Page 95 of Sloth
“Can you hack the phone?” Evan offered.
“No,” Parker answered. “The code on a cell is a minefield. It would take her months to find the relevant program that controls the timer.”
“Oh my God.” Sloan jolted with an idea. “My visual code program.”
“What’s this?” Flint asked.
“I’ve been working on a program that converts binary code into abstract visual patterns.”
“You said the what now?” Evan scratched his head, but Parker understood.
“It might work.” He nodded. “You can recognize the code in hours, not days.”
“We don’t have hours,” Griffin pointed out the obvious.
“It’s our best bet.”
Evan lifted his moss green face scarf to cover his nose and mouth, then lifted his hood. “Right. While you two geeks do that, Griff and I will head down.”
“I’ll come with you,” Sloan said, gathering her iPad. “I can work in the car.”
“No,” Parker replied. “You’ll work faster here.”
“Did you hear Daisy?” Sloan’s voice was high. “I’m the only one allowed near him.”
“That’s what she wants, Sloan. It’s a trap!” Parker replied, deep voice reverberating off the walls.
“Fuck you, Parker. I don’t need your approval. I know I can do this and whatever the case, I’m not leaving him to die alone.” She strode toward the garage. “Who’s driving?”
Thirty-One
Parker ended drivingSloan and her brothers to the municipal district. Night had fallen and time was running out. The mood was tense inside the black-armored Escalade as her brothers watched her work like a madwoman on her iPad, trying to source the frequency of the cell strapped to Max’s bomb. It was a needle in a cybernetic haystack. But this was her jam. This was Sloan. A badass hacker who approached any hack with tenacity.
She found the frequency.
She connected.
“I’m in,” she murmured, then continued her hacking onslaught.
When the vehicle rolled to a stop, she’d only been linked to the bomb-cell for two minutes. It wasn’t long enough for her binary-to-visuals program to provide results. It had only just begun unpacking the data she’d received and, deep down, she feared there just wasn’t enough time.
Zeroes and Ones.
If the program took too long to unpack, then she would not have time to find the offending code. Simple as that.
They’d parked down a side street—just outside the police blockade area. Griffin and Evan split and found high ground, hoping to combine their powers to create an electro-magnetic field to contain the blast... if it came to that. Wyatt got out and disappeared into the shadows. Without removing her eyes from her screen, Sloan allowed herself to be pulled out of the car by Parker, and in the direction of the municipal district. Toward Max.
The sound of traffic and people gasping bombarded her.
Eyes on the screen. Eyes on the visual code.
Someone bumped into them, and she vaguely noticed the thickening of bodies as they approached the event. Parker gave an animalistic snarl that scattered people, clearing a path. A jolt of panic surged through Sloan, but she refused to take her eyes from her running program. It was imperative she watched to look for the pattern that signaled the bomb timer.
Another jostle.
Another jolt of panic.
“Keep your ability leashed, Sloth,” Parker murmured under his breath. It was purely meant to help. “I feel your fear.”
