Page 50 of The Honeymoon Hack

I forced myself to walk at a normal pace until I was out of sight, then moved faster. Claire had zeroed in on the lab detail from this morning—specific questions about dangerous materials and protocols. And she wouldn’t leave me alone after multiple hints.

I’d certainly known my share of people who didn’t understand social cues—Brie was one of those at times—but was that all it was?

When I opened our door, Brie was pacing the length of the room. Her movements were tight, controlled. The way she got when her brain was moving too fast for her body to keep up.

“Hey,” I said, closing the door behind me.

Her eyes were wide, urgent, and not in a way that had anything to do with us. Whatever I’d wanted to say about the kiss would have to wait.

“We need to talk about Claire,” she said, her voice low despite us being alone.

“What about her?”

“She’s—” Brie crossed to me, lowering her voice even more. “I went to the gaming room after my shift to try and probe for some information. I played Velocity Championship with some of The Bridge staff, and Claire joined us for a race.”

Wait. Claire knew I’d been looking for Brie. Why didn’t she tell me they’d been playing a video game together?

“After she left, everyone started talking about her. Will, she built the AI that monitors the Wi-Fi. The entire thing. From scratch.”

My mind stuttered.

“Apparently, it was her personal project, and management loved it so much they implemented it facility-wide.” Brie started pacing again. “But there’s more. During her second week working here—hersecond week—she tried to bypass the Hardware Security Modules.”

“She tried to hack the HSMs?” That was bad news. “Why would someone working here legitimately?—”

“Exactly.” Brie stopped pacing to look at me. “And instead of firing her for it, she still got white-level access faster than anyone in the facility’s history.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why give top-level access to someone who’s an obvious security threat?”

“I don’t know. But I’m still not done.” Brie resumed her pacing. “When she left the gaming room, she said she was going to hit her rack. That’s not how normal people talk.”

“No, it’s not.” The term wasn’t strange on its own, but with the rest of it? I sat on the bed. “She found me in the cafeteria and asked more questions about my time at Dalhousie. Very specific questions. I thought she was being nosy this morning, but when I ran into her just now…” I met Brie’s eyes. “It was like she was interrogating me.”

“She worked at the BumbleHive—the government’s intelligence hub.”

“She’s not really tech support, is she?” I said slowly. “She’s looking for something.”

“Or, she’s a spy.” Brie sat on her desk chair, leaning forward. “What if the government put her here? Not to steal data, but to monitor for exactly the kind of thing we’re doing.”

“Why hack the HSMs if she’s monitoring the site?”

“To spy on people, of course. That’s kind of why I wanted to get into the HSMs, so I could log in with other people’s credentials and snoop through the network. I’m only looking for Fenix, but with that kind of access, I could have looked at anyone’s logs, their personal data, whatever I wanted.”

I shook my head. “Which explains the surveillance AI. Maybe it’s got a back door, so she can access everything it’s sucking in?”

“Or it’s searching for more than people spilling Mnemis’s secrets,” Brie countered. “What if it’s also looking for other illegal activities, like espionage?”

I stood, moving to the window display, which was still off since last night. In it, I saw my reflection. Behind me, Brie perched on the edge of her chair. She’d been avoiding me all day. Now here we were, finally talking, and it was about Claire instead of what happened on that beach.

Focus. Claire first. The rest later.

“Okay, but if she’s working for the government, why interrogate me? Why not report me and let official channels handle it?”

“Maybe she’s not sure yet. Or she needs more evidence before she can act. Or…” She trailed off, chewing her bottom lip.

I turned back to face her again. “Or what?”

“Or she’s not government at all, and I’m wrong.” Brie folded one leg under herself. “I mean, why tell people you worked at the BumbleHive if you’re trying to sneak around? Maybe she’s here for corporate espionage or to sell secrets. Maybe she’s just read one too many spy thrillers, and she’splayingsecret agent.”