The Bloodline She Burned novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Round One

The envelope held a brass tag stamped LOCKER 12.

There was no note.

Roz held it under the gallery lights for a long moment and then put it back in her pocket.

By morning she and Gabriel were in the Ironworks Arena tunnel, forty minutes before the first main-bracket match.

"She wants you to open it alone," Gabriel said.

"Yes."

"So we don't."

"So we don't," Roz agreed.

Locker 12 stood in the players' bay, where each team kept its gear in a steel cabinet.

Roz had left her tournament keyboard in it the night before.

She walked past it and found the match official at the end of the row, a tired woman with a scanner and a clipboard.

"I need you to open my locker with me," Roz said. "And I need it logged."

"Why?"

"Because somebody put the key in my bag, and I didn't put it there."

The official looked at her, then at Gabriel, then at the two cameras that watched the bay from the ceiling.

"Fine," she said. "Step back."

She turned the tag in the lock.

The keyboard sat where Roz had left it.

The official passed the scanner slowly over it, and the scanner gave a long flat tone.

"Interesting," she said.

She pried the spacebar off, and under it, soldered to the board, was a chip no bigger than a grain of rice.

"It's a macro chip," she said. "It fires inputs for you."

"I didn't install it."

"I'm sure you didn't." The official's voice had changed. "That's a disqualification offense, and I'd have found it at your gear check in an hour."

"Which is why somebody wanted you to find it," Gabriel said.

"Check the camera log," Roz said. "For the bay, last night."

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