12. Fighting Back #2
“They want us frightened,” she says. “They want us looking over our shoulders until we stop moving forward.”
“I am frightened.”
“I know.”
The admission hangs between us.
I’ve faced armed men without hesitation. Walked into rooms knowing someone on the other side wanted me dead. None of it compares to seeing Jan shoved toward that chute while gunfire tore through the corridor behind us.
“I can handle them coming after me.”
“I know.”
“I can’t handle them coming after you.”
“You don’t get to decide which risks I take.”
“I know that too.”
Her thumb brushes once across my skin.
“I’m not leaving you to fight this alone, Steve.”
“I’d never ask you to.”
“You would if you thought it would keep me safe.”
She’s right. She usually is.
I pull her against me and hold her tightly, one hand at the back of her head, the other around her waist.
She wraps both arms around me.
For a few seconds, the plans, the threats, and the war waiting beyond these walls disappear.
There’s only Jan. Alive. Here.
Mine to love, never mine to control.
“We’re going to beat them,” she says against my shoulder.
I close my eyes.
“We’d better.”
Her arms tighten.
“We will.”
The New Mexico safe house, west of Las Cruces, New Mexico. 1145 hours.
Liberty and Cole join us in the main room a few minutes later. Cole carries in a plate of sandwiches and sets it in the middle of the table.
“Eat,” he says.
Jan reaches over and chooses one before settling into the chair beside me.
Jax and Angus move in immediately, each taking two sandwiches before anyone else. Liberty waits until they’re finished, then reaches for hers with an amused shake of her head.
My secure phone rings.
Victor. Again. I answer and put him on speaker.
“We need everyone back on the call,” he says. “Felicity has something.”
I look around the room.
“Give us a minute.”
Liberty wakes the larger screen. Jan reconnects the secure system, and the windows begin appearing again.
Victor fills the center from Blackstone Ventures HQ. Felicity and G join beside him, with Riley and Elena appearing in another window. Shane and Verity reconnect from MacLeod’s Summit. Daniel sits at the table with Serenity.
Felicity shares a proposed mock-up of a phone screen. A simple white beacon sits against a dark background.
“Beacon,” she says. “A private HAVEN application, completely separate from Danger.”
Elena leans closer to her camera.
“Danger is public. Beacon would only be available through direct invitation, with separate authentication for every device.”
“It wouldn’t constantly report where people are,” Riley adds. “That would be intrusive and create more information than anyone could safely manage.”
G replaces the image with a diagram showing check-ins, travel windows, and emergency alerts.
“Beacon works on exceptions,” he says. “A missed check-in. An SOS. A phone going offline during an active operation. Someone leaving an approved route. A protected person failing to reach a safe house when expected.”
“Participation stays voluntary,” Jan says.
“Completely,” Riley confirms.
“But during an operation?” I ask.
Felicity meets my gaze through the screen.
“During an operation, Beacon could be the difference between finding someone in five minutes or five hours.”
“Then anyone entering an active operation uses it,” I say. “They still choose whether to take the assignment, but once they’re in, we need to know when something goes wrong.”
Cole nods. Liberty does too.
No one objects.
Elena brings up the emergency interface.
One button sends an SOS. Another confirms the user is safe. A third opens directions to the nearest approved location without exposing the full safe house network.
“Medical profiles can be stored locally,” Riley says. “Blood type, allergies, medication, emergency contacts. The user controls what’s included.”
“And if someone takes the phone?” Jax asks.
“Remote wipe,” G says. “Beacon can also destroy its own access keys after repeated failed authentication.”
Felicity switches to a monitoring dashboard.
“No maps full of blinking dots,” she says. “No one watching where people go all day. Green means no action required. Amber means Beacon is verifying an exception. Red means someone needs help.”
Jan studies the display.
“Add a child setting.”
Riley nods immediately.
“Pets too,” Liberty says.
Angus turns his head.
“You’re joking.”
“I’m not leaving someone’s dog behind because nobody planned for it.”
“Agreed,” Jan says. “I wouldn’t leave Slinky behind.”
At the sound of his name, Slinky pokes his head out from inside her jacket.
Jan thinks he’s recovered about ninety percent from the flashbang. I’m not convinced. He still misses sounds he would have caught before, and once we’re home and he’s seen a vet, we’ll need to test how reliably he responds to whistle commands before we let him work as usual again.
“Add it,” Victor says.
The conversation keeps moving.
Daniel raises consent records and legal protections. Shane suggests safeguards against subpoenas and corrupt officials. Verity wants GPS spoofing detection. Cole asks whether Beacon can recognize when a vehicle leaves an approved route even if the phone remains active.
“It can,” Felicity says. “And I can tie it into the threat-monitoring system.”
“What threat-monitoring system?” Cole asks.
“The one tracking dark web mentions, spoofed domains, fake HAVEN sites, bounties, drone activity near protected locations, and repeated surveillance patterns.”
Liberty looks at the screen.
“You’ve been busy.”
“I don’t sleep much.”
Jan asks for family groups, medical reminders during evacuations, and confirmation that every emergency destination has the supplies listed earlier.
Liberty wants a discreet trigger that can be activated without opening the app.
Cole suggests escalating missed check-ins through designated contacts before alerting the entire team.
Felicity records every addition. No one is scrambling now. We’re building.
Not only better defenses for the next attack, but a system designed to protect every person who has chosen to stand with us.
Victor looks across the screens.
“Anything else?”
I study the people around the table and the faces filling the display.
My team.
Soldiers, hackers, doctors, lawyers, investigators, intelligence specialists, creators, survivors.
People who should never have fit together.
Somehow, they do.
Most effectively.