Page 40 of Tech Prince Troubles
I shook my head. There were no messages on my phone—if only I’d remembered to exchange numbers with Adri last night… “He said he’d be back later, but I don’t know when that’ll be.”
Of course, that was when the bell over the side door jingled, and Adri walked in, again carrying his toolkit.
“We were just talking about you,” Lucy said as she poured herself more water.
“Hey.” It sounded lame, but our imaginary kiss in the office was still messing with my mind. “I hope you got some rest.”
“Long enough.”
“So, what’s the verdict?”
“It’s complicated, but the issues here are definitely connected to the glitches at the hotel.”
“I thought our system wasn’t connected to the hotel?”
“That’s why it’s complicated,” Adri said. “It’s also why your registers will have to wait. I need to run even more scans.”
“Will there be more glitches?”
“I don’t know. I hope these new scans will tell me how to stop that from happening.”
Fair enough. “I’d best let the rest of the staff know, then.” At least Layla and my co-managers, so we could decide on staying open or closing for the day. “You want that espresso now or later?”
“Now sounds good. In your office?”
He didn’t wait for a reply, he just turned and disappeared into the office, leaving me staring—heart pounding—at the way his skirt brushed the floor.
Chapter Seventeen
ADRI
what the reboot?
The image of pushing Sam against his office door—his beaming smile giving me permission, kissing him senseless—nestled itself in my buzzing, jittery system when I left his office. Not even the baristas knowing what we’d been doing could bring down my mood.
I wasn’t sure about Sam’s mood, though. Not because of the kiss—he seemed more than happy about that—but because I had to disappoint him about fixing the registers. All my scans pointed to a grounding system fault, making unplugging the machines the only solution to avoid more damage at this point.
Sam said it was fine, that they’d finish out the shift and close for the day, but his expression told me otherwise. We’d exchanged numbers—which felt more intimate than work-related—and I promised him I’d keep him updated.
He promised not to send me dubious emojis to distract me from getting his café back to work. It was a joke; his wink made that obvious. But now I wanted him sending me emojis, even if I wouldn’t understand the meaning. His pings would bring me back to feeling his heartbeat as he held me close. The way hetilted his head, the scruff on his face against my neck as he peppered my jawline with kisses…
It might keep me from worrying. About who was behind all this, gathering enough evidence to present to Rick, and revealing my location when I performed the necessary grounding system check.
At least the café’s logs didn’t seem tampered with.
As I entered the hub, the two day-shifters I’d met earlier greeted me with friendly waves, but it surprised me to see Jim there, typing away at his desk. He didn’t look up, but there was a hitch in the rhythmic clack of his keyboard, as if my presence made him nervous.
My chair creaked as I sat and connected to the server. “You’re staying late, too?” Jim wasn’t marked as active, but one scheduled day-shifterwasnoted as absent.
He still didn’t raise his head. “Working an extra shift.”
His behavior was getting to me. What was his problem with me?
I pulled up the grounding maintenance scans—NiraTech’s automated one and the basic scan Rick had executed. Not to check the readings—I already knew they were almost identical. No, I needed to dive deeper and compare the coding.
Working with off-server copies saved on shielding and rerouting, even if it took longer. Every adult Niren, whether biomancer or tech mage, knew the ins and outs of our security system, Min-Tess—as Primary High Energy—above all. The longer NiraTech and, by extension, my family postponed locking on to my ID, the better.
It took me an hour to find that same randomjat the end of a line in the basic scan, but not the automated one. The proof that someone had tampered with it. I let out a breath and sat back for a moment. Countless wasted days chasing a source of the glitches that didn’t exist, because we’d been working onfaked readings. I should have run a fresh scan from the beginning. But there’d been no reason to doubt the scan’s authenticity.
