Sixty-four

 

Flint double- and triple-checked the information in front of him. He couldn’t get past the feeling that he had missed something. He used this time when the links were down to review everything he and the others had done.

His neck ached. So did his back. He hadn’t moved for hours. His eyes burned because he sometimes forgot to blink.

He had also ordered the techs in the room to review their information. Goudkins had started reviewing information as well, because she couldn’t communicate with the Alliance at the moment.

DeRicci paced, clearly too distracted to think about anything else. Flint thought that was all right, because she wasn’t the best with information gathering.

He hadn’t found any clones that his system had missed, so he couldn’t quite figure out where this odd feeling came from. He had dispatched some security guards in this building to the first floor because one Peyti lawyer had arrived with a delegation from Moscow Dome, trying to extort some nonexistent money out of the United Domes of the Moon. That Peyti lawyer had been a clone.

The guards were supposed to move him to a different section of the building and then change the environment in that area. The fact that nothing had exploded yet probably meant the capture of the Peyti clone had been successful.

But Flint still couldn’t figure out the cause of his unease. Clearly his eye had seen something that registered with his subconscious, but not with his conscious brain. His main concern was always Armstrong, so he decided to go through its files first.

And then he found it:

A Peyti lawyer—a Peyti clone of Uzvekmt—had entered the Aristotle Academy about the point when Flint had dropped off Talia. The lawyer worked for one of the most respected firms in Armstrong.

Flint had seen a crowd of people surrounding that kid who had started the melee the day before. Maybe that crowd hadn’t been handlers for the father, like Flint had assumed, but lawyers.

Lawyers trying to protect something, or do something, or change something.

He wished the links were open, the networks were open, the information system was open. Because he needed to hack into the law firm right now and see if Kaleb Lamber’s father was a client.

Hell, Flint needed to get in touch with Talia, right now. She had to get out of that building.

He tapped the computer screen, shutting down the program.

“I gotta go,” he said to DeRicci.

She looked at him as if his words made no sense. “Go where?” she asked.

“One of the lawyers is at Aristotle Academy,” Flint said. “With Talia.”

Goudkins looked up, so did a few of the other techs.

“You can’t go anywhere, Miles,” DeRicci said. “It’s not safe.”

“It’s not safe for her,” he said.

“If something had exploded, the dome would have sectioned,” DeRicci said. “It hasn’t. She’s all right. You have to trust that this will get taken care of. It’s in your files, right?”

“That’s how I found it,” Flint said.

“Then someone is on it,” DeRicci said. “You have to trust them.”

“It’s my daughter,” he said, and pushed past a pile of techs. He had to get out of here. He had to make sure she was all right.

He reached the door when he heard DeRicci behind him.

“I’m going to section the dome right on schedule,” she said. “Make sure you’re nowhere near one of the dividers.”

Permission to leave. As if he needed that.

“When, exactly?” he asked. He couldn’t remember. It seemed like everything had left his mind when he discovered Talia was in danger.

“Six minutes from now.”

He set one of his internal alarms. When he got in the car, he would make sure he avoided the divider.

But he also had to figure out if he could get to Aristotle Academy fast enough to be in the correct section with Talia.

He ran out the door and down the hall, avoiding guards, avoiding people who looked both panicked and busy and lost without their links. He pulled open the stairwell and took the stairs down three at a time.

It would be a push to get to the correct section of the dome before the dividers came down.

But he would do it, no matter what.