"Then you tell her!" Caleb barked. "Because if that bitch tries to reset, she'll fucking die, Sin. They all do, and OutLink's trying to hide why."
That, it seemed, was enough to make Sin lower his gun. "What the fuck do you know?"
Chapter Forty-Two
As Sin's gun moved downwards, so did Caleb's hands. Still, the man didn't make a move towards Sin or his Ingénue. He did glance at the rush of people around them, but the three of them were like a calm spot in the middle of a world falling apart around them. Caleb's words had been the right ones to make Sin give him a chance.
"What does OutLink know?" he demanded.
"Let's start at the beginning," Caleb said. "Pharmacon sent me to talk to you. I've been trying to track you down for a few days now, since the bombing at Benedict's funeral."
"Wasn'tathis funeral," Sin pointed out.
"Yeah," Caleb countered, "it was. The whole point of it was to be seen when the most people were watching, so I think that counts as 'at.'"
Sin grumbled but didn't reply.
So Caleb kept going. "A year ago, Pharmacon created a cure," he explained. "It's a single-dose medication that allows the body to accept enhancements. It's also one of the perks of working there."
Sin nodded. "Knew most of that."
"How?" Caleb asked.
Sin just smiled. "I'm good like that. Keep talking or I'll change my mind about putting a bullet in you."
So Caleb nodded once. "One of the developers stole the chemical formula. The data breach happened late at night, and the man was able to leave the building before we could respond.Eventually, we tracked him down, and now he's in jail for theft of proprietary information. However, he'd already sold the information."
"Let me guess," Sin said, "to the Censor?"
"Records show it was the Praetor," Caleb said. "But the payment transfer was authorized by Joshua's imprint." Then he grunted. "This all happened before Joshua was moved to Praetor, so bear with me."
"I'm following," Sin promised. "So why can't my Ingénue reset and what the fuck does OutLink know that I don't?"
"I'm getting there," Caleb promised. "When we learned where the chemical went, we realized the Legion—or someone in it—is trying to create the drug first. Pharmacon attempted to intercept the data before it could be sent to manufacturing plants—and then to the patent office. Our orders were to intimidate the girls, causing them to wipe. The problem was that they didn't wake up."
"I know," Sin grumbled.
"I didn't!" Caleb snapped. "The first one, we thought it was an error. Maybe she had a medical condition. The second one, I pulled back the robes to try first aid." He glanced over at Rissa, then back. "Sin, they're barely human under there. Whatever OutLink is doing to those girls? Yeah, they're more machine than person now, and that's why they keep them covered up!"
Yeah, Caleb wasn't really helping his case any. Sin felt his grip tighten on his gun. "So you decided that made it ok to keep killing them?" he demanded.
"I tried to call off the assignments," Caleb growled. "Pharmacon overruled me because they think OutLink is in on it. Parker carried out a few more before he realized the same thing, but Daniel Briggsknowsthe girls are smuggling data. He knows the pieces are being moved to Dhatri Pharmaceuticals! He's getting kickbacks, we think, and Briggs would rather collectinsurance on the dead clones than have to admit he's running illegal data under the table."
"If Briggs knows," Sin countered, "then why wouldn't he let me dress this one in something else? Why is he making it so easy for your guys to kill them?"
"Becausewe'renot the problem," Caleb insisted. "My guys press the girlsbeforethe data is delivered in the hopes of initiating a wipe. When I found out they were dying instead of resetting, I told my men to pull back, not threaten them, and not make the girls kill themselves. Some handlers still called for a wipe the moment we were spotted, though."
"Mm-hmm," Sin grumbled. "Doesn't make it better."
"Yeah, well, we were walking a fine line," Caleb snapped. "Why the fuck do you think I followed you to that train? I wanted to make sure you knew the threat was real. I also made sure I never gave your girl a reason to fucking wipe! That's what I'm talking about. We're not the problem. It's the group hittingafterthe data was delivered. They're why Briggs keeps the girls in blue. Makes them an easy target to find."
"But after we make the delivery, there's no data to steal," Rissa said. "Our procedure is to delete it."
Her comment made Caleb's head snap over. Confusion took over his face, yet his question was clearly aimed at Sin. "She talks?"
"Yes, she talks," Sin agreed. "But your story has a few big fucking holes in it. You know, like the priest who attacked usbeforeshe delivered her download."
"Wait…" Caleb looked from Sin to Rissa. "We didn't come after your girl. I made it clear to the guys not to fuck with you, that you'd kill them before they even knew they'd been spotted."
