Page 116 of Flickerstate

She tenses. Her eyes flick to the exit, maybe gauging how fast I could sprint upstairs and find a cell phone signal.

When she speaks again, her tone has changed. No longer commanding or contemptuous. Pitched to soothe, to convince. “Griffintold me about your father, Norah.”

I stiffen.

“And I’m so sorry. But he’s far from the only person affected by beasts. People are dying everywhere. The Cruciform—”

“Helps the ones who can pay,” I spit. “Like Terry Minter.”

“You don’t understand,” Griffin says desperately. “If Candace died because my dad and I didn’t help her, do you think we could live with it? If your dad died, couldyoulive with it? This is the cure, Norah. The only cure we have.”

Dr. Langmore turns to me. “Where do you think the donations go? Do you think I keep them for myself?”

“I don’t know, lady. That’s a pretty swanky watch.”

She weighs me with her eyes. “This ‘swanky watch’ was a gift from my husband. For our first wedding anniversary. He died a year later. After Highwall’s league crumbled, before we engineered the Cruciform. Three beast-bites. Metastatic cancer. He was forty-two.”

Forty-two. Almost the same age as Dad.

She takes my silence as encouragement. “The donations fund the Academy—fundyoureducation—so that we can train the most promising young navigators, not simply the ones whose parents can afford private school tuition. Almost a quarter of our graduates end up working in beast-response. Academy trainingmatters. And the donations go to developing the Cruciform. It’s an extraordinary device—”

“And so you agreed to a little human sacrifice.” Vik sounds ill. “Jake. Aria. Bree. Students without many resources, so suspiciousparents couldn’t pay private investigators to look into the Academy. Students who were interested in nav research, so—what? So you could trick them down here?”

It’s as if Vik hasn’t spoken. Dr. Langmore keeps talking to me: “Think of what else the Cruciform could accomplish. It could make people into better versions of themselves. Right now, Secretary Tully is driving onto campus in a bulletproof Escalade. In a few hours, he is going to make a speech. A speech that will be televised, recorded, shared. A speech that will encourage our legislature to slash funding for public navigation and beast-response, driving navigators into the private sector, onto security details of men like Tully, who don’t care whether their choices kill men like your father. Now imagine a future where Tully makes a different speech. Where he ignores his teleprompter and listens to his tiny, withered conscience. Where he lobbies Congress formorefunding—for nav education, for beast-response, for us. Imagine futures where the tiny, withered consciences of the politicians he lobbies get too loud forthemto ignore. The Cruciform can make it happen.”

I think about how powerful three-person leaguing felt. How far we saw into the future, how much we could have controlled if we’d tried. And Highwall wanted the Cruciform to replace afive-person league… “Interference,” I say. “You want to use the Cruciform for interference. First to interfere with Tully, and then…a lot of powerful people. On amassive scale.”

Dr. Langmore’s eyes flick from Vik to Candace to me. “Since it seems you three have done some impressive—if possiblyillegal—research into Highwall’s…lesser-known accomplishments, I’ll give you the offer I gave Mr. Minter. Help me with, ah, recruiting and logistics, and in exchange, I help you. With whatever you desire.”

Whatever I desire.

The machine could cure Dad.

It could cure me.

But Miura died. Jake died. And Bree…

“Highwall wanted to dismantle the machine,” I say. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m reminding myself.

“Highwall was an egomaniac, but she wasn’t a psychopath,” Vik adds, glaring at Dr. Langmore. “Unlike you. Now we’re going to take Bree down from there, and then we’re going to take that thing apart.”

“Mr. Davis, Griffin, persuade them,” Dr. Langmore says dismissively and turns to the machine.

I expect Griffin to talk: point out again that the Cruciform saved Candace’s life, maybe, or bring up Secretary Tully and my dad.

Instead, he faces us, expression sick and grim. His eyes go vague—the telltale vagueness of a navigator entering flickerstate. So do Mr. Davis’s.

Dr. Langmore saidpersuade. She meantinterfere.

“Occlude!” I yell.

I trust Vik and Candace to protect us from Mr. Davis and Griffin. I’ve got to trust them, because I don’t have time to worry about them dueling not only a teacher but also an Archive trialwinner—and, apparently, Dr. Langmore’s secret special protégé—while they’re worn out from leaguing.

When I slalom around Griffin toward the Cruciform, Dr. Langmore stands guard. “Ms. Sullivan,” she says like it’s an ordinary afternoon in nav clinic. “Think this through. What happened to Dr. Miura during prototype development was unfortunate but not—”

“Was his death even an accident?” I interrupt. “Or did you see a chance to knock off a guy who disagreed with you and bring Highwall around to your way of thinking about interference?”

“The Cruciform’s original prototype was dangerous, but I’ve improved the design since then. It doesn’t kill if you know how to use it,” she says. Which isn’t an answer.