Aida pulled it out of her bag and dutifully logged in when Yumi asked her to.
“Wait, can you hack into it from that laptop?”
Yumi shrugged. “I’m not sure. In theory, it’s possible. But I suspect you don’t have access to the database itself.”
Aida sipped at her spritz and scanned the crowd while Yumi fiddled with her laptop. Finally, her friend grunted in frustration.
“It’s as I suspected. You can send commands to the database and input data, but it doesn’t allow you to directly view or access the stored data. That’s in case any of you Collectors get grand ideas. This device is mostly useless to us.” She grabbed her phone and began to type into it, looking up periodically at the laptop screen.
“Mostly?”
She grinned. “I have all the network access I need now. It’s interesting—aside from your one-way connection, the rest of your laptop is rather sloppily set up. That bodes well for us, and hopefully the rest of their systems are managed so haphazardly.”She handed the laptop back. “Okay, can you leave your personal laptop with me overnight?”
Aida swapped the MODA laptop with her personal one. “So, I still have to find my way into Trista’s office?”
“Unfortunately. Meet me here tomorrow at the same time, and I’ll bring you your laptop. You’ll need it when you break in.” She picked up her drink. “In the meantime, I propose a toast.”
Aida squinted at her but raised her glass.
“To making our ownMission: Impossiblemovie!” She clinked the wineglass to Aida’s.
Aida rolled her eyes. “Yumi, we don’t want this to be impossible!”
“It won’t be. Trust me.”
Thirty hours later, with her heart pounding and her messenger bag slung over her shoulder, Aida cracked open the door from her office to Trista’s and slipped in, using only the dim light from her phone to guide her through the dark room. That morning at breakfast, she had told Pippa to go ahead and spike Trista’s tea. After waiting an hour past the designated time, she made a brief reconnaissance walk through the palazzo, ready to feign sleeplessness if anyone stopped her. She walked by just as the light under Trista’s bedroom door went out, signaling the coast was clear.
She settled into the desk chair, grateful for the lights from the garden that filtered into the room. She then set up her personal laptop, equipped with a network spoofing program Yumi had installed. This program was designed to mask her device as authorized on the network. Yumi had explained that, under normal conditions, an unexpected device might trigger alerts, but given the generally lax security measures they’d observed, she was hopeful the system administrators would overlook any minor discrepancies.
Aida logged on to the network, her fingers crossed that Yumi’ssetup would prevent her from standing out. She located Trista’s computer on the network and set up a secure connection to Yumi for backup. Each second felt like an eternity as she waited, her anxiety mounting at the thought of Trista deciding to return and catching her in the act. But finally, she received a text from Yumi saying that her friend had figured out the password.
Aida held her breath as she attempted to log on to Trista’s computer. When it failed the first time, she almost aborted the whole project, but then, she reasoned, she often put in her own computer password wrong, so she tried again. She closed her eyes, wishing for the password to work, and when she opened them, she was rewarded with the familiar MODA logo on a stark red background, along with an array of desktop icons.
Aida followed the rest of Yumi’s instructions to establish a VPN connection between the two computers and allow remote access. A few keystrokes on the keyboard later, she was nervously watching a transfer of the data, the progress bar slowly inching forward.
When it reached the halfway point, there was a squeak of footsteps in the marble hallway. Aida tilted the covers of both laptops downward to minimize the light. She had a light scarf around her neck and hastily pulled it off to further dampen the light. The footsteps grew closer. Aida froze. She was afraid to even breathe. She didn’t know what she would do if Trista suddenly opened the door.
If anyone opened the door.
At least it’s not a god, she rationalized. Sophie’s spell had not activated any sort of calm within her. The footsteps stopped somewhere outside the door, and for a moment, there was silence.
Aida took a thin breath and began counting, a method a past meditation teacher had once taught her to manage stress. On the count of eight, the sound of the footsteps started again, then faded away, and Aida let out a sigh of relief. It must have been the security guard.
Finally, the transfer completed. Aida opened Signal on her personal laptop and sent Yumi a message.Are you in?
There was a long anxious pause before Yumi responded.I’m in. Give me five or ten.
Hurry. Someone is wandering around out in the halls.
Her friend sent her a thumbs-up.
Aida stared at the screens, wondering what Yumi might possibly find. After a few long minutes, a message popped up on Signal. It wasn’t Yumi. It was Luciano.
Tutto va bene?
They had briefly video-chatted that morning and even through the small screens it had been evident Luciano was more than a little nervous about her plan to break into Trista’s laptop.
Everything’s all right. Waiting for Yumi right now. Will update you on the successful mission later.
