Hi there!

Happy 4th of July to all my US fellow romantics! How about a script excerpt to go with that burger and beer?

The rest of us can grab a beer too, of course. 😉

Hope you enjoy!

Sigrid

The progress bar on Louise’s screen moved slowly. She looked around the room while she waited. There were giant screens everywhere. Lots of desks. There even was a glass wall.

“At least some things are the same,” Louise thought. She felt surprisingly at ease in this room, despite the guard by the door. This one wasn’t armed, luckily.

She and Hobbs had arrived here about 7 hours ago. Louise had been inspecting machines since, looking for any signs of software or hardware that could have been linked to the attack.

She hadn’t run into anything yet. That didn’t surprise her. The challenge was finding the small inconsistencies. Had any software been deleted recently or was there hardware missing or replaced? Those were the breadcrumbs that would lead to the evidence.

While she was going through the logs of the terminals, Hobbs was walking around the building with Woodward. He was looking for any signs of recent renovations or other changes.

Not having Hobbs around made it easier for Louise to focus. Keeping secrets from him was exhausting. As expected, Hobbs had been furious when he had heard Lucas wasn’t joining them for this first inspection.

Woodward had handled the situation calmly. No matter how many times Hobbs had demanded Lucas should join them “right now”, Woodward had just repeated it wasn’t possible. After a while, it had been time to leave and Hobbs had given up.

Louise doubted he would let this go, though. There was a big chance he would want to discuss a code red. That meant they would tell the teams back home the rebels weren’t cooperating. Extraction procedures would be set in motion immediately.

The Global Council also would start the retaliation attacks soon after, Louise assumed. The stealth drones would probably be on their way before Hobbs and Louise had even left the territory.

They would bomb the most critical network infrastructure. The people working at those locations would most likely die. The Fireblue network would go down completely. Possibly for good.

Louise knew the bombing would happen sooner or later, even if she couldn’t find evidence the rebels were behind the attack on the Global Coalition. Michelle had told her as much. “Just a PR play,” she had said. Louise frowned thinking about it.

She didn’t like the idea of a counter attack without the evidence to support it. She wanted to find something here. If she did, she would at least know for sure the rebels had brought this on themselves.

Maybe Louise could convince Hobbs it was too early to send a code red today. She wanted to buy some time. “He’ll definitely want to go to code red if he finds out I’ve been hiding encounters with Lucas, though,” Louise thought. “He’ll think I’m compromised.”

Dread settled in Louise’s stomach. She never should have allowed Lucas into her room. And after finding out about Biden, she should have forced Lucas to talk to Hobbs immediately. Now, instead, she was stuck hiding things until Lucas came back tonight. That is, if Lucas even came back as promised.

“Shit…,” Louise whispered, feeling increasingly frustrated. She got up swiftly, startling the guard. “Sorry,” she said, despite the instructions not to talk to anyone. He gave her a long look but didn’t reply.

Louise turned her back to him and stretched her arms to work out the kinks in her neck and shoulders. She rolled her head a few times, annoyed at the snaps and cracks she heard. She let out a deep sigh.

Why had she allowed Lucas to put her in this position? She was now hiding two secret meetings with Lucas and important intel about one of the most prominent rebel figures, Monique Biden.

Was there still a way for her to come clean without serious repercussions? She didn’t think so. She could either fess up, which meant severe consequences for the rebels and, no doubt, herself. Or she could keep lying and hope Lucas would return and tell Hobbs about Biden’s death tonight.

“What’s your status?” Hobbs asked, walking into the room, surprising Louise. She turned to face him, her hands in her sides in an attempt to hide her nerves.

That’s it for this excerpt Wednesday! Come back here on Saturday to find out if Louise can find a way out of this pickle 😉