Chapter 17 · The Active Signature

"Take your hand off the key, Mara." Eli caught my wrist before I could press the black switch again. "Now."

"You don't get to order me around."

"You want to wake the network? Go ahead. It only needs your skin for half a second."

His fingers locked around me, hot and hard even with blood soaking through his shirt. The neural key lay between us on the metal floor, its blue light pulsing against his knuckles.

Every pulse matched the beat in my throat.

I yanked once.

He didn't let go.

"That recording was my voice," I said. "You heard it. I heard it. So stop acting like I'm too fragile to understand what it means."

"I never said fragile."

"You didn't have to. Silence is your favorite trick."

His jaw tightened. "The voice cut out before the warning ended."

"Then we find the rest."

"By letting the city's prediction grid know exactly where we are?"

A red dot blinked across the ceiling.

Eli looked up first.

Three drones unfolded from the black ventilation shafts. Metal limbs snapped into place, one joint after another.