I take a deep breath and walk up to the door. I touch the pass against the brick wall, feeling a little silly. I steel myself for the pass not to work, for the technology to somehow realize I don’t have a baku with me—only a plain motherboard coded to resemble a baku’s entry code to a scanner. But it’s not that sophisticated. It recognizes Carter’s entry code from the pass River handed to me, and the brick wall melts away to reveal the interior of the building: the long hallway paved in dark hardwood and the brightly colored walls.

At least Eric never pulled the plug on his son’s access to the company headquarters.

Now I follow the map that Carter hand-drew for me. It’s hard to navigate in the building, as there’s little-to-no signage anywhere, only miles of painted walls hung with large pieces of valuable artwork. Why would anyone need signage when their bakus could guide them, and who went anywhere inside the headquarters without a baku?

Luckily, Carter has taken this into account. At any other time, I would have been surprised by his scrupulousness, but then—I wouldn’t have given him the time of day before now. Funny how events can turn even your best judgments on a dime. Even as little as a month ago, I would have said there was no universe in which Carter and I would be friends.

Now, we’re working together. Maybe still not quite friends, but on the same side.

“Turn right at the rainbow artwork,” reads his note. “Following the blue wall, not the red.”

That’s not hard to find. I quickly come across a cascading rainbow of lights, streaming down in an endless waterfall. It would be almost hypnotic if I didn’t have a job to do.

I duck into a doorway as some Moncha employees cross the path I’m meant to take, but they’re walking fast, concentrating on information being fed to them by their bakus. “Do you know what’s going on outside?” one of them says to the other.

“No idea. But I think they’re sending a panther baku team out there now to disrupt the protest.”

“There’s one at City Hall too. And in High Park. Our resources are going to be really stretched.”

“Stupid kids, what are they even protesting? The update is a good thing.”

Then they move away from earshot. My stomach churns. Eric has all his employees blinded to the true nature of the update. And soon the security teams are going to be mobilized in force.

That means I have to make my move even faster.