I look between the three of them. ‘Thought about what?’
Leoben chuckles. ‘About stealing a clonebox from one of the bunkers. Homestake isn’t far from here.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ I ask, stunned. ‘Go into a bunker? I’ve spent the last two years hiding from Cartaxus, and Cole is AWOL. Why don’t we just call them and ask them to lock us up?’
‘It won’t be like that,’ Dax says. ‘I told Cartaxus that I sent Lieutenant Franklin out to find you. I didn’t say who you were, just that you were a coder I knew, and there was a chance you’d be able to help us. I’ve already booked us in to refuel at Homestake. It’ll be fine. We’ll be able to get out of there easily.’
‘No we won’t,’ Cole says. ‘Homestake is a tier-one-secured facility. If we go in and they lock the place down, we could be stuck in there for weeks. We’ll have to find a clonebox somewhere else. We can’t risk going into a bunker. Lachlan made it clear in his message that we have to keep Cat away from Cartaxus.’
Dax crosses his arms. ‘Listen, Lieutenant. Cat will be just fine, don’t worry. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re in something of a minor apocalypse, and the chances of finding a living clonebox on the surface are slim to none. We don’t have a choice. We have to go to a bunker, and we don’t have time to stand around here arguing about it. Homestake is expecting us. We’ll restock our supplies, and then we’ll take the clonebox and drive to the lab.’
‘That sounds fine,’ Cole says, crossing his arms as well, mirroring Dax’s pose. ‘But tell me, Crick, won’t Homestake notice when we steal one of their cloneboxes?’
Dax holds Cole’s gaze. ‘Well, they’ve only got one, so yes, I assume they’ll notice, and then they’ll institute a lockdown, as you’ve noted.’ He taps the black cuff on his arm, glancing at Leoben. ‘Fortunately, Lachlan gave me access to his personal libraries, and I found a piece of code that should keep them busy long enough for us to get out.’
‘What code?’ I angle myself between Dax and Cole, breaking up their staring match.
‘It’s a simulation,’ Leoben says. ‘We call it a kick, like when you kick the doors down to get into somewhere secure – only we’ll be using it to get out. It was written by a friend of ours.’
I nod. I’ve written similar code for the Skies. Blunt attacks to cripple systems. That’s how I got into Cole’s panel. I’ve never seen anything like that in my father’s work before, though. The only thing he turned his coding skills to was DNA.
‘Is this a Cartaxus thing?’ I ask.
‘Kind of,’ Leoben says. He runs one hand over his buzzed white-blond hair, frowning. ‘It was written by Jun Bei, actually. Come to think of it, she could have been the one who got us into this mess. The hack that blew up the lab was all explosions and data corruption. That’s classic Jun Bei.’
‘What?’ I spin to Cole. ‘What is he talking about?’
Cole shifts uncomfortably. ‘Jun Bei … she was a coder, a prodigy. She worked with your father at Cartaxus before the plague, but they never got along.’
‘Oh, they got along,’ Leoben mutters. ‘Like a goddamn house on fire.’
My stomach flips. I turn to Dax. ‘Did you know about this?’
Dax looks as stunned as me. ‘Jun Bei’s name was on a lot of the code I saw, but she left before the outbreak, so I never knew her. Cartaxus said the attack came from the Skies.’
Leoben snorts. ‘Yeah, right. Those guys can’t code for shit. There’s no way they’re the ones who did it.’
My head spins. Leoben’s right – I’ve been trying to tell Cole all along that it wasn’t the Skies who hacked Cartaxus and destroyed my father’s lab. It was someone else, someone better. Someone who knew their way around Cartaxus systems. From the way Leoben’s talking, it definitely sounds like it could have been this girl.
‘Cole,’ I say, my voice shaking. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘I would have told you if I thought it was important, but it’s not. It couldn’t have been her.’
‘My father is dead,’ I say, my hands in fists. ‘I don’t know what could possibly be more important than that. You said she hasn’t talked to you in years. How could you know it wasn’t her?’
‘I know her,’ Cole says. ‘She wouldn’t have done it.’
‘Well, maybe you didn’t know her as well as you think.’
The words are out of my mouth before I can think them through. Pain flashes in Cole’s eyes before his face turns to stone.
Leoben lets out a low whistle. ‘You two have some crazy shit going on.’
‘Yes,’ Dax says, looking between Cole and me, frowning. ‘I’m sure you’ve both been through a lot. The sooner we get the clonebox, the sooner we can be done with this. I still say Homestake is our best option.’
Cole shakes his head, still glaring at me. ‘It’s too risky. You can go in, but Catarina and I are staying here.’
‘Who put you in charge?’ I snap.
Cole’s jaw clenches. ‘You’re the one who said we couldn’t go to Cartaxus. I know you’re angry, but this is a bad idea. We’ve got enough juice to drive to the closest town. We’ll find some more solars, and we’ll get the jeep working. We can still get to the lab tonight.’
I grit my teeth. Cole’s damn right I’m angry, but that’s only part of it. I’m tired, I’m confused, and I have stitches in my arm. There are files in my backpack that frighten me, I’m on a mission I don’t understand, and Dax is standing beside me, with a Comox and a Cartaxus bodyguard.
Part of me still wants to stick to the plan and play this safely. The smartest idea is to drive to the lab and look for a clonebox on the way. But part of me wants to see Homestake, the bunker I’ve been living an hour away from for the last two years. I want to know exactly what it is that my father kept me away from.
And if I’m really honest, part of me wants to piss off Cole.
‘Are you sure you can get us out of there?’ I ask Dax.
He nods. ‘Easily.’
‘Then let’s do it,’ I say. ‘Let’s go to Homestake.’
CHAPTER 18
Dax, Cole and I sit strapped into the Comox’s cargo hold while Leoben leans back in the pilot’s seat, his feet crossed on the controls. The Comox is a drone, but apparently Leoben knows how to fly it if the onboard AI ‘goes stupid’ in midair.
Cole is furious. His arms are crossed, his face is stormy, and he hasn’t spoken to me since I agreed to Dax’s plan. But that doesn’t matter. Once we decrypt the vaccine, he’ll go off to find Jun Bei, and I’ll never have to see him again.
The thought makes my stomach clench. I don’t know if it’s some ridiculous, inexplicable jealousy, or the fact that Leoben thinks Jun Bei was the one who killed my father. It sounds like she was a piece of work. I don’t understand why Cole was defending her. She left him and hasn’t contacted him in years.