When Joelle opened the closet door, Scout came out still holding Shadow. Daisy stayed in the closet doorway, holding Gert’s leash very near her collar. Her eyes kept darting back to the doorway as if she expected Malcolm to come storming back in there.
“I know who those two are,” Scout said. “They work for the Months.”
“No surprise there,” Joelle said. Then something on her console started to beep, and she ran to plug her headset back in.
“Now what?” Scout asked Tucker.
“I guess Malcolm is asking permission to fire the gun,” Tucker guessed. “But personally, I don’t think he’ll listen if whoever they are says no. This is happening, today. Right now.”
“What can we do to stop it?” Scout asked.
Tucker began, “I can take you to the gun—”
But Daisy spoke over him. “What are you looking at?” she asked, leaving the closet to look at the array of screens all facing Ken.
“The call,” he said. “Here’s the visual. I can give you audio if you’re curious.”
“No, that,” Daisy said, pointing to a screen that just looked like streams of data to Scout.
“That’s my program working to find the source of the call,” he said.
“But Joelle originated the call,” Daisy said.
“There’s a protocol in place. She uses a special program that doesn’t let her see what she’s doing. We don’t really know who we’re calling or where they are,” Ken said.
“You have other recordings, of other messages?” Daisy asked, scanning the data as if she were looking for something specific.
“Tons,” Ken said.
“Incriminating?” she asked.
“Oh yeah,” Ken said. “The hits on the trains, the stockpiling of supplies, lots of stuff about the construction and seizure of the gun.”
“If we could prove who it was, and disseminate that information, would it change things?” Daisy asked.
“I mean, maybe?” Ken said. “It depends.”
“Everyone would know we were being swept up into a mess caused not by three conflicting parties but by one person, either Mai Tajaki or Shi Jian,” Daisy said.
“This would only prove they’re controlling the rebels,” Tucker said.
“The rest is much easier to prove,” Daisy said. “Give me a couple of hours and a computer terminal, and I can remove the scrambling. We’ll see who this is and hear their voice.”
“A couple of hours?” Scout repeated. “We can’t wait that long. We have to get to the gun.”
“No, you don’t need me for that,” Daisy said. “You can handle it.”
“I don’t know anything about guns,” Scout said. “You do. If I still had my AI, maybe, but on my own? I’m next to useless.”
“You’re not useless,” Daisy said at the same moment as Tucker said, “Never.”
Scout bristled as they exchanged a glance and Daisy gave him a little grin. Great, Tucker’s charm had snared her best friend.
“Scout, I have to focus on this,” Daisy said. “I’ll pull out what I need from the government’s systems; those are a piece of cake to get into. Emilie will be doing the same up in orbit. That plus unmasking this person—we need that information.”
“The last info dump I brought to the people only made things worse,” Scout said.
“You need to go now and disable the gun. I need to make sure that after that’s done, no one brings it back online, or drops satellites from space, or does anything without getting to the bottom of every bit of intelligence I’m about to unload on them. They all think they know what’s going on, but none of them has the whole picture. And they aren’t going to believe us without proof.”
Scout sighed and looked to Joelle, who shrugged.
“You should get going,” Joelle said. “It’s a long walk. Tucker will take you.”
“Tucker?” Scout objected.
“Hey,” Tucker said.
“My father will notice if I’m gone. Ken and Bente are prepping their consoles to turn over to Mitch and Kira; they also can’t be gone. It has to be Tucker,” Joelle said.
“Because no one is going to miss Tucker?”
“Not since you left,” Tucker said. “I let you escape. He’s never forgiven me for that.”
“The call is ending,” Ken said, and Joelle shooed Daisy, Scout, and the dogs back inside the closet.
The conference room was a lot closer than wherever they had held the rally; Malcolm was in the room the moment the closet door clicked shut.
“What are you doing, Joelle?” he demanded.
“Looking for a spare cable,” Joelle said, her voice moving away from the closet door. “I need to set up a remote workstation for—”
“Ken, how’s the precheck coming?” Malcolm cut her off.
Scout flinched at the shriek of rage that followed, hugging Shadow tight to keep his whimpers contained.
Daisy dropped to a knee, holding a hand to Gert’s head until the low growls quieted.
“What do you mean you just started?!?” Malcolm bellowed. “You’re meant to be done by now. Done! Are you deliberately trying to sabotage me? Because you know what we do to traitors.”
“Yes, sir,” Ken said.
“Do you want to be shot in the back of the head and pitched off the mountain?”
“No, sir,” Ken said.
“Because you know what? If you make me order it done, it won’t be me that pulls the trigger. It will be Bente. And if she refuses, there will be two bodies to add to the pile at the bottom of the ravine.”
“Yes, sir,” Ken said. The words sounded muffled, like they had a hard time passing a thickness in Ken’s throat. He was holding back a lot of emotions. The trembling quality of his voice said part of it was fear.
Fear, or anger.
Malcolm barked a few more orders and then said, “Mitch and Kira are finishing up another call now. When they get here, I expect they’ll find you ready.”
Ken didn’t bother to answer that time. The loud footsteps faded away down the hall.
Joelle jerked the door open and entered the closet with a stack of equipment that towered over her head. It looked like too much weight for someone her size to carry unless you saw the bulges of her biceps as she hoisted the stack a little higher.
Daisy let Gert go to help Joelle arrange the components and hurried to connect it all before Mitch and Kira arrived.
“I won’t be able to stall the firing sequence,” Ken said. They all pretended not to notice the little sniffle that ended that sentence or the shininess of his eyes. “Mitch will be running it. I can’t risk it.”
“Understood,” Scout said. “Daisy will be safe in the closet?”
“No reason for anyone to go in there,” Joelle said. “If they should need anything in there, they’ll make one of us go get it. She’ll be fine.”
“Don’t worry about me, Scout,” Daisy said, still assembling the components into a makeshift computer station without the console to hold it all in the correct positions.
“I’ve analyzed the gun schematics pretty thoroughly since we got hold of them,” Ken said. “I’m downloading my notes to Tucker’s wrist communicator. But don’t wait for that. Mitch and Kira will be here any minute; you need to be gone.”
“Do you want me to take one of the dogs?” Tucker offered.
“Only if you’re looking to get eaten,” Scout said. But she had to set Shadow on the floor. He moved to stand next to Gert and Scout double-wrapped the leashes around the palm of her hand, just in case of trouble.
“I’ll make contact with Emilie and the others,” Daisy told her. “Give them an update, see what they know.”
“Good,” Scout said.
“Best of luck,” Daisy said, then shut herself up inside the closet.
There was nothing else left to be done. Scout took a deep breath, then looked to Tucker to lead the way. He gave her one of his best smiles, but when she just glared in return, it faded away until he just nodded, then led the way out of the room and further down the side hall at a brisk walk.
How had it happened? How, after all of her promises to herself, had she ended up once more alone with the boy who had betrayed her?