“We’ve seen what they do,” I said again.
“We all have!” More people shouted this.
“We’ve seen what they do,” I said again.
“We all have!” Even more joined.
I grinned, tears welling in my eyes. Days ago they’d tried to kill me in a market, now here were free wild people protecting me. “We’ve seen what they do!” I shouted.
“WE ALL HAVE!” Now there were fists in the air and the voices sounded hoarse and low, there were mostly men in the crowd. Now almost everyone was in the market space. I could see more people coming. Their phones up, recording. Recording me.
In the height of the moment, one of the gold-faced people leapt on the car. He tried to grab me and out of nowhere, I saw Dolapo scream, leap and throw herself on the man.
“Dolapo,” I shouted. “What are you doing?”
They went down, the man punching at her. I could hear her grunting in pain, and I was about to throw myself into the mix when another man grabbed at me. He was very strong. Instead of twisting away, I grabbed him back with my dead arm . . . which clearly wasn’t dead. There was a mad scramble toward the car, but I was barely aware of it. I was barely aware of anything. My body was acting. Again. Reacting. Oh no! My arm was acting on its own. Again. In my mind, I’d given this phenomenon a name, though it had only happened once. Kill Mode. I shoved at him with my flesh hand as he tried to grab me again. Idiot! He managed to get his hands around my throat. He was choking me but only for a moment, because my cybernetic arm pulled back and I was pulled back with it! Then I saw my left fist punch the man so hard that it smashed his gold mask.
The market space burst into violence. Shouts and grunts, as people fought and I was pulled back. I fell hard on the ground, my metal hand still in a fist, pressing to my face. It smelled of blood, was wet with it. My left arm buzzed and then went numb again. “Oh,” I whispered. Someone was hoisting me up, and suddenly DNA was in my face. He pulled me along, and somehow Force was in front of him pulling him, as was a bloody-nosed Dolapo. We were battered left and right, but by the backs of people. The market people were shielding us, giving us a way out as they fought. We arrived at a red car.
“Get in, get in!!” Force shouted.
I threw myself into the backseat with Dolapo and Force and DNA climbed into the front. “Go!” Force said to the car and it went. I was lying on my side, my face to the car seat. I slapped my arm. I might as well have slapped a slab of scrap metal, dead again.
“Dolapo,” I breathed. “Are you all right?”
“Better than the other guy,” she said, her voice nasally. She sniffed and coughed a laugh. Then she groaned with pain. “I have never fought a man in my entire life.”
DNA’s sling of cloth hung around my neck, and I tried unsuccessfully to push my arm into it. I peeked outside. “I don’t see them following us.”
“They will. My God, how the fuck did Ultimate Corp get into the Hour Glass?!” Force asked.
“You all have too much confidence in your privacy,” DNA muttered. “When they see a threat to their finances, they’ll fly into a pit of fire. They’ll just make sure they use fire-proof drones.”
“Why are they coming after me so hard?” I asked. “The government isn’t even here!”
“AO,” Force said. “You can control tech with your mind.”
“Badass,” Dolapo said, pinching her nose and tilting her head back.
The drones were about a fourth of a mile away and gaining fast.
“They’ll taser the entire car, knock us all out. Shit,” Force said. He looked hard at me. “Get rid of them, AO.”
“Already have. They’re gone,” I said. I rolled over and grabbed my arm and shook it. Nothing.
“Good,” he said. “We have a chance then. I have a plan.”
DNA, Dolapo, and I leaned in.
* * *
—
Force’s plan for us was insane.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he said. “I mean, think about it, it’s all you really can do. If you don’t go . . .” He didn’t need to finish what he was saying. The Hour Glass had been infiltrated by Ultimate Corp operatives. I could see them now that I knew to look. They were everywhere. Except where we were driving. Nothing was where we were driving. Not a camera, not a drone, not even a person with a mobile phone. Within a mile radius. We were driving down a paved road so black that it could have been laid down yesterday. The land around us was populated by thousands of heliostatic mirrors, each the size of a car.