Chapter 308

Coms were scrambled within thirty seconds of reaching the tower lobby.

If anything, the fact that Miles was still navigating along predictable lines made me feel better. The brief gap before the scramble meant whoever he’d posted up here probably didn’t have a perfect vantage on the elevator. Paying close enough attention to register “Matt’s” arrival, but not so close that they got a clear look at the person with him.

The split itself was easy. Textbook.

I waited in line for a hotdog, blending in with dozens of other users perusing the many vendors, angled enough to witness Azure stick his hands in the pockets of my hoodie and hurry out the front. He’d need to pass through the security checkpoint. It was a low volume day, so he’d be gone in two minutes along with any tail.

The safest time to leave would be shortly after.

Biding the time, I thought about next steps.

No matter how this played out he wouldn’t catch me flat footed like last time. There were contingencies in place for this exact scenario. Hurricane Miles. Unfortunately, they took time to deploy. Numerous messages to deliver, people to speak with, and contracts to activate. I’d tried to be practical in planning. If I hauled ass, it was theoretically possible to get every plate spinning within a twenty-four-hour period.

I had less than twelve.

And not every measure was created equal.

Notifying Kinsley and the Strike-Team, and getting the nursery squared away for what was shaping up to be a long absence were non-negotiables. I also needed to make sure anyone in my circle who knew the truth—Nick, Sae—had their stories straight. No matter what happened I didn’t want them or my family implicated in my bullshit. They all needed plausible deniability, and it was the least I could do to ensure they had it.

Beyond the basics there were other, unpleasant aspects. Any solid “Oh-shit” plan has an escalating staircase of safeguards that scale on severity of threat. The bottom step is the most fundamental and critical preparations, passive defenses, careful shoring up of resources and positioning, nothing that can’t be walked back if the threat subsides. As the stairs ascend, subtlety—and any possibility of reversing what you’ve done—dwindles. The counter-measures grow more brutal and destructive, escalating until the final step.

In theory, you should never reach the top. Because being forced to fall back on the most brutish, heinous methods you can imagine is a good indicator you fucked up somewhere in the planning.

Problem was, Miles didn’t seem interested in letting me climb that staircase organically. Probably by design. With my unwitting help, he’d created a scenario that let him isolate me from the outside world and cut off communications and resources, all without technically holding anyone against their will.

All of which meant I’d need to use the scant hours I had to guess.

Pick and choose, based on how bad things might get, take an educated shot in the dark all the while hoping I wasn’t doing the strategic equivalent of dumping kerosene on a forest fire.

Three minutes passed.

I sent a dummy text to check, netting a degree of relief when it went through, confirming whoever was jamming coms had stopped. However, just because they’d stopped didn’t mean they were gone. Lingering behind, trying to pick them out, was relatively pointless. A waste of precious time, especially when Miles wasn’t lacking in manpower.

So I called Kinsley.

“What?” A curt, groggy voice answered.

“Hey, mom. Were you asleep?”

“Oh, shit.” There was a rustle of fabric and movement before the voice returned, more focused than before. “How bad is it?”

“I’m alright. Oh, uh—remember what you said to me the night of the party? When the late guests showed up?”

There was a small moan. “That we were fucked, because we were all high as balls and the feds were there?”

“Yep. You were right. About the first and last part, anyway.”

“Shit.” More scrambling in the background, “Need to get my go bag.”

“Don’t worry about it,” I blurted. It was better that I’d caught her napping rather than somewhere in public, though for this to work, I needed her not to freak out and tip our hand. “He was alright. Pleasant enough, but the whole place stank like cat piss.”

“What—”

“Yeah, they had, like, three. Which doesn’t seem like that many, but the little monsters were spazzing everywhere. Climbing furniture, tearing up cushions. Basically feral.”

“Are you fucking serious—oh.” Kinsley went quiet for a second. “Cats. Related to Miles. Category 3.”

“Uhuh.”

“You’re compromised.”

“Yep.”

“But there’s no danger to anyone else.”

“For now, anyway. I’ll text more details later.”

“Why didn’t you just text to begin with?” Kinsley groused.

It was a reasonable question. Even if they weren’t using the unnecessary gestures, you could often pick out a person navigating any sort of system text in public by the phone-stare sans phone, the way they appeared to look directly in front of themselves instead of the more distant direction they were heading. I made a point to avoid that from the beginning; I was good at it, but Miles’ people tended to be a cut above. Better to avoid the risk since I had seen no one leave the tower.

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I was in the middle of parsing how to communicate the sentiment in code when Kinsley apparently decided it wasn’t important. “Never mind. Jesus. The adrenaline’s hitting like a truck. What do you need me to do?”

“Just stick with what we talked about and everything will be fine.”

“The Cat 3 Guidelines.”

“Uhuh.”

“That’s it? Nothing else?” Kinsley sounded uncomfortable. Probably because of the non-action. There was still a lot for her to do, but most of it involved throwing her vocational weight around, making sure the right people got paid while she ran things in the background.

I teetered on the verge of a decision and finally took the plunge. “Right. What’s happening with the Grays? They still coming over for dinner tonight?”

“The Gray Unit?” Kinsley clarified, a little worried.

“Yeah.”

“There was a metric fuck-ton of washouts and knee-jerk butthurt because someone insisted on making the evaluation criteria pretty much impossible to pass. Few made it through. I think there’s like, twenty right now, five to ten more if the current group passes the last round. But I thought we weren’t going to activate them unless—”

I chuckled. “Well, since you’re cooking, I’d say at least two.”