Chapter 26 · The Hold Doesn't Open

"Move your hand or I break it." Dean's knuckles were white on the lever, right next to mine, and neither of us had moved an inch in ten seconds.

"You break it, the whole tray jams and we lose the paper anyway." I shoved my shoulder into his, trying to get leverage, and felt bone knock against bone where his forearm crossed mine. "Pull up, not out."

"I know how a printer works, Ward."

"Then it should've opened by now."

It hadn't. The half-fed sheet hung out of the slot like a tongue, my name and my badge number sitting right there in dot-matrix ink, C-CHANNEL SELF-REPORT — OMEGA, timestamp to the minute. Dean's chest was flush against my back now, both of us bent over the same six inches of plastic housing, his breath hot and short against the side of my neck every time he hauled on the lever.

"There's a date field at the bottom," he said. "Look at it."

I looked. Not today's date. A push time. 03:47. Eleven minutes from now.

"That's not a log," I said. My voice came out wrong, too fast. "That's a sync."

"Reyes isn't just filing it. He's batching it.