She waited for me to sit, then towered over me. Instinctively, my hand crept to the holster at my back, where I had strapped my Helix that morning. It was empty. My Apex was with the bounty hunters or back in the oasis. Not that it mattered. It was useless in my hand, anyway.

My teeth chattered but I forced myself to focus on my plan. There was only one way to spar with Jones, I realized. I would have to let her win. Play her game. Embrace exactly what she wanted me to be—a feral spy. I would be her pawn just like before. Only now, I lacked even the illusion of power. She would win, but, this time, she would suffer along with me.

I swallowed past the bitter taste of my tongue and began—exactly as I’d practiced. “You were right,” I said. “Director Kumar does not honor the law. He breaks it.” I looked up. “Only, not in the way you suggested.”

“What do you mean, girl? How does he break the law?”

“He’s been reassigning hydroplanes north, to an oasis near the Clayskin border,” I said.

“Are you sure?” she asked, surprised.

To be exact, I believed the hydroplanes were nourishing land inside the Obi Forest—but I held that part back from Jones. “Yes, Teacher,” I said.

Jones stepped toward me, greedy for more. “What else?” she said.

I hesitated. The next piece was even more speculative than the first. I pretended to gather my thoughts as I reconsidered the facts. At first blush, it appeared we had stumbled upon the bandits by accident. A second look, however, made me certain the encounter was planned.

Hosea himself admitted he intended to support Voltaire. War is coming to the Kongo, he’d said. Lines have been drawn. I didn’t think it a coincidence that the two had met, both on their way to the forbidden land.

The piece that edged me toward confidence, however, was the Helix. Hosea had said the Director guarded the biotechnology. So much so, he wanted to meet exactly who it was given to. Only, the Director had never appeared, not even by communit. It all led me to believe the Director had planned to recruit Voltaire to lead the rebellion. He’d known exactly where she was because, although she couldn’t remember, she’d been sent there to await Hosea’s training.

“The Director is building an arsenal,” I confessed to Jones. “He’s gathering an army in preparation for war.”

“How can you know that?” she hissed.

I chose my words carefully, unwilling to betray the bandits. “I know he plots war, because he told me about the weapons.”

“Weapons.” Jones got to her feet. “You heard this in person, from the Director?”

“Not in person. We spoke via Master Vine’s comm-unit.”

“What did he say? Could you see his location? Where was he when you spoke?”