She typed something.
"The story I was promised," she said.
"Yes."
"Everything."
"Everything," Tav confirmed.
She watched the drive. Then at the clock on her laptop. Then at both of them.
"You have four hours before I need the full archive," she said. "I recommend using them to rest." "I'm saying this as someone who is going to be sitting here working for the next eighteen hours. Rest now.
You're going to need it."
They looked at each other.
"She's right," Alistair said.
"She usually is," Tav said.
Something briefly personal crossed Naomi's expression — warm and quickly managed. She returned to the laptop.
"Four hours," she said. "Then we burn it down."
• • •
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
— NAOMI —
THE FINANCIAL RECORDS
ARE
VERIFIED.
AMSTERDAM
OWNERSHIP
CONFIRMED. I'M READY.
It was the message they'd been waiting for, which meant it was not surprising, the message arriving with the archive ready and the plan confirmed had its own gravity.
Tav showed it to Alistair.
Alistair read it. Sat back. Looked at the ceiling.
"The upload."
"The upload."
They sat with this.
The borrowed flat around them had the quality it had acquired over the three days they'd been using it: functional, inhabited, the density of a space in which significant preparation had occurred. The archive materials had been organized and thenode confirmation was complete and the approach routes had been finalized and Naomi's publication pipeline was verified.
They had done the work.
