Chapter 16: The Live Test

They cleared a circle in the middle of the Hall floor, and Slade walked into it with his chin up.

A medic in a white jacket came after him with a flat case.

He rolled back Slade's sleeve and pressed an injector to the seam of the implant, and I watched Slade's face.

He had not expected that.

"It's a standard provocation," Maltravers told the judges. "It brings a storm on, so it can be anchored."

"What is in it?" the judge asked.

"The Office's usual compound, Your Honor."

I filed the answer away.

Slade's arm began to glow.

Red climbed his neck.

His hands flexed, and his breathing came faster, and when he looked at the gallery I saw he did not see anybody in it.

Odette stepped into the circle in her plain grey dress.

She did not look at me.

She took Slade's wrist in both hands and closed her eyes.

"Steady," she said. "Slade. It's me."

He wrenched his arm away.

She caught it again.

She held on, and I could see her trying with everything she had, her jaw tight and her fingers white.

Her signal was a ninety-four.

It should have been loud.

The red only climbed.

Slade made a sound deep in his throat and swung his free arm.

It caught her across the face, and she hit the floor on her side.

The Hall gasped.

Two guards started forward, and Slade turned on them with his teeth bared, and they stopped.

"Again," Maltravers said.

Odette lifted her head.

Blood ran from the corner of her mouth.

"Admiral," she said. "I can't."

"Again, Miss Hargreave."

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