Page 73 of The Honeymoon Hack
“Are you okay?”
“Are you kidding?” She blew out a sharp breath, shuddering theatrically. “The guard came over to help me, and that’s whenRav finished up. Before I could remind myself to breathe again, he handed me the new ID card.”
“It’s different being in the room, eh?”
“It was so stressful!” She sliced her hand through the air. “I amneverdoing that again!”
“I can’t blame you.” I nodded along with her. “They ran into Ronnie and me in one of the server rooms. I hadn’t seen her in the blonde wig in a while.”
“I don’t know how they keep their faces straight.” Her excitement was mesmerizing. “I was terrified going through security afterward. My heart was pounding so hard I was sure I was going to trip some sensor. But they just waved me through.”
What I would have given to have seen it all happen. We’d considered having Rav upgrade both of us, but that would have increased the odds of being caught.
“At first, I was worried Rav hadn’t encoded the card properly. But when I pulled up the Meridian call history, I was able to click on the company name and find all the details, including the location.” She bounced, shaking her hands, as though to discharge some of the pent-up energy. How she’d made it through the rest of her shift was beyond me. “It was wild!”
“You’re doing a great job, Brie. You understand that, right?”
“It was a thrill, but I’m perfectly happy to sit behind the computer for the rest of my life.”
As much as I wanted to keep this version of Brie, I had to bring us back to the task at hand. “Now we need to figure out how to leverage your new permissions. Can you access the server from The Bridge?”
“Not a chance.” She let out an exaggerated sigh. “There are too many people. They all know I’m new and should only have access to the training videos for a couple more days, at least. If anyone looked at my screen and saw me logged into a client’s server? They’d have security after me so fast.AndI forgot tomention: Malcolm told me to be careful around Claire. He said Gideon found out she’s got some gaps in her history.”
“What do you mean?”
“Honestly?” She rolled her eyes. “I think it means we keep treating her like she might be dangerous. Nothing really changes, does it?”
“You’re right. So we keep vigilant, and either wait for you to start taking calls,” I said, thinking aloud, “or find an excuse for you to visit the Atlantic server room.”
“Actually,” Brie said, her face brightening, “Ken has some local updates scheduled in there tomorrow. Something about client configuration changes that need to be done on site.”
“Perfect. Can you get assigned to shadow him?”
“So long as I finish a few more training videos tomorrow, he said he’d try to take me with him.” She started pacing. “If I can shake Ken somehow, I can find the Meridian server.”
“Kenandyour hardware tech escort. Even if you slip away from them, your lanyard is still green. Anyone who sees you would immediately note the conflict between your apparent clearance level and what you’re attempting to access.”
“If only you could be our escort.”
“I’ve still got a green lanyard.”
“Yeah, Ken wouldn’t fall for that, no matter how keen he is to help me learn.” Her fingers found the wedding band on her left hand, twisting it around. “Could we steal a white lanyard?”
“Maybe?” I shook my head. “It would be risky, but we should touch base with Rav. Maybe he can sneak one out?”
“Maybe.” Brie wandered to the closet and withdrew a zip-front hoodie.
“I do have some good news, though,” I said, partly to convey the information and partly to brighten her mood. “Ronnie and I were working in a maintenance bay, and I found a way to disablethe cameras. Ronnie even showed me a bypass code for the security system.”
She pulled the sweater on, leaving it unzipped. “What kind of bypass?”
“It logs a twenty-minute maintenance window on the security feeds,” I explained. “It lets a tech work without triggering alerts if they need to disconnect something temporarily. The panel has all the camera power connections. If we can coordinate a trip to the Meridian server area, I could disable just the ones covering it.”
“I could text you when Ken and I are heading to the server room. I’d imagine a message like that wouldn’t trigger any security alerts.” She fiddled with the hood ties on her sweater. “Then we both sneak off, meet in Atlantic row fifty-seven, you cut the camera, I log in to the right server?”
“Possible. With the hurricane approaching, the tech staff is very focused on a pre-programmed set of tasks. Perhaps I can access the full shift’s schedule and find a window when the right area is empty.”
Our phones chimed simultaneously with an alert from the Mnemis app. I crossed to the bedside table to check it, then showed it to Brie.
