Page 71 of Hollow Code
"I'll take those odds." She quickly wrote the spoof and cached authentication, formatting it to mirror the original handshake. Her fingers moved faster than her thoughts, which was fine because her thoughts were trying to calculate survival odds, and her fingers only cared about syntax.
She deployed the echo.
The checkpoint processed. The progress bar blinked green.
"It worked."
"Yeah, but we still lost time," Gideon reminded her.
But she focused on the fifth key. The progress bar seemed slower, but it still took. "One more key, and then I build the backdoor."
"You've got this."
She pulled the sixth and final encryption key from the deepest layer of the administrative partition. This one was different. Heavier, more complex, wrapped in a secondary encryption layer that she had to peel before she could access the raw data. Her fingers slowed. Precision mattered more here than speed. One miskeyed character, and the shell would reject the injection, and she'd have to restart the final sequence.
"Single vehicle moving down the access road," Scout said. "Tinted windows like before."
"How long until they reach the hub?" Neve asked.
"Less than ten minutes," Scout said.
Zadie listened, but she kept her focus on the code flashing on the screen.
"Any other vehicles?" Coulter asked.
"Can’t see any, but that doesn’t mean they’re not coming."
"Everyone hold position. Scout, keep tracking," Neve said.
Zadie peeled the encryption layer. The raw key data populated on her screen. She copied it into the shell then hit the integration command.
The progress bar barely moved.
"Come on," she whispered.
"Second vehicle on the access road," Scout said. "Same profile. One minute behind the first."
"Gideon, how much time is left on the burn clock?" Zadie couldn't take her eyes off the progress bar while her heart lodged in her throat like a frog croaking.
"Not exactly sure what that echo did to us, so somewhere between two and four minutes."
The progress bar hit seventy percent and barely continued to tick upward.
"First vehicle pulled off the road," Scout said. "Three hundred meters south. Four men in tactical gear exiting now."
The bar hit seventy-four percent…seventy-six percent.
"Second vehicle stopping behind the first. Three more men," Scout said.
"Shit," Gideon muttered.
"They're moving fast and heavily armed," Scout continued. "Sprinting for the tree line."
"Everyone, engage at your discretion," Neve said. "Protect the hub."
Gideon’s fingers curled around Zadie’s shoulders. "It shouldn’t be this slow. How’s the conn?—"
"I checked it three times. It’s strong."
