Even if it meant smiling through the chaos until the lights came back on—and David came back safe.
Chapter 2
Hard Reset
David tookoff at a dead sprint toward Maintenance and the access tunnel as soon as the door shut behind him. The taste of urgency sat bitterly on his tongue. Something was wrong—seriously wrong. He’d run the diagnostics himself that morning; the systems had been humming along without a hiccup. So why the hell was the generator offline? More importantly—how could it be offline tohim? His connection to the network wasn’t programming; it was a part of him. Nothing slipped past his mind once he touched the system.
Until now.
He flicked open his tablet with one hand, fingers swiping instinctively as he ran. He couldn’t send his consciousness into the network while running—too dangerous for him to trance out and slam headfirst into a wall—but he could send tendrils of his talent, like a spider feeling for vibrations on its web.
Ping.
Nothing. No response from the generator interface. It was like shouting into a vacuum.
His pulse hammered faster. He lunged to the access door, punched in the passcode with practiced precision, and yanked on the handle. The heavy metal groaned as it swung open,revealing the dimly lit utility tunnel stretching before him. The emergency lighting cast long shadows along the walls as he ran. The steady thud of his boots against concrete reverberated down the corridor, keeping time with the frantic pound of his heart
An EXIT sign glowed ahead like a beacon. He barreled toward it, punched the second code—fingers trembling—and shoved inside, striding to the computer station. The battery backup beeped steadily in warning, like an electronic heartbeat gone wrong, but the monitor was dead. The entire system… powered down.
Nope. Not good.
He pressed the power button hard enough to make the plastic creak. The hum of tech waking up greeted him, and the startup icons glowed across the monitor. Okay, so the battery was operational. That begged the question: who—or what—powered it off?
Dropping into the chair, he placed a palm flat on the keyboard and dove into the machine. The connection was instant, like a door slamming open. Raw code, pulses of energy, the heartbeat of the resort—his to read. He fired up the generator utility.
The lights roared to full intensity as the generators clicked on in a harmonious thrumming that sounded way too smug given how close the system had come to a total blackout.
He let out a breath. First hurdle cleared.
Flicking to the diagnostics interface on his tablet, he scanned utilities: electrical—green. Hydraulics—green. HVAC—running hot, but green. Relief slid through his veins.
All right. Time to figure out what the hell crashed his computer.
He pulled up the maintenance logs. The last entry? His own diagnostic check from earlier that morning. Nothing after that. He frowned.
Impossible.
His fingers flew as he opened directories, folders, files. The timestamp on the last entry read 13:35. An hour before the power failure. Too early. Too neat. He tugged open the recycle bin. Empty. “Of course,” he muttered under his breath. That would have been too convenient.
The foreboding in his gut thickened.
Could it have been a cyberattack? No, he shook his head. The generator’s interface was on a closed loop—not connected to the internal resort system, let alone the public network. Only a handful of pre-cleared stations had access, and no remote option was enabled—except through him.
His skin prickled.
Unless someone had been here. Physically. Face-to-face with the machine.
He withdrew from the computer and shifted his focus to the door’s electronic lock. Pressing his palm to the sensor, he dipped into the access log. The metallic taste of the security system buzzed along his nerves.
Bingo.
Entry at 14:30. ID 240482.
He grabbed his tablet and searched the staff codes. The profile loaded with a chime. Electrical Engineer.
David’s lips pressed into a thin line. Sure, that made technical sense. An electrical engineer would need clearance to enter for hardware servicing.
Except there had been no service scheduled for today. Last week had been the routine PM, and nothing had flagged as abnormal. The guy had no reason to come down here.
