesn’t risk your life again.”