I hitched into the stream, dumped off into a subpar gutter line, and backtracked through enough antiquated systems, I was immediately lost to the noise.
This kind of data mining took longer, but it was as untraceable as a person could be while sitting in the middle of a city network. Minutes slipped past, rolling into a half hour, then an hour.
There was time. I still had time. The event was still rolling. People were still watching.
Abraham hadn’t noticed I was missing.
Yet.
That was good, right?
I slipped a frequency, chewed on my fingernail as another twenty minutes ticked away. People came in and out of the room at a pretty steady pace, and I tried not to look up in panic every time a shadow crossed the doorway.
Finally, I got to where I wanted to be: a few hits outside the hub on my property. If I were lucky, there would be an echo of Quinten’s message here. If I were really lucky, he would have sent a copy of the message to our brother-sister private off-site pocket.
“Come on, Quinten. Be a brilliant boy,” I muttered as I keyed my way into the pocket.
One new message.
Cheers rolled through the building. I glanced at the event feed. The question-and-answer session was done and everyone was walking off stage.
Which meant Abraham was about to find out I wasn’t sitting backstage.
Crap.
I just hoped he would have to go straight to autographs and pictures instead of hunting for me. And I hoped the other galvanized did the same.
Just in case I was at the top of his or anyone else’s priority list, I quickly pulled up the message and read through it.
I could tell it was from Quinten because it began with the letters: QCTMBMITW, which was the acronym of a title I’d teased him with years ago:Quinten Case, the most brilliant man in the world.
Not even the Neds knew I called him that.
My heart was pounding.
The message was coded yesterday and simply said: House Orange. Hidden enemy. WoM coordinates: 13.09. 2210.2400
I erased it, backed out of the connection, blowing it as I went, backtracking and scrubbing my trail. I glanced at the clock while the minutes ticked down. To clean up everything, I’d need almost as much time backtracking as it took me to get into the info.
“Hurry, hurry,” I whispered.
A half hour crawled by, an hour. I glanced up at the screen. Highlights of the question-and-answer session scrolled across it.
Recorded highlights. They must be done by now. They might even be looking for me.
Fifteen minutes. Fifteen more . . . and . . . yes!
I shut it all down, shouldered my duffel, and hurried out of there. Got down a flight of stairs and one more, then slowed my pace. I needed to find the autograph area, make it look like I’d ducked out to use the ladies’ room again, and everything would be gold.
I rounded a corner.
And nearly ran into Abraham.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Looking for you,” I said, not even lying. “I got turned around.”
“For two hours?”
