Page 34

Ziva

In the end, we agreed that Arden should attempt the hack today. The decision sits like a stone in my stomach, cold and unforgiving. We’re betting everything on her skill, on a maybe.

Myall still hasn’t been interviewed by Regent Colvin, and I can’t decide whether that’s a sign of relief or the calm before disaster strikes. I wonder what’s going through his mind—if he even knows what comes next, for him or for us.

At the end of our shifts, we gather back at the lab as usual. The hum of machinery vibrates through the concrete walls, a low, constant pulse that seems to sync with the quickening beat of my heart.

Myall takes the lead, his green eyes scanning each of us with a calm intensity. He raises a hand, cutting off Arden before she can make one of her trademark quips.

“You all remember the plan,” Myall says, his voice low and measured. “But let’s run through it one more time. We can’t afford any mistakes.”

Marcus crosses his arms, his serious expression even more pronounced in the flickering light. “We went over it a dozen times last night. We’re ready.”

“Humor me,” Myall replies, not missing a beat. He turns to Arden, who is already fidgeting with a portable terminal. “Arden, you’re the key here. You need to follow each step exactly as we laid out. One wrong move, and they’ll trace us in a heartbeat.”

Arden rolls her eyes but nods. “I got this.”

Myall and Arden exchange a glance that speaks volumes. The tension between them is a thread I can feel, stretching tight in the air, pulling at something inside me. It gnaws at me like hunger—intense and unrelenting.

What is it between them? And why does it make my stomach twist? Is it just the tension of this task, or is something else stirring inside me, something I’m not ready to face yet?

“First,” Myall continues, ignoring Arden’s last jab, “we spoof the access codes. That buys us a ten-minute window where their system thinks we’re one of them. Ziva, you’ll monitor the feeds and alert us if anything looks off.”

I nod, though my thoughts are miles away. What if this is the moment everything changes? What if we actually pull this off? The rebellion, our future—my feelings for Myall—all hang in the balance.

“Marcus,” Myall says, “you’ll be on standby with the jammer. If they start to trace us, you knock out their signal. But only as a last resort—it’ll raise a red flag.”

“Understood,” Marcus replies, his tone as precise as the machinery he loves.

“And I’ll be—” Myall starts, but Arden cuts him off.

“You’ll be hovering like a worried mother hen. We know.”

Despite the tension, a small, crooked smile tugs at Myall’s lips. “I’ll be overseeing. Just remember, this isn’t a sprint. It’s a marathon.”

Arden shrugs. “I run fast marathons.”

Marcus sets up the equipment with the precision of a surgeon, his hands quick but deliberate. His expression is unreadable, every line of his face carved in concentration.

“That should do it,” he says, stepping back from the terminal. He wipes his hands on his pants, leaving smudges of grease on the fabric. “Arden, you’re up.”

Arden slides into the chair with a fluid motion, her fingers already tapping the keys in a rhythm I can barely follow.

The sharp clicks echo in the silence, a rapid-fire percussion against the backdrop of the lab’s low hum.

The glow of the screens flickers in her eyes, the sharp light cutting through the surrounding darkness.

She presses her lips together for a moment, something flickering in her eyes that almost betrays her usual bravado. But in an instant, her familiar smirk is back, and the vulnerability vanishes.

“How long will this take?” I ask, not because I need to know the answer but because the tension is crushing me.

“Depends on how good their new security is,” Marcus says. He crosses his arms and leans against a metal table, his eyes never leaving the screens. “Could be a few minutes. Could be longer.”

“Ready?” Myall asks as we take our positions. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest, each beat a countdown to something I can’t fully predict.

Arden’s fingers hover over the terminal. “You bet.”

“Go.”

The first few seconds stretch into an eternity. Arden’s hands move with the grace of a conductor, each keystroke a note in a dangerous symphony. I watch the screens, my eyes darting from feed to feed, looking for any sign that we’ve been detected. So far, everything is as it should be.

“Already past the first firewall,” Arden announces, a triumphant note in her voice. “I’m in the outer shell. Just need to crack the core.”

I can’t help but admire her. Everything she does is with such confidence, such reckless assurance. I wonder what it’s like to be so sure of yourself, to dive headfirst into danger without hesitating.

“Access codes spoofed,” Arden announces. “We’re in.”

A collective breath is held. Myall’s voice sounds from across the room, softer now, almost tender. “Good. Now, Arden, start the data pull. Slowly. ”

My gaze flickers to Myall across the room, caught by something in the softness of his voice. I force myself to look away, focusing back on the screens, the moment lost before I can understand it.

One screen shows a schematic of The Authority’s network; another displays lines of code streaming past like digital rain. The rest are security feeds from various locations around the city that Arden set up. All seem quiet, too quiet.

“Something’s wrong,” I say, my fingers tapping nervously against the console. “It’s too easy.”

“Paranoid much?” Arden mutters, but even she sounds uneasy.

“Ziva has a point,” Marcus says. “They should have tighter protocols.”

“Just keep going,” Myall instructs. “We’re committed now.”

The next few minutes blur by, broken only by Arden’s occasional status updates. My mind races through a thousand scenarios—getting caught, escaping, the future we’re trying to build. And always, the question of what Myall and I are to each other—friends, comrades, something more—hangs over me.

“Data’s almost done,” Arden says. “Another thirty seconds.”

The screens flash red, the sharp sound of the alarm screeching through the lab like a knife through the silence.

My pulse spikes, thundering in my ears, and my breath feels too shallow, too fast. Arden swears under her breath, her fingers dancing over the keys with renewed urgency, but her hands shake, betraying her composure.

Every second stretches into an eternity as the countdown begins in my mind.

“Shit,” Marcus says. “Did they trace us?”

“Not yet,” Arden says. “It’s a trapdoor. I can disarm it, but I need time.”

Time is the one thing we don’t have. I see it before I hear it—a red flash on one of the security feeds I’m monitoring, then another. My heart skips a beat. “Guys, we’ve got company. Patrol drones, two blocks away and closing fast.”

“Shit.” Marcus reaches for the jammer.

“Not yet!” Myall barks. “Arden, hurry.”

“I’m not baking a fucking cake here,” she snaps, not taking her eyes off the screens. “It takes as long as it takes.”

I switch my focus between the feeds and the group.

Marcus is tense, ready to act with his hand hovering over the button on the jamming device.

Arden is laser-focused on the screens before her, her usual flippancy replaced with grim determination.

Myall looks… conflicted as he monitors the window.

This was his call, his gamble, and he knows what’s at stake for all of us.

“Ten seconds,” Arden says.

The drones are almost here. Their whine cuts through the walls, a mechanical whir that chills me to the bone. My fists clench, breath shallow—just a few more seconds, please.

“Five…four…three… two…one. Got it!”

“Kill the link!” Myall shouts as he ducks below the window and out of sight from the patrol drones passing by the building.

Marcus slams a hand down on the jammer, and the screens go dark. We’re plunged into an eerie silence, broken only by the fading whine of the drones outside as they move past our building.

We freeze. An eternity passes before Myall exhales slowly. “I think we’re safe.”

Relief floods me, but it’s tinged with dread. We have the data, but at what cost? We came too close. What if the patrol drones are able to re-triangulate our location?

Arden stands and stretches, a victorious grin spreading across her face. “Told you I run fast.”

Marcus places the jamming device on the table, his usual stern demeanor momentarily softened. “Nice work, though I don’t think my heart could take any more close calls like that.”

I look to Myall across the lab, who meets my gaze with an intensity that makes me want to look away—and not.

“This is just the beginning,” he says, but I wonder if he’s talking about the rebellion or something more personal.

I move closer to Arden, the screens casting a blue glow over both our faces. Myall and Marcus move to hover nearby.

“Ready for the next part?” I ask.

Arden cracks her knuckles. “Born ready.”

I plug in the data chip and Arden’s fingers dance over the keyboard once more. Lines of code scroll past, a blur of green on black. I can almost hear her mind working with every keystroke, a symphony of hacking brilliance.

“First layer down,” she says, not even pausing to take a breath. “Your turn.”

I take the keyboard and run the program I wrote last night. It’s a brute-force decryptor, something I swore I’d never create. Just having it on my data chip is enough to get me killed. The progress bar inches forward, and I feel my pulse sync with its slow, agonizing crawl.

“How long?” Arden asks. Her impatience makes me smile—she’s always in such a rush.

“Another minute,” I say, hoping it’s true. “Maybe two.”

She leans back and stretches, her shirt riding up to reveal a sliver of toned stomach.

The progress bar hits 100%, and a new screen pops up. Encrypted files, dozens of them. I click one at random, and a wall of gibberish text fills the screen.

“Shit,” I say. “They’re double-encrypted.”