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.

satellite feed on her laptop,

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

pinpointed his location based on the coordinates he

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

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

directly above Percival's position, it could

"Mr. Wolf, can

she had to aim to keep the rescue

waiting for me outside, I

the mine's depth

hardly contain himself, shouting at the speaker, "Conserve your

tone was stern, "Mr. Wolf, don't speak unless it's absolutely

more thing," Percival said, his 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

Vanguard Agency's special squad quickly set

safely carve a passage, they must blast through the debris blocking the

was

explosives in an already unstable mine

more compact and potent than traditional explosives, resembling

apart was their precision. Carefully calculated placement allowed control over the blast

a minimal impact, and

all came down to how you

in real-world conditions, and Griffin was anything but certain. "Vivienne," she cautioned, "the 'Morning Glory' is still untested.

Griffin had affectionately bestowed upon

intricately calculated layout, not a flicker of doubt in her

for another.

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

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

Griffin pressed the

of ten explosions ripped through the air, kicking up a billowing cloud of dust that soared skyward

and when the dust finally settled, Leopold peered into

comrades held their breath

Leopold's triumphant voice, "Vivienne, we've got a hole five

of relief swept

entrance to the mine was a delicate matter. Using heavy machinery like excavators could have easily triggered a collapse, particularly in Weststart City, which was

Glory," they could ensure the stability of the mine's interior and

shovel in hand, rallied the troops.

with their entrenching tools, the Vanguard Agency's special squad began to clear the

another team to

already crunching numbers for the subsequent

His crow's feet crinkled in a mixture of concern

muttered to himself, "your daughter is

cane, and dialed Rivenwood's headquarters to ensure the logistic support was in

non-stop rescue operations would wear anybody out. Only with a solid supply chain

headquarters," one of the communication officers

at it and said, "Turn it

"Yes, sir!"

Ellington family was

from Vivienne or Thomas, the entire family

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

"No, Percival must be

reassuring words,

issue was that Percival was slated to debut as the Ellington family's heir the next day, facing shareholders

demanded Percival's presence. With no

"Flynn, you'll stand in as acting chairman. We must minimize the fallout

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

Richard cut in. "You'll do it. When Percival returns, he can handle the

at Richard. "Richard, I'm