Page 5 of Tech Prince Troubles (Runaway Prince Hotel #6)

Chapter Five

ADRI

puzzles are meant to be solved

I t had been hours since my Sam-made espresso—I remembered to check his name tag—but I could still recall the rich flavor as it traveled through my system, along with the memory of its maker, with his warm grin and the twinkle in his eyes.

Short, broad-shouldered, and sun-kissed, he looked built for a grounded balance.

His love for making coffee shone in the way he treated the machines with the same respect and kindness he showed his colleagues, and that instinctive—aborted—urge to inhale the scent of espresso before handing it over.

I stayed longer than needed, but it was compelling to watch him work, as if nothing could derail him.

And I was definitely going back for more…

tomorrow. One espresso a day was more than enough for my system to handle.

It would be impolite to claim that corner booth for a quick top-up on energy and not order anything.

Unnecessary, too, as the past few hours of exploring the hotel had taught me—Layla’s suggestion, as I wouldn’t be meeting the IT team until tonight.

There were plenty of sockets in the hotel’s common spaces.

Yesterday, Layla had sent me blueprints and a work log after showing me to my room and telling me to take the day to rest from my journey.

Humans often overestimated our rest cycle and assumed we slept like they did.

Still, the bus ride had been a long one, so I spent most of the day sitting on the small balcony, drawing various birds on my low-tech digital sketch pad.

One I had designed myself—after much trial and error.

The final result was light but sturdy, and the canvas texture felt wonderful beneath my fingertips.

My family pinged me several times, but the reroutes and auto-responses I’d set up should satisfy them… for now.

I also studied the blueprints. The Renversé Hotel had two wings, connected to the main building by a spacious hall housing the stairs and elevators.

My room was just off the hall. It overlooked a path and a narrow brook with some tall trees that hid the buildings on the other side from view.

To the left was the plaza, and if I stood at the edge of the balcony, I could see the café’s patio.

So far, I’d done a quick walkthrough of the main building of the hotel to scan for issues, but aside from some slow pockets, the energy flowed smoothly. The east wing had the same feeling—until I reached the end of the corridor, and my systems threw up alerts. I froze.

Massive wrought-iron gates loomed before me.

To the side, brass, old-fashioned elevator buttons jutted from the wall.

The power coming off it was wrong. Powerful.

Disrupted. Shielded. I itched to put my hands against the iron and…

fix it, but something stopped me. Something pushed back, pushed me away.

I couldn’t get a grip on it. The only thing I was certain of was that it wasn’t connected to the hotel’s system.

I colored the whole thing red on the blueprints and made a note to ask Layla what that was about.

It proved hard to ignore that elevator as I stepped out on the top floor in the west wing—the wing under construction.

Its disruptive energy kept luring me back.

Leaning against the wall, I closed my eyes and pushed it behind a temporary shield to stop it from interfering as I worked.

The familiarity of the Niren technology—more present in this wing than anywhere else in the hotel—grounded me.

The entire wing exuded a vibrant and welcoming atmosphere, despite its hampered and sluggish energy flow and unfinished state.

It felt like a different hotel altogether.

I slowed my pace and performed extra spot checks, but the origin of the power fluctuations wasn’t on this floor.

I scanned floor after floor, but I’d never encountered such an inconsistent mess of energy flow—not even on the finished floors.

The problems became more serious on the lower four levels, where glitches jittered my system every few doors.

I marked every problem on the blueprints—color-coded with estimated repair times.

As the temporary shield fizzled out, I found myself back in the east wing, staring at the peculiar elevator on the first floor. The puzzle of its wrongness, the itch to fix it, crawled through my system when a voice interrupted my thoughts.

“There you are.”

Layla. I cursed. Too late now to take a break and sit on my balcony. It was time to meet the IT team.

She studied my face as I turned and shook her head. “Whatever it is you’re thinking, forget it. This elevator is off-limits to you. It’s not connected to our system.”

Easier said than done. How could I leave a puzzle like this be?

But I nodded and followed her back to the lobby.

We passed the ballroom, a large under construction poster taped to the elegant double doors.

This was where the Masquerade Ball would be held.

I couldn’t resist a quick touch and smiled as the same vibrant and welcoming feeling flooded my system.

Though I already knew where the IT team was located, I let Layla lead me along corridor after corridor until we reached a door labeled Tech Hub .

But before she knocked, she said, “I have to warn you that Rick is absolutely overjoyed to have a Niren on his staff. His interest is strictly work-related, but he might try to hug you.”

Rick. He/him. I stored his pronouns with his name. “Does he scream?”

“You don’t like noise much, do you?”

I took a breath. “Not when it’s loud. No.” And humans were so loud.

“I’d suggest earplugs. But I assume you’re ahead of me on this one.”

“My noise filter adapts. So, yes.”

“Good. Here we go.”

I braced myself when she opened the door, but all that greeted me were the soothing sounds of tech, old and new, working in harmony—no mess, no disruptions here.

A tall, solid human dressed in a tight-fitting shirt and worker’s jeans rose as we walked in.

That had to be Rick. His graying hair pointed in all directions, making him look wild as he grinned and spread his arms. Before I could protest, he lowered them and held out a hand instead.

“Welcome to the team. I’m Rick. He/him.”

He shook my hand with surprising gentleness.

“Adri. Also he/him.”

“Good to meet you, Adri. I can see Layla warned you, but don’t worry. My wife’s been teaching me what to look for before going full hug since the day we met. You don’t look like a hugger.”

Did he expect a reply? Perhaps he thought Niren didn’t hug at all? We did. Not as often as humans, since we communicated primarily through our energetic bond, but friends and family did hug. Strangers? Not so much.

But Rick turned and swept his arm wide. “This is our hub. ”

“And on that note, I’ll leave you to it.” Layla glanced at her watch. “I promised Sheena I’d be on time for dinner.”

I blinked at the door as it closed, then studied the room.

The IT nerve center. Their hub. Clean, bright, and humming with precious energy.

Twelve desks formed a tidy cluster in the center, each outfitted with high-end terminals.

Two large screens hung on one of the walls, brimming with information.

“Schematics on the right, project overview on the left,” Rick continued.

“Right now, we have two teams. One team handles help requests from guests, while Riley and I run the renovation side of things. We have a crew of part-time hires helping with that, and we liaise with the local construction company—Fred and Ted Renovations. All the info, personnel, schedules, to-do lists, and reported issues are linked in the project overview.”

I studied both. The schematics showed some of the issues I’d come across, but not all. “Do you have somewhere I can connect to the system?”

Rick blinked and pointed at the last desk to my left. “That’s your desk for the time being. Password on the sticky note. Username IT in capitals. Capital A lowercase dri001.”

“Thank you.” I sat and logged in, storing the login info in my vault.

They ran the newest update, which saved me a lot of time getting the server to allow me to link to it.

I could have used the backdoor, but I preferred to use those in emergencies.

This wasn’t one. Less than a minute later, I added my findings as an overlay to the schematics.

“Jeez. I planned a quick tour and scan for tonight. Looks like we won’t need that. Good work.”

“Should I have waited?” I checked his face, but he was still smiling as I joined him.

“Nope. It’s all good. Not a great look, these faults and bottlenecks.” He pointed at the screen. “We’ve tried to fix the fault on the first floor a few times, but the connection keeps breaking up. And the bottleneck you found on the third floor wasn’t there when Riley was up there last.”

“I can run a deeper scan on that first one, if you want?”

“Might be a good idea. I’d love to join you, but we’ll have to wait for Jim. He’s running the help desk tonight and should be in soon. Riley’s in the ballroom for the next hour, and someone needs to man the hub at all times.”

So, Jim was a he, too. I filed it away. “What are Riley’s pronouns?” I had to work with these humans; I didn’t want to make a mistake.

“She/her. She’s young still, but very talented.” There was pride in his voice. “If she decides to stay on, I can happily retire in a few years. Have you seen the ballroom yet?”

I shook my head. “Layla caught me staring at the old elevator.”

“Ah. Yes. I saw the red marks. Mysterious thing, right? Gives me the shivers. Some previous owner connected it to its own power source, so it’s not ours to worry about.”

That only made it more interesting. Frustrating, too, considering it was off-limits. Puzzles were meant to be solved.

The door opened, and a slender young human walked in.

His short sandy hair was a spiked mess, but his tight jeans and Renversé Hotel shirt were crisp and wrinkle-free.

He moved as if he belonged as he rounded the desks, eyes fixed on the floor, and sat across from the desk Rick had designated as mine.

Rick snorted and shook his head. “Have a good shift, Jim. I’m taking the newbie to the first floor.”

Jim swiveled in his chair, stilling when he spotted me. His eyes widened for a second, then he blinked and turned to Rick. “‘Newbie’?” he repeated with a tremor in his voice.

“Yes. This is Adri. He’s from Niralen. Layla hired him for the renovation. ”

“Hi-i.” He raised a hand in a loose greeting, but his eyes stayed on Rick.

His foot tapping the floor betrayed unrest, even from across the room. As if I made him nervous. “Hi,” I echoed, but he had already swiveled his chair back.

“Don’t mind him. He’s great with the guests, but otherwise keeps to himself.”

He’d looked at me as if I were a glitch he didn’t have time for, instead of a fellow staff member.

Rick opened a cupboard and grabbed two cases from it. He put one on the nearest desk and opened it. “This is our standard tool set. If you need anything that’s not in there, let me know.”

The contents of the set impressed me and resembled no human standard set I’d seen before. It contained an extensive variety of tools, including a tray of highly specialized ones and a built-in tablet case. “No. This is… more than I expected.”

“Thanks. That means a lot. Usually, I’d assign you a tablet, too, but… you probably don’t need one, do you?”

“All I need is full access to the server.”

“How do we contact you?”

That was easy. I added my info to the project overview.

Rick’s watch pinged. “Okay then. Let’s see what’s happening on the top floor.”