Hannah was meticulous in everything she did—even in something as mundane as her makeup routine. Antiperspirant, beeswax, a splash of floral water… little rituals that grounded her. Jack had started noticing those details. Maybe because now, with the lines of their relationship drawn, he couldn't keep pretending things were the same.
Zoe had enjoyed his "healing treatment." So had Maureen. Hannah, then, deserved her turn.
He let her shower first, steam filling the upstairs hall, while he rummaged through his desk drawer for the bottles he'd ordered from Amazon. Tiny glass containers, sixty dollars a piece, imported from the southwestern provinces of Seres. Each scent chosen carefully: rose for Zoe, jasmine for Maureen, wild orange with mint for Hannah. Sweet, playful, fresh—just like her.
By the time the massage was done, Hannah's cheeks burned crimson, her eyes flickering with a mixture of longing and quiet reproach. Jack couldn't take it. He excused himself with a muttered joke and bolted for a cold shower, letting icy water knock some sense back into him.
"Learning makes me happy," he whispered under his breath, like a mantra, towel around his shoulders as he climbed into bed. He said it again. And again. Only when his pulse slowed did he flip open Friends of Military and Civilian Dual-Use Talents. Tonight, he needed renovation knowledge.
The house deal was moving fast. American real estate had its paperwork, its escrow companies, but once you dropped the cash, everything clicked into place. Two weeks, maybe less, and the Lawson property could be his. Which meant every dollar mattered. Renovation companies were out of the question. He'd have to do it himself—paint, wiring, plumbing if he had to. Most Americans did.
Money. Always money.
He dragged his old laptop from the desk, dust in the fan vent whining to life as the screen flickered on. The password still worked for the crypto wallet he'd set up three years earlier—the one he'd sworn never to touch until the right time.
Thirty Bitcoins. Bought at two hundred each. Six thousand invested before he even had the system. His little time traveler's insurance policy.
The price now? Already climbing. By his calculations, by 2021 they'd peak near sixty thousand each. If he held until then, he'd walk away with 1.8 million. Enough to buy not just Lawson's house, but a whole neighborhood.
Jack leaned back, staring at the numbers glowing on the cracked screen. In his last life, he'd seen too many people destroyed by sudden fortune. Windfalls that their bodies, their hearts, couldn't carry. He wouldn't be one of them. He'd cash out carefully, slow and deliberate, when the time came.
He closed the laptop and set it aside. What mattered now was focus. True focus.
Thanks to the system's stat bonuses, his mind was a blade when he chose to use it. He could slip into a state of concentration in seconds, turn off the noise of the world like flipping a switch. An hour of study for him was worth three for anyone else. Add to that the extra five hours of wakefulness the system had carved out by shaving down his need for sleep, and suddenly Jack had a whole second life carved into each day.
For once, the joy of learning wasn't just a platitude. It was survival.
Three days of leave vanished in a blink. On the last one, Jack loaded the rose oil into his car and drove to Zoe's place.
The encounter was slow, tender, unhurried. When it was over, Zoe lay tangled in sheets, flushed and glowing, staring at the ceiling as if she could still feel his touch drifting across her skin.
Her voice was soft. "When are you and Maureen going to announce your plans? Should I prepare a wedding gift in advance?"
Jack's smile was thin, crooked, uneasy. He still hadn't shaken the absurdity of Maureen's revelation—that their so-called engagement was a political smokescreen, a theater piece. He felt less like a lover, more like some supporting clown in a Japanese manga he half-remembered.
Zoe bit him playfully on the shoulder, snapping him back. Her eyes narrowed. "Hannah told you everything, didn't she? About her family. About why she wants the Bureau. What do you think?"
Jack exhaled slowly, gave her the short version of the conversation, then added, "We wait until she's back from Quantico. But I don't want her poking around in the FBI system. If this thing really ties to Kleiner Industries, then it's got congressmen shielding it. Their reach could easily stretch into the Bureau. If Hannah goes digging where she shouldn't, she won't just risk the case—she'll risk herself."
Zoe frowned. The expression cut into her features like a line of worry etched too deep. She hated to admit it, but he wasn't wrong.
"My dad tried," she muttered. "He leaned on everyone he could. They all shut him out. Over the years, I've dug where I could too, but nothing ever sticks."
Jack reached out, touched her forehead, smoothed the crease between her brows. "Don't waste that face on frowning. Let me take this one."
Her gaze snapped to his, confused. She didn't doubt his heart. But his capability? A rookie cop, barely out of uniform, talking like he could succeed where her family had failed for a decade.
Jack read her silence and gave the answer anyway, casual as if it were obvious. "Hackers."
Zoe blinked.
"You're all thinking lawyers, subpoenas, investigations. Why box yourselves in? Pay the right hacker, let them trace Kleiner's foundation, pull names. Once you know who's really running the show, everything else gets easier."
He wasn't guessing. In this world, hackers weren't fringe—they were gods. Every show, every case, every so-called thriller leaned on some genius behind a keyboard. NCIS, CSI, Bones—different settings, same trick. Information was currency, and hackers minted it.
This world was stitched together from television logic, a timeline tangled but consistent. The Jeffersonian labs existed, whispered about in DC. NCIS had just set up shop, led by a woman with iron in her spine. He'd even found mention of Harold Finch online—still alive, still partnered with Nathan Ingram, their company under contract with the Bureau.
Jack leaned back against the headboard, watching Zoe's doubt soften into consideration.
"Legal routes hit walls," he said quietly. "But someone, somewhere, already knows the truth. You just have to be willing to pay the toll."
(End of this chapter)