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“Hi, Millie. How are you?”

“You’re different. Did something happen?” She lifted her head, stared at him with ancient eyes set in a little girl’s face.

Natalie astride you, her thighs clamped around your hips, her head thrown back . . .

“Oh,” she said. “Sex. But I thought you and Shannon were doing it.”

For the first time in a decade, Cooper found himself blushing. To cover it, he turned to the Epsteins. “You’ve taken care of Ethan Park?”

“Yes,” Jakob said. “We’ve given him a facility that exceeds anything he’s known, along with a staff, all brilliant. With his knowledge of Dr. Couzen’s process, rediscovering the gene therapy to create gifts is just a matter of time.”

“Which you don’t have.”

“Uncertain,” Erik said. “The data is unclear. Disparate factors, personality matrices under exceeding stress, unexplored variables. Predictions are below threshold of utility.”

“Yeah?” Cooper pointed at a video feed hanging between graphs, a high-angle perspective on the rocky ground outside New Canaan’s southern border. The camp was a hive of activity, twenty thousand people preparing for war. “They seem pretty certain.”

“Unimportant.”

“An army is about to breach your border, and you say it’s unimportant?”

“No. The term army, no. Militia. Statistically far less effective.”

“Yeah,” Cooper said. “But this is the part you’ve never gotten, Erik. Data only goes so far. Not all emotions can be quantified. You murdered thousands of people, did it on national tri-d. You want a prediction?” He put his hands in his pockets. “I predict they’re coming for you.”

“You sound almost happy about it,” Jakob said.

You’re goddamn right, you slick shit. That was my country you attacked, my soldiers you killed, my president you murdered—

He took a moment and a breath. “I’m just tired of everybody making things worse.”

“Cooper,” Erik said, his voice hesitant. “I . . . I didn’t want to do it. They made me.” The billionaire looked around the room as if seeking support, someone to tell him it was okay. “It wasn’t easy. Isn’t. I’m—I hear them, the explosions, and I see them dying. I didn’t want to hurt them, but they wanted to hurt us. Were going to. I had to. They made me.”

The dark circles under his eyes, the extreme twitchiness, the shoulders slumped farther than usual. He’s suffering. The realization brought no compassion. “I understand why you did what you did.” Cooper kept his voice level and cold. “But the people you killed were not monsters. They were public servants. Leaders. Soldiers. If you’re looking for sympathy, I’m the wrong guy.”

Epstein’s mouth fell open like he’d been slapped. He stared for a moment, then turned away, pawing at his eyes with the back of his hand. Behind him the data whirled and spun, sharp holograms floating in nothing. Jakob looked at him disdainfully, then went to his brother, put a hand on his shoulder.

His back still to Cooper, Erik said, “The militia is not a factor. No sophisticated weaponry, no air support. Not a factor.”

“You’re underestimating emotion again. Especially hatred.”

“And you,” Jakob snapped, “are underestimating us. Again. The Holdfast is a long way from defenseless.”

“Even so—”

“Others tried to hurt us. They died. If these people try, they will too.” Erik turned to face him. “They will burn in the desert.”

Burn in the desert? That phrasing can’t be accidental. Cooper said, “It’s true, then. The rumor about your little defensive perimeter. The Great Wall of Tesla.”

“If by ‘little defensive perimeter,’” Jakob replied, “you mean a redundant network of ten thousand microwave emplacements generating targeted radiation that can reduce flesh to ash and bones to powder, then, yeah. It’s true.”

“I don’t want that,” Erik said. “I like people.”

Cooper wanted to hurt him again. Wanted to lash out and make the man feel what he had done, make him suffer for it. He checked himself. Despite Erik’s actions, the sincerity in his voice was hard to question. He’s never made an aggressive move, only defensive. Brutal ones, certainly, but they were to protect his people.

Besides. Like it or not, you’re going to need his help.

“John Smith,” Millie said. She was staring at him again, her eyes aglow with reflected data.