Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“Of course,” Sara exclaimed. “How could I have missed it? The jellyfish is the medusa species.”
“Godfrey,” Joss said through clenched teeth. “This is his orchestration.”
“Another reason to find him quickly,” Sean added.
Maya’s face lit up with sudden insight. “This is why he’s buying up communication companies and enforcing a global communication monopoly. It’ll give him the means of spreading his propaganda and turning the world against us to slow us down while he’s turning into some hideous jellyfish—figuratively speaking, of course—in his lab.”
“I’ll start making preparations,” Cain said. “In the meantime, there will be serious council decisions to be made that will affect your future and tests to learn what we can from Ivan’s altered state. Joss, you’re in charge of Eve and the doctor. Get them here quickly. Lann, continue the search for the Medusa leaders. Maya, set our satellite on Brazil. The rest of you, start working on finding Mrs. Godfrey Reid, or whatever name she uses.”
When the team members started leaving one after the other, Cain held Sky back.
“You’re a brave woman,” he said once they were alone. “I admire your courage and your single-handed effort to sacrifice yourself in an attempt to eliminate Godfrey.”
“I won’t take credit where it’s not due. I did it for my son.”
“Also for Bono, I imagine.”
“Yes,” she whispered, staring at her hands, “I couldn’t be the cause of his and your deaths.”
“Any plans for your future yet?”
“I haven’t thought that far. I suppose I can’t go back to the Netherlands. The secret police will be looking for me, and some of Doumar’s accomplices may want to kill me.” Anyway, she wasn’t sure she wanted to go back to the old memories.
“Quite right. We stamped out Doumar’s slave trade operation and closed the club. A lot of angry people have lost a major source of income. As for the police, they’ve made the connection between you and the deaths of the senator and the president.”
“I didn’t know how Godfrey was going to use the information.”
“I understand.”
“I still don’t. Why did he have them killed?”
“They opposed the tender to launch his communication companies in their countries.”
“I see.”
“You feel guilty.”
She looked up quickly. “Of course I do.”
“There’s a way of finding absolution that will also make it logistically easier for you and Bono to stay together without him having to sacrifice his job. I’d like to offer you a position on the team.”
“I’d like that,” she said without hesitation. “However, there’s Niels to consider. He needs stability.”
“So do Thomas, Laudren, Khwezi, and the twins, and they’re doing just fine. You can have a job that requires traveling and provide a stable home for your child.”
“Who are Khwezi and the twins?”
Cain smiled, a flicker of warmth creeping into his eyes. “You’ll meet them soon enough. In two weeks, to be exact. What do you say? You’re the last link, Miss Val. I’ve searched a very long time for you, and whatever you may believe about me, I always knew it would work out this way. I just needed to give Bono his chance at redemption and to realize the lengths he’d go to for you. For love.”
“How could you know?”
He lifted a flask that stood by his elbow. “Coffee?” Without waiting for her reply, he poured two cups. “Now tell me how it works. I’m eager to learn about your art. There’s not much in our arsenal of information, I’m afraid. How can you change the future when it’s already predicted?”
“The future changes constantly. Every internal and external circumstance has an influence and a resulting effect. What I see comes true when those internal and external influences don’t change, and I guess also because once we believe in an outcome, we unconsciously set our goals so that our path will lead us there. The past never changes, but the present always has the ability to change the future, and this is what I used to tell all the people, all the hundreds whose fortunes Doumar made me predict.”
“Yet you were never wrong.”
“There’s fortune-telling, and then there’s future prediction. Fortune-telling is a business. At least, it was for Doumar, even if he didn’t understand the difference. Future prediction is what the term implies. You go into a place in the future and observe. What happens in the present may or may not change it. That’s why we call it a prediction and not a fact. With fortune-telling, you tell people the broad, general parts of things they want to know, foolproof happenings that can’t be altered by their behavior, no matter how they change, in other words things outside of their control, like if a business partner is stealing money, if a lover is cheating, or if their illness can be cured. These are the things people will pay money to know. Nobody wants to know when they’re going to die.”