Chapter 32 · Live Feed

"Marcus, don't touch that panel!" I'm already moving when the magnets die, because I know that sound. It's the sound of a room deciding you're not leaving it.

The door doesn't open. It doesn't even rattle. It just sits there, dead bolt green light gone amber, and Marcus is on the other side hammering the glass with the flat of his hand.

"System locked it," he yells through the frame. "Isolation flag, it's automatic, I can't override from out here—"

"Then get someone who can," Levi says, and his voice is flat, commissioner-flat, like this is a paperwork problem and not the two of us breathing recycled air in a six-by-eight box with a camera still blinking red in the corner.

That light hasn't gone off once. Not when Marcus ran the labels. Not when the second panel routed itself straight to the federal hearing office like it had a mind of its own.