If the city was a lab, then names were reagents.
That was how Rell had started to think about it, once Tal dragged him out of his apartment and into the Index.
You took names, of detainees, of officers, of streets, and you mixed them with dates and routes and stories.
Sometimes nothing happened.
Sometimes you got a slow burn.
Sometimes, if you were careful and a little reckless, the right combination exploded into proof.
Tonight, the main reagent was his mother.
He sat on a crate in the safe room, notebook open on his knees, while Aiden sketched the rescue on the wall like an equation.
"Transit van leaves Holding Three at 21:10," Aiden said. "Arcus expects it to take the high-efficiency path: main arch through Sector Eight, then straight to Long-Term."
He drew a line through the city map, clean, efficient, terrible.
"We can't hit it on the main path," Mara said. "Too many eyes. Too many arches."
"So we change the path," Aiden said.
