Then he saw it. The floor. It was old ferrocrete, cracked and waterlogged. The Archivist’s console was bolted down, but the panel at his feet was a maintenance hatch, held by four rusted screws.
Kael looked at his own hands. They were the hands of a poet who had learned to fly a wolfpack. He wondered if there was any poetry left in the world, or if the targeting pack had finally devoured it all. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were clear. Cold. Like a drone’s lens. targeting pack
CRACK.
“Cicada! Grab it!”
Kael shut his eyes. He felt the pack’s separate minds, their subroutines, their limitations. Hornet could blind. Firefly could stun, but the flash-bang was set for a full room, not a single target. It would knock the Archivist unconscious, maybe give him a concussion. It might also trigger the dead man’s switch if his vitals spiked wrong. Then he saw it