The Breach - Ghost Country - Deep Sky

considered using the Tap on themselves to go back and interrogate him. They even got the door combo out of me so they could enter the mine quietly. That information was far less important to me than your identity—I’m sure I didn’t give them much of a fight.”
    Travis looked up and blinked hard at the tears. Garner’s image swam and then resolved.
    “Holt was afraid of the Tap,” Travis said. “He was hesitant to even let his subordinates use it.”
    “That’s exactly right,” Garner said. He stared for a moment, visibly confused as to how Travis could know that detail. Then he set it aside and continued. “They realized they could use you instead, to spare themselves the risk. They gave you the drug, and in Stage One they fed you the door combo, and in Stage Two they put the Tap in your head and commanded you to relive the day. If it worked like they hoped it would, the memory fracturing would keep you from knowing you were in a Tap memory at all. You wouldn’t remember using the Tap—or living through the day the first time around. You’d drop into some point in time this morning and think it was this morning. You’d think it was real.”
    The plane. En route to Rum Lake. Waking up aboard it—that was when the Tap memory had begun. The whole day after that had been fake.
    “Later on you’d reach the blast door,” Garner said, “and this time you’d know the combo. You’d never know how you knew it—you’d remember Stage One like it was some strange vision you’d had—but under the circumstances you’d certainly try punching those numbers in.”
    “And end up meeting Dyer,” Travis said.
    Garner nodded. “In all likelihood learning what he knew, given that you served the same interests. And when you came back out of the Tap memory, they could interrogate you for that knowledge. You’d be less conditioned to protect it than I am. Far less, I’m afraid.”
    “Jesus, did I give it up? Did I tell them I’m the one who goes through the Breach?”
    “You did, but they thought it was sarcasm.” Garner frowned. “An hour from now they’ll figure out that it wasn’t. I’m sorry, but there’s almost no chance of your protecting that secret against someone as skilled as Porter.”
    Garner sounded defeated. It was impossible to blame him. For a long moment Travis felt the same.
    Then he thought of something he’d seen earlier, while wandering the plane in the transparency suit.
    A second later he thought of something else he’d seen, and managed a smile.
    Holt and his people couldn’t possibly know he’d gotten such a detailed look at the aircraft. They wouldn’t have guessed in a million years that, in the Tap memory they dumped him into, he would end up boarding the plane and scoping it out nose to tail. That lack of imagination on their part had been a mistake. A big one, potentially.
    He flexed his wrists against the zip tie that bound them behind him, and put his knuckles to the plasterboard an inch away.
    Then he shoved. Hard. Once, twice, three times. He heard the board flex and protest, and on the fourth push its gypsum core cracked softly in a fist-sized hole, the paper surface tearing with it.
    “What are you doing?” Garner said.
    “You’ll see.”
    With his fingers he felt the edges of the hole, and snapped away piece after piece until he’d exposed several inches of the vertical aluminum support behind him. The one his own dolly must be secured to.
    Then he contorted his wrists until he had the encircling zip tie stretched between them, and pressed it against one edge of the aluminum strut.
    One crisp, machined edge.
    It was as sharp as a blade.
    He began sliding the zip tie up and down against it.
    Garner finally understood, but still didn’t look hopeful.
    “That won’t free your shoulders or your ankles,” he said.
    “No,” Travis said. Then he nodded to the nearby desk. The one so close beside him he hadn’t noticed it in his first glimpse of this room. “But I’ll be able to reach the top right drawer there, and get ahold of the nail clippers inside.”
    Garner’s eyes registered deepest confusion for three seconds. Then he smiled too.
    “You found what Allen Raines had in his red locker,” he said.
    “Found it and used it,” Travis said. “Tell me about the weapons cache in the hall. Will your palm print work on the scanners?”
    “It will. But an alarm goes off as soon as you open a case. They’ll be on us before we can get anything