Vows of Graphite and Guilt
The movement jarred his splinted right arm, and his eyes snapped open, his charcoal pupils wild and searching in the fading yellow light of her beam.
"The... the thermal threshold," he muttered, his left hand blindly reaching out until his fingers locked onto Clara’s wrist with a crushing, reflexive grip. "Clara... if they track the... the cooling gradient... they will see where the vault line terminates."
"They won't see anything," Clara said, kneeling over him and placing her cold, dirt-stained hand against his burning cheek. "The drive is completely out of the cabinet. The system is dead, Julian. You killed it. You succeeded."