Page 84 of Peak’s Code

"I know so,” he insisted. For the first time, Maeve saw fear flicker across the Director's face, but it was only for an instant, and then it vanished.

"What did you do?" the Director asked. Wren looked toward Maeve, and then Peak, before finally grinning. "I wrote better code than yours."

Peak's head snapped toward Wren. "How the hell did you do that?"

She walked to one of the keyboards. "I've been poisoning the system for months."

Maeve frowned. "You what?"

"I couldn't escape, so I started rewriting everything." Her fingers flew across the keyboard and lines of code raced across every monitor.

The Director's calm expression cracked. "No."

Wren smiled wider. "You should've let me sleep more."

"What did you do?" Peak asked.

Wren's eyes lit up. "I fixed the crawler."

Peak immediately understood. "You expanded it."

She nodded excitedly. "It stopped collecting data and started copying it."

Maeve stared. "All of it?"

"Everything,” Wren said proudly. “Bank accounts, shipping manifests, employee files, safe houses, offshore companies, and political payments." She looked back at the screen. "I copied every dirty secret Director ever buried."

Peak actually laughed. "I knew I liked you."

Maeve looked between them. "You are terrifying."

"Probably,” Wren said with a shrug. “But I couldn’t sit back and do nothing.”

The Director slammed one hand onto something off-screen. "Shut her terminal down!" he shouted.

Wren rolled her eyes. "I disconnected it yesterday."

The smile vanished from the Director's face. "You impossible little⁠—"

"I know,” she said, cutting off his tirade. "My sister says that about me too."

Maeve couldn't stop smiling, despite everything; Wren was still Wren.

Peak stepped beside her. "Can we get the files out?"

Wren nodded. "Already did." She pointed toward a blinking green indicator. "They're uploading right now."

"To where?" Maeve asked.

Wren looked at her. "Every federal agency I could think of."

Peak looked surprised. "The FBI?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Homeland Security?" he questioned.

"Yes,” Wren breathed.