“I’m sorry. I didn’t know,” I told him.
“No biggie. I went to work for Sage, who was happy to have me on board. And I took your job from you, unfortunately,” he said. “You have to understand, I had nothing left, and being efficient at hauling supplies was all I could do. The competitive nature never went away.”
“Now I understand why you didn’t fly against me on Mars,” I said. It had seemed strange that one of his teammates had flown the Pod instead. But I hadn’t given it much thought, since Holland was supposed to be our own Pod Sprinter.
The computer rang, informing me we were near SeaTech.
“I’m glad my simple question allowed you two to have a breakthrough.” Aster chuckled.
“That wasn’t free. Now it’s your turn,” Varn told his newest crew member.
“Maybe another day,” she told him.
“Let’s strap in. I’m going to land. R11, we have clearance?” I asked.
The robot checked. “Yes, Captain.” He patched the landing location to me, and I settled on the big island.
With a quick check on my PersaTab, I found a message from Jade. Bryson’s waiting for you in his office. We’ll come grab Varn and Aster later.
Her message was leaving something out, but I didn’t respond. “Okay, the others will be here shortly. I have somewhere to be.”
“We’re partners. Shouldn’t I join you?” Varn asked.
“Not this time. It’s personal.” I jogged from my craft.
Twenty minutes later, I was in Bryson’s underwater facility, across the airlock and through the tubes that made up the structure. I knocked on his door, and it opened. The man I saw behind the desk wasn’t what I expected.
“Arlo, I’m thrilled you made it.” Bryson rose, crossing the room in three fast strides. Instead of a handshake, he hugged me for a second and let go.
“How have you been?” I pried.
“Never better,” he said, but it was clearly a lie. While he looked rested, his cheeks smooth from a fresh shave, his uniform immaculate, he had to be a disaster inside.
“Bryson…”
“I know what you’re going to say. I haven’t returned your calls, and I’m hiding out under the ocean.”
I grinned at his astute self-observation. “My thoughts exactly.”
“Catarina shouldn’t have gone on that mission. Damn me for even considering it. She was aware of my concerns, but who was I to squash a dream? I had my own aspirations. When my father passed, I became the CEO of all this. SeaTech was mine, and it was up to me to bring it into the Primaries.” Bryson slid a chair across from his desk, and I sat. “If I’d been more invested in our relationship than in my business, I could have convinced her to stay.”
“We don’t know that she’s alive,” I told him.
“But we do. Preston Lewis said as much.”
“He’s a liar.” Even now, I struggled to say the words. My mentor was the ultimate betrayer, and the logical part of my brain couldn’t understand how that had happened to him.
Bryson pressed his finger to a PersaTab, and a 3D image appeared over his desk. It was my grandfather on Obelisk. He stared forward, as if he was seeing Bryson at this moment. His voice was as I remembered it. Strong. Clear. “The Velibar have taken my crew to their home planet. Catarina included.”
Bryson had it playing on a loop. “It could be a ploy,” I suggested.
“I don’t think so. I’ve compared it with vocal analyzers, and the data says he’s telling the truth. Ninety-one percent assurance.”
“Even so, what are you planning to do about it?”
“Arlo, you know exactly what I’ll do. I’m going to find out where she is, then rescue her. And in my wake, I’ll leave the destruction of the Squids.” Bryson looked like he might actually believe what he said.
“And Holland?”
His eye twitched. “That’s my next project.”
“Tell me.”
“Holland entered the gateway. We know the Velibar had staged a fleet across it, from a system far from their home planet. We’re close to deciphering the location. When we have it, we can use the FTL…”
“It’s too dangerous. I just came from Mars. We’re not prepared for a large-scale assault. Even in two years, we may struggle to defend Earth.” Bryson had access to all the reports, but he was acting like none of that mattered. But it did give me an idea. “The moment you retrieve that location, you ping it to me on Pilgrim, okay?” I asked.
He didn’t even question why. “I can do that. When do you leave?”
“A week or so. What do you expect we’ll find out there?” We’d gone over scenarios with Eclipse and Octavia for the last couple of months, but Bryson hadn’t given his input since he’d learned about Catarina being alive.
“Much more than you’d expect. Now that we’ve seen the Velibar, everything’s changed. Aliens exist, Arlo. We’ll never be the same.” Bryson rose and headed into the hallway. “I have something for you.”
We went to his secret room, down the elevator past the guards; but instead of taking me into the wide-open space we’d visited prior, he led me in the opposite direction, toward a laboratory.
“What’s this?” A dozen containment boxes sat lined up in a neat row, and four people in white coats bustled around, recording notes on their PersaTabs while running experiments.
“This is our secret weapon,” he whispered.
I stared at the testing containers, unsure what he meant. Each casing held a portion of the green mossy substance, all of them dormant.
Bryson crossed the room, using his thumbprint to open a safe embedded into the white wall. It beeped and recessed, dropping a round hatch wide. The vials were frozen, and a gentle mist rose from the glass at the change in temperature. “These are samples from our Matriarch. That’s what I call the primary creature you brought from Eris on Capricious. She’s replicated faster than we thought possible, and we estimate she’s duplicating once a day. It’s unclear if the descendants have the ability to do the same, at least
