Chapter 17 · The Kill Switch

"Twenty-eight seconds." Dean's voice cracked flat against the steel, no room in it for anything else. He had both hands wrapped around the manual wheel like he could rip it out of the wall by wanting it hard enough.

"Stop yanking it," I said. "You'll strip the gear."

"It's already stripped, Ward. It won't turn."

I shoved past him into the console room, my shirt still hanging open where his fist had torn the buttons ten minutes ago, my mouth still tasting like his. No time to think about that. Twenty-six seconds and counting, red digits stacked over the airlock door like a scoreboard nobody wanted to win.

"Move," Dean said, right behind me, close enough that I felt his breath land on the back of my neck. "What are you doing."

"What I do. My job. Sit down and shut up for once."

He didn't sit. He planted himself at my shoulder, arms crossed, jaw tight, watching my hands fly over the board like he was daring me to screw it up. Twenty-two seconds.

"The airlock's slaved to the district grid," I said, mostly to myself, mostly to keep my hands from shaking. "Somebody flagged it hazmat lockout. That's not an accident, that's a call somebody made."

"Somebody like who."

"I don't know yet.