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Nick exhaled explosively, knees weak. Too close.
Chris beckoned them forward, and it was only then Nick saw his hands were shaking. Dad pushed Nick toward him. “Backpack, please,” Chris said, loud enough for the others in line to hear him. Nick handed it over, standing next to the cheap,cracked folding table Chris had put the backpack on. “Anyone watching?” he asked out of the corner of his mouth.
Nick glanced from side to side. “No.”
Chris unzipped the backpack, but only halfway. Nick caught a flash of cerulean blue as Chris shoved his hand inside. A moment later, he pulled it out, zipping the backpack back up before looking in the smaller, remaining pockets. When finished, he handed the backpack to Nick. “Thanks. You’re good to go.” Nick started to move past him when Chris’s hand pressed against his. Tiny plastic objects dug into Nick’s skin as he closed his hand. “Already online,” Chris muttered as he waved the next people forward.
Nick walked toward where Cap, Trey, Bob, and Miles were waiting for them, just inside the fencing. Waiting for Dad, Nick pulled out what Chris had given him, glancing down. Six earpieces, a little red light blinking at the top of each. He gave one to each of the others, who put them in their ears.
“That was close,” Dad muttered, taking an earpiece from Nick, putting it in his ear. “Mobile Lighthouse, you copy?”
“Loud and clear,” Gibby said, voice tinny. “You inside?”
“We are,” Nick said. Dad gripped him by the elbow, leading him away from the lines of people streaming in. “Any sign of Owen?”
“Nothing yet,” Pyro Storm said.
Nick turned his face upward. Burke Tower loomed ominously above them. “Where are you?”
“On the roof. Found the keycard Firestone left. She’s sure this won’t set off any alarms?”
“That’s what she said. They’ve had issues with the door. Wind sets off the alarm. Faulty wiring, so they turned it off until it could get fixed. She deleted the request before the head of security could approve it.”
“Let me try, just to make sure.”
“Not yet,” Gibby said sharply. “I’m not in the security system. It’s… hold on.”
“Gibby,” Nick ground out. “We don’t have time for—”
“Shut up,” Gibby snapped. “We’re working as fast as we can. It’s more complicated than it looks. Jazz, I need you to… yep. There you go. Open that one. What do you—yes.Pyro Storm, we’re in. I’ve got the security grid pulled up for Burke Tower.”
“Copy,” Pyro Storm said. “Trying the door.”
“Oh man,” Trey breathed. “Now I know why heist movies are always so tense. I feel sick.”
“We’re fine,” Cap said, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his arm. “If the alarms go off, he can get out of there and we’ll figure something else out.”
“It works,” Pyro Storm said a moment later. “Keycard. Code to the door. It’s open. Gibby?”
“You didn’t trip an alarm,” Gibby said breathlessly. “You’re good.”
Bob sagged, shaking his head as Miles patted his back. “This probably isn’t helping my blood pressure.”
“Come on,” Miles said, jerking his head toward Burke Tower. “We need to get closer before it starts.”
“Allow me,” Cap said, squaring his shoulders. He marched down the street, people moving out of his way. The others followed in his wake, the crowd expanding then collapsing behind them.
The closer they got to Burke Tower, the harder it was to push their way through the throngs of people. Most were clad in some form of Burke swag: white hats with his name in red lettering across the fronts, shirts with his face on them. Signs that proclaimed him to be the savior of Nova City, along with anti-Extraordinary sentiments. Nick even saw crude drawings of Pyro Storm, face crossed out with a blackX.One was carried by a kid who couldn’t have been more than nine or ten years old. In the distance, above the din around them, the sounds of protestors shouting as one, voices carrying: “NO JUSTICE. NO PEACE. NO JUSTICE. NO PEACE.”
“This is a powder keg,” Miles muttered. “I sure hope we know what we’re doing.”
“We do,” Nick told him. “Focus. Stick to the plan.”
A huge stage had been constructed in front of Burke Tower. Banners in patriotic colors hung from the front of the stage. Three massive screens—two on thick metal posts on either side of the stage, and the biggest one above it, hanging above the entrance. The stage itself was lined with chairs, a dozen in all, behind a podium stacked with microphones. In front of the stage, a line of men and women, all wearing black pants and collared shirts, yellow lettering across the front proclaiming them to beSECURITY. They stood at parade rest, their hands folded behind their backs. In front of them, metal barriers four feet high.
“Can’t see it,” Jazz said in his ear when he asked.
“Hold on,” Nick said. He unfastened the button on his chest and lifted it as high as he could, pointing it toward the stage. “That work?”
