Page 117 of The Last Morgan

She looked up at him with bloodshot eyes. “Do I look okay?”

“No,” he admitted.

“Good. I’d be worried if I did.”

He knelt beside her chair, resting one hand on the side of her leg, she leaned into his presence like a weary soldier leaning against a wall for support.

“I didn’t know Jimmy would break like that,” she whispered. “I didn’t know I’d... shoot him.”

“You did what you had to,” Byron said softly. “It wasn’t murder. It was justice.”

“Feels the same.” She exhaled sharply and stood up again, pacing now. “There’s still more. There’s always more. Barnaby?”

He perked up from behind his screen. “Yeah?”

“The VR system thing. It’s next.”

Barnaby’s lips twisted into a grin, excited and solemn all at once. “I’ve already been fiddling with it. It’s not your average drive—whatever’s inside is protected by several layers of encryption and some kind of biological verification.”

“DNA?” Lucy asked.

He nodded. “Yeah. Yours.”

“And the headset?”

“I’m going to need to build one,” he admitted. “A VR headset modified to read the drive’s internal data and react with your bio-signature. I can’t even guarantee what it will show, but it’s not just a video file. It’s... interactive. Something that requires a user interface.”

“How long?” she ask’s

“Depends how fast I get the parts,” Barnaby muttered. “I’ll go to the tech depot in the city. Grab what I need. Should be back by tonight, and have it working by tomorrow morning, if all goes well.”

Lucy gave a small nod. “Good. Do it. We need to know the truth. All of it.”

She turned back to the window, watching as the rain started to fall again. Byron stepped closer behind her.

“You really want to see what’s in there?” he asked.

“I don’t think I have a choice,” she said. “This is the last piece of information Byron. After this... we know everything. No more theories. No more guesswork.

Just the truth.”

“And then what?”

Lucy’s eyes lingered on the droplets sliding down the glass. “Then... we deal with it.” she said.

From across the room, Corey stepped in, still wiping his hands on a towel from cleaning up downstairs.

“Barnaby,” he said, voice raised. “Take someone with you when you leave. No solo trips.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Barnaby shot back, stuffing his gear into a sling bag. “I already told Damian to prep the car.”

Lucy ignored them, still fixated on the world outside.

After a long silence, she turned around. “When my uncle gets here, we don’t give him a warm welcome.”

Byron smiled faintly. “You want cold?”

“I want ice.” she smirked.