SHILOH

  "I don't like this, Shiloh. You hear me? Can you even hear me in there?"

  She can hear him. The sound of his breathing, and the creak of the metal casing and joints of the circular control panel as Cade leans against it.

  She opens her eyes, taking stock of the room, this place that Echo calls the Command Center.

  Cade is next to her, leaning with his hands on the edge of the console. Meanwhile, Echo is off dealing with something else on the far side of the room, his fingers flitting back and forth across a large touchscreen display, monitoring information related to the security system and the flight trajectory of the Super Fortress. They're in the air now, and still rising. Shiloh is actively controlling the ship’s ascent.

  "Have you heard a word I've said?" Cade asks, scowling. "What have you been up to in there, anyway?"

  "Everything," Shiloh says.

  She can't afford to be more specific than that. Not with Echo standing so close by. Even if he was on the other side of the ship, he'd probably still be eavesdropping. There are mics and cameras everywhere—Shiloh knows that now.

  The truth is, in addition to controlling the Super Fortress—which is really just a massive ship that had been docked underground—she's been scanning the database, gathering as much information as she can. Really, she's looking for anything that might give her some kind of advantage. The only thing of note she's discovered so far is a remnant of the jailbreak activation code that was used on Silas, the same one Cade had mentioned when they'd opened Silas up in the Cloister. Silas's OS had been tampered with using this same code, designed to interact specifically with his system. On a whim, she decided to copy it and file it away. Maybe she could use it as a safety measure against Revenant. But she's not entirely sure how she'd be able to use it, or if it would even work.

  But she can't explain any of this to Cade right now. She can't tell him that she doesn't actually trust Echo or Revenant. She can't tell him that she's merely going along with Echo's plans for now, until she can come up with a better option. Perhaps if Cade was thinking more clearly, he'd be able to figure that out on his own. Maybe he already has, but he's still mad, still afraid. He's in a terrible situation, and there doesn't seem to be anything he can do to alter the course of it.

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  "I need you to trust me, Cade. Can you do that?"

  Cade searches her face, tense and uncertain. After a few moments, she can see certain parts of his expression loosening, relaxing ever so slightly.

  "I'd say you've never steered me wrong before," he says. "But look at the situation we're in right now."

  He's right, of course. She does bear some responsibility for all of this. It was her decision, her idea. Cade had been merely following her lead. Still, it wasn't entirely fair, was it?

  "Hey," she says. "You made the decision to do this, too."

  He sighs. "I suppose you're right. It's my fault my mother is in trouble right now—that all my family and friends are in trouble."

  That seems to be going a bit far to Shiloh, but she lets it be, instead focusing on getting the ship further and further off the ground. More power, more propulsion, adjusting for the lopsidedness caused by the uneven dunes of sand still atop the roof of the ship. As the sand is jostled and moved around, the dunes are slowly leveling out, sliding off the edge of the massive vessel.

  Shiloh glances up, her eyes drawn to a blur of movement in her peripheral vision. It's Echo, turning around to face them, his brow furrowed, rivulets of bluish light running down the length of his straight, shiny hair, cast from the blue glow of the holograms above the console.

  "Shiloh,” Echo says. “I want you to tell me if you can detect anything abnormal in the system."

  Nodding, Shiloh closes her eyes, reaching out with her mind across the vast expanse of the ship's computer and all its systems. It only takes a fraction of a second before she finds what she's fairly certain she was meant to.

  She opens her eyes. "Yes, there's a presence."

  "What does it think of you?"

  She shakes her head. "I don't think it sees me yet."

  "Let's change that. I'm going to need you to confront it. It’s a Corsair. One of Artifice’s soldiers. He’s trying to break into the system, take control of it. I need you to confront him.”

  Corsairs. Shiloh has heard of them before. A type of Biodroid. More automaton than human. Their emotions and capacity for choice are regulated and controlled. That’s what her father used to tell her.

  No, not her father. Not for certain. Dr. Darvin is his name. And that’s all Shiloh knows for sure. And for all she knows, even that might not be true.

  But that’s not important now. She has to put all that aside.

  She nods in response to Echo’s command. There's no time to question the situation, only to act. Trusting that she can do it. She has to.

  She closes her eyes, feeling out the system again, searching for the presence. Finding it, she reaches for it, attempting to grab hold of it, so she can eject it from the system.

  Then something strange happens. As she reaches for it, the intrusive presence grabs her instead, in a pincery, vice-like grip. She feels her consciousness being pulled deep into the machine.

  As her body slumps against the control panel, the last thing she hears is Cade calling her name.