Chapter 13 · Ninety-Four Seconds, Twice

"Give me the board back," Dean said, like it was in my pocket and I was just being a prick about it.

"I don't have it." I shoved his hand off my shoulder — first thing I'd done since his teeth were on my gland that wasn't just standing there taking it. "Nobody has it. That's the point. Somebody outside is driving your stolen master key like a toy car and neither one of us is in the seat."

The panel said 04:41. It kept saying it. Frozen, not counting, which was worse than counting.

"Fix it," Dean said.

"I can't fix a signal I can't see." I turned to the radio board — my board, the one thing in this bunker that still answered to me — and my hands were already moving before my brain caught up. "But I can drown it."

"Drown it with what?"

"Resonance." I flipped three toggles, watched the meter spike. "Every remote key rides a carrier frequency. If I push my transmitter hard enough on the same band, I don't hear their signal and they don't hear theirs. It's not off. It's just — nobody's home."

"That kills my county-wide."

"For maybe ten seconds, yeah."

Dean's jaw worked. "You do that, every unit on Charlie channel goes dark during a riot.