“Not,” she snapped back.

“Fine, I’ll keep trying. I can’t do it without your help.”

She was silent a long moment as the plane shook around them. Then, so softly he almost didn’t hear her, “I shouldn’t have come back.”

“Wait—” Tom said, but not in time.

This time when she disappeared, Tom realized he’d ruined it. His plane continued downward in a fatal death plunge, and the world erupted in flames.

BUT TOM TRIED one more thing. He went to Blackburn. He stepped into his office and dropped into the seat across from his, ignoring the bewilderment on Blackburn’s face. “Sir, I can’t get through Obsidian Corp.’s firewall. Can you help me?”

“What are you doing?”

“You know what I’m doing,” Tom said fiercely. “I’m going to neutralize the security threat. I’m going to destroy the transmitter in Obsidian Corp.”

Blackburn rubbed his palm over his mouth. “I can’t allow this.”

“I’m not sitting by and letting Yuri die!”

“Did you do something to alert Joseph Vengerov to what you can do, Raines?”

“No. Of course not.”

“Then how was he able to block you out?” Blackburn said dangerously. “I can’t even figure out how to block you yet—and I know about Yuri. Does Joseph Vengerov know about you?”

“No! I don’t know how he’s done it, I just know I can’t get through his firewall, even when I interface.” Tom planted his hands on the desk. “Sir, if you help me get through somehow, I can fix all this. You saw what I did to the census device that one time, I fried it.”

“I remember you doing that by accident, not deliberately.”

“But I can do it! I can. So I can do that to the transmitter, too. I can free Yuri from it and you can talk someone into giving him another neural processor. I need to be able to get into Obsidian Corp.’s systems. You can get me in for a few minutes!”

“I can’t get myself in for a few minutes, Raines!” Blackburn roared back at him. “Why do you think I physically accompanied the trainees to Antarctica? I would have gladly plundered some blackmail material from the comfort of my own apartment, but I couldn’t. Do you know why? Because you can’t hack Obsidian Corp. with their own hardware, their own software. That facility’s a virtual Fort Knox. You can’t loot it from the outside. You can plunder only from inside if you have privileged access to their intranet—why do you think I went there in person?”

Tom blinked. It only occurred to him now that Blackburn had been taking a huge risk. Vengerov could’ve done anything to his processor while he was on Vengerov’s turf.