Page 35 of Swamp Kings 2

“You ready?” Bishop asked her. “We can wait if you need to.”

She considered that, feeling like it didn’t matter. His tests or the waiting. She wasn’t sure why it didn’t matter, she just knew it didn’t. “I’m ready. Are you?” she wondered, remembering his PTSD with all things her and baby related.

“I have toknow,” he said, sounding sorry he did.

“Well, I’ve run blood work, hormone analysis, ultrasound scans,” the giant of a King said, scrolling through an electronic device in his hands. He lowered it and aimed furrowed brows at Bishop. “It’s not bad news, it’s just odd.”

“What is,” he said, his words guarded but calm.

“Some of the data we’re getting is inconsistent. Her blood samples show normal levels of pregnancy hormones, then suddenly, it switches—almost like the markers disappear or shift entirely.”

Beth frowned. “Disappear? What does that mean?”

“It’s hard to say,” Thakx said, back to looking at the device. “One second, the data shows you’re not pregnant at all, and then the next, the hormone levels are elevated again—like something is interfering with the readings.” He regarded both of them. “It could actually be interference with the equipment which is why I’m running manual tests.”

“What do you mean interference with the equipment,” Bishop wondered, back to guarded.

Thakx looked at Beth then him. “You want to speak privately?”

“I want to know,” Beth hurried, swallowing down her pulse.

Again, he looked at Bishop who nodded. “Tell us.”

“Well, we have enemies that know about us, and it makes sense they’d be trying to infiltrate however they can. Especially now. But we’re handling it.”

“8-Bit knows?”

“He’s leading that charge.”

“When did this happen?”

“First sign was last night. And it wasn’t a simple breach. Whoever was behind it had some serious firepower in terms of cyber infiltration. At first, it looked like minor network glitches—fluctuations in system latency, small delays in certain nodes of our infrastructure.”

“And that tipped you off?” Beth wondered, amazed.

Thakx crossed his massive arms, reminding her of Hercules in a lab coat. “8-Bit noticed the irregularities right away. Our systems don’t just lag like that for no reason. When he ran diagnostics, he found signs of man-in-the-middle attacks—someone was intercepting data packets between our nodes and re-routing them, trying to filter sensitive information through their own cloaked system.”

Bishop shook his head, eyeinghim. “What kind of information?”

“They were digging in the geographical cloaking which implies they want our exact location.”

“Fuck,” Bishop grit, lowering his head. “And how far did they get?”

“They never breached our core systems,” Thakx assured him. “8-Bit spoofed their attack, creating a fake network overlay and funneling them into a false pathway.”

“Why would any of this affect medical equipment?” Bishop asked, highly doubtful.

Thakx took in a deep breath, his handsome features mirroring the sentiment. “I don’t think it would, but I’m not leaving out the possibility. They could be shooting in the dark, hoping to hit anything they can.”

“How long for the other tests?” Bishop demanded, his effort to be nice an obvious strain to Beth. “And what about the ultrasound, what did it show?”

“Ultrasound was the same kind of interference. Static or no signal at all.”

“So, how the fuck do we know…” Bishop caught himself, then leveled his hard face at Thakx. “What do you know about the health of our baby?”

“Well, I know he or she is alive and strong.”

“How,” Bishop demanded.

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