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.

staring at the satellite feed on her laptop, which was not entirely accurate. She could only devise an effective rescue plan with

from his location, "I'm in a temporary shelter within the mine. There's some air left here, and I found a cave for cover, but I'm not sure how long it will hold. I've got thirty percent oxygen

his location based on the coordinates he

about 0.6 miles from the mine's entrance, which was hardly an ideal spot. The thinness

unknown-they would have to blast through bit by bit to reach him

blast directly above Percival's position, it could easily

brow furrowed with concern. "Mr. Wolf, can you hold out for

aim to keep

came through with a chuckle. "If you're waiting for me outside, I can hold out for

mine's depth when he had not yet married

speaker, "Conserve your strength, Percival. We're coming to get you."

stern, "Mr. Wolf, don't

voice muffled by movement, then settling back into stillness, "Vivienne, I love you." Vivienne bit her lower lip, feeling a surge of emotion as she replied firmly into the headset, "Percival, I love you

squad quickly set

passage, they must

was a

explosives in an already unstable mine was akin to

traditional explosives, resembling grenades but packing a

placement allowed control

minimal impact, and other times, the same number

to how you played your

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

moniker Griffin had affectionately

flicker

Percival's life for another. Once her mind was made up,

a glance with Leopold, whose heart was in his throat, but if

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

Griffin pressed

kicking up a billowing cloud of dust that soared skyward like fireworks before

shielded their faces with their arms, and when the dust finally settled, Leopold peered into the mouth of

held their breath in

came Leopold's triumphant voice, "Vivienne, we've got a hole five feet wide and

wave of relief

collapse, particularly in Weststart City, which was already scarred by extensive mining. The risk

they could ensure the stability of the mine's interior

shovel in hand, rallied the

Vanguard Agency's special squad began

another team to haul away

were already crunching

feet crinkled in a mixture of concern

himself, "your daughter is quite

vehicle, leaning on his cane, and

would wear anybody out. Only with a solid supply chain could they keep the rescue efforts running

one of the communication officers said, holding out Micah's relentlessly buzzing

it and said, "Turn it

"Yes, sir!"

family was in

from Vivienne or Thomas, the entire family was on the brink of

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

must be tied

his reassuring words, Flynn was also anxious

issue was that Percival was slated to debut as the Ellington family's

one that demanded Percival's presence. With no idea of

on the 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 absence. If need be,

sure that's appropriate? Tomorrow's

cut in. "You'll do it. When Percival

at Richard. "Richard, I'm concerned Percival might take this