Chapter 23 · Dual Authentication Failed

"Thumb. Now." Torin shoves the tablet into my hand before I've even turned all the way around, and the screen's already glowing that ugly trustee green. DEFAULT READY.

My stomach drops straight through the concrete.

"What is that."

"Automated push. Comes off Priya's frozen account." His jaw's tight, a muscle jumping under three days of stubble he hasn't had time to shave off. "Somebody's clock started ticking the second that fraud flag went live."

I can hear the crowd through two feet of concrete and steel, that low roar that means somebody just got hammered into the boards. First intermission's ending. I check the corner of the screen. Six minutes before period three drops.

"Six minutes to what?"

"To hold it," he says. "Or it executes on its own."

The pump room smells like chlorine and hot rubber, ammonia biting the back of my throat off the brine tanks. Cold radiates up off the ice plant behind us, straight through my coat, straight through the blouse I never should've worn into a building with no working thermostat.