Knox tapped behind his ear to make sure Conall couldn’t keep listening. “This may not be a good time, Nina. I don’t know how long we have before they hit us. We’re getting organized to leave.”
“We have sixty-eight hours.” She activated the tablet. “In three days, Protectorate squads will be deployed for a door-to-door search of west Atlanta.”
Ice clarity flooded him. “You have a contact inside, I take it?”
She didn’t answer. “Only one order supersedes that one—if they receive credible intel regarding your whereabouts, they’ll scramble drones for an airstrike. So that’s what we’re going to do.” Nina handed him the tablet. “They want the Silver Devils, dead or alive? Then that’s what we’ll give them.”
Knox scanned the orders, one eyebrow raising in spite of himself. Whoever Nina had on the inside had access to internal security memos. This one came from the desk of Tobias Richter himself, and the anger seethed in every coldly precise word.
“This isn’t as simple as whatever you did with Maya,” he said, glancing up. “She was a sheltered kid who’d never been off the Hill. It was easy for them to believe she ended up dead. But a squad of Protectorate soldiers—”
“Give me a little credit, Knox.” Nina pulled the tablet from his hands. “Maya was a high-level target, but they weren’t actively searching for her. I was able to use that to my advantage. I’m pretty good at that, you know. Using things to my advantage.”
She turned away to lay the tablet on the nearest stack of crates. “The Protectorate would never believe that someone had gotten the drop on your entire squad. Unless…”
“Unless it was them.”
“Exactly. So we’ll let it be them. If they’re so hot to blow you guys up?” With a flick of her fingers, she pulled up a holographic schematic. “We’ll let them blow you up.”
Knox stared at … himself. All the parts that made him him—his frequently broken bones, his biochemical implant, his reconstructed hands, and all the rest that had been regenerated and restored so many times; none of it was the flesh he’d been born with by this point.
“These are internal medical scans,” he said flatly. “L1 classification. They’re impossible to get.”
“Next to impossible, Captain,” Ava said.
Knox didn’t think. His gun was in his hand and he whirled, finger already caressing the trigger as he leveled the pistol at their new arrival.
She wasn’t trying to pass as Nina today. In fact, she was dressed like a TechCorps VP, in an expensive fitted suit. Even the severe twist of her hair and the ostentatious sparkle of diamonds on her ears wouldn’t have been out of place at a meeting of the board.
She quirked one elegant eyebrow in amused condescension, and it truly was a mindfuck that the same DNA had produced this chilly cynicism and Nina’s aggressive optimism. “If you’re not going to shoot me,” she said, “you should really put that away.”
“I’m still deciding,” he retorted. “Is there a pressing reason I shouldn’t?”
“Just that I’m currently saving your life.” She tilted her head. “Not out of any particular affection for you, so don’t let it sway you too much. If you want to play rough, I’ll let you take the first shot. Might not want to miss, though.”
“When I take a shot, I don’t miss.”
“I’m in absolute awe of your virility.” Ava crossed her arms and tapped her fingers idly against her elbow. “Shall we cut through all the posturing? My sister wants you alive, and we both owe her a rather sizable debt at the moment. So stop waving your gun and let her save your life.”
He still wanted to shoot her. Hell, that smug expression made him want to shoot her more. But she was right. Knox held up the gun, engaged the biometric safety, and carefully holstered it.
Then he turned to Nina. “Are you sure she’s your sister? Honestly, I don’t see the resemblance.”
“Very funny.” Nina shoved her hands in her back pockets and slowly circled the crate—and the projection above it. “We’ll get updated scans and go from there. Even taking into account the destructive nature of airstrikes and fires, we’ll have to make it good. I’m talking 3-D-printed biologics, DNA replicated in cellular matrix … The works.” She paused. “Ava, can you go find out what the holdup is with the truck?”
“Of course.” Ava inclined her head to Knox and slipped out the door.
When she was gone, Knox raised both eyebrows. “So … she came