IT TOOK TESS A SECOND to figure out why those words were familiar. “You were listening. You heard what I said to Harry… You knew about the burgers before he even opened the door.”
“We weren’t talking about you. Harry came to talk to me about heading east… We have to retrieve the Scepter.”
Hades’ key.
“Zeus already has two,” she said.
“Yeah, and that’s the dilemma. We have to time everything just right. When we pick it up. When we go back to the beta site. When we extract Minotaur’s core… And there’s something else that… I don’t know, it’s worrying him, but he won’t talk about it yet.”
“What something else?”
“At the beta site there was a secondary core. Justice and Retribution Repository: JARR, It’s basically an archive and data processor. Logs and research are stored in it. It’s impossible to extract the information. Once data is sent to JARR, we can’t get it back.”
“What is it for?”
“Depends on who you ask. It was set up to keep a record of all missions, intel, that kind of thing. For more sensitive missions, not everyone is given all the information. Even at the top. Zeus might set the mission and know why we’re doing something, but Garrick’s work to prep us, the intel gathered by Harry and his people, it’s not always shared with everyone.”
“So no one person knows everything about a mission?”
“Yeah, or its aftermath,” Daire said. “The logs… Agents are required to provide a full account of our role in a mission for JARR. Everything, including opinions and fuck ups.”
“If someone could access JARR, they would know everything about everyone at Olympus.” He nodded. “Why would that kind of information be kept?
“It’s not just our records. JARR is automatically set to probe other agency systems to gather and store information from them too. CIA, FBI, Homeland, all of them. Overseas intelligence agencies too, Interpol, you name it. Anything that relates to our objectives, missions, even our code names, JARR collects it. If there’s any hint any other agency or individual is getting too close to something that belongs to Olympus, it’s people or its targets, JARR will notify Minotaur. It was cutting edge AI for its time.”
“JARR tells you if there’s the potential for other agencies to step on your toes or find out too much?”
Again, he nodded. “That’s not all…” Taking his time, Daire drew in a breath before continuing. “There’s the possibility it contains information on soft targets.”
Her brow lowered. “I don’t understand. Soft targets?”
“People like me… Well, not me, but the other guys… Sometimes there’s the possibility that… JARR stores information on their connections, personal connections. Even those they don’t know about.”
“Oh my God,” she said, sinking down to sit on the couch at his side. “Like their parents and siblings?”
“Most of the guys were adopted or raised in foster care. JARR stores that information along with friends, from birth right through their lives. It collects information about biological parents, families the guys might not even know they have.”
“Why?” she asked, overwhelmed by how dangerous that could be if someone got hold of it. “Why would they keep a record like that?”
“Information is power,” he said. “At any time, anyone external or internal could become a threat to Olympus. Exposure counts as a threat.”
“They want to be able to blackmail their own agents?”
“It’s smart to know some things. If a biological parent tries to trace the child they gave up, we need to know someone is snooping into our guys.”
“JARR tells you that?” she asked, sliding a hand onto his thigh.
“JARR is like our overarching protector. Information like that even Harry wouldn’t get into. He does background checks, but there are rules. Garrick helps, but there’s no way he’d know intimate details of every guy.”
“But if it’s just lying around, what’s to stop them going in to look?”
“No one can access it.” That just confused her even more, which Daire must have seen because he reached up to smooth his thumb across her furrowed brow. “Best laid plans … They wanted it to be secure and, of course, none of the three principals trusted each other enough to let one of them have sole access. Even requiring all three was a shady area because, like we know with the keys, things can be stolen. Passwords can be hacked. Nothing to stop anyone chopping off a finger for its print or gouging out an eye.” She winced. “Sorry… But, yeah, they wanted something foolproof. Something unhackable.”
“And they came up with…”
He shrugged. “I don’t know what they settled on. This all happened when I was a kid… They agreed on something, but there was a screw up. Something went wrong. Since then, JARR has been running, even now it runs, but no one can get at what’s inside. JARR will be sending signals to Minotaur, but that’s offline, so…”
“No one can get into it,” Tess said, putting pieces together. “You’re worried about what Minotaur will tell you JARR has been saying since it’s been offline?”
“Minotaur has been offline since the Exodus, June last year. Sure there’s a worry, but JARR only flags things for us every once in a while.”
“Still, even if it’s only one or two things, if they’ve been missed or we’re out of time…”
“Yeah,” he said, sliding a hand over hers.
Harry wasn’t the only one holding something back. Turning over her hand, Tess gave him her palm. “I don’t get it. If that’s not why you’re worried, why are you?”
“We have never moved JARR,” he said. “It’s not only unhackable, it’s supposed to be tamper-proof. Some of the failsafe measures are pretty tricky.”
“Failsafe measures like…”
“You and me didn’t talk about the systems in place to protect Minotaur. After Olympus A was destroyed, there were countermeasures put in place that were supposed to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. Measures like after the key is taken from Minotaur, if it’s not replaced within a certain timeframe, gas is released into the ventilation system and doors are locked in a specific sequence.”
“You can’t unlock them?”
“That’s the point,” he said. “If the key is taken out, if it’s stolen, we want the perp trapped. If it’s taken out by a principal, it’s because we’re under attack and we want the perps eliminated.”
“Gas?” she asked. “What kind of gas?”
“One that puts you to sleep pretty quick… and you don’t wake up.”
Thinking about the fact that she’d been in that building and that it had the potential to kill her was sobering. “There was no gas when we went there.”
“It’s a timer system. The building automatically flushes itself, sucks all remaining air from the rooms, and seals the doors. Prevents bacteria, flora and fauna growth.”
“We breathed air.”
One side of his mouth lifted as he twisted his hand to link their fingers. “Sometimes I forget my normal isn’t normal for everyone.”
“Tell me about it.”
Their normal might not match, but it had taken Tess until adulthood to grasp how different her childhood had been from the majority of others’.
“If no one reenters for twenty-three days, the dormant system retreats to auxiliary status,” Daire said. “That means unless a specific code is entered at a specific panel, nothing will open, nothing will work. No amount of authorization will get you in. Doesn’t matter what you know or where your loyalty is.”
“The code,” she said. “At the security panel… That’s what we put in? That’s how you got us in?”
“That code releases oxygen into authorized areas and unlocks certain doors in one… scenic route to the control room. Only someone with true knowledge will know that path… If a wrong door is attempted, the building locks down again.”
“And the person inside suffocates,” she said, receiving only a shrug. “Only four people knew that code?”
“The three principals and me.”
As he’d said, Daire knew a lot of things about Olympus that he shouldn’t.
“Why didn’t your brother know it?
“He wouldn’t have wanted to. Styx is no Olympus thoroughbred. He was rowdy, disruptive, casual… He didn’t come to us until he was twelve and he was already screwed up. Meant a lot to Harry, who knew some of what he’d been through. We didn’t see eye to eye all the time, but there’s less than three months between us, so we went through a lot of the same shit together.”
“You love him.”
He drew her hand higher up her thigh. “Never say it to his face… fact I’d deny it to anyone else.” The flash of his smile wrought hers. “He didn’t have it so good… Killed his father. In fact, that’s who Harry was on his way to take out. He walked in and Styx had already done it.”
“So Harry brought him to Olympus,” she said, figuring Styx must have been through a lot to be taken to the point of killing his own father.
“Yeah. Went down a storm.”
Tess laughed. Even without being present, she could tell Zeus wouldn’t have been happy to have another kid around.
“Which panel triggers the building to open?” she asked. “The gate or the door? You put it in twice.”
“Uh…” Daire started, lifting her hand to kiss her fingertips, using them to hide his mouth. “I used a different code at the gate. It’s on an isolated system.” Her jaw loosened. “Yeah, sorry about that. There are a bunch of codes for the gate. We have a guest code and our individual codes, if we want to alert Minotaur that we’re coming… I used a guest code… If you put in the wrong code, underground explosives take you off the board.”
Underground explosives, unhackable systems, failsafes, and auxiliary systems, her head was spinning. Just going to that building had meant taking her life into her hands. Maybe that was why she’d been reluctant as soon as she saw it. Although Tess didn’t know it at the time, Daire had actually kept her safe there. He hadn’t been obliged to, but he had.
“How did Harry know we were there?”
“You see that little black thing he’s always looking at?” he asked, flattening her hand on his chest. “It’s his base unit. All the principals have one… it’s keyed to their specific genetic makeup. Only they can use it… As soon as the code is entered, they get a notification. It’s supposed to be a call home, to let the others know we’ve regained control and it’s safe to come back.”
“Wouldn’t have been that while everyone was against each other. How did you know Zeus or Poseidon wouldn’t show up?”
“It was a gamble. I bet that Zeus wouldn’t come back to what could be a trap. Wandering up to a place rigged with all sorts of protective measures, in the middle of nowhere, with the potential to be an ambush? I knew he wouldn’t be that close.”
“And if he had?”
“One or all of us would be dead.”
That wasn’t a great shock, Daire’s assertion when they got to the control room was that he was ready to die if he had to. Seemed to be something he’d made his peace with long ago.
“And Poseidon?” she asked.
“Garrick wouldn’t have taken the risk. He doesn’t care enough about getting the drop on anyone.”
“But Harry wanted to get the drop on Zeus, who he probably guessed was sneaking back to get something or take the advantageous position.”
“That’s what I bet on… Garrick wouldn’t have killed us anyway. We’d have come up with some deal to wait on Harry together… I figured he had the Trident. So worst came to worst, at least I’d be home with Minotaur back online… Some chance of normality.”
His normality anyway.
“You know so much,” Tess said, peering into him. “How did I ever believe you were nothing but a grease monkey?”
“I was what you wanted me to be,” he said, sliding her hand lower. “Didn’t bank on you turning out to be everything I wanted… You played me good, Temptress. Wound me around that little finger without ever being anything but yourself.”
Relishing his view and the gift of being so close to him, she twisted around to slide a leg over his lap.
Straddling him, she pushed her hips closer to his. “What if we never leave here? What if we just stay right here forever?”
“I think Harry would notice.”
Stroking her hands up and down his tee-shirt, she wanted all of him, always. “Are you telling me all this because you want to… or because you think it will make me feel better to know you trust me with it?”
“Both.”
Licking her lips, she peeked up at him. “You said you never slip up with intelligence.”
“I don’t. Every word I’m saying is deliberate. I know how dangerous it is to share information like this. I know how dangerous it would be if it got into enemy hands.”
“But you’re telling me anyway?”
Gripping her hips, he forced her closer. “I love you and there’s nothing in the world more precious, more sacred, than trust. I know it. I was raised that way. It’s like my religion… I broke your trust, betrayed it. I know you say you’ve forgiven it, that you understand… But it keeps me up at night. I don’t want any hint of duplicity between us. I can’t give you the future. I can’t give you the house and the kids… This is the only way I know how to show you that what I feel for you is deep and true.”
Her hands went from his chest to his shoulders to the sides of his neck to guide him until their foreheads touched. “I know it, my Heart.”
Just as they both began to tilt and their breath merged, there was a loud bang. Something, or rather someone, had hit the side of the trailer.
“Time to sweat!”
It wasn’t Harry, which was at least something. He’d have tried the door. Although Tess didn’t know it for sure, she guessed that it being locked wasn’t normal for that time of day.
She sat up. They couldn’t really say anything else. If one of the guys was out there, all of them might be. Daire had listened in to her conversation with Harry, she didn’t know how, but that proved voices could pass through the trailer walls.
With his hands on her hips, Daire guided them to their feet. He pulled her close to kiss her forehead and whispered against her. “Stay at least three minutes, then we’ll be clear.”
Tess didn’t know exactly where the guys were going or what they were doing. They were still training a lot, so it was probably just more of the same.
As he started for the door, she caught his hand. He turned back as she rubbed her face against his palm. He smiled and slid the pad of his thumb across her lips.
She didn’t want to let him go. Except there was no other choice. Daire had his commitments, and it was time for her to be true to hers.