Just then, my phone rang.
KATE—CELL
“Yep. I guess I will,” I told Rachel, already standing up. “Hey, I’ll catch up with you guys later.” I answered the call as soon as I stepped away from the table, keeping my voice low as I passed a group of faculty members by the frozen-yogurt machine.
“Where have you been?” North demanded as soon as the call connected. “I’ve been calling you all day. When I lost you last night, I called right back, but it went straight to voicemail.”
“A lot has happened,” I said quietly. “I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. Can I meet you at your place in ten minutes?”
“Of course. I’m there now. Are you okay?”
“I will be,” I told him, and hung up. Then I slipped my Gemini under the napkin on my tray and dumped both into the trash.
“They think they’re gods?” North’s voice was incredulous. “Actual deities?”
“‘Gods among men’ was what the serpent said. He didn’t get into technicalities.”
“And they think they’re re-creating Eden?”
“Their version of it, anyway. A society where they decide what’s best for everyone. The Eden. A.k.a. Theden. This didn’t start with SynOx, North. They’ve been at this for centuries. Hyperion is just their endgame.”
North rubbed at his eyes. “This is seriously messed up, Rory. And your mom was one of these people?”
I shook my head. “I thought she was, but Liam checked their roster and her name’s not on it.”
“So she was trying to expose them.”
I nodded. “That’s the only thing that makes sense. Those files on the necklace were her evidence. But someone found out what she was doing and she got scared. I think that’s why she left Theden.”
“But why not tell Griffin? If she needed to disappear, he could’ve gone with her.”
“Maybe she was protecting him. If the Few are as powerful as I think they are, the less he knew, the better.”
“The Few. Is that what they call themselves?”
I nodded. “Short for ‘The Wise Few.’ The official name is Greek.”
“Because the rest of us are imbeciles,” North spat. He shook his head in disgust. “And until last night, you wanted to be one of them?”
“I thought they were the good guys,” I said, defensive.
North gave me a reproving look. “Good guys don’t wear masks and hooded robes and do things in the dark, Rory.”
My eyes dropped to my hands. He was right. But I’d felt so honored to have been chosen. I had gotten caught up in it. North tapped his tablet screen, where he’d pulled up the list of names he’d retrieved from the thumb drive. “So all these people are members?”
I nodded. “That’s what the Greek letter/number combinations mean. It’s their society name and the year they were initiated.”
Instinctively, my hand went to my clavicle, but of course the pendant wasn’t there. “Where is it?” North asked.
“Tarsus took it,” I told him. “Last night, while I was passed out. I think it’s actually hers,” I said. “Or was at some point. Upsilon is her society name.”
“Could she have given it to your mom?” North asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s possible, I guess.” It was hard to fathom that Tarsus could’ve been helping my mom. But someone had to have given her those files. “Hey, you said there was a third file,” I said, remembering. “What was it?”
“A wedding photo,” North said gently. “Your mom and Griffin.”
Something inside me hardened, bracing against the flood of emotion I was barely holding back. No. I couldn’t let myself feel this. Not until I’d done what I was planning to do. So I pressed my lips together and gave my head a firm shake. I didn’t want to see it. The look in North’s eyes told me he understood. I reached for his hand and squeezed it.
North took my hand and gently tugged it, pulling me forward so our bodies were almost touching, and then he cupped my face in his hands. They smelled like espresso and nutmeg. “I could’ve lost you last night,” he said softly.
“I know. But you didn’t.”
“You took such a risk.” He traced the line of my jaw with his thumbs.
“I had to,” I said. “I couldn’t take their oath. Pledging my life to their vision. Renouncing the Doubt.” I shook my head slightly. “I couldn’t do it. But I couldn’t just refuse, either. I knew they wouldn’t let me walk out of there knowing what I know.”
“So now what?” he asked. “You tell them you don’t want to join and hope they’re cool with it?”
“No.” I lifted my chin from his hands and leaned back. “They have to believe that I still want in. It’s the only way they’ll let me back into the tomb.”
“Back into the tomb?” North was apoplectic. “Rory, you just said you think these people are dangerous. Why would you go back?”
My response was matter-of-fact. “If we want to expose them, we need more than a couple of documents. We need video proof.” This was my plan. It terrified me, especially since there was no way to live-stream the initiation—the tomb was a dead zone. I’d have to make it out with the footage to have anything at all.
North started to shake his head. “Rory, no. It’s too—”
“North. I think these people killed my mom.” It was the first time I’d said it out loud. I hadn’t really let myself think it, really think it, until right that second.
“And what do you think is going to happen to you if they find out you’re recording them?”
“They won’t find out.” I sounded certain, but I wasn’t. Even if I managed to get the footage, how would I get out of the tomb without taking their vows a second time?
“Okay, so let’s say you get them on tape. What does it prove? You said everyone is wearing masks, so you can’t see their faces.”
“At least people will know the Few exist.”
“Rory, you post a video like that and one of two things will happen. Either Gnosis will get rid of it as soon as it goes live, or someone will take ownership of it and say it was a fake. We’re talking about the company that controls virtually all the technology we use. From GoSearch to Forum to Lux. They control the medium, so they control the message.”
“So we attack the technology, then,” I argued. “Forget exposing the Few. We’ll dismantle Project Hyperion. Shut down Lux.”
“And how are we going to do that?”
“I dunno. A virus or something.”
“A virus like that would take weeks to build. And even if I could miraculously write some supervirus overnight, there’s no way we could get it through Gnosis’s firewall.”
“Okay, so we’ll turn off the nanobots, then.”
North shook his head. “I’ve studied every word of that memo. There’s only one mention of how to deactivate ‘ferrous nanobots,’ the kind they used, and that’s with a cerebral MRI. So unless we can come up with a way to convince half a billion people to go get their brains magnetized, I think we’re out of luck on that front.”
I squeezed my eyes shut in frustration. “So we’ll think of something else. People are literally addicted to their handhelds, North. As long as they’ve got a Gold on their wrists, they’ll trust whatever that little box says. Who knows what the Few are planning to do with these people’s lives!”
“I know,” North said with a sigh. “And I’m with you. I’m just trying to be realistic here.”
“Ugh!” Tears sprung to my eyes as I plopped down on the couch. “I feel so powerless.”