Page 39 of Red Zone Awakened

“Miriam lied.”

“It’s one of her main skills.”

“I need to think about this.”She sank to the floor and started the recording from the beginning again.

Mace considered her for a moment.Had he pushed her too far?“Are you gonna be okay?”he found himself asking, even though he knew it was probably a stupid question.

She looked up at him, her dark eyes unreadable.“I have to be, don’t I?”

There was nothing he could say to that, so he turned his attention to finding a way out of the building.

* * *

Keiko watched the recording several more times, letting the reality of her situation sink in.There was no doubt in her mind she was watching the same scientist CommTECH had labeled a traitor before telling the world she’d died.Yet here she was, alive and well and part of the team that desperately wanted to get into the research facility.

The same research facility that was working on a top-secret project—a state-of-the-art data chip that would wipe out the competition.A chip that Mace already seemed to know about when Keiko was still in the dark.All she knew was the company was rushing it to the market.Were they so desperate to get it out ahead of their competitors that they’d use unrefined ladmium?Her stomach lurched at the thought, and she had to fight back nausea.If ladmium wasn’t processed properly, it would leach into people’s systems and kill them for sure.Was Mace right, did they setting up a refinery company to take the blame?Surely they couldn’t get away with something like that.

She watched Mace as he studied the feeds from the security cameras that were still functioning.It felt like her world had been turned on its head.Was the bad guy really the good guy?It seemed Mace was trying to stop CommTECH from killing people for profit, while she blindly believed every single thing they told her.She’d never questioned anything.Never wondered why Freedom was fighting against the government.She just assumed they were wrong because her insider view of the company had to be right.But what if CommTECH was doing everything Mace said it was?What if everything he said was true?

Keiko looked at Friday’s face, frozen on the screen in front of her.The scientist was alive.Healthy.Worried about a mission that needed to succeed.The mission Mace had taken.The mission that had caused them to hold her parents just so they could get inside the building.

She cleared her throat.“You were never here to steal company secrets and sell them, were you?”That was the only reason she could come up with for him wanting inside the building.And she’d been way off the mark.

Mace kept his eyes on the screens, but his shoulders tensed.“Don’t make me out to be a hero.I’m here because my team thought it was a good idea.I’m here to do my job, which definitely involves stealing company secrets.”

“But not to sell?”

He just grunted.

Keiko looked back down at the datapad.“The injector Friday mentioned.What is it?”

“Nanobot-virus.It’ll copy the research information on the CommTECH server.Copy their secrets.”He turned and gave her a dark look.“Still think I’m here for a noble cause?”

“I think trying to stop people from having a faulty chip implanted is a noble cause.”

“I don’t much care what people do or don’t implant in their bodies.If they want to kill themselves to connect to the network, so be it.”

“And yet, here you are.”

“Against my will,” he grumbled.

The only person he was fooling was himself.She knew who he was now.His actions revealed his true heart over and over again.Mace saved people—her included.That’s who he was.He might complain about it, but at his core, he was a hero.

Keiko considered the datapad in her hands.It was frozen on an image of Friday in the middle of telling Mace to wipe the datapad.To get rid of her image and any evidence that she was still alive.To make sure information about her never got out.

As she stared at Friday’s face, it occurred to her that she had the perfect weapon in her hands.All she had to do was transfer the recording in front of her to her internal chips, and she’d have all the ammunition she needed to make sure Mace and his team never blackmailed her again.But more than that, she could use the information to barter with CommTECH, ensuring her parents were relocated to a more secure location and that she’d keep her job.She could carry on living her life the way she’d always lived it—with her head in the sand, ignoring everything she’d learned about the company she represented.

It was tempting.Denial.Pretense.All for an easy life.

All she had to do was hand Friday over to Miriam Shepherd, and her life would return to normal.

Mace had given her the answer to all her problems.

It was sitting in her lap.

Literally.

Slowly, she moved her fingertip to the conduit used to transfer data.She didn’t hesitate.All it took was a second.With trembling hands, Keiko stared at the blank screen.She’d made her decision.