He remembered something: the smoke sensors were overly sensitive.
With shaking hands, he lit a small flame beneath one. Seconds later, alarms triggered and the lock released.
He slipped inside and climbed into a chair too large for him. His sneakers dangled as he connected his old laptop to the maintenance terminal. His fingers flew.
Upstairs, Olivia gasped. “Someone’s disabling our firewalls from the secondary level!”
“Sabotage?” Hale snapped.
He stormed downstairs with security guards.
They burst into the room with weapons raised—and froze.
A boy in worn clothes sat typing furiously on a taped-together laptop.
“What is this?” Hale barked. “Get him out! This isn’t a playground!”
A guard moved forward, but a voice cried from the doorway.
“Ethan!”
Thomas stood there, pale with fear.
Hale’s expression darkened. “Your son? You smuggle him into my building, and he attacks my systems? You’re fired. Call the police.”
“Sir, please,” Thomas begged. “He wouldn’t—”
“Eighty seconds,” Ethan said calmly, eyes never leaving the screen. “Just eighty.”
“Remove him!”
“Sir,” Olivia whispered, staring at the monitors.
The red alerts began shifting. Yellow. Then green.