Review: The Names #9
Previously in The Names #5-8
The main plot of The Names may have been confusing (AI infecting people to make financial markets crash?), but it was the complex relationships that made this series so enjoyable to read. Hopefully, the creators will see fit to visit this universe again.
The weird, and sometimes strange, relationship between Katya and Philip was strengthened as the two were forced to run for the lives. More often than not, Katya was plunging in head first to save Philip’s ass. Here, in the conclusion, they save each other.
While Cass - the girl possessed by one of The Dark Loops - tries to seduce Philip, Katya and Guzman try to figure out who ordered Kevin’s murder. It was someone Katya met recently, and after thinking on it, she decides it must have been a weird guy at a dinner party she threw shortly before Kevin’s death.
They pay this Simon Cokeliss a visit. Immediately after he confirms his identity, Katya kicks him in the face. I’m going to miss this woman. She roughs him up and then hangs him out a window until he confesses that he’s in The Names, but he doesn’t know anything about Kevin’s death. He was there to help set up Kevin’s account so that Katya and Philip would be taken care of financially after Kevin left. He assumed Kevin was leaving his wife, and stared at her during the party because he thought Kevin was crazy to leave such a beautiful woman.
Stoker interrupts Philip’s make-out session/interrogation with Cass. He fires her and demands Philip get back to work. Philip ain’t about that life and leaves with Cass. Then, Stoker interrupts Guzman and Katya as they discuss their next move. He breaks up with Guzman because she knows too much and might become a target of The Names. Then he insists Katya go with him. Poor Guzman.
While Cass drives, Philip starts planning their new life in a foreign country. The Dark Loops have determined there’s nothing more to be gained from Philip so Cass pulls over and prepares to kill him. Thankfully, Stoker put a tracker in Philip’s food and he arrives (with Katya and armed men) in a helicopter.
Seeing that Philip is being attacked by Cass, Katya dives out of the helicopter to save her stepson. And she does, but not before becoming infected by The Dark Loops. Philip does what he’d been dreaming of: He kisses Katya and recites that complicated equation, sucking the infection out of her and then spits it on the ground.
One month later, Philip is working for The Names and making his own rules. He showed no emotion when he learned his mother was caught and killed. Stoker takes Katya to Kevin’s office and admits they’re no closer to figuring out who ordered Kevin’s death, and they may never know. Philip is doing so well in the organization, Stoker predicts he’ll one day take over his job.
Katya may not be satisfied with this outcome, but she’ll have to live with it.
