Jubilee’s standing by the door, listening for trouble. “What else could I do? I didn’t hit him hard, he’ll be fine.”
“You really have to start thinking laterally.” I roll the man onto his side so he doesn’t choke on his own tongue while he’s out.
“Not my forte.” She shrugs, abandoning the door to prowl the room. “This is monitoring Avon’s climate,” she says after leaning down to study a screen. “It’s got terraforming data displayed here for the last two decades. Far more detailed readings than what we get sent by TerraDyn.” She falls silent, but I know we’re both thinking about Merendsen’s theory that Avon’s progress, like the progress of the planet LaRoux destroyed, is being tampered with.
I stay by the scientist’s side, and he doesn’t stir as I check him for weapons, then push aside his white coat to make sure there’s nothing clipped to his belt. All I see is an ID badge, and I’m about to drop the fabric when a glint flashes through the plastic cover of the pass. Sitting alongside a card showing a serial number—no name or photo—is a tiny ident chip. It’s exactly the same as the one Jubilee found on our first visit here, right down to the tiny lambda. The room spins a little and I rub at my eyes, trying to remember when I last had more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. “LaRoux Industries,” I say, pushing slowly to my feet.
“That won’t be proof enough,” says Jubilee with a grimace. “They try to stop it, but head down below street level in Corinth and you can get anything on the black market. A raider ship could outfit themselves with old LRI ident chips with enough credits; LaRoux could easily say these were stolen, especially since they’re so antiquated.”
The man at my feet gives a tiny groan, and I glance at him before saying, “What about the computers? There has to be something incriminating there.”
“They’ll be encrypted, for sure.” Jubilee turns back to me, drawn by the signs that the scientist is coming to. “Unless we have someone with the password.”
At my feet, the white-coated man moans again, rolling over onto his back and lifting one hand to claw at the air, as though he can grab something and pull himself closer to consciousness. Jubilee’s at my side so fast I barely see her move, but I reach for her shoulder before she can grab him. “Let me,” I murmur, and she scowls her acquiescence, muttering under her breath. The guy on the floor flinches at her tone and opens his eyes.
I look down at him. “Took a fall there, friend. What’s your name?”
“Carmody.” He’s still confused. “Dr. Terrence Carmody. Who are you?”
“I’m the one who wants to talk to you,” I say quietly. “She’s the one who wants to break your legs. Let’s start with the talking.” I keep my eyes on his, gazes locked. Now that the adrenaline of breaking into the facility is starting to recede, my body feels leaden. I focus, reaching down inside to pull up a version of me I barely remember. Confident, imposing myself on others by sheer will. I can do this.
“We know what you’re doing here,” I start, and panic flickers across his face. “You’re going to tell us everything about LaRoux Industries, and where you’re hiding the creatures he’s using.”
“Please,” the man gasps, stuttering. “I-I’m just a researcher. I don’t know anything, I swear.”
“Your password, then,” Jubilee interrupts, her voice quick with tension. “For the computers.”
The man swallows, his Adam’s apple bobbing frantically. “I’m only cleared for this level—I’ll give it to you, but it’s just climate data, it’s only what you see here. I don’t know what you’re talking about, with LaRoux Industries.” He looks too terrified to be lying.
I meet Jubilee’s eyes; I can tell from the tension in her gaze that she believes him too. But even if he doesn’t know about the whispers, maybe he can still help us find proof of LaRoux Industries’ involvement here.
I open my mouth to press him for more, but I’m cut off by a long, low blast of sound from speakers set up in the ceiling. The blood rushes in my ears, every ounce of adrenaline flooding back in and leaving a metallic taste in my mouth. The alarm is followed by a man’s voice, quick and urgent.
“Attention all nonessential personneclass="underline" facility security has been compromised. Repeat: facility security has been compromised.”
The girl is home again, in a shop, in a city called November, on a planet named Verona. Her mother is calling her and her father is washing his hands and his arms in the kitchen sink. The girl runs to her cave, the nest she’s built under the shop’s counter, and folds herself inside.
The green-eyed boy is there, somehow, though the space is only big enough for the girl. “You keep coming back here,” he whispers, a terrible sadness in his voice. “After all these years.”
“I was safe here,” the girl whispers back.
“What’s the real reason?” asks the boy, and when he looks at her, she knows she can’t lie.
“Here,” says the girl, “I’m not alone.”
The boy takes her hand, and the girl notices the way their fingers interlock, as if they were meant to fit that way. “I thought you were supposed to be brave.”
“I’m not brave enough to die alone.”
I GESTURE AT THE RESEARCHER, warning him to be silent without a word, but he’s too busy trying to cram himself in under one of the consoles, as though that might hide him from whatever punishment we have in mind for failing to help us. I inch toward the door and press my ear to it—I can’t hear anything, no sounds of rushing security guards, nothing that sounds like a response to the alarm, which has gone silent again now. It’s as though the place is abandoned.
A whispering rises all around me, as though I’m standing in a windstorm—but the air is utterly still. And I know what it is. Swallowing the metallic taste of blood in my mouth, I only have time for a glance down at my hands, searching for the palsied shakes that I know are coming. Except my hands are steady, but for the faint tremor of panic.
Before I can process what’s happening, a groan from behind me shatters my heart. Oh God, no.
I whirl to find Flynn leaning with one hand braced against the console, his face white, gaze fixed on the floor. “Jubilee—” He gasps my name as though it’s with his last breath.
I throw myself back, reaching for Flynn, as though his touch might banish the sudden razor-edge of fear slicing down my spine. “Talk to me!”
But he can’t answer; he sags back against the wall, and for an instant his head lifts enough for me to see his gaze, his dilated eyes, the terror as he fights the thing that’s happening to him.
“No—no, I can’t—” My heart snaps, and with it the fear holding me hostage, and I stagger half a step toward him.
It was supposed to be me.
I swallow my fear. “We’re getting out of here, now.” Whispers be damned—Avon’s fate be damned. I cannot watch Flynn’s soul, his heart, vanish in front of me.
“Actually, you’re not.” I’d almost forgotten the researcher—Dr. Carmody—cowering on the floor. I turn to snap at him, and freeze.
He’s got a weapon aimed at me; he must have had it hidden underneath the console. I should have been watching, I should have tied him up. I should have had Flynn…I choke, unable to focus on the man’s gun. All I can see is Flynn, half-curled against the console, trying to fight the whispers.
“Fine!” I snap at Carmody, lifting my hands. “Arrest me, shoot me, I don’t care. Just let me help him—” I take a step toward Flynn, but Carmody thumbs the switch on the side of the gun. Its whine as it charges rings in my ears, and I stop again.