Chapter 9 · Whoever's Talking Isn't Asking

"Then whose is it?" I got the words out before I decided to say them.

Harlan's radio kept eating static, that low broken hiss that only happens when two transmitters fight for the same frequency and neither one wins clean. His thumb hovered over the volume knob like touching it might make it worse.

"I don't know," he said. "I swear to God I don't know."

Dean was already moving. Not toward Harlan — toward me, toward the board, close enough that I felt the heat coming off his forearm before he even reached past me for the panel. My back hit the console edge. He didn't apologize for it.

"Move," he said.

"It's my board."

"Then read it."

I read it. Channel 4 was supposed to be dead air, department reserve, nobody's. Now it had a handshake ping crawling across the low display, over and over, a call sign that wasn't mine and wasn't dispatch and wasn't anything I'd assigned in six years of running this room.

"That's a command override code," I said. My voice came out flatter than I meant it. "Somebody's trying to seize citywide priority."

Harlan's face did something ugly. "From where?"

"From outside the Faraday shell, which is impossible, or—" I stopped. My hand had already found the keys without asking my brain first.