I wake up alone.

It's cold. Very cold.

I bury my face in the pillow, and I cover myself from head to toe with the blanket, but it's still cold. The temperatures must have dropped in the city during the night.

It doesn't matter. It's time to go, anyway.

I don't have much to take with me. I was kidnapped. So no fancy clothes or favorite shampoos, I've been using what Mint bought me. I pick up my bag, and I leave the room that's been my home for a few weeks without looking back.

No one asks me where I'm going. Until I reach the main gate, that is.

"Hey, lady, don't do that," says a man I don't know. "It would be a shame if I had to shoot you."

"Leave her."

It's Jorge. He looks upset and beaten up. I murmur an apology, no matter he has no idea why.

"Boss said you'd be gone."

I nod. He probably said that. And it's true.

"He's gone, too," Jorge informs me of something I know perfectly well. "I should have killed him."

"You said no one could kill him," I remind him.

"And you said that everyone could be killed as long as they don't know where the strike's coming from," he retorts, clenching his huge fist. "If you meet him—"

"I don't think I will, Jorge."

He bites his lip. I leave without another word.

Duke's already waiting for me outside.

"Did you find your way here?" I ask him just to say something instead of thinking. I must turn my brain off. Since the moment I opened my eyes, it's entertaining me with percentages, odds, and numbers. And questions. First of all, questions.

What if I messed up my calculations again? What if I'm a failure?

"No," Duke answers. "Mint told me where to look for you."

What if everything's going to be my fault? What if I just allowed one of my lambs to get lost?

One.

One of my lambs.

Only one.

What if I failed to look after someone who's mine?

Someone.

One of my lambs.

The only one.

Duke almost tumbles and falls when I hug him. He wasn't expecting that. It's the first time I need human contact more than him or any other person who's not me. It's a first, for sure.

"What have you done?" he whispers into my hair.

He senses my barely coherent state, probably. My trembling is hard to miss.

"What needed to be done," I answer. "Nothing else."

"Then what?" he asks.

"What if I messed up my calculations?" I say out loud. "What if everything's to come is my fault? What if—"

"Nothing's your fault. You think yourself too clever. Whatever Mint's doing, he'd do it anyway."

I want to dispute, but he puts his hands on my face and forces me to look him in the eyes.

"Mint promised to take care of the situation," he says. "But it's not something you did. It's something he does. To keep you safe. You, and the people who are important to you."

"Yes, because I pushed—"

"Because he wants to be good enough for you."

I stare at him for a few seconds before being able to talk again.

"Is that a joke?" I mutter.

"No. It's a fact."

"But—"

"You keep forgetting who you are to him," he says.

"I'm not," I huff. "How could I forget for a single moment who I am? I know very well who I am. Someone who's not capable of feelings like that."

"Well, you're certainly quite fond of the children in your class."

"Not at all!" I protest. "I don't love them! I just want to keep them alive!"

When Duke hears the l-word, he narrows his eyes and grins darkly.

"A lot has happened, huh? Anyway. Mint asked me to take you with me. And guess what, I have a headquarters now, too."

He's not kidding. It resembles more a pub than a military base, but the people in there make up for the lack of armed people.

"Edie!"

Nicole literally jumps on me, hugging and kissing frantically. And I don't even scream, I just hug her tightly and count back until she lets me go. A lot has happened, indeed.

"I thought I'd never see you again," she cries.

"Well, my life wasn't in danger. There was a 31% chance that I'd get slapped sooner or later, but I didn't, in the end."

"Still, captivity must have been terrible for you."

"What?"

"Being kidnapped," she explains.

"Oh. That. Well..."

"How did that terrible man handle your condition?"

"He didn't."

Nicole hugs me again, muttering something like 'poor darling.' I almost forgot how moderate her talents are when it comes to decoding the deeper meaning of a sentence. It's good to see her, though. She's beaming. There's an 85% chance that Duke fulfilled his promise and slept with her at least once.

I'm also introduced to the owner of the pub, Frank. He loves to diagnose people with things they don't have, and he's strangely protective of Duke.

"It's an honor to meet you in person," he says, taking a formal bow.

"Frank worked for the Agency," Duke explains. "As a psychiatrist, around the same time when you were active. He never treated you, though."

"Well, correction," Frank cuts in, "I never worked on her, but I most definitely worked with her, as an object of the team's pathological—"

"Okay," Duke cuts in. "Let's talk about our tasks at hand, shall we?"

I agree. Nicole agrees, too. Frank grumbles something about certain complexes, but he gives in, soon.

"I got something important to say," Duke goes on. "Something I should have told you sooner, but—"

"You guard the formula," I interrupt him before he narrates his whole life starting from conception.

"How do you know that?" You can't—"

Now, he interrupts himself. That's what I call progress. This time, he remembered.

"Okay." He nods. "You probably calculated that ages ago."

"I did," I admit. "But I got something to say, too. The equation still doesn't add up. There is still a variable that's shady. I don't know why, but we must find out. If my calculations are correct..."

I have to pause for a second to breathe out. Because if they are not... if I messed up my calculations... if I'm a failure... if I allowed my lamb to get lost... okay, I must stop this.

I tap my forehead three times, and I go on with the sentence.

"The variable that doesn't make sense is Pavlov."

Duke grimaces and taps his forehead, too. He picked up some strange habits here and there.

"I can't explain everything in detail," I carry on, "because there are too many numbers in the model, and they'd say nothing to you. But I can give you a simplified version. Pavlov's words and acts don't match."

"How?"

"Denying the vaccine from people, therefore letting them die, is a passive thing. But someone angry enough with humanity to condemn millions of people to death wouldn't remain passive. No matter what his manifesto says, it's an active thing. It should be."

Duke sighs. I know that my argument doesn't sound very convincing, but that's all I have. Not even percentages to fall back on.

"Okay," he says after thinking for a few minutes. "I don't understand half of it, as usual. But I know that it's the endgame that you told me about once. We don't have any more time to waste. The world needs your brain badly. I take you to Mr. Toe."

Yeah. I might not sound convincing. But Duke believes everything I say without thinking, and he does exactly what I want him to do.

It's time to observe the problematic variables from close quarters.

One of them is Pavlov, just like I told him. But there is another one.

Mr. Toe.