Chapter 25
Will
Thick clouds obscured the morning sun as we pedaled around the last bend toward Little Haven’s eastern beach.
The sea churned gray-green beneath the looming storm front, waves breaking harder against the shore than yesterday.
Hurricane Lorenzo was making its presence known, though landfall wasn’t expected for another thirty-six hours.
Brie skidded to a stop near one of the bike racks, parking her bike with more force than necessary. Her movements were quick, precise—the way they always got when she was anxious but trying to hide it.
“This looks clear.” She slipped her earbud in even faster than I did.
I spotted Rav immediately, running at a steady pace along the waterline. Several other security personnel used their mandatory outdoor time for exercise as well—he fit in with them perfectly.
I slipped the satellite phone from my pocket and inserted my earbud. Giving Rav a subtle wave, I murmured, “You read me?”
“Copy,” came his response. “Satellite working?”
I activated the uplink, watching the screen as it failed to connect. Again. And again. The satellite icon blinked red three times before displaying “Connection Error.”
“No signal.” This was what I’d been afraid of the moment we’d stepped outside. “Let me try moving.”
I walked a few feet away, holding the phone higher, pretending to take an artistic photo while searching for any lighter section in the cloud cover. The loading icon spun endlessly before failing again.
“Come on.” I powered the phone off and on. My stomach tightened as the reboot completed, only to display the same error. The hurricane wasn’t just affecting the weather; it was severing our lifeline. “No go. Cloud cover’s too thick for satellite transmission. We’re cut off.”
First project when you get home: a satellite phone that connects through cloud cover.
I glowered at the useless device in my hand. We couldn’t be completely dark. Not today. Not with Scarlett’s visit happening.
“Hold on.” I pulled out my regular phone—the one that looked like any other staff member’s device but had my custom Reynolds partition hidden inside. “Let me try something.”
Brie stepped closer, her voice low. “What are you thinking?”
“The earbuds.” I disconnected from the facility’s network and booted into the Reynolds partition. The interface shifted, displaying the custom software Brie and I had built. “They’re perfect for secure comms when the phone’s working, but I did also design them to hide on the Wi-Fi. Granted—”
“The AI might catch it,” Brie finished for me.
“We need to be sure Scarlett’s still coming.” I reconnected my earbuds to the Reynolds software. “Rav, you still reading me?”
“I am,” he said.
I held up my phone, watching it search for available networks. The Mnemis Wi-Fi signal appeared, strong and clear. My finger hovered over the connect button. It would connect the earbuds directly to Wi-Fi, eliminating the need for a phone attachment. If it worked.
“If the AI flags this—” Brie started.
“Then we claim we were trying to video call family before the hurricane hits.” I tapped the connection. “We’re newlyweds who wanted to check in with their mothers. Completely innocent.”
The earbuds established an encrypted connection, routing the data through Wi-Fi while masking the signature as background RF interference. Hopefully. The connection icon turned green, but immediately flickered off and on again.
Static crackled through my earbud. Another thing I’d have to fix later.
“Hi, Mum,” I kept my voice casual, as though I were speaking with my mother. “I wanted to confirm our dinner plans for later. Are we still on?”
More static. Scarlett’s voice cut through suddenly, distorted but recognizable. “Confirmed. Reservations are… four o’clock. Party of… includes our mutual friend.”
Malcolm. She was bringing Malcolm.
“Perfect. My partner will be ready.” I glanced at Brie, who nodded. “Any dietary restrictions we should be aware of?”
“No, but Gideon… Claire was… from a…”
The connection crackled again, worse this time. Was it the weather? The data center’s electromagnetic interference? Or was the AI already shutting down our conversation?
“Come again?”
“Be… she’s…”
The line went dead. Not gradually—just gone, like someone had flipped a switch.
I checked the phone’s display. No signal.
“Will?” Brie’s voice was tight.
Through my earbud, I heard Rav’s measured breathing as he continued his run. After he passed a group of women standing by the water’s edge, he said, “Proceed as planned unless directed otherwise. We assume Scarlett’s visit is still going ahead.”
“Acknowledged.” I looked at Brie, whose face had gone a shade paler than before. “But what do you think she was saying about Claire?”
“If it’s important, she’ll get a message to us.” There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in Rav’s voice. He was the most experienced member of our group. If he said everything was all right, then that’s what it was.
“Copy that. Thanks, Rav.” I pulled out the earbud and powered down the Reynolds partition, switching back to the standard interface.
Bloody fucking hell.
“It’s a sign,” Brie said quietly.
“It’s not a sign of anything.” I stared at the main island across the strip of water, with its palm trees swaying in the wind.
Sometime tomorrow or the next day, they’d be straining under Lorenzo’s assault.
“I hadn’t tested the earbuds before this.
Maybe I wired something incorrectly. Maybe the calibration processes were too variable and the earbuds couldn’t keep up. ”
“Just tell me it wasn’t the AI.”
“Christ’s sake, Brie, it wasn’t the AI,” I snapped. I wasn’t sure of that, but we’d find out soon enough. You should have spent more time fixing your tech than ogling Brie. “It’s my own poor fucking hardware.”
“Your hardware worked great.” Brie removed her earbud, tucking it away. “At least we know Scarlett will be there.”
We’d been watching the hurricane since I was still supposed to be here with Ashley. We just hadn’t expected it to strengthen so quickly or head straight for us. But still, I should have been better prepared.
“We should head back,” I said, “and get ready for our shifts.”
As we walked toward our bikes, Brie’s shoulders were tense. She was catastrophizing in her head.
“We’ve run plenty of ops with comms blackouts,” I said, trying to calm her.
So much would depend on her today, and she needed a confidence boost. We were cut off from the team during the most critical phase of our mission.
If anything went sideways with Scarlett’s visit or the ID card transfer, we’d have no way to adapt or call for help.
But you won’t have to call for help. Worst-case scenario: you admit you’re penetration testers. That’s all.
“What about Claire?”
“I trust Rav’s judgment.” It was true, but that didn’t fix the voice in my head that said Scarlett had been trying to warn us about something.
The bike ride back to Mnemis started silently, which meant she was still brooding—time to break the tension.
“Ronnie’s been telling me about a seafood place in Freeport we should try when this rotation ends,” I said, pedaling alongside her. “Apparently, they have conch fritters that would make a grown man weep.”
Brie glanced over, a crease between her brows. “Conch fritters?”
I shrugged. “He said they’re similar to fried clams. You always loved those.”
“You and your food recommendations.” She shook her head and returned to watching the path ahead of us. “Remember that pizza place in Boston you swore would change my life?”
“It would have if you’d ordered the right thing,” I countered. “Life-changing pizza needs more than cheese.”
“That’s how they make it in Naples, isn’t it? It was perfectly good.”
“‘Perfectly good’ is not the standard we aim for, Bug.”
“Fine.” She waved a teasing hand in my direction. “When we’re done here, you can introduce me to conch fritters.”
“And conch pizza?”
She snorted a laugh so hard her bike careened toward mine.
I veered away, avoiding the collision. This was how our life should have been. Biking down a path in the tropics, celebrating being together.
The morning’s events circled around in my mind, starting with how I’d “forgotten” my clothes after my shower.
Brie’s eyes had widened, and a blush had crept up her neck before she’d quickly turned away.
Her reaction had confirmed what I’d been testing by leaving my clothes behind: she was undoubtedly attracted to me.
Even if she was fighting it with everything she had.
Back in our room, I watched her as she gathered her things for the day. The brief camaraderie from our bike ride had helped, and she met my eyes more often, closing some of the distance she’d established since our kiss on the beach.
Once we were changed into our jeans and Mnemis polo shirts, we made our way through the corridors to the data center’s security checkpoint.
Claire chatted with one of the hardware techs near the scanner. She nodded a greeting. “Morning.”
“Morning.” I scanned my badge at the checkpoint. The system beeped its approval, the light flashing green. I placed my electronics and a protein bar I’d grabbed from the cafeteria onto the X-ray scanner’s conveyor belt, going through the motions of the daily security routine.
Brie followed behind me. “Shit!”
“What?” I asked, turning to look at her.
She held up her lanyard, showing me the empty clip. No ID badge hanging from it.
Her eyes widened with manufactured alarm. “My ID card. I must have lost it somewhere.”
I frowned, examining her lanyard. “Did it fall off?”
“I had it this morning.” She hooked a thumb over her shoulder, a note of frustration entering her voice. “We went up to Little Haven. I had it then. I definitely had it when we came back; otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to get through security. Did I have it in our room?”
I shook my head. “I think I swiped for our door.”
“Dammit.”
Claire stepped closer, frowning. “That’s the fifth clip I’ve seen fail this year.” She motioned to one of the guards. “Roger, can you locate Brie Stone’s badge?”
The guard tapped at a control panel that faced away from us. After a moment, he looked up. “Residential sector, room R-17.”
“Your quarters,” Claire confirmed. “Must have fallen off there.”
Brie exhaled shakily, playing her part perfectly. “I’ll go back and get it.”
I checked my watch. “I’m going to be late for Ronnie.”
“Go ahead.” She waved me toward the full-body scanner. “I’ll see you later.”
I pressed a quick kiss to her temple before I could think better of it. The tiny smile she gave me in return. Genuine? Or cover story? I said, “See you at lunch?”
“Maybe.” She knew as well as I did it wouldn’t happen. With our shift lasting from noon until eight at night, lunchtime became four p.m. And by then, Brie would be far too busy for me.
“After your shift, stop by the main security desk,” Claire called after Brie. “They’ll set you up with a new lanyard. Those clips are a disaster waiting to happen.”
A disaster?
More like a successful step in our plan.