CHAPTER 35: FIREWALL — PART 2
The first hour was chaos.
Reese worked his contacts—NYPD, FBI, private networks—while I tore through every surveillance system I could access. Standard tracking methods were useless. Root had defeated them all—no phone signals, no credit card traces, no facial recognition hits. She'd been planning this for months.
But I had something she didn't know about.
[BACKDOOR ACCESS: Activating]
[TARGET: ROOT/FINCH LOCATION]
[WARNING: Maximum power draw detected]
I closed my eyes and let the System work.
Backdoor Access wasn't like normal hacking. It was more like... reaching. Like extending my consciousness into electronic systems and feeling their connections. Traffic cameras became my eyes. License plate readers became my memory. Every networked device in the city became part of my search.
There.
A dark sedan, captured by a convenience store camera in Brooklyn thirty minutes ago. License plate obscured, but the vehicle profile matched. I traced its path backward—pickup point near the Coronet, route through side streets avoiding major intersections.
"I've got something," I said. "Brooklyn. She's heading east."
Reese looked up from his phone. "How did you—"
"Later." I was already following the trail. Another camera. Another breadcrumb. "Get the car. I'll navigate."
He stared at me for a moment—long enough that I felt the weight of the questions he wasn't asking. Then he grabbed his keys.
"Let's go."
[TRACKING: Active]
[SYE: 50 → 35 (Backdoor Access drain)]
[TARGET TRAJECTORY: East toward New Jersey]
The car moved through late-night traffic while I hunted.
Every few minutes, I found another glimpse—a traffic camera here, a parking garage there, the sedan weaving through the city's electronic web. Root was good. She'd chosen routes that minimized exposure, timed her movements to avoid active surveillance.
But she couldn't avoid everything. And I wasn't limited to conventional methods.
"Tunnel," I said. "She's going through the Holland Tunnel."
"New Jersey?"
"Looks like it." I pulled up maps, cross-referencing with property records, abandoned buildings, anywhere Root might have established a base. "Give me a minute."
The System burned through my energy like fuel in an engine. I could feel the drain—a pressure behind my eyes, a heaviness in my limbs. This wasn't sustainable. But it didn't need to be sustainable. It needed to work.
Come on. Where are you taking him?
There. A facility in Newark—former psychiatric hospital, abandoned for five years. Property records showed a shell company purchase eighteen months ago. The same shell company pattern I'd seen in Root's other operations.
"I've got the location," I said. "Newark. Abandoned psychiatric facility. That's where she's taking him."
"How sure are you?"
"Ninety percent." I rattled off the address. "Reese—we need to move fast. If she gets settled in there..."
"I know." His foot pressed harder on the accelerator. "How are you doing this, Marcus?"
The question hung in the air between us. I'd known it was coming. Had known since the moment I started burning through surveillance systems at a rate no normal hacker could match.
"I'll explain everything after we get Finch back," I said. "Right now, it doesn't matter. Right now, only he matters."
Reese was quiet for a long moment. Then: "Fair enough."
Mission first. Questions later.
I can live with that.
[SYE: 35 → 20 (Continued drain)]
[WARNING: Resource depletion approaching]
[LOCATION CONFIRMED: Newark Psychiatric Facility]
The facility loomed against the winter sky like a monument to abandonment.
Five stories of crumbling brick and broken windows, surrounded by a chain-link fence that had seen better decades. Security cameras on the corners—new, I noted, not part of the original structure. Root had been preparing this place for a long time.
We parked three blocks away, in the shadow of a warehouse. Reese checked his weapons with mechanical precision while I mapped the building's layout from old architectural records.
"Main entrance here," I said, showing him my phone screen. "Service entrance on the east side. Multiple stairwells, but most of the upper floors are structurally compromised. She'll be keeping Finch somewhere accessible—probably the basement or first floor."
"Cameras?"
"I count twelve external. Probably more inside." I hesitated. "I can try to disable them, but it'll drain me. I'm already running low."
Reese studied my face. "You look like hell."
"I feel like hell. But I'll hold together long enough." I loaded extra magazines into my jacket pockets. "Split approach. You take the main entrance, draw attention. I'll come in through the east side, try to locate Finch."
"And if Root catches you?"
"Then I buy you time to find him."
He didn't like it. I could see that in the set of his jaw, the tension in his shoulders. But he nodded.
"If you're not out in twenty minutes, I'm coming to get you."
"Fair enough."
[TACTICAL APPROACH: Initiated]
[OBJECTIVE: Rescue Finch, neutralize Root]
[WARNING: Multiple hostiles possible]
The east entrance was a service door, rusted but not locked.
I slipped inside, weapon drawn, moving through corridors that smelled of mold and abandonment. The facility had been a psychiatric hospital once—I passed empty rooms with bed frames bolted to floors, treatment areas with equipment that hadn't been touched in years.
What kind of person chooses a place like this for a kidnapping?
Someone who appreciates the irony. Someone who enjoys the symbolism.
Root.
I cleared rooms systematically, using the skills Reese had beaten into me over months of training. Check corners. Control breathing. Move with purpose, not haste.
The cameras were harder to avoid than I'd hoped. Root had positioned them well—overlapping fields of view, minimal blind spots. I had to trust that she was focused on Reese's approach, not watching every feed simultaneously.
Voices ahead. Muffled, but audible.
I pressed against the wall, inching toward the sound. A door, slightly ajar, light spilling into the dark corridor.
"...doesn't have to be unpleasant, Harold." Root's voice, musical and menacing. "I just want to talk to Her. You can help me do that."
"Even if I wanted to help you," Finch's voice, strained but defiant, "the Machine doesn't work that way. I can't simply command it to speak."
"Everyone says that until they're properly motivated."
I reached the door. Peered through the gap.
Finch was seated in a chair, hands bound behind him. Root circled like a predator, her movements fluid and purposeful. No obvious weapons, but that didn't mean—
A door opened behind me.
"I was hoping you'd come personally."
I spun, but she was faster. The taser hit me in the chest before I could raise my weapon, and the world dissolved into white fire and muscle spasms.
When I could see again, I was in the chair beside Finch.
And Root was smiling.
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