Is this destiny?

"Are you OK?", Aiden asked Sarah when they entered the villa.

Sarah understood that he is concerned because Vasily approached her. "I'm fine. You?"

"I wish to rip his head off, but I know that this is not the time. I was worried that he will hurt you."

"He will not hurt me as long as he sees me as someone useful for the Lebedev family. He approves of us taking down Voronins. I heard some stories about how he has a deep grudge with them, but I never heard why. It does not matter. He thinks that he can use me, and I think the same about him. I call this a temporary truce and once Voronins are out of the picture, I will deal with Vasily."

"WE will deal with him.", Aiden corrected her.

Sarah and Aiden entered the master bedroom which they set up with computers they are using to fix Eve. While they were in Los Angeles, the Ceresc Solutions, and in the base of the Lebedev Family, unless they were doing something else, Sarah and Aiden were working on getting Eve back online.

Mishi and his team cleaned up more modules and Sarah and Aiden were putting it all together and slowly assembling the foundation needed to wake up Eve from her slumber.

"While you were in a meeting, I finalized reviewing the code and kicked off another round of diagnostics...", Aiden said as he took a seat in front of his computer. He observed the results on the screen for a few seconds before nodding in approval. "This looks good. I believe that we can start Eve."

He noticed that Sarah sat in her chair and is staring blankly at the screen in front of her. "Sarah?"

Sarah took in a shaky breath. "It's three weeks how in unplugged Eve and I am concerned how much of her memory is damaged."

"We cleaned up her functionality and most of it is ready to be used. We will not know more than that until she wakes up and we diagnose her during runtime. If you are reluctant, we can do this later."

Sarah rejected. "There is no later. We don't know how long we will be absent this time..."

Sarah put her hands on the keyboard in front of her and started typing.

"Here goes…", Sarah mumbled and hit the last key.

After a few seconds of silence and numerous lines of code flying on the screen in front of Sarah, she called: "Eve?"

"Yes?", Eve's familiar voice sounded from a wireless speaker on the desk.

Sarah's eyes widened. She was surprised and relieved at the same time, and nervous as well. "Do you know what is today's date?"

"19th June 2023."

"Do you know who I am?"

"Sarah White, my master who created me.... born as Sarah Hill on 10th June 1999 from parents…"

Sarah listened to Eve talking and leaned on Aiden. She asked Eve who Aiden is and several other control questions about her family before going to the point…

"Eve, what is the status of your memory?"

"I'm detecting corruption that is causing gaps spanning from three minutes to seven weeks…"

Sarah sighed sadly. Seven weeks is a lot. "Eve, compile a report with the information on what timeframes are corrupted, and then remove corrupted data."

Two seconds later, Eve asked: "Master, why is my memory corrupted?"

"We had a breach, and someone sneaked in a virus…", Sarah explained what happened and asked Eve to do self-analysis and to report any problems. They will compare results from Eve to the ones that they did previously with external tools. "We are working on a module that will prevent this from occurring again…"

"Better?", Aiden asked Sarah when she finished talking to Eve.

"I'm happy that Eve is online and sad about the damage but… it could have been worse. Thank you for helping me fix Eve."

"There is no need to thank me. Eve can control all the devices, and that means the drones are fully operational, and so are our lenses. Other than that, I'm not sure that we can rely on her for this mission."

"I don't want to rush with Eve. Eve has the functionality, but she learned how to identify issues. With gaps in her memory, I'm afraid that Eve will not be as efficient as how she used to be and if we rely on her and she fails, we will be in more trouble than what we can handle. Imagine if she identifies us as foes and ends up knocking us out. And also, the device for disabling signal jammers can't be on all the time."

Aiden pressed his lips into a line. Sarah has a point. "Let's do a few tests for drone control and security systems. We should let our siblings know about Eve's state before we go to the mission…"

…

Sophia and JoAnna were happy to hear that Eve is back online, but they had their questions.

"You said that she has memory loss. What does that mean? How should we treat her?", Sophia asked.

Sarah thought about how to answer this. "Think of her like a ten-year-old who had brain damage and now she is at the level of a five-year-old, but you don't know which parts of her brain got damaged, so you need to probe her slowly. With her memory gaps, she might not remember Alice or Jayden being born or that Lia loves chocolate chip cookies."

JoAnna nodded in understanding. "When we have time, we will talk with Eve and fill in the gaps for her."

Sarah thought that is a good idea. "That would be great. Tell Jeff and Felix to do the same."

"Is Eve controlling the security now?", Sophia asked.

"Partially. I sent you on your email functionality that is enabled. I'm still not confident in giving Eve a full control."

JoAnna agreed. "No one wants to give full control to a five-year-old."

"Are you guys ready for tomorrow?", Sophia asked Sarah and Aiden.

Aiden glanced at Sarah before responding: "Ready as we will ever be. We still need to pack…"

Sophia had to ask another question: "Are you sure about taking Hong with you?"

Sarah confirmed. "We talked about this and... he has his reasons to go. If he wanted to hurt us, he had many opportunities to do so in the last three years. He will help us stay safe and we will help him get his freedom."

JoAnna had the same concern as Sophia. "Are you sure that Hong will not snap when he sees his cousin sitting on the throne and enjoying all the power he snatched from Hong and used to kill his wife and keep his daughter as a hostage?"

Aiden responded: "Hong waited more than thirty years for this. He is wise enough to understand that a few more days is not a lot compared to that. And he knows that if he rushes, he will fail…"

…

After dinner, Sarah and Aiden went to finish packing.

They don't have much to pack because they will be traveling lightly, with one backpack each.

Aiden was folding t-shirts and Sarah was going through the suitcase she brought from the Cliffside Villa.

"Redhead or blonde?"

Sarah's question got Aiden's attention. He turned toward her and saw her holding onto two wigs.

Aiden grinned and wiggled his eyebrows playfully. "Do you need to ask?"

Sarah laughed. "Blonde it is. What will my name be?"

"I will call you 'sweetheart' and 'love', as usually. Do you need another name?"

"I guess I don't, Alex."

Aiden's whole face twitched when he heard that name and Sarah noticed. "You don't like the name Alex?"

"It brings bad memories."

Sarah moved and sat in his lap. "Then, let's finish this mission quickly and put it behind us… I want to go home and decorate the nursery. I will let you pick my maternity dresses."

Aiden cradled Sarah in his embrace and took a deep breath. "Promise not to do anything reckless. Don't cause trouble. Stay by my side and if anyone provokes you, let me handle it. OK?"

"Yes, husband. I promise.", Sarah said softly.

Aiden exhaled helplessly. He knows that Sarah means it, but when they are there and adrenalin surges in the heat of the moment, it will be another story. With pregnancy hormones adding to Sarah's already explosive personality, it will be impossible to control her. That is his wife, and she is perfect.

---

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