Smoke. It was faint at first, just the softest scent, like a distant campfire. Nell paused for half a second, her fingers frozen above the keyboard. Then came the crackle in her earpiece.
"Nell, you need to move," Callen's voice was calm but firm, the way it always got when the stakes were high. "Fire's breaking through the west corridor."
She didn't answer right away. Her eyes flicked to the progress bar on the screen: 62%. Not even close.
"I need four more minutes," she said, already typing again, rerouting the server path to bypass a firewall slowing the download.
"You don't have four minutes," Sam's voice cut in this time. "Get out—now."
Her jaw tightened. Her throat was dry, but not from fear. From smoke. It was creeping in faster than she'd realized, curling beneath the office door, licking around the corners of the room like fingers reaching for her.
"If I leave now," she said, speaking quickly, "we lose it all. The files, the metadata, the encryption keys—they're only on this machine. There's no mirror, no cloud. This is the case."
"And you'll be dead with it," Kensi barked. "Fire suppression's down—this building's ready to go up like a tinderbox."
The cursor blinked as if mocking her. 74%.
She coughed, once, sharp and raw. Her hand went to her mouth, then back to the keys. She leaned in, closer to the screen, pulling up a script to force the last part of the download into priority.
Through the glass walls of the small office, the hallway was no longer visible—just a glowing haze of orange and grey. She could hear shouting in the distance, the rhythmic thud of boots on concrete, maybe Deeks or Sam clearing another room.
"Nell," Callen's voice again, low and pressing, not angry—afraid. "That's an order."
91%.
"I know what I'm doing," she said quietly, mostly to herself.
The walls felt warmer now. A drop of sweat slid down her temple. The room was filling with smoke. The server fans were straining, humming louder than before. But the data kept streaming in, line by line. She didn't even blink.
And then—ding.
100%.
"Got it," she whispered, yanking the flash drive free, shoving it into her vest pocket.
She turned toward the door. Flames were visible through the seams now, and the smoke was nearly opaque. Time was up.
Nell took a deep breath, adjusted her grip on her sidearm, and ran
