20 | bite the bullet

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'Maybe the most interesting thing about you is the thing you're most afraid of sharing.'

— unknown  

THE LIFT STILL HAD the bloodstains from when Hari had been in it

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THE LIFT STILL HAD the bloodstains from when Hari had been in it. Ri shifted away from them. It was strange how it long ago it felt, that day when everything went straight to shit. But looking at the barely dry pools of blood, it drove home the fact that it hadn't even been twenty four hours.

By Monday's suggestion, they were taking the lift up to the floor below the servers to escape the risk of running into armed guards. Just the thought of guns was enough to make her shiver. It didn't help that she had one stuffed into the back of her trousers, covered by the back of her jacket.

Minhyuk took a deep breath next to her and let it out in one big whoosh of air. His lips were quirked down into a worried pout. Warm brown eyes met hers and he looked like he wanted to say something but just then, the smartphone in Ri's pocket went off.

"Who is it?" Minhyuk moved to look at the screen. "Ingrid?"

"Yeah," she swiped her thumb across the screen to answer the call and brought the phone up to her ear. "Hello?"

"Are you at the server room yet?" Ingrid sounded winded. Concern spiked in Ri's gut. She pressed the speaker button so Minhyuk could hear.

"No, we're on our way. What's-"

"Those sons of bitches planted a cyber bomb in the systems. If you try to activate the protection protocols or take back control of the building, it'll trigger a data dump."

"What kind of dump?" Minhyuk asked.

"The government-secrets-on-the-internet kind," Ingrid huffed, her voice coming out distorted.

Ri cursed. Loudly. That was a bloody mess and a half. "Is there anything we can do to stop it?"

"Heck if I know, I'm not the tech whiz here. Look, I've gotta run so good luck and hurry up," Ingrid grunted and then the line went dead.

She turned to look to Minhyuk, "Have you ever disabled a cyber bomb?"

"No," he grimaced. "Kinda wishing I paid more attention to Professor Hart's Viruses lecture."

"Miss, if I may add, Miss Pepper is very well versed in the defusal of malware bombs. In fact, she had me help her write an essay on it just last week." Monday chimed in. "Shall I give her a call?"

Ri and Minhyuk shared a look. How the heck would they explain it to Pepper? Ri couldn't just ring her up and say 'Hey, bit of a situation. Please help defusing this or risk the country falling into chaos." and expect Pep to take it well.

"We'll call her as a last resort, M," Ri said.

The following silence told her exactly what Monday thought of that decision. Then, the AI said,"You are quickly approaching the 80th floor, please be on your guard. No armed men detected."

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