Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

‘That’s what I thought at first, but if so, why drag her out in the first place? Megan, if we were getting closer to finding her, and they were getting twitchy about it, why not simply keep her away instead of inviting her to review the VRP at the 4th?’

‘What will happen with the Chandler N-Suit Research Base and everything inside after her death?’ Megan asked. A little moue of disappointment scrunched her face over her failure to locate Eloise Moretti on time, but she didn’t allow herself to dwell on it.

‘That’s exactly what I have been wondering,’ he said, and smiled at Megan. He’d missed her well-timed questions spurring his brain to work harder. ‘I will look through the files you sent—something else might come up. We are rather better equipped to analyse them than Roc de Chere originally was, so if there is anything there, we will find it—but no computer system is a replacement for you, Megan, so if you think of anything, however small, I want to know about it.’

They exchanged looks, and Megan blushed gently. Knowing she was needed had made the last few days easier to survive. Hearing it now made it that little bit easier still.

Of course, she already knew about Tilly running the Roc de Chere system. When she had tried to establish a connection, the system looked different, and it didn’t take much guessing to realise what must have happened. She would love to play with a system like that—the joy of working with something as sophisticated as Tilly was better than an orgasm—though she was glad she had been trained on far more primitive, almost stubborn machines. It gave her not only a bigger toolbox but also the ability to think outside that toolbox.

‘I’ll stay in touch. I don’t see any problem now in making it regular. Someone at the MIS is doing a superb job of keeping Major Toscano’s and my whereabouts classified. Wagner has no reason to suspect Sergeant Ingram wasn’t who he thought she was. And I’m about as safe as I can be now.’ She tried to give Gonzalez a cocky, confident smile, but it didn’t touch her eyes.

‘Excellent.’ Gonzalez nodded, satisfied with the business side of their conversation. ‘How is your eye?’

‘It… it’s gone, sir,’ she replied after a brief moment of hesitation, her good eye misting ever so slightly. ‘It’s—healing.’ She had clearly changed what she was about to say, and Gonzalez didn’t press her.

‘We can get it fixed,’ he said instead, and Megan smiled weakly.

Properly programmed nanobots could go in, scan her healthy eye and rebuild the one she had lost from scratch, one atom at a time. It would take a while, given how complex and delicate a job it was, but it most certainly could be done. Any military or civilian hospital could perform nano-regen. She would simply go to sleep and let the nanobots do their job. Afterwards she would wake up, her new eye ready to be used. It wouldn’t even hurt much. There were often some odd sensations while the body adjusted to the presence of a new organ, but with proper nano-care it would be nothing more than a mild annoyance for a few days.

‘Of course, sir. As soon as this is over, we can fix it.’ It clearly sounded like a mantra she had been telling herself for days on automatic repeat, and Gonzalez tried hard to contain his anger. That sonofabitch Wagner was dead.

‘Yes, we can,’ he said firmly instead. Suddenly he had an urge to hold her tight in his arms. Something he could never allow himself to do, even if she happened to be within arms’ reach.

An awkward silence descended, and it felt like it lasted for hours, but in reality was just long enough for a couple of deep breaths.

‘How much does he trust you?’ Gonzalez asked, pulling himself back to reality. His mind was already forming a plan. It would take some time to check what Megan had sent and confirm whether his idea was viable, but an irresistible thought had just struck him. He consulted the time display on his wrist-comp and pursed his lips. It would be tight… but that might actually work in their favour.

‘A lot, sir,’ Megan replied with a certain hesitation, seeing the change on her CO’s face. She knew that look. The mental cogs were turning and he was up to something.

‘Enough not to go after you if his wrist-comp goes missing?’

‘Missing?’ Megan sat up straighter. She had always assumed that they would attempt to copy Wagner’s account through the damn thing, not actually take it.

She could plant software on the comp when he took it off to have a shower and gain unrestricted access to his account without Wagner having a clue, but she would need specialised equipment from Gonzalez to do it.

Alternatively, knocking Wagner unconscious and using his unresponsive body to access the account was also an option. It would be very tricky, and could go horribly wrong if they failed to neutralise some security feature, but it was possible.

If Gonzalez wanted to steal the damn thing, that would take more doing. There was no way to break the encryption on the go. It required Wagner’s DNA, re-programming nanobots and time for the computer to perform a series of very delicate tasks. That could easily take days. Of course, Megan could drastically shorten that estimate if she had access to the proper equipment. And there were other ways to cut the time down to the bare minimum…

The wrist-comps worked in a wonderfully clever and simple fashion. They didn’t contain any data or files. They simply provided personalised access to all the content any given individual had stored on their account. There were IT companies that offered such accounts, and they came in different sizes and with varying security features, but even the most basic were state-of-the-art solutions. A wrist-comp was the most secure way to access