The devastation below had filled him with simultaneous awe and sadness. There was wreckage everywhere on the water’s surface. Musil saw damaged and capsized boats, entire wharves that had broken free of their fastenings, all kinds of floating debris. He had assumed some of that newly created driftwood came from homes and businesses and found it incredible to think this area had dodged the worst of the storm. What must it have been like farther north in the areas that took its brunt?

“Seat belts on, back there,” said Lucas the pilot over his intercom. “We’re landing in five.”

Musil buckled up and glanced across the aisle, where Kali sat quietly aloof in a flowing black trench coat with a large, deep hood raised over her head. Or was it a cowl? Whichever, her look and manner made him think of a wandering sorcerer—an association many people would consider fitting. Her software coding was almost magical. And it wasn’t necessarily white magic, if her reputation was to be believed. In fact, Interpol blamed her for one or another notorious hack on all four continents. Also, Colonel John Howard at the Force’s military outpost in Romania. Though, he had merely voiced his suspicions. Or so the organizational chatter went.

Musil himself bowed to the wisdom of the sages. I am not good; no one is bad. Judging others was a waste of one’s time on earth, and he chose to ignore the gossip. He would keep an open mind about Kali. Whether or not she ever decided to speak to him. Or in his presence.

He felt his stomach lurch as the air taxi began its descent. It had crossed the harbor after its approach over the Gulf of Maine, banked left over an old-fashioned arch bridge and then turned inland.

CloudCable’s corporate and manufacturing headquarters looked like any other industrial park—security fences, flat, gray concrete buildings, a blacktop employee parking area divided by narrow greenbelts. The helipad at one end of the parking lot didn’t quite fit the ordinariness of its appearance. But it also wasn’t extravagant for a company of its size, with major government and corporate contracts.

Musil observed a lot of people in hard hats milling about a dock outside the complex. Some were on forklifts and wheeled yellow cranes. Most were gathered around a kind of tunnel—it resembled an airport Jetway—that ran from the facility to the waterfront. All the workers looked busy. Large panels of metal had been torn or partially detached from the sides of the tunnel. Storm damage, probably. A curved rail track that emerged from the tunnel mouth near the waterfront seemed to have withstood the high winds. Either that or it was already put back together. The storm had barreled quickly through the area, allowing the crews to get an early jump.