Kestrel’s info dump was impressive. BlueWhisper knew some badass hackers. He made more progress in a day than anyone should have been able to.

  He hit social networks and dark web databases, expanding his search radius fast. Each target got spear-phishing and password attacks. It was systematic and professional with prebuilt scripts using LLMs.

  At the same time, he fired off network scanners on every company IP address he could find. To save time, he ran those on aggressive mode. That was a big mistake. It triggered an arm, and someone immediately smmed back at Kestrel’s scanner systems. They even penetrated one before he shut them down. That part sucked, but I had asked for speed and he had gone for speed over stealth.

  The surprise find was from a seemingly low-level trigger-puller at Meridian who reused the same password for everything. A court-martialled former Army Ranger named Darius Clemens. He’d gotten an email from an address Kestrel couldn’t identify, which triggered his urgent message to me:

  Pick up your fucking phone Darius. We’ve got an op. Triple rations, and a BIG FUCKING BONUS. They want two people grabbed or gone. Chick named Luanda took out that Dave dude in Seattle, also shot some local cop he was working with. Bitch is working with some hacker. No location, but they have a line on her wyer, and are close on some other intel. It’s a team of four, and I want you. If you don’t get on Signal in thirty minutes, I’m using Carbine instead because we are wheels up tonight at nine. I’m so fucking tired of carrying your ass. SOBER THE FUCK UP!

  When Luanda read it, she wanted to call her wyer, but I stopped her. We needed to avoid signal traces back to us if they were onto him. We let Sophia know, and she said she would tell him to get his family somewhere safe.

  One more person on the ledger. No, one more family.

  Wearily, I said, “I don’t think this changes our pn at all tonight.”

  “You don’t think this means we need to move?”

  “Nothing in that email indicates they know where we are. Moving out tonight is still dangerous given the huge police presence in the area, especially without Whisper to give us information. Our best bet is to stay here tonight.” The distant sound of police sirens punctuated my remarks as Luanda nodded in agreement.

  “I agree, but we need to keep watch in case the intel they say they are close on is our exact location. I’ll crash now if you want to take the first watch, just pay attention and don’t fall asleep before you wake me,“ Luanda said.

  “I’m a hacker. Staying awake all night is my job description.”

  We discussed sightlines for a bit, and when Luanda was convinced I knew what areas to watch and that I would remember to check that I understood our countersurveilnce situation, Luanda went upstairs.

  While Luanda slept, I fired off a bunch of scripts to gather intel on Meridian and BLH. Months ago, I hacked a call center in Odisha. I used it to run the attacks. Anything they found got dumped into a Reddit thread in steganographically altered memes. No logs. No fingerprints. That was my prayer.

  I also sent messages to contacts who might know something about any of those groups, including Daniel Park, since Jacob was clearly a corrupt cop, and guys like Park knew cops like that.

  After the day's events, being on my computer was a relief, and I enjoyed the solitude, but before long, Luanda woke up, and it was time to swap pces.

  Sleep was never something I looked forward to, even less so since my premonition of Luanda. Regardless, it didn’t take long on the comfortable, if overstuffed bed.

  My dreams were not pleasant.

  Grease-streaked linoleum. A sagging table. Her fbby hand was white-knuckled on the knife. She kept shouting that I owed her. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t blink. Then Luanda’s hand was over my mouth, and I woke up.

  I sat up stiffly, and Luanda said, “You were having some kind of weird nightmare. This was the third time. You just yelled ‘no’ the other two times and then went quiet. Just now, you were screaming about money. I didn’t want the neighbors to call the cops.”

  I got up and went downstairs to check on my scripts. When I sat down, Luanda sat down, staring from the darkened room into the night, eyes scanning the darkness. As she did, she asked, “What were you dreaming about?”

  “No idea. It was some kind of family dispute, and this woman was threatening me with a knife. Didn’t mean shit to me. I get a lot of random dreams like that.” I paused for a minute, thinking if I wanted to say more, then continued, “Sometimes, I can’t say what makes it happen, but sometimes they are real.”

  “You mean seeing the future like with that Sheriff?” Her tone was less dismissive than before.

  “Yes, exactly like that. That’s how I knew you were in trouble.”

  She sat down and looked at me, clearly engaged.

  “The day before they came to get you, I had a dream where Jacob put you into the police car. I don’t remember exactly what he said, but I saw him through your eyes, and I felt his hand between your legs as he strapped you in. I also saw Nick punch you in the face. I could tell that dream was real.”

  “How the fuck could you know any of that? You had to be parked nearby because you rammed me not fifteen blocks from there.”

  “I dreamed about it the day before.”

  She shook her head, “Fuck, that’s insane. So sometimes you just know it’s going to happen? Have there been other times like that?”

  For the first time, I could tell she believed me. I pointed at the woven bracelet on my wrist. “I got this from a girl named Lisa when I was eleven.”

  “She was nine at the time, and we were best friends. Her mom used to beat her up a lot. There was a pce out behind the Seven-Eleven we used to go just to get away from our moms, and we shared everything. We talked a bunch of times about her running away, but I didn’t have any money, and there was no one we knew to take her in.” There were tears in my eyes as I put it into words.

  Luanda’s brow was furrowed, and I could see her fingers rubbing together angrily. I couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “One night, I dreamed I was her, and her mom was yanking her by the arm. Her mom smmed it hard down onto the corner of the kitchen counter. I could feel the arm break, and somehow, I didn’t see how, but there was a lot of blood. Her mom freaked, grabbed her hair, and put her face right up to Lisa’s. She shouted at Lisa to tell the doctors she had fallen, or she would cut her.”

  I pyed with Lisa’s bracelet absently as my eyes lost focus. “The doctors called the police and she got taken away. Her mom went to prison.”

  I paused, my mind brushing over nasty details I had learned ter, but I kept it brief. “I never saw her again after that. I found out she ran away from her foster home at thirteen, and I’ve tried to track her down, but I’ve never found any traces. All these hacking skills, and I can’t even find the one person I let down the most.”

  Luanda shook her head. “None of that is your fault.”

  She waited, searching for words, but I spoke over her before she could say more.

  “When you see it happen and then the next day it happens, it feels like it’s your fault. I saw it a full day before and ignored it. I didn’t think it was real.”

  “You were just eleven. Her mom was the one to bme. You can’t take the bme from people who deserve it.”

  I just shut up. Telling Lisa's story for the first time hadn't been something I pnned. But I was gd I did, and I was gd Luanda believed me. I shook my head to clear out the tears and focused on my computer, trying to set aside the sound of Lisa’s voice crying my name in my dream. I needed to worry about now, and thoughts of Lisa had to wait.