Her heart stopped as the door to Tina’s office creaked.

“Hold on. They’re in my bunker,” Atlas said.

Romy fumbled desperately on the inside of the handle for the button she’d seen Atlas push. The automatic lock sprang off with a soft click. No way was she getting trapped inside.

Romy gently closed the entry, palms slick with fear. Atlas marched past where she stood on the opposite side of the door only seconds later.

Her breath was bated as she strained to hear through the wood.

If Atlas found this room unlocked. . . . Romy breathed a sigh of relief when the footsteps moved off down the hall. Two sets, she realised. Tina and Atlas were both going to his bungalow.

She can have him. Romy waited until their voices had faded.

And when silence returned to the building, that was when she stared blankly at her knees and tried to absorb the enormous lie of her time on Earth.

Why was he reporting them to the Mandate? Why now?

Was he protecting the settlement? Had he always planned to do this?

She couldn’t understand any of it, or rather, only one part.

Atlas meant to kill them. His reasoning for doing so wasn’t of immediate concern.

The word “bodies” implied Knot 27 wouldn’t be receiving a simple memory wipe upon collection.

Thrym was right, and she never saw it. Atlas was the enemy.

And Romy was the fool.

Romy pressed shaking fingers to her mouth in an attempt to keep her humiliated hurt inside. To think she’d been so torn at having to say goodbye. That she’d been on her way to confess her feelings and put her knot’s entire plan at risk.

Gentle Romy, who never saw the bad in people. Gentle Romy, who was a silly, naïve little girl.

The burning loathing she felt seared away her tears. Romy used the desk to pull herself up and looked around the locked room for the first time.

A platform sat in the middle of the room. A control panel sat on a slanted desk at the end of the platform. On the far side, in the middle of the raised stage, was a screen.

The setup was familiar. It was a transmission dock.

This was what Atlas had been hiding, she thought in confusion. It didn’t make sense. Why was this here? Earth used brain transmission now—the blue transmitters Tina, Houston, and Atlas wore in their ears.

The transmission dock was just a way to communicate . . . a bit old, but hardly any reason to be so secretive.

Romy made to leave, but a flashing blue light from the control desk caught her eye. Her instincts were screaming at her.

. . . He’d hidden this for a reason. She hesitated, eyeing the platform.