I clink mine against his. “To Lady Liberty.”
We drink, and I stare at the city, thinking about how few people have seen it from this exact angle. Then, I think about the files Bayo is still decrypting and what Mank thinks about the intel I’ve given him. I think about Kozlov’s trafficking pipeline feeding bodies into Global Dynamix labs. And I think about the man sitting next to me, who might not have any idea what his company really does.
“You’re awfully quiet,” Nate says, his voice soft.
“Just taking it in.”
“Taking in what, exactly?” His voice is gentle, but his eyes are sharp. “You’ve been quiet all week. Short texts. Missed calls. I figured you were pulling away.”
I was. I am. I have to.
“You’ve been pulling away too,” I point out.
“I haven’t had a choice.”
Right. He doesn’t have a choice.
“Well, I’ve had a lot on my mind,” I say carefully. “The article. Deadlines.”
“The article.” He sets down his glass. “Right. The article about me. The one where you dig into my life and write it all down for strangers to read.” There’s no accusation in his tone, but I flinch anyway. “I keep forgetting that’s why you’re here.”
Oh, fuck. If you only knew…
“Nate—”
“I’m not angry. I’m just…” He trails off, staring out at the water, at the taxis plying it, making the reflected lights sparkle. “I don’t know who I am anymore. That’s the problem. But hey, maybe when I read the article, I can get a good idea. See how I look through your eyes.”
The opening is right there. The chance to push, to probe, to extract information about his mental state, his doubts, his vulnerabilities. This is what I’m trained for. This is the job.
“You look amazing in my eyes,” I tell him. I take in a steady breath. “What do you mean you don’t know who you are anymore?”
He’s quiet for a long moment. When he speaks, his voice is gravel.
“During the calibration, I saw something. A man—mustache, white coat, looking at me like I was a mistake. Julia says it was a hallucination, but she’s lying. I can always tell when she’s lying.”He picks up his glass, turns it in his hands. “And there’s more. I probably shouldn’t tell you this, and this is definitely off the record, but…”
I lean forward, holding my breath. “Yes? What?”
“I learned the government wants to use me against domestic threats. ‘Peacekeeping,’ Julia calls it. But we both know what that really means. Marsh even met with the Secretary of Defense about it.”
My heart is pounding now. Every instinct I have is telling me to push harder, dig deeper, find out what he knows about everything, but I pull back.
“What do you want to do?” I ask.
He looks at me surprised, like no one’s ever asked him that before. I’m starting to think no one ever has.
“Me?”
“Yeah. What do you want to do? What doyouwant?”
He rubs his lips together, his eyes searching my face, as if to check if I’m earnest.
“I want to be a person,” he finally says, the words calm and quiet. “Not a symbol. Not an asset. Not a weapon they point at whatever target serves their everchanging interests.” He sets down the glass. “I want to make my own choices. I want to know who I am when I’m not being what they made me.”
“You’re you,” I say. “The you who’s sitting here now. The you I saw in Montana. That scared yet brave little boy who chose to protect his sister and then never stopped protecting. That’s you, Nate Whitaker—a man of his own free will and one who still gets to choose.”
“Do I?” His laugh is hollow, my words bouncing off him. “Sometimes, I’m not sure. Sometimes, I feel things, this darkness, and I don’t know if they’re mine or just programming. The calibrations mess with my head, make the line between who I am and what they want me to be harder to find.”
I reach for his hand, both to comfort him and steady myself, because I really need him to find that damn line.
