“Alright,” I say over the drone of competing voices, rubbing at my temples. “Just… stop talking for a second. Ego, tell me again what you guys figured out about where he’s being held.”
The room falls quiet, and I glance up to find Ego with her lips pursed.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she says in a tone that’s syrupy sweet, “I thought you said to be quiet.”
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter as I drag my palms over my face. “Please, Ego. Grace us with your superior knowledge andstart talking.”
“Right,” she chirps, ignoring the way I glare. “As far as we can tell, they have no idea what Gideon was actually doing. There doesn’t seem to be any association with his prior crimes… so high-five to the person who managed to destroythatparticular file.”
“Wasn’t that you?” I ask flatly.
She bats her eyes. “Was it? I’ve done so many amazing things I can’t remember them all.”
I snort a laugh and shake my head, staring at the maps and tapping my pencil against the table.
“What exactly are they holding him on?” I ask.
“Right now, there are no official charges,” she says. “He’ll sit in that cell for a few months while they decide how much they want to punish him. My guess? They’ll charge him with something they can nail him with, like trespassing. Either that or they’ll conveniently forget he’s locked up and leave him in that prison until someone complains.”
“Yeah, but who’s going to complain?” Cato asks with a frustrated sigh. “They suspect he’s a rebel or they wouldn’t be holding him, and anyone who comes looking for him will automatically be lumped into that same category.”
“Maybe you could claim him as family?” Sakane suggests, but everyone else shakes their head.
“The only thing worse than knowing a rebel is being related to one,” I say.
“The security isn’t bad in that quadrant.” Ego references the map we spent the night marking. “There are several decent escape routes surrounding the prison, but the problem is getting in and out of the facility itself. It’s not maximum security, butwe’re still dealing with a ten-foot wall, razor wire, and inch-and-a-half steel bars on the windows.”
“Not to mention the guards?” Cato adds.
“Yeah,” Ego agrees with a grimace. “There is that.”
“There issomegood news,” Sakane says as he flips through his own stack of neatly written notes. “Everything we recorded for that quadrant suggests there are very few military installations there, and they’re all low clearance.”
He stands to point at buildings on the map. “Administrative offices, a distribution center for food and toiletries, and a mechanic shop that services the fleet vehicles. There doesn’t appear to be anything secret hiding there, either, or we’d see more guard presence. The highest security is at the distribution center, but that’s expected. Patrols walk the streets, usually in a duo, and the crime rate is nearly nonexistent.”
“Are there any times they don’t patrol?” I ask.
Sakane shakes his head. “As best we can tell, no, and we can’t seem to find a pattern to their cycles.”
Cato drums his fingers as he thinks. “Are there any contractors that go in and out of the prison? Ones that might have humans working for them?”
Piper taps a pen against her lip as she reads through a stack of notes. “Laundry is done by the inmates, although a tailor comes in once a month to do repairs. Sheets, jumpsuits, that sort of thing.”
“Do we know anything about their schedules?”
“Negative. The only reason we know about them at all was dumb luck seeing someone go in.”
Cato grunts and taps his fingers faster. “Alright, what about supplies?”
Piper digs into her notes again. “Supply shipments come in on… Wednesdays.” Glances are exchanged around the room aswe realize that’s two days from now, but Piper is quick to squash the idea. “Those deliveries are done by military personnel.”
“No human contractors?” Cato asks.
“Doesn’t appear that way, no.”
“I could go,” a quiet voice says from the door.
Heads snap up to find Xeni standing with his hand on the doorframe. His hair is damp like he’s freshly showered, though he looks as tired as the rest of us.
