Page 7 of Collin, Episodes 13-15 (The Residency Boys #5)

Ash joined in, repeating the same phrase.

It was awkward, only having so many set phrases at their disposal.

It led to a lot of repeating and no finesse of language, but there was also something pleasant about the bluntness of communication with limited, basic words.

Thank you, Teacher. See you Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, etcetera led to simplicity and rawness not found in his other communication.

Zhou Laoshi smiled one more time and made her way out of the room.

Collin closed his bag. “Do you want to come with?”

“To?” Ash frowned. He picked up his box of buttons. There were only five new ones today.

“Indianapolis.”

“Oh.” Ash hopped from one foot to the other. “I don’t know. Am I allowed?”

“You put in like eighty hours a week, dude. I’m sure you have time off. What are you working on right now?”

“Nothing. I did all the updates. And Paulsen doesn’t need anything out of me right now.

He told me to be good.” Ash huffed. “I’m always good.

All I’m doing is monitoring your laptop.

It’s not always on, but next time it’s plugged in, I have a program running to jump onto the local network.

Still trying to find out where they are. ”

“Can you do that from a phone and a laptop?”

Ash nodded.

“Then come with. I’m just walking around and talking to people.”

Ash scrunched up his nose. “People.”

“Come on, you like people.” Collin threw an arm around Ash’s shoulders. “Think about how much you like Ms. Linda, Ellisandre, Damian, Carrie, Bruiski, Janice, Mr. Reevesworth. There’s a whole list of people you like.”

Ash pushed Collin off, giving him the stink eye. “You’re not people. Ellisandre is not people. You’re you.”

Collin laughed, pushing open the door to the conference room and holding it for Ash. “I’m wounded. Ash, since when did I lose my human…”

One hundred and forty pounds of flying girl hit Collin square in the chest, arms and legs locking around him. Collin fell back into the door.

“Oof!”

“Brother!”

“A—Alice?!”

She dropped her feet to the floor and danced back. “I took an earlier flight. And Mr. Reevesworth had some guy named Holden pick me up.”

Collin glanced behind her. Mr. Reevesworth stood at the end of the hall, hands in his pockets, smiling. He gave Collin a nod and walked away toward his office.

“You’re, like, super early. I didn’t think you got here till eleven.”

“I know. I had to wake up so early for my flight it wasn’t even today!” She bounced up and down and turned, taking in Ash. “Is this the techno mage guy? You said he has red hair.”

“Ash, this is Alice. Alice, this is Ash. Yes, he’s the techno mage.”

“Hi, I’m Alice.” Alice stuck her hand out.

Ash held out the box of buttons. His brain had obviously departed for regions unknown.

Alice peered into the box. “Oh, you have those dog training things. Where’s the dogs?”

“It’s us.” Collin pointed between him and Ash. “We’re the dogs.”

Alice poked one of the buttons. “Yóujiàn,” spurted out of the little speaker.

“What’s ‘you jan’ mean?”

“Mandarin for email,” Collin replied.

Ash seemed to have lost all ability to speak.

He was staring at Alice like she was something from a fantasy world.

Which, in all fairness, she kind of looked like right then.

Somehow in the last week, she’d dyed her hair a brilliant blue to fuchsia ombre, and she was wearing a blue skater skirt and suspenders with oversized butterfly buttons over a chunky pink crop-top sweater.

Giant gold bangles bounced from both ears, and she had on sparkly purple combat boots with ice-pink tights.

“Please tell me you brought a coat,” Collin begged.

She giggled. “Of course, I brought a coat. Remember? We do sometimes have cold in California. I left it with Carrie at the front desk. So, Ash, can I see your dungeon?”

Ash colored to nearly the same shade as his hair. “Five minutes. Five minutes!” He ran past Collin, clutching the box of buttons.

“Is he always that way?” Alice stared after him.

“He’s shy. Give him time. Usually he’d growl, so the fact he said to give him five minutes is a good thing.”

Alice tapped her finger to her bottom lip. “Maybe I should have brought a bribe or a treat. Boys are like puppies. They need treats, cuddles, and clear boundaries to feel safe.”

Collin looked down at his little sister with both eyebrows raised.

She slapped him gently on the arm. “Don’t look at me like that. I learned most of it from you.”

“I am one hundred percent sure I have never said those phrases in relation to boys in my life.”

“No, but you like to know what you’re supposed to do, you need treats, and you like cuddles.”

Collin covered his face in one hand. “Why did I think it was a good idea to have you here?”

“Because you love me.” She threw her arms around him again and squeezed.

He hugged her back. “I’m supposed to leave for Indianapolis on a work thing in, like, twenty minutes. I didn’t know you were coming.”

“Can I come with? Then I could see two new cities!” She bounced up and down.

How she could be that light on her feet in steel-studded shoes?

“I already asked Ash to come with, so it wouldn’t be just the two of us, and I have security.”

“Cool. Then I can play with Ash while you’re working. Unless he’s working, too?”

“Um…no, actually, I’m trying to get him to take a break. He works too much.”

Alice clapped her hands, “Perfect. Damian gave me spending money. I can buy Ash treats and tell him he’s a good boy.”

Collin stared down at her. “You’re terrifying, you know that? Ash is here because he’s such a dangerous hacker they almost sent him to federal prison. He could empty your bank account if he wanted to, I’m pretty sure.”

Alice grinned. “And you like him. You’ve talked about him every time we’ve had a conversation for the last four weeks. He’s your person. So, he’s going to be my person.”

She bounced away. “It’s been five minutes, right? Where’s the dungeon?”

“Techno dungeon; there’s a difference.” Collin hurried after her. “I know you know that.”

The drive was just a bit under four hours. Mr. Reevesworth had allocated an SUV for Collin, Alice, and Holden for security and one of Mr. Reevesworth’s regular drivers.

Alice tapped at the glass as they climbed inside the SUV in the underground parking lot of the office building. “Is this bulletproof?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Holden said from the front passenger seat. “All of Mr. Reevesworth’s current vehicles have bulletproofing.”

“That must be expensive.”

“It’s a good idea.” Ash opened up his laptop from his seat in the back.

Alice crawled out of her seat in the middle beside Collin and sat next to Ash. “What are you doing?”

“Seat belt, ma’am,” Holden said. “We can’t move unless you’re secured.”

“Oh.” Alice’s mouth made a perfect circle of surprise. She grabbed the middle seat belt and buckled in. “Good now.” She flashed Holden a thumbs-up and scooted in next to Ash.

“I’m checking to see if I have visuals on Dana. And…oh, they are plugged in. I’m in. Yes!”

“What does that mean?”

“That they plugged in Collin’s old laptop, well, the computer they used to hack his old laptop and that I have access to now. Come on, come on…”

“What are you doing?”

“Getting control of their local area network or at least trying to. We need to figure out where she is, and this connection is the best we have. Right now, we just know she’s somewhere in California. Or at least, we think she is.”

“Is that her?” Alice pointed to the screen.

“Yes.” Ash bit his cheek, hands flying over his keyboard. He grabbed his phone. “Call Paulsen.”

Five minutes later, Ash cussed and shut his laptop. “They disconnected. I wasn’t finished.”

“What does that mean?” Alice pushed her hands under her legs, but her knee was bouncing.

Ash rubbed his face. “That I didn’t have enough time to break in and leave something behind that would let me trace their location. I might be able to narrow it down now, and I saved the visuals, but that’s all.

“Well, you could see a window, might that help?”

“Yeah.” Ash opened up the laptop again. “I’ll send it to Paulsen, see if he can get something out of it.”

“It’s not just on you.” Collin twisted around and patted Ash on the knee. “Damian and Eleanor are working the legal end to find her, too.”

“I know.” Ash still sounded defeated.

“Well, they might plug in again soon, and then you can keep going,” Alice said. “I think the fact you can do this at all is amazing. Lots of kids don’t have anyone trying for them like you are.”

Ash shot Alice a cautious look. “You think so?”

“I know so. So, tell me how you started hacking.”

“It’s not just hacking; it’s a lot more…never mind, um…at first I just wanted to know how things worked.” Ash bit his lip. “Do you really want to know?”

Alice grinned, showing teeth. “I asked, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, but sometimes people are just being polite.”

“Don’t worry, Ash,” Collin sighed. “Alice will shut you up if she wants to shut you up. How did you end up with computers? I don’t know either.”