*CLATTER-SHOCK.
*
The floorboards beneath our feet seemed to drop two inches.
Inside the locked server vault at the rear of the production room, sixty feet down the hall, the automated high-voltage alarms began to chirp with rapid, rhythmic, synchronized warning codes:
*BEEP… BEEP… BEEP.
*
`ALERT: REMOTE SATELLITE BREACH DETECTED`
`ORIGIN: ZURICH // FINANCIAL CLEARING INTERFACE`
`TARGET: THE VANCE-STERLING COMMERCIAL REPOSITORY`
`MESSAGE: “THE FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLAR CHECK WAS AN ENCRYPTED BEACON.”
`
`”THE EXTRACTION IS IN MOTION.”
`
`”AND THE MAN WHO PLANTED THE SYNTHETIC GAS IN ELEANOR’S CAR…”`
`”IS CURRENTLY SITTING IN YOUR LIVING ROOM IN LAKEWOOD.”
`
The room seemed to lose its gravitational center in a fraction of a second.
The blood on my shirt cuff grew cold as mountain ice.
My phone in my coat pocket began to vibrate—a frantic, continuous, violent pulse that rattled against my ribs:
*BZZZZT.
BZZZZT.
BZZZZT.
*
I pulled out the phone.
The caller identifier on the glowing screen was not a corporate extension.
