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“You can also probably see why seers would interest that lot,” he added. “Longer lifespans. Regenerative ability. Sight skills with the potential to control others. Generally speaking, seers have higher I.Q.s, faster reflexes, more physical strength, greater resistance to disease. Not to mention the sexual component for someone like Rucker.”

I felt sick as I turned over his words.

“Yeah,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”

“Jem and I both think the shooter is a seer,” Black added. “So it’s really a question of motive. Either they’re doing this for the girl, and want her back… or their motive is something else entirely. Either way, I doubt this was a hired hit. I think it’s personal.”

His eyes left mine as he looked out over the view from our penthouse windows.

The Bay Bridge sparkled in the distance, reflecting sunlight.

“Normally, I’d just tip my cap to whoever killed Rucker, and wash my hands of it,” Black admitted, gruff. “Same with Frasier and Ungerman. But we need to know who this seer is. Even apart from the girl, I’m not crazy about random seers running around murdering humans… even if they’re murdering therighthumans.”

His gold eyes grew serious.

“The big thing is, doc, whoever they are, they’re risking exposure. This whole thing is a race-exposure nightmare. We need to find that seer and talk him down. We need to remove those fucking implants from everyone Lucian put them in. We need to scrub any hint of organic machines from Prometharis, destroy all prototypes and data about how he created them, and mind-wipe all the scientists. This is now about keeping our anonymity on this world. It’s about protecting ourselves while we still can.”

I nodded slowly, turning over his words.

“I understand,” I said. I did. “So we should remove Gorren’s implant first,” I suggested. “Before Aura’s. Maybe Holo should go with you today, and remove it onsite. Then he would know for sure if he could do it for the girl.”

Black flinched, then froze.

He looked over at me, and raised an eyebrow.

“She’s more expendable than Aura,” I said, a touch defensive. “She’s complicit in all of this. We should wait on Jem, of course,and do it as safely as possible, but we shouldn’t drag this out. Also, if we manage to get the implant out of Gorren, we could read her for what’s actually going on at that damned company. Maybe it will help us find this homicidal seer.”

Black smirked. “My black-hearted wife.”

“Purely your influence, I’m sure,” I retorted.

“No, I like it,” he assured me. “It’s hot. I like ruthless Miriam. I especially like ruthless MiriamBlack.”He tilted his head in a seer’s shrug. “Of course, Gorren probably can’t tell us what the shooter is after. Especially if she has no idea about the girl. But you’re right. She might know more than she realizes.”

I nodded, feeling my shoulders relax. “Like you said, we don’t know for sure this killing spree is about the girl, so we need to look for other motives. And we need those questions about Prometharis answered. Gorren is the one person we know forabsolute certainis high enough in the company to know where all the bodies are buried. All we need to do is––”

“Perform possibly fatal brain surgery on an innocent human?”

Humor colored his voice, but I could feel him watching me.

I tried to muster some remorse for what I was suggesting, but really couldn’t.

Something about Gorran made me think she wouldn’t have cared, even if she had known about the girl. She’d been enabling Rucker for years, getting him and his companies out of trouble, supporting his efforts to make his twisted ideologies into reality. It was hard to feel much pity for her, especially given how many “lesser” humans Rucker and his scientific team likely experimented on to make the brain implant she wore functional.

“I wouldn’t exactly call her ‘innocent,’ Black,” I muttered darkly.

He sat with that for a second, then grunted.

“Nor would I, wife,” he assured me. “Nor would I.”

I sipped my cappuccino and gazed out over the bay.

“We still have no idea if this shooter is done killing people,” I ventured next. I glanced cautiously at Black, saw him looking at me, eyes shrewd. “He could come looking for the girl when he’s finished, so we need to be ready. We should expect that. Shouldn’t we?”

Black’s gold eyes flickered.

They caught the morning sun through one of the large windows of the penthouse.

I saw the understanding there.