Page 106 of Cage of Starlight
What a fool he is, to cling to things that could break him.
“Tory, hey. You hearing what I’m saying?”
He shakes his head, taste of blood still sharp on his tongue. “Huh?”
“I can take your Core out today. We know you’ve been worrying about it.”
Tory jerks from his haze. Shit, does she know what he and Sena did on the battlefield? Is that why Riese made him leave Sena behind?
He spins to face her, searching her eyes . . . and finds nothing. Just the quirk of her plum-dark lips.
“Why didn’t you tell us before?We were pissing ourselves wondering if—”
“Shhhh.” A cold finger settles on his mouth. “Everything in time. Riese didn’t know if you would betray the group. He wanted to watch you, see if you’d be a good fit.”
“And if we weren’t? You’d just let them disable our Cores?”
A pang.Five days.
Riese chuckles. “We live in a world where everyone wants to kill us. A little ruthlessness doesn’t go amiss. You think nice people spearhead revolutions? If they do, you think they live to see the other side of them?”
He’s right. Of course he’s right. Nothing comes without a cost.
Helner interrupts. “Anyway, it’s messy. I don’t have good lighting here, barely have passable instruments. Even in carefully supervised removals, we can lose more than 10% of patients. Thisisn’tcarefully supervised.”
“What are my chances?”
“I’m no slouch. I’d give you 80%.”
A one in five chance of death.
“You don’thaveto have it removed,” Riese says from the corner where he’s shifting boxes and sorting through papers.
Tory scoffs. “I really think I do.”
Riese stands bolt upright, brandishing a stack of pages. “Found it!” He covers the distance with sure strides, navigating the mess of the tent with effortless grace. Backlit by lamplight, his unbound hair is a conflagration. “Youdon’tneed your Core removed, and I’ll tell you why.”
Helner stands. “That’s my cue to go. I’m all about plausible deniability. I don’t want any part in this if it crashes and burns. If it does, that awful place needs at leastoneperson interested in limiting casualties. Can’t stay gone too long or they’ll notice. I’ve irritated Kirlov enough that he won’t ever seek me out of his own free will, but better safe than sorry. Be back soon.”
Riese waves her away. “I asked Travin to take care of something, but he’ll ’port you back as soon as he’s free.”
When she’s gone, Riese drops a series of maps and documents on the table. “This,” he says, “is our plan.” The document on top bears a stamp he recognizes as the letterhead for the Compound. It was on Tory’s deployment papers.
“What’s all this?”
“It nearly bankrupted us, but this is one of many bits of information we’ve bought from Yized. Read it.”
The contents of the letter are simple, detailing the process by which Cores are tracked and how the information is backed up:
Simple stuff. Overload the stellite security core and the compasses in the Monitor Room and the Cores will be useless. Without the compasses, no one could track or disable the Cores, and without the Security Core that’s been fed a drop of blood from every person within the facility, the security measures that allow only employees and Core-bearing Seeds to travel freely inside the Compound would be inactive.
It includes a postscript, marked with a mocking smiley face.I say this because you paid me to tell you, not because I think you could do it.
Stapled to the back, a map.
As requested. Have fun.
He examines it, finds the circled area markedMonitor Roomin red ink.
