The Million-Dollar Heart

Vivienne's icy gaze locked onto Micah across the room, her eyes sharp and piercing with an almost palpable intensity.

Micah remained silent for a few heartbeats before switching off the intercom.

The voice that had been calling his name fell abruptly silent.

"I need to know," Micah's voice cut through the tension. "Do you have a solid plan to extract Percival safely?"

In that instant, an almost spectral aura of authority emanated from Micah, a remnant of the times he had battled through the most harrowing situations.

Thomas and Leopold, standing nearby, were momentarily taken aback.

Micah had been their drill instructor back in the day. Since becoming the deputy director, the formidable presence he once commanded seemed to have diminished. They had all assumed that Micah was past his prime, a paper pusher with graying hair.

But they were wrong. He had merely cloaked his ferocity beneath a guise of geniality, letting the years mellow his exterior.

Vivienne's gaze never wavered from Micah, shadows flickering in her eyes as she spoke with a gravity that brooked no argument, "Percival is the love of my life."

That single declaration held more weight than any promise could.

"He's the love of my life. How could I possibly leave him to face danger alone?"

Hearing Vivienne's resolute and unequivocal statement, Micah turned to issue orders, "Leopold, take Vivienne to the coordinates. Thomas, get to Soren immediately and have him report the mine's internal status!"

"No need," Vivienne interjected, pulling up a satellite map on her tablet. It showed the interior of the mine with a faint red dot marking Percival's location.

Hovering near Vivienne, Thomas voiced his concern, "Ma'am, the air is thin inside the mine. We don't know how much oxygen the captain has left, and we can't reach him."

Vivienne understood the urgency. "Does he have his headset?"

"He does, but we've lost contact. It seems a signal jammer is at play inside. No telling how long he can hold out," Leopold added quickly.

"As long as he has it," Vivienne said, retrieving a device resembling a Bluetooth speaker from Griffin's gearbox and connecting it to a laptop screen.

As soon as she activated it, all the headsets of the Vanguard Agency agents in the vicinity lost their signals.

Even the command vehicle where Micah sat was suddenly bereft of any communication.

"What's going on? Another virus?" Micah asked, bewildered.

"No." Vivienne typed in a sequence of codes, and a prompt appeared on the laptop screen. "Leopold, what's Mr. Wolf's public channel code?"

"0001."

Vivienne entered the code, and a faint sound of breathing immediately came through the speaker.

Everyone was startled, and Micah looked at Vivienne incredulously, at a loss for what had happened.

Vivienne put on a headset and said, "Mr. Wolf, can you hear me?"

After a brief pause, a voice came through, "Vivienne?"

"Holy smokes, it's Percival!" Leopold exclaimed, "Vivienne, you're a miracle worker!"

Micah, too, grasped the principle behind Vivienne's communication with Percival.

She had redirected all communication signals to focus solely on her and Percival's devices, turning the Bluetooth speaker into a targeted signal transmitter.

By inputting Percival's code, she could funnel all communication directly to the disconnected headset.

Micah's look of admiration towards Vivienne deepened.

me your exact position and surroundings. I need precise details," Vivienne demanded, staring at the satellite feed on her laptop, which was not entirely accurate. She could only devise an effective rescue plan with absolute

a temporary shelter within the mine. There's some air left here, and I found a cave

location based on the

mine's entrance, which was hardly an ideal spot. The thinness

the collapse between his location and the entrance was unknown-they would

they were to blast directly above Percival's position, it could easily trigger

Wolf, can you hold out for two

she had to aim to keep the rescue operation within

waiting for me outside, I can hold out

the mine's depth when he had not

could hardly contain himself, shouting at the speaker, "Conserve your strength, Percival. We're coming to get you."

stern, "Mr. Wolf, don't

one more thing," Percival said, his voice muffled by movement, then settling back into stillness, "Vivienne, I love you." Vivienne bit her lower

Agency's special squad quickly set

a passage, they must blast through the debris blocking

this was a

explosives in an already unstable mine was

creations, more compact and potent than traditional explosives, resembling

them apart was their precision. Carefully calculated placement allowed control over the blast radius, which was

a deck of cards-sometimes, a handful could make a minimal impact,

to how you

in the early stages of development, untested in real-world conditions, and Griffin was anything but certain. "Vivienne,"

Glory" was the moniker Griffin had affectionately bestowed

the intricately calculated layout, not a flicker of doubt in her

second meant risking Percival's life for another. Once her

whose heart was in his throat, but if Vivienne believed it was possible, that

gave a firm nod, placing all his faith in the "Morning

that, Griffin

a billowing cloud of

faces with their arms, and when the dust finally settled, Leopold

held their

we've got a hole five feet wide and thirty feet

of relief swept over the

a delicate matter. Using heavy machinery like excavators could have easily triggered a collapse, particularly in Weststart City, which was already scarred by extensive mining. The risk of

mine's interior and break

shovel in hand, rallied the troops. "Follow my

the Vanguard Agency's special squad began to clear the

another team to haul away

already crunching numbers for the subsequent

His crow's feet crinkled

himself, "your

command vehicle, leaning on his cane, and dialed Rivenwood's headquarters to ensure the logistic support

operations would wear anybody out. Only with a solid supply chain

from headquarters," one of the communication officers said, holding out Micah's

it and said, "Turn it

"Yes, sir!"

Ellington family was in

and no word from Vivienne or Thomas, the entire family was on the

happened to Percival, do you? We just received those threatening letters with knives, and now we can't reach either of them. What are we

was grim. "No, Percival must

words, Flynn was also anxious

as the Ellington family's heir the next day, facing

was a critical event, one that demanded Percival's presence. With no

sofa, Richard broke the silence. "Flynn, you'll stand in as acting chairman. We must minimize the fallout and quell the speculation about Percival and Vivienne's

his lip in hesitation. "Dad, are you sure that's appropriate? Tomorrow's announcement

it. When Percival returns,

I'm concerned Percival might