Marcus tapped a button on his tablet, and the wall monitor behind us flashed a warning sign.

*SYSTEM TRANSFER IN PROGRESS.*

“He’s downloading the original data blocks,” I said, pointing at the flashing red warning. “Damon, stop him!”

Marcus raised his left hand, revealing a small, black detonator-style device. “If you shoot me, the server room in the basement floods with halon gas, and every backup of your family’s history is deleted forever.”

Damon froze, his finger resting on the trigger. “You won’t leave this building alive, Marcus.”

“I don’t need to,” Marcus said. “I just need to finish this transfer.”

The progress bar on the wall monitor reached fifty percent.

I looked at the console in front of me, searching for any way to interrupt the signal.

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, my mind racing through the old administrative commands I had seen Elaine use at the clinic.

“SYS_MED_99X,” I muttered to myself, typing the characters into the terminal’s override prompt.

The screen flashed, asking for a secondary authorization.

“Marcus,” Damon said, keeping his voice steady to distract him. “How much did they offer you?”