Chapter 640: Enigma (1/2)

Dex shrugged slightly. ”I have no idea who that is. This pod was pulled out of a landfill by my friend, Saul.”

Quicksilver's smile faded into a frown. ”The pawnshop owner?”

”Yeah. Six of them were dumped in a landfill a while back; he cannibalized five of them to make this one operable.” Dex's mood darkened considerably; these people were playing for keeps. ”I need to know everything you know.”

The blond stared at him for a long moment before slowly nodding. ”Like it or not, you are already in the shit.”

”Does that mean they'll come after me?”

”I don't think it has come to that yet.” She brought out a wrist hud and used the wireless interface to access the hard drive. ”Any idea what happened to the other pods?”

”No. Saul said that he used them for parts.” Dex considered his friend's habits. ”If he had pieces left over, I know where he might stash them.”

”Hmm… Nothing new here. Quiz time, Dex. What did you learn from this hard drive when you hacked it?”

”I isolated the outside commands that coincided with your initial arrest and the accident at Gladis Corp. I assumed that you had a partner that did the second job, but I see now that is unlikely.”

”Smart… You recognized my Exe?” Quicksilver smiled at him. ”What did you think?”

”Sleek bit of work, but I have better.”

The blond raised an eyebrow at him. All hackers think their shit is the hottest. ”I'll give you a chance to prove it!”

Dex ignored the challenge; hacking anything that offered real-time counters would be disastrous with his current gear. ”Can you fill me in?”

Quicksilver leaned back in the chair, her blue eyes scanning the hud. ”Sixteen pods from the accident were never recovered. These were the ones on the lowest level of the Gladis facility. Recently, a number of those started surfacing.”

Dex raised a hand to interrupt her. ”The lot where the facility was located was recently sold. It may have been cleaned up as part of the new construction requirements.”

The blond touched the tip of her nose with a slender finger. ”Exactly. The clean-up crew found a large number of pods, despite Gladis Corps' claim that they had removed them all. My job is to find all of them.”

”What for?” It didn't add up; countless experts would have examined most of the pods that had been recovered. Dex took a seat next to Quicksilver, his eyes looking at the same thing she was. ”I didn't see that command on my interface.”

Quicksilver shook her head slightly. ”Because you were hacking it with a toaster!”

Dex cleared his throat. ”Clothes dryer, actually. The toaster is just the housing.”

”Let me see it, and I'll spill everything.”

Dex left the hacker by herself and went downstairs to retrieve his contraband. He wasn't worried about her being alone in his loft. There was nothing there that a hacker would be interested in. He did take a quick peek at the stairs to make sure she wasn't looking before he rolled his motorcycle off of the loose floorboard.

Quicksilver had shut down her hud by the time he returned a minute later. ”This one is the same as the others. The smoking gun isn't here.”

Dex sat his array on the kitchen counter, smiling when she grabbed it. ”What smoking gun?”

”When I went into their system the second time, they activated the explosives that destroyed the facility. Seventeen people died as a result of this missing command.” Quicksilver shook her head in amazement as she started analyzing his array. ”Might have to change your name to Sexy Dexy. I want to see this array in action.”

Dex covered his embarrassment with a cough, turning slightly so she wouldn't notice. ”If that executive command could be proven, then those subsidiary companies would fry.”

Quicksilver nodded in agreement. ”Yeah, but I've scanned nearly all of the hard drives that are accounted for; the order wasn't recorded.”

Dex pushed back his chair and walked toward the pod. ”Doesn't make sense. Creating an executive order that disappears isn't difficult. Gladis Corp would have been smart enough to do that. You may be wasting your time.”

She placed the array on the counter and moved back to the pod. ”I think so too, however the people I work for remain unconvinced.”

Dex reinstalled the hard drive with the help of Quicksilver and started refastening the panels. ”Say the proof doesn't exist. Why would Gladis Corp be acting so aggressively?”

”That's the million-dollar question.” Quicksilver picked up one side of the 'S' recliner and waited for him to grab the other.

”I already know why.” Dex smiled at the surprised look on her face. Together they lowered the chair and started attaching it.

Quicksilver smiled sexily. ”If you figured that out, we might have to team up.”

There was nothing he could do about his face turning beet red. ”Their aggressiveness has nothing to do with the missing commands. Those would have surfaced way before now if they existed. It's something else, something they are willing to kill for.”