Page 93 of Coldwire
“All right.” Nik packs everything up, shoving his tools into his bag. “To the back. If local police suspect it’s NileCorp’s presence, they might have sent military to get past the quarantine.”
“NileCorp?” Miz echoes. “Why would they suspect we’re NileCorp?”
“Because someone was here right before us,” I say. I don’t think it was NileCorp—or at least it wasn’t Teryn because she’s not going to interrupt her work capturing Nik. It could be a separate team. Another unit after Chung’s work. If Teryn’s task is confidential, other NileCorp forces may not know what they’re interfering with.
“Through the window,” Nik commands. “Split up if they engage in pursuit and the situation calls for it. Just keep your comms active. Don’t go taking them out for a little ear break—I’m looking at you, Blare.”
Blare grimaces. They’re already fiddling with their earpiece, muttering something inaudible as Nik looks around, secures his bags, then pushes into the stairwell, heading for the window. He uses the same hammer that broke open the server room door. This time, it takes one hit before the glass smashes into smithereens, littering the stairwell with crystal fragments.
“Miz.”
Miz goes first, taking Nik’s backpack with the server box. On the ledge, she drops the backpack outside carefully, then reaches in again for Blare’s burlap sack with the second server box. As soon as those are both deposited without incident, Miz slithers through the window easily, landing in the alley outside. Distantly, I catch the shudder of helicopter blades. No sirens. They don’t want civilians complaining about officers breaking quarantine and spreading disease.
Blare is quick through the window too, though they grunt when they hit the cement.
“You, now,” Nik says.
I don’t pay him any mind. My ears are perked to the front of the building, waiting for the telltale footfall of someone, anyone, approaching the entrance.
“One second.”
Nik frowns. “This is absolutely not the time.”
I’m not getting the tread of police approaching. Strangely enough, I’m getting a phantom ticking, echoing right above us from the second floor.
“Oh shit.”
Before Nik has a chance to argue, I yank his wrist, hurtling us down the stairs into the basement level. I shove him hard on the final step, sparing a breath to get us low just as fire bursts through the ceiling, engulfing the ground floor.
26LIA
I learned how to study through my dreams.
When I was younger, I was always overloaded with everything I needed to learn. There was so much to remember, so much to understand before I could move on from one topic. The fear grew paralyzing the closer I approached elementary graduation. That final year, eighth grade, I had been working my way through all the previous evaluations that Nile Military Academy uploaded online, the tests they used to rank new cadets into class tiers. My scores weren’t good enough. I couldn’t be hovering in the range between Tier A and Tier B, my designation depending on the bell curve of my classmates. I couldn’t leave it up to chance.
Uncle Chung was over for dinner one night. I’d been thinking hard about my physics assignment. I was quieter than usual through most of dinner, and when Dad went into the kitchen to help bring out the muffins that Tamera made, Uncle Chung leaned in and said, “Lia, get ready.”
I perked up. Our favorite game.
“Flash is to camera as disaster is to…”
“Friends,” I answered in a snap. I paused. “I think a lot fits in there, though.”
“Perfect answer,” Uncle Chung praised. “There are a few that work.Depends on who someone thinks about when it comes to illuminating their true colors. Many of my colleagues saypartner.”
“Well”—I lifted my chin—“I’m twelve.”
Uncle Chung seemed to find that funny. He was still chuckling when Dad returned with the tray of muffins. “And very smart.”
I shrugged, bashful. “It just comes to me. It’s like the word materializes in my head, and I understand what it says before I’ve fully read it.”
“Interesting,” Chung remarked. “Kind of like how we read in dreams.”
I nodded, reaching for a muffin. I had those dreams too. Reading without reading. Understanding conclusions that emerged in my mind unbidden.
The next morning, I had an idea I wanted to test out. I wasn’t going to stare at my flashcards anymore. I pulled open a video editor, uploaded all my flashcards as clips spliced to half a second, and saved the footage. Then I sat in front of it, watching. I hoped I would understand the material as though it were a dream.
It worked. It became the method I relied on the most for brute memorization. Nile Military Academy’s tier ranking exam was a breeze when I didn’t really have to think about the order of foreign occupation in Atahua prior to independence—the dozens of nations merely flashed in my head.
