Encryption of the Heart (Love, Tech, & Magic #1)

Chapter Twenty-Two

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t want to be on this call with me?” Olline asked for the third time.

Casimir stared back at her with his customary stoic expression, hands buried deep in his pockets. And yet he kept taping his foot and shifting slightly from side to side. It was the only outward appearance he gave of any kind of edginess or worry. He nodded curtly and lifted a shoulder in a stiff shrug. “Yes. It’s better this way, trust me. Best not to give Ms. Peralta even a crumb to chew on about any of Etzel’s actual thralls.”

“Suit yourself,” she relented. Olline let out a long, shaky breath and set up a secure channel.

Before she had even finished, Casimir was peering over her shoulder. “Be sure to obscure your face, darling, and your voice. Delora seems clean but better safe than sorry, as they say. Just in case—”

“In case she’s actually on Etzel’s payroll?” Olline snapped back, squirming. “Yeah, I know,” her tone was harsh with sarcasm. Nervousness made her nerves tingle painfully and her stomach twist into knots. More hovering was certainly not going to make that better.

Casimir huffed and stepped back, moving out of sight of the holo-projection. Olline winced, rubbing at the back of her neck. “Sorry. This is all just . . . They make it look so exciting in the virtual thriller vids. The reality is anything but.”

He awarded her a faint, understanding smile in response, but the corners of his eyes remained pinched with tension. With a sigh, Olline could delay no longer. She hit enter, connecting her to the Under Senator.

Delora sat at her desk, the holo-projection giving her cool, black skin a mesmerizing glow. “What do I call you?” Delora said, her words crisp in her deep, smoky voice. “You didn’t provide an alias.”

Olline swallowed, muted her sputtering, and then said. “Just call me Sub-thirteen.” It was the only thing she could think of under pressure: the floor she worked on in the Government Plaza.

Delora folded her hands on her desk, her expression serious as she nodded. “Fine. Let’s get to it. What’s this really about?” She didn’t bother with pleasantries, and so Olline dropped the pretense of why she reached out immediately.

Olline explained the situation, what she found, and how her contract was a lie. Delora didn’t react beyond leaning slightly forward, her attention on Olline with an intensity that could put Casimir to shame.

She moved her hands out of view of the holo-projection so Delora couldn’t see how Olline twisted her fingers. Thankfully, with the privacy filter on, the Under Senator couldn’t see how Olline kept stealing glances at Casimir, or the dewiness collecting on her brow as her nervous sweating got the best of her.

So far, Delora hadn’t said anything, which made Olline worry she wasn’t explaining the situation well. “They’re all thralls,” Olline said, her impassioned plea coming out deadpanned with the voice filter on. “I can’t . . . I don’t want to be complicit in Etzel’s corruption. He’s controlling innocent people, enslaving them to do his bidding. They have to do whatever he commands. Murder, rape, and everything in between.”

Casimir made a halting motion on the other side of the projection. Olline glanced up, and he motioned for her to mute the channel while Delora digested her words. “Don’t tell her I’m free,” Casimir whispered unnecessarily. She arched a brow in question, and he narrowed his gaze at her in return. When she didn’t immediately speak, he crossed his arms and drummed his fingers on his biceps. “Best she not know a single one of Etzel’s people is free. We don’t want that bastard to start sniffing around should Delora’s office be compromised.”

Olline blew out an exasperated breath, then glanced down quickly to make sure Delora was still contemplating the details of what Olline said. “Yeah, okay, that makes sense. But Cas,” she said, her voice softening, “the time of you lurking in the shadows is at an end. You don’t have to hide. At least not for much longer.”

“Maybe. But maybe I like the shadows,” he mumbled. She frowned, but didn’t have time to respond as Delora let loose a heavy sigh. Olline had to rush to unmute the channel.

“Unfortunately, Sub-thirteen,” Delora said slowly, her smoky-quartz eyes locking onto Olline’s face with a resigned sort of dejectedness, “I’ve expected as much for a while now.”

Olline couldn’t stop from giving an audible gasp as her stomach went into freefall. There was a sputtering sound behind the projection. Glancing up, Olline looked at Casimir, and her eyes widened. Fury as intense as a grenade flashed across his face to where even Olline imagined she was scorched by its intensity, her face burning.

There wasn’t time to mute the channel, so Olline could check in with Casimir, as Delora was quick to clarify, “Or, not this precisely. But it makes sense for Straub. He’s kept such firm control on his seat, his committees. Even the experts or witnesses I bring in to challenge him on the insane deregulation proposals suddenly have a perfectly logical change of mind.” She rolled her eyes like what Olline had outlined was . . . tedious. “There’ve been far too many measures that’ve benefitted him personally, pushed through our offices for corruption not to be at play.” Delora grinned; a triumphant gleam making her eyes twinkle. “Glad to know I was right. In a sense.”

Casimir started pacing in quick, little jerky circles. His arms were no longer wrapped around his chest but were down at his sides, straight as iron. He clenched his hands into tight fists, and Olline was worried he may lash out in his scorching—and justifiable—fury. The ferns nearest him trembled, as if afraid to get burned.

Olline swallowed the lump in her throat and asked, “Why didn’t you do anything? Investigate his offices or look into his aids and the people working for him?”

Desperately she hoped that Delora’s answer would dampen some of Casimir’s rage. But when Delora gave a delicate shrug, idly patting her halo of poofy black curls, Olline knew she had been wrong to even ask. “The resources I’d need to launch an investigation like that would require I bring in other Under Senators, probably even a few Senators as well. This is a reelection cycle for me. I need my name to be the one people remember. Not just one of many.”

“You didn’t investigate obvious corruption,” Olline said slowly, too stunned by Delora’s words to fully register the piercing disappointment, “because you didn’t want to share the spotlight for freeing people controlled by illegal biomagitech.” Her breathing was coming faster now, unable to get enough air around the jagged hole in her chest from her despondency.

Delora gave Olline a flat look. “Politics is cutthroat. I can’t do anyone any good if I lose my seat in the Government Plaza.”

Casimir was livid and could remain silent no more. With a strangled yell, he punched the wall. Her vines curled out of the way just in time. Olline jumped in surprise, fumbling to mute the channel, and held up one finger in the universal “just a second” sign.

He faced the wall, huffing. Tiny spiderweb cracks fanned the fist Casimir kept against the wall. Olline couldn’t see his eyes, but his shoulders shuddered with the realization that Delora, or someone in power, could have freed him decades ago. That people suspected Etzel of misconduct but still did nothing. Something inside Olline splintered and cracked like her wall. A bubbling hatred for Antal—and Eerden as a whole—where people could so willfully let something like this happen.

Hearing Delora’s admission must be like getting victimized all over again to Casimir.

Olline’s heart ached to go to him, to let him rage and scream, and maybe punch another wall—one free of her plants. But Olline couldn’t move, she couldn’t go to him and risk Delora realizing someone else was in the room if she hadn’t guessed it already. “Cas,” she whispered, her voice strangled with her own heartbreak on his behalf.

“ Of course, Delora wants to benefit from this,” he said with a bitter laugh. “Why would I ever expect anything less from these so called, idealistic ‘do-gooders?’” Despite his words and his spiteful tone, his shoulders slumped, collapsing under the weight of his misery. The twinkle was gone from his eyes. There wasn’t even fury there to create a smoldering ember in his gaze. Replaced instead with a flat hopelessness.

“What do you want me to do, Cas?” Olline murmured, her fingers aching with the need to grab him and hold him tight while she promised to . . . what? Make it all better? Olline was out of her depth here, but she needed to do something .

“I haven’t got all day, Sub-thirteen. What is it, exactly, you’re offering and want me to do here?” Delora said, her husky voice deepening with impatience.

“I should sneak into his estate before he knows I’m free,” Casimir seethed. “I could kill him and take his power and save myself once and for all.”

“Cas, no,” Olline gasped. “You aren’t the only one suffering under Etzel. We’ll free them all alongside you.” Casimir still glowered, and Olline was running out of time. She wished she could reach out to him, in lieu of that, she said, “You don’t need to be Etzel to be free. I’m not asking you to trust Delora. I’m asking you to trust me .”

Casimir opened his mouth, and then snapped it shut, avoiding Olline’s gaze. He sighed and turned away so he could brace himself against the wall again. “I trust you, Tav.”

And yet Olline hesitated; her finger held over the screen to unmute the holo-tablet. Her chest squeezed with indecision. With a heaviness weighting her stomach down, she licked her lips, and unmuted the channel. But Olline could not completely ignore the defeated, rough sigh Casimir made.

“I want you to end Under Senator Straub’s enslavement of people,” she said, putting authority in her voice so it wouldn’t quiver. “I want you to bring justice to all his thralls. And I don’t want you, or anyone else, to use or abuse these people again. They’re innocent no matter what Etzel made them do. Destroy every shred of blackmail and other evidence, so it can’t be used by anyone. The people who benefited from Etzel’s blackmail schemes must face justice, along with the Under Senator," she added sternly, but the voice modulator ruined the effect. “I’ll give you everything you need so you don’t need to bring other Under Senators in on this.”

Delora drummed her immaculate red nails on the desk, her gaze calculating. “It’s true,” she began slowly, “that I’ve no interest in continuing anything Straub’s doing. It’s unequivocally repugnant. Politics aside, I’d personally delight in dismantling those chips and have all the developers who crafted them stand trial alongside Straub. Assuming all your information is verified, of course.”

The woman paused, and her fingers stilled in their tapping. Olline’s eyes narrowed, suspicion making the hairs on her arms stand on end. The unsaid “but” hanging over them like a bladed pendulum. “You do realize,” Olline said, her tone biting, “That you’d be taking all the credit here. I don’t want anyone knowing I was involved.” Delora perked up, leaning forward slightly, no longer seeming to hesitate about acting on what Olline was offering.

A muscle in Casimir’s neck bulged from clamping his mouth shut as he watched the exchange. It didn’t stop him from rolling his eyes and shaking his head before mouthing, “I told you so.”

Her muscles tightened, and Olline fought to keep from withering visibly. She hated Casimir was right. That even the best option within Antal’s government was unwilling to free Etzel’s thralls unless they could take glory from it.

Olline felt sick to her stomach on Casimir’s, and all the other thralls, behalf.

“You can have it all,” Olline spat, which caused Casimir to still in his fuming and study her with a curious glint in his garnet eyes. “All the accolades, all the power that comes from doing the right fucking thing. I just need you to do it. ”

Faced with her own callousness, Delora had the grace to look contrite as she lowered her gaze and slumped ever so slightly in her seat. “What can I give you in return,” Delora murmured gently, her ebony skin flushed with shame. “For doing the hard work I was too selfish—no cowardly to do myself.” She sounded genuine in her remorse, in her earnestness to do the right thing, but Olline could no longer trust the woman.

Outside of Casimir—and maybe Briallea—she no longer trusted anyone in Antal.

Olline barely needed to think about what she and Casimir needed. Want was a silly thing to hope for when up against someone like Etzel. “Immunity,” she answered. “Total immunity and protection against retaliation for me and anyone who helps me get this info over to you,” she added quickly, stealing another glance at Casimir, who nodded curtly in agreement. His naturally pale face was still flushed and his lips pressed into a thin line from his sizzling anger, but at least they were moving in the right direction. It just went to show that no one in a seat of power was truly altruistic, and despite the disappointed anger still radiating from Casimir, protection and immunity were all they needed from her.

Delora nodded; her gaze still thoughtful. “Absolutely. Consider it done. Once you send me everything you have, Sub-thirteen, I’ll need,” she trailed off. The Under Senator glanced to the side as she figured out the logistics, her lips moving slightly as if counting. “Ten business days at a minimum to bring charges against Straub.”

Olline blinked, her stomach sinking. They only had a day left before Etzel returned to the Government Plaza under the best of circumstances.

She sputtered, and Delora gave her a pained look, Olline’s fear obvious despite the filters. “You have to understand,” Delora said gently, “that these things take time even with ironclad evidence. I have to get my staff in position to take legal measures, judges and barristers not on Straub’s payroll will need to be brought in simply to identify the dozens of laws and regulations Etzel violated. Not to mention securing outside witnesses, as in people who aren’t chipped, merely to corroborate all the blackmail.”

Olline was too stunned to speak, her eyes wide as the sinking feeling she had before threatened to drown her. The flush Casimir had before was completely gone now. He was so pale he looked sick, which was not helped by his harrowed expression.

Delora sighed. “I sympathize with your fear, your desire to get this done quickly. But if we don’t do it right, no charges will stick. Straub’s an oily son-of-a-bitch.” She paused, letting Olline speak, but she couldn’t get enough moisture into her mouth to croak out any words. “I’d understand if you didn’t want to go through with this.” The Under Senator’s words were gentle, judgement free, but there was no way, in no scenario, that neither she nor Casimir was going to back out now.

Panic entered Casimir’s gaze then, his fingers flexed as he took a half step toward her. Was he afraid she would drop the matter? Or afraid she would agree?

Taking a fortifying breath, Olline said. “No. Let’s do this.”

Olline broke down the plan of how she would get everything to Delora, and Delora told her when to deliver all the evidence. They would trap Etzel in one fell swoop before he could bribe or weasel his way out of anything.

During that time, the control chips would need to remain active. Casimir didn’t look pleased about that. Shit, Olline wasn’t happy about it either. But she didn’t think anything would make Casimir happy at the moment.

Once everything was agreed upon and Delora provided Olline with a secure virtual drop box to put everything in, Olline disconnected the line and deleted their holo-meeting room. She had to assume Etzel had some kind of spyware in the Government Plaza system and she wanted to make sure nothing could be linked back to her when they were getting closer and closer to achieving their goals.

The glow from the holo-tablet had barely faded before Casimir was pacing in agitation, each lap taking him closer to Olline’s front door. “Etzel returns from his conference tonight. We’re out of time. I’d assumed Delora would act with a bit more haste than this, given the severity of Etzel’s crimes.”

“Faster, maybe,” she said cautiously, “but not safer. This is the better plan, Cas. Etzel isn’t exactly alone in all this. He has partners, biomagitech engineers and developers giving him the means to run his scheme. If we don’t take that side of his business down, there’s no guarantee he can’t start it up again in the future, or worse, continue to run his racket from prison.”

Casimir was still frowning, so she held out her hand and whispered, “Do you still trust me?” Olline didn’t want to sound like she was taking Delora’s side over his. She wasn’t. The situation was truly fucked, and she didn’t want to risk all of their work being for naught.

He stopped in his tracks, surprised by her outstretched hand. “Olline, you’re probably the only person on this whole rotten planet I do trust. But my faith in you doesn’t change what I—”

Casimir cut himself off abruptly, his eyes widening a fraction, like he was about to say something he hadn’t meant to. Olline sat up straighter, suspicious. He shook his head and moved back to the table where his black orchid sat. “I don’t trust that something won’t go wrong before Delora can pull the plug on Etzel, as it were. It’s her I don’t trust.”

Before she could press him though, Casimir carefully picked up the flower, cradling it as if it were delicate glass, and said, “I’ve been here too long. I need to make my rounds in case any of my other coworkers are looking for me.” He shifted the orchid gently and made it to the door before Olline could even rise to her feet. “I’ll let you get back to work in peace, Tav.” His hand hesitated on the door, his shoulders rising and falling in a heavy, silent sigh. “ Thank you, truly. For the night orchid, for everything. I won’t forget it.”

He was gone before she could make sense of his cryptic parting words. It sounded like he was saying goodbye.

She shook her head. That line of thinking would only depress her when, all things considered, she should be celebrating. Delora’s involvement meant safety was within reach at last! So why did she feel so hollow inside?

Everything was happening so fast, almost too fast for Olline to make sense of. One minute, she and Casimir are finally having a moment—a moment she had wanted since before the Refractory job if she was being honest. The next, she’s dealing with a selfish Under Senator, followed by Casimir storming out as if danger lurked in her home instead of out in the wider city.

Maybe something’s wrong? She tried to shake the thought off, but it wouldn’t leave. Without another plant to pour her energy into, and still too depleted from manipulating the elements to do real work, Olline pulled up Casimir’s password-protected file.

She chewed on her lower lip for a moment, considering. Casimir had never guessed his password, had never even suggested they try. Yet if Olline wanted to ensure that, no matter what came next, Casimir was safe, she needed to crack it. Her stomach churned, bile coating her throat as she tried to think like Etzel. Especially when it came to Casimir, but then . . . Well, did she really need to think like a monster to break this code? Didn’t she know Casimir too? Better than a bastard like Etzel, certainly.

Fortified with that knowledge, Olline wracked her brain over the periodic table. As an earth caster, she was intimate with most elements in a way most people could never be. Taking what she knew, and what she had discovered of Casimir, she scoured her memory, staring at the screen until her eyes watered and the holo-projection blurred.

Then it hit her. Hesitantly, she entered the element and . . . It worked. Holy shit, it worked .

Floating on a high like no other, she moved the files she had found linking back to Casimir onto their own mini-stick without looking at a single document beyond the chip schematics. She separated his out from everyone else’s, allowing Casimir to do as he wanted. She knew Casimir, she didn’t know the rest of the people Etzel had chipped. Olline could only imagine how Casimir would feel if she went snooping at his files without his permission, and she doubted he would want yet another Under Senator to have access to them.

She flipped the mini-stick over her knuckles and wondered if maybe she should have taken a tiny little peek, if that would have calmed the insistent scratching in the back of her skull. Then she would be positive that everything Casimir had told her was true.

Maybe she was still looking for something to be wrong because of her experience with Achan, simple as that. The more she thought about it, though, the more she didn’t think that was the case. With everything prepped, the clone files moving to the secure drive, and her spider program locating every bit of blackmail Etzel had on those he controlled, Olline had a spare moment to think about Casimir without interruption.

Her mind kept latching on to their very first meeting. Why was Casimir even outside her office door to begin with? Her brain was trying to get her to focus on something . A missing detail that continued to slip past her mental fingertips every single time. She stopped playing with the mini-stick, clutched the device in her fist, and formulated a plan.

Because if there was one thing she hated above all else, it was allowing herself to feel shitty and paranoid over something she had the power to fix.

The way Olline saw it, there were two options. Best-case scenario: Casimir realized the depth of her feelings and didn’t return them and wasn’t sure how to let her down easily. The worst-case scenario: he was still in Etzel’s control, and this had been an elaborate ruse. She desperately hoped it wasn’t the latter, even if that killed her.

What Olline needed to do was talk to Casimir, openly and honestly. And maybe, if she did that, the thing clawing for attention in the back of her mind would finally be satisfied and they could move on. Move on to what, though? Olline didn’t know, but anything had to be better than this stagnation.

She knew what she had to do, and yet she hesitated. Her skin prickled, her nerves sending sparks through her. If she was wrong, she would be stepping into the home of a man controlled by someone objectively evil. And if that was even a remote possibility, then she shouldn’t do it.

But it was impossible for her to believe that. Not when Casimir looked so touched, so enchanted by the night orchid and by the sheer fact she had used her magic to make him a present.

Olline completed her transfer sequences, shut down her holo-tablet, and shoved the mini-stick into her pocket. After she sent an innocent enough message to Casimir and confirmed he was headed home, Olline headed out.