Page 422 of Scars of Fate

“The etched labels may still be beneath the black coating,” Lucas said.

Hawk pulled a multispectral scanner from his equipment bag.

Forty seconds.

He passed the scanner over the controls.

Nothing appeared.

“Try thermal imaging,” I said.

Hawk changed the setting.

The black coating began to reveal thin identification lines.

Original words emerged beneath Kane’s false labels.

AEGIS TERMINATION.

FATE CONTINUATION.

MERIDIAN DISTRIBUTION.

Minser stared at the sword.

“Meridian.”

“What?” Adam asked.

“That was Kane’s symbol before the organization had a name.”

“Which one is Aegis?” Roth demanded.

“The shield,” Lucas said.

The shield lay beneath the control Kane had falsely labeled FATE.

He had reversed Aegis and Fate.

The position labeled AEGIS would preserve the weapon.

Thirty seconds.

Hawk inserted Wynn’s encrypted source drive into the archive port.

Lucas placed the original tag inside the physical-key slot.

The system activated.

REGISTERED CUSTODIANS REQUIRED.

Two biometric panels illuminated.

One for Lucas.

One for me.

My fingerprints.