"Both of you," she continued. "Together. Multiple occasions. Dating back to the second week of your placement.""Someone has been watching you since before either of you arrived."
Tav processed this.
The photographs. The timing of the gala's shooter. All of it suggesting a third observer — one who had been present before Ablation's monitoring began and who had left traces that were visible only when you assembled them in the right sequence.
"Phase Two," Alistair said quietly.
Tav studied him.
"Someone built Phase One," Alistair said. "And has been documenting Phase Two since before it officially started."
The silence in the kitchen had a different quality now — not the warmth of their recent mornings but the cold of a picture becoming clearer than expected.
"What does that mean?" Naomi asked.
"It means," Tav said carefully, "that we are not just Ablation's experiment."
• • •
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The industrial district at 8:55 p.m. was rain-dark and quiet in the way of places that had no reason to be inhabited at that hour.
Tav and Alistair approached the address from opposite directions — not by plan, but by the same instinct, the same trained preference for divided approach and triangulated coverage that had been manifesting between them with increasing frequency. They arrived at the building's perimeter within thirty seconds of each other and made eye contact across the street before moving.
No signal. No words.
Just: you take that entrance, I'll take this one.
The building was a former warehouse, partially converted, with the industrial architecture of something that had been used for genuine commercial purpose and hadn't quite shaken the memory of it. The interior, accessed through a side door that opened without resistance, was dim and highceilinged, with space waiting for someone to decide what it was.
A figure stood at the center.
Not aggressive. Not positioned for attack. Standing with the deliberate visibility of wanting to be seen clearly.
Tall. Dark coat. A posture Tav clocked in the first second as familiar — not in the way of a face he knew, but in the movement of someone trained the same way, through the samecurriculum. The same weight distribution in stillness, the same positioning of the hands.
"You came together," the figure said. A male voice, quiet and measured.
"Yes," Tav said.
"Good." The figure stepped forward, into the limited light from the high windows. "I was hoping you would."
He was older than Tav had expected — somewhere in his mid-thirties, familiar wavy hair, with the stillness that came from a great deal of experience surviving difficult situations. A scar ran along the left side of his jaw.
And above all, amber eyes.
Tav registered it at the same moment Alistair did.
He heard Alistair's breath change.
"Hello, Alistair," the man said.
The silence that followed was the silence of things that had been assumed and now required revision.
"You're dead," Alistair said.
His voice was level. It was costing him something to keep it level and Tav was watching the cost, cataloguing the stillness in the way Alistair held himself when something significant was requiring management.
