Page 91 of Dose

“We leave,” I agree.

I do not tell him I will be fine. He does not ask me to.

Above us, Chicago continues without knowing that a rural Texas supplier is about to be opened with no planned disruption to its shipments. In Washington, at least forty-two children sleep inside the Seattle hub while recovery teams rehearse how to approach them without masks.

Three days until Cascade, if surveillance holds. Six until Seattle, if the first access remains quiet.

And somewhere beneath both plans is a closed-loop system that frightened Ezra badly enough to stop his hands.

I close my eyes and begin memorizing the north service entrance.

26

THEON

The morning is too bright for what we’re about to do.

I adjust my tie in the visor mirror of the rental sedan. Dominic chose the car: gray Toyota, clean but not new, the sort of vehicle no one remembers passing on a Texas highway.

Isla sits beside me in a navy blazer, her hair pinned into a severe knot. The clipboard on her lap contains eleven pages of forged inspection forms, each complete enough to withstand more than a nervous glance.

“You look nervous,” she says.

“I don’t get nervous.”

“Your jaw is doing the thing.”

“My jaw does several things.”

“This one means you’re trying to plan for every possible way I could be hurt.” She turns a page. “I’ve catalogued it.”

I look past her at Cascade Analytical Supply.

The building sits low and beige against the scrubland, a single-story box with a gravel lot and a faded sign advertising agricultural analysis. Four employee vehicles. One delivery van with its rear doors open. Chain-link around the service yard. Nothing in sight to suggest that seven Project Architect facilities depend on compounds produced inside.

That was also true yesterday and the day before.

Marcus’s surveillance found no overnight occupants, no undeclared guards and no traffic inconsistent with the agricultural cover. Dominic confirmed the north service entrance was alarmed and useless to us, then spent two shifts inside under an instrument-maintenance credential. Damon’s approval came at oh-seven-hundred this morning, limited to the conditions we can see now.

If those conditions change, we leave.

Our local reserve is parked eight minutes away. Seattle aborts if we miss two stage reports or if Cascade shows any sign of detecting us. No one destroys a gram of stock. No one opens a container whose contents we cannot verify.

It is a good plan.

I still dislike the fact that Isla is in it.

“Four on site,” Dominic says through my earpiece. The flat Texas drawl he uses for Cascade has already become irritatingly convincing. “Deb at reception, two analysts in the main lab, Corbin in his office. Same as the last two days.”

“Any change in security?”

“None visible.”

Visible. He uses the word because Damon made all of us use it.

“Reserve confirms clear perimeter,” Marcus says. “You are approved to approach.”

Isla closes the folder. “This is the easy part.”