Page 27 of Rescuing Ally: Part 2

“Of course, it’s a trap,” Gabe says, the words sharp enough to cut. “But we’re still going in.”

No one argues. Not even the team leaders whose women weren’t taken. They understand the unwritten code—any one of us would do the same for any one of them.

“The electronic malfunctions I’ve been tracking,” Mitzy looks up from her station. “They’ve accelerated since the abduction. Three more satellite uplinks went down this morning. Six communications systems in the east wing are experiencing packet loss. Something systematic is happening.”

“Sabotage, obviously.” CJ leans against the far wall. “Physical tampering with equipment.”

“We’ve checked,” Mitzy counters. “There’s no evidence of manual interference. No unauthorized access to secure areas where the equipment is housed.”

“What about software?” Walt’s voice is rougher than usual. Malia’s absence weighs on him, visible in the tightness around his eyes. “Could someone have introduced a virus into our systems?”

Mitzy shakes her head. “That was my first thought. I’ve run every diagnostic, every security protocol. Nothing. Whatever’s causing this doesn’t follow conventional attack vectors.”

“We’re missing something.” The room quiets at my words. “We need to reconsider our approach.”

Doc Summers steps forward. She’s been examining the survivors of the attack—Sophia, Violet, and the children. Her medical scrubs are rumpled, her usually perfect appearance showing signs of the same strain we’re all under.

“I may have a perspective on this.” Her voice carries that precise clinical tone that commands attention. “Have you considered it might be a virus?”

Mitzy snorts softly. “Of course. First thing I ruled out. Ally’s USB drive is clean. So is her laptop. No malware signatures, no unauthorized data packets. I ran every scan I have, even created a sandbox environment to test replication. Nothing.”

“I don’t mean a computer virus.” Skye folds her arms across her chest. “In medicine, when we track outbreaks, we always start with one question. Who got sick first? We call it ‘Patient Zero.’ Sometimes, symptoms don’t make sense at first and don’t fit expected patterns. But there’s always a source.”

Mitzy frowns. “You think this is a biological agent?”

“No,” Skye says slowly, “I’m saying maybe you’re looking at the wrong kind of infection. Viruses don’t always spread through code or networks. What if something else is propagating through the system? Not malware—but something new? A kind of exposure.”

Mitzy stills. Fingers hovering over the keyboard. “You want me to find the—equipmentzero?”

“Trace it back,” Skye nods. “Figure out the very first system that glitched. What failed first? What changed around that time?”

Silence settles for a beat. Tense. Heavy with implication.

Then Mitzy mutters, “That’s actually—not a bad idea.”

Forest gestures. “Do it. Start building the timeline. Every incident. Every piece of tech. I want the entire history cross-referenced against personnel movement, new arrivals, and asset transfers.”

Gabe glances at me, then at Skye. “You think this started with Ally?”

“I don’t know how it started. Or, if it began with a person. The thing is, we have no idea. Something happened, and now we’re missing six women.” Skye’s expression is unreadable. “I think it started somewhere. We won’t know until we find the thread.”

I process this, seeing the tactical application immediately. “You’re suggesting we treat the electronic malfunctions like a disease outbreak.”

“Exactly.” She nods, acknowledging my understanding. “If we track backward through the system failures, find which one happened first, then second, we might identify the source. The ‘patient zero’ of this electronic epidemic.”

Gabe shifts, his focus intense. Our gazes meet briefly across the room—silent communication honed through years of operations together, years of sharing women, sharing space, sharing life.

Now, sharing Ally.

The thought of her in Malfor’s hands burns cold in my chest. The same fire runs in Gabe’s eyes.

“So instead of looking at what’s failing,” he says, voice rougher than usual, “we look at the pattern of failure. The spread.”

“Precisely,” Doc Summers continues. “In disease outbreaks, we map infections—who infected whom, where the transmissions occurred, and the timeframe between cases. Thepattern tells us about the pathogen itself—its incubation period, transmission method, vulnerabilities.”

“Can the same approach work with technology?” Forest asks.

“It’s worth trying,” Mitzy interjects, already typing. “I’ve been focused on the failures themselves, looking for malicious code or hardware tampering. But if we map the chronology, the pattern of spread…”