Chapter 44
Grim
We pull up behind the Council buildings. The back entrance is up ahead, and above it, a single security camera sweeps the area in lazy arcs.
Drake digs around in the trunk, taking out a gym bag.
“Here.” He hands me a pair of shorts and Wren a T-shirt, which she pulls over her head.
“Thanks.” I carefully pull the shorts up, grimacing as I bend over, and then again when the elastic touches my back.
By the time I’m finished, Drake is dressed in a pair of sweatpants.
“You okay?” Wren asks. It’s the first time she’s spoken directly to me since we left.
“Yeah.” I give her a smile, which she doesn’t return. It’s clear that she’s still pissed off with me, which I completely understand.
“Stay close,” Drake tells us, his voice tight. His limp is no longer as pronounced. “We need to try to avoid the camera.” He points at the device.
“What if someone sees us?” Wren whispers.
“Then we’re fucked,” I tell her.
Drake shoots me a look. “We won’t be seen. Come on. Stay close, and we’ll be just fine.”
We move quickly, avoiding the camera. Drake swipes a card at the door, and it clicks open. We go inside, moving quickly down a hallway. The building is quiet, most of the staff long gone for the day.
Drake leads us through a maze of corridors, taking turns that seem random but clearly aren’t. He knows this place inside and out.
My shoulder and back throb in time with my heartbeat, and my leg feels like someone’s driving a hot spike through it. In other words, I’m starting to feel much better…thankfully.
Finally, Drake stops at an unmarked door near the end of a hallway. He tries the handle, but it’s locked. Then he knocks.
“It’s me,” he says in a gruff voice.
The door opens a crack, and a face peers out. This must be Vulcan. He’s about my age, with dark hair and sharp, intelligent eyes that take in our injuries in a single glance.
“Drake…buddy.” The male’s expression shifts from cautious to concerned. “You look like shit, bro. Becca here says you’ve been through the wringer.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
The male steps back, pulling the door open. “Come in, come in…all of you.”
We file inside, and Vulcan locks the door behind us.
“Damn.” Vulcan whistles low as he looks us over more carefully. “The two of you look like you went ten rounds with a thresher.”
His office is extra-large, easily three times the size of a normal executive office.
Every available surface is covered with computer equipment.
Multiple monitors line one wall, displaying various data streams and code I don’t understand.
Cables snake across the floor like some kind of technological jungle.
The windows are completely blacked out. The air hums with the sound of cooling fans and hard drives.
In the corner, Becca sits perched on a desk chair, still in her leather flight gear.
She looks up as we enter and smiles. “Glad you finally made it to the party. Jake, Mist, and Shimmer had to go. It’s just Vulcan and me.”
“It took a little longer than expected. We had to take a couple of interesting side roads to avoid checkpoints,” Drake says.
“Hi, again.” Wren waves at Becca. “Thanks for helping us out.”
“No problem.” Becca smiles again.
“Hi, Becca.” I nod at her.
“Hi, Grim,” she replies. “You look a little better.”
“This is better?” Vulcan laughs. “Holy shit! I’m glad I’m a keyboard warrior and not an actual warrior.” He pulls out chairs for us. “Sit, sit. Before you fall over.”
“I’ll live.” Drake lowers himself into a chair with a grimace. “Did you get the phone from Becca?”
Wren sits next to Drake, her eyes on Vulcan.
I do the same, sitting on the edge of my chair.
“I did.” Vulcan moves to one of his workstations, where the cracked phone sits connected to a series of cables and adapters.
“I’m in the final stages now. Extracting data from damaged hardware is always a crapshoot, especially with this level of physical trauma.
I’m afraid I’m seeing signs of internal component separation. ”
“In English,” I say.
Vulcan glances over his shoulder, grinning. “It’s fifty-fifty whether I can get anything off this thing.”
“Fifty-fifty,” Wren repeats. “I don’t like those odds.”
“Fingers crossed,” Vulcan says, turning back to his screens.
He types on one of the many keyboards on his desk.
“If the NAND flash memory isn’t physically destroyed, I should be able to pull the data.
But if the memory controller is fried or if there’s damage to the actual storage chips… ” He trails off with a shrug.
Drake leans forward despite the obvious pain it causes him. “How much longer?”
“Hard to say. Could be minutes…could be an hour or two.” Vulcan doesn’t look away from his screen. “You know you’re wanted, right? That the Mainland issued a warrant for your arrest not ten minutes ago?”
Drake’s head snaps up. “What? Although I suppose it makes sense.”
“They’re saying you’re aiding and abetting known criminals. That you helped fugitives evade capture. Don’t worry, I scrambled the signal to your cellphone; they can’t trace it.”
“Thanks, Vulcan. How did they know I was meeting Grim?” Drake says almost to himself. “I thought we were so careful. I definitely wasn’t being followed to our meeting place.”
Vulcan’s fingers pause over the keyboard.
“I can answer that.” He pulls up a different window, displaying what looks like phone logs. “Hang ten,” he tells us. “Interesting. You made a call while you were at the Training Academy.” He glances my way, and I nod.
Then I groan. “Let me guess: they traced it back to Drake.”
“We should have thought of that,” Wren says.
He keeps typing, going from one window to the next, scanning the information.
“It looks like Mainland Security found a stolen SUV the day before yesterday with your fingerprints all over it, Grim. They traced it back to the Training Academy and pulled the call log. Once they made that connection, they started watching you, Drake. When you left in a hurry earlier today…” He opens up another screen.
“They had a surveillance drone follow you out to the meeting point today. The combat team maintained a safe distance behind the drone’s signal.
That’s why you didn’t pick up on a tail. ”
“Fuck.” Drake scrubs a hand over his face. “I should have known. I should have been more careful.”
“You couldn’t have known,” Wren tells him.
“I should have—” Drake starts, but Vulcan cuts him off with a sharp whistle.
“We’re in,” he announces. “Data extraction complete. Let me see what we’ve got here.”
The room goes silent except for the clicking of Vulcan’s keyboard and the hum of his equipment.
“Okay,” Vulcan mutters, scanning through files. “Okay, okay…there it is. Video file from the timestamp you mentioned. But…” He frowns, leaning closer to the screen.
“But what?” I snap.
“The file is corrupted.” Vulcan pulls up the video properties. “Looks like the larger file size, combined with the impact damage, caused some data fragmentation. The file headers are intact, but the actual video data stream has errors. Crap! This sucks ass.”
Disappointment hits, and I make a groaning noise, squeezing the back of my neck.
Wren makes a small sound of distress.
“No,” I say. “Shit! All of this has been for nothing.”
“They’re going to win,” Wren says. “We can’t let them.”
But Vulcan just grins. “Relax. I said it was corrupted, not unrecoverable.” His fingers are already moving again. “I’m going to run a video reconstruction algorithm. It’ll parse through—”
“How long?” Drake barks.
“Not long. This type of corruption is actually pretty straightforward to fix.” Vulcan’s brow furrows in concentration.
A progress bar on one of his screens fills steadily, and then a new window pops up showing that the video file is intact and playable.
“Got it,” Vulcan shouts.
“Can you play it?” Wren asks.
He does, and it’s all there. Every damning second of it.
“That’s them,” Wren whispers. “That’s what happened.”
There’s a sharp knock at the door. We all freeze.
“Vulcan?” a voice calls from the hallway. “You in there?”
Vulcan rolls his eyes. “Busy!” he shouts back. “Come back later!”
“I need to ask you about—”
“Later!” Vulcan’s tone is hard. “I’m in the middle of something critical. Come back tomorrow.”
There’s a pause, then footsteps retreating down the hallway.
Becca lets out a breath. “That was close.”
“Send it out,” Drake says. “You’re a freaking genius, Vulcan. Holy shit. It’s amazing watching you work.”
“This was child’s play…but fun.” His eyes twinkle. “I’m sending this video to all Council members and the head of Draig Security. They won’t be able to trace it back here to me. They won’t be able to trace anything back to me. Bunch of imbeciles.” He mutters the last.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
“Annnnd…sent. They should all have it in their inboxes within the next thirty seconds.”
Drake’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out, checks the screen, and nods.
“I got it. Now we need to send it to every media station on the island.” He sits on a nearby chair, his device in his hand.
“I’ll do it,” Vulcan says. “You look like you’re about to pass out.” Not half a minute later, he says, “Done.”
Drake stares at him. “That’s not possible. It couldn’t have been that fast.”
“It absolutely can, and it is done.” Vulcan grins. “I have a script I wrote that mass-distributes files to all major media outlets on the island simultaneously. Uses their public submission portals, anonymizes the source IP—”
“Yeah, yeah! Does every news station on the island have a copy?” I ask.
“Every. Single. One.” Vulcan leans back in his chair, looking pleased with himself.
Drake’s phone starts ringing. He glances at the screen and groans. “It’s Vector.”
“Better answer that,” I tell him.
Drake rises from his chair with visible effort, his hand still pressed to his wounded side.
“I will as soon as I’ve arranged for additional security at the hospital.
Not just outside Sally’s room, but inside as well.
Draig Security, not Mainland. I need to make sure she’s safe.
Then I need to call Harlow. I’m sure she’s worried. Then I’ll call Vector.”
“Use whatever you need.” Vulcan gestures broadly at his various phones and equipment.
No sooner does the call end than it starts to ring again.
Drake moves to Vulcan’s main desk to make the calls.
His voice is low but urgent as he speaks to various security personnel and hospital administrators.
I catch phrases like “immediate protection detail” and “no Mainland personnel allowed in that room under any circumstances.”
Wren and I sit in our chairs, watching. Becca has pulled out her phone and is scrolling through something.
“That video is already spreading like wildfire. I’ve got news alerts pinging every few seconds. This is going to blow up in the Mainland’s face in spectacular fashion,” Vulcan says, putting his feet up on the desk.
Drake finishes one call and immediately starts another.
“I need to organize for Draig doctors and nurses to take over Sally’s care,” he says, covering the phone’s mouthpiece. “This might take a while.”
“It’s fine,” Wren tells him.
Becca and Vulcan start talking in low voices about some technical problem she’s been having. She shows him her cellphone.
I turn to Wren, clearing my throat. “I wanted to talk to you about the mind-bond thing.” I internally wince. I’m making it sound casual when it’s anything but.
“Not now, Grim.” Her voice is flat.
“Yes…but…” I start to say.
Wren shakes her head, looking so fucking sad that I want to pull her into my arms, but I know it would be unwelcome. I can see it in her eyes. I put that look there. I’m the one who hurt her, and I’m desperate to make it right.
I have to respect that she isn’t ready to talk about it. Not yet.
I watch her go, feeling like I’ve been punched in the gut.