The cleanup crew arrive minutes later and Borya deals with them. I focus on extracting the hard drive and scan for viruses.
While I’m doing that my mind is still processing ideas. I wish like hell I could resolve this because it’s starting to wear me down and because this is the closest I’ve gotten, it’s harder. I want everything to be over so badly I can’t think straight. At times it feels like when I was in Brazil and I needed to calculate how I was going to survive from one day to the next to keep my family alive.
As I think of Brazil, an idea works its way into my mind, and I stop what I’m doing.
I look ahead at the file cabinets and allow the idea to take fruition because I think I might have come up with something.
Something different I never factored in because I wrote it off.
I might not know how to track this device when its being used in real time, but I do know something that could simply destroy it if I play my cards right.
My grandfather’s weapon can do that.
The same fucking weapon I was taken captive to create.
Fuck.
It could do it, but it’s never actually been made, just designed. There wasn’t anything my grandfather designed though that didn’t work.
If I made it, modified it a little and programmed it to disable Robert’s device that should work.
It should work. There’s no way it wouldn’t. The same way Robert’s tech is designed to be some state-of-the-art invention, mine is too, and I just found my own way to fight fire with fucking fire. Once I disable his device, I should be able to track him down the usual way and he won’t be able to hide from me.
It would take me a few days to get everything I need together and make my grandfather’s weapon plus implement the modifications. Then I’ll be back in business.
Hope sparks inside me for the first time in a while and I can’t wait to get back to the apartment and start planning.
When I finish taking out the hard drive my phone rings in my back pocket.
I pull it out and answer when I see it’s Lyssa, who never calls me. Instantly I know something’s happened with Summer.
“Hi Lyssa, what’s going on?”
“Eric, I’m so sorry to bother you, but I’m worried about Summer. She’s been drinking. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know she knew where your alcohol was. She wanted to get some air on the terrace, and I found her out there. She’s saying all this weird stuff and I can’t get her to come in. I can’t get her away from the balcony.”
A cold knot twists in my stomach at the mention of the balcony and I’m already walking out the door before she can say anything else.
Borya glances at me and I give him a nod he understands to mean take charge.
“Lyssa stay with her. I’m on my way.”
One thing pierces through my mind and I start running to my car. I remember the words Summer wrote in her journal and how she said she feared the day when she might not want to save herself.
Enough has happened to her for today to be that day.