Clara Vance POV:
The old analog clock on the wall struck two in the morning. The heavy, rhythmic ticking echoed in the silent room.
Nathan shifted in his sleep. He rolled onto his side, throwing his heavy arm directly across my waist.
My entire body locked up. My muscles turned to stone. I stopped breathing entirely, my chest frozen in place. I waited for what felt like an hour, staring at the shadows on the wall, until his breathing leveled out into a slow, rumbling snore.
I moved my hands with absolute precision. Years of surgical training in the anatomy lab had given me perfectly steady hands. I slid my fingers under his heavy forearm and lifted it off my body, moving it an inch at a time. I lowered his arm onto the mattress beside me without making a single sound.
I reached under my pillow and pulled out the roll of medical tape and the small jar of setting powder I had hidden there.
The dim glow of the streetlamp outside filtered through the high basement window. I used the weak light to locate Nathan's right hand, which hung loosely off the edge of the bed.
I unscrewed the lid of the powder. I dipped my index finger into the fine dust. With a touch lighter than a feather, I dusted the powder over the pad of his right thumb.
Nathan suddenly smacked his lips together. His brow furrowed deeply.
I froze instantly. My heart slammed against my ribs so hard I thought it would crack the bone. The blood rushed in my ears. If he woke up now and saw me holding his hand with powder, the game was over.
He muttered a string of incoherent syllables, turned his head into his pillow, and went completely still again.
I slowly exhaled the air trapped in my lungs. I pulled a two-inch strip of medical tape from the roll. I pressed the sticky side flat against his powdered thumb, rubbing it gently to ensure the adhesive caught the dust.
Three seconds later, I peeled the tape off. A perfect, white ridge-and-valley map of his fingerprint was stamped onto the adhesive.
I slipped out of bed, my bare feet silent on the cold floor. I walked to the wooden chair holding his coat. I reached into the inner pocket and pulled out the heavy, black burner phone.
I pressed the power button. The screen lit up, requesting a biometric scan.
I wrapped the piece of medical tape around my own right thumb. I pressed my taped thumb against the sensor at the bottom of the screen.
A red light flashed. The screen read: *Biometric Mismatch.*
Cold sweat broke out across my lower back. I stared at the sensor. The medical tape was too thick. Capacitive fingerprint scanners required the electrical pulse of a human body and a specific thickness to read the ridges. The tape blocked the conductivity.
I dropped the tape. I pulled my own cheap phone from my pocket. I laid the tape flat on the table, turned on my macro lens, and took a high-resolution, extreme close-up photo of the powdered print.
I opened the encrypted chat with Maya and sent the image. I typed a rapid message: *Generate simulated fingerprint pulse. Audio file.*
I stood in the dark, staring at the screen. Five agonizing minutes passed.
My phone buzzed. Maya sent an MP3 file.
I knew the theory. High-frequency ultrasonic soundwaves could mimic the physical ridges and valleys of a fingerprint against a glass sensor.
I turned my phone's media volume to maximum. I pressed my phone's bottom speaker directly against the biometric sensor of Nathan's black phone. I pressed play.
A high-pitched, barely audible whine filled the air. The glass of the burner phone vibrated slightly against my hand.
The red light blinked once. Then, it turned solid green. The home screen opened.
I moved fast. I plugged a small USB-C drive Maya had given me months ago into the bottom port of the phone. The screen flashed black, then a grey progress bar appeared. It was installing Maya's backdoor trojan.
The bar crawled. *10%... 50%... 80%...*
At exactly 99%, the mattress springs shrieked. Nathan sat straight up in bed.
I ripped the USB drive out. I shoved the black phone deep into the coat pocket and dropped into a hard crouch behind the wooden chair, completely hiding myself in the shadows.
Nathan rubbed his face with both hands. He looked at the empty space on the bed. "Clara?" His voice was thick with sleep and sudden suspicion.
I grabbed a plastic cup from the table. I stood up slowly from behind the chair, stepping into the dim light of the hallway.
"I am right here," I said softly, holding up the cup of water. "I just got up to get a drink. Go back to sleep."
Maya, see what exactly he's hiding.
