Tav showed him both messages.
Alistair read them. Read them again. Lay back and studied the ceiling.
"The inquiry," he said.
"Fourteen days."
"Separately."
"Standard procedure," Tav said.
"Yes." "And Phase Two."
"Yes."
"Unknown sender."
"Lucien's secure channel. Someone has access to a channel they shouldn't."
Alistair turned his head to look at him.
"The woman at the gala," he said. "The photographs of Naomi that weren't Ablation. The tripwire in Voss's corridor." "Someone who's been watching us longer than Ablation has."
"Possibly longer than Ablation existed in its current form," Tav said.
"Which means—"
"Which means the Protocol wasn't just Cain's project," Tav said. "Or not only his."
Alistair was quiet.
Outside, the sea. The sound of it finding the rocks at the base of the cliff below the safe house, the sustained rhythmic work of water on stone. The grey morning light was strengthening at the curtain's edge — the sky lifting toward something that wasn't quite dawn but was past the deepest part of night.
"Phase Two," Alistair said.
"Phase Two."
"And we don't know what it means."
"No."
"But someone knows we're here."
"Yes."
"And they waited for the first phase to complete before making contact."
"Yes." Tav looked at the ceiling. "Which suggests they're not opposed to what we did. They wanted the archive released."
"They wanted us to release it."
"They wanted us to release it," Tav agreed. "Together."
The sea outside. The morning light.
Alistair turned onto his side to face him. In the low grey light of the early morning he looked like himself — the honest version, the one that lived below the management, with the careful warm eyes.
He made their peace with complications.
