Page 52 of Hollow Code
"At first I tried connecting into the routers so I could disable the feeds. But Isaac’s a lot smarter than I thought he was." Gideon tapped the keyboard. "He’s also had access to my credentials long before I got fired." He lifted his gaze, scanning the fence line again. "Every minute we're connected to this node, we're visible. The AI may not flag us immediately, and it might not even see us as a threat. More likely as a node not functioning properly. But if Isaac is actively hunting inside the system for new threats, he’d look at something like this as a moving target."
"But you set it up to look like a faulty wire."
"If someone breached my system and I identified them, the first thing I'd do is set a trap. Custom tripwires tuned to their methods. I'd make the net so tight they couldn't touch the system without me knowing exactly where they were. This one node having a shit fit. It’s old. And at first glance, it would appear to be circuit issues. But that would make me paranoid."
"You built this system. Isaac inherited it. There's a difference between the architect and the tenant."
"He helped with the blueprint. He asked questions. He’s not stupid."
She placed her hand on his forearm. "We planned for this. We practiced. And we're not alone out here."
He exhaled through his nose and turned back to the screen. The cipher data scrolled, and fast. Regeneration events logged as timestamps with variable intervals, each one driven by a unique combination of network factors. Things were happening, and it wouldn’t take as long as she feared.
"There's something else," he said.
"I’m listening."
"I should have expected the human assist during the hack. I worked with the AI designers. I know its limitations, and I put this entire operation at risk."
"Even if we’d thought about the human element, we couldn’t have predicted what he’d do, or how he’d do it."
"Maybe. But I knew the AI blind spots, and so did my team. So did Isaac." Gideon directed his gaze back to the screen and tapped on the keyboard again. "He’s doing exactly what I'd do. That means, I should be three steps ahead of him, and I'm not."
"We got the credentials in. You got us to this node. And right now, you're reading data that Isaac doesn't know you're reading." She leaned forward, sticking her face in front of his sightline. "They don't know about me. Even if he finds fingerprints in the system, Isaac can't trace them to a ghost."
He reached out and cupped her cheek. "That’s true." He smiled.
"You two are disgustingly cute," Scout muttered through the comms. "But I can’t take any more of this."
"Then don’t listen in to other people’s private conversations." Zadie squared her shoulders, readjusted her grip on her weapon, and did a scan.
"Kind of hard not to," Coulter replied. "But it’s keeping me occupied, so feel free to chatter on."
"Aren’t you funny." It’s not that she’d forgotten the comms were stuck in her ear, she was just more focused on Gideon’s emotions.
"First pattern showing," Gideon said quietly.
"What does that mean, exactly?" Neve asked.
"Means we should be out of here in somewhere between a half hour and an hour." Gideon lifted his gaze. "Unless the traffic pattern slows down."
Zadie understood how data transmitted. While it was one continuous stream, there were spikes and lulls. An hour could double. Or even triple depending on weather, or even usage patterns in the area that had nothing to do with the specific node.
The only thing they could do was wait.
Chapter Thirteen
Zadie glanced at her watch. Exactly two hours and eight minutes since Gideon had connected to the node. "What's the data like?"
"It's been coming in spurts." Gideon glanced up. "I'm sorry. I need more time."
"Don't stress," Coulter's voice came over the comms. It was that annoying quiet tone he tended to use the shit hit the fan. "You warned us going in this could be an issue."
"All clear here," Wynn said.
"Same," Neve added.
"We've got a problem," Scout broke in. "Movement on the access road. Black SUV. Approaching from the south at a moderate to slow speed."
