Chapter Twenty-Four

“And that’s exactly what you heard?” Edmund’s voice echoed across the home audio, bouncing off the walls of Rosa’s laboratory.

“Yes, exactly,” Viktoriya said, sitting on one of the swiveling chairs, flipping her magnets.

Eva spun her in a slow circle—the gentle motion providing her comfort while her girl gave herself over to the chore of speaking to Edmund.

“Thank you for bringing this to your parents, Viktoriya,” Edmund continued.

“This is very important, and you did your country, no, the world, a huge favor.”

“Rosa, Eva, you have my word. We will thoroughly look into this, and it is my hope as much as yours that Aura is innocent. But innocent people don’t threaten a four ZENnCoin project hours before it’s hacked.”

“I know,” he answered, not taking his eyes off his girl.

The thought that she was at Choe’s with Aura there—with a terrorist there—made him sick.

“This is hard for us all, and we certainly know it will be hard for you, Edmund. Keep us in the loop, will you?”

“Will do. We are informing our team at Aura’s right now,” he said.

“Oh, and I ask you to keep this intel quiet—we’re at an advantage now. They don’t know that we are aware.”

“Right,” Rosa replied, though he was a little worried.

He shook his head, clearing the thought from his mind. Even though Argosys had threatened TITAN, he knew Aura.

She may be on the wrong side of this, but she wasn’t an evil person.

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“Whose been working the case?”

“The Global Defense Collaboration, iCAI, the Secret Intelligence Service, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency, the South African Secret Service, the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service—”

“We get the picture, Edmund,” Eva said, still spinning their girl’s chair. “The spies are on it.”

Edmund chuckled from across the line—his heavy breath causing the speaker to static.

“Correct Eva—I suppose, for lack of a better way to phrase it, the spies are on it. Special-ops military is also engaged in flushing out the group’s members—I’m sure they are already bringing Aura in for questioning.”

“Thank you, Edmund,” Rosa said, noticing their girl was growing uneasy listening to them talk while not including her in the conversation.

“Thanks a lot. And most importantly, thank you, Viktoriya. You could be very well saving the world here. I recall your amazing work on the night the power grids were attacked. You are quite the brilliant young lady! Halikkon looks forward to having you join our ranks once you’re all grown up, of course,” he said.

Viktoriya smiled.

“I’m very expensive, Ed.”

“I’ll be in touch soon. Stay safe, Kuzlands,” he replied as he laughed.

The monotone beep reverberated in the lab. It took a moment, but the large room soon grew silent.

“I just can’t believe it,” Eva said while stroking Viktoriya’s chestnut hair.

“Aura, of all people! And my darling, I’m so sorry we let you go over there and—”

She looked up at her mom. “Does this mean I won’t be able to be friends with Choe anymore?”

“Oh, sweetie, that’s not the case,” her dad said, rushing over to her. “Maybe for a little while, but I’m sure you’ll see Choe again very soon—”

“And Aura?” she asked.

“We all hope she’s innocent,” her dad replied as he kneeled in front of her.

“But it really isn’t looking good for her right now. The timing is too suspicious. We may all want to prepare for the worst—that Aura will no longer be a part of our lives.”

“But she has hurt no one.”

“My darling, maybe she’s threatened to, though. She’s threatened to hurt many.”

Eva moved to join Rosa in front of their daughter.

“Maybe it’s been her all along,” he whispered. Both his wife and daughter looked at him inquisitively.

“Maybe it was Aura who leaked the data, the information from the very start.”

“Huh,” Eva said, her face thoroughly analyzing his words.

“That kind of makes sense. You’d think that, after all this time, we would have known, you think there would have been some sign.”

* * *

Aura’s phone vibrated.

“Zena, we have to extract you right now; you have been made. It seems the girl overheard your call and has updated Halikkon with our intel… No, there’s no time. We’ll be there in two minutes. Be ready.”