Page 78 of Till Death Do Us Part

“You don’t talk about it much, huh?”

“I rant about it to Jenna sometimes, but she doesn’t get it. She’s a doctor. Doctors will always be useful. You can’t afford to make your doctor desperate. A driver, you just want to go fast, faster, faster still, and if she dies in a chase, that’s just one more paycheck you don’t gotta make, and you can start the next young, impressionable driver off at a cheaper rate. Guess it feels different talking to you.”

I nodded, looking down. Mom always hated that I wasn’t… useful. That I’d never be useful, she said. Elaine had already disappointed her by not going into better-paying work, and Matt’s grades weren’t the best. And you’re the worst of all, she would say. Always talking to me, the one who couldn’t really leave the house for much, just to sit there and listen how much of a burden I was.

Petra’s hand on my shoulder pulled me out of the reverie.

“You never really got to do anything growing up, did you?” she said.

“I stayed inside and played a lot of video games,” I laughed nervously. “Read a lot of books, did a lot of drawing, but mostly I was on the computer all the time.”

“Well, we’ve gotta celebrate cracking this system. We’ll get the team together and go to see a movie or something.”

“A… movie?” I blushed, and she grinned.

“I mean, I’d do axe-throwing, but look at your scrawny little arms,” she said, pinching the sleeve on my shirt and flapping it around. “You couldn’t even shoot a gun. Throwing an axe? Forget it.”

“Hey,” I laughed, pushing her hand away. “I could probably… figure it out.”

She smirked. I blushed, looking away.

“Maybe a movie sounds fun. Um… thanks.”

“Thank you. Good to have someone I can talk to. And unlike some of the people I’ve been around, I know you’ll never shoot me.”

“Petra!”

A blip came from the screen before I could tell her off, and I looked back at where the regression had finished running. I gasped, pulling it up on the screen, and even Petra could work it out immediately with no explanation, her brow furrowing as she looked up at the screen. I tapped on it, zoomed around on the diagram it created, rearranged things just to make sure, and there was no doubt.

Everything routed through one point, two weeks from now.

The South Yard.

“That can’t be,” I said.

“They’re planning to go through with the Horizon build anyway,” Petra said. “Vera did tell them they could proceed and just not raise the legal issue, but…”

“But that’s so fast. The other logistics operations aren’t ready for it yet.”

She tightened her fist on the table. “But they’re trying to make a deadline. Imposed by someone else.”

I narrowed my eyes on the screen, my heart beating faster at the sight.

Two weeks from now.

The South Yard.

Chapter 37

elaine

Clara yowled grumpily as she walked into the room while I was cooking, and I laughed, kneeling to scratch her behind the ears.

“I know, baby,” I said. “I miss her, too. But she’ll be back in just a bit.”

She purred when I petted her—I was at least her second-favorite—but she still looked grouchy.

Vera had left this morning. After Caitlyn had identified the South Yard operation last week, we’d had a strategy meeting where we’d agreed we had to observe the Horizon development to be able to bring a legal case and stop it.