‘Somehow I doubt that,’ she said.
DC shot her a piercing stare. ‘You were part of Project Phoenix long before you were part of Project GATE,’ he said. ‘Denton had been sending for blood samples when you’d never even met him. He had four candidates, including you. After Project Phoenix collapsed, all four of you were inducted into Project GATE.’
‘But only I survived.’
She remembered. The glass cubicles next to each other; Denton watching. The shivering, moaning. The girl collapsing, vomiting on the floor. The hot lumps across the boy’s skin. They turned black, oozed pus, blood. She remembered screaming, her hands clawing the cubicle door. The bodies of the children crumpled, soaked wine red.
‘You’re the lucky one,’ she whispered, reciting his words.
‘The Phoenix virus has a few perks too. The host is resistant to plagues, flu, other sickness, those brought on by other comet-borne viruses,’ DC said. ‘The other three test subjects died as part of the test to determine who was a real carrier. Which ones just had a special ability like every other Project GATE test subject, and who actually harbored the Phoenix virus.’
‘And then the real testing began,’ Sophia said.
‘With Dr Cecilia McLoughlin,’ he said. ‘But she only ever knew of one Phoenix. Denton never told her there were three. None of this matters now, of course. The Fifth Column has reached a consensus. Denton will need to die.’ He stood upright and pushed off the rail car. ‘That’s everything I know.’
‘Not quite.’ She turned to face him. ‘Why did you betray me?’
He looked at her for a moment, a long moment. She wasn’t even sure if he would respond.
‘It wasn’t about you,’ he said.
‘Seems everything else is.’ She stepped from the rail car and stood in the center of the tracks. ‘I can’t tell you how stupid I feel, trusting you like I did.’
DC seemed almost suspended in the darkness. He stood in silence, partly facing her yet partly not. ‘Whatever you feel, I feel worse,’ he said.
She almost laughed, but his words carried pain. She breathed it in and it felt like her own. For an instant she felt sorry for him, but warmth washed over her. It burned her ears and fingertips. She took two long strides toward him and had to suppress the urge to hit him.
‘Cecilia was this close to giving me a hit of the anti-Chimera vector and you did nothing,’ she said. ‘I was seconds away from becoming a robot soldier, a psychopath just like Denton.’ The words came from her mouth in a low growl. ‘Do you know who saved me?’
DC stared at her. He probably didn’t even know the answer.
‘Denton saved me!’ she yelled. ‘Fucking Denton!’ She pushed past him and paced the tracks. ‘Of all the people to stop me becoming … like that, it was him.’ She felt her cheeks burn. ‘There was a moment there where the thing I hated most in the world was you.’
She watched the quiver on his face. She hoped it hurt. She wanted it to hurt. She wanted him to feel guilty. But he just stood there, a shadow in the tunnel.
‘Say something,’ she said.
‘I don’t need to,’ he said, softly.
She swallowed. He looked tired, sad. And she could feel it. It made her sick inside.
He extended his hand. ‘You can feel it, can’t you?’
She reached out to touch the tips of his fingers.
‘You’re the Detector.’
Her phone buzzed. She dug into her pocket to fish it out.
Got it doing back now
The message was from N, which she figured Aviary had labeled as Nasira’s iPhone. And she guessed coming had autocorrected to doing, what with Nasira’s lack of smartphone experience.
‘Wait, how do I have reception?’ Sophia wondered aloud.
DC shrugged. ‘That’s good, right?’
Sophia attempted to reply. Copy tgat autocorrected to Copy that. She hit the send button and her message bubble appeared. She noticed the label underneath: Read 10:37pm. Good, at least she knew Nasira — or at least someone holding Nasira’s phone — had read her message.
In response, an image popped up of the Grand Central terminal blueprints. Aviary had sent it. Sophia made it fullscreen and showed DC. The phone’s backlight almost blinded him, but he took the phone and inspected it closely.
‘That’s good,’ he said, pinching and swiping to get his bearings. ‘Aha. I think I know where to go.’
He handed the phone back to her.
Another message.
Standby movement on dining concourse
Sophia wanted to just speak with Nasira, but it didn’t sound like she was in a position to talk. That Phoenix or DARPA mind-reading stuff would’ve been great right now. They could’ve just sent thoughts to each other. Then again, that would still be limited by range.
She checked the operative map overlay. A dot appeared. Very close to her current location. She froze.
DC was watching her intently. ‘What?’
She put a finger on her lips and showed him the phone again.
‘One operative,’ she said in the quietest voice she could manage.
‘Not moving,’ he said, dropping his voice to match.
‘There for a reason,’ she said. ‘But what?’
DC snatched the phone from her. ‘I think I know.’
She watched him take the blueprint and use it as an overlay. He adjusted the size until it matched the satellite image of Grand Central, then toggled back to street view so he could see things more clearly. He zoomed in, adjusted the blueprint a fraction more and then double-tapped the operative. The phone zoomed all the way in.
He handed her the phone. ‘That’s where Denton is,’ he said. ‘If they were hunting for us there’d be more than one. That operative is with him.’
‘We need to check it out,’ she said. ‘But we have to wait for Nasira and Aviary.’
DC’s jaws set hard. ‘We really don’t have time,’ he said.
‘They just need to wait until it’s clear.’
‘There’s an entire squadron of Blue Berets between us and them,’ DC said quietly. ‘That squadron could be patrolling, it could be static, it could break into fire-teams. If we wait—’
‘We improve our odds,’ Sophia said.
DC raised an eyebrow. ‘Nasira is just one more operative. And your hacker explosives friend too.’
‘Recon it,’ Sophia said. ‘Then we pull back and decide.’
He nodded. ‘Assuming we have the luxury of a decision.’
Chapter 28
The Grand Central terminal’s sub-basement was a control center from another era. The air was warm and musty and the ceiling lights were sparse, accompanied by a sagging American flag. The walls of the long, narrow sub-basement were gilded with banks of machinery and switchboards Sophia wasn’t entirely sure still operated. DC led her through the labyrinthine space until they reached what looked like a giant metal hamster’s ball.
‘The old rotary converter,’ DC said. ‘Used to supply power to the trains. Hitler even targeted it once.’
‘Where’s this OSS base of yours?’ Sophia said.
‘It’s not mine,’ he said, taking a sharp left.
She followed him through to a much narrower corridor, the ceiling crowded with a dozen pipes. Occasional lamps glowed like lone fireflies. It was warmer down here.
‘Why did they build this place?’ Sophia said.
‘Originally it was a clandestine operations center for the OSS,’ DC said. ‘After the war, things shifted a little.’