Tom groaned and clutched his temples, where a headache was spiking through his skull. “Look,” he ground out, his eyes closed. “Vik, Wyatt is talking about some memories of mine she saw thanks to Blackburn that don’t really matter at all. Wyatt, Vik is talking about the reason I asked you here, and this is about some memories that do matter. I took them out so you could see them and decide for yourself instead of taking my word. I’ve shown them to Vik, so we’re going to show them to you.”

And with that, Tom nodded, and Vik jabbed at the controls of the census device and replayed the memories they’d extracted. The first clip featured Tom by the road, trying to hitch a ride in New Mexico.

“Tom,” she said sadly, “you shouldn’t hitchhike.”

“That’s not the point of showing you this,” Tom told her.

“You could get killed. Or robbed. Or raped. Or all three. What if a serial killer picked you up? You’d wouldn’t like it if someone ate you, Tom.”

Then Joseph Vengerov appeared on the screen, and she fell silent.

“You really were a bit rude to him,” she told him.

“Again, missing the point.”

She lapsed into silence, seeing Vengerov’s demand about Medusa. She turned to Tom in the projected light of the census device, eyes wide. “You’re not in contact with Medusa again, are you?”

“He is,” Vik said mock cheerfully. “Another aspect of Tom’s secret life.”

“It’s complicated,” Tom said.

“Oh no,” Wyatt whispered. “That’s a bad idea. It’s a bad, bad idea. And—” she cast her gaze up toward Vengerov on the screen “—you can’t do that to her. Don’t use a virus. She likes you. That would be so mean!”

“Medusa is on the other side of the war,” Vik remarked. They looked at him. “What? Someone should point this out.”

“But . . .” Wyatt’s voice faltered as the next memory began, and she saw the Praetorians in Antarctica closing in, then the door snapping open to deposit Tom outside. That’s all he’d given them. She mumbled, “That’s how it happened? He deliberately drove you outside?”

“Yeah,” Tom said. He glanced at Vik, saw that he was sitting there rigidly in his seat.

“You must’ve been so scared,” Wyatt said.

“No,” Tom protested indignantly. “I wasn’t scared.”

Vik said, “The point is that Vengerov already knew, Enslow. He knew Tom wasn’t going to agree to do it. Someone told him.”

“Or he could have guessed,” Wyatt said uncertainly. “It’s a yes/no question. Fifty-fifty probability.”

Tom shook his head grimly. “No, he knew.” And then he nodded for Vik to play the next memory.

It was Tom telling Yuri about Medusa in the weight room. The screen snapped off, and they stood there in utter silence for a long moment.