And I knew, as an analyst, that you could sometimes make the data show more than one outcome or intent. But there was a clarity—a damning clarity—to the supporting documents. Showing how Silvina’s purpose shifted from habitat stewardship and land purchases to recruitment of underground biotech experts and geneticists. From acquiring wildflower seed and funding research into experimental wetlands restoration into the kinds of things that kill people.

“Execution of mass-elimination plan as clear end-game, given the scope of the knowledge base and the amount of matériel,” someone had written in the analysis part of the report. Parts of which were also heavily redacted.

Conclusion: she’d been trying to amass or even build biological weapons, with the goal of broad use against civilians. But no solid evidence that she was able to make the contacts and acquire everything needed. No direct links. Ghosts and more ghosts. Hauntings.

Still, I would have bet the government had been about to black-site her anyway. Except she’d died in a car crash. Was it my delusion that I didn’t believe it at first or was the report the delusion?

You could fake a death. I knew you could. If Hellbender wasn’t Langer, then what if Hellbender worked for Silvina? I didn’t know how paranoid to be. Had not been paranoid enough as an analyst sometimes, but also too willing to go down rabbit holes. The truth? Almost anything was possible when you dealt with humans, not systems.

I knew Alex was coming into the office. Alex wanted more of us to work remotely. I didn’t want to see Alex. I didn’t want to believe Silvina was an aspiring bioterrorist. I did and didn’t want another text from Hellbender. I didn’t know how to get out of these loops.

I left, even though I could feel eyes on me, a kind of communal judgment from those who had come into the office. How I wished I was small and anonymous-looking. But I wasn’t, so I stomped my way to the exit, head high.

No one jumped me in the parking garage. No one tailed me. But, then, I had Hellbender in the front seat with me, trapped or trapping me on my phone.

Like some lucky talisman.

[56]

Unitopia. Allie’s report had described the artists’ commune as an artificial island in the wilderness. Unlike the bare bones of the blueprint, the finished structure, floating on stilts and pontoons, had a weirdly wilder, yet more elegant, feel. From the photos, it had looked clean, sleek, with glistening blue solar panels on roofs amid a snaking swath of bushes and trees and wooden walkways.

As for the wilderness, urban sprawl had caught up. The “lake” was an enormous converted holding pond, abandoned when another subdivision had been gouged out of the forest and a new holding pond created elsewhere. I was surprised to drive past chain stores and countless housing divisions labeled almost the same as the ones in our neighborhood.