Turncoat: Turncoat Trilogy Book 1

Chapter 3.1

“What do you have to drink?” Vicki asked.

“Uh…” I looked back to my shelves and spotted two bottles of water sitting next to a box of crackers. “I have water,” I said.

“That works,” Vicki smiled.

I grabbed the bottles and joined her on the couch. She took one of the bottles and looked around. “Do you have a computer?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. I waved my hand over the table and the keyboard and holoscreen illuminated. The screen frizzed for a second, going fuzzy before returning to normal. “It’s not much, but I can do a few side jobs for extra cash. Mostly fake papers for Tzi families, but that’s about it. I don’t have a backdoor into the military servers, so I have to give the files to someone else to upload. So not many can afford my prices.”

“If you had a backdoor, what could you do?” Vicki asked.

“More than what you are asking of me,” I said. I motioned again and my computer shut down. I clenched my fists to hide my shaking hands.

Vicki put her hand over mine. “Don’t worry, we won’t force you to do much right now. This is just a small hole in the software’s security for the drones; it’ll cut down on Alliance deaths,” she said. “They’ll get here faster, then we’ll be free.”

I felt her press the flash drive to my palm and wrap my fingers around it. Her touch was gentle, never forcing my fingers to do anything, just guiding them into a grasp. My jaw began to quiver and my chest constricted. My breaths came short and gasping. Small sobs hitched my breaths and tears wet my cheeks.

“Why are you crying?” Vicki asked. Her voice was soft, like a whisper. Her hand touched my cheek, brushing the tears away.

My lips opened and closed by I couldn’t force them to make words. Just a bunch of half formed I’s came out. “I, you, he, you were just gone,” I sobbed.

Vicki smiled softly and touched her forehead to mine. “I didn’t want to leave, but we got an assignment. I’m sorry, I would have told you but Captain Otto forbade me from speaking with you on assignment and then when we returned, you weren’t at the hospital anymore. I checked your room, you weren’t there.”

“When did you come back?” I asked. I sniffled and rubbed my nose.

“It was November tenth, we just got back from the front lines and received a leave,” Vicki said. “I came to visit you but your room was empty and all of the things you accumulated in your stay were gone.”

“The tenth of November?” I repeated. “They didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me?” Vicki asked.

“I had my surgery on the tenth of November and then I was moved to the physical rehabilitation wing,” I muttered. “The nurses didn’t tell you?”

Vicki looked down and folded her hands in her lap. “No, they didn’t,” she whispered. “I thought, I don’t know what I thought. You were gone and Otto told me you were probably dead. He was looking forward to seeing you too.”

I smiled weakly and wiped the tears away before she could see them. Change the subject before you start to cry more. “So, just install it on all of the drones I work on?” I asked.

Vicki nodded. “Yeah, just install it. We’ll give the access codes to the alliance hackers next time we send a courier their way. It will bury rather nicely and hide, a tiny little crack waiting to be exploited.”

I felt a yawn coming up and I looked at the clock. “I gotta get to bed,” I said. “If I fall asleep at work, the commandant will have my head.”