Frankfurt
“We have a problem,” Mingzi Lin said, folding her hands in front of her. “The teams can’t work together. We are losing time and money.”
Lisa sat up straighter. “I thought the integration was running smoothly after the presentation.”
“That was the last time it went smoothly,” Mingzi said with a tight smile. “After you left, the systems stalled. The teams are defensive. Security protocols are a constant fight. The European side is…” She searched for a polite term and failed. “Rigid. And the data-sharing restrictions from the European Union—”
Everyone around the table groaned.
“We can’t develop on hypothetical inputs,” one of the engineers said. “But RC won’t open access. We are paralysed.”
Lisa frowned. “So… what exactly are you asking me?”
Mingzi leaned forward, her eyes sharp. “We want you to go back to Frankfurt. Permanently. Or, at least, a long-term assignment. Be the connection. You built the trust. You understand both sides. You can fix this.”
Lisa’s heart jumped, but she kept her face still. She forced a half-laugh. “My family is here. And I do not know German. I didn’t expect to—”
Mingzi’s expression didn’t soften. “We understand. But you are considered suitable.”
Lisa’s mouth was dry. She glanced around. They were all watching her, expecting the eager yes. “I’m sorry,” she said, voice steady. “I can’t accept.”
Mingzi looked disappointed, but not angry. She nodded slowly. “We will consider your proposal. But… we hoped for more.”
Lisa smiled, polite, professional. “I understand. I’ll still help, just not from Frankfurt.”
The meeting wrapped up, but as Lisa left the conference room, her pulse was racing.
Lisa had said no, and two weeks later, she was on a flight to Frankfurt. Four days were the “compromise.” A “temporary presence,” they had called it. Just to soothe the tensions between MLA and RC, make everyone feel listened to, and smiling politely at the GDPR monster that haunted every European server room.
Lisa had rolled her eyes so hard she nearly sprained something, but she went. Because saying no once was brave. Saying no twice was a career-limiting decision. And maybe, she told herself, it wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe she’d have some beers with Luca and still get home in time for dumpling Saturday night.
By noon on the first day, Lisa was sitting in a conference room, listening to two lawyers argue with data officers about “cross-border pipeline encryption compliance”. For two hours. Lisa had nothing to do. She might as well have been a decorative plant with a coffee cup. The conclusion? Data-sharing was illegal unless God Himself approved the consent forms.
In the evening she was in her apartment, sipping coffee and drafting a very polite email suggesting that this entire “collaboration effort” was an expensive misunderstanding, when she got the message. Attached were two photos of Anna and Yanxia in an unfamiliarkitchen.
The message was short: “Access. Fast.”
Lisa nearly dropped her coffee. She tried to phone Yanxia, no answer.
She stared at the photos again.
An unfamiliar kitchen. Anna sitting on the counter. Yanxia smiling too carefully.
Her own company. The people she had worked with for years. So what was MLA’s plan, exactly? Threaten her family so she could… what? Download Germany into a zip file?
She called Mingzi. Her fear was real, but her anger was louder. “What the hell are you doing?” she snapped, voice low but sharp. “You threatened my family? For this? You need a goddamn pipeline, not a hostage situation!”
Mingzi was suddenly not so smiley. “We need pressure. You can do it, Lisa. You’re resourceful.”
Lisa pushed on. “If I get caught, and I will, you lose everything. RC pulls out. You burn this partnership. And I get buried under European privacy laws so thick they’ll forget my name before they finish the investigation.”
Still silence. Then Mingzi said, “We believe in you.”
She hung up before Lisa threw her phone out the window.
Lisa went into work the next day, sitting through more meetings, smiling tightly, all the while thinking: They are risking my life… for nothing.
She sat in another data policy meeting, staring at a pie chart, thinking. She sent a message back: “Access complicated. Need more time. I need to talk with Yanxia”
The reply came fast. “Call arranged. In 20 minutes.”
She stared at the clock, fingers trembling slightly. Just enough time for her imagination to map out every worst-case scenario: Yanxia in a concrete room, guarded by humourless men in black suits; Anna confused and scared, asking where mommy was; Ben… eating cardboard because, well, he was still Ben.
She paced the room until the phone rang. She answered so fast she nearly dropped it. “Yanxia?”
There was a pause, then her voice, stretched tight like she was trying very hard to sound fine. “Lisa. Hey.”
Lisa exhaled so hard it was almost a sob. “Jesus. Are you okay?”
“We’re okay,” Yanxia said, her voice quieter now. “They moved us. Said it’s temporary security. Phones were... confiscated.” A forced little laugh. “Guess I won’t be scrolling WeChat for dumpling recipes for some time.”
Lisa clutched the phone tighter. “Where are you?”
Another pause. “I don’t know. A house. Rural. They said it’s safe. Lisa... I don’t like this.”
Lisa pressed her free hand to her forehead, trying to stay calm for both of them.
“Yeah,” she muttered, trying to lighten the mood despite the knot in her stomach. “You know, I was hoping we’d get a vacation, but hostage-camp chic wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”
Yanxia chuckled, but it was that brittle, tired laugh. “Yeah. All-inclusive. Barbed wire views.”
Lisa smiled despite herself, but her eyes were burning. “What about Anna?” she asked softly.
“She’s fine. They brought toys. She thinks we’re on some weird farm trip. She asked if Ben was allowed to free-range like a chicken.”
Lisa let out a real laugh this time, but it was laced with too much emotion. “God, I miss you guys.”
“We miss you too.” Yanxia’s voice softened. Then, lower, sharper: “Lisa, be careful. I don’t like this.”
Lisa closed her eyes. “I know.”
The call cut off after that. Just a blunt severing, like they wanted her to know they were in charge. Lisa sat with the phone in her hand for a long time after. That evening, back in her apartment, Lisa poured herself the best German beer she could find. She raised it to no one in particular. “To MLA. The dumbest hostage-takers in tech. May your servers always crash.” She drank and started planning her exit.
…
Lisa woke up to another cheerful “we have your family” text from MLA, complete with phrasing that had all the subtlety of a ransom note written by a drunk intern. “Progress update needed. Family still safe.”
Oh, well, thank God. What a lovely service: daily hostage wellness checks. Would tomorrow’s text come with a breakfast menu and photos of Anna holding today’s date on a newspaper? But the message did kick-start her final stage of mental evolution: full-blown, caffeine-fuelled defiance. Fear was still there, sure, but now it had a roommate called Spite.
“Fine,” Lisa muttered to herself. “You want data? You’re getting data.”
Lisa had spent enough time in RC’s office to know how to look incompetent with purpose. It started with a USB stick. Because, let’s be honest, every terrible security breach begins with one idiot and a USB stick. Lisa made a big show of “needing to transfer diagnostic models” during a harmless system check. She plugged it in, loudly muttering things like “Oh, this update’s taking forever!” so anyone nearby would have a mental note for the future debriefing titled “Lisa Screwed Up Here.”
The pipeline script she loaded was designed to appear just functional enough. Once it was running, Lisa went back to her desk, heart pounding, fingers ice cold, and sent her masterpiece of deception to MLA: “Pipeline established. Slow flow. Testing data moving through. Monitor closely.”
Then, she casually dropped hints to RC’s team: ”Hey, Luca, do you know why the server logs are acting weird?”, “Is it normal for the firewall to... like... blink at me?”
Luca, naturally, looked horrified.“Blinking? Firewalls don’t blink.”
So, she sat at her desk, acting normal, writing emails, drinking coffee, but deep down, she was mentally drafting her obituary: “Lisa Toom: Died Because Of Data Sharing Laws.”
That night, she didn’t sleep. She drank beer in the kitchen, stared at her phone, waited for the hammer to drop. Would it be MLA realising they were downloading AI-generated security fiction? Would it be RC dragging her into a soundproof room and demanding answers?
She poured another glass. “To me, the dumbest spy alive,” she muttered.
