“Good. Now give me one of your spare laptops—because I know you’ve got at least four, you nerd. We’re going to get this fucker.”
39
Wesley
How the 3 Musketeers got together
We don’t get much done for the rest of the night—despite Madison’s declaration, we quickly passed out on the couch, tangled in each other, exhausted by our emotions—but in the morning, Madison proves how foolish I’d been.
Working with her is seamless. I’m comforted by her quiet presence next to me—the only sounds are a periodic, thoughtful noise or puzzled muttering, and the soft clacking of her keyboard. I feel energized. More productive and focused because she’s here. Having her at my side, speaking the same language, being so entirely and completely understood and supported…
Working with her is a dream I don’t want to wake from.
“So you tried searching his alias, obviously. I think a top-down approach makes the most sense, given the breadth of the data, don’t you? Let’s start filtering things until we get a more manageable list. Age, physical location, background…”
It’s hard not to smile. “That’s what I’ve been working on. I’ll continue. You look into Fred.”
“Roger that,” she salutes me and gets to work. “I’m going to look for Todd, too, just in case. I don’t think he’s involved too deeply in this because he’s kind of an idiot, but you never know.”
It’s just before noon when Madison’s plan pans out.
The listening device we sent to SmarTech with Todd has been mostly relaying static and the muffled sounds of being carried around in a pocket. I’ve been able to hear voices, but the tones have always been of a polite greeting or casual conversation. Until now.
I lean forward, shut off my headphones and turn up the volume on my speaker so she can hear it.
“—sure this is it? It’s from her computer?”
“That’s Fred’s voice,” Madison confirms.
“Yeah… and… uh, she wasn’t dead, like you said she was.”Todd’s voice is awkward, but accusatory.
I lift a brow at her and she shrugs. “We knew he’d tell,” she points out.
“What?” Fred is surprised.“How do you know?”
“Because she caught me with her computer and tied—uh, she threatened me with a gun.”Todd narrowly avoids admitting to being tied up by a woman smaller than him.“I don’t know where you got your information—”
“She caught you, but this is her SSD? I… I’m confused, Todd. Tell me what happened.”
As Todd launches into a completely fabricated tale of his own heroism, fighting off the cowardly attacker and stealing the SSD card to bring to SmarTech with his own prowess and cunning, Madison chuckles. “Such apendejo. At least he didn’t mention you, or what we did to the card.”
“So she’s alive,”Fred repeats, sounding distant and lost in thought.
“Yeah, but that’s not my fault. I did what you wanted, right?”
“Sure, yeah…”
“So, my promotion?”
“What? Oh, of course. Thanks for this. I’ll shoot a note to Nancy in HR letting her know about the title change by the end of the week.”
“Awesome. Thanks, Fred.”He clears his throat awkwardly.“I mean Mr. Harvey.”
“You’re welcome, son. Now, excuse me, but I have an important lunch meeting.”
We wait in silence, listening hard as the door closes Fred in. A few seconds later, he speaks again.“I have it, but she’s still alive. It was Todd. Yes. Yeah, I agree. We don’t need him anymore. I’ll take care of him.”
Madison and I exchange a look as he hangs up.We hear the creaking of an office chair and heavy steps across the room, and the door shuts.
