The alloy blast door shut again. Stephanie Malik ignored Ruby's pleading look before returning to the bedroom and forcibly made the girl lie back down and sleep. She turned the handle, extending eight heavy bolts, then locked them, sealing Ruby firmly inside the bedroom. Even a standard TNT charge would have been unable to blast through this door and the reinforced concrete wall beside it. The password controller beside the blast door had been carefully dismantled, and a black data cable connected it to the device in Amon's hand. Vast amounts of data and symbols streamed across the palm-sized screen.
Amon stared gravely at the computer in his hand. Only after a fluorescent green icon flashed by did he unplug the data port and put the device into the pouch at his waist. "The backdoor software has been implanted successfully. Override privileges have been obtained, and the operation logs have been altered. We can now access every conversation between General Hale and Ruby," Amon said. "More than that, we have implanted backdoor programs into all information within this base. But if the soldiers here do not keep their mouths shut, no amount of concealment will matter."
"They will keep quiet. There will be no need for force; that is why I came with you." Stephanie Malik spoke cheerfully. "Deception and threats are Hydra's specialties. Sometimes force cannot solve every problem. A little lie laced with venom is the quickest way to solve one. That is Hydra's specialty."
"So that is why you lied to Ruby, deceived her, and made her accept the mission?"
"Is this an interrogation?" Stephanie raised her head and looked at Amon's stern face. She simply could not understand why the Praetorian Guard was expressing dissatisfaction—more precisely, she had no idea why the Praetorian Guard would be