Page 121 of Aviatrix

When the door shuts behind her, Lark crosses the room. “Your dad?”

“I know.”

Lark exhales. “There’s no record of VAL ever being at Langdon. I triple checked.”

“I believe you.”

I stare at the floor. I knew Dad was smart. But not like this. I thought maybe he was hiding from the world. Turns out, he was building something truly phenomenal.

“Jan said VAL was created under the guise of machine learning.” Lark frowns. “But that makes me think she wasn’t. He used something else.”

Dread coils in my gut. “Alien tech?”

Lark’s face goes pale. “Yeah.”

The dots begin to connect. “Walker said the Legion was formed because we wanted alien tech. My dad was part of the Legion. What if he used it to make VAL?”

“And then Rourke found out and wanted it for himself?”

“Yeah.” I exhale shakily. “This is bad, Lark. What are we going to do?”

He licks his lips, then places his hands on my shoulders. It’s not intimate, just stabilizing. “If we don’t show up, there’ll be hell to pay. We could run, but if we do, we’re fugitives. If that’s what you want, I’ll do it.”

It’s a sweet offer, but it doesn’t fix anything.

“We could run, but Amber wouldn’t survive it.” I pause to breathe. “We need Atlas and Fox in the air,” I say. “They’re the best pilots not on Alien Warfare, and they’re loyal.”

“Alien Warfare only has eight members,” Lark sighs. “Once we’re gone, they’ll move in and take over Camp Obsidian before the General can get another team in place.”

“Why would they want VAL? She’s not built to fight. She was made to watch. To learn and acquire information.”

“They might not know that,” Lark replies, a bit of color returning to his face. “And if they don’t know that, maybe we can outsmart them.”

“What are you thinking?”

He drops his hands. “I’ve got an idea, but I need to do research first.”

“What do I tell Sasha and Glitch?” Hell, what do I tell Gary and Scooter?

“Tell them the truth,” he says. “We’re going to the funeral. And the alien threat is officially low.”

Eli’s words flash back. If you wanted the president dead, and aliens just happened to show up and level a secret base, wouldn’t it be pretty damn convenient to blame the whole thing on the extraterrestrials?

“Rourke’s been planning this,” I whisper. “He blew up the White House. I know it was him, Lark.”

He doesn’t disagree. “Let’s keep this between us for now? I don’t want to add fuel to the fire. People are already scared.”

I nod. “Okay.”

“Can you meet me in my office in an hour?” he asks.

“Yeah.” The air vent kicks on, startling me, but I quickly recover. “I need to talk to my team. I need to prepare them for my… death.”

“You’re not dying tomorrow, Kin. We’re not dying.”

“If we do,” I say carefully, “I need them to finish what I started. My mom needs to know what happened to my dad. And my team needs to know if it had something to do with VAL. And if I’m not here, I need them to keep going.”

“Go,” he says. “Meet me in an hour.”