Page 39 of Thorne
Every answer leads to another missing piece.
The work feels impossible.
But impossible is not the same thing as optional.
The only reason I'm still breathing is because the men in this room believe I can reconstruct the list of patients who received ML-273 before Phoenix reaches them.
If I fail, my usefulness disappears.
And if my usefulness disappears, so do I.
So I work.
Thorne stays in his chair across the table, an immovable weight in my peripheral vision. The scratch of the pen on paper is the only sound I allow myself to acknowledge.
I reconstruct the system one decision at a time, writing the logic out on the inside of my skull the way I would diagram code across a whiteboard. Each node leads to the next. Each rule generates the branch that follows it.
When a memory refuses to surface, I don't wait for it. I rebuild the algorithm that produced it. If the structure is correct, the missing pieces will fall into place.
They always do.
Hours pass without my noticing.
The ventilation hum becomes background noise. The concrete walls disappear. Even the awareness that I'm locked in a building sealed off from the outside world fades beneath the work.
Hours later, I'm sitting in the same position, elbows braced on my knees, the architecture of the system slowly reassembling itself inside my head.
I don't look up, and I don't stop.
Because if this task is impossible, then impossible is what I'll solve.
10
The Team
THORNE
The airin the hub is a pressurized soup of ozone and scorched coffee, but the silence from the corner where Stratton sits is what really grates. She's been in that chair for hours, her head bowed, her hand moving in those small, tight circles as she unspools the architecture of a global catastrophe. She hasn't asked for water. She hasn't asked for a break. She hasn't even shifted her weight.
It's the behavior of a machine, or a martyr. Neither sits well with me.
Ghost catches my eye from across the stainless steel island. He doesn't say a word, but he jerks his chin toward the back corner of the industrial kitchen, a space partially shielded from the common room by a heavy floor-to-ceiling shelving unit stocked with tactical crates.
"Halo. Thorne. Briefing. Now." Ghost's low voice carries that commanding tone that doesn't invite a debate.
I don't move immediately. I look at Stratton. She doesn't even flinch at the sound of his voice. She's lost in the numbers, her spine as rigid as a rebar spike.
"Whisper, you're on the asset." I look toward the corner, my voice dropping to a gravelly rumble.
Whisper doesn't answer with words. He just shifts his stool, the legs scraping softly against the epoxy floor, and repositions himself so he has a clear line of sight on the back of her head. He rests his cleaning cloth on his knee, his hand hovering near the grip of his sidearm. He's a ghost in the shadows, silent and absolute.
I follow Ghost and Halo into the kitchen alcove. The transition from the open hub to this cramped, tile-lined space feels like stepping into a cold room. My mother is already there, leaning against the counter near a massive industrial percolator. She looks tired, the lines around her eyes deeper in the harsh fluorescent light, but her presence is the only thing keeping the air from feeling entirely tactical.
"Lily is settled with grandpa." Martha's voice is a quiet rumble that cuts through the hum of the servers. "I finally got her settled in the back bedroom. She wore herself out with that dinosaur."
I nod, a tight knot of tension in my chest loosening just a fraction. I don't want Lily anywhere near this conversation. I don't want her in the same zip code as the words we're about to say.
"Talk." I meet Ghost's steady gaze.
