“Yep.” Rhynehart frowned and leaned closer to the monitors in front of him and Payton. “Just making sure that blue troll did what he said he could.”
“He did.” Cheyenne watched them studying the monitors. “Might’ve taken him a whole day, but if he said he hacked into the security system, he did.”
“We’re waiting for proof, Cheyenne.” Rhynehart’s eyes narrowed at the monitor showing the security footage for the hallway outside and the checkpoint where they all waited. The image of all nine of them standing inside the glass-encased booth shuddered, blinked off, and came back on with a recorded replay straight from Persh’al. Now it only showed Jamal and Payton.
“Damn.” Rhynehart’s said, “He got the timestamp to match up perfectly.”
Payton studied Rhynehart, then looked back at the screen. “No, he didn’t.”
“I’m lookin’ at it right here—”
The goblin raised both hands in the air like she was stretching and didn’t look at the team leader again.
“No shit.” Rhynehart looked between her and the monitor. “He erased the rest of us?”
Cheyenne couldn’t help a wide smile. “Very nice.”
“How the hell did he even do that?”
“O’gúl tech, man.” Cheyenne shrugged. “Or at least a troll who knows enough about O’gúl tech to make the most of what we have to work with on this side of the Border.”
“Yeah, sure.” Rhynehart shook his head and leaned away from the monitor. “You make it sound like Earth’s advanced technology is a joke.” He looked sharply at Cheyenne. “Whatever. We’re in, and he took us off the security feed. Time to go through that door.”
Rhynehart pulled his access badge out of his pocket again and waited by the first door they’d come to so far that didn’t have a window. It was all metal, thick, heavy, and dented toward them from the other side. “Hope that troll hacker friend of yours is as good with rewriting clearance as he is with erasing entire bodies from recorded footage.”
Corian stepped up behind them to get a better view of their next move. “Persh’al wouldn’t have told us he could do it if he couldn’t. And we have no reason to lie to you about any of this.”
“Well, hey. Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it.”
“Of course.” L’zar spun away from the windows on the opposite side of the room and headed over to them. “I suppose you’re waiting for us to prove ourselves one more time, hmm?”
Rhynehart ignored him and nodded at Cheyenne. “You’re up.”
“Yep.” She pulled out the two extra access badges Persh’al had reprogrammed for this door specifically. He said right one first, left one second. She swiped the first badge across the security panel. The red light blinked yellow for two seconds, then flashed green once, so she swiped the second badge, and the process repeated. “You know, I’m really curious now.”
“About what?” Rhynehart swiped his badge next, the last one they needed, and waited.
“How come we didn’t need three different badges with high-level clearance to get to L’zar in the Dungeon?”
The agent raised an eyebrow as he stared at the blinking yellow light on the panel. “L’zar gave everyone a major headache.”
Behind them, L’zar snorted. “I do love being spoken about as if I’m not here.”
Join the club. Cheyenne watched Rhynehart intently.
“But he never put up much of a fight. So I guess no one expected him to.”
“And Venga did, huh?”
Rhynehart pointed at the dent in the metal where it had been shoved toward them from the other side. “Case in point.”
“Should we be concerned that the door still isn’t open?” Corian offered, frowning at the panel.
The light still blinked yellow.
“Total faith in the troll hacker, huh?” Rhynehart shook his head. “If this doesn’t go through—”
“Hey, he said he can do it. He’ll do it.” Cheyenne pulled the activator coil from her coat pocket and attached it behind her ear. Her eyelids fluttered rapidly during the split-second of syncing with her magic. “Just give it a little longer.”
“What are you doing with that thing?”
“Just double-checking.” The lines of code scrolling across Cheyenne’s vision as she stared at the security panel didn’t pick up any issues in the system’s alarms. No warning signals. “Just let it run its course.”
“Well, that course better finish up right about fucking now,” Payton said, staring at another monitor in front of her at the booth. “We got incoming.”
“Incoming what?” Rhynehart shouted, turning to stare at her.
The goblin shrugged. “Probably a real prison guard and not a fake one.”
“This is my fate, isn’t it? I’m surrounded by smartasses all the time.”
“Don’t act like you’re not one of us,” Yurik muttered.
“How much time do we have, Payton?”
“Forty-five seconds. Maybe.”
“Christ. Were you gonna tell us any sooner?”
“You know what?” The goblin lifted both hands from the security booth and stepped away. “Feel free to come up here and play lookout yourself. I’m obviously fucking it up.”
Rhynehart said, “Cheyenne, try the badges again.”
“It’s still thinking.”
“Yeah, or it needs a reboot. Swipe the damn badges.”
“No.” Cheyenne’s eyes darted back and forth as she read the scrolling code. “Persh’al’s rewriting the security clearance as we stand here arguing about it.”
“Why the hell would he do that?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Probably so he can override all the other roadblocks in the system at the same time. We needed someone in here for him to finish the rest of it.”
“Count’s down to thirty now,” Payton droned. “You know, just a guess.”
“I can hide us,” Corian offered.
“The fuck you can.” Rhynehart whirled on the disguised nightstalker. “Everything on this side of that glass door is rigged to pick up magic. One little spell, and we’ll be shouting at each other over breach alarms. Is that the Plan B you wanna go with?”
“I never said there was a Plan B.”
“They won’t be able to get to us in time anyway,” L’zar said, lifting a finger toward the lock panel. “I just wanna get inside.”
“Fifteen
