Chapter 9
Will
“What kind of pattern recognition does the AI use?” Brie asked, her genuine interest no doubt conflicting with a need for intel. “Is it based on natural language processing or more of a machine learning thing you fed a gazillion scenarios into? Would a VPN fool it?”
Claire tilted her head, suspicion flickering across her face.
Careful, Bug. Don’t push too fast.
“You are such a security nerd.” I pulled her tight to me, then turned to Claire. “Sometimes I have to hide her laptop just to get her attention.”
Brie snort-laughed. “That happened exactly once, and you promised never to do it again.”
Claire’s features softened. Crisis averted. “I’ll let you two get settled. Take an hour to unpack, and I’ll swing by to give you the full tour.”
“Thanks,” I said, as she headed for the door. “We appreciate it.”
She halted halfway out the door. “Oh, before I forget—make sure you both install the Mnemis app on your phones. It has facility maps, your shift schedules, and security clearance updates. It’s required to take your phones past the inner security checkpoint.
Without it, you’ll have to leave them behind. ”
“We can keep our phones inside the data center itself?” That was unexpected.
“If the app’s running, yes. Scan the QR code in your welcome packet. It only takes a few minutes to configure everything.”
Once the door closed behind her, Brie and I struck up a casual conversation, discussing our travel plans for when our rotation ended and remarking on how nice the room was.
Looking pointedly at Brie, I said, “Sweetheart, did you pack my white noise machine?”
“It’s under your socks,” she said, exactly as we’d planned.
I unzipped my suitcase and pulled out a small device the size of a deck of cards. When I switched it on, a small LED lit up, and it began to emit a low shushing noise. It was another of my custom designs, specifically created to scramble the feed of any hidden cameras.
She withdrew a compact mirror from her own bag. Once it had authenticated her thumbprint, she moved it over electrical outlets and fixtures. I switched my watch’s charging dock into its hidden analysis mode and did the same as Brie.
We worked in silence, checking every corner, vent, light fixture, and piece of furniture for listening devices. After fifteen minutes of thorough inspection, I caught Brie’s eye and gave a slight nod, which she returned. The room was clear.
“I’ll keep the white noise machine on,” I said at normal volume. “Helps me sleep, plus it’ll help mask our conversations from anyone outside.”
“Good thinking.” Brie sat and pulled her laptop from her backpack. “I want to try connecting to the Wi-Fi with our VPN on, but ten-to-one odds the Wi-Fi rejects it.”
“I reset my laptop to factory defaults last night,” I said, setting up at my own desk, next to hers.
Most of the room’s furniture was standard hotel fare, but the desks and chairs?
Those were for career computer users. The chair was an ultra-posh gamer’s chair, with excellent ergonomics.
“They really haven’t spared any expense for the staff, have they? ”
“I set up two security levels on mine.” She paused before opening her laptop.
“The main partition connects to their Wi-Fi. It looks normal—browsing history, work documents—stuff they’d expect to see if they ever checked.
The second partition is completely isolated and encrypted—that’s where I’ve stored all our mission materials, shell company data, and where I’ll compile evidence and prep any tools we need. ”
“Give me access to the secure partition?”
“Your face already unlocks my laptop and phone.”
“Perfect.” I grabbed the welcome packet with the QR code for the app. “What about this?”
Brie lowered her voice despite the white noise. “I don’t like it.”
I nodded in agreement. “It’s probably loaded with location tracking.”
“Maybe even keyloggers or microphone access.”
“What do you think?” I tapped my fingers on the sheet. “I doubt we can avoid installing it.”
Brie chewed her lower lip. “We’ll need our phones for coordination. I could examine the installation package in my encrypted partition to see what permissions it’s requesting.”
“Risky, but it could work. Until then—”
“—we put off installing it until I can give it the okay. If challenged, we blame technical difficulties.”
“Or simple forgetfulness. We did just arrive.” I stood, stretching. “Could always mess up our hair a bit and say we got… distracted?”
She giggled and finally opened her laptop, not looking at me.
Claiming we were newlyweds would probably get us out of a few responsibilities, but not many.
Brie pushed her glasses up her nose—a habit when she was problem-solving, not because they actually slipped down. “I’ll dig into it after Claire’s tour.”
I wandered over to the bed, where we’d tossed our suitcases before checking the room. “We should unpack. Or at least look like we started.”
Brie swiveled in her chair.
My eyes lingered on the bed and my suitcase. One bed. King-sized, but still only one.
Brie caught my gaze as she stood. “The bed won’t be an issue. It’s huge. Plenty of room.”
“I can sleep on the floor.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She joined me by the bed, opening her own suitcase.
“Rock, paper, scissors?” I pulled out a stack of T-shirts and carried them to one of the bureaus.
She shook her head and gave a dramatic eye roll in response to my joke. “We’ve slept in the same bed dozens of times before.”
It was true, but the only one out of the dozens that flashed through my brain was the one time we did far more than sleep. The taste of her, the warmth of her skin, the way we’d wrapped around each other in the narrow little bed, breathless and amazed at what was happening between us.
I’d been thinking about that night more and more often. Eating dinner with Mum most nights required topics of conversation. Brie came up so often. Something funny she’d said at work. Some amazing piece of code she’d written. Or the bad joke on her shirt that day, which Mum never understood.
“—the job the team did in Vienna?”
Shit, I’d tuned out. Catch up, Will.
“I mean, we didn’t leave the office for three days, sleeping on the awful pull-out couch.” She laughed as she carried her toiletry bag to the bathroom.
Right. The pull-out couch. Of course. “That doesn’t count. We were never actually sleeping at the same time. One of us was always monitoring the team’s progress.”
“Close enough.” She was still chuckling when she came back to the suitcases and the bed. “My point is, we’re adults. We can share a bed for two weeks without it being weird.”
I nodded, even though she was wrong. It would be weird. “Fair enough.”
We continued unpacking in silence. She stepped left as I moved right, both reaching for the bureau without discussion. Years of shared spaces had made us telepathic about traffic patterns.
“You know,” I said, lining up my charging cables on the bedside table, “the pretending to be married thing was easier than I expected on the boat.”
Brie didn’t look up from organizing her clothes, but a faint smile played at the corner of her mouth. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I almost kissed your temple at one point when we were talking to Claire. It felt natural somehow.”
She laughed, that distinctive sound that was half giggle, half snort. “What ‘level of physicality’ would Scarlett call that? Three?”
I grinned, remembering Scarlett’s overly detailed briefing on appropriate displays of affection. “Probably. Level one was holding hands; two was a hand on the waist or shoulder.”
“I think three was a kiss to exposed skin, so temple counts. She’s so specific about all of it.
I tuned her out at some point, because I knew that wouldn’t be the most important part of our job.
” She paused after stuffing her socks into a drawer.
“I think she was more worried about me getting awkward than you overdoing it.”
“Me? Overdo it? Never.” I placed a hand dramatically over my heart, earning another laugh from her as I hung up a few shirts in the closet.
“Just don’t go for level five,” she warned, eyes twinkling.
“What’s level five again?”
“Mouth to mouth,” she answered promptly, more focused on her clothes than on me.
“It’s wise to establish boundaries.” Had I kept my tone sufficiently light? She obviously didn’t have our night together on a loop in her brain, so it was probably best I stopped replaying it in mine. But god, the feel of being inside her. “Wouldn’t want to accidentally escalate to level six.”
“I don’t even know what level six would be.”
“I think it involves removing clothing, and that would definitely make security suspicious.”
She nearly choked on a laugh. “No stripping naked in front of security. Got it.”
A soft knock came from our door.
Brie turned her watch over. “Shit, that’s our hour, and that’ll be Claire. Ready for the grand tour?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I straightened my shirt and tucked the metal pen and earbuds into my pocket. “In case she takes us into the data center, I’ll test these today.”
As we moved toward the door, I caught myself reaching for Brie’s hand—a natural gesture for a man on his honeymoon. I hesitated. We were alone, so I didn’t need to show off.
Brie noticed my aborted movement and quirked an eyebrow. “Level one?”
“Just practicing,” I said with a small smile.
She rolled her eyes again, but took my hand. “Might as well get used to it.”