“I’m not sure. All I have are theories. If they’re still pursuing the Looking Glass device proposed in 1983, they need a massive amount of power and a large data communication network—the Internet, for example. Controlling world governments would provide them with both. The chaos serves another purpose. It keeps governments from conducting a search effective enough to find the cure distribution sites. They might find a few, but not all of them, not quickly enough.”

“We need to help them. There has to be a list of the sites,” Desmond said. He turned to Avery. “Can you do a search?”

Avery was already typing furiously. “No, this laptop only has information on what’s happening at this facility. It’s standard Citium policy—compartmentalization.”

William walked across the room to a window that looked out onto the pier and the harbor beyond. “They wouldn’t be that sloppy. These people are very, very smart. And efficient.”

He pointed out the window to the harbor, at a docked container ship. “But if we can find the ship that delivered the cure here, and see where it’s been, we might be able to figure out where they manufactured it. And that location will likely have a list of all the destinations the cure was shipped to.”

He turned to Avery. “Is there any navigational data from ships that docked?”

She worked the laptop. “It looks like the nav data downloads automatically when the ships make contact—but warehouse staff delete the records after review.” She raised her eyebrows. “Hold on. They haven’t deleted the records from the most recent ship, the MV Ascension.” Her eyes scanned the screen. “It’s still docked here.”

Desmond felt a rush of hope. “Read the ports of call.”

“Hong Kong. Singapore. Port Klang. Shenzen. Ho Chi Minh City. Kaohsiung.” Avery looked up. “This doesn’t make sense. The ship’s always full when it makes port, but it never takes on containers.”

William stepped closer. “We’re looking for a recurring location. It will occur after every port.”

Avery worked the laptop. “There’s nothing. Just an entry for Speculum.”

“That’s it.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Desmond said.

“It’s a Latin word. It translates to looking glass. On the Beagle, it was our code word for the Isle.” William paused. “Yes, it makes sense.”

“What makes sense?” Peyton asked.

“I think they created the virus at Aralsk-7,” William said. He turned to Desmond. “You saw the subjects in the testing wing. But I don’t think they manufactured the cure there.”

“Why?”