Heather gave a scornful laugh. She flipped back her hair and held up her own forearm keyboard in a triumphant flourish. “You can’t knock down my firewall that easily, sir. Your little protégé motivated me to work very hard on this one. It’s a good thing, too. I knew you might try to stop me from getting away.”

Blackburn lowered his arm. “Nothing’s ever easy,” he breathed.

“What is it exactly you were trying to do?” Heather said mock sweetly. Hostility burned in the air between them. “You really think you can delete what I know? Not going to happen.”

Blackburn drew a breath that puffed his cheeks and blew it out slowly. “I was going to make you come with me to the Census Chamber. Then we were going to search for that string of very specific memories so I could delete them and send you on your way. I still think you’re going to come with me, Akron. You are too clever a girl to risk the consequences if you don’t.”

“You can’t throw me over your shoulder and take me up to the census device. Someone will hear. Someone will see.”

“You’re completely right. There are far too many people around, even this early in the morning, for me to haul you upstairs with brute force. You’re going to come with me willingly and allow me to tamper with your memory, because I’m not letting you leave here with what you know.”

Heather’s eyes narrowed into slits. “Tom Raines destroyed my whole life. Why are you even protecting him? Why do you care if the government finds out what he can do?”

Tom was wondering that, too.

“Tom Raines himself? He’s not why I’m here.” Blackburn leaned toward her. “Let me put this in terms you’ll understand: I’ve devoted seventeen years of my life—almost the entirety of yours—to one single purpose. It’s the sole reason I haven’t already swallowed a bullet. I recently discovered a potent weapon that could make my last, middling wishes come true, and now here you are, threatening to hand it over to my enemies. I hope you understand how desperate I am to stop you from leaving. Whatever thrill you think you’ll get from revenge, whatever it is, if you try and walk out that door, you’ll be making a deadly mistake.”

Tom felt himself growing very still. So that’s what it was. That’s why Blackburn had kept him alive in Antarctica. That’s why he’d been so fascinated, learning what Tom could do in the Census Chamber. He saw what Tom could do as something he could use. He saw Tom as a weapon. His heart began to thump so hard, he was sure they could both hear it.