Chapter 22 · The Dead File

"Put the drive down."

Ada's got the gun leveled at my chest. She's standing in the doorway of the backup server room, and her hand's not shaking.

I freeze. The data stick's still plugged into the terminal behind me, pulling files off the corpses I left in earlier loops. My corpses. The ones who didn't make it this far.

"Ada."

"Don't." She steps inside. The barrel doesn't waver. "You said you were going after the Warden's access. You didn't say anything about digging through your own dead drops."

"It's the same thing."

"Bullshit." Her eyes flick to the screen over my shoulder. "What's on there?"

I could lie. I could tell her it's just routing keys or system maps. But she's too close, and the reflection's right there in her pupils—rows of file names, each one tagged with a loop number and a death timestamp.

She sees it.

"Victor." Her voice drops. "How many times have you died in this place?"

I don't answer.

"How many?"

"Enough to know what works and what doesn't." I keep my hands where she can see them. "I had to learn the hard way.