There’s got to be another way. Corina feels it to me, but she also feels something else. There’s no other way. She’s torn and her conflict fights in my head just like my own.
“Come with me.” I feel the question as deeply as I can.
Anxiety pulses. Fear.
Then actual words: “Sybil said I would die if I did.”
She sounds exactly like my Voice, words skywritten with clouds on the inside of my ears. My heart pounds.
“We need a plan.” Cassandra can’t hear the conversation between Corina and me. She doesn’t know she’s interrupting, but I’m annoyed anyway.
“I need to destroy the compound and kill Sabazios,” I say.
“How, brainiac?” Cassandra rolls her eyes. “You’re gonna go in and overpower the compound with your death grip and bad breath?”
Sal speaks up. “Getting in won’t be that hard—he’ll rewrite people beforehand. If he can make me pick my nose, he can get a guard to open a door and tell him where to go.”
Corina brightens immediately, warm to the idea. “Sal’s right—it can’t be harder than making strangers give you their credit cards.” Hearing her voice outside my head clutters the memory of how she sounds inside. Even with the clutter, though, I have trouble not thinking the thought that’s bubbling just below the surface.
I force myself to focus on the issue at hand. We talk it through. When I get there, I dive. I find the guards and make them want to be helpful to us. Corina will work with me in the Syllogos.
Once we’re inside, we’ll locate Sabazios and the witnesses.
“How’re you going to . . . ?” Erica doesn’t finish the question. Nobody wants to finish the question.
You’ve already done it. “I don’t know yet, but Sybil gave me this thing.” I pull out the foil package and hold it up. “So I think I’ll know what to do when the time comes.”
“And I’ll be watching over things from here to help out,” Corina adds. “So he’s not going to be relying just on his own brains.” She taps her head. “He’ll have mine, too.”
“And that’s going to do it? That’ll be the end of it if you . . . ?” Erica sits forward. “I mean, when you’re done we can all go home? It’ll be safe?” There’s something hidden in her words, only found in the way she says them. She doesn’t think I’m coming back.
I look at Corina, who shrugs. Cassandra starts to nod her head slowly. “I think so.”
“That’s what Sybil said. Without the compound and without Sabazios, their plan fails.”
“It makes sense,” Sal says. “We were locking in Live-Tech, so without it the Locusts won’t be able to invade fast enough to win.”
“Especially if we get the word out.”
“Word’s out, dude.” Cassandra waves her hand. “Watching Jordan Castle get bug-bit on national TV pretty much did the job—people are going to be ready to fight if they need to.”
“Now we just need them to get the message about Live-Tech,” Corina adds. “How do we do that?”
“I have someone,” I tell them. “Someone who can get the word out.” I tell them about my emails with the reporter in LA.
“You’re gonna need evidence,” Sal says.
“I’ll get some,” I promise.
“So that’s it, then? The plan?” Corina asks. “I stay here and glide. Alex goes there and glides. We use Sybil’s thingie to do whatever it does, and then Alex grabs some evidence of some sort on his way out?” She sounds skeptical.
“Pretty much.”
“And we’re really going to be okay with . . .” Corina swirls her hand in the air. She’s thinking about Paul, about Maddie, others I never met. “We’re okay with killing them? The witnesses?”
Nobody says anything. I try to catch Sal’s eye, but he looks away. So does Erica.
So does Corina.
“We’re gonna have to, aren’t we?” Cassandra says. “If we don’t, they’re all going to die in a few months anyways, along with everyone else.” Even she doesn’t sound as sure as her words.
Corina’s still looking down, but she nods. Sal is holding Erica’s hand. He’s looking at her knuckles.
“I think we have to,” I say eventually, hiding my doubt from everybody but Corina.
“Alex?” A word. Her voice in my head chases away everything else. Its sound is . . .
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Sal blows out a breath. “But, fuck . . .”
We’re all quiet for a minute, then Erica speaks up. “Somebody’s got to go with Alex. He can’t go under without somebody nearby to watch his back.”
We all look at each other. I look at Sal. I can hear his fear. I hear Erica, more afraid of Sal going than of going herself. Then Corina’s sounds grow dark and weird.
She knows who it’s going to be, and she doesn’t like it.
The words come through clearly, like she’s speaking in my head. Like she’s my Voice, with the same nearly knowable overtones: “Jesus, not her.”
I start to shake my head, to tell her that she’s wrong, but I know she’s right. Cassandra is the only one who doesn’t mind going. She’s excited.
Again, Corina’s voice in my head. Again, she sounds exactly . . .
Corina catches my eye. I’m working hard to keep myself blank, but I feel Corina notice that I’m not okay.
“Yeah,” Cassandra says with a shrug. “I’ll go.”
I nod. I sense Sal’s and Erica’s relief. For the first time, I wish Corina were not in my mind. I can’t let myself think with her inside.
And I cannot acknowledge what I now know for a fact: Corina and my Voice are the same. My Voice is everywhere, in the Syllogos.
She’s untethered.
Untethered witnesses are dead witnesses.