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That couldn’t be an accident, either. The seers Black left behind in San Francisco were the handful Jem and Nick didn’t know very well. They were seers who hadn’t fought with Jem or befriended him back on Old Earth, either.

Those of us on the plane mostlydidknow Jem well––even Dog, who I’d only found out today spent a lot of time with Jem when we were all in New Mexico. Dog and Jem had bonded, apparently, which was news to me, but I’d been pretty distracted while all that was going on. I obviously missed a lot about what the others had been up to during those months.

Now I felt guilty about that.

I knew maybe that was ridiculous––

“Because itisridiculous,” Black muttered, as he buckled on his seatbelt next to me. “Anyway, Sully barely knows him. And I brought Hamish because he’s a good tracker.”

I grunted, but had to concede his words.

He’d also left Larry Farraday, his lawyer, behind to deal with Rania Gorren.

As for Yarli and Manny, they were on standby to possibly meet up with us wherever Jem landed. Until then, Yarli led the infiltrators who stayed behind in San Francisco.

Black had grumbled most of his thoughts and questions at me while we packed.

“It’s rough,” he’d said at one point, shoving a few shirts in the suitcase we shared. “And obviously last minute as fuck, but I think we’ll have all the people we need, along with enough back here to cover anything that might come up.”

He’d continued muttering in my direction as he stalked back to the dresser.

“Anyway, Rucker has a second big research facility in France,” he’d said, rifling through socks and boxer briefs. “Assuming we’re able to handle this fucking thing with Jem in a reasonable amount of time, there’s some chance we can use the opportunity to get more information on Rucker’s companies while we’re there.”

I’d snorted. I couldn’t help it.

“Ever the pragmatist,” I murmured.

I honestly wasn’t sure if I was disturbed or impressed that Black could think of something like that right then. I will say, I wasn’tsurprised.

I also figured some of it was Black’s way of coping with the emotional side of this. It was easier for him to treat it like any other complication. A frustrating nuisance of a delay, but ultimately not a big deal, and definitely not something that could end as badly as we all feared.

Icertainly didn’t want to believe it could end that badly.

Nick sure as fuck didn’t want to believe it.

I couldn’t imagine why Black would.

I also knew, if it came to a battle between Jem and Black, things could easily spiral out of control, especially if Nick got in the middle.

“Don’t worry about that now, doc,” he’d murmured, throwing a gun case into a duffle bag and shoving another handgun in his side holster.

We’d been nearly side-by-side as we threw clothes hastily into a small suitcase.

Black also had the duffel for weapons and other equipment.

By then, we were almost done.

It was impossible to pack much, when we had no idea how long we’d be gone.

We’d had some of the big conversations already, including whether we should just ditch the Rucker contract altogether, deal with the implants and the sight-blocking tech later, possibly after Rania Gorren and the rest of that cabal had forgotten about us.

I’d been in favor of that approach, personally.

I wanted to contact the S.F.P.D., or possibly the F.B.I., as soon as we were in the air and on our way to following Jem. Let Gorren and Morgan deal with the police crawling all up in their ass, not to mention the international press, once news broke of Lucian’s murder.

We’d still have to deal with all that, of course, but we could put it on the back-burner for now to focus on Jem. I knew Black strongly considered going that route. Even apart from Aura and the implants, we both had a lot of questions about what the hell Lucian had been up to, questions that included figuring out just how many other seers might be out there, owned and traded by other rich humans, or just out in the wild, passing as human, or even in hiding.

And then there was the girl herself.