Rob's voice was cryptic.
"See the drain gulch behind my left shoulder?"
I was thrown off as his head gave a subtle twitch and gesture eastward. The angle cut it to somewhere behind his back, toward the shoreline. It was a direction almost, but not quite entirely opposite of where Sam and I had been the entire time.
I blinked in confusion.
McCreed didn't give obvious reactions as he turned to stare off and into the distance. "I see no one," he said flatly.
Sam's laughter, sharp, sudden, and far too loud for the enclosed room, caused me to flinch as the sound ricocheted off the walls like a stray bullet squarely in my ear. Her head dipped as she was overcome by a sudden fit of surprisingly girlish giggles as a delicately curled finger swept the corner of her eye.
"Rob, you sly bastard!" she said when she could finally speak. "You actually had me fooled for a second!"
My head spun. "What is happening right now?"
She turned to me; the remnant of her smile lingered in her eyes. She let out a single huff, partially in relief and partially to recalibrate to the seriousness of the situation.
"Everything he just said to McCreed?" she said. "Totally fabricated."
I narrowed my eyes and scanned her face. "How do you know that?"
Her eyes snapped onto me, a brief flicker of annoyance, as if I'd missed something obvious.
But I stood my ground. Trust wasn't something I was ready to instantly jump into again. The last few hits were...too fast, too close.
Her irritation faded, replaced with comprehension. Rob's possible betrayal had shaken me, probably more deeply than I'd realized. She'd recognized that, so didn't push as hard as she likely would've.
"Owen." She said quietly, "Let's look at the context. Rob and I have been running together for a while. I can tell you, for a fact, one of the dumbest things we ever tried was pretending to be IIB agents on a sting. At best, it's a stall tactic. The cover crumbles the moment someone does something as simple as a cross-check of names. IIB is pretty secretive, and that's kind of why it works."
She straightened, arms folded across her chest. Her tone sharpened with a fierce, convictive protectiveness. "With Rob's history, it's very...VERY unlikely they'd ever recruit him for an IIB operation; that alone should add weight to it all being a bluff. But," She glanced back at the screen. "McCreed doesn't know that."
On the feeds, the underground became a flurry of movement and activity. Goons dressed in security uniforms ran within tunnels to pick their way toward stairwells scattered around the facility. I wasn't sure how it all laid out, but the outer feeds displayed their shadowed figures as they quietly made their way toward the hillside nearest the drain gulch.
Had McCreed relayed the information, or was it just someone who paid attention like we were?
I wasn't sure, but the teams in view had reacted VERY quickly. That made them dangerous.
"There, see?" Sam said. Rob's maneuvers made it so McCreed faced away from the Lock side. "As far as we all know, nobody on McCreed's short list has any direct ties to IIB; he's too greedy and itching at the chance to get his hands around some Black-Level Tech."
"Black-Level?" I asked, "You mean like your transposal suite?"
"Among others," she said with a tilt of her head, "and Rob's banking on it. He knows McCreed is aware IIB agents have a bypass to keep unlicensed mods running even with lockouts. I'd bet chits over scrit; it's why he kept his eyes normal. Anyway, the point is, he could've given us up but instead led most of the goon force away. That should be proof in itself."
Logical. I had to admit.
My thoughts drifted to the unlicensed status of Rob's Amplified Physique Mods. Clearly there was more going on than I was aware, but all that mattered in the moment was Rob hadn't betrayed us.
I cast a glance to where McCreed and Rob stood silently. McCreed's voice flowed steadily, a continuation of a conversation I'd mostly missed. "And what would you expect me to give in return?" he said.
"Nothing." Rob replied. "Those two will be a freebie, provided you can get them off my tail. I'm tired of the constant need to dodge them. They've raised uncomfortable questions from upstairs."
"The storm is...convenient, then." McCreed said in a murmur. Thunder rumbled above as Rob gave him a dry, humorless smile.
I shivered at a sudden chill down my spine.
How many people have disappeared while we were all "directed" not to realize it?
The memory of my mother's death notice surfaced and stopped me cold.
Wait. Hold on...
Suddenly, every monitor lit up with a new icon in the top right corner. An alert notification scrolled across the upper section of my optic feed in a harsh red.
[WARNING: PURGE OPERATIONS IMMINENT. THRESHOLD LIMIT EXCEEDED!]
"Uh..." I said, and relayed the message aloud to Sam. "Should we be worried about that?"