Chapter 24 · Node Three

"Verification failed." The pump room speaker cracked it out flat, no apology in it. "Rerouting to secondary authority."

My thumb was still on the scanner glass, hot from Torin's palm pressed right under mine, and the screen didn't go green. It went black, then it lit up with a string of letters neither of us put there.

"That's not a retry," I said. "That's a handoff."

Torin didn't move his hand off the pipe behind my shoulder. His knuckles were white on the cold steel, close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his forearm through my sleeve. "Handoff to who?"

The screen answered him. NODE 3 AUTHORIZATION PENDING — TRUSTEE OF RECORD.

"Trustee," I said. "The bond trustee. Priya Osei."

"She's not in this building." His voice had gone low, the kind of low that used to mean I'm about to fix this. Now it just sounded like a man realizing the floor moved. "She's not supposed to be in this system at all. This was a two-key lock. You. Me. That's what the appendix says.