Page 36 of Cipher: Lethal Algorithm

“The tea house was a distraction.” I slide the SIG back into its holster. The entire situation flips on me, turning my blood cold. “The Architect let your inside man break protocol. She wanted you out of this apartment so she could run the digital back-trace without your interference.”

The realization hits the room, colder than the air conditioning. The enemy didn’t find us. They manipulated us into abandoning our fortress so they could plant a flag in it.

“We’re burned.” I turn away from the monitor. Panic is useless. We must get out of this building before the trap snaps shut entirely.

Moving to the gear bags staged near the door, I pull my burner phone and eject the SIM card with the tip of a specialized knife. The plastic chip hits the floor before my boot heel grinds itinto dust. A fresh SIM from my tactical vest slides into the empty slot, instantly dialing the single emergency relay number on my roster.

Hutch answers on the first ring.

“Safe house is burned.” I don’t explain the parameters. “We’re moving.”

“Where to?”

“Going dark.”

I sever the connection.

I turn back to Ivy. She stares at the hacked monitor, the stark white light illuminating the raw, terrified lines of her face. The structure she built to protect herself is completely dismantled.

“You have forty seconds.” I force the cold, uncompromising tone of a handler in control, but my heart hammers against my ribs. “Break the rig. Pack the drives. We leave the heavy iron.”

I expect an argument or a desperate attempt to salvage the primary cooling tower. At the very least, I brace for the panicked paralysis that comes when someone realizes their entire world just ripped apart.

She reaches out and yanks the primary power cord from the wall.

The glowing monitor dies instantly. The apartment plunges into suffocating darkness. The blackout curtains swallow the neon. Only a thin bleed of streetlight survives at their edges.

She doesn’t freeze.

In the pure blackness, the sounds of the city outside instantly amplify. A distant siren wails. The low hum of a passing delivery truck rattles the windowpanes.

Inside the apartment, modular drive casings uncouple with a smooth, rapid click. Thick canvas tears open with a harsh zip as she drops to her knees beside the server chassis, ripping the literal heart out of her machine by touch alone.

She unspools the cables without looking and organizes the external terabyte drives without reading the labels. Moving with the grace of a soldier breaking down a rifle while blindfolded. She relies entirely on the terrifying muscle memory forged from years of running from the Consortium.

Standing three feet away, I finalize my gear. Spare magazines slide securely into the webbing of my drop-leg rig. After double-checking the heavy trauma dressings in the medical kit, I sling the Kevlar-lined pack over my shoulder.

Her silhouette moves in the darkness, outlined only by the faint, indirect moonlight bleeding around the edges of the blackout curtain. The ruthless competence of her actions leaves me staggering.

The sharp smell of hot ozone wafts up from the dying server tower, mixing with the scent of her skin—jasmine and nervous sweat. It bypasses any professional boundary I maintain and drives straight into something far more dangerous.

She packs the massive go-bag with terrifying speed, shoving hardware into pouches. Her breathing is entirely controlled. The rhythm of her breath matches the steady pounding of my pulse.

“I need the decryption key relay.” Her hands fly over the gear, sorting optical cables with brutal efficiency. “Left side of the desk.”

I grab the solid-state relay box from the desk. It’s surprisingly heavy, packed with microprocessors designed to instantly scramble incoming tracking algorithms. I turn toward her. She remains on her knees, the heavy canvas go-bag resting between her legs, its yawning mouth open to receive the final crucial component of the mobile unit.

I reach down into the darkness to drop the box into the open mouth of the bag. At the exact same time, she reaches in to secure a tangled bundle of optical cables.

Our hands collide in the black space inside the bag.

My knuckles graze the back of her hand. Her hand turns under mine, and her fingers curl up to catch the edge of my palm. The physical contact sends a massive, electric shockwave straight up my arm, obliterating every professional boundary I desperately try to build between us.

Neither of us moves.

Every instinct I have screams at me to grab the bag, clear the exit, and get her the hell out of this building. But the logic shatters against the overwhelming heat of her skin.

For three excruciating seconds, the world stops spinning.