Chapter 14 · Rift Protocol - Chapter 14: The Dead List

"Stop touching that."

I yank my hand back from the terminal. Dalen's voice cuts through the hum of the server room like a blade.

"I wasn't—"

"You were about to pull the drive." He's behind me. Close enough I can feel the heat coming off him. "That'll wipe the cache."

I don't turn around. "How do you know what I was going to do?"

"Because I've seen you do it. Three loops ago. You pulled it, the system locked, and we spent the next sixty hours sealed in here with no air circulation."

I freeze. "You remember that?"

"I remember everything you screw up," he says. "Now move."

He brushes past me, close enough his jacket grazes my shoulder. The contact sends a jolt through my ribs. I step back, but there's nowhere to go. The server rack boxes me in on one side, Dalen on the other.

He leans over the keyboard, fingers flying. Blood's still seeping through the bandage on his arm where I shot him twenty minutes ago.