Chapter 17 · The Trigger Echo

The black box was still warm in my hands when the perimeter alarm went off.

Not the soft proximity chime we'd rigged at the warehouse entrance. The hard one. The one that meant military-grade scanners had just painted this entire block.

Senna was already moving. She killed the work light over the table and shoved the data slate into her jacket. The box I kept. It was humming now, a frequency I felt more than heard, like it was syncing to something in my chest.

"How long?" I asked.

She didn't look at me. "Four minutes if they're sloppy. Two if they're not."

Echo-7's voice crackled through the cheap speaker we'd jury-rigged to the slate. "Fleet intercept pattern delta-seven. Three aerial units inbound. Ground sweep probable."

"Shut up," Senna snapped at the speaker. Then to me: "We need to move. Now."

I didn't move. The box was getting warmer. The hum climbed half a note. Victor Lane's name was still ringing in my head from what we'd pulled out of the file ten minutes ago. Victor Lane gave the burn order. Victor Lane signed off on twenty-three clones incinerated in their pods.