“Can you? Use the data you have from that door, and figure out a way to scramble coordinates so they don’t let people in, or so they don’t let people out?”

“I can make it so they can’t leave,” Lookout said.

“Perfect,” I said, smiling. As an option, it fit with timeframes Byron had outlined, and it helped to sway an otherwise untenable situation to our favor.

It made a kind of sense that Lookout’s toolkit would point in that direction. It was easier to destroy or distort than it was to create. Here, in the midst of it all, when so many other things were tainted with doubts and small betrayals, it was good to know that we could potentially be the ones with the keys.

It made too much sense. I wasn’t supposed to be following my instincts like this. I had to stop myself, and look to Byron.

“Yes,” he said. “Sealing him in there or sealing him away will be very good plays, if timed right. For now, we should inform the other teams we were talking to, see if anyone can do something about the bombs that are strapped to our teammates’ ankles, and while we’re doing it, we should be very, very careful to keep the cells discrete.”

Keep them away from Goddess?

“What about the medication?” Sveta asked. “I think they give those out around mealtimes, and as dark as it is outside—”

“It’s only the evening now,” I finished. “Meals aren’t that far off.”

“Do we roll the dice?” Capricorn asked. “We have some sense of who is compromised. If we reach out to prison staff and get them to stall—”

It wasn’t so easy as that. Too risky.

I shook my head, and he didn’t press for it.

“We tap other sources for help, we see what they have to say, and we see if they’re game for this,” I suggested. “Bigger powers. Maybe ones that can disable the bomb threat.”

“The Wardens?” Natalie asked.

“Goddess,” Sveta and I spoke in near-sync, with a distracted Lookout a syllable behind.

Gleaming 9.7

“I’m going to need fifty different explanations,” Natalie’s eyes were wide. “Goddess?”

“It’s complicated,” I said. “And it’s not really a question of the law, exactly. I—”

“I think Natalie should be heard,” Byron cut in, his voice firm.

Master–stranger. If she was untainted… did she qualify as the next person in the chain, should Byron be occupied? There was a possibility that we’d have to put him in a coma or something like it if we couldn’t get all of this handled by tonight. Did that mean Natalie would be taking point, somehow? What would that even look like?

“Natalie,” Sveta said. “We owe you a lot for looking after Kenzie.”

“Mm hmm,” Kenzie made an affirmative sound.