He advanced it in slow motion, focusing on the woman.
She pulled out her phone and glanced at it. Checking e-mail? Or checking the time?
She stole a glance at Nijinsky.
“She’s looking at Jin,” Keats said.
“He was a good-looking dude, maybe she—” Wilkes began, but then she fell silent, because now was the part where Nijinsky started to lose it. The people nearest were shooting him irritated or concerned looks. The woman was not. She was half smiling, watching … waiting.
Waiting.
“She knows,” Keats said.
He cut to the next video, the horrific one showing Nijinsky on the escalator. There was a woman just a dozen steps behind him.
“Fuck! It’s her,” Wilkes said.
Now everyone was leaning toward the screen, checking the dress, checking the shoes, the hair, comparing them to the first images.
“Yes,” Plath confirmed. It’s the same woman. Jin got to this place by running, then hurling himself down the escalator. And she followed him? What kind of person follows a crazy man?”
Now, again, Nijinsky fed the scarf into the escalator.
But this time they watched the woman behind him—the shoulders, the hair.
She stepped past and over the strangling Nijinsky. Not panicked. Calm.
She knelt by Nijinsky. Her hand shot out, took something.
“The phone,” Plath said. “She took his phone. The time signatures. She sent the text.”
“It’s an Easter egg,” Keats said. “Billy’s right: it’s all a game. And that woman is an Easter egg. We are supposed to see her.”
Jindal could barely restrain himself. His first meeting with the returned Twins had ended with his being dismissed like a disappointing schoolboy. Now they would have to listen. “We have confirmation. Proof. They’ve hacked our network. Somehow they exploited a hole in the AmericaStrong computer system and worked their way back to us, back to core AFGC systems.”
Charles saw the meat of it immediately. “Floor Thirty-Four?”
Jindal shook his head so hard he couldn’t speak until he had stopped. “No, that is walled off entirely. But the good—”
“Do they have our nanobot blueprints? Our technical specs?”
“Yes. And they’ve been looking at this building.”
“With an eye to infiltration or attack?” Charles demanded, while Benjamin remained ominously silent.
“No way to tell. But gentlemen, there’s good news as well.”
Charles raised his eyebrow. Benjamin glowered at Jindal, as if holding him personally responsible. “Good news?”
“The hackers have been hacked in return,” Jindal said. He was giddy now, torn between excitement and fear. “We tracked them back and found a way into some of their systems.”
“BZRK?”
“No. McLure Labs Security. That’s who’s been watching us. McLure Security. Presumably at the direction of”—Jindal hesitated, knowing the effect his next words would have on the Twins—“Sadie McLure.”
“The little bitch,” Benjamin spat.
“Do we know where she is?” Charles asked.