Blood and Equations
The bullet catches me in the shoulder and I am spinning, falling, the forest floor rushing up to meet my face.
Pain blooms white-hot through my chest. I cannot breathe. Cannot think. My hand goes to the wound and comes away dark and wet.
"Now, that's just a love tap," Hatch says, stepping closer. "My grandmother used to say you can't teach a mule until you get its attention."
I am trying to crawl. Trying to move. My left arm will not work properly. The notebook pages are scattered around me like snow.
"Don't bother." She plants a boot on my back, pressing me flat. "You're not going anywhere."
More footlights through the trees. Voices calling out coordinates. She has brought others.
"Secure the perimeter," Hatch shouts over her shoulder. "And find every page of that notebook. Every single one."
I taste copper. Dirt. My father's handwriting is inches from my face, equations bleeding into the soil.
"You know what's funny?" Hatch crouches beside me, gun still trained on my head. "Your daddy was smarter than you. When we caught him, he didn't run. Didn't scatter his precious research all over creation. He stood his ground and took what was coming."
"You killed him."
"I did what needed doing." She picks up one of the pages, studies it in the flashlight beam. "Just like I'm about to do with you. But first, you're going to tell me how to access that bunker."
"I do not know."
The gun barrel presses against my temple. Cold. Steady.
"Try again."
"The voice—it did not tell me—"
"What voice?" Her tone sharpens. "Who've you been talking to?"
I say nothing. Blood is pooling beneath me, warm against the frozen ground.
"Search him," Hatch orders.
Hands roll me over. Rough. Efficient. They find the phone in my jacket pocket. The one Marcus gave me. The screen is cracked from the fall but still glowing.
Hatch takes it. Scrolls through the call history. Her face goes very still.
"Well now." She looks down at me with something like pity. "You really don't know who you've been dancing with, do you?"
"What—"
"This number." She holds up the phone. "It's registered to a shell company. Same one that's been feeding intel to three different resistance cells. Same one that got forty-seven people killed in the Sector Nine raids last month."
My vision is blurring. The pain in my shoulder is spreading, turning my whole left side into fire.
"You've been played, son. Whoever's on the other end of this line? They're not trying to help you. They're using you to find what your father hid. And once they have it, you're just another loose end."
She is lying. She has to be lying.
But the synthesized voice never gave me a name. Never explained how it knew about the bunker. Never told me why it was helping.
"Councilwoman." One of her men approaches, holding something. "Found this in his other pocket."
The compass. My father's compass.
Hatch takes it, turns it over in her hands. Opens the case. Studies the inscription inside.
"True north," she reads aloud. "Your daddy gave this to you?"
I do not answer.
"He gave me one too." She pulls a chain from beneath her collar. An identical compass dangles there. "Back when we were partners. Before he decided his conscience was worth more than the future of humanity."
"You were—"
"Friends? Colleagues? Lovers?" She laughs, bitter and sharp. "All three, at different times. We built Helios together. The whole system. Every panel, every protocol. And when the dimming started, when we realized what we'd done, he wanted to tear it all down. Start over. Like we had that luxury."
She snaps the compass case shut.
"Your father was brilliant, Eli. But he was a coward. He couldn't make the hard choices. Couldn't accept that sometimes you have to let people die so the species can live."
"That is not—"
"Not what? Not fair? Not right?" She stands, towering over me. "You think I wanted this? You think I sleep well at night, knowing what we've done? But someone has to keep the lights on. Someone has to make sure there's still a world left when this is over."
Footsteps crashing through the underbrush. More of her people, converging on our position.
"We've got movement," someone shouts. "East side, coming fast."
Hatch's head snaps up. "How many?"
"Can't tell. Multiple heat signatures."
She curses, low and vicious. Looks down at me.
"Seems your friends found you after all." She gestures to two of her men. "Get him up. We're moving."
They haul me to my feet and the world tilts sideways, gray static eating the edges of my vision. My shoulder is screaming. Blood running down my arm, dripping from my fingertips.
"The pages," I manage. "You cannot leave—"
"Already bagged." One of her men holds up a plastic evidence bag, stuffed with my father's handwriting. "Got most of them."
Most. Not all.
Hatch is already moving, barking orders into a radio. "Fall back to the vehicles. We've got what we came for."
They drag me through the forest. My feet barely touch the ground. Behind us, the sounds of pursuit grow louder. Voices. Engines. Someone is coming and Hatch is afraid of them, which means—
Gunfire erupts. Sharp cracks echoing through the trees.
"Contact!" someone screams.
Hatch's men drop me and return fire. I hit the ground hard, and the impact sends fresh agony through my shoulder. I am gasping, choking on my own breath.
More gunfire. Closer now. One of Hatch's men goes down, clutching his leg.
"Suppressing fire!" Hatch shouts. "Get to the trucks!"
They are retreating. Leaving me.
I try to move. Try to crawl. My body will not cooperate. The forest floor is spinning, tilting, and I cannot tell which way is up.
A hand grabs my good shoulder.
"Don't move."
I know that voice.
Maya drops into a crouch beside me, rifle slung across her back. Her face is pale in the moonlight, jaw set in that way that means she is calculating odds, running scenarios.
"How bad?" she asks.
"Shoulder. I cannot—my arm—"
"Shut up." She is already cutting away my jacket, exposing the wound. Her hands move with practiced efficiency, probing the entry point. "Through and through. You'll live."
"They have the notebook. Most of it."
"I know." She pulls a field dressing from her pack, presses it against the wound. The pressure makes me see stars. "Hold this."
I press my right hand against the bandage. Blood soaks through immediately.
"Maya, how did you—"
"Tracked your phone." She is scanning the trees, rifle up. "Same way Hatch did. You're not exactly subtle."
More gunfire. Closer. Someone is screaming.
"We need to move," Maya says. "Can you walk?"
"I do not know."
"Wrong answer." She hauls me upright, and I am leaning against her, my weight on her shoulders. She is smaller than me but solid, all compact muscle and determination. "We've got maybe two minutes before Hatch regroups. Move."
We stumble through the forest. Every step sends fresh pain through my shoulder. My vision keeps graying out, coming back in flashes. Trees. Moonlight. Maya's face, set and grim.
"The bunker," I gasp. "We have to—"
"Forget the bunker. We're getting you out of here."
"No. You do not understand. My father—"
"Your father's dead." Her voice is flat. Hard. "And you will be too if we don't move faster."
Behind us, engines roar to life. Hatch's convoy, pulling out.
"They are leaving," I say.
"They got what they came for." Maya adjusts her grip on me, taking more of my weight. "The notebook pages. That's all they needed."
"Not all of them."
She stops. Looks at me.
"What?"
"I saw—when they bagged the pages—they did not get all of them. Some are still back there."
"How many?"
"I do not know. Three? Four?"
Maya's jaw works. She is doing the math, weighing the risk.
"We can't go back," she says finally. "Not with you bleeding out."
"Then you go. I will wait—"
"You'll die." She starts moving again, dragging me with her. "And I didn't come all this way to watch you bleed out in the woods."
"Why did you come?"
The question hangs between us. She does not answer for a long moment.
"Because I'm an idiot," she says finally. "And because someone has to keep you alive long enough to finish what your father started."
We break through the tree line. A vehicle is waiting, engine running. Not one of Hatch's trucks. Something older, civilian. Marcus is behind the wheel.
"Get in," he shouts.
Maya practically throws me into the back seat. I land hard, and the impact makes me cry out.
"Drive," Maya orders, climbing in beside me.
Marcus floors it. The vehicle lurches forward, tires spitting gravel.
"How bad is he?" Marcus asks, eyes on the rearview mirror.
"He'll live." Maya is already working on my shoulder again, tightening the bandage. "If we can stop the bleeding."
"Hatch got the notebook," I manage.
"Most of it," Maya corrects. "Not all."
"Doesn't matter." Marcus takes a corner too fast, and I slide across the seat. "Without the access codes, those pages are just equations. Meaningless."
"The voice," I say. "On the phone. Hatch said—she said it was—"
"A trap," Marcus finishes. "Yeah. We figured that out about an hour ago."
"You knew?"
"Suspected." He meets my eyes in the mirror. "That's why Maya went after you. Soon as we realized you were being played, she grabbed a rifle and went dark. Wouldn't wait for backup."
I look at Maya. She is focused on my shoulder, not meeting my gaze.
"You came alone?"
"Had a better chance of getting to you fast." She ties off the bandage with sharp, efficient movements. "Backup's slow. You were bleeding."
"The others—the gunfire—"
"Diversion." Marcus grins, sharp and feral. "Called in a few favors. Had some friends make noise on the west side while Maya extracted you from the east. Hatch never saw her coming."
"You risked—"
"Don't." Maya's voice cuts like a blade. "Don't make this into something it's not. You had intel we needed. That's all."
But her hands are shaking. Just slightly. Just enough that I can see.
"The bunker," I say. "We still need to access it."
"Without the notebook?" Marcus shakes his head. "No way. Your father's codes are in those pages. Hatch has them now."
"Not all of them."
Marcus's eyes snap to the mirror. "What?"
"Some pages are still in the forest. Where I fell. Three or four of them."
"Which pages?"
"I do not know. I did not have time to—"
"Doesn't matter." Maya is already pulling out her phone. "We go back. Tonight. Before Hatch realizes what she's missing."
"That's suicide," Marcus says. "She'll have people watching that site."
"Then we'll have to be smarter than them." Maya's fingers fly across the screen. "I'm pulling satellite imagery now. There's a service road half a mile north of where you went down. We can approach from there, stay off the main paths."
"Maya—" Marcus starts.
"I'm not asking." She looks up, and her eyes are hard. "We need those pages. And we need them before Hatch figures out she doesn't have the complete set."
"She will figure it out," I say. "When she tries to decode the equations and they do not make sense."
"Which gives us maybe six hours." Maya checks her watch. "It's 2 AM now. We go in at 4, just before dawn. Low visibility, but enough light to search."
"And if Hatch is still there?"
Maya's smile is cold. "Then we'll deal with her."
Marcus drives us to a safe house on the edge of the city. An abandoned factory, windows boarded up, no lights. He pulls around back, kills the engine.
"Two hours," he says. "Get some rest. I'll keep watch."
Maya helps me inside. The factory floor is vast and empty, our footsteps echoing off concrete. She leads me to a corner where someone has set up a makeshift camp. Sleeping bags. Supplies. A first aid kit.
"Sit," she orders.
I sit. She kneels beside me, opens the kit.
"This is going to hurt," she says.
"It already hurts."
"It's going to hurt more."
She is right. When she peels away the field dressing, I have to bite down on my sleeve to keep from screaming. The wound is ugly, ragged. The bullet tore through muscle and tissue, missing bone by inches.
"You're lucky," Maya says, cleaning the wound with antiseptic. "Another two inches to the right and you'd be dead."
"I do not feel lucky."
"You're alive. That's lucky enough."
She works in silence for a while, stitching the wound closed with quick, practiced movements. Her hands are steady now. Completely steady.
"Where did you learn to do this?" I ask.
"Field medicine course. Three years ago." She ties off a stitch, starts another. "Figured it would come in handy eventually."
"You were right."
"Usually am."
The silence stretches. Outside, I can hear Marcus moving around, checking perimeters.
"Why did you really come?" I ask.
Her hands pause. Just for a second.
"I told you. Intel."
"You came alone. Into hostile territory. For intel."
"It was important intel."
"Maya."
She looks up. Her eyes are dark, unreadable.
"You want the truth?" she asks.
"Yes."
"The truth is I'm tired of watching people die." She goes back to stitching. "Your father died protecting that bunker. My sister died in the Sector Nine raids. Forty-seven other people died because someone leaked information to the wrong people. And I'm tired of it. Tired of the body count. Tired of the lies."
"So you came for me."
"I came because you're the only one who might actually be able to fix this." She ties off the last stitch, cuts the thread. "Your father built the system. You understand it better than anyone. If there's a way to reverse the dimming without killing half the population, you're the one who'll find it."
"And if I cannot?"
"Then we're all dead anyway." She starts bandaging the wound, wrapping gauze around my shoulder. "But at least we'll have tried."
"That is not very reassuring."
"I'm not here to reassure you." She tapes the bandage in place, sits back. "I'm here to keep you alive long enough to do your job."
"Is that all?"
The question comes out before I can stop it. She looks at me, and something flickers across her face. Something I cannot name.
"What else would there be?" she asks.
I do not have an answer.
She stands, starts packing up the medical kit. "Get some sleep. We move in ninety minutes."
"I cannot sleep."
"Try anyway. You'll need your strength."
She walks away, leaving me alone in the corner. I lean back against the wall, close my eyes. The pain in my shoulder is a dull throb now, manageable. But my mind will not stop racing.
Hatch's words keep echoing. Your father was a coward. He couldn't make the hard choices.
Was she right? Did my father run because he was afraid? Or because he knew something the rest of them did not?
And the voice on the phone. The synthesized voice that led me to the coordinates, that warned me about Marcus. If it was a trap, why did it help me? Why give me the information at all?
Unless it wanted me to find the bunker. Wanted me to lead them to it.
But then why warn me about Hatch? Why tell me to run?
Nothing makes sense. Every answer spawns three new questions.
I open my eyes. Maya is across the room, talking to Marcus in low tones. She has changed clothes, traded her civilian jacket for tactical gear. Black cargo pants. Kevlar vest. Her rifle is slung across her back, and she is checking her ammunition with the same methodical precision she used to stitch my wound.
She catches me watching. Holds my gaze for a moment. Then looks away.
Marcus says something I cannot hear. Maya shakes her head. They argue, voices rising slightly, then falling again. Finally Marcus throws up his hands and walks away.
Maya comes back to me.
"Change of plans," she says.
"What kind of change?"
"Marcus thinks we should wait. Let Hatch clear out, come back tomorrow night."
"And you?"
"I think we go now. Before she has time to analyze what she's got."
"What did Marcus say?"
"He said I'm being reckless." She checks her rifle, chambers a round. "He's probably right."
"Then why—"
"Because reckless is all we've got left." She looks at me, and her expression is fierce. "Your father spent fifteen years hiding that bunker. Fifteen years keeping it secret. And in one night, we've led Hatch right to it. If we don't move fast, everything he died for is gone."
"I cannot go back out there. Not like this."
"I know." She pulls a pistol from her belt, hands it to me. "That's why you're staying here."
"No."
"Yes." Her voice leaves no room for argument. "You're injured. You'll slow me down. Marcus will stay with you, keep you safe."
"Maya, you cannot go alone—"
"Watch me."
She turns to leave. I grab her wrist with my good hand.
"Wait."
She stops. Does not turn around.
"If Hatch is there," I say. "If she catches you—"
"She won't."
"But if she does—"
"Then you finish this without me." She pulls free, gentle but firm. "The bunker. The reversal protocol. All of it. You finish what your father started."
"I cannot do it alone."
"You won't be alone." She finally looks back at me. "You'll have Marcus. And whoever else is left when this is over. But you'll do it. Because you have to."
She walks away before I can respond. Across the factory floor, out the back door. Into the darkness.
Marcus comes over, sits down beside me.
"She'll be fine," he says.
"You do not know that."
"No." He pulls out a cigarette, lights it. "But she's the best operator I've ever seen. If anyone can pull this off, it's her."
"Why did you let her go?"
"Let her?" He laughs, bitter. "You think I have any say in what Maya does? She made up her mind. That's it. End of discussion."
"You could have stopped her."
"Could I?" He takes a drag, exhales smoke. "You ever try to stop a force of nature, Eli? Doesn't work. You just get swept along or crushed. Those are your options."
We sit in silence. The cigarette smoke curls up toward the ceiling, disappearing into shadows.
"She cares about you," Marcus says finally. "More than she should."
"What does that mean?"
"It means she's taking risks she wouldn't normally take. Going places she shouldn't go. All because she thinks you're worth saving." He looks at me. "Are you?"
"I do not know."
"Better figure it out." He stubs out the cigarette. "Because if she dies out there, it's on you."
The minutes crawl past. Marcus keeps watch by the door. I sit in the corner, pistol in my lap, and wait.
My shoulder throbs. The pain medication Maya gave me is wearing off, and I can feel every stitch, every torn muscle fiber. But the physical pain is nothing compared to the waiting.
What if Hatch is still there? What if Maya walks into an ambush? What if—
"Stop," Marcus says without turning around.
"Stop what?"
"Thinking. I can hear you thinking from here. It's not helping."
"I should be out there."
"You'd be dead in five minutes." He shifts position, scanning the darkness outside. "Maya knows what she's doing. Trust her."
"I do trust her."
"Then act like it. Sit still. Stay quiet. Let her work."
I try. I close my eyes, focus on breathing. In and out. Slow and steady. But my mind will not cooperate. It keeps showing me scenarios. Maya caught. Maya shot. Maya bleeding out in the forest while I sit here, useless.
My phone buzzes.
I pull it out. A text message. Unknown number.
"She's walking into a trap."
My blood goes cold.
"Marcus."
He is beside me in an instant. "What?"
I show him the message. He reads it, face going hard.
"When did this come in?"
"Just now."
"From who?"
"I do not know. Unknown number."
He grabs the phone, starts typing. "I'm trying to trace it."
Another message comes through.
"Hatch never left. She's waiting for Maya. Six men, thermal scopes, positioned around the drop site."
"We have to warn her," I say.
"How?" Marcus is still typing furiously. "She's radio silent. Won't risk the signal."
"Then we go. Now."
"You can barely walk."
"I do not care." I am already standing, and the room tilts but I force myself steady. "We have to—"
A third message.
"You want to save her? I can help. But you have to trust me."
"Who is this?" Marcus types.
The response is immediate.
"Someone who wants the same thing you do. To stop Hatch. To access the bunker. To fix what's broken."
"The voice," I say. "From the phone. It has to be."
"The one that led you into Hatch's trap?"
"Maybe it was not a trap. Maybe—"
"Maybe it's playing both sides." Marcus throws the phone down. "We can't trust this."
"We do not have a choice."
He looks at me. Really looks at me. And I can see him doing the same calculation Maya did earlier. Weighing the odds. Running the scenarios.
"If this goes wrong—" he starts.
"It already is wrong." I pick up the phone. "Tell us how to help her."
The response comes in seconds.
"There's a drainage tunnel. North side of the forest. Coordinates attached. It leads under the drop site. You can come up behind Hatch's position."
A map appears. Red dots marking Hatch's men. A blue line showing the tunnel route.
"This is insane," Marcus says.
"Yes."
"We'll probably die."
"Probably."
He looks at the map. At me. At the door where Maya disappeared.
"Fuck it." He grabs his rifle. "Let's go."
We run for the truck. Every step sends fire through my shoulder but I do not slow down. Cannot slow down. Maya is out there, walking into an ambush, and I am the reason why.
Marcus drives like a demon. No lights. No caution. Just speed and momentum and the desperate hope that we are not too late.
The coordinates lead us to an old storm drain. Rusted grate. Darkness below.
"You sure about this?" Marcus asks.
"No."
"Good enough." He pries open the grate, drops down. I follow, and the landing sends fresh agony through my shoulder. I bite back a scream.
The tunnel is narrow. Low ceiling. Water dripping somewhere in the darkness. Marcus pulls out a flashlight, and the beam cuts through the black.
"This way."
We move fast. Splashing through standing water. The tunnel slopes upward, and I can hear sounds above us now. Voices. Movement.
Marcus kills the light. We are in darkness, feeling our way forward. The tunnel ends in a vertical shaft. Metal rungs leading up.
"I'll go first," Marcus whispers. "Cover me."
He climbs. I follow, one-handed, the pistol in my teeth. My shoulder is screaming but I do not stop.
We emerge in the forest. Fifty yards from where I fell. I can see flashlights. Hatch's men, positioned in a perimeter. And there, moving through the trees, a shadow darker than the rest.
Maya.
She is twenty feet from the drop site. Ten feet from the nearest guard. She does not see the trap.
Marcus raises his rifle. Takes aim at the closest guard.
"On three," he breathes. "One. Two—"
A twig snaps behind us.
We spin. A guard is standing there, rifle raised, and his eyes go wide when he sees us and his finger is moving toward the trigger and I am raising my pistol but I know I am too slow, too late, and—
The guard's head snaps back. He drops without a sound.
Maya is standing behind him, knife in hand, and her eyes meet mine across the darkness and I see something there I have never seen before.
Fear.
"Run," she mouths.
Then the forest erupts in gunfire and she is moving, diving for cover, and Marcus is shooting and I am shooting and everything is chaos and noise and muzzle flashes in the dark.
"Fall back!" someone screams. Hatch's voice. "Fall back to the vehicles!"
We are running. All three of us. Through the forest, bullets tearing through the trees around us. My shoulder is on fire and my vision is graying but I do not stop.
Behind us, engines roar. Hatch's convoy, pulling out again. But this time we have what we came for.
Maya has the pages. Clutched in her fist. Four sheets of my father's handwriting, torn and dirty but intact.
We reach the drainage tunnel. Drop down. Marcus goes first, then Maya, then me. I land badly and my legs give out and Maya catches me, holds me up.
"Move," she gasps.
We stumble through the tunnel. Behind us, voices echo down the shaft. They are coming.
But we are faster. We reach the truck. Marcus floors it before we even have the doors closed.
"Did we get them?" he shouts. "The pages?"
Maya holds them up. Four sheets. Covered in equations and diagrams and my father's careful handwriting.
"We got them," she says.
I am leaning against her, my weight on her shoulder, and I can feel her chest thudding against my side. She is shaking. Just slightly. Just enough that I can tell.
"You came back," she says quietly. "You shouldn't have come back."
"I had to."
"You could've died."
"So could you."
She looks at me. And for the first time since I met her, Maya Solis smiles. Really smiles. Not the cold tactical expression she wears like armor. Something real.
"Guess we're both idiots," she says.
Marcus is laughing. Wild and breathless. "Did you see Hatch's face? When we came up behind her? Priceless."
"We need to analyze these pages," Maya says, already shifting back to business. "Figure out what they say."
"Not here." Marcus takes another corner. "We need somewhere secure. Somewhere Hatch can't find us."
"I know a place," I say.
They both look at me.
"Where?" Maya asks.
"The university. There is a lab in the sub-basement. Old research facility. No one uses it anymore."
"Can you access it?"
"I have a key. From when I was a student."
"Then that's where we go." Marcus adjusts course. "ETA twenty minutes."
Maya is already spreading the pages out on her lap, studying them in the dim light from the dashboard.
"These are coordinates," she says. "But not for the bunker. Something else."
"What?"
"I don't know. But your father marked them urgent. Triple underlined." She looks up. "Whatever this is, he wanted to make sure we found it."
My phone buzzes again. The unknown number.
"You did well. But this is only the beginning. The coordinates Maya found? They lead to the real failsafe. Not the bunker. Something your father built before he died. Something even Hatch doesn't know about."
"What is it?" I type.
The response makes my blood run cold.
"The kill switch. For the entire Helios network. Your father built a way to shut it all down. Every panel. Every grid. Everything. And he hid the activation codes in—"
The message cuts off. The phone goes dark. Dead.
"No," I say. "No, no, no—"
"What?" Maya grabs the phone. Tries to restart it. Nothing. "What did it say?"
"The kill switch. My father built a kill switch for Helios. And the activation codes—"
The truck's windshield explodes.
Marcus jerks the wheel and we are spinning, tires screaming, and I see the muzzle flash from the tree line and another shot punches through the door and Marcus is shouting and Maya is pulling me down and—
We hit something. Hard. The world flips. Glass and metal and the terrible sound of crunching impact.
Then silence.
I am hanging upside down. Seatbelt cutting into my chest. Blood running down my face. The truck is on its side, wheels still spinning.
"Maya?" I gasp.
No answer.
"Marcus?"
Nothing.
I fumble with the seatbelt. It releases and I fall, landing on the roof. Pain explodes through my shoulder. I am crawling, trying to find them in the wreckage.
Maya is unconscious. Bleeding from a cut on her forehead. But breathing. Still breathing.
Marcus is not moving.
"No," I say. "Marcus. Marcus, wake up."
I check his pulse. Weak. Thready. But there.
Outside, footsteps. Multiple people. Approaching fast.
I grab Maya's rifle. Chamber a round. My hands are shaking so badly I can barely hold it.
The footsteps stop. Right outside the truck.
"Come out," a voice says. Not Hatch. Someone else. Male. Familiar somehow. "Come out and we'll make this quick."
I do not move. Do not breathe.
"We know you have the pages. We know about the kill switch. You can give them to us now, or we can take them from your corpses. Your choice."
Through the shattered windshield, I see boots. Three sets. Maybe four.
"Last chance," the voice says.
I look at Maya. At Marcus. At the pages scattered across the wreckage, my father's handwriting visible in the moonlight.
The rifle is heavy in my hands. I have never shot anyone before. Never even pointed a gun at another person.
But I am pointing one now.
The boots move closer. A hand reaches through the broken window, feeling for the door handle.
I raise the rifle. Take aim. My finger finds the trigger.
The hand stops. Pulls back.
"Interesting," the voice says. "You've got more spine than your father did."
And then I recognize the voice. From the phone. The synthesized voice. But this is the real version. The human underneath.
"Hello, Eli," the voice says, and a face appears in the window, and I am looking at someone I thought was dead, someone who should not exist, someone whose face I have only seen in old photographs from my father's office.
"Hello, son," my father says.