Chapter 25 · The Panel Doesn't Do That

"The panel doesn't do that." Vale's voice came out flat, low, aimed at the screen and not at me.

I looked anyway. The countdown that had sat dead at zero for three days now read 04:58:12 and climbing backward, red numbers stacking like a heartbeat somebody else controlled. Under it, small white letters: OVERRIDE — R.TANNER-04.

"That's his employee code," I said. My mouth had gone dry, vault-dry, the kind of dry that comes from air scrubbed too many times through the same filters. "Rhys doesn't have vault clearance. He never did."

"He didn't yesterday." Vale's hand hit the panel, three fast taps, a code I didn't recognize. Nothing. The numbers kept climbing. "Somebody handed him a door."

I stepped back and the shelving bit into my spine, cold steel through the thin cotton of the shirt I'd borrowed off a hook two nights ago because mine had come apart at the shoulder seam in his hands and never made it back together. Torn cloth. I still hadn't asked for a needle.

"Move," he said, and didn't wait for me to.