Page 72 of Knight

“What?”

He leans closer to the screen. “The virus was never meant for my systems. Horizon Tech is the real target. Everything else was just …”

"Just what?"

"A warning to disappear for a couple of days, and a way to get my attention." His hands still on the keyboard. "He wanted tomake sure I'd look deeper. There's something in their systems—something that could have catastrophic results if it's allowed to trigger."

“Did Michael discover whatever this is? Is that why he disappeared?”

“Stop talking!” A couple of days ago, the snapped command would have made me flinch. Now I just fall silent, aware that it’s not irritation but concentration driving it.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Knight

The code fragmentsstart to merge together the deeper I dig into Victor’s warnings. Glitch has fallen asleep in the chair beside me, her head tilted awkwardly to one side. She hasn’t moved in hours, wrapped tightly around herself as if that will ward off the inevitable ache from her poor position. I should wake her, tell her to use the couch or go to bed, but her quiet presence sharpens my focus.

I don’t want to examine why.

Another sequence unlocks, revealing more fragments buried under Victor’s signature encryption. Every line of the logs is deliberate, precise, and fucking maddening. Victor has left his fingerprints all over it, a taunt wrapped in code. He didn’t just anticipate my moves; he predicted them, and documented every failure in advance as if to teach me something.

But there’s more here than just Victor. The second coder’s work is harder to overlook now. Their contributions are functional but messy. Commands that work but don’t flow the same way as my mentor’s. Where Victor’s code is like an elegant equation, theirs is a patchwork quilt, stitched together in a rush. It’s clear they weren’t just following orders; they were struggling to keep up.

I crack the first layer of encryption, and the usual pattern emerges: coordinates.

Of course. Victoralwaysstarts with coordinates. It’s his way of pointing me forward without bothering to explain what I’m walking into.

I glance at Glitch. She’s still curled in the chair, strands of dark hair spilling over her face. For someone whose world has been flipped upside down, she looks remarkably calm. But I know better. That kind of stillness isn’t peace—it’s exhaustion.

“Hey.” I nudge her chair with my foot. “Unless you want to wake up shaped like a pretzel, you might want to stretch.”

She stirs, blinking slowly, her gaze unfocused. “What time is it?”

“Late.” I lean back in my chair. “Or early, depending on how you look at it.”

She stretches, wincing as she rubs her neck. “You’re still working?”

“No, I took a break to write poetry and learn the violin. What gave it away?”

Her lips twitch into a small smile. “How’s it going?”

“Terribly. Turns out sarcasm is my only real talent. I should quit the day job and become a stand up comedian.”

She stands. “What’s that?”

“They stand up on a stage and tell jokes.”

She actually rolls her eyes at me. I hide a smile.

“It’s Victor’s latest breadcrumb. Go make coffee if you’re awake. This could take a while.”

She grumbles something under her breath but gets up.

The first layer is simple enough to crack, but it’s never just one. Victor doesn’t work that way. Every clue is buried under another, forcing me to peel back the layers one at a time. By the time Eva returns with two mugs of coffee, I’m staring at a timestamp blinking steadily beneath the coordinates.

She hands me the coffee and sits beside me, her eyes flicking between me and the screen. “What’s it say?”

“It’s a date and time.” I take a sip.

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