I extract a small electronic device from my kit. “Fingerprint reader uses outdated capacitive technology. Two minutes, tops.”
Saint positions his men at intervals along the corridor, each facing outward with hands near their weapons. Rowan stands beside me, his bulk blocking the camera’s view as I attach my device to the biometric scanner.
The device hums, cycling through stored fingerprint data until the green light flashes and the reinforced door clicks open.
“One minute, forty-three seconds,” Rowan notes, checking his watch.
Pride warms me despite my attempt to remain detached. “Told you it was outdated.”
The room beyond contains server racks and a central workstation, the air cool and dry with the constant hum of running equipment. While Rowan’s men fan out, I move to the alarm panel mounted near the door. This system could alert security if not handled properly.
My fingers dance across the keypad, entering the universal service code I had memorized from the manufacturer’s technical manual. The display shifts from armed to maintenance mode, giving us fifteen minutes before it will auto-restart.
“System neutralized,” I inform Saint, who acknowledges with a curt jerk of his chin.
Rowan and two of his men access the central server, extracting data while another man stands guard. I turn my attention to the exit strategy, checking for additional security measures we’ll encounter on departure.
“Secondary alarm on the north exit,” I tell Saint. “Hardwired to a separate system. I’ll need to bridge it before we leave.”
He tilts his head, studying me with new interest. “You know this building well.”
“I know security systems,” I correct him, extracting wire cutters from my kit. “This installation follows standard protocol for financial data centers. The architecture tells me what to expect.”
I move to join Rowan, who stands at the central workstation as the first access script runs, watching the progress bar creep across the screen.
The cursor blinks for a moment before the directory populates, and I frown.
“That’s not right,” I murmur.
Rowan curses at the same time.
The timestamps don’t line up. The folder structure is intact, permissions untouched, but the contents are gone.
Another black-clad figure steps in. Orien, I think, though I've only met the man once. His fingers fly over the keyboard as he pulls up the audit logs. “The overwrite pass is clean. They did multiple cycles, and randomization protocols were executed. There's no getting it back.”
Saint swears under his breath.
“How long ago?” Rowan demands.
He checks the last access record. “Hours. Maybe less.”
“Fuck.” Rowan steps away from the workstation.
“Wait.” Orien scrolls further, scanning fast. “They didn’t take everything.”
Rowan circles back. “What did they leave?”
He stops on a fragment of metadata, a synchronization error, small enough that most people would miss it. “There was a cloud mirror.”
My pulse spikes. “What does it mean?”
“There’s a remote endpoint,” Orien says. “They pushed the data before the wipe.”
Rowan exhales slowly. “So we have a lead.”
“Yes,” Orien agrees. “But we need to be careful how we move forward. If they wiped this clean, they’ll be watching for access attempts.”
Rowan’s eyes sharpen, already thinking toward the next step.
