After visiting his brother, Ty found his father waiting in Bishop’s office, sitting at the small round table, fingers steepled.
“I met with Kato,” Ty said.
“And?” Richter said, not meeting his gaze.
“He told me to thank you for arranging the meeting with his family.”
“Being separated from one’s family eats away at a person. Time compounds the pain.”
Richter still didn’t look up.
There were so many things Ty wanted to ask about that statement. Answers he wanted. But he sensed that his own time was running out—that his personal questions would have to wait in favor of answers that mattered more in the grander scheme.
“I read Kato’s file.”
Richter finally met his gaze. “And?”
“It seems… pretty straightforward. Nothing jumps out at me.”
“Straightforward it is not, Tyson. Please read it again. Backward and forward.”
*
In his bedroom, Ty sat at the small desk and opened Kato’s file.
Backward and forward.
He turned the file over and flipped the pages, which were only printed on one side.
They were all the same. Blank.
The lights buzzed above as he flipped the pages, wondering what he wasn’t seeing—
And then he saw it. Rows and rows of black lines soaked through the paper. The page had been redacted by hand, with a thick permanent marker.
As he flipped it over, Ty recalled his father’s words.
Turn the page.
Ty glanced at the page number: thirty-seven.
This was it. The page he was supposed to turn. It had been redacted on the computer, with printed black boxes. Then Ty’s father, or someone else, had taken a black marker and redacted it more.
Why?
What was the message?
The page was a medical assessment. Between the printed black boxes and those added in marker, there was barely any text on the page. But nothing jumped out to Ty. Was something wrong with Kato’s health?
Or was there a code here, some way he was supposed to arrange the words that spelled a message?
No.
That seemed too obvious.
Ty closed his eyes and rubbed his eyelids, willing his mind to go back over the words his father had said.
Turn the page. Connect the dots.
Ty flipped the page over. With a pen, he drew between the black blotches that had soaked through.
It was a map. A series of… what? Roads? Or hallways in this building?
Or was it Morse code—the small blocks representing dots, the longer ones serving as dashes?
What did it mean? How could he use—
A knock at the door made Ty jump.
He slammed the folder shut just as the door opened.
A marine stepped into the room. “Sir. Dr. Bishop has requested your presence at a meeting.”
Ty’s heart beat faster. Did they know about the code? Did they know that his father was secretly revealing information to him? Had they finished the device?
“A meeting about what?”
“Sir, I don’t have that information.” The marine turned and stepped back through the doorway.
Ty followed him to the elevator and up one floor, wondering what this was about. Had they found the Covenant agent in the building? Or had they located the other genomic match?
The marine stopped outside a door and swung it open, revealing a room similar to the one Ty had met Kato in. Except in this room, Nora was sitting on the couch.
He had been so wrapped up in the message in Kato’s file, he had forgotten she was on her way here.
She stood and stared through the doorway, surprise evident on her face. Then she smiled, and that smile grew by the second, the expression so warm it felt to Ty as though it were radiating actual heat toward him. It drew him in like a warm fire on a winter night.
He marched into the room, slowing as he reached her. Should he offer his hand? Hug her? He hadn’t seen her in person for seventeen years. They hadn’t ended on bad terms. But things between them hadn’t ended the way either of them had wanted.
Nora didn’t hesitate. She reached her arms out and pulled him into a hug, pressing him into her, resting her head on his shoulder. She exhaled a warm breath that flowed over his neck. He held her, surprised at how good it felt.
“Ty,” she whispered. “What’s going on?” Ty heard the door close behind them.
“It’s… complicated.”
