PART 22:

Then quietly, You went outside. Her thumb pressed lightly over his knuckles. You ran to me. You know what that means. He swallowed. His eyes stayed on the gauze. Then he looked at her hand on top of his, and a long moment passed in which he didn’t answer and she didn’t push. It doesn’t matter.

His voice came out level. Those could have been real devices and then I wouldn’t have been able to He stopped. Pulled the gauze back, looked at the scrape. Keeping you safe in this house is my responsibility. This is the second time I failed at that. Mara looked at the scrape, too. It’s a scrape, Nolan. I stumbled when the one next to me went off.

Nothing happened. He set the gauze down. His eyes came up to her face and whatever he found there, he took in without expression. I want you to go back to your apartment tomorrow morning. Her hand was still on his. Nolan. His voice closed the conversation before she could finish the sentence. George will take you. First thing.

She held his gaze. I’m not going to my father’s. Your own apartment, then. He stood. I’ll have a security team outside around the clock. She was still on the couch watching him cross to the window. Through the glass the terrace was hazy. Thin trails of smoke still drifting across the lawn from where the devices had landed.

The garden chairs were still where they had been. Three steps from the threshold, four. Who would do this? Low. Not quite to her. Mara stood. She came to stand beside him at the glass. I want to stay, Nolan. He didn’t turn. We’re not having this conversation. They stood there for a moment. Side by side, the garden below them, the smoke still clearing.

Michael’s footsteps came back down the corridor. Boss. He stopped in the doorway holding up his phone. We pulled this off the drone before it went down. A photograph. The message had been stenciled onto the underside of the body in block letters. No secret weapons, no secret victims, oversight. Nolan turned from the window.

He looked at it for a moment then shook his head slowly. Activists? The timing’s interesting. Michael kept his voice neutral. Ravnic announcement is in 2 weeks. Nolan took the phone, studied the image. Mara didn’t move. Her eyes were on the photograph. Her face was doing what it had learned to do in rooms where she couldn’t afford to react, holding steady, giving nothing to the surface.

Underneath it, her stomach had turned over once, hard. Elias. She kept her breathing even. Her hands were at her sides. What exactly do you think you’re doing? The door to her room had barely closed when Mara had her phone in her hand. No missed calls. She pulled up the number Elias had used and pressed call.

3 seconds, 4. The number you have dialed is not available. She set the phone on the bed and pressed both hands flat on top of her head, the way she did when she needed to hold something in that wanted to come out. What am I going to do? The USB was still in her wallet. The notebook was still in her bag. The data she’d copied, if it had copied at all, was sitting somewhere in between, waiting for her to decide what to do with it.

She stood up, crossed to the door. The phone buzzed on the bed behind her. Unknown number. She was back across the room before she’d made a conscious decision to move. She picked up. Mara. Elias’s voice careful and low. Did you get what I asked for? Her free hand closed around the edge of the dresser. What were you thinking? Her voice came out controlled.

Just a drone. You sent a drone to his house, Elias. We didn’t touch anyone. His voice carried the steady conviction of someone who had rehearsed his justification. We made noise. We made a point. Isn’t that what we do? Isn’t that always what we’ve done? These companies profit from weapons that end up in the wrong hands.

That makes them part of the problem, Mara. You used to know that. Don’t. The word came out sharper than she meant it to. Don’t tell me what I used to know. She turned from the dresser, her back to the window. You want to protest Campbell Group? Go stand outside the building with a sign. That’s what we do.

You don’t fly a drone into someone’s garden when there are people in it. Were you hurt? Something shifted in his voice. The first note of something real underneath the argument. She didn’t answer that. Meet me tomorrow. Back to the cause, the register she recognized. Whatever you found, bring it. We can still Don’t call me again. The words came out quieter than the ones before them.

That was how she knew she meant them. You’re not who I remember, Elias, and I’m not the Mara you’re calling. She looked at the bag on the bed. The notebook inside it, the USB in her wallet. Don’t call me again. She ended the call. The room was quiet. Her breathing was the only thing moving. She set the phone down, picked up the wallet, and held it in both hands for a moment without opening it.

Then she set it back on the dresser and walked out. Michael was at the screen when Nolan came back in from the grounds. Boss. He looked up from the device in his hand. Unknown number. Just called Mara again. Two minutes ago. Nolan came to stand beside him. We have the first phone sourced. Michael pulled up the image on his screen. A still frame. Camera angle.

A man standing at a counter. Purchased three days ago. A shop on Pike. This is the buyer. Nolan looked at the image. The man was young, mid-20s, hood up, profile half visible. Enough. Who is he? Michael opened another window. A profile assembled from public records, arrest logs, university registration. Elias Davis, 26, Stanford, sociology, class of 2022, three arrests, campus demonstrations, two in California, one here.

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