"Coulter and I have been near there before. We’ve walked that terrain more than once. No problem for the vehicles."
"What about sight lines? If someone's sitting on the highway?"
"I can’t be one hundred percent," Scout said. "I need to grab the backup comms kit." She turned and walked toward the bunker door. Her boots struck the concrete in even, deliberate steps. She gently tugged the door closed behind her, which was somehow worse than slamming it.
"Did something happen out there?" Zadie asked.
Coulter set the water jug down and leaned against the SxS. He rubbed the back of his neck and glanced at the closed door. "During our recon check this morning, we had to pull off and hide from a local RCMP unit making a pass along the forestry road."
"That's not unusual out here," Neve said.
"It wouldn't be." Coulter crossed his arms. "Except Scout recognized him."
"Shit." Zadie's gut dove to her feet. "Quinn."
Coulter nodded. "He drove right past us. Scout didn't say a word the entire time he was in sight. And she hasn't said much since."
Well, that explained a lot. Quinton Taylor had been Scout’s boyfriend in high school. They’d lost touch, like so many people did. But they'd reconnected just before the ambush, which was the kind of timing the universe seemed to specialize in when it wanted to be cruel.
As far as he knows, she’s dead. And Scout had no idea what Quinn thought about that—whether he'd mourned, moved on, or was still out there driving forestry roads looking for answers he'd never find.
Zadie knew what that felt like. Not the specifics, but the shape of it. The weight of wanting someone you couldn't have because the world had drawn a line between you and the life you used to live.
But that had all changed the second she found out Gideon was MacGyver.
"That had to have been hard," Neve said.
"She’s hurting," Coulter agreed. "But she’ll push through it. She always does."
Zadie turned back to the cargo net and checked the tension for the third time. She didn't need to. Her hands just needed something to do while her brain rearranged priorities.
She'd been planning to tell everyone about Wynn sneaking into Darwin's room. Not maliciously—she wasn't built that way—but because the idea of the entire team piling onto Wynn and Darwin the way they'd piled onto her and Gideon had a certain poetic justice to it. Wynn had walked in on them twice. Wynn had made the ORACLE joke. Wynn had asked about her hair looking different. The woman had earned every ounce of teasing that was coming her way.
But not today. And maybe not anytime soon.
Because Scout was standing somewhere in that bunker with the image of Quinn's patrol vehicle burned into her memory, and the last thing she needed was to watch two more people in her world find each other while the one person she wanted was driving past her hiding spot without knowing she was alive.
Quinn had a sister. A career. A life in the real world that didn't involve bunkers and enhanced soldiers and sealed NDAs. The chances of him ending up down here with them were about as good as the chances of Finch turning himself in.
The only way Scout ever saw Quinn again was if they dismantled everything Finch had built. Proved he was behind the ambush. Proved he'd weaponized Darwin's compounds and Gideon's telemetry system and cleared Darwin's name.
And all of that started with getting inside ORACLE.
That was the mission. That was what today was about. Not just data and dual-keys and credential burns. It was about Scout being able to stand in front of Quinn and tell him she was alive. It was about Kane getting the treatment he needed without putting a target on someone's back. It was about Darwin walking through the world without a murder charge following him. It was about Neve and Coulter having a future that existed above ground.
Zadie yanked the cargo strap one more time and locked it down.
The garage door leading to the bunker opened and Gideon walked in carrying a mug and a bottle of diet soda.
"I just passed Scout, and she damn near knocked me over. Is she okay?" he asked.
"She will be," Zadie said.
Gideon didn’t push. He was good about that kind of stuff. For a geek, he knew how to read certain situations. "I need to go finish packing my gear."
"You came out here just to bring me this?" She held up the soda.
"You’re mean when you go without caffeine."
