I move toward her. “Now that’s more like it. Give me the details.”
“I’ve been running it through the dark web,” she says, her voice calm, like she’s talking about the weather. “We should have names or directions to hand over to the authorities soon. Is Merlin up for helping?”
Merlin’s a member of my other band of do-gooders. He’s an ex-hacker, and when we had time, the two of us plus Rosalie and Alana did some good for the world. I’m sure we’ll get back to it as soon as things calm down a bit.
“I can probably get Merlin to help us. Alana’s on her honeymoon, and Rosalie’s still tied up building that house with Alexei.” The one with the extra space for her seven borders, including Merlin. “I’ll reach out.”
Aura’s cheeks color in a faint but noticeable hue against her jeweled tracksuit.
So it’s like that? At her age, she’s still got someone who makes her blush. My godmother, queen of glitter and strategy, is not as untouchable as she pretends. Interesting. “Wonderful,” she says quickly.
Mags rolls her eyes.
I grin. Mags has always been blunt. She started in family radio and TV repair when she was young, and eventually shifted into large-scale systems remediation. Now she spends her time tracking human traffickers online. Once she or Aura uncover something solid, they pass it to the authorities in a neat bundle.
“Let me know the second you’ve got anything useful,” I say.
Mags nods. “Of course. I’m digging now. We’ll have locations soon.”
“Good. Thank you.” I glance at the clock.
Aura fixes me with that steady godmother stare. “Is ittime for us to go after your heritage? I’m getting older, and I won’t be here forever.”
“Yes.” I tell her about Sylveria visiting me in the hospital.
“Well, that’s interesting,” Mags cuts in. “I wonder what she wants from you. My guess would be that with the advances in AI, diamonds aren’t cutting it for her. TimeGem was built on citrines, with their different energy cadence, whether she likes it or not.”
Yeah, no kidding. I swallow. “Speaking of TimeGem, I’ve been working a backdoor through Aquarius Social to reach my servers.”
All three women turn toward me.
“Seriously?” Jos asks.
I nod. “Yeah. I found a backdoor already in place, and I don’t know who left it there.”
Aura pivots back to her keyboard, rhinestones glinting. “Yep. Already knew that.”
“What?” My body stills. I don’t need them running parallel hacks.
Jos straightens her already straight collar. “Please. We taught you, remember? We’ve been keeping tabs on Aquarius, Malice Media, and Hologrid while tracking TimeGem. Aura found the new signature last night.”
I sigh. “You’ve found evidence of the new hacker?”
“Yes,” Aura says, her eyes gleaming. “It’s one party with a definite signature hacking into the four other systems. I’m running a list of up-and-coming social media companies and trying to cross-reference those with the hacking signature and any large purchases of some type of crystal. Haven’t found anything yet.”
Anticipation lights through me. “I was so busy tracing them from Aquarius to TimeGem that I didn’t check the others. So they’ve hacked all four of us? Fascinating. We have to find this party. Maybe align with them in taking down Sylveria.” Or take them out. Who knows?
Jos nods. “While you two run down that rabbit hole, we need to get serious right now. There was a gunfight in the middle of Silicon Valley last night. Most of the CCTV was scrubbed, but one camera slipped through. You were on it.”
My stomach drops. “Please tell me you erased it.”
“Of course I erased it.” Her voice goes sharp, and she leans back like I just insulted her.
Aura reaches blindly for a pair of glasses and slips them on. She doesn’t need them for the screen, only for distance. “What were you doing in a firefight?”
“Somehow, I walked straight into somebody else’s war with Justice Beathach.” I shake my head. “He was just giving me a ride home after the hospital.”
Mags’s jaw drops. “Are you kidding us right now?”
