Page 48 of Rupture

Triton.Fuck.

He hooked a second seat with one foot and scooted up beside her. The stools evened out their height difference, so they were almost face to face. He fought the urge to lean in closer and cleared his throat. “Won’t this be password protected?”

“That’s okay. I have a solution for that.” She dug into the small hip pocket on her cargo pants and waved a compact matte black stick at him. “I came prepared.”

She reached around the back of the curved screen of the workstation, giving Finn an unimpeded view of her athletic form. The fabric of her pants stretched taut, and he immediately regretted noticing just how well they fit.

Hot damn.He closed his eyes with rough fingers.Focus on the mission, you unprofessional idiot.

When he looked up, Rose was in her seat again, all business as she connected the device.Thank fuck.He took a deep breath, trying to purge the image from his mind and concentrate on finding answers.

A new icon materialized in the bottom right corner of the screen—a small golden trident that pulsed with latent energy. “Okay, let’s see what we have here.” Rose was all professionalism now, the scientist in her coming to the fore.

She moved the stylus across the pad in confident strokes. The logo melted away, replaced by an imposing password prompt. She didn’t pause. Numbers and letters cascaded through the password box in a mesmerizing blur, cracking the ten-digit code in less time than it took to draw a breath. The system never stood a chance.

“Impressive.” Finn tilted his head. Cade’s skills made him a high-level hacker, but Rose’s mastery was close.

“Thank you.” Laugh lines formed at the corners of her eyes and he fought the urge to skim them with his fingertips.

“Hmmm.” She clicked through what seemed to him like an endless labyrinth of files, her eyes darting across banks of text that made his vision swim.

He pushed away from the desk and found his feet again, grateful for an excuse to move. There was a reason he hadn’t become a desk jockey. Give him the open space of ocean andsky any day. He returned to the center of the room, where Ethan had activated a holographic map of the Io from a central steel table.

“Something.” Ethan rubbed the scruff on his chin.

“Something what?” Finn steepled his hands on the table’s surface.

Ethan cocked his head. “This. There’s something off about it. Something I can’t put my finger on.”

“Yeah, I’m getting a lot of those vibes lately.” Finn studied the lines of the map, scattered red dots representing his team, yellow for the crew, all safely tucked away in the med bay like expensive pieces in a really messed up game of chess.

The floor shifted beneath him. He staggered, catching the edge of the holographic console for support. “What the hell?”

Rose’s head snapped up at her workstation.

“Rose, is this you?”

“I’ve accessed a locked room.”

Another tremor, stronger this time, throbbed through the floor. Finn froze as a thick black line snaked across the floor in front of him. It curved in a precise arc, forming a circle around the room, becoming thicker, darker. He dropped to his knees and stretched out tentative fingers. Freezing air rushed up from below, chilling his palm.

“What the hell is happening?” Ethan widened his stance for balance. “Rose?”

“This isn’t her lab.” Rose pushed back from her console.

“Rose. Make sense,” Ethan snapped.

She stood abruptly, her stool clattering to the floor behind her.“It’s not her lab because Thea’s lab is beneath us.”

27

Rose walkedto the center of the room. “We’re standingonthe door.”

A low hum vibrated beneath her boots as the platform descended. Inch by inch, another floor revealed itself. Light gleamed from below, spilling upward as the second lab came into view. With a muted hiss of hydraulics, the platform settled.

Above them, the original lab now loomed high and unreachable, a mirror image inverted.

This new lab’s walls were muted charcoal gray, the computer stacks sleek and black. Soft, diffuse lighting seeped from recessed strips encircling the room.

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