Who would stop him? They weren’t in the United States. They were on a distant continent. No one knew they were here, and there was nothing stopping Vengerov from doing whatever he wanted. Vengerov would find out Tom had been in his head, seen through his eyes. He’d realize Tom was the ghost in the machine he’d been tracking, and when he culled Tom even more, he’d learn that there were two ghosts and Medusa was the other one. Tom would give her away and he knew he couldn’t stop that from happening.
Tom closed his eyes. He couldn’t let that happen. Vik and Wyatt didn’t know about Medusa, so they could surrender. They should surrender.
“Wyatt’s right. We don’t have a choice,” Tom said to them. “Our only way to survive this is to hope Vengerov shows mercy. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it would go this way. Just lie on the floor.”
Tom made a show of lying down, to be sure Wyatt and Vik would do it, too. When they were both down, gazing at the floor, breathing so hard he could see it, Tom eased himself back up to his feet again.
There were a million things he wished he could say to Vik and Wyatt, but he knew even if he tried, he wouldn’t get the words out. They’d all get tangled up in his throat, and his friends would both realize what he was about to do and maybe talk him out of it—and he’d let them persuade him because he didn’t want to do this. He didn’t. It killed him to think he’d gotten them into this; he’d give anything to see them escape. But the only one he could help now was Medusa. He could still send her a message. He could warn her Vengerov was onto her.
But not from within Obsidian Corp.’s walls.
Tom moved softly so his friends wouldn’t notice him creeping backward, his legs shaking as he inched toward the door leading outside. It felt like moving through quicksand. And then he was there, his hand on the chilled doorknob, and Tom knew the clock was running out. He shoved open the door, the wall of overpowering cold like a massive fist striking him. But Tom forced himself outward despite every instinct screaming at him to turn around.
Then he closed the door behind him, trapping himself outside in the punishing, intolerable cold.
For a moment, he stood there, horrified by what he’d done, trapping himself outside, condemning himself. His skin began to freeze as the wind knifed his skull, drove spikes into his eardrums. His neural processor advised him to seek shelter, but Tom knew he would never surrender to the census device if he stayed out there.
His neural processor connected with the roaming server as wind stung tears out of his eyes and froze them on his cheeks, and his ears became pokers burning into his head. A nightmare of the past reared back to life under the pitiless sky cut with vivid stars and a green veil of solar winds as Tom waited to die.
And then something made the stars swim in the sky, and the distortion grew larger and larger above him. For a moment, Tom wasn’t sure what he was seeing, and then a wave of displaced air knocked him backward onto the hard snow, humming throbbing his eardrums as a full Centurion-class drone retracted its camouflaging above his head.
I saw your note, Mordred, Medusa net-sent him. I thought I’d come tell you: not a good idea.
Tom gaped up at Medusa’s drone, too shocked to feel cold for a moment, and he shouted into the wind, “My friends are still trapped inside!”
Immediately, the Centurion swung around, and its weapons flashed at the side of the warehouse, ripping a gaping hole into it. Through the sudden blast of heat, Tom made out Wyatt and Vik on the floor. He saw Vik grab her and they ducked as the drone roared over their heads across the warehouse.
That’s when swarms of Praetorians blasted the wall and poured through the opening. Medusa’s Centurion began firing at them, and Tom charged forward until he reached Vik and Wyatt, his lungs alternately stabbed by heat and cold, and he helped haul them upright and jerked them with him as the lasers of the Praetorians spliced through the night, Medusa’s drone spinning in the air as it fired back. And then Vik and Wyatt were crowding against him, a wall of warmth reaching them as fire consumed the warehouse. Snow and sparks swirled around them as Praetorian after Praetorian was blasted apart.
“T-T-Tom . . . how . . .” Vik said, shivering violently.
And then behind them, another optically camouflaged ship lowered itself onto the snow, passenger compartment popping open, as close as it could get to them without danger.
Vik and Wyatt were frozen in place, but Tom snapped into motion and urged them toward it, knowing their only safety lay inside. They clambered up the steps and stuffed themselves into the crowded little cabin, meant for a crew of two, at most. The windowed compartment sealed up over them.
Tom willed on his net-send thought interface. He had no trouble focusing. Medusa, is the drone still intact? Tom messaged her. Here is Obsidian Corp.’s external defense grid, and here is the supercomputer we need destroyed. . . . He sent her the coordinates he’d found in Obsidian Corp.’s systems, the transmitter they hadn’t managed to get themselves.
Got it.
And the last thing they saw before they jolted up into the atmosphere was a series of warehouses blasting apart.
Done, she sent back.
Antarctica’s icy expanse and Obsidian Corp.’s burning, black mass receded beneath them until they became mere pinpricks.
Tom realized his breath was fogging up the window where he was pressed against it, trying to see. He grew aware of Wyatt’s fingers digging into his arm, Vik’s tense form against his other side. Tom maneuvered around in the tiny space, his legs bundled up against him. Wyatt and Vik’s eyes enormous in the dimness.
“Thank y-you,” Tom said reverently to the air. “You s-saved our lives.”
“W-who are you talking to?” Vik managed.
“I d-don’t understand this,” Wyatt said, shivering.
“C-can I tell?” Tom said. “They can be t-trusted.”
For a long moment, they all three shivered in the thick silence as Tom awaited an answer.
If you’re sure, Medusa replied.
Tom felt almost like he could laugh and cry with the sheer relief of this, another secret sliding off him. He waited until his teeth stopped chattering, just so he could figure out the right words. “Guys, meet Medusa. Sort of. She’s controlling this ship, and that was her drone, too. Medusa, meet Vik and Wyatt. Sort of. They’re my best friends.”
In response, the ship dipped briefly toward the dark waters below them like a salute.
Vik and Wyatt stared at Tom, wide-eyed. They said nothing for so long, Tom began to grow alarmed.
Finally, Wyatt said, “Thank you, uh, Medusa?”
And then Vik said, “This is your secret life again, isn’t it?”
Tom leaned his head back against the glass enclosure with a sheepish smile. “Sort of.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MEDUSA DROPPED THEM off as close to the Pentagon as she dared approach, and Tom, Vik, and Wyatt hitched a very awkward ride into Arlington. The Pentagon City Mall was closed for the night, so they conducted their second stealth operation of the evening. Breaking into Obsidian Corp. had been a tense, life-threatening experience. Breaking into Toddery’s Chicken Barn to access the Pentagon City Mall was another matter.
They could barely repress their giddy laughter as they followed the passage between the mall and the Pentagon, trying to think of the excuse they’d use to explain why they weren’t listed as absent from the Pentagonal Spire. Finally, they decided to just show themselves to the officers on duty, and pretend they’d been caught sneaking out of the Spire, not sneaking in. They all got slapped with a weekend of scutwork duty and restricted libs, but they were ushered back into the Spire and no eyebrows were raised. In an installation filled with teenagers, catching trainees trying to sneak out after curfew wasn’t a notable or unusual event.