Jubilee’s still staring at Tarver, something like accusation in her gaze. “You told us the whisper was affecting her, that we needed to destroy the rift that we thought we’d find on the Daedalus. Why not tell us the whole truth?”
“Because no one can know,” Tarver blurts, frustration in the snap of his voice. “She’d become part of the experiment, something to be studied. She’d be kept safe somewhere in a facility, away from me, away from anything resembling a real life.” He closes his eyes. “I guess that’s all over now.”
“So…” My mind’s spinning, trying to make sense of all this. “If Lilac isn’t human, not really—”
“She is.” Tarver’s quick to interrupt. “She’s real, she’s alive, she’s human. She’s Lilac. She’s just…”
“Just a little bit different,” I finish for him, trying to make my voice conciliatory. “I didn’t mean she wasn’t real. But if she’s not—if her body is something created by the whispers, created by that energy from their side of the rift…”
“Then that’s why the whisper needed her.” Gideon’s reached the same conclusion I have. “If she’s made of the same energy they are, no wonder the whisper could take her over so completely. Like slipping on a glove made to your exact measurements.”
Jubilee grimaces. “Then it doesn’t seem likely that the same tactics that worked on Avon and Elysium are going to work here. We have no idea what we’re dealing with.”
“We need to know more about the rift.” Flynn crumples up his granola bar wrapper and tosses it aside. “Gideon?”
Gideon’s shaking his head. “LRI doesn’t keep any of its classified or proprietary documents on servers connected to the hypernet. No company would, it’d be an invitation for someone like me to walk on in. I’d have to go to LRI Headquarters itself, and…”
“And it’s basically a pile of rubble, infested with whisper-controlled husks.” Flynn mutters a curse.
I find my voice. “I…I think I might know someone who can help us.”
“Go on,” Gideon says, stripping another piece of wire and laying it in the pile of parts he’s pulling together for our makeshift shields against the whisper’s influence. He can’t make up six earpieces, so he’s jury-rigging a couple of palm pads to emit the same field as LaRoux’s device—right now they’re both in pieces, their insides spilling out like entrails.
“She’s the contact I made within LaRoux Industries who was willing to leak me information. She’s the one who told me the rift technology is the same as the new hyperspace engines. That’s why we thought LaRoux had moved the rift to the Daedalus. I was at LRI Headquarters a couple weeks back to meet her, but—it’s a long story, but that’s the day I met Gideon, and the day we found out about the rift at LRI. A riot broke out, and she went back underground.”
“Can you trust her?” Gideon’s voice is soft and his gaze steady—looking back at him, I can see the bitterness there. Trust. Such a simple thing. Such an impossible thing.
I swallow. “I don’t know. She could very well be dead, for all I know, or they might have caught her when they came after me. But if she’s still out there…if she was debating whether to help then, maybe she’d be willing now. She’s our best chance of finding out how to destroy the rift and set Lilac free. I’ll need your help, though, to track her down. The address I had for her doesn’t work anymore. She burned it when she—the time you came to get me.”
“What’s her name?”
“Rao.” I press my palms against the floor as Gideon starts moving already, setting aside LaRoux’s device so he can pull out a palm pad and get to work, searching every available network for the name. I swallow, continuing to explain. “Her name is Dr. Rao, and she’s with the theoretical res—”
“Rao.” The interruption is soft, but jolts me silent—Tarver hasn’t said a word since he told us about Lilac’s death, and the whispers who brought her back to him. He lifts his head, reddened eyes fixed on me. “Did you say Rao?”
“Yes, Dr. Rao.”
“Dr. Sanjana Rao?”
My stomach lurches. “What—how do you know that name?”
Tarver’s eyes close, and for a moment he almost looks peaceful, resigned. Then he gives a short, sharp laugh, eyes opening again. “What short memories everyone has. Patron was only three years ago.”
Jubilee’s breath catches in a gasp. “I knew I’d heard that name before—she was one of the researchers on Patron. One of the VeriCorp scientists you helped escape from raiders, the whole reason you were given that medal and sent to the Icarus on that press tour in the first place.”
Tarver nods, leaning forward so he can rest his elbows on his knees. He looks tired, older, with none of the easy charm and boyish good looks that made him such a media darling. “Except she wasn’t working for VeriCorp, and it wasn’t raiders who attacked them. That was all a cover.”