"And they're going to kill you for it."
"They've tried twice," Alistair said. "The results have been mixed."
Naomi studied him.
"That," she said, "is not a reassuring statement."
"It's an accurate one."
She took a breath. "And Lucien — your brother who has been dead for five years — is alive and has built an archive of everything they've done, which we are going to release, which will expose the whole—" She gestured at the drive on the table. "All of this."
"Yes," Tav said.
"And that's why Cain deployed a strike team."
"Yes."
"And why the node situation requires us to go back to your apartment." "Yes."
"While Cain's people are likely still positioned in the area."
"Also yes."
She studied the drive.
"I have one more question," she said.
"Ask it," Tav said.
"The photographs." She looked up. "The ones in Voss's office that I told you about. The ones that weren't of Voss." "Someone has been watching you both since before your placement. Since before Ablation's monitoring began." She held the look. "Who?"
Tav and Alistair glanced at each other.
"We don't know," Alistair said.
"But you have a hypothesis."
A pause.
"Phase Two," Tav said.
Naomi looked at him.
"We've been referring to it as that internally," Alistair said. "Someone who knew about the Protocol from the beginning. Who wanted the archive released. Who has been — positioning us toward certain outcomes."
"Like Cain, but not Cain."
"Yes."
"A competing interest."
"Or a parallel one," Tav said. "Someone who wanted the same result — the archive public, Ablation's operations exposed — but for different reasons."
"Or someone," Alistair said, "who wanted to know what the Protocol produced. What two operatives who'd fully synchronized were capable of." "And wanted them to be free of Ablation's oversight when they found out."
Naomi absorbed this.
"So you release the archive," she said slowly, "and destroy Ablation's operational capacity, and become—"
