Page 138 of Lone Wolf

She lifted the lid.

Nestled inside was what looked like a choker necklace made up of matte-black disks. The most prominent one was centered on the chain like a pendant, aligned with the others but slightly bigger.

Jayla looked up, confused. Her hand rose to the hollow of her throat, where a lightning bolt of scar tissue split the skin above her larynx.

Joey said, “Can I show you what it does?”

Jayla looked at Evan, her eyes scared. He gave a subtle tip of his head.

And then Jayla nodded at Joey.

Joey moved behind her, cinched the choker into place, and adjusted it by carefully feeling around Jayla’s throat. She seemed to be getting the central pendant into a precise position.

“Okay,” she said, when she was done. “Say something.”

“I can’t.” Jayla’s hands flew to her mouth. She’d spoken the words in her own voice. Her eyes were brimming and her face was contorted and then she shook out her hands as if flinging water from them. “I can’t … I can’t believe it.”

She sounded just as she had on the TikTok video Joey had found, her voice husky, textured, singular.

“This is what your father was working on at the throat-cancer ward at Carnegie Mellon,” Joey said. “For your mom.”

Jayla’s face trembled.

“Most tracheoesophageal prostheses have crappy sound,” Joey said. “That’s why he was combining technologies and rendering voices with AI. I took yours from the videos you posted and it extrapolated from there.”

“How … how is this possible?” Jayla’s hands were in front of her mouth, as if to catch the words as they came out.

“It reads vibrations of your throat like an electrolarynx and anticipates from the movement of your facial musculature how you’re shaping words with your lips.” Joey tapped the choker gently. “It’s your own voice. No one should ever take that away from you.”

Jayla hugged her. When she pulled away, she started to sign from habit, caught herself, and spoke: “Best Thanksgiving present ever.” Her words were tentative, her voice still on training wheels. “Thank you … friend.”

Joey’s lower lip wobbled, so slightly that no one in the world could have caught it. Except Evan. She hardened her face, held herself together. Took an extra beat before speaking.

“The future’s gonna be amazing,” Joey said. “Don’t let anyone scare you into thinking otherwise.”

Evan noticed that he had receded a few steps, as he often did when emotion got palpable.

His shoulder brushed the alarm pad, jostling it from its uncertain perch on the wall mount. When he caught it, the plastic casing came apart. He held the pieces in his hands. It had cracked open to reveal something within.

A hard drive.

No doubt containing Dr. Hill’s perfect deepfake code, the IP he’d stolen back from Allman. It had been right there all along, the perfect hiding place.

The sight of it stole Joey’s attention immediately. She stared at it, her face serious, and then held out her hand. Evan looked at Jayla. Jayla took the hard drive out of Evan’s hands. And set it in Joey’s.

“I’m ready now,” Jayla said, her cadence finding a more natural rhythm. “To be here.” She looked surprised every time she heard herself talk, and she paused to grin, the effect charming. “Because of you.”

Evan didn’t like this part, when gratitude was aimed at him, making his face sit heavy on his skull like a mask. He struggled to receive it.

“How can I possibly thank you?” she said.

This was the part he didn’t mind, when he asked them to pass the baton and in doing so to complete their transition from being pursued to searching out another human in desperate need.

“Find someone else facing the level of trouble you were in, someone being terrorized by another person, and give my phone number to them—1-855-2-NOWHERE.”

Jayla’s long lashes flared wide. “And then what?”

“And then I’ll help them. Like I helped you.”