9
Darren
“Howe, come over.”
Aiden’s commanding voice interrupted Darren as he searched the tightly packed storage area. Dumping the scanner-like device inside the box he’d taken it out from, he slipped back into the bigger room and found Aiden glaring at the computer screens.
“Did you find something?” Darren asked, inching behind the chair so he could see what was on the monitors.
“Nothing about the legacy, but I found these,” Aiden said, directing Darren’s attention to the central screen where he’d loaded a series of photos of Dr. Batbayar and what looked to be a two-year-old child with her light brown eyes and easy smile.
“That’s her son,” Darren tossed, not sure why Aiden was intrigued by the photos.
“Nyle’s program detected traces of a massive file purge and some fragmentation.” He loaded the results of the scan, a few lines already highlighted. “There’s also…”
Darren skimmed through the output. It confirmed his suspicions. “So, she deleted the files that likely contained information about her discovery. That’s short from unexpected.”
Aiden hovered the mouse over the second highlight. “Yes. But there are also indications of a huge file transfer.”
Which wasn’t strange either. “Backup?”
“Yes. The scan confirmed an external drive. And… it wasn’t an online one. It seems she used the offline, physical kind,” Aiden explained, guiding Darren through the analysis Nyle’s hacking software had supplied.
Keeping things off the internet was certainly the most secure way to prevent others from accessing anything meant to remain hidden. The problem with Dr. Batbayar doing that was that data chips could be embedded in any and every imaginable object, be it a device component, a plush toy, jewelry, décor, buildings, structures and even people. Without a clue as to where to even look, they had no way of figuring out where she’d hidden her research.
Likely sensing Darren’s skepticism, Aiden continued, “Just like everyone who worked for the Valrais, Dr. Batbayar died on the day of the attack, along with her wife. Their two-year-old son, on the other hand…”
“You… don’t think Marcus killed him?” Darren jumped in, stifling down the pang of panic coursing through him as he remembered the night of the attack.
“I know so.” Waking up the blackened screen of the tablet, Aiden pulled up a facial recognition program he’d fed the kid’s face to. There was a match, pointing to the social media profile of Raj Leven, a twenty-two-year-old young man who was currently enrolled into an Advanced Mechanics and Engineering degree at Lecart University’s Earth branch.
While Marcus had cold-heartedly massacred the Valrais and anyone connected to them, Darren supposed it made sensehe’d not bothered with children young enough not to ever realize what had taken place. Forging their ID-s and papers would’ve been an easy task even back then, and writing off their parents as dead in an accident, even easier.
“Kesley, I doubt her son would know anything about her backups given his age at the time,” Darren reasoned, sure that Marcus would’ve found out by now otherwise.
“He doesn’t need toknowanything,” Aiden stated, swiveling around. A conceited smile teased at his lips and when Darren crossed his arms, he placed the tablet upright next to the screen with the baby’s photo, zoomed in on the two and pointed at the star-shaped golden earring adorning the right ear of Dr. Batbayar’s son inbothof them. “Not if hehasthe backups.”
“Fuck, Kesley.” Darren stared at the gold-specked excitement shimmering in the hazel depths of Aiden’s eyes. His heart beat so fast it felt like it was trying to break out of his chest.
“If the earring uses the same technology as your and Sara’s rings, then Marcus would’ve most likely overlooked it. It’s not… a guarantee, but I think it’s worth checking.”
Aiden was right. There was no guarantee that the ornament had the backups, but it wasn’t entirely implausible either, because Darren had vague memories of both women constantly talking about their son with wide grins on their faces. He’d never thought to look for any of the children of those who’d worked for his parents, hadn’t had a reason to since he’d assumed them dead, yet here Aiden was, loading up a list on the left screen with more names and photos of infants.
So that if Raj was a dead end, they could check the rest and hope for a clue there.
“You found more kids,” Darren uttered, placing his hand to rest on Aiden’s shoulder so the solidity of the other man’s body could help him ground himself. He didn’t dare move his fingerseven a millimeter, afraid that even the smallest of movements would be enough to make Aiden shake him off.
“I found something else, too. All of them are beneficiaries of the DuLaurent Charity Foundation, which is paying for their studies.” Aiden swiped through a couple more screens. “Hard sciences, just like Raj Leven.”
Darren frowned at the picture of the brown man with his flamboyant green hair. “Marcus has taken them under his wing?”
Aiden nodded, the few longer locks at the top of his head rippling from the motion. “He’s made himself to be the man who saved them from the uncertainty of a future in the system.”
“He has their loyalty,” Darren paraphrased, realizing that this was going to be a lot trickier than a conversation over lunch if the earring was a bust and they had to actually speak to these people.
“Yes. Along with their gratitude and skillsets. We’ll need to be careful with how we approach Raj. We can’t bring up Marcus or Dr. Batbayar or do something that might make him suspicious.”
Darren leaned forward a bit and scrolled through Raj’s file and social media, a plan forming in his head as an endless stream of photos and videos filled the screen. “I can think of a couple ways we can go about this, but we’ll need to drop by a shop or two.”
