Chapter 16: Resolve Plus

At midnight on Thursday the lab was empty, and the test box was holding a thief.

Evan stood in front of the big screen with a cold mug in one hand.

On the screen, a fake attacker had walked into a fake network and tried to take it apart.

Resolve Plus had let it come as far as the third door.

Then the program had closed the doors behind it, one by one, and left the attacker running in circles inside a room with no exits.

A small green line scrolled up the screen.

TRACE COMPLETE. SOURCE LOCATED. ATTACKER FROZEN.

He put the mug down.

He had been building it for three days, and sleeping at the lab for two.

It worked.

"That's what I wanted to see," said a voice behind him.

Every Red stood in the doorway with a paper bag in her hand.

She had taken off her jacket, and her sleeves were rolled to the elbow.

"I brought noodles," she said. "I assumed nobody had eaten."

"Nobody has."

"The team?"

"I sent them home at ten. They were falling over."

"And you?"

"I wanted to see the third door."

She put the bag on the table and came to stand beside him, watching the screen.

She watched for a while.

"How long would that take to build, if the world were fair?" she said.

"A year."

"And you did it in three days."

"I did the part that's mine in three days. The rest I borrowed from two other people's mistakes."

She laughed softly.

"Tell me that's patented."

"It isn't."

"Evan."

He had not thought about it until that moment.

He thought about it now, with the green line scrolling and a cream-colored blazer on a stage.

"Maya launches Aegis Net in six days," Every said. "If hers goes out first and yours is a prototype, you'll be the man who copied her."

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