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“A at it too” Naomi’s voice came froht back to the uards they hadn’t fought, the shattered glass and its black filament Here was the experiment that had slipped its leash back at that lab It had fled to the cold, dead surface of Ganymede and waited there until a chance ca up his arht?”

“I don’t think so,” Naomi said

Chapter Twenty-Five: Bobbie

Bobbie’s hand ter reveille at four thirty arumbled and called “oh dark thirty” back when she’d been a ru next to the pull-down cot she used as a bed, the volu if she’d been in there with it But Bobbie had already been up for an hour In her cra around her tiny apartment like radio in a deep well The echoes were a sonic reminder that she still didn’t have s

It didn’t uest

The reveille was aon herself The Martian military had formed hundreds of years after tru inforia the UN s The first ti a video on military history She’d been happy to realize that nothe Martian equivalent—a series of atonal electronic blats—was, it would never be as annoying as what the Earth boys woke up to

But now Bobbie wasn’t a Martian Marine anymore

“I am not a traitor,” Bobbie said to her reflection in thetrumpet call’s third repetition, her hand terminal beeped once and fell into a sullen silence She’d been holding her toothbrush for the last half hour The toothpaste had started to grow a hard skin She ran it under ater to soften it back up and started brushing her teeth

“I’ the words unintelligible “Not”

Not even standing here in the bathroo her teeth with UN toothpaste and rinsing the sink with UN-provided water Not while she clutched her good Martian toothbrush and scrubbed until her gu ree

She put the toothbrush back into her s roo she owned stayed in the duffel She’d need to move fast when her people called her hoet a priority dispatch on her ter around it They’d tell her that she needed to return to her unit immediately That she was still one of thehtened her uniform, slid her now quiet terminal into her pocket, and checked her hair in the ht it alle hair out of place

“I’m not a traitor,” she said to the mirror Front hallway mirror Bobbie seemed more open to this idea than bathrooht,” she said, then slammed the door behind her when she left

She hopped on one of the little electric bikes the UN campus made available everywhere, and was in the office three minutes before five am Soren was already there No matter what time she came in, Soren always beat her Either he slept at his desk or he was spying on her to see what ti