Chapter 5: Screws & Secrets
The screwdriver incident replayed in Alex’s head for days, a stubborn loop she couldn’t shut off. It wasn’t just the brush of fingers, electric and fleeting. It was Toni’s admission, spoken into the space between them with the soft focus of a third glass of wine: the only thing I’ve ever constructed was an empire. The way she’d said it, not with pride, but with a faint, dusty exhaustion. Alex had laughed, breaking the tension, and they’d finished the shelving unit in a companionable, focused silence. But the words stuck.
Alex took to the park for her long Sunday run earlier than usual, the dawn air crisp and forgiving. Her feet pounded the gravel path in a rhythm that usually cleared her mind, but today it just filled with questions. What kind of empire? And why did building it leave someone so utterly incapable of assembling flat-pack furniture? The contradiction was fascinating. Toni, who could command a security system that monitored biometrics, defeated by a cam lock.
She pushed harder, lungs burning, until the thoughts blurred into the physical strain. It was the only way.
Returning to the tower, slick with sweat and endorphins, she pushed through the heavy glass doors of the lobby. And there, at the concierge desk, was Toni. Dressed for battle in a severe charcoal pantsuit, her back rod-straight, she was speaking in a low, icy tone to the morning attendant, a young man named Leo whose pleasant smile was faltering.
“I don’t care what the policy says. I care that a vehicle was idling directly outside the main entrance for seven minutes and forty-three seconds last Thursday at 18:17. Sentinel registered its plates as unlinked to any resident or pre-cleared guest. Why was I not alerted?”
“Ms. Valka, I… I don’t manage the Sentinel alerts, that’s—” Leo stammered.
“Then who do I speak to who does? Or should I assume the security this building markets as ‘unparalleled’ is, in fact, a theatrical facade?” Her voice wasn’t raised. It was lower, sharper, a scalpel poised.
Alex slowed her approach, unwinding her headphones from her neck. She caught Leo’s pleading glance. With a small, sympathetic nod, she stepped into Toni’s sightline.
“Morning,” Alex said, her voice bright with false cheer, cutting through the tension. “Leo, any parcels for 802?”
“Alex! Yes, I think there’s a delivery for you, I’ll just…” He seized the escape, vanishing into the back office.
Toni didn’t turn immediately. She inhaled slowly, the line of her shoulders tightening further, if that was possible. Then she pivoted. Her eyes swept over Alex, taking in the damp hair, the running gear, the healthy glow of exertion. A flicker of something—annoyance, perhaps, at the interruption—crossed her features.
“You’re out early,” Toni stated.
“Could say the same. Big Sunday planned? Corporate espionage? Hostile takeover before brunch?” Alex grinned, leaning a hip against the desk. She could feel the residual chill coming off Toni.
A muscle twitched near Toni’s jaw. “Merely ensuring the basic guarantees of my lease are upheld.”
“Right. The idling car.” Alex nodded sagely. “Very threatening. Could’ve been someone picking up a date who’d forgotten their wallet.”
“Unlikely.”
“Or a lost delivery driver.”
“Sentinel cross-references commercial delivery fleets.”
“A guy with a dodgy alternator, then. Didn’t want his engine to cut out.” Alex shrugged, pulling a water bottle from her running belt and taking a long drink. “You know, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.”
Toni’s eyes, those cold, assessing lenses, fixed on her. “Sigmund Freud died in 1939. His theories on anxiety have been largely discredited, and your application of his apocryphal quote to a modern surveillance context is intellectually lazy.”
Alex choked on her water, laughing. “Jesus. Okay. Point taken.” She wiped her mouth. “But the point I’m making is that maybe not everything is a threat. Maybe sometimes you can just… let the system glitch.”
The words hung there. Let the system glitch. It was about the car. It was about the privacy screens and the mood settings. It was about more than that.
Leo returned with a small box. “Here you go, Alex.”
“Cheers, Leo.” She took it, then turned back to Toni. “I’m making a full Irish today. Too much for one. If you’re done auditing the security protocols, I’ve got spare bacon.”
It was an impulse, flung out like a lifeline. An offer made from the simple, uncomplicated part of Alex that fed her teammates, that checked on neighbors, that believed in the connective power of a shared meal.
Toni stared at her. The offer seemed to bounce off the polished shell of her, not penetrating. Alex watched her process it, not as a friendly gesture, but as a variable. A new element introduced into a controlled environment.
“I don’t eat pork,” Toni said finally. It wasn’t a rejection of the offer, just a data point.
“Sausages? Black pudding?”
“No.”
“Right. Vegetarian?”
“No.” Toni paused. “I just don’t eat… reconstituted things.”
Alex burst out laughing, a real, full-throated sound that echoed in the sterile lobby. “Fair enough! So, eggs? Mushrooms? Tomato? Bread that hasn’t been reconstituted from anything but grain?”
A long beat. Leo pretended to be engrossed in his computer screen. The tension from the earlier interrogation had evaporated, replaced by this strange, suspended moment.
“I have work,” Toni said, but it lacked its earlier finality.
“It’s Sunday.”
“My industry doesn’t recognize the Gregorian calendar.”
“Come on. Even emperors have to eat.” Alex held her gaze, warm and challenging. “Twenty minutes. I’ll leave the door on the latch. If you’re not there, I’ll eat your share and won’t take it personally.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. She just waved the box at Leo, gave Toni a final, disarming smile, and headed for the lifts. Her heart was hammering, but not from the run. It was the thrill of a speculative pass, the ball floated into the box, not knowing if a teammate would connect with it.
Back in her apartment, she moved quickly. She showered in three minutes flat, threw on jeans and a soft wool jumper, and descended into the focused chaos of cooking. The kitchen filled with the sizzle of bacon (for her), the rich smell of frying mushrooms and tomatoes, the peppery scent of scrambled eggs. She laid two places at the small breakfast bar.
At the eighteen-minute mark, she heard it. Not a knock. The soft, deliberate click of her own door latch lifting. The slow creak of the door opening.
Alex didn’t turn from the stove. “Eggs scrambled okay?” she called over her shoulder.
“Acceptable.” Toni’s voice was close. She’d stepped inside. The door shut quietly.
When Alex turned, pan in hand, Toni was standing just inside the living space, looking as out of place as a samurai sword in a playpen. She’d removed her suit jacket. Her white silk blouse was pristine, her posture still wary, but she was here.
“Sit,” Alex said, nodding to the stool. “Juice? Coffee?”
“Water is fine.”
They ate in near silence for a few minutes, the clink of cutlery the only sound. Alex watched, fascinated, as Toni dissected her food with surgical precision, eating methodically. It was like watching a very beautiful, highly sophisticated machine refuel.
“So,” Alex ventured, pushing her plate aside. “This empire of yours. What’s its currency?”
Toni looked up, a sliver of egg on her fork poised midway. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you build empires but not bookshelves. I’m curious about the materials.”
A faint, almost nonexistent smile touched Toni’s lips. It was gone before it fully formed. “Data. Initially. Then influence. Then security.”
“Cybersecurity?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Toni took a sip of water. “I founded a firm that identifies systemic vulnerabilities. In financial markets, in infrastructure, in corporate networks. We stress-test them. Then we sell the solutions.”
“A professional pessimist.”
“A realist. The world is a lattice of fragile systems pretending to be solid. Most people prefer the pretense. I profit from the truth.”
“And that’s what you’re doing here? Stress-testing our building’s idling car protocols?”
“Habit.” Toni set her fork down precisely across her empty plate. “Thank you. The eggs were… not reconstituted.”
Alex laughed, leaning back. “High praise. You’re welcome.” She studied Toni, the careful mask, the eyes that missed nothing. “You know, I grew up in Derry. Place was full of systems pretending to be solid. Checkpoints. Patrols. Walls. The vulnerability was always there, right under the surface. People just learned to live on top of it.”
Toni was very still. This was new territory, unscripted. “A different kind of battlefield.”
“Yeah. But you learn to read the real threats. The shifting mood. A too-quiet street. A car that doesn’t belong. Not every idling engine is dangerous. But you learn which ones are.” Alex held her gaze. “Instinct, not just algorithms.”
For the first time, Toni didn’t have a retort. She looked at Alex, truly looked, seeing not just the friendly neighbor but the person shaped by that history. The athlete, the captain, someone who also knew about systems and vulnerabilities, but in the language of flesh and spirit, not code.
“Instincts can be fooled,” Toni said quietly. “Data cannot.”
“Data said my knee was fine two years ago. Scans were clear.” Alex pulled up the leg of her jeans, revealing a faint, silvered scar along her kneecap. “My instinct told me something was wrong. I listened to the data. Missed six months. Now I listen to both.”
Toni’s eyes dropped to the scar, then back to Alex’s face. The apartment felt very quiet, the morning light streaming in, full of dancing dust motes.
“Why did you invite me here?” Toni asked abruptly, the question stark and unadorned.
Alex shrugged. “Because you looked like you needed a decent breakfast. And because I wanted to.”
“That’s not a sufficient reason.”
“It is for me.”
Toni stood, picking up her jacket. She moved to the door, then paused, her hand on the knob. She didn’t turn around. “The shelves,” she said, her voice low. “They are holding up adequately.”
“Good. I’m glad.”
“The… rainforest setting,” Toni continued, the words seeming to cost her something. “It is occasionally used.”
Then she was gone, the door clicking shut with a softer sound than Alex had ever heard it make.
Alex sat in the sudden quiet, the smell of bacon and coffee lingering in the air. She looked at the two empty plates. The victory wasn’t that Toni had come, or even that she’d eaten. It was in the parting shot. A tiny, deliberate glimpse behind the wall. The rainforest setting is occasionally used.
It was an echo, a callback. A secret shared. Alex smiled, a slow, real smile, and started to clear the plates. The game had changed. It was no longer about fixing glitches. It was about understanding why they were there in the first place. And for the first time, Alex felt Toni might just let her try.