Ross Cuthross's Arc

Chapter 4 of 7

The woman's boot hit the threshold just as a second sensor chirped. Ross froze. His tablet flashed a new ping from the far post. Another vehicle. No call, no warning. He raised a hand for her to wait and pulled the night vision binoculars from the shelf. Through the lenses, he scanned the dark road past her station wagon, its fake wood panels pale in the moonlight. Three black SUVs rolled in slow formation, headlights off, engines almost silent. A convoy. His knee found the trigger taped under the stool. "You were followed," Ross said, flat. Her face went white. She swore she had run a clean route. He believed her shock. That meant they had tagged her vehicle, or tagged him, or both. He did not press the trigger yet. Pressing meant burning the local drives and ending the meeting. Instead, he killed the lab lights, locked the door, and pushed her toward the back room. He kept his thumb on the button and his eyes on the feed. The SUVs stopped two hundred yards out and held position. They were not raiding. They were watching. The meeting was no longer a meeting. It was a siege, and Ross was inside it with a stranger and eleven nights of data he could not yet afford to burn.