Shadow Puppets
Following Peter's decision to free Achilles and bring him to Ribeirão Preto, Bean and Petra leave the Hegemon's employ and travel the world under false identities to remain hidden to Achilles. Bean meets with Ambul, a former soldier under Bean in Battle School's Rabbit Army, and gives him the task of finding a way to meet with Alai, who has dropped out of sight but is assumed to be highly placed in the Muslim defense forces. In an attempt to convince Bean to have children, Bean and Petra meet with Anton, the scientist who discovered Anton's Key, and then with Volescu, who genetically enhanced Bean's embryo by turning it. Bean is assured by Volescu that he can determine the status of Anton's Key within an embryo, and agrees to create nine embryos but destroy those with Anton's Key turned. Volescu implants one of the embryos into Petra, appears to destroy three more, and places the remaining five into safekeeping under the eye of a guard hired by Bean. However, Volescu faked the destruction of the three embryos in the lab and bribes the guard to reacquire the other five.
Bean and Petra split up; Bean places Petra in the cab of an Indonesian cabdriver secretly in the employ of the Caliph, who takes her to the airport to fly to Damascus. Bean gets into a different cab and is nearly assassinated by the driver. Saved by other agents of the Caliph, he also makes his way to meet with Petra and Alai. While in Damascus, Achilles contacts Bean to tell him that he possesses the five stolen embryos, offering him a chance to meet at the Hegemon compound and take them back. Bean flies to Brazil and kills Achilles, having already decided that Achilles was lying about possessing the embryos and that Volescu must still have them. Petra flies to Brazil to meet up with Bean again and settle down in Araraquara, a city Bean had visited while traveling with Sister Carlotta. The novel ends with Bean and Petra determined to find the stolen embryos.
Read more about this topic: Bean (Ender's Game)