Xona pulled on one of the drawers in the desk.
“Locked.” She raised an eyebrow at me. “When there’s a lock, you know the good stuff’s hidden inside.”
I went over to the closet on the left side of the wall. It had an old manual slide door, and I opened it easily. “Well then I guess this is a very good thing.”
Xona popped her head up from behind the desk and let out a low whistle. “A safe!” She hurried over to me. “The General sure likes her Old World stuff, huh?”
I crouched down to get a better look at the wide three-by-three-foot box that took up the entire floor of the small closet. I closed my eyes and raised my telek. It took a little longer than normal for the buzzing to sound in my ears because I was so anxious, but it finally came. I cast around the box.
“How do we open it?” I asked.
Xona pointed at a circle turnstile on the front and frowned. “It’s an antique. No one bothers learning how to open these things anymore. We should have brought Rand. He could have melted through it.”
“Yeah, along with whatever’s inside,” I said sarcastically. I finished my sweep of the surface with my telek. “If it’s an antique, what is this wire on the back for?”
I could feel that it lead from inside the box straight into the wall.
Xona swore. She stood and felt quickly up and down the door frame of the closet. Her hand stopped about midway in the frame. “I should have known.”
“What? Should have known what?”
“That opening the closet door would trip an alarm.”
I pulled back as if stung.
Xona was still crouched down, whispering furiously. “Of course. She mixes in the Old World stuff to trip you up so you don’t expect the tech.”
The buzzing in my head eclipsed Xona’s voice. Taylor was going to know someone had broken into her office. We couldn’t change that. But we could still make sure it was worth it.
I projected my telek inside the box and felt the outline of a stack of thin sheets. More paper. And then I saw a vial of liquid perched above the papers and sensed vibration like a ticking noise.
Then the ticking stopped. It must have been counting down. I felt the first crack in the vial before I could react.
“No!” I clapped both hands to the sides of the safe to anchor myself inside. I surrounded the shattering vial with my telek just as the first drop of liquid beaded through.
At first I was afraid it would be like the fire and I wouldn’t be able to hold on to it. But the liquid had enough surface area that I was able to catch it all with my invisible lasso, holding it in the shape of the splintered vial.
“Get back,” I said through gritted teeth. Obviously we weren’t getting out of here without Taylor knowing, so there was no reason to try to be smooth anymore. Xona moved out of the way. I let the buzzing build in my ears and then ripped the door off the safe. I was still careful not to let go of the liquid or let a drop spill. Now that the door was off, I could see what it was. Acid. If I’d been touching the liquid with anything other than my mind, I’d have been badly burned.
“Take the papers out,” I instructed Xona, my heart thumping in my chest now.
She reached in carefully and retrieved them.
I raised the door gently off the floor where it had landed. Xona’s eyes were wide as it floated past her and fitted it back onto the hinge as best I could. I forgot how much my glitcher power unnerved her sometimes.
Xona handed the papers to me. “Let’s go.”
I flipped through the top few pages. There were charts and schematics, none of which I immediately recognized. Xona headed for the door when I noticed my blinking arm panel. “Wait,” I said. “Ginni’s messaging—”
But Xona had already opened the door. Three ex-Regs stood in our path, tranq guns pointed toward us.
Chapter 24
XONA TENSED AND REACHED for the ten-inch blade holstered at her waist. I felt rather than saw the ex-Reg closest to her twitch his finger closer to the trigger. This was about to get bad quickly.
I looked at the ex-Reg in the middle. Cole, the boy who painted in color and wanted to feel human. “You don’t have to do this.”
He didn’t say anything.
“You know I can rip these guns apart with my telek before you ever get a shot off.” My voice was low and dangerous.
“We have orders to apprehend anyone who sets off this alarm,” Cole said.
“Cole, you know us,” I said. “We’re part of the same team. You know we would never work for the Chancellor. Don’t you want to see what we found?” I raised the pages in my hand. I may not have known what the plans were for, but I knew they were important.
I could see the conflict on his face. Taylor was at the top of his command structure now. If there was one thing that was ingrained in Regs since childhood, it was to obey orders. But I was the one who’d freed them. He trusted me, I could feel it. And there was something about the way Cole’s eyes kept flicking over to Xona. Where did his loyalties lie now?
“We don’t need to know,” said Eli in a monotone. “We have our orders.”
Unlike Cole, I knew there was no reasoning with Eli. His finger twitched on the trigger and I yanked the gun out of his hands with my telek before he could fire. He’d been gripping it so tightly, his whole body was jerked forward.
Xona attacked the third ex-Reg right in front of her the same moment. She kicked his gun upward so the tranq dart lodged into the ceiling. Her victory was short-lived, however, because the next second he had her by the throat up against the wall.
“Stop!” Cole and I said at the same time.
Xona struggled violently against the ex-Reg’s grip. She was strong, but her eyes betrayed a terror I remembered well. She was thinking of her mother again. Her knife clattered to the ground and her blows landed harmlessly on the hard metal plating of his chest. He held her throat so tight she couldn’t scream.
“Let her go.” I worked hard to keep my voice calm. I stared at the ex-Reg’s hand holding Xona’s throat. There was a line where the fingers had been fused back together. “Wytt,” I said, “Please let her go.”
Xona turned her head sideways to free her windpipe. “Just rip his arm off already,” she growled hoarsely.
I turned back to Cole and laid a hand gently on his forearm. “Please.”
A long moment stretched. Cole swallowed hard and then his body relaxed. He dropped the gun to his side.
“Release her,” he said.
“But there are orders—”
“Do it!” Cole’s voice was commanding and Wytt finally obeyed. I grabbed Xona’s arm the second she was released to keep her from grabbing the knife from the floor and attacking Wytt. I could see her fury boiling. She managed to restrain herself, if only barely.
Some of the papers I’d been holding had dropped to the ground and gotten shuffled. I picked them up hurriedly, but I froze when my eyes stopped on a diagram of a shape I recognized.
I gasped as I pulled the sheet closer. “You all need to see this. But we’ve got to get out of this hallway.” I looked around us. “No telling what else Taylor has set up in case of a security breach.”
Xona pinned Wytt to the wall with her piercing glare, but she spoke to me. “Fine, but if he tries anything, I’ll blowtorch him in his sleep.”
Judging by the look on everyone’s face, it was clear no one doubted her.
Tyryn and Ginni met us in our dorm room. Ginni didn’t wait for us to speak.
“I’ve been monitoring Taylor. She’s on her way back to the Foundation.” She brightened when she saw the ex-Regs come in behind us. “Oh, hi Wytt, hi Cole, hi Eli.” None of them responded.