"Server Room Seven is this way." Sarah led them through hallways she knew by heart. The maintenance keycard worked on the server room door too.
Inside, the temperature dropped fifteen degrees. Sarah was at the terminal immediately, fingers flying across the keyboard. No badge needed for internal access—she knew the system passwords and the backdoors IT never bothered to change.
"Downloading now," she said, inserting her flash drive.
The progress bar crawled forward. 23%. 31%. 42%. Every jump forward seemed to take an hour.
"Five minutes," Griff said from the door. "The janitor won't stay unconscious forever."
The routing logs were all here—account numbers, transaction IDs, a digital trail of corruption. But encrypted, coded. She'd need time to decode it all, but the raw data was transferring.
67%. 73%.
A new file appeared in the system—uploaded recently. Priority flagged. Sarah clicked it while the main download continued.
She gasped.
“What?” Griff was behind her in an instant.
She tapped the screen. "A whole series of payments scheduled for next week. All with the designation CS—Charleston Summit."
She kept scrolling, her horror growing. Then at the bottom, added three days ago: "SW-Priority-Active."
"That's me," she whispered. "Sarah Winters. They put a price on my head three days ago."
"Download it all," Griff ordered.
"Already on it." The progress bar hit 87%.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway. Not the casual pace of a guard's rounds—these were moving with purpose.
"Company," Griff said. "How much longer?"
"Thirty seconds." 92%. 94%.
The footsteps stopped right outside their door. The handle rattled.
Griff sprinted for the door on silent feet, weapon in hand. He put a finger to his lips.
She nodded, fisting her hands in frustration.
96%. 98%.
A radio crackled through the door: "Control, this is Morrison. Checking Server Seven. That maintenance guy and the drunk lady never came back out."
100%.
She yanked the flash drive free, shoving it deep in her pocket. The door handle turned.
"Window," Griff hissed.
Sarah looked at the narrow window, barely wide enough for a person. "That's a twenty-foot drop?—"
The door burst open. The guard—Morrison—had his hand on his weapon. His eyes widened seeing them.
"Don't—" he started.
Griff moved faster than Sarah's eyes could track. The guard crumpled, unconscious before he hit the ground.
