breach my personal rooms. Wait here,” I said. I waved Loch in then closed the door in Sergeant Edwards’s face before he could continue arguing.
“Didi, set a timer for four and a half minutes,” I said. A chime confirmed the command.
I pulled Loch into the master bedroom, only to stop short at finding Bianca waiting for us with a first aid kit. “Sit,” she said to Loch, pointing to the chair she’d pulled over. Loch sat.
“How did you know?” I asked.
“I didn’t,” she said, “but I wanted to be prepared.”
“I have four-ish minutes to dump my accounts,” I said. “Unless you need help, I’m going to do that.”
“I’m fine,” Loch said. “Do what you need to do.” Bianca nodded in agreement.
House von Hasenberg was directly linked to the main bank in Serenity, so transferring money would be as instantaneous as if I was at the bank in person. I’d already moved a good deal of my money out of my House accounts, but I had no doubt Father would lock down whatever was left.
I authenticated with the bank then transferred all of the remaining money in my House account into a numbered account. Eventually I would need to make a legitimate named account, but this would work as a temporary solution.
After the transfer completed, I opened another connection and routed it through several secure servers then kicked off a script that did a whole lot of nothing. Oh, it made a bunch of secure tunneled connections and updated various files across a number of servers, but none of it mattered—all of the files I really had on time-release weren’t on any of these systems. But the thought of the Consortium trying to track down all of these random connections made me smile.
That done, I disconnected and wiped the session history. Then I opened the armory and started packing weapons into a travel case. I hadn’t taken them last time because I had been traveling undercover. This time I would at least have my House name to protect me from being arrested for being a walking arsenal.
Bianca said to Loch, “I’ve done what I can, but you need to spend some time in the medbay when you get to the ship.”
I glanced over my shoulder as he stood. “How bad?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I’m functional. You want me to do that?” he asked.
I nodded and headed for the closet. Bianca followed me. “You’re leaving?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Father wanted to disown me but since that wouldn’t be good for my long-term survivability, he banished me instead.”
I waved my arm in front of a random panel in the middle of my closet wall. A small door opened, revealing a safe. I held my left arm next to it and typed in the fifteen-digit code with my other hand. The safe unlocked and I opened it to reveal a small locked case.
“Is that what I think it is?” Bianca asked.
“Yes,” I said. This case held hard copies of all of the material I had under time-release, plus all of the documentation that proved I was a member of House von Hasenberg. “I hate to move it, but I have a feeling I will never see this room again.”
“Ferdinand will welcome you back, you know that,” Bianca chided gently.
“Father has to die first, and that old bastard is mean enough to live forever just to spite me,” I said.
A chime sounded throughout the room. “Didi, stop,” I said, then I called to Loch, “Thirty seconds!” I grabbed the case and closed the safe. I hugged Bianca tight. “I’m going to miss you,” I said. “I expect to see you in Sedition within the month.”
“You will,” she said. “Stay out of trouble.”
I blinked back tears. I hadn’t thought I would lose my family again so soon. I let Bianca go, put the case in the bag I’d brought with me a week ago, dumped some random clothes on top, then went to meet Loch.
Bianca stayed in the bedroom. Loch carried the weapon case. I slung my bag over my shoulder and headed for the door. Everything in me wanted to stay with my brothers and sisters. And while I knew they would visit me, it would not be the same.
I sniffled once then walled the tears behind my public persona. I didn’t have time to break down; I still needed to get to Rhys’s ship. “Ready?” I asked Loch.
He nodded, so I swept out into the hall. Rather, I attempted to, but Sergeant Edwards