"Ablation preferred that I be dead," Lucien Keaton said.
He studied Tav.
"You must be Prescott." Something moved in his expression — not quite amusement, but its distant relative. "Everything he described when he talked about his brother, and then some."
"He described me to you," Tav said.
He looked at Alistair. "I found you through the Protocol monitoring feeds. I've been watching since the placement began." "I needed to know if it was happening again."
"The Protocol," Alistair said.
"Yes." Lucien looked between them. "What happened to me and Elias. They're doing it again." "Doing it to you."
The warehouse was cold. Rain found the high windows and ran down the glass in the slow way of rain on industrial glazing, the sound different from the apartment, flatter and harder.
"Elias is dead," Alistair said.
"Yes." Lucien's face didn't change. "Elias is dead. Ablation killed him when they concluded that our attachment had become non-functional from their perspective." "What they didn't consider carefully enough was what that would produce in me."
"You survived," Tav said.
"Barely. And not willingly." He studied the warehouse floor. "I spent two years wanting to be dead.
And then I spent two years being angry enough to stop wanting that. And then I started doing something about it." He looked at them. "I've been building a case. Evidence of what Ablation did.
What the Protocol produced and what they did with it." He watched Tav directly. "The drive I have — the archive I've been compiling — it contains everything. Every pair, every Protocol run, every death that got covered as a field accident." "It's enough to end Ablation."
"Or to leverage them," Tav said.
Lucien looked at him reassessing.
"Yes," he said. "Or that."
"Why bring us into it?" Alistair asked.
"Because you're inside it," Lucien said. "And because—" He stopped. Something crossed his face. He watched Alistair. "Because you're my brother. And I watched them put you in the same situation that killed Elias, and I." He stopped again. "I'm not going to let it end the same way."
The warehouse held the three of them in its dim cold space.
Then Tav said: "What do you need from us?"
Lucien held his gaze.
"I need a decision," he said. "Whether we use the archive to leverage Ablation into standing down on the Final Directive. Or whether we release it." He looked between them. "Leverage keeps you safe for now. Release keeps everyone safe long-term."
"Release also destroys the organization," Tav said.
"Yes."
"And exposes every active operative."
"Yes."
"Including us."
"Yes." Lucien met his gaze. "It's not a comfortable choice."
Tav met Alistair's eyes.
