There wouldn’t be any forensic evidence, would there? Her body was in the vactube somewhere, and her neural processor would be utterly obliterated once she was hit by a vactrain going several thousand miles per hour. He felt a hysterical laugh rise inside him, realizing he was the only person, the only person in the world who knew what Blackburn had done.

He stared at the glass, reflecting no image of him, and wondered why he’d stood there and said nothing even after Blackburn decompressed the chamber. Had he been in shock or . . . or had some part of him realized what was about to happen and known it was the only way to neutralize Heather?

He couldn’t figure it out. His brain wasn’t working right.

Then he sprang a foot in the air as Wyatt and Vik’s footsteps scuffed up behind him.

“Okay, the retina scanners are definitely out,” Wyatt said. “Ready to go?”

Everything had transformed for Tom in a few minutes. The lines of the world around him had taken on a stark clarity, and he felt like he could see every jagged detail he’d missed before. They could die doing this. He could get them all killed. Tom felt a great rush of self-doubt. They’d planned this so carefully, but what if they were wrong?

Then his thoughts turned to Yuri, the reason they were doing this. It calmed him.

No. They wouldn’t get killed.

He wouldn’t let it happen. Not this time.

He couldn’t think about Heather right now. He had a task and thinking about this would hobble him, distract him. All he needed to think about was getting into Obsidian Corp., destroying that transmitter, and getting back out. Nothing else mattered until that was done.

“Let’s go,” Tom said.

Chapter Twenty-Five

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

WHEN THE VACTRAIN halted in Antarctica, they darted toward the elevator. Then they waited, invisible in their optical camouflage, for an elevator full of Obsidian Corp. employees to finally come to the Interstice. It took a while. Thirty-eight minutes later, the doors slid open and some of Obsidian Corp.’s personnel strode out. Tom, Vik, and Wyatt rushed straight inside.

Then a message from Wyatt appeared before Tom’s eyes. I’m activating the net-send thought interface now, but I tweaked it so if you want it to actually send, you have to confirm. We don’t need to hear each other’s stray thoughts.

Even now, Tom’s vision glowed with the first thought that always came to him when hooked into a thought interface: Don’t think about boobs. He felt very pleased to select the “Cancel Message” option rather than the “Send” one.

As the elevator rose, Tom felt Wyatt’s hand grab his, and he squeezed hers reassuringly. Vik’s shoulder bumped his during the interminable trip upward, their ears popping.