Page 106 of Hacking His Code

“Do you know how to find her?”

“No, but I have some ideas, and someone who could help.”

“Then you need to get them here, right now.”

Father pulls out his phone, dials a number, and says into the receiver, “Black Tech has been compromised. I’m going into the tank. Await instructions.”

Hunter

Gabriel,Remi, and I follow my father to an elevator I didn’t even know existed. He triggers it with a handprint and a retinal scan, and after a green light flickers, the doors open.

After we are inside, Father says, “I really am sorry about this.”

“I don’t care much for apologies,” I reply. “I want this to be made right.”

“Understood.”

“What if Lucy has already—”

“Your aunt isn’t the one keeping her.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Father’s eyes grow dark. “You’ll find that soon, though I’m not sure if you’re going to like what you learn. Right now, we need to focus on getting Ari back.”

The door slides open, revealing a long hallway. My father leads us down a maze of tunnels, eventually opening into a room filled with workstations and computer monitors.

“These terminals contain all of our covert ops, the programs you only found remnants of. Not even the government knows we still have copies in their base form.”

It’s an impressive setup, and by the looks of it, it hasn’t been touched in years.

“So this is what Ari was taken for…what Aunt Lucy may have gone missing over…”

“We were contracted to work on military systems and platforms, but also some standardization of necessary industries. Banking, for example. They didn’t want the name of who worked on the banking platform to get out, lest they know who to torture for information.”

“Is it what Aunt Lucy was working on.”

“Yes.”

“And ScryptX?”

“Is the base program banks use today. Earlier this year, it was announced that they will be going through a complete system overhaul, swapping out every component of ScryptX for some new design.”

“Which means that whatever access could be granted with system knowledge of ScryptX will no longer work,” Gabriel cuts in.

“Exactly. Whoever took Ari knew we had it all along, but I suppose they may have forgotten about it until the announcement was made. This is their Hail Mary pass, if you will.”

I run my fingers through my hair, trying to make sense of everything. “If they gain access to ScryptX, it could get messy.”

“They could be King Makers,” Father says. “They could bring about the financial collapse of sixty-percent of global banking, though I doubt that’s their end game. They’re probably looking to take as much as possible and screw over a few competitors without triggering a meltdown.”

“And you’re sure it’s not Aunt Lucy?”

Father exhales, a reticent look on his face. “She’s dead, but I’d rather not get into that now.”

It takes me a moment to fully process what my father just told me, and when it finally clicks, I decide it’s not worth discussing. Yet.

“We have to save Ari,” I insist.