Skin Deep
Page 36
“Are you going to do it?” Tobias asked as I passed him. “Let it out?”
I pulled out the flash drive and held it up. “Didn’t Dion talk about about starting a new company with his brother? Curing disease? Doing good each day?”
“Something like that,” Tobias said.
I tossed the drive up into the air, then caught it. “We’ll set this aside, to be mailed to him on the day he graduates. Maybe that dream of his isn’t as dead as he thinks. At the very least, we should honor his brother’s wishes.” I hesitated. “But we’ll want to see if we can get the data ourselves first and check out how dangerous it might be.”
As my aspects had guessed, my contacts among the feds said the cancer scare had been a fake on Yol’s part, an attempt to make my task urgent. But we had no idea what Panos had really been working on. Somehow, he’d hidden that even from the people at I3.
“Technically,” Tobias said, “that information is owned by Yol.”
“Technically,” I said, pocketing the flash drive again, “it’s owned by me as well, since I’m part owner of the company. We’ll just call this my part.”
I passed him, heading to the stairs. “The funny thing is,” I said, hand on the bannister, “we spent this entire time searching for a corpse—but the information wasn’t just there. It was on every person we met.”
“There’s no way we could have known,” Tobias said.
“Of course there was,” I said. “Panos warned us. That day we studied I3—it was proclaimed right there, on one of the slogans he’d printed and hung on his wall.”
Tobias looked at me, quizzical.
“Information,” I said, wiggling my fingers—and the bacteria that held Panos’s data, “for every body.”
I smiled, and left Tobias chuckling as I went searching for something to eat.
I pulled out the flash drive and held it up. “Didn’t Dion talk about about starting a new company with his brother? Curing disease? Doing good each day?”
“Something like that,” Tobias said.
I tossed the drive up into the air, then caught it. “We’ll set this aside, to be mailed to him on the day he graduates. Maybe that dream of his isn’t as dead as he thinks. At the very least, we should honor his brother’s wishes.” I hesitated. “But we’ll want to see if we can get the data ourselves first and check out how dangerous it might be.”
As my aspects had guessed, my contacts among the feds said the cancer scare had been a fake on Yol’s part, an attempt to make my task urgent. But we had no idea what Panos had really been working on. Somehow, he’d hidden that even from the people at I3.
“Technically,” Tobias said, “that information is owned by Yol.”
“Technically,” I said, pocketing the flash drive again, “it’s owned by me as well, since I’m part owner of the company. We’ll just call this my part.”
I passed him, heading to the stairs. “The funny thing is,” I said, hand on the bannister, “we spent this entire time searching for a corpse—but the information wasn’t just there. It was on every person we met.”
“There’s no way we could have known,” Tobias said.
“Of course there was,” I said. “Panos warned us. That day we studied I3—it was proclaimed right there, on one of the slogans he’d printed and hung on his wall.”
Tobias looked at me, quizzical.
“Information,” I said, wiggling my fingers—and the bacteria that held Panos’s data, “for every body.”
I smiled, and left Tobias chuckling as I went searching for something to eat.
