Chapter Twenty-Seven
Sloane
I wake in a cold sweat as thunder crashes outside. I turn over, reaching for Oliver, but all I feel is a cold spot.
“Oliver,” I whisper. No answer comes, and the instant panic hits me. “Oliver!” I call out. Silence. “He’s fine,” I tell myself. “Probably just went to the bathroom, or—”
My phone vibrates on the nightstand, LED light shining in the space.
I notice the caller immediately. Chickadee. It’s damn near 11:30.
I answer without hesitation.
“Chickadee, is everything okay—”
“The building’s blacked out," she says in a panic. “Ericson says there’s been a massive data breach. They think it’s a hacker, but—”
My blood chills as lightning crashes outside, lighting up the equipment in my room, turning it all to ominous monstrous shadows.
A sinking feeling forms in my gut.
“When did the servers go down?” I ask, trying to remain calm.
“I don’t know. Ericson said he got a firewall notification around six-thirty, and then another around eight, but then the whole building blacked out around a half hour ago.”
“Generators didn’t kick on?” I ask.
“No. But Sloane…” She sounds terrified.
“What?” I bite. “What is it?”
“I think you need to see this," she says, her voice deadly serious.
A moment later the image comes through.
It’s the lab. My heart lurches at the sight.
Papers strewn everywhere, and all the computer screens, broken.
Shattered. The server wall destroyed. Spray painted across the wall is the words, You shouldn’t have come back, Flynn.
Beneath the words is what looks like an ip address, and a haphazardly spraypainted QR code. All in red. Dripping paint like blood.
“Did anyone check that fucking IP or the code?”
Chickadee huffs out a heavy breath. “Ericson said the last thing he remembers is the door opening. Said he thought it was security coming to check the outage, but then something hit him in the head and—he woke up a half hour ago, thanks to the police. I called you as soon as I found out. Ericson said he tried to call you when it happened, but—”
I close my eyes, remembering my phone going off. Remembering his name.
I should have answered. I should have fucking answered!
I scream and nearly throw the damn phone across the room.
“Fucking asshole!” I scream, almost forgetting Chickadee is on the line. I leap out of bed and dress myself.
“Tech and police tried the ip and the code, but you need a log in and the cybersquad can’t crack it.”
“Why not?” I bite.
“It’s encrypted, Sloane. Hold on, I’m sending you pictures.”
A second later, the image comes through of the screen. Black with red interface, there are two open text fields. User and Password. The User’s box is already filled with a username.
Mast3r. Heat floods me. “I know the code.”
Chickadee gasps. “He says he knows the code!” she calls, and I hear voices in the background.
“It’s Glitch.” I fight to keep my breath still as I dress myself and scream out “Ghost Veil Activate Glitch Protocol.”
“What is Ghost Veil Glitch Protocol…” Chickadee asks.
Ericson can be heard in the background. “What is Ghost Veil?”
“I don’t have time to explain, just… hold tight.” I swallow hard as I race down my stairs to the kitchen, sprinting down to my personal lab as the house beeps and whirs and the voice of Ghost speaks to me.
“Activating Ghost Veil Glitch Protocol. Servers initiating in ten seconds.”
“Servers should be kicking back on in a few seconds.”
“Is he controlling the servers remotely?” Maria asks with a gasp.
“Yes,” I say as I log into Ghost and type as fast as I can, bringing up the cameras for the building and the server room.
I minimize the windows as I type the commands to enter the Ghost Veil system for the house.
The power kicks back on with a heavy clunking whir and the lights come on.
I trace the signature back to the crash, when the power went out.
Eleven pm. Same time as the servers in the lab.
“Detectives are into the login…” she says. “I’m video calling you.”
I watch with bated breath as she shows me the screen, projected in the conference room. Detectives and police line the room along with Maria, Bill, Ericson, and Chickadee. It’s my worst nightmare come to life.
The screen showcases a loading screen, a red hourglass.
And then my heart stops. All I can see is the black and white feed, blurry and scratchy, but I don’t have to have a clear picture to see what it is.
Oliver sits, arms bound behind him with ropes, his head hung low, hair falling in his face, completely lifeless.
“Oliver!” I scream into the darkness of my lab.
I hear a detective yell to trace the call, but I notice the hourglass is draining.
I don’t think, I just do. If the police want to arrest me, they can do it after I get Oliver back, safe and sound where he belongs.
I jump into the source for the feed, remotely casting the video to my computer. I click the hourglass.
A black screen pops up, once again with red text, letter by letter spelling out the words.
End of line.
The numbers that form below are coordinates, and just as I am contemplating telling them my discovery, the red text flashes.
Come alone or he dies.
I suck in a heavy breath.
“Chickadee,” I collect myself as best I can.
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“I need you to go to my office right now. Do not look at anyone, do not speak out loud. Tell them you’re going to the bathroom and you’ll be back.”
She pauses for a moment, and I think she’s going to refute me, but she doesn’t.
“I’ll be back, guys, this is scaring the piss out of me. Literally.”
“Right, yeah, okay, uh…” Ericson mutters as Chickadee moves, and I hear the door slam.
I hear her heavy breath as she races through my building, watching her on my computer through the cameras.
“You better have a good explanation for this, Sloane Alexander. Because if you don’t, I’m going to beat your ass into the afterlife.”
I can’t help but smirk at her humor, even in the darkest of moments.
“Noted. And yes, I have a good explanation, but you’re not going to like it.”
She huffs out a sigh. “What am I looking for?”
“Log into my computer. User: M4st3r_Gl1tch. Password: ghost.”
She does as I ask.
“Okay, I need you to wipe the drive.”
“What?”
I sigh, nodding. “You heard me.”
“Can’t you do that from your computer wherever you are?”
“No. Not this drive. The one is the fail safe. It’s the back-up back-up.”
“Sloane… why am I deleting your hard drive?” She tenses.
“Because you have to be the smartest person in the room if you want to stay ahead of the game," I say.
I tap out a command to activate Oliver’s Ghost Veil and discreetly turn on location services.
I glance at the location coordinates and match them up with Oliver’s location, confirming they are a match.
“I know where Oliver is," I say. “But I need you to keep the police busy for at least twenty minutes.”
“Twenty minutes?” Chickadee spits. “Sloane, you are not going by yourself on some… some fucking true crime spree!”
I laugh, shaking my head.
“I’m dropping you the coordinates. Wipe the hard drive. Wait twenty minutes.”
“Sloane…” she says, and I hear the sadness in her voice. “Don’t let them hurt him…”
“Over my dead fucking body, Chickadee.”
And then I hang up the phone and head to the back of the lab. I press my fingerprint to the scanner on the large steel-vaulted door behind the metal shelves.
When it opens, I take a deep breath and ready myself.
I grab my gun and some extra ammo, a signal blocker, and move as fast as I can to the garage and grab the keys to my SUV—the one I had made specifically for this kind of emergency situation.
I turn the car on, activating Ghost Veil Glitch Protocol and drive as fast as I can, praying I am not too late.