"Made sure this conversation is just ours," Marcus said. He looked at Jake the way he could never look at him in offices or boardrooms or anywhere with cameras. "No one hears this. Not the team. Not the Whisperer." He paused. "Just us."Jake already didn't like where this was going."The ring won't be enough," Marcus said. No preamble. Just the fact. "The server's shielded with Heart energy. Ancient. Deep. To overload it you need Dragon power. The real thing. Not just the ring."Jake looked at him. At the Dragon's Heart that used to belong to his father. At his father who was still here because that Heart had healed what stage four cancer had started."No," Jake said."Jake—""We find another way.""There isn't one." Marcus said it quietly. Like a man who had already spent a long time checking. "I've been working through it since Mei Ling found this place. The ring carries a fragment of the power. The Heart carries the rest. Combined they'd be enough. Separately neither of them finish

Tommy got to him first.He came through falling ice and cracked floor at a speed that suggested he wasn't thinking about any of those things and dropped to his knees next to Jake hard enough to hurt."Jake." He grabbed his shoulder. Shook it. "Hey. Jake."Nothing."Jake." Harder. "Come on, that's not okay, respond to me right now."Still nothing.Tommy looked up. Sora was already moving toward them. She reached them in seconds, crouched down, and pressed two fingers to Jake's neck.Found a pulse.She sat back slightly. Didn't say anything for a moment. Just breathed."He's alive," she said.Tommy exhaled so hard he had to put his hand on the floor to keep his balance. "Okay. Good. That's. Okay." He looked at Jake's unconscious face. "You are so annoying. You know that? Four minutes. You were out for four minutes and I have never aged so fast in my life.""We need to move," Sora said, standing and looking up at the ceiling. A section came down fifteen feet to their left. The sound of i

The General pulled a folder from his jacket and held it out. "These people keep everything. Top military command. Intelligence leadership. Eight government officials who are going to need the full picture going forward." He paused. "Everyone else gets the atmospheric event. The gas leak. The narrative we've been running."Jake took the folder. Flipped through it. Closed it.He looked at Sora. She looked at the folder. Then at him."Ahmed," Jake said.Ahmed was sitting on the hood of a military vehicle nearby, eyes closed, the Midnight fragment dim at his chest. He opened one eye. "I heard all of it.""City-scale wipe. Can you do it?"Ahmed opened both eyes. Thought about it properly. "It will take most of what I have left. The precision won't be what it was with smaller operations." He paused. "But it will hold.""Should or will?" Sora said.Ahmed looked at her. "Should."Tommy raised his hand. "Quick question. We're betting an entire city's memory on SHOULD?""We're betting an entire

His phone rang at eleven forty-seven AM. Jake was in the back of a cab heading away from the Nevada airfield when it buzzed. He looked at the screen expecting Sora or Mei Ling with another Tokyo update. It was the hospital. He picked up. "Mr. Morrison? We have Mr. Vale settled in his room. He's asking for you." Jake looked out the window at the passing highway. "I'll be there in twenty minutes." He was there in fifteen. *** The private hospital floor smelled like antiseptic and filtered air. Jake nodded at the security outside Marcus's door and went in. Marcus was sitting up in bed. Not lying down. Sitting up. He was hooked up to monitors with an IV in his arm. His color was still off but better than the medical tent. Better than Antarctica. He looked at Jake when he came through the door. "You look worse than I do," Mar