The Autumn Prince

40. Never the Right Time

I found Amy in a corner of the building behind the row of cottages where she and Meg had set up their shared workshop. Server racks took up most of the tiny enclosure except for a small space cluttered with stacked computer parts and peripherals. At one end of that space, on top of a short cabinet, perched a miniature desk where Amy sat, staring at a glowing disk. I knocked on the door frame.

"Got a second?"

"Sure, Tom. Is it raining?" she said, indicating my wet hair and shirt.

"No, I'm just recovering from a heart attack."

"You're what?"

"It's not important," I said looking closer at the disk. "What is that? I thought you didn't use magic."

She grinned proudly at the circle in front of her. "I don't. It's a Fenix smartwatch body, but Meg and I had to gut it so it would play nice with the other hardware. It's hardwired to a DARPA modified mil-spec sat phone with a stable uplink to a secure data center in Colorado that's run by a friend of Finn's. They host most of my custom software, and from there I can access and manage this and other mainframes in near real time, all from this watch screen."

"Um, let's pretend I understood a fraction of what you just said, and you can imagine how impressed I am."

She laughed. "Everyone has their specialties."

"Hang on, if you can remote in from a server in Colorado, what have you been doing here all week?"

She leaned back in her tiny chair and sighed. "Finn wanted your mainframe to be extra secure. Usually when she says stuff like that it just means an additional firewall, but you're a special case. You've got a DMZ sandwiched between two firewalls and a multi-layered, encrypted handshake protocol blocking access to your production environment. I can't back door in, which means all firmware upgrades have to be done on-site. These updates aren't integrating properly and the backup mainframe is bricked. Since I have to stick around to install the fixes, and I have no idea how long it'll take me to finish, I'm just working on it here."

"I get why you're working here, but why don't you go home when you're not busy? I thought I heard Finn say your clan was nearby."

"In the city. We move around for different jobs, so we're used to setting up temporary warrens. Only about a third of the clan works directly for Finn, but we stick together."

"You can't commute?"

"Too much hassle."

"You're avoiding Grimble again, aren't you?" I said, realizing she had more than one incentive for hanging around. She looked away guiltily.

"Maybe."

"Where do you sleep?"

"I manage, but you didn't come back here to talk about me, what's up?"

I sat on the floor next to her hardware pile and shared Katherine's concern. Amy's cheerful expression faded. "Of course I'll help, what do you need me to do?"

"I was hoping you'd have some ideas. None of us can just ditch out without raising suspicions. Can you get in touch with Miss Gold?"

"Finn can. I'll call her first."

"I already tried calling both of them."

Amy nodded. "She's been busy, but she'll pick up for me. Nobody else on her staff can do what I do, so she cuts me a lot of slack."

"I got that impression."

"Are you calling me a troublemaker?"

"Not compared to her," I snorted. "I meant it really seems like she needs you."