“There was,” Kael replied. “I needed you to get through the locks I designed. You see, I built this vault. Then I erased my own memory so even I couldn’t open it. The memory reset wasn’t a punishment—it was a precaution. But you… you think like I do. You found the flaw I hid for myself.”
“If we’re off by a second,” Jian noted, “the steam cooks us from the inside out.”
“Thirty seconds to maintenance window,” his young voice crackled. “You’ll drop into the service corridor. Motion sensors go dark for 4.2 seconds. Move fast.”
“Do it.”
Missax closed her eyes. The flaw. Every lock has one. And this lock’s flaw was that it was too perfect—it required absolute trust in the satellite’s security. But satellites could be fooled.
Missax had a collapsible wing-suit.
She met Kael in the Underweave, Veridia’s lowest level, where the rain never stopped and the air tasted of ozone and regret. He looked thinner, his eyes scanning constantly.