clink.
Blake shrieked into the vinyl, his face pressed against the floor, his tears mixing with the dust and sweat:
“COOPER! TELL THEM! I WAS JUST RUNNING A CLASS! YOU CANNOT PUT A STATE CHAMPION IN LEAVENWORTH CHAINS ON HIS OWN CANVAS!”
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I stepped across the mat, picked up my folded flannel shirt from the folding chair, and reached into the breast pocket.
I pulled out an antique, four-inch rectangular keyway constructed of solid, non-magnetic brushed titanium, stepped with fifty-six analog cryptographic notches:
KEY IDENTIFIER: MERCER-ARTHUR-010
CLASSIFICATION: STRATEGIC SOVEREIGN ESCROW // TITLE 50 CONTINUITY
TITLE: CONDUIT TEN // THE CAPITAL COMMAND SPUR
CLINK.
I laid the heavy titanium key flat across the back of Blake Haron’s neck:
TINK.
“You told this room full of parents twenty minutes ago, Blake,” Chancellor Damon Arthur Mercer whispered softly.
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My voice had no trembling plumber's hesitation left.
It carried forty decibels of compressed, sub-zero polar diamond that made the falling rain through the shattered windows freeze in mid-air:
