"From that warhead you found? Not a chance. The tracers would've metabolized any active agent down to the atoms."

Clarke shot him a look, clear as binary even through the frosting on her eyes: Not quite on your game, superspy? Letting some dick-ass country doctor sneak up on you?

"But I know how we can get a sample," Ouellette continued, looking straight at Clarke. "And I could use your help."

Migration

Obviously she had come late to the conversation. If she had heard the way it started, Clarke knew, Taka Ouellette wouldn't have wanted anything to do with her.

The good doctor had contacts on the ground, so she said. People she'd saved, or bought time for. The loved ones of those whose suffering she'd ended. Occasional dealers, wildland hustlers who could sometimes conjure up drugs or spare parts to be weighed against other items in trade. They were the furthest thing from altruists, but they could be life-savers when the closest resupply lifter was a week away.

All of them had a healthy sense of self-interest. All of them knew others.

Lubin remained skeptical, of course. Or at least, Clarke thought, he continued to act skeptical. It was part of his schtick. It had to be. Nobody would honestly turn their back on the chance, however faint, to undo even a part of what—

—what I set in motion...

There was the rub, and Lubin—God damn him—knew it as well as she did. Once you've helped destroy the world, once you've taken fierce stinging pleasure in its death throes, it's not easy to claim the moral high ground over someone who's merely reluctant to save it. Even if it's been a while. Even if you've changed in the meantime. If there's a Statute of Limitations on terracide, there's no way it expires after a lousy five years.

Taka Ouellette had proposed a southern course towards whatever was left of Portland; and even if there was no way into the datapipe from there, Boston would be that much closer. Besides, Ouellette was an official person in these parts, someone with recognized credentials and identity. Almost an authority figure, by local standards. She might even be able to walk them in through the front door.

"Authority figures don't drive around handing out derms from the back of a truck," Lubin said.

"Yeah? And what have your efforts netted us lately? You still think you can hack into the global nervous system when all the back-door nerves have been burned away?"

In the end he agreed, with conditions. They would go along with Ouellette's plan so long as it took them in the right direction. They would make use of her MI after every counterintrusion device had been ripped out of the cab; he would ensure her cooperation while she advised Clarke on the necessary monkeywork.