We kept working. The exchange got shorter, faster. She’d call out a pattern, I’d confirm or counter; she’d adjust. I’d flag an anomaly in my intercepts, she’d test it against her framework,and either the framework absorbed it or she’d set it aside for deeper analysis. No wasted motion. No wasted words.
Sera’s mind didn’t just fill gaps in my analysis. It worked the way mine did, from a different angle. The two perspectives together produced something neither of us could build alone.
I hadn’t ever felt that kind of alignment with another person. These feelings didn’t have a precedent, even with Naomi.
I had no idea how to categorize that.
I was still working on that problem when Maude interrupted.
“Incoming call from Beckett Sinclair. He has Hunter Everett and Ryan Cooper on the line. They’d like you to join immediately. Something about the Moreno account.”
The Moreno account. Corporate client, mid-level security detail, the kind of routine work that kept Warrior Security’s books healthy. Not an emergency, but real enough that they’d want data pulled. And they were calling now because I was always at my desk, always available, always home. What else would I be doing?
I looked at Sera. She was three feet away, sitting at a workstation that hadn’t existed three hours ago, in a room that nobody outside this compound knew she had access to.
“Work call,” I said. “My team. They don’t know you’re here. So, if you don’t mind staying quiet, that will make my life a lot easier.”
She nodded once and went still.
“Put them through,” I told Maude. “Audio only.”
“Hey guys.”
“There he is.” Beckett’s voice filled the room. “The ghost of Garnet Bend. We were starting to think you’d finally dissolved into your screens.”
“What do you need?”
“Good morning to you, too, sunshine. Hunter, tell the man.”
“The Moreno account flagged a possible breach on their internal network.” Hunter’s voice was what it always was: level, economical, carrying the natural authority of a man who didn’t waste words. “Client’s convinced it’s an inside job. I need you to run a forensic scan on their server logs. I’m sending the access credentials now.”
“Timeline?”
“Before their board meeting Friday. So, four days.”
“I’ll have it by tomorrow.”
“I told you.” That was Coop. His voice was warmer than mine, which wasn’t difficult since most people’s voices were warmer than mine. “He says that every time, and he means it every time. The man doesn’t sleep anyway.”
“The man sleeps,” I said. “The man just doesn’t waste daylight.”
“It’s ten in the morning, Trav. Daylight is literally happening right now. Are you telling me you’re going to go outside and enjoy it?”
“I’m telling you I’ll have your forensic scan by tomorrow.”
Beckett cut back in. “Speaking of which. I have a demand. A nonnegotiable, ironclad, absolute demand.”
“No.”
“You don’t even know what it is.”
I was already pulling up the Moreno server architecture on my secondary monitor, partly because I needed it and partly because it gave me something to look at that wasn’t Sera sitting frozen three feet away. “Your demands are always the same demand wearing different outfits.”
“Proof of life, Travis.” Beckett’s humor was gone now. “Video. Right now. I want to see your face.”
My hands stopped on the keyboard. “My camera’s still down.”
“You’ve been saying your camera is down for three months. You’ve never let a piece of equipment be broken for that long. I know that’s not him. Hunter, boss him around a little.”
