Zia laughed out loud, thrilled for him, andloving the dazed look on his face as he enjoyed the insane show ofsupport. He struggled to get back to his feet, and she knew he wasworried about her, as were the Secret Service, who finallymanaged to surround her and escort her from the stage.
“Help Captain Stone too,” she pleaded. “Theylove him so much, they might accidentally kill him.”
“Another squad is headed his way,” an agentpromised. “And if anyone can take care of himself, it’s Stone. Theman’s a legend, and he’s only twenty-two.” Taking her by the arm,he added firmly, “Come on, Miss Quito. Let’s get you back to theHacienda.”
“It’s Captain Quito,” she remindedhim.
“Right.” He gave her a respectful nod.“Sorry, Captain Quito. I won’t ever forget that again.”
Epilogue
“So let me get this straight. Dad neveractually took the codes at all? Not even to make his point aboutthe vulnerability of the GARD system?”
“Right.” Zia smiled at Rem across the diningroom table in Commander Logan’s spacious condominium, which waslocated a few miles down the road from her house. Her uncle wasstill at the Hacienda, with orders to vacate the place by midnightand to surrender himself to the authorities for furtherproceedings.
“Dr. Fuller admitted the whole thing to theFBI, and me, a few hours ago,” Zia explained. “Apparently, on thevery day your dad made that passionate speech to Congress, sayinghow easy it would be to break into the command center, Fuller andmy uncle decided to frame him for doing just that. They knew Momstill planned to support Aengus for the next term as president, andthey wanted to stop that. The rift over the GARD system was theperfect opportunity.”
“It’s so bizarre,” Logan murmured. “OnceAengus admitted that he was the one who took the codes—andthat he was the guy in the first half of the vid, we only lookedfor evidence that the second half was falsified. It neveroccurred to us that he never stepped foot into that room in thefirst place.”
“Exactly. That was the key to their wholeplan—convincing Aengus of his own guilt, so he’d convinceeveryone else. They didn’t really expect it to go to trial. Justwanted to discredit him in Mom’s eyes. But when the guard gotkilled, it became more than a scandal with a hint of treason. Itbecame murder.”
“Unbelievable,” Rem murmured.
“After you dad’s speech to Congress, Dr.Fuller and my uncle made a phony vid. Then they drugged your dadwith the experimental calmative and showed him the vid over andover. That’s how the drug works,” she added ruefully. “As aeuphoric and as a hallucinogen. In stage one, it makes youloopy, so that you don’t form any concrete memories of your own.And it makes you docile, so you don’t even realize you’re beingmanipulated. In stage two, you’re extremely susceptible tosuggestion—someone shows you a vid of what you supposedlysaw or did, and voila. You’ll swear on your grandpa’s grave thatthat’s exactly what happened. Remember, Rem?” she said, smilingsheepishly. “Every time I talked about how romantic it was when youcarried me off the stage at the medal ceremony, you reminded methat I was unconscious and couldn’t possibly remember it. But Idid. Just like your dad remembered breaking into the commandcenter, looking at his watch, and stealing the codes.”
“But not shooting the guard. Because the fakevid didn’t have that in it.”
“Right. It was only when the masked man fromthe dummy vid really broke into the center on the night ofthe real crime and tried to duplicate every move he had made on thedummy vid, that the guard surprised him, and he shot him. Andworse, Mom witnessed it. Lucky for my uncle, the masked manhad been carrying your dad’s service weapon—and your dad‘remembered’ carrying it, so even that couldn’t be disputedat trial.”
Logan eyed Zia proudly. “And you figured allof this out because of a false memory of the medal ceremony?”
“It wasn’t just that. Remember when I toldyou about my dream? The one where you and Rem turned into mechs andbattled each other? I dreamed that in suspension. And since I hadtaken some of the bad calmative right before I went to sleep, thatdream seemed so real, it was scary. It stayed with me like a realmemory, not a dream one. I think that’s why I kept identifying withRem’s dad every time I watched the trial vid. I could sense hisfrustration—I just didn’t know why. Until Jenni brought me thatsecond vid of the medal ceremony, and I found myself sounding justlike him.”
Logan shook his head. “I sill don’t see whythey took a chance by giving the same drug to you.Twice.”
“Fuller said they needed to make me docilefor the ceremony. It seemed safe, since the worstsymptom—suggestibility—only matters if you show the subject thesame scene over and over. They couldn’t have predicted that I’d sitin my room and watch that vid of me and Rem over and over, until itwas real-er than real.”
Rem nodded. “Then the second time, it seemedsafe because we were going to go into suspension right after youtook it. Fuller thought it would wear off before you woke up.”
“But my dreams were so vivid—so intense. Theyhad the same effect. Lucky for us, or we still wouldn’t knowthe truth.”
Rem exhaled sharply. “And Fuller made a fullconfession implicating Jared every step of the way?”
She nodded. “He insists they were beingpatriotic. Their only motive—supposedly—was to keep Aengus frombecoming president because Aengus wouldn’t properly protect Earthfrom alien invaders. No one expected things to spin out of controlthe way they did when the guard was shot. Fuller says he wanted totell the truth then, but Uncle J wouldn’t let him.”
“Was Fuller the man in the mask?”
“No, that was Uncle J’s press secretary—bigsurprise. All Fuller did was drug your father. Apparently, Fuller’sbrother had invented the formula a few years earlier, but abandonedthe experiment when he realized how potentially dangerous the sideeffects were.”
“And my dad didn’t commit suicide.Right?”
Zia reached across the table to grip hishand. “They bribed a guard to hang him. It’s so awful,
