Candidates.
Officers.
Instructors.
Some had red dots beside them.
Others green.
Ryan found Daniel Reyes near the center.
There was no dot.
Under his photograph were two words.
SELF-AWARE.
Olivia found her own image.
No dot.
Under it:
ORIGIN SUBJECT.
She stared.
“What the hell does origin subject mean?”
May you like
A voice behind them answered.
“The person whose behavior taught the model what it needed to recognize.”
They turned.
Colonel Shaw stood in the doorway.
A pistol hung low in her hand.
Ryan swore.
Olivia stared at her.
“You tracked us.”
“Yes.”
“Put the weapon down.”
“I’m not aiming it at anyone.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Shaw placed it on a table.
Miller looked furious.
“You knew this building was here.”
“No.”
“You arrived very quickly for someone who didn’t.”
“I followed the locator inside the backpack.”
Ryan grabbed the bag.
He found a tracker stitched beneath the lining.
His face hardened.
“Reyes put this here?”
Shaw shook her head.
“I did.”
Everyone went silent.
Olivia’s voice dropped.
“When?”
“Four months ago.”
Ryan moved first.
Olivia stopped him again.
He shouted around her.
“You had his backpack?”
“I found it after he disappeared.”
“You knew where the locker was.”
“I knew where he left the bag.”
“And you let us walk into a trap?”
“I needed to know who followed you.”
Olivia stared at her.
“Who did?”
Shaw looked into the hall.
“Nobody.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It makes perfect sense.”
She walked toward Olivia’s photograph.
“Because we were wrong.”
“About what?”
“Someone isn’t watching Forty-Two from outside.”
Shaw turned.
“Someone inside this group is running it.”
Chapter 8: THE DEAD MAN’S VOICE
Ryan looked at Miller.
Miller looked at Shaw.
Shaw looked at Olivia.
For three seconds, nobody moved.
Olivia hated those three seconds.
Trust rarely collapsed with noise.
It collapsed through tiny calculations.
Who knew what.
Who had access.
Who lied first.
Who lied best.
Shaw spoke.
“I placed the tracker after Reyes disappeared because I expected whoever took him to retrieve the backpack.”
“And?” Olivia asked.
“Nobody did.”
“Until us.”
“Exactly.”
Ryan’s anger sharpened.
“So we activated it.”
“Yes.”
“And you followed it here.”
“Yes.”
Miller crossed his arms.
“Convenient.”
Shaw ignored him.
Olivia looked around the hidden facility.
“If this place belongs to whoever hijacked Forty-Two, why leave all this intact?”
“Because it is still being used.”
Ryan walked toward the servers.
“Then we copy everything.”
Shaw shook her head.
“No network links.”
“We don’t need them.”
Miller moved toward one of the terminals.
“Local encryption.”
Olivia searched a desk.
Keyboard.
Paper records.
A locked drawer.
She opened it using a thin tool from her pocket.
Inside were photographs.
Not personnel images.
Surveillance photographs.
Ryan leaving his apartment.
Miller buying groceries.
Shaw entering headquarters.
Olivia arriving at the training center.
All taken from a distance.
Then another stack.
Daniel Reyes.
Bus terminal.
Parking lot.
Restaurant.
One image showed him speaking to somebody whose face was hidden behind a newspaper.
Olivia studied the background.
Date stamp.
Three weeks after he supposedly vanished.
“Reyes was alive.”
Ryan snatched the photograph.
His hands shook.
“Where is this?”
Shaw examined it.
“Downtown.”
“That date is three weeks later.”
“I can read it.”
“You told me you didn’t know whether he was alive.”
“I didn’t.”
Ryan turned toward Miller.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Stop saying no!”
“I didn’t know.”
Olivia picked up another picture.
Daniel stood beside a vehicle.
A reflection in the car window showed part of the photographer.
An older man.
Gray hair.
Narrow face.
Olivia held it closer to the light.
Something about his posture felt familiar.