Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(77)
Kellen didn’t say so, but that was a bit worrying. Heron had blown up the black-ICE over Enchanted Rock by accessing the entire global cloud network. It had been a pretty big deal and had very nearly resulted in Heron’s brain death. Chloe had not just done that same thing.
Or had she? Could she? She was sweet and all, but damn if there wasn’t something just a tiny bit terrifying about her, too.
“Good work, and thank you. Now, can you give us a tow into port somewhere?” There weren’t many intact ports on the Gulf Coast. Not after years upon years of storms and population relocations. “Not Pensacola, not east. We’d like to avoid any continental entanglements just right now. How’s Tampico look?”
“High and dry and zero UNAN patrols,” chirped the AI. After a few seconds, the boat lurched, but then the golden surface of Vallejo’s bourbon steadied, flattened out. They were no longer descending. They were submerged and bookin’ it. “Whoa. This boat flies in the water. We hit fifty knots. And just wait till I tell Garrett I got to drive a sub.”
Chapter 14
That thing Angela had thought earlier, about how having Kellen nearby lent her a quantum of confidence? Well, it was true even when every other wick of her life burned to a nub. He still shone. Maybe he was the only good decision she’d ever made. Well, the being with him part, not what she’d done to him. Not the sending him away part. That had been a mistake.
She couldn’t let herself think about what he would say if he knew all her secrets. She didn’t want to think about being without him. Not again.
Also, she didn’t want to sit here and have a conversation with Damon Vallejo. And even more certainly not about all the things he had so easily understood but that had eluded her for a lifetime. She was supposed to be a goddamn genius. A reader of societies and people, of long-term trends and schemes. A strategist, trained. How could she not have seen?
Vallejo had been quiet while Kellen and Chloe talked, but Angela had been watching him. When Chloe had reported that all traps had been disabled on the boat, Vallejo had been visibly relieved. He’d closed his eyes for longer than a blink, and the hands that had been nervous, alternately clasping each other and reaching for a drink he did not touch, relaxed.
Now he opened his eyes and caught her staring at him. “Is it even possible you didn’t know about Medina’s plans?” he said in a low voice.
“Why don’t we for the sake of argument pretend I didn’t,” Angela said. She sounded weary to her own ears and felt it even more so. Truthfully, she was tired. So very, very sick of everybody else’s bullshit. What she wouldn’t give to be back at the Pentarc North Tower, reclining on a hammock and stroking Yoink’s soft fur.
If, you know, the Pentarc wasn’t presently under attack. If, you know, it was even possible to go back.
“What do you think Zeke’s up to?” This wasn’t her best negotiation lead. Her position was too weak; she should not have phrased that as a question that could be countered with refusal to answer. She should have wheedled, or at least given him reasons for playing along.
But exercising all her formidable diplomatic training required more will, more energy, than she could muster right now. She desperately needed to hide, lick her wounds, reassess literally everything she knew about herself. But the reality was she could do none of those things. She was on a sub in the middle of the ocean facing down the most notorious villain of her time. And shit to do before I sleep.
Vallejo uncrossed his legs and slumped back against his cushions, looking as defeated as she felt. He raised both hands and shoved them through his coif. It sprang back into place right after, but not without the casualty of a few errant locks.
“As far as I can tell, they’re done building out their group of elites, the future of the species, the protected class,” he said. “That was the effort I knew most about. My wife, Mageda, was part of phase one. She did a lot of testing and recruiting for the MIST, along with her sister and Zeke and Dan and the old gal, I forget her name. They didn’t share details.”
His words pushed ice pricks against Angela’s memory. She didn’t want to hear Daniel’s voice in her mind, but she could not excise it. Over and over. The child we make together will live forever. She swallowed, got herself together. “So now we’re in phase two?”
“I suppose so. They’re still collecting the technology to maintain themselves indefinitely, hence their interest in the consciousness-transferral process that was used on Mari. With that technology, they can grow clones of themselves and move into new bodies, probably forever, one body after another. They don’t care what that makes them, how it alters their souls. How it ruins their minds.”
He was talking about his daughter, and she suspected he wanted to go on, suspected he wanted to explain his thinking and why he had shot her. Fuck that. Angela didn’t want to hear it. Nothing he could say would change what she thought of him for betraying his own child. And then she thought about what a hypocrite that made her.
“Was the transferral tech their main interest in you?” she asked.
“Well, they were fascinated by my work fabricating mech-clones, but their requests tapered off over the years. Other than the clone-transferral bit, which wasn’t even mine, I honestly can’t tell you, Senator. Maybe it was…” He swiped a palm over his face, shook his head. “Unless they didn’t want my research at all. It is possible they just wanted Heron’s.”