Page 11 of Thorne
A warning I want to carry out.
The command tent is forty feet away. Ghost has the field table up, Halo's tablet is running, and Brass is already seated. Ghost's face has the texture it gets when he's been doing triage for hours: flat, efficient, already past the question ofwhetherand into the question ofhow.
"I've briefed Forest Summers." Ghost begins the briefing. "This is bigger than Cerberus can run alone—we need Guardian HRS resources, specifically their science infrastructure." A pause. "ML-273 is the immediate problem. We don't know what it does. The researchers who developed the compound are dead. We have Stratton, but nothing else. Guardian HRS is assembling a team—biochemists, research MDs, pharmacologists. Skye will coordinate. She and Forest will meet us at the next facility."
"I started searching. Meridian Pharmaceuticals ran distribution through dozens and dozens of regional trial coordinators." Halo's eyes don't lift from the screen. "Pediatric compassionate-use program. Experimental immune recovery, post-oncology." Halo doesn't look up from the tablet. "Filing architecture is encrypted. I don't have the key. Brute-force will take weeks." A beat. "We need Stratton."
"The number." Ghost's gray eyes meet mine, dark with a grim reality. "It's going to be larger than we want it to be."
The back of my neck is tight. I keep my hands flat on my thighs.
"There's a more immediate problem." Ghost's eyes come to mine. He holds there. "We've confirmed CHOP was one of the trial institutions." Ghost lets that land. He doesn't say Lily's name. He doesn't have to.
Something in my chest goes very quiet. The quiet before a round.
"The problem …" Ghost's voice drops. "Phoenix took Stratton to Ghostwater. Kept her there for days. That tells us something—Phoenix is afraid of what she knows, or afraid of what she can do with it. Either way, she's a target. Phoenix has fragments still active in the cloud—Halo's been tracking them since Hard Lock. Scattered, but coordinating. Getting stronger."
He is still looking at me. "We have to keep Stratton dark. Off-grid. Lead-lined construction throughout—electromagneticisolation, full Faraday cage. Any signal coming in goes dark at the perimeter. Phoenix can't reach her, can't reach anyone inside. It's the only place we control what gets in."
The map on the table. A point on the map. Seattle-adjacent.
The recognition of a wall I can build settles into the space where the teeth have been.
"What about Lily?" A cold edge enters my voice. "Do we know what Phoenix can do with this drug?"
"No idea." Halo leans back, cracks his knuckles, and stretches. "But the only way it can reach her is with one of its kill teams, if it even still has access to those, or …" He waves vaguely at the air. His meaning immediate.
"The facility can hold civilians." Ghost holds my gaze. "If those fragments of Phoenix can interact, putting Lily in the Faraday cage could be protective. Your call, though, because Stratton will be there."
"Understood." It isn't a call. It's the only math that works. "When do we move?"
3
Proximity
THORNE
"Two hours."Ghost looks around the tent. "Convoy. Brass will guard Stratton."
"I've got that." I look at the table. "There's no way I'm letting Stratton out of my sight."
"You sure about that?"
"Absolutely."
"Okay. Bring her in." Ghost pinches the bridge of his nose. We're all operating on fumes.
I do an about-face and march to where I left her. She's still there—same chair, same posture, that same impossible stillness. She hears me come in and doesn't flinch. Doesn't turn. Just waits, like she has all the time in the world and none of it belongs to her.
I grab her arm and haul her to her feet.
She comes up fast—faster than I account for, lighter than she looks—and she stumbles on the camp chair and pitches forward. For one second, she's against me. Her shoulder hits my chest. Her bound hands catch on my forearm. Her weight, all of it, leans into me for the half-second before her feet find the ground.
In that half-second, something happens in my body that has nothing to do with my brain.
My hand moves to her hip to steady her.
It's a reflex. My hand is there before I've decided anything. She's upright. I have her hip. Her shoulder is three inches from my face. She smells like the holding cell, like exhaustion, like something underneath both of those things that I'm not going to catalog.
