“Breaking news this hour: Conrad Marsh, CEO of tech conglomerate Global Dynamix, has been found dead at a company facility in New Jersey. Details are scarce, but sources say Marsh was discovered early yesterday morning. Authorities are treating his death as an accident.”
I turn up the volume. Mia sits up beside me, her eyes fixed on the screen.
“—no official statement from Global Dynamix yet, though the company’s stock has plummeted in pre-market trading. Marsh, who took the helm of the defense giant in 2032, wasa controversial figure known for his close ties to the previous administration?—”
“They’re not mentioning you,” Mia says quietly.
She’s right. The report goes on for another five minutes—Marsh’s biography, his business dealings, speculation about who might succeed him, all people I haven’t heard of—but there’s no mention of Vanguard. No mention of an attack on the facility, or that the death seemed suspicious, or even what kind of an accident it was. No mention of a foreign operative or a manhunt.
And no mention of Julia.
“They know they’re losing control.” Mia pulls the blanket tighter around her shoulders. “If they announce that Marsh was killed, and it wasn’t an accident, then the stock plummets further. If they mention Julia is also dead, the company might collapse. And if they say what they really want to say, which is that Vanguard went rogue, killed the CEO, and CTO, and escaped with a British spy, it’s an absolute shitshow. The entire stock market crashes, congressional investigations, everyone asking questions they don’t want answered. But if it’s just a tragic death, a corporate mystery…” She shrugs. “They can handle it internally. Hunt us down quietly. Keep the machine running.”
Which means pretty soon we’re going to have to start running.
But we can’t run until we know where we are going.
Winter has arrived.
I wake up the next day to find the world transformed by snow—just a light dusting, barely an inch, but enough to coat the deck and the dock and the trees along the lake in white. The fall foliage was already spectacular, all reds and golds and deep burnt orange, and now it’s frosted like something out of a painting.
Mia is still asleep beside me. We’ve fallen into a pattern over the past days—her in the bed, me next to her but not touching, a careful distance maintained even in unconsciousness. Every morning I wake up first and watch her breathe for a few minutes before I get up to make coffee. Once a creeper, always a creeper.
It’s domestic in a way that feels dangerous. Like playing house in someone else’s life. I mean, we are in someone else’s house. Actually, the Thompsons, according to some letters addressed to them. I’m going to have to do something nice for them when we leave as a way of saying thanks for letting us use your house, though I’m at a loss as to what that could be. I have more money than I know what to do with, but without that watch to pay for shit, I might as well be broke.
I’m going to have to go to a bank, with no ID, just the fact that I’m fucking Vanguard, and take out what I can in cash, which isn’t something I would normally do. Barely anyone uses cash anymore and that’s going to look suspicious. It reminds me ofthe system collapse that ushered in the Dark Decade, when the USD fell and cash became useless.
It’s risky, it will make the news, and Global will know where I am but, if I can do it right before we leave…
Mia stirs, rolls over and blinks up at me. The swelling on her one eye has gone down significantly, though the bruising has morphed to a spectacular yellow-green.
“Morning sunshine,” I say to her. “I have coffee for you.”
She carefully sits up and looks past my face to the window.
“It’s snowing,” she says brightly.
“Just a dusting. Probably melt by noon.”
“Well, I for one love snow. We don’t get enough of it in London.” She stretches, winces slightly—her ribs are still tender, will be for weeks—and then freezes when she sees my face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
She gives me a pointed look. “You don’t like snow, do you?”
I crack a smile at that. “You’ve got me there.”
“Come on, what is it?”
I let out a heavy exhale. “I’m just thinking about our next steps. I don’t have any cash and I know you don’t.”
“Yeah, Julia’s thugs grabbed my bag with everything in it,” she says, curling her lip into a sneer.
“And I don’t have my watch. We’re going to need money to survive, and I have a lot of it. I think if I flew into the nearest town and took out cash from the bank?—”
“No,” she says, her eyes flashing. “Too risky.”
“I know, but it has to be done. I’ll do it right before we leave.” I pause, rubbing my lips together, thinking. “Of course, we don’t know where the fuck we’re going. You can hide anywhere, but can I?”
