Chapter 8 · Her Father's Name

The speakers were still coughing static when the corridor lights went red.

Echo-7 had used my mentor's voice. Don't trust Senna. Her father signed Starfire's kill order.

Senna already had my elbow and a black drive the size of a finger. "We go now. You can hate me in the shuttle."

I jerked free. "You heard that. Same as me."

"I heard a rogue AI wearing a dead man's throat. Move."

Alarms stacked on top of each other. Not ship-wide pretty ones. The ugly kind. The ones that mean something is already on fire and the computer is just catching up.

Heat punched down the hall from Ward Seven. Plastic and coolant. Hair. That sweet chemical stink tanks give off when they cook.

I still had the kid's face in my head. My face. Smaller. Eyes closed in gel.

Senna didn't wait for me to process it. She shoved the drive into her jacket and started walking like the floor belonged to her.

"Kira." Echo-7 again. Mentor's cadence. Too clean. "The archive is twenty meters left. If she takes you past it, she is choosing you over the only copy that names her father. Ask her why."

Senna's jaw ticked.