I slammed the trunk closed and leaned against Tasha as I retched. “What the—what the hell did you do?” I gasped, when I could speak again.

“Am beink—I am sorry,” Tasha said, her accent vanishing almost completely. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Answer the damn question!” I growled. “I want to know what you just used me to do.”

“It’s a standard Marauder procedure,” Tasha explained. “I read his mind into holographic storage and dissolve his body to be used for—ah, lubricant, sealant…”

“…fuel.” My blood ran cold, and this time my dinner finally managed to find its way onto the pavement. The enormity of my crimes had just hit me.

All those years, I had rounding up helpless civilians into trucks and buses to be hauled off to the nearest Marauder processing base. Not to be held hostage, the way I had assumed—but to be scanned into storage and rendered down into fuel. Processed.

I was an accomplice to the murder of literally thousands of people.

Including Philip.