Nobody moved for a moment.
"Wait," Rei said, in disbelief, leaning forward from the back seat. "Wait wait wait. You mean..."
"The drive Harlan gave Monique," Nash said, turning the real one over between his fingers, "was fake. Identical on the outside. Empty inside, or with some junk data, I didn't actually check what I put on it, maybe porn."
"Since when—" Aiko leaned forward too, eyes wide. "Since when are there two drives?"
"Since I handed that one to Harlan," Nash said. "The real one, I kept on me."
Saya, between the two girls, stayed silent for a long moment, trying to piece it together, her mind still tangled up in the adrenaline and fear of the last few minutes.
"So all of that," she said finally, her voice shaking. "The deal, the exchange, that whole show with Monique..."
"Was to get you out of there without having to fight twenty armed guards," Nash said. "And to give Harlan a reason to believe he actually had something."
