Hard Wired Trilogy DeAnna Pearce (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📖

Kicking and striking out at the dummy, she worked until her arms gave out.

Grabbing a towel, she headed towards the stairs in search of coffee. Joe was coming down, fighting gear and a towel over one shoulder. No wonder she never saw him work out if he did it at 4:30 in the morning. Everyone was heavily encouraged to exercise regularly to help their mental aptitude in the VR, and most did.

“Do you work out this early every morning?” she asked.

With a slight nod, he answered. “Enough of them.” And continued on his way.

She was tempted to stay and watch, feign the need to stretch even though she already had. Joe was quite the enigma. But coffee was calling her name, and that was a jealous addiction that didn’t like to be ignored.

Chapter 5

At their morning meeting, Patrick told the others of the plan to help Ari find her family. They would start at Tessa’s father’s business under the guise of interviewing for a position. It would give them an in to gather information.

“Just don’t make us relocate,” Tricky narrowed her gaze to Ari. “We don’t have time for that right now.”

“We’ll take all necessary precautions,” Ari said.

“May need to do more than you think if you’re going back to into your country.” Blur rubbed his straw-like hair. “Border security will be tight, and every camera will be looking for your face.”

“It’ll take some prep work. I agree,” Patrick said. “But it’s nothing we haven’t done before. We won’t head out for another week. I’ll have to move some funds around.”

A dark chill itched its way up Ari’s back. Moving funds around could mean a lot of different things. Patrick didn’t freely talk about where he got his money. Some were legit, but others were shady enough that no one talked about it. Ari needed those funds, though, to find her family, so she tried to push her moral obligations aside.

Patrick excused Tricky and the others to get to work on finding Maxim. It left Patrick, Ari, Harini, and Sketchy—whose attendance at meetings was sporadic—to discuss plans.

“First things first,” Harini started. “I’ll help with disguises. I’ve been dying to fix Ari’s bad hair for some time.”

Ari started to protest, but then realized Harini was right. Ari had cut her own hair and dyed it as she and Reed tried to escape VisionTech. It was a bad red dye that had since faded to a shoulder-length ugly orange if she left it down. Instead she kept her wavy locks into a tight ponytail. Her natural dark hair had grown out a few inches. Instead of complaining, she asked, “How long have you been holding that in?”

Harini flashed a proud smile. “Since you arrived.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

“You’re not touching my hair,” Patrick told her.

“You have great hair. Why would I?” Harini looked him over.

“For a disguise?” Ari asked.

“No one will recognize me. They are only looking for you,” Patrick replied.

Ari tried not to trust the hope growing inside of her as they discussed plans. She didn’t want to get crushed if all this work was for nothing. But it wouldn’t be for nothing, she reminded herself. They would contact Tessa through her dad’s company and find what was really happening. Even if it was ruling out possibilities, she’d be one step closer to her family.

It didn’t take long, less than twenty-four hours to be exact, until Harini cornered Ari with dye and sharp scissors.

“You look lethal with those,” Ari motioned to the sleek scissors.

Harini shrugged with a huge grin on her face. “The best people are.”

Ari laughed as they headed into the washroom with the large sink. Harini pulled out a couple of old towels while Ari reached for the chair. As instructed, Ari leaned over and washed her hair as Harini prepared the dye.

A message beeped on Harini’s HUB. Her hand twitched as she opened it. Ari couldn’t miss the fear in her eyes as she shut it off.

“What is it?” Ari asked.

“Nothing.” Harini pasted on a fake smile.

“Didn’t seem like nothing.”

“Nothing you need to worry about.” The tight edge to her voice was unlike Harini. After an awkward pause, Harini turned to grab the dye. When she turned back around, her normal cheerful face returned. “Promise. It was nothing. Let’s just get to back to a decent hair color.” Harini stepped by the tub and motioned to Ari.

As Ari leaned over the tub, Ari poured the dye over her head, then rubbed it in. “The first part is just a shampoo dye. I’ll add in the highlights after. Easy as pie, actually way easier than making pie.”

They wrapped it up in a towel then Harini sat Ari down to cut it. She picked out the knots in Ari’s now blue black hair. It already looked so much better that Ari wished she would have asked about this sooner. Harini began snipping away at her hair with ease.

“Thanks,” Ari said as black hair fell to the floor. “I mean, I know it had to be done for this mission, but I appreciate it.”

“Wait until it’s styled. You’ll love it.” Harini flashed her a smile and went back to work.

It reminded Ari of when her own mother would cut her hair. An ache of longing burned in her chest. “Do you ever miss your family?”

The scissors paused for a moment. “Yeah. Yeah, I do. But I didn’t have many options. Like the rest of us.”

“At least you found Patrick.”

“I’m never quite sure if that was a good thing or not.” A sharpness unlike Harini entered her voice.

“What do you mean?”

“Nothing.” Harini forced a tight smile. “Just old drama. Nothing worth bringing up again.”

It didn’t seem like nothing, but Ari wasn’t going to pry. Harini had lived here for a long time. Long enough that people grew on your nerves. Ari had experienced enough at home with her brother that she knew everything with the team couldn’t always be perfect.

After a couple of minutes of cutting away, old happy Harini returned. “Enough about