“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”
Avery frowned. “Okay. And when we find out, what are we going to do about it? What is Rubicon Ventures, really?”
“Rubicon Ventures is a front. One of several used by the Rubicon program. We’re a covert organization—funded by the US government. Only a few people in government even know we exist. We have one mission: stopping Citium.”
“People in government—like… what? CIA?”
“No, Rubicon isn’t run out of any official government organization. We don’t have ID cards with a three-letter acronym. No paper trail, no risk of leaks. But every month, seven very highly placed members of our government meet to discuss the Rubicon program. Only they know the truth of our activities. They provide funding and help when needed.”
“So how do we stop the Citium?”
He smiled. “That is the question. I’ll tell you the answer when you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now.”
“No. You’re not. Your real training begins today, Avery.”
That training took two years. Every Thursday night, she drove up to Northern Virginia, to the colonial home in the country, where she learned things that had nothing to do with “due diligence.” She learned to fire a handgun. She had gone hunting with her father since she was old enough to walk, but she’d had no experience with military firearms. She mastered hand-to-hand fighting. Close-quarters combat was foreign to her, but she picked it up quickly. On some level, it reminded her of tennis—quick reactions, fending off attacks from opponents, moving her feet, swinging with force.
With each passing week she grew, changed ever so slightly. Her focus became complete.
During that time, she continued her work at Rubicon Ventures. Rubicon was making real investments in the Citium companies, hoping that access would yield more information. Each month, Avery added more data points to the corkboard. Increasingly, those points connected.
The Citium were getting close to completing the Looking Glass.
Finally, she and David sat down in the library and spread out the companies connected to Citium Holdings.
“Pick,” he said.
“Pick what?”
“An insertion point. You’re going to infiltrate the Citium.”
“Hughes. He’s the key.”
“Why?”
“He’s different from the rest,” she said.
“How?”
“He’s a true believer. He’s convinced that the Looking Glass will save humanity. But I don’t think he knows the truth about what they’re doing. If I can get through to him, we’ll have access to everything—and a shot at stopping them.”
“And if you’re wrong? If he does know? He’ll kill you.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“Good. In the field, you’ll have to trust your instincts. Make the right moves. Ask the right questions. Just like you have been. I won’t be around to help you. If you think Hughes is the key, then he’s the key.”
The next day, Avery applied for a job at Phaethon Genetics, one of Icarus Capital’s portfolio companies. Her cover story was that while performing due diligence on Phaethon for her firm, she had been impressed with their product and technology. She told the interviewer that she believed in the work they were doing, and, if she was being completely honest, she thought the company would succeed and become worth a ton of money. She hoped to get in early, get stock options, and cash out when the company was acquired or went public.
They hired her a few days later. She was assigned to a programming team within the IT group. She hadn’t done any coding since she’d completed her computer science major three years before, but she picked it back up quickly.
Phaethon was growing fast. The company was collecting genomic data and performing analysis, looking for insights that would help drug companies and healthcare providers make better decisions. They were taking a Big Data approach to medicine, and using a proprietary application that analyzed the genomic data. Their datacenter was struggling to keep up with the mountains of data the company was bringing in.
The company’s root problem, however, was communication. The business side of the organization was constantly at war with the scientists, who were at war with programmers. The scientists didn’t move fast enough for the business group, the programmers didn’t move fast enough for the scientists, and the programmers were always complaining that they needed more computing capacity to run the simulations—simulations the business group refused to move to the grid, for security purposes.
And that created the opportunity Avery needed to move up in the organization. Her background in due diligence, in analyzing hundreds of startup companies’ science and business, had given her unique insight into problems like the ones Phaethon was facing. And with her communication skills, she quickly became the IT group’s liaison with the scientists and business side. It didn’t matter that half the programmers could code circles around her; they were a nightmare in meetings. When at last she was promoted, it was not because of the skills she had acquired in college, but rather because of what she’d learned in her time at Rubicon: how to read people, analyze a situation, and help everyone find a solution.
And as she had hoped, her new role increasingly brought her into contact with Desmond Hughes.
“We got closer,” Avery said over the helicopter’s comm.
She paused. Desmond sensed that she was holding back. He wondered if Peyton was aware of it too.