Page 16 of Rescuing Rebecca
The clacking of keyboard keys competed with the deafening sound of Becca’s heart pounding against her rib cage. Eyes glued to the minuscule clock on the corner of her computer screen, each painful beat echoed in her head as she counted off the seconds.
Fifty-six. Fifty-seven. Fifty-eight. Fifty-nine.
SIXTY.
The digital display changed to the top of the hour. Three o’clock pm. Go time. Her muscles tensed and her lungs constricted. Her fight or flight response triggered. Silly, because what happened next? Out of her control.
She could swear the temperature in the climate-controlled computer room spiked to a million degrees. Her palms started to sweat, and her vision blurred, but she didn’t dare slow her fingers or lift her eyes from her screen.
She couldn’t risk a glance in Roman’s direction.
Instead, she continued to type as her brain produced strings of code. She didn’t need to focus on the task at hand. At this point, she could create multiple scripts using different programming languages and still watch a rerun of Friends.
Could she be any more pathetic?
She lived and breathed at the mercy of a computer. Plugged into it like it held the source of her power. Like she couldn’t survive without the blue light energy emitted by the bank of screens she faced day in and day out.
She hit the Enter key to start the testing process on the complex code she’d created. It would fail. Then again, she’d designed it that way. She didn’t want to unravel Jay’s lock to control Dominion. Nope. She wanted that sucker to stay well hidden inside his gigantic brain.
The only thing keeping him alive—the only thing keeping all of them alive—the lock needed to be protected until she could put the kill switch in place, or Dominion would destroy everyone and everything. No exceptions.
Three people. Jay. Becca. Maya.
Three pieces of code. The lock. The key. The kill switch.
When it came to the virus capable of wiping out humanity, each of them had a specific role to play. Seven years ago, Jay had asked her to code the key to Dominion as part of a school project. A precaution he’d wanted to take, and a secret she hadn’t shared with anyone. Not even her sister.
The real truth?
The secret she hadn’t even shared with Jay.
The project had scared the shit out of her. Made her realize how dependent they’d become on technology, computers, and the Internet. How their interconnectivity had become their Achilles heel. The single biggest threat to individualism, free thinking, and global peace.
Thanks to the computing powers of tiny microprocessors, a large majority of the world’s population kept their brains in their pockets. A vulnerability people in power would exploit for their gain.
If Dominion came to pass, by accident or design, governments would topple, societies would crumble, and people would die. No, she hadn’t wanted to control the virus. Her instinct had been to find a way to destroy it.
So, in addition to the key, she’d created the kill switch. A final fail-safe she’d put in place, unbeknownst to anyone. A black rose. A set of instructions written in a unique programming language. Hidden in a piece of art. Stolen from her room.
And embedded in her sister’s flesh.
Not her intention. Not Maya’s either. To this day, she still had no clue she was the walking, talking canvas for the only existing copy of the source code capable of wiping out Dominion.
Yeah, she needed her twin to undo what the three of them had done.
Jay.
Becca.
Maya.
Love twisted into an unholy trinity of jealousy, hate, and sorrow. Powerful enough to turn the world to ash. Her fault. Her responsibility to fix.
The screeching wail of an alarm assaulted her eardrums, and jolted from the dark path her mind had wandered down, she surged to her feet. An automatic reflex that served her purpose as her chair careened toward the wall. “What’s happening?”
“Fire alarm,” Roman spat as he flew past her. “Stay here.” He flung the heavy security door open and disappeared into the hall. Seconds later, the automatic closure did its thing, and she was alone in the room.
Three. Two. One. The overhead lights flickered and went out as the building’s electrical grid failed, and the backup generator kicked in to supply power to essential equipment. And nothing on Big Diomede was considered more important than the computers and the now surveillance-free room that housed them.
