Rain had been falling over Blackridge for nearly six hours when the woman walked into the police station.
It was the kind of rain that erased the edges of everything.
Streetlights became pale halos behind sheets of water. The courthouse across the square looked like a ghost ship. The old brick buildings along Mercer Avenue disappeared into the storm, their windows glowing faintly behind curtains and blinds.
At 11:47 p.m., the town had almost gone to sleep.
Almost.
Inside Blackridge Police Department, Officer Daniel Mercer was sitting behind the front desk, staring at a vending-machine coffee that had gone cold forty minutes earlier.
He had been on duty since four in the afternoon.
His partner, Officer Jake Holloway, was in the back room filling out paperwork.
The night had been quiet.
Too quiet, Daniel thought.
He had spent fifteen years as a police officer, and he had learned that quiet nights could be deceptive. Sometimes nothing happened because nothing was happening.
Other times, nothing happened because something was waiting.
The front door opened.
Daniel Mercer had spent twenty-eight years believing that his childhood was ordinary.
That belief lasted exactly six minutes after he left the Blackridge Police Department.
The convoy moved east along County Road 17, its tires throwing sheets of water across the asphalt. The storm had weakened, but the landscape remained wrapped in a gray mist. Bare trees stood on either side of the road like black silhouettes, their branches dripping against the pale morning sky.
Daniel sat in the second armored vehicle.
Mara Voss sat opposite him.
Neither spoke.
The commander occupied the front passenger seat, studying a tablet that displayed a constantly changing map.
Daniel kept looking at Mara.
Finally, she noticed.
"You have questions."
"I have thousands."
"Ask one."
"Why did my mother build Orpheus?"
Mara didn't answer.
Daniel waited.
The commander glanced backward.
"Agent Voss."
Mara looked at him.
"You should tell him."
"I know."
"Then tell him."
Mara turned toward Daniel.
"Your mother didn't build Orpheus because she wanted power."
"That's not an answer."
"No. It isn't."
She folded her hands.
"Your mother believed the world was heading toward a period of unprecedented instability. Wars were becoming easier to start. Political violence was becoming easier to organize. Technology was making surveillance more powerful, but governments were still reacting to threats after they happened."
Daniel listened.
"She believed that if governments could predict dangerous events before they occurred, they could stop them."
"That sounds like Orpheus."
"It was."
"So she created it."
"Partly."
"And my father?"
"Your father was the engineer."
Daniel frowned.
"He was a county clerk."
"That was his cover."
"How long?"
"Most of his adult life."
Daniel stared through the window.
The truth was becoming more difficult to absorb.
He remembered his father sitting at the kitchen table every Sunday morning, reading the newspaper.
He remembered the way his father fixed broken radios.
The way he could look at an engine and somehow know what was wrong.
The way he never allowed Daniel to touch his old computer.
Daniel had always thought his father was simply clever.
Now he wondered how much of that had been an act.
"What did my father actually build?"
Mara looked down.
"The predictive core."
"Meaning?"
"Orpheus could analyze enormous amounts of information. Communications. Financial transactions. Travel patterns. Public records. Social networks. Military reports. Political developments."
"That sounds like surveillance."
"It was."
"And prediction?"
"Not exactly."
Mara hesitated.
"It identified people and situations that could become destabilizing."
"Could become?"
"Yes."
Daniel stared at her.
"So it didn't know what would happen."
"No."
"Then why did everyone believe it could?"
"Because the people running it didn't care whether the predictions were accurate."
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
"What does that mean?"
"It means that if Orpheus classified someone as a potential threat, that person became a threat."
Daniel slowly understood.
"They made the prediction come true."
Mara nodded.
"Exactly."
The vehicle continued down the highway.
Daniel looked at the commander.
"How many people knew?"
"At the beginning?"
"Yes."
"Seven."
"Seven?"
"Seven people had full access."
"And now?"
The commander didn't answer.
Daniel looked at him.
"How many are left?"
"Two."
Daniel's stomach tightened.
"Who?"
The commander looked at Mara.
Mara answered.
"Me."
"And?"
She stared out the window.
"Your mother."
Daniel felt a strange chill.
"So my mother is alive."
"Yes."
"Where?"
"We don't know."
"Then how did my father know where she was?"
"He didn't."
Daniel frowned.
"What?"
"The message you received wasn't from your father."
Daniel stopped breathing.
"What?"
Mara looked directly at him.
"That wasn't Thomas Mercer."
Daniel stared at her.
"You're lying."
"No."
"I heard his voice."
"So did I."
"Then how—"
"Voice reconstruction."
The commander turned around.
"Someone has a complete recording archive of Thomas Mercer."
Daniel's face hardened.
"So they made his voice."
"Yes."
"To lure me."
"Yes."
"Then my mother isn't at that house."
"We don't know."
Daniel looked down.
"Who sent the message?"
Mara didn't answer.
"Who?"
"We think Orpheus did."
Daniel laughed bitterly.
"Orpheus isn't a person."
"No."
"But someone is controlling it."
"Yes."
"Who?"
Mara's eyes darkened.
"That's what we're trying to find out."
The vehicle suddenly slowed.
The commander raised one hand.
Everyone became silent.
The tablet showed an obstruction ahead.
Daniel looked through the windshield.
Nothing.
Just an empty road.
Then Mara noticed it.
A single abandoned pickup truck stood sideways across the highway.
The commander immediately ordered the convoy to stop.
"No one exits."
The first vehicle stopped twenty yards away.
The pickup's driver's door was open.
No driver.
No movement.
Daniel stared at it.
"Could be an accident."
Mara shook her head.
"No."
"How do you know?"
"The engine is running."
Daniel looked again.
She was right.
Exhaust drifted into the cold air.
The commander reached for his radio.
"Team One, investigate from distance."
Two soldiers moved out.
They approached the truck.
One checked the cab.
The other looked underneath.
Then the first soldier suddenly raised his hand.
Everyone froze.
He pointed toward the rear.
The commander watched through binoculars.
Then he swore.
"What?"
Daniel asked.
The commander lowered the binoculars.
"There are six bodies."
Daniel felt sick.
"Dead?"
"Yes."
Mara opened the door.
The commander grabbed her arm.
"No."
"They're civilians."
"Exactly."
"Then we need to help."
"They're already dead."
She looked at him.
"Then we need to know why."
The commander finally released her.
Mara stepped outside.
Daniel followed.
The rain had almost stopped.
They walked toward the truck.
Six bodies lay beneath a plastic tarp.
All male.
All appeared to be between forty and sixty.
Daniel noticed something strange.
There were no bullet wounds.
No blood.
No obvious injuries.
"What killed them?"
Mara crouched.
She examined the nearest body.
"Look at the eyes."
Daniel did.
The man's pupils were unusually dilated.
The commander looked concerned.
"Poison?"
"Maybe."
Mara turned the man's wrist.
There was a tiny mark.
Three black lines.
The same symbol.
The same symbol found on the dead operative in the station.
Daniel stared.
"What does it mean?"
Mara stood.
"Orpheus."
Daniel looked around.
"Why would Orpheus kill these men?"
Mara searched the bodies.
She found six phones.
All identical.
She activated one.
The screen immediately displayed:
YOU ARE TOO LATE.
Daniel's blood ran cold.
Another message appeared.
WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING YOU SINCE 1998.
Daniel looked at Mara.
"1998?"
She nodded.
"That's the year you were born."
Daniel's face went pale.
"They've been watching me since I was born."
"Yes."
"Why?"
Mara didn't answer.
"Why?"
She looked toward the road.
"Because you weren't supposed to survive."
Daniel stared at her.
"What?"
"Your father wasn't the only person who opposed Orpheus."
"Who else?"
"You."
Daniel laughed.
"I was a baby."
"Exactly."