In The Afterlight (The Darkest Minds #3)(80)

The basic outline of the Oasis plan was there, too. I found my name written next to influence camp controller in charge of communications.

“You don’t have to stay,” Nico said. “I can do this myself.”

“I know.” I picked up the dry erase marker from the ledge, and started to fill in additional information about Thurmond, fleshing out sections of the plan where I could.

“It was your strategy,” Nico said over the warm purring of the machines around us. “Right? It seemed like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“A little reckless. Smart, but not giving attention to the details.”

“Really,” I said dryly, turning back to face him.

He kept his back to me the whole time, shoulders bunched up with tension. I’d really been a monster to him, hadn’t I? There seemed to be a five-foot radius around me that Nico was too frightened to cross. I fought to keep from cringing at the thought of how badly I’d mistreated him.

“How would you do it?” I jerked my chin in the direction of the blank space under the word Thurmond, trying to ignore the way it seemed to be taunting the both of us.

He stared at me and sixty full seconds of awkwardness passed before he took a tentative step closer. “It doesn’t matter what I think.”

“You said I wasn’t paying attention to the details,” I prompted. “What did you mean by that?”

Nico looked down at the floor, running his shoes over the tile. I had a fleeting thought of how Vida used to call the Greens “squeakers” because of the way they all seemed to shuffle their feet as they walked. “The Oasis plan is okay,” he said finally. “The way we have it now makes sense. Based on the size of the camp, there’ll only be two or three camp controllers, and it’ll be easy for you to figure out who is in charge of security and sending the status updates to their network. It won’t work that way at Thurmond.”

I watched him wring his hands, still unable to look at me. “There’s going to be, what, two dozen camp controllers in the Control Tower? That was the estimate in...in Clancy’s files. Its position at the center of the camp means that anyone forcing their way in through the gate is going to have to fight through all of the rings of cabins to get to it to subdue the PSFs and controllers inside, and by then the camp controllers will have called for reinforcements. Even if you found a way to subdue all of them, it would still be too late. All they’d have to do is turn on the White Noise and we’d be done. The power generator and backup generator are all on the camp premises, and I have a feeling cutting the power would automatically trigger an alarm on the military’s network.”

In the space of two minutes, he’d managed to chisel my confidence down to dust. “So we’ll need a bigger attack force. One that can work faster, get them in and out.”

“Liam’s idea about trying to get the parents to storm the camp might work,” he offered, “but its success depends half on us being able to inspire civilians to revolt and come after the camps, and half on whether or not the PSFs would fire on civilians or figure out some other way to deter them.”

“He has an actual plan?” I asked.

“Not in the technical definition of the word. I just heard some kids asking him about what he would do.” Nico shrugged. “His option isn’t perfect, either.”

“Is there a third option?” I asked.

Finally Nico stood up and, with tentative, halting steps, walked beside me. I tried to offer him the marker, but he didn’t take it. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Try me.”

“The only way I can think of to disable the camp controller’s access to the camp’s systems—not even disable or disarm the system itself, but lock them out and keep the system running so no one outside notices anything amiss—is to install a Trojan horse program in their system and control it remotely. They’ll be so disoriented that the tactical team will have an easier time of it.”

“Is that something we could upload into their server?” The League had given us a limited education on technology and the way viruses worked, but this was out of my depth.

“No, the programs don’t install automatically like a virus. Someone has to install it,” he said. “And with all of the security safeguards in place, I don’t think one of them would carelessly download any kind of email attachment.”

“So someone would have to go into Thurmond and install it before the assault,” I said. “But the camp has been closed to new kids for years.”

“They take escaped kids back into the camp they were originally processed in,” Nico said quietly. “I already started coding the Trojan horse. Cole told me to...”

I held up a hand to cut him off. “Cole approved this already?”

He nodded, eyes wide. “He said he’d talk to you about it. I can have it ready in a week. They’ll be powerless to stop it once the program is installed.”

I felt every last drop of blood drain out of my head in horror.

“No,” I said, horrified. “No way—”

“I meant me,” Nico said quickly. “Not you. I could bring the Trojan horse program in on a flash drive, the same way we’re bringing the cameras into Oasis. Glasses frames. Have you seen them?” Nico crossed the room, retrieving a pair of glasses with black plastic frames.