Chapter Four #2
I pulled two plates from the cabinet because my hands needed something to do. “And you can’t handle containment?”
He gave me a look. “I build engines. You build guardrails.”
Fair.
I scooped enchiladas onto the plates. “If it’s isolating injection before propagation, the escalation thresholds will need to be recalibrated. You’ll get false positives if you’re too aggressive.”
“We already are,” he admitted. “Dad says that’s why he wants you back. You designed the original constraint logic. Sentinel-7 sits on top of it. Without you, we’re guessing.”
In our world, guessing was not an option.
He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, but his eyes were soft. “When are you coming back, Elise?”
“A few days, I think.” I shrugged. “You know I need downtown now and then.”
He watched me carry the plates to the table. “I get it. Sometimes the compound feels like it’s closing in. I go stir-crazy too. But at least I travel for business. You could do that, you know. Conferences. Field tests. Whatever you want.”
Field tests.
Containment failures in uncontrolled environments? Watching systems strain under pressure until they showed you where they would break? No thank you.
I slid into my chair. “You know I’m not good at talking to people. Not like you.”
Keaton took the chair across from me, but he didn’t pick up his fork right away. Instead he looked around again, at the second-hand couch, the plain white walls, the single shelf of paperbacks that had nothing to do with code or security.
“What do you like so much about this place? The town, I mean. The apartment. It’s . . . so quiet.”
I poked at my food, buying time. If I explained it the way it made sense in my head, he’d hear architecture and threat models instead of anything that sounded normal.
Downtown was controlled exposure. Variables I could engage with and walk away from. Noise without surveillance. Proximity without perimeter walls.
“I like being around people,” I said finally. “Also, privacy is nearly impossible at the compound. I can breathe here.”
He didn’t smile at that.
He studied me for a long moment.
Then, softer, “Are you happy, Elise?”
I had to look down at my plate for that one.
“I think so?” I said finally. Then, more honestly, because it was Keaton and he was looking at me like the protective, big brother who used to sneak me extra dessert when Dad wasn’t watching, “I’m not unhappy.”
He nodded, satisfied, and finally started eating.
For the next twenty minutes, we talked about what our family often did: work, projects, Dad, the state of the world, and how quantum-resistant encryption was about to change everything again.
Keaton filled me in on the latest board drama, the new hire who thought he could outsmart the air-gapped systems and couldn’t.
And how Dad had been in one of his “visionary” moods that usually meant triple the workload for everyone.
I laughed in the right places. Asked the right follow-up questions.
But the whole time, Brady Holliston stayed open in the back of my mind. The streak of grease on his forehead. His large, calloused hands. That easy smile that made the whole garage feel warmer.
How did it all fit together?
The Friesians. The buried threads. The blonde woman he appeared in recent photos with. Were they more than friends?
He’d seemed attracted to me at the garage, but was that an act?
Did he know who I was?
I was tempted to ask Keaton if the name Holliston meant anything to him.
I didn’t. Sadly, I also had no one else I could run this situation by.
One of the concerns my mother had thrown at my father again and again when I was too young to fully understand it was that Keaton and I were not extensions of our father.
He believed that schools, even private ones, were so far behind the technological curve that Keaton and I would be better off being educated at the compound and by people who were deep in the trenches of innovation.
In my father’s opinion, anyone could teach us to read, but only his curated team of experts could prepare us to lead in the field of cyber security.
To that, my mother had argued, “But where would they meet children their age? When will they play?”
Looking back, she hadn’t won that argument.
If I walked away from my family’s business, I could find lucrative employment in almost any industry anywhere in the world. If it was my goal, few would doubt my ability to start my own company and match or exceed my father’s success.
But friends?
So far they were proving elusive.
Was that tied to the lure of Brady? Was he an intriguing puzzle?
Or something more?
Unraveling the mystery of him wasn’t a task I wanted to share . . . or lose. Even though he might end up being someone dangerous, just thinking about him was invigorating in a way not much had been for a very, very long time.
How would someone like him kiss? How would he fuck? He looked like the type who would want to snuggle afterward.
Keaton finished his plate, leaned back, and gave me a small, concerned smile. “You know you can talk to me about anything.”
My face flushed. Not this. “I know.”
“What do you want me to tell Dad?”
I lifted and dropped a shoulder. “That I’ll be back soon and ready to dive into work when I am.”
He searched my face again. “Do you need anything?”
“No. Just a little down time.”
“Would you tell me if something was wrong?”
I nodded. “Of course I would.”
“I’ll check in with you tomorrow.”
“Please don’t.” I sighed, hating how that sounded. “What I mean is . . . there’s no need to. Love you as I do, time away is also good for me. Don’t you come back from your trips feeling refreshed?”
“I do.”
“Being in town does the same for me.”
“Okay.” He stood, stretched, and headed for the door. “Eat the leftovers. Rose will know if you don’t.”
I walked him out, hugged him quickly, awkwardly, then watched him disappear down the steps.
When the door clicked shut, I leaned against it for a second, eyes closed.
Then I went straight back to the laptop, opened it, and woke the screen.
The cached mirror was still waiting.
The fragment of the old Discord thread sat there like it knew I’d come back.
I cracked my knuckles once, the way I used to when I was twelve and Dad first let me touch the big machines.
All right, Mr. Gorgeous Dimples. Let’s see what you’re really made of.
And for the first time in longer than I could remember, I smiled while I worked.