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Chan’s hands hover over the keyboard. “Sir?” “Proceed. Tabby, give him the number.” Tabby recites it robotically off the top of her head. I know she has a photographic memory, but it still irks me that she can recall so easily a number she claims never to have dialed in almost a decade. Chan enters it, his fingers expertly flying over the keys. Then we wait. A hiss, a faint click, and then the lonely electronic sound of a phone ringing somewhere out in the vast emptiness of cyberspace. Three rings. Four. Five. The tension in the room ratchets higher. When the line is finally picked up, the voice that barks through the speakers is so unexpectedly loud and jarring, I wince. “Bună ziua, cine este?” It’s a male, his age indeterminate, the language—for the moment—unknown. Without hesit
- Writer
