My father’s voice did not change. “That’s not a proverb, Claire. That’s a methodology. I’ve written it in training material. And when I said it to her, I was describing you.”

I turned around.

“I have the notes,” he said. “Eleven years of them. In my own operational log I refer to you, in writing, one hundred and forty-some times, as HOMESTEAD.

That’s your cryptonym. I gave my daughter a cryptonym and I ran her without her consent for five years, and I have known exactly what that made me since about 2020, and I kept doing it, because I was right about them and I did not know how to be right about them any other way.”

“The dog tags,” I said. “The dead man’s switch. That wasn’t a gift.”

“No.”