“Wait,” I said.
The woman closest to me looked up. “Can I help you?” I couldn’t tell if she was being genuine or if sarcasm dripped into her voice. Her eyes hovered at the intersection of brown and orange, only made brighter by her dark skin. When she spotted the badge clipped to my shirt, her tone softened. “What do you need, sugar?”
I couldn’t fathom how they scanned the fast-switching images and took in what they saw. Apparently, they were missing things, or they’d have spotted a man wearing robotic tentacles as he left the building. We’d get to that, but first I had to indulge a curiosity.
“Can you make that square bigger?” Fourth from the bottom, third from the right. A small, empty room.
With the flick of a finger, the square enlarged until it covered the entire screen. Empty except for cleaning supplies. It was one of the many side rooms in the building that the janitors used to snag their supplies. I recognized the purple polka-dotted tie hanging off a stack of paper towels. I tried to keep a straight face.
“This is a weird question, but how far back do you?—”
Both her hands swiped through the air, not so different from Orion when he worked. If she weren’t wearing black gloves, I’d have assumed we had another technopath on our hands.
“What’s going on?” Booker rested a hand on my shoulder. I fought the instinct to touch his fingers. “You think the janitor’s closet is tied to this?”
Time moved in reverse. Janitors walked in and out. She made another swipe of her hands. I snorted out loud. I recognized the back of Arthur’s head. The video played forward, and for a moment, we couldn’t see Ricardo.
“Oh, the sex closet,” Janson said. “Yeah.” He didn’t sound thrilled.
Booker’s fingers tightened as Arthur moved to his knees. “Okay, that’s enough of that.”
The image froze. I reached out with a fist, and the woman bumped knuckles. She shot me a wink. “We seeeverything.”
“Can’t wait for tomorrow’s huddle,” I whispered. “But wait, if you see everything, how did Redford go undetected?” My curiosity might have led to an actual question.
“This is why, sugar.” My new friend flipped her hands about until a black tile filled the screen. “The feed for his lab is blank.”
“Erased?” asked Booker.
“No,” Janson said. “It never recorded. It was corrupted at the source.”
“How did he know to do that?” Booker asked.
“If you think my people had something to do with it, you’re sorely mistaken.” Booker had wounded Janson’s professional pride. “We’re compensated for our discretion. If we wanted to turn a profit, we’d resort to blackmail or selling information to the media.” Jason turned to face us, his face neutral. “The world would love to know our CEO had superpowers, and that’s not even the most interesting intel we’ve seen.” His eyes flickered in my direction for a split second.
Janson knew. He probably referenced Tint, but what about Hellion? Suddenly, the flex of strength with the handshake felt foolish.
“We’re on the same side.” I jumped in. “Redford makes them look just as bad. We all want the same answers.”
Janson nodded. “Agreed. Sophie, help these men with whatever they need.”
He walked away, and Booker spun about. “Call me curious. Who do you report to?”
“Ricardo,” he said. “Him andonlyhim.”
Curious question. Booker had a theory. I could almost hear him trying to connect the dots. It wasn’t so different when Orion broke out the red string and ran to one of his conspiracy boards. We’d need to have a conversation when there were fewer eyes.
“Sophie, is there any way for somebody to hack the feeds?”
She shook her head. “We’d have noticed an external entry.”
“It had to be in the lab?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
He moved to the front of her terminal. “Just so I can put it out of my head. There is no way—” His eyes widened, staring at me. “—for somebody to hack your security?”
Her head tipped to the side. “No computer is impenetrable. But I assure you, we have preventive measures in place. It’d take a super genius to hack this system.”
