We don't need to say it out loud. The code says it. The tapping says it. The demolished partitions and the co-architect access and the eyes that stayed open say it.
Outside, the mountain is silent. The hum is steady. Tomorrow brings a war.
Together, we are the strongest system either of us has ever built.
23
TOMMY
Istep off the transport onto ground that isn't Echo Base and feel the absence of my mountain like a missing limb.
My laptop bag weighs eleven pounds. I know because I weighed it, because weighing things is controllable and controllable things are comforting when you're about to walk into a compound full of people who would prefer you dead.
The tactical vest Stryker fitted me with weighs more. Stryker adjusted the straps himself, checking each one twice with hands that were steady and sure, and he said, "Vest stops most rounds at distance. Don't give anyone a reason to test it up close."
Helpful. Very helpful.
I'll add it to the list of reassuring things people say before you walk into a building full of armed hostiles for the first time in your life.
Webb’s compound is in Virginia. Rural property, fenced, guarded, and unremarkable enough to pass as a private estate if you didn't know what the man who owned it had done.
This is where he orchestrated bombings, assassinations, and an international network of corruption that had shadowed this team for years. He chose his hiding place well.
Victoria chose her intelligence better.
The Virginia air is cool, carrying the scent of pine and damp earth. Crickets. Actual crickets. I've spent so long inside a mountain that the sound of insects feels exotic, like a nature documentary playing through speakers I forgot I owned.
"Comms check." Kane's voice is quiet in my earpiece, and the sound of it steadies something in my chest because Kane's voice in my ear is the most familiar sound in my professional life.
I've heard it through hundreds of missions. Always from the other side. Always from behind screens. Always safe.
Not this time.
"Copy," I say, and my voice is steady, and I'm grateful for every hour I spent running comms under pressure, training my vocal cords to sound calm when the rest of me is running calculations on survival probability.
"Copy," Dar says beside me.
She's wearing a tactical vest that looks absurd over her black hoodie. Her rainbow hair is tucked under a dark cap, and the only visible concession to the operation is the equipment bag slung across her chest containing hardware worth more than the transport that brought us here.
She looks like a hacker playing as a soldier, which is essentially what we both are, and the absurdity of it would be funny if the compound two hundred meters ahead of us weren't full of people with guns.
It would also be funny if the vest weren't pulling the hoodie tight across her shoulders in a way that reminds me, unhelpfully, that I know the exact topography beneath the fabric.
The curve of her collarbone. The sharp angle of her hip where my thumb fits like it was designed for the purpose. The way her spine arches when I press my mouth to the small of her back.
Not the time. Emphatically not the time.
"Assault team, check in." Kane runs through the roster. Stryker. Dylan. Mercer. Micah. Each one answers with the clipped efficiency of men who have done this before.
Roman answers last, his voice carrying the particular calm of someone for whom violence is a language he speaks fluently and without accent.
"Intelligence, check." Victoria's voice from the mobile operations center, parked with Sarah managing comms beside her.
"Tech team, check." That's me. The words feel different when I say them standing in a field instead of sitting at my desk. Different weight. Different cost.
Dar's hand brushes mine. Brief. Deliberate. Her fingers tap three characters against my knuckle. The same code from last night, from the mattress, from the commented-out line in a subroutine that said everything words couldn't.
Then her hand is back on her equipment bag, and her face is focused, and the contact lasted less than a second, and it was enough.
