Chapter 17
Late in the afternoon, Aida met Yumi at a café in busy Campo de’ Fiori, a place where she hoped the sound could help mask
some of their conversation. She had picked a café with outdoor seating and heat lamps, with plush velvet couches facing toward
the busy piazza, which had become a chaotic mix of vendors tearing down their market stalls, little street-sweeping trucks
that cleaned up after them, and tourists wandering around looking for a spot to get a drink. Aida also hoped that by sitting
next to each other on the couch they could whisper without her phone picking up very much.
On her way over, Aida received a text from Yumi with instructions to check her email and download the app that she had just
sent her. Aida paused to install it, but when she opened it, she couldn’t understand what it was supposed to do. There was
just a blank screen with a big purple button in the center. When she pushed it, the button turned a glowing, slightly pulsing
pink, but it didn’t seem to do anything else.
When Aida reached the café, Yumi had already secured a couch in the back, off to the side, slightly apart from the other couches
and tables. She waved Aida over and gave her friend a wordless hug when she arrived. They sat, and Aida handed Yumi her unlocked
phone. Yumi indicated with a few hand motions to put both phones in her purse.
The waiter arrived and deposited two Aperol spritzes and a little bowl of potato chips.
“I took the liberty of ordering,” Yumi said, keeping her voice a little lower than normal. “Okay, so that app is essentially
voice camouflage. You won’t want to use it all the time, but when we get together, it’s a good idea. I have one on my phone
too. And I sent it to Felix.”
“How does it work?”
“Your voice can be easily listened to when you make a call, but when you aren’t on a call and your phone is listening to you . . .” Yumi flashed air quotes with her hand. “It’s actually doing a speech-to-text translation, which is more efficient,
particularly on the battery. Then, whoever accesses it can check the transcript later. To listen to you 24/7 would be tedious.”
Aida smirked at her.
Yumi laughed. “Sorry, but it’s true! Now, transcripts aren’t foolproof, but they can generally give the reader a sense of
the conversation. The app you downloaded quietly broadcasts external sounds similar to your voice cadence to mess up that
transcript. It will be clear that there are words being spoken, but they’ll be pretty garbled. It’s not that much different
than if you were in a super busy place, so hopefully, it won’t attract too much attention to you.”
Aida was still nervous, but she trusted Yumi. She took a big gulp of her spritz and proceeded to tell her friend about London.
When she was finished, Yumi shook her head. “Unbelievable.”
“I know.”
“Not only everything you just told me about the nefarious machinations of what we once thought was a mythical pantheon, but
also that you were with Luciano and you haven’t bothered to share if you got it on with him yet.”
Aida laughed at Yumi’s elaborate speech and her friend’s singular focus on her love life. “We kissed, all right? But that’s
all.”
Yumi jabbed Aida in the ribs with her elbow. “That’s a start.”
Embarrassed, she changed the topic back. “We can talk about Luciano when I have more to tell you. But right now, we have more
important things to worry about. Like how on earth I will figure out what this database really is.”
“You mean how I’ll figure it out,” Yumi said, tipping back her spritz. “I’m the hacker, remember?”
Aida hesitated. “It’s not just a regular database though. Sophie made it sound like it’s something . . . different. Not purely
digital.”
Yumi raised an eyebrow but wasn’t deterred. “If you’re recording information into it, then technology is involved in some
way. It might have a strange interface, but there’s still going to be a system behind it, and I have a way with technology.”
She said this in a sultry, exaggerated voice that made them both laugh. “You have your work laptop with you, right?”
“I have my personal one too.”
“Work first.”
Aida pulled it out of her bag and dutifully logged in when Yumi asked her to.
“Wait, can you hack into it from that laptop?”
Yumi shrugged. “I’m not sure. In theory, it’s possible. But I suspect you don’t have access to the database itself.”
Aida sipped at her spritz and scanned the crowd while Yumi fiddled with her laptop. Finally, her friend grunted in frustration.
“It’s as I suspected. You can send commands to the database and input data, but it doesn’t allow you to directly view or access
the stored data. That’s in case any of you Collectors get grand ideas. This device is mostly useless to us.” She grabbed her
phone and began to type into it, looking up periodically at the laptop screen.
“Mostly?”
She grinned. “I have all the network access I need now. It’s interesting—aside from your one-way connection, the rest of your laptop is rather sloppily set up.
That bodes well for us, and hopefully the rest of their systems are managed so haphazardly.
” She handed the laptop back. “Okay, can you leave your personal laptop with me overnight?”
Aida swapped the MODA laptop with her personal one. “So, I still have to find my way into Trista’s office?”
“Unfortunately. Meet me here tomorrow at the same time, and I’ll bring you your laptop. You’ll need it when you break in.”
She picked up her drink. “In the meantime, I propose a toast.”
Aida squinted at her but raised her glass.
“To making our own Mission: Impossible movie!” She clinked the wineglass to Aida’s.
Aida rolled her eyes. “Yumi, we don’t want this to be impossible!”
“It won’t be. Trust me.”
Thirty hours later, with her heart pounding and her messenger bag slung over her shoulder, Aida cracked open the door from
her office to Trista’s and slipped in, using only the dim light from her phone to guide her through the dark room. That morning
at breakfast, she had told Pippa to go ahead and spike Trista’s tea. After waiting an hour past the designated time, she made
a brief reconnaissance walk through the palazzo, ready to feign sleeplessness if anyone stopped her. She walked by just as
the light under Trista’s bedroom door went out, signaling the coast was clear.
She settled into the desk chair, grateful for the lights from the garden that filtered into the room. She then set up her
personal laptop, equipped with a network spoofing program Yumi had installed. This program was designed to mask her device
as authorized on the network. Yumi had explained that, under normal conditions, an unexpected device might trigger alerts,
but given the generally lax security measures they’d observed, she was hopeful the system administrators would overlook any
minor discrepancies.
Aida logged on to the network, her fingers crossed that Yumi’s setup would prevent her from standing out.
She located Trista’s computer on the network and set up a secure connection to Yumi for backup.
Each second felt like an eternity as she waited, her anxiety mounting at the thought of Trista deciding to return and catching her in the act.
But finally, she received a text from Yumi saying that her friend had figured out the password.
Aida held her breath as she attempted to log on to Trista’s computer. When it failed the first time, she almost aborted the
whole project, but then, she reasoned, she often put in her own computer password wrong, so she tried again. She closed her
eyes, wishing for the password to work, and when she opened them, she was rewarded with the familiar MODA logo on a stark
red background, along with an array of desktop icons.
Aida followed the rest of Yumi’s instructions to establish a VPN connection between the two computers and allow remote access.
A few keystrokes on the keyboard later, she was nervously watching a transfer of the data, the progress bar slowly inching
forward.
When it reached the halfway point, there was a squeak of footsteps in the marble hallway. Aida tilted the covers of both laptops
downward to minimize the light. She had a light scarf around her neck and hastily pulled it off to further dampen the light.
The footsteps grew closer. Aida froze. She was afraid to even breathe. She didn’t know what she would do if Trista suddenly
opened the door.
If anyone opened the door.
At least it’s not a god, she rationalized. Sophie’s spell had not activated any sort of calm within her. The footsteps stopped somewhere outside
the door, and for a moment, there was silence.
Aida took a thin breath and began counting, a method a past meditation teacher had once taught her to manage stress. On the
count of eight, the sound of the footsteps started again, then faded away, and Aida let out a sigh of relief. It must have
been the security guard.
Finally, the transfer completed. Aida opened Signal on her personal laptop and sent Yumi a message. Are you in?
There was a long anxious pause before Yumi responded. I’m in. Give me five or ten.
Hurry. Someone is wandering around out in the halls.
Her friend sent her a thumbs-up.
Aida stared at the screens, wondering what Yumi might possibly find. After a few long minutes, a message popped up on Signal.
It wasn’t Yumi. It was Luciano.
Tutto va bene?
They had briefly video-chatted that morning and even through the small screens it had been evident Luciano was more than a
little nervous about her plan to break into Trista’s laptop.
Everything’s all right. Waiting for Yumi right now. Will update you on the successful mission later.
I admire your confidence. Be careful. xxxx
Aida’s heart jumped at the kisses.
A crash down the hall made Aida physically jump. Her hand flew to the lid of her laptop, and as it went down, she saw Yumi’s
message on the open Signal screen. Finished.