Of course she does.
The sound shifts, skittering along the outer shell of the duct, pacing us.
I tighten my grip on my weapon. “They’re tracking us.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a problem.”
“That is always a problem.”
Pally’s voice breaks in, sharper now. “Guys, I’m hearing something on my side too.”
“Stay focused,” Roma says. “You need to reroute power from the auxiliary grid into the exterior rail system.”
“I need more specifics than that, Roma.”
She hesitates for a fraction of a second, and I see it—the cost of doing this without full system access, the strain of holding everything in her head while the world falls apart around us.
Then she starts talking, fast and precise.
“Locate the secondary coupling cluster. It should be behind the main conduit. There will be three connectors—one blue, one red, one yellow. You need to disengage the blue and red simultaneously, then bridge the yellow to the primary feed.”
There’s a long pause.
“Simultaneously,” Pally repeats.
“Yes.”
“I only have two hands.”
“Then use your teeth.”
“You’re hilarious.”
“I am efficient.”
Another scrape, closer now. Something taps against the duct above us, testing, curious.
I tilt my head up just in time to see a shadow pass over the thin metal between us and whatever is crawling out there.
“Roma, we’re about to have company.”
“Then we accelerate.”
“That’s not how acceleration works in a crawlspace.”
“Adapt.”
I huff a breath that might be a laugh in a different life. “You’re impossible.”
“And yet you continue to follow me.”
“Bad decisions are kind of my thing.”
She glances back again, and there’s something in her eyes this time—something that wasn’t there before she let go of that console.
“Not this time,” she says quietly.
