“Keep reading.” He was more lucid now than before, as if the familiar topic had rejuvenated his mind.

“‘A quarter million soldiers,’” she continued. “‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous that is? That’s a small city of completely new beings, not technically human but still intelligent, still self-aware, still capable of human feeling. It was one thing when we were making a few thousand Watchdogs, but this is a new humanoid species.’” These were his words—her own father’s words. She had to fight not to cry as she read them. “‘The government—even our own board of directors—talks about them like property, but that’s not how most people will see them, and that’s not how they’ll see themselves. At best, we’re reverting to the worst excesses of “partial people” and human slavery. At worst, we’re making humans completely obsolete.’”

Kira shook her head, her eyes locked on the page. “How could he know all this? How could he know it and not do anything to stop it?”

“Keep reading,” said Afa again, and Kira swallowed her tears.

“‘I don’t know where this is going to end, but I know that there’s nothing we can do at this point to keep it from starting. The wheels are already moving, the technologies are already proven—Michaels and the rest of the board could do this with or without us. We can’t stop it, but we need to do something to tweak it. I don’t want to say anything else, even on an encrypted server. We’re having a live meeting tonight at nine in Building C. My office.’

“‘The first thing we’ll do is figure out exactly who we can trust.’”

Kira fell silent, reading and rereading the email until the words seemed to blur and lose meaning. She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

“That’s the first instance of the word,” said Afa, standing and pointing at the final sentence. “He said they had to figure out who they could trust. From what I’ve been able to piece together, they formed the group that night, in that secret meeting, and they started using the word Trust as a code word.”

“He said they were trying to tweak something,” said Kira. “What does that mean? Were they trying to tweak the plans for the Partials? Or tweak the Partials themselves?”