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Cody’s shoulders sagged slightly, the fierce persona fading. He turned to her, his expression a complex mix of guilt and determination that she couldn’t begin to unravel.
“We don’t have much time,” he said quietly, his voice once again familiar. “I’ll explain everything later, I promise. But right now, we need to focus on why we’re here.”
Paige felt as if she were standing on shifting sand. Everything she thought she knew had just been upended. Part of her wanted to demand answers, to rage at him for the deception. Another part recognized the truth in his words—they had a mission to complete.
Trust had always been a precious commodity in their line of work. Now, she wasn’t sure if she had any left to give.
“Fine.” She’d push her feelings aside, for now. But this wasn’t over. Not by a long shot.
As they moved deeper into the lab, Paige couldn’t shake the feeling that she was now working with a stranger.
Clearly ignoring all the subtext, Cody hurried to a far cabinet, his steps quick and sure. Paige followed close behind, her senses on high alert. The revelation about his true identity still burned in her mind, but she forced herself to focus on the task at hand.
“Here,” Cody said, stopping abruptly in front of a nondescript computer terminal. “This is the one with the hard drive containing the virus.”
Paige eyed the machine skeptically. “You’re sure?”
A ghost of a smile flickered across his face. “Trust me, I—” He caught himself, the smile fading as quickly as it had appeared. “I’m sure.”
Paige slid into the chair, her eyes scanning the setup. This was no ordinary computer. The casing was reinforced, with multiple security measures visible even from the outside. “This isn’t going to be easy,” she muttered.
“That’s why I needed you,” Cody replied, his voice low. “I mean, I needed your help with the lock, for sure. Tanner’s never been given lab access. I always came with a higher up. But it’s more than that. I knew removing the hard drive wouldn’t be easy. If it were simple, I’d have taken care of it a long time ago.”
She considered refusing until he told her everything, but getting caught in the underground lab wouldn’t exactly help things. Once they were back with the team, she’d grill him within an inch of his life.
Paige’s fingers flew over the keyboard, initiating a complex sequence to bypass the first layer of security. As she worked, she spoke in a hushed tone. “Talk me through the physical security measures.”
Cody leaned in, pointing to various components. “The casing is tamper-proof. Any attempt to force it open will trigger a data wipe. There’s a biometric lock here, keyed to specific personnel. And see this? It’s a pressure sensor. If the wrong component is removed or disconnected, it activates a failsafe.”
Paige nodded, her mind racing. This was far more complicated than she’d anticipated. “Okay, I’m in the system. Now it’s gonna get tricky.”
Her fingers danced across the keyboard, lines of code scrolling rapidly on the screen. She was simultaneously disabling security protocols, creating a ghost image of the system to fool the failsafe, and preparing for the physical extraction.
“I need your eyes,” she said to Cody. “Watch for any changes in the LED patterns on the casing. If they shift from green to red, we’ve got problems.”
As Paige worked, sweat beaded on her forehead. This was delicate work, requiring absolute precision. One wrong move could trigger the failsafe, locking down the connection to the hard drive, and worse, she was sure. Trying to eject the disk without the proper security code would trigger a lockdown of the lab, at the minimum.
“There! “ Cody jabbed a finger at the case. “All green. How much longer?”
“Nice. Almost there now. I’m creating a loop in the system ... now. They’ll never know the drive is gone … until someone actually looks.”
There was a soft click as the reinforced casing unlocked. Paige held her breath as she carefully lifted the cover, revealing the complex array of components inside.
“The virus drive?” she asked.
Cody pointed to a nondescript hard drive nestled among the others. “That one. But be careful, it’s?—”
“Rigged, I know,” Paige finished. She pulled a specialized tool from her kit, a device designed to mimic the exact weight and electrical signature of the drive they were removing. There were three main drive types the designers would be likely to use. If it was something specially made, well, she’d have to wing it.
But the drive was a typical sixteen terabyte drive anybody could buy at an electronics store. Or over the internet.
It was the first sign she’d seen of sloppy work. Or maybe it was genius. No one would suspect an economy-killing program would be stored on a fifty-dollar piece of equipment.
With painstaking care, she disconnected the virus drive, her hands steady despite the adrenaline coursing through her veins. In the same motion, she slid the decoy into place.
“Got it,” she breathed, carefully placing the extracted drive into a shielded container. “Now to cover our tracks.”
She typed quickly, erasing all traces of their intrusion from the system logs. As the final lines of code disappeared from the screen, she allowed herself a small smile of triumph and slipped the drive into the lining of her fashionable briefcase.
