Holly frowned and pressed it again. The display remained dark. No gentle warming of the heating elements. Nothing at all.
She frowned at the unresponsive appliance. This should not be happening.
She wasn’t Sam. She couldn’t rebuild a rubbish-recycling unit from spare parts or coax ancient bots back to life. But she was an engineer, and she understood the mechanics of things. Especially simple devices like an oven.
Holly crouched down and studied the appliance. It was built into an alcove in the counter, heavy and solid. With effort, she gripped the sides and pulled. The oven slid forward, scraping against the floor, until she had enough room to access the back panel.
She unclipped the fasteners holding the metal plate in place and the panel came away to reveal the oven’s inner workings. Connection tubes. Power transfer lines. An older-style connection board that looked original to the unit.
These appliances were built to last for centuries. Their power supplies were designed to outlive multiple generations of owners. There was no good reason for complete power failure.
Holly examined each component carefully. Everything looked normal. The connections were secure. The tubes were intact. The board showed no obvious damage.
Then she saw it.
One of the clear cylinders, the ones that contained the unit’s power gel, had a tiny puncture. She ran her finger over it. The hole was so small that most people would never have noticed it. But Holly was good with details, and she knew what she was looking at. This type of power gel absolutely couldnotbeexposed to air. The moment the seal was broken, the energy dissipated. Slowly at first, then faster, until there was nothing left.
But that wasn’t all. Over time, the gel would degrade and become flammable. And with the hotel’s fire mitigation system offline…
She sat back on her heels.Whywas the fire mitigation system offline? It should have gone off when she burned those muffins. There’d been so much smoke, Rasker had smelled it and come checking.
This was not an accident. This was not wear and tear or age or simple malfunction. Someone had done this on purpose, and possibly tampered with the fire system as well. Although she had no proof of that. What she did know was someone had sabotaged her oven, knowing exactly what would happen.
“Holly?”
She jumped at the voice and scrambled to her feet, nearly losing her balance. Her heart pounded as she spun around.
Twenty-Three
Rasker stood in the lounge doorway, his brow furrowed with concern. He wore casual clothes again, not his usual consultant attire, and his dark blue hair was slightly disheveled, as if he had just woken up.
“What are you doing back there?” he asked, stepping closer. His brows snapped into a frown. “What’s wrong?”
Holly’s mind raced.Did Rasker do this?He wanted her to give up the outpost. He wanted Moone’s Landing to fail so Rest ’N Recharge could swoop in and buy it for nothing. Sabotaging the oven would be a petty tactic, but it would make the hotel less functional, the guests less happy, the reviews even worse.
But even as the thought formed, she dismissed it.Thiswasn’t Rasker’s style. He was direct, sometimes brutally so. If he wanted to undermine her, he would do it with data and arguments and cold, hard facts, not by puncturing power gel cylinders in the middle of the night.
“The oven is broken,” she said, her voice coming out more scattered than she intended. “I was trying to cook for the guests. Pot pie. But the oven won’t turn on, so I pulled it out to see what was wrong, and I found…” She gestured helplessly at the exposed back panel. “Someone punctured the power cylinder.”
Rasker’s frown deepened. He moved past her and crouched to examine the cylinder she had indicated. His eyes narrowed as he studied the tiny puncture. “I won’t pretend to know how a tiny hole can kill an oven,” he said. “But there is clearly a hole in that…thing. You’re sure that’s why the oven isn’t working?”
“Yes.” Holly wrapped her arms around herself. “Gel-based power supply is a great feature—zero fire risk and super-long energy life, but the charge neutralizes when exposed to air, before turning it flammable.” She shivered, thinking of the ramifications. “Who would disable my oven? Andwhy?”
Rasker straightened and turned to face her. “I would very much like you to sell this moon to my client, but I am telling you—I didnotdo this.”
“I know you didn’t.” She slanted him a look. “I wondered about that for a moment, but this isn’t your style.”
He visibly bristled. “My businessstyledoes not include any form of sabotage, blackmail, or coercion. I have an idea of who might have done this, however.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Cody.”
Holly blinked. “Cody?”
“He’s been conspicuously absent since you fired him. I’ve barely seen him around the outpost.” Rasker’s expression was hard. “He was the cook here. You took that away from him. This could be his revenge.”
“Really?” Holly scrunched her nose and shook her head. “I don’t think Cody even knows how to use the oven properly, let alone sabotage it this skillfully. The puncture is precise. Small enough to be overlooked, and unless you know how these cells work, like I do, you’d never suspect sabotage.” She reached inside, pried out the damaged cylinder, and held it up. “Thistook knowledge I don’t know he has. And besides, when I fired him,he barely even appeared to care. It was kind of weird. He just accepted it and wandered off.”
