Kori looked at the warped reader and tried to decide whether it mattered.
That was the problem with the whole situation, sitting under the lanterns with the fountain running somewhere in front of her: she had no way to weigh what she was looking at. The thing was clearly something — from what it looked, military-grade casing, the right size and shape for an official file reader, and whatever had happened to the screen and the side wasn't a trick she recognized.
Kori didn't know what files it carried, or whether it carried any. It could be the most dangerous object in the Underworks, or it could just be a dead reader Lay had warped over a stove or with a technique Kori didn't recognize and was just using as a prop, dangling a fake to reel a tired Phalanx into whatever game she was running tonight.
But it looked strangely real. That was as far as Kori's certainty went.
