He pushed me out onto the fire escape and slammed it closed after me. I hesitated at the window, watching from the shadows as Emil moved to the door. A minute later, Condor and his cronies swept into the room, fanning out through the apartment. None of them seemed to notice the fire now blazing in the fireplace. They were too busy searching for me. One of them picked up my palmtop and handed it to Condor. I saw him swipe to unlock it just before Emil’s body moved to block the window.

GSAF had my palmtop. They were going to know everything. Anything I’d texted Henry or Tamara was in Condor’s hands now.

I swallowed. Though, if Emil was to be believed, they’d had access to it all along, anyway. This was just the icing on the cake. I was screwed. To think that, a month ago, the worst thing in my future was working in an office cubicle for the rest of my life. Now I was probably looking at life in prison, if I was lucky.

I set my jaw.

That is, if they caught me.

Chapter 15

My heart slammed in my chest as I ran. My breath was ragged and labored. I couldn’t think straight, couldn’t focus on anything except on my need to get away, as quickly as possible. Find somewhere to hide, where GSAF wouldn’t find me. Somewhere to think, to figure out how exactly I was going to get myself out of this disaster that I had managed to blunder my way into.

I was nearly to the edge of town when I heard a telltale buzz above me. My head jerked skyward in a panic. Faintly, I could see moonlight glinting off the nose of a GSAF security drone. It was hot on my tail. How had they found me so quickly? I’d left my palmtop in Emil’s apartment! Was there some other piece of electronics on me that I wasn’t thinking of? Some other way of tracking me? Had Joseph Condor bugged me this afternoon in the office? Oh, Cristo, I bet that was it. Was it really so important to keep this stuff from the dig site a secret that they’d bug a teenager?

I couldn’t stop to think about it. If I waited any longer, the drone would have me in its sights and I’d be done for. I wasn’t sure if the aircraft above my head was loaded or not—I mean, really, is a high school student a big enough threat to an interplanetary organization that they’d need to take me out?—but after all the crap they’d put me through in the last two days, I wasn’t going to take any chances.