8:00 AM. The Bunker.
We didn't take the server to the university lab. That was too exposed, especially with the campus currently turning into a war zone of protesting students. Instead, we took it to a place Darius knew—an abandoned auto body shop on the edge of the city, owned by his uncle who was doing time upstate.
It smelled of motor oil and old tires, but it had heavy steel doors and a clean power line.
Nia was already there, setting up a makeshift workstation on a greasy workbench. When Darius dropped the black server tower onto the table with a heavy thud, she stared at it like it was an unexploded bomb.
"You actually got it," she breathed, pushing her glasses up her nose.
"Isolate it," I said, stripping off my jacket. The adrenaline was fading, leaving a cold, sharp focus in its wake. "No Wi-Fi, no cellular connections. Hardline only. If Richard has a tracker or a remote wipe protocol, I don't want it triggering."
