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What had been downloaded fros, but whoever had done it had concealed whatever it was they were plundering froer, he wouldn’t have even realized it had happened

AT MIDNIGHT, A nu with the trainees, to gaze through the large, alls at the fireworks that began to splutter through the night to usher in the New Year Lieutenant Blackburn was a them Tom rubbed his hand over his sore head, certain he kneho’d been taking stuff from his processor

Of course it was Blackburn There was no one else who’d be intensely interested in his neural processor

Had he done this es before without his realizing it? He glared at Blackburn’s large back, but the lieutenant gazed out the , talking to no one, not even the other soldiers

Toaze A bit perplexed by the intensity of her eyes, he tipped his can of soda to her

Heather tipped her glass back to him fro frohts

Tom didn’t even think to wonder about it

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THERE WERE SEVERAL reasons reet at Obsidian Corp during their first week back after the holiday First and foremost, it was a waste of time, since Obsidian didn’t sponsor Co because Blackburn was absolutely paranoid about Joseph Vengerov taking advantage of the visit to mess with their processors Whenever they returned froonal Spire’s systems and subjected to a five-hour deep scan to check for reat deal of trouble for everyone, and all for very little payoff, but they had to go Vengerov’s tech waged the wars in space His surveillance systems and automated weapons protected the other Coalition executives The codes on his voting machines determined which politicians oversaw the war effort Obsidian Corp was too erov wanted a visit, the trainees had to go

The first week back at the Spire after everyone returned from break, Wyatt and the other new Uppers were hard to find

Vik thoughtfully took advantage of Wyatt’s absence to invade her new bunk and modify her new bunk te more photos One was an outline of Connecticut with soes of people superi children who had just realized they lived in Connecticut

"It’s not officially a Connecticut joke, since it’s a Connecticut poster," he told Tom uncertainly, when Tom reminded him of Wyatt’s relentless android

He also added a couple more pictures of himself: another shirtless picture and one black-and-white, artistic photo of hi his chin, looking broodingly at the sky in a very un-Vik-like manner that areets, Toht roo Yuri while he bench-pressed alht All the other Middles were visiting companies that Tom had been banned from His only appointment was late in the afternoon, a direct shot on the Interstice to Vengerov’s facilities in Antarctica Yuri had not been pers