The Unfinished World (The Armor of God Book 2) by Diego Valenzuela Page B

fault! When you figured out the truth about the ‘miniature’ operations you were told to keep the secret from the others until they were ready to accept it, and you did it, right? This is not different.”
    “Zenith is about to be shut down!” she yelled, and the few people in the dining hall turned to her as though she had spoken blasphemy. “I am ready to accept anything .”
    “I’m sorry, but it’s not my secret to tell.”
    She was being stubborn, but Vivian couldn’t argue. Time passed and they barely said anything to each other, and through every uncomfortable minute of silence, she descended into a spiral of anxiety and speculation. Tessa didn’t mind; it almost felt like she had willingly stirred Vivian’s imagination, leading it to dark places.
    Every answer she thought to the question ‘Where does Subject Edward come from?’ was more terrible than the last. All she knew was one thing: Subject Edward had been killed during The Shattering at the hands of an enraged Minotaur, but that couldn’t be the end of the program to study the Laani.
    How could Zenith get their hands on a Fleck they could subdue and bring into the facility, alive, in the first place? It was not something easily hidden that could be walked through the door without any notice.
    She felt stupid for not knowing. After all, she had easily figured out the big lie they were told about the Creux’s size, the one Ezra had to discover the hard way. She had also found conclusive proof that the explosion that killed Alice Nolan had been sabotage from within.
    There were no plots she couldn’t discover if she put her mind to it.
     
    Vivian wouldn’t have to remain in a cage of her own dark speculation for much longer. After angrily excusing herself, leaving Tessa alone in the dining hall, she went to the dormitories. She knocked on the door to Nebula 09’s room, but only Jed was there, face still half covered in damp bandages and still in pain. Not even he knew where Rebecca had gone.
    The solitude of her own room was the only place where she found a small form of peace, but that didn’t last long. After half an hour of quiet meditation in her bed, she was awoken by a series of firm knocks on the dormitory door.
    It was General Adams who stood at the other side of the door. Every single member of the Zenith staff, no matter their rank or position, was being summoned to the grand lecture hall, where they would watch a live feed of Governor Heath’s conference.
    “I’m still not hopeful,” the general said, leading her and Jed to the central wing. “But if there’s any chance of winning this vote, it will depend on what he knows, and what he says. This is his last appeal to the citizens, so let’s hope it’s not hot.”
    When she finally reached the grand lecture hall, the conference was already being screened, and all the remaining employees of Zenith were in attendance. She was sad to see that many were already gone.
    “Viv!” she heard Tessa whisper. She was waving at her, inviting Vivian to take a seat next to her. She was reluctant, but tried to remind herself that, though there was a definite strangeness in her recent behavior, Tessa was still a hero. She sat next to her to watch the man address the city.
    “—Number two: the amount of material used to rebuild their own facility just in the last three months of accidents and careless mishaps, not to mention the actual dome that’s protecting us , reduced our reserves by 20 percent ,” said Governor Heath in venomous words, and the sounds of a livid crowd boomed through the speakers.
    The citizens’ reaction didn’t make sense to her; why were people angry about using material for the very specific purpose it was gathered and created?
    She understood it was all in how the words were spoken; Heath knew how to control the people through masterful use of inflection and rhetoric—he was quite literally forcing them to be angry, even when they had no reason to be.
    Vivian