Date: 2018-06-26 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction
Description: In the future, nanochips in human brains control emotions in order to maintain world peace. When the chip's developer plans a lethal update that will return Earth to 'the garden,' a young woman with a faulty chip is the only one who can stop him. "A twisty and exhilarating dystopian romp" - Kirkus Reviews

EDEN CHIP

Scott Cramer

Eden Chip. Copyright 2018 by Scott Cramer.

All rights reserved
eBook ISBN: 978-0-9898128-6-3

Paperback ISBN: 978-0-9898128-7-0

Author facebook site
www.facebook.com/AuthorScottCramer

Cover artist Silviya Yordanova
www.darkimaginarium.com

Formatting Polgarus Studio
www.polgarusstudio.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events, businesses, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

1000+ 5-star ratings for the TOUCAN TRILOGY by Scott Cramer.

- Night of the Purple Moon
- Colony East
- Generation M

When the moon first turns purple, it is a beautiful sight. But this lunar change brings fatal consequences. Adults across the globe drop dead. Can Abby and her siblings survive the apocalyptic nightmare that lies ahead?

“Frightening and inspiring.”— Kirkus Reviews

“A post-apocalyptic survival tale that has everything: pirates, adventure, romance, suspense, betrayal, grief, evil scientists, and redemption.” – Reader review

“An emotional tale of a family's struggle to remain together, love one another and survive.” – Reader review

“I couldn't put these books down. It was heartfelt and always interesting. Best read I have had in a while!”— Reader review

“Outrageous and completely out of the box.” – MY HOME AWAY FROM HOME review blog

“Three words: Gripping. Palpable. Well-developed.”— WORD SPELUNKING review blog

Table of Contents

PLANNING – THE YEAR 2055

PLANNING: PHASE 01

PLANNING: PHASE 02

PLANNING: PHASE 03

PLANNING: PHASE 04

PLANNING: PHASE 05

PLANNING: PHASE 06

PLANNING: PHASE 07

PLANNING: PHASE 08

ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS: PHASE 01

ANALYSIS: PHASE 02

ANALYSIS: PHASE 03

ANALYSIS: PHASE 04

ANALYSIS: PHASE 05

ANALYSIS: PHASE 06

ANALYSIS: PHASE 07

ANALYSIS: PHASE 08

ANALYSIS: PHASE 09

ANALYSIS: PHASE 10

DESIGN

DESIGN: PHASE 01

DESIGN: PHASE 02

DESIGN: PHASE 03

DESIGN: PHASE 04

DESIGN: PHASE 05

DESIGN: PHASE 06

DESIGN: PHASE 07

DESIGN: PHASE 08

DESIGN: PHASE 09

DESIGN: PHASE 10

DESIGN: PHASE 11

DESIGN: PHASE 12

IMPLEMENTATION

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 01

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 02

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 03

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 04

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 05

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 06

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 07

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 08

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 09

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 10

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 11

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 12

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 13

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 14

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 15

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 16

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 17

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 18

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 19

PLANNING – THE YEAR 0001

PLANNING: PHASE 01

PLANNING – THE YEAR 2055

PLANNING: PHASE 01

The savory odors of minty tabbouleh and roasted eggplant hung in the air, luring Jerusalem’s hungry lunch crowd. Raissa stepped along the busy sidewalk, careful to avoid bumping into anyone and triggering the explosives belt she wore underneath her oversized windbreaker.

Relax and breathe, she told herself, worried that her pounding heart would alert security personnel. Her green eyes and a prominent facial scar drew enough attention; paladins didn’t need much provocation to conduct a scan.

She stopped to check her messenger: 12:10 p.m. Ahead of schedule. Blimps of varying sizes, packed with surveillance equipment, dotted the sky. Raissa held her breath as two glided straight for each other. She hoped for the impossible: a collision, a bright flash and a loud boom, tatters of silver fabric fluttering to the ground. But, as always, the blimps slid past each other, nimble as dance partners.

A block later, she tensed when two paladins fell into step beside her. Wary expressions complemented crisp blue uniforms and tan jackboots. Armed with joules, they scanned the crowd for rebels. Raissa softened her face: just another happy person with a nanochip in her brain.

Distracted, she didn't look where she was going until a man with a long white beard bumped into her. She stopped to make sure he was okay. “I’m sorry.”

He stared at her. “Can we predict love?” The way he crinkled his eyes reminded her of her grandfather.

“Excuse me?”

He turned and melted into the crowd. His chip must have a problem. If he had waited for her answer, she would have told him that nobody can predict love.

Relieved that the paladins had moved on, Raissa dismissed the stranger and soon waded through a tour group. As the guide lectured a gawping mass of children on the history of the uprising, the kids swiveled their necks like seal pups to capture their surroundings with video glasses. They made Raissa grin. The smile vanished when she spotted Café Kadosh where she was to keep watch for her great-uncle and his signal.

In the courtyard, patrons stuck their noses in their messengers or watched the enlightenment wall across the street. Raissa feigned interest in the propaganda broadcast on a monitor that was five stories tall and fifty meters wide. Beneath the Collective’s seal—a circle of twelve hands interlocked around a human brain embossed with a symbolic chip, complete with titanium circuitry—Vice Chancellor Vasiliev was touring a lush field of wheat. The subtitle identified the location as a former blast site in India. Raissa turned on her cochlear speaker. “The world is at peace,” Vasiliev was saying. “The planet is healing. A new day is dawning for humankind.” Raissa turned off the speaker. Each Collective member delivered the same message.

She claimed an empty table by placing her backpack on it, confident that nobody would disturb the pack or notice the weapons inside, as the chip punished anyone who even contemplated thievery. She headed inside and approached a boy behind the counter. “Jasmine tea, please.”

“Have I seen you before?” He was close to her own age—eighteen.

“It’s possible.”

He smiled. “Do you go to the university?”

Is he flirting? He had a friendly expression, and she liked that he was tall with curly black hair. “I’m starting university next semester.” Had her chip been functioning, she would have been writhing in pain on the floor for lying, instead of calmly peering into his brown eyes.

“Cool,” he said, and poured the tea.

She took it and returned to her table in the courtyard. A moment later, she spotted her great-uncle approaching the café. In his late seventies, Mustafa was her grandfather’s younger brother. He had a craggy complexion and eyes dark as coal. He limped, so it was easy to follow his bobbing head.

Mustafa made brief eye contact with her and formed a fist with his right hand as he shuffled past. It was the agreed-upon code; her target was the underground bunker. Blood pounded in her head. She didn’t want to die. Go to an injection center. Get a new chip. Begin a new life.

The fantasy ended when she recalled her grandfather gasping for breath on his prayer rug earlier that day. Ever since Version 3, released a decade ago, the chip embedded in his brain had punished him, and tens of millions like him, for worshiping God. She clenched her jaw. Only I can spare Jaddy’s suffering.

She headed toward 13.1 Hanoch Kalai Street at a brisk pace, repeating the mission objectives: Kill Petrov and transmit the devourware that will free the population. Ten minutes later, the sight of a bakery ahead stopped her heart. Inside the shop was the secret entrance to the bunker.

A sign on the door read “Closed.” She peered through the window at a rotund man wearing a white jumpsuit and sandals. He was removing loaves of bread from a display case. She rapped on the glass, and he scuttled over and opened the door. “Come back at five,” he told her.

“I’m a loyal customer,” Raissa said.

“If I let you in, others will want to come in, too. Where will it end?”

Raissa felt her throat thicken, but her words carried an icy determination. “It ends with me.”

With a look of admiration, the man stepped aside. Raissa hurried to a small office in the back where she closed the door and shed the windbreaker. Five years of training had helped her ignore her light-headedness and maintain focus. She removed the weapons and night-vision goggles from her pack. After strapping a dual sheath around her right ankle, she inserted the laser dagger on one side of it and an antique pistol, a 45-caliber Glock, on the other. She checked her joule’s storage cell. Then she undid several shirt buttons to make it easier to reach the belt’s detonator.

Positioning the night-vision goggles on top of her head, she lifted a woven rug and stomped on the false tile floor. The mortar crumbled. She cleared away the debris and removed the tiles to access the tunnel hatch, which she opened.

As she was climbing down the ladder, the rotund man entered the office. “Good luck,” he said and closed the hatch above her, casting the tunnel below into darkness. She lowered her goggles.

The narrow shaft had an odor of mildew. After a long, hot kilometer, it took a ninety-degree right turn. Raissa crawled from there.

She arrived at a metal hatch. With adrenaline surging, she braced herself for battle. Once she dropped into the bunker, she would encounter security cameras, alarms, and an army of paladins toting high-amperage weaponry.

Raissa brushed her fingertips across her right cheek. The scar reminded her of what she had survived, of loved ones lost. She had no chip to chase away her sorrow, but the memories of her parents and brother gave her strength.

She opened the hatch and launched herself forward, landing in a crouched position. An alarm sounded. Raissa ripped off her goggles, squinting into the harsh light. A wall of security monitors featured her intrusion. I guess sneaking up on Petrov is off the table.

She firmed her grip on the joule and stepped into the corridor, prepared to fight and scratch her way to the so-called ‘Father of the Chip.’ A paladin rounded the corner. He tensed and reached for his joule. Calm settled over her, and time slowed. She shifted her finger to the trigger. Mind, body, and weapon became one.

Avoid looking at eyes and aim for the heart! Thousands of hours spent shooting at cutouts of paladins guided her hand, and she squeezed the trigger. The paladin’s hair puffed out, and his eyes opened wide from the surge of electrons coursing through his body. He twitched violently before toppling to the floor. Because her joule was set to stun, he’d remain immobilized for a few minutes.

She dropped two more paladins with quick shots as she raced down the hallway. When a slug sizzled past her ear, she leaped, tucked a shoulder, and rolled on the floor. She popped up ready to fire, but the paladin squeezed off another round first. The slug winged Raissa’s right shoulder, stitching her arm with hot needles. She willed her fingers to stay wrapped around the joule. Then she aimed for the heart and pulled the trigger. The paladin stumbled backward, slammed into the wall, and crumpled.

When she heard footsteps behind her, Raissa spun to see a paladin charging toward her with a pair of polycuffs. Unable to raise the joule in time, she relied on a quick left hook to the paladin’s jaw to neutralize the threat.

She switched the weapon to her left hand, opened more doors and kept blasting away. Her victim count doubled and then doubled again. She checked the joule to see how many slugs remained: twenty-seven.

She grabbed a knob. Locked. She struck next to it with her boot heel, and the door flew open. Inside, a woman held a baby in her arms. The woman appeared ready to fight to the death to protect the child. The infant stared with wide-eyed innocence.

Raissa froze as the loud alarm drilled deeper into her brain. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of movement, but as she turned her head, the whip of voltage seared into her, slamming her backward. She blacked out before she hit the ground.

She regained consciousness, still laid out flat on the floor. Goldstein stood over her. The former head of the Collective's Regional Defense Agency stared down with a smirk. “You failed.”

Raissa tried to command her limp hand to find the strength to reach inside her shirt and press the detonator button. As she made her move, Goldstein stepped on her wrist, pinning it to the hard concrete floor. “You’re not ready for the mission.”

The first rebel actors who had played paladins appeared.

She forced a smile, determined not to show Goldstein was hurting her, and said, “I’m ready.”

He lifted his foot. “Are you? The priest in Rome says the Bulgarian is close to finishing the devourware. It’s just in time. Petrov is ready to transmit Version 7. Raissa, V7 will allow the Collective to read minds. They’ll crush the resistance. You'll be going to Boston soon. Debrief in ten.”

She sat up woozily. “I’ll never hurt a child.”

He turned and walked away, his heels landing hard on the polished concrete floor.

She didn’t care what Goldstein thought. Nothing could ever make me harm a child.

PLANNING: PHASE 02

Caleb inhaled deeply as he looked out his seventh-floor lab window in Paladin Research. At 18, he was the youngest employee at NanoArtisans, and he was lucky enough to have a spectacular view of Boston from his office. Blimps, monitoring the population and generating trillions of terabytes of data, were graceful as ballerinas as they hovered over the city’s sawtooth skyline across the Charles River.

Is there anything more beautiful than the poetry of technology? Caleb grinned wryly. Music, maybe.

He jolted at the live broadcast now appearing on the enlightenment wall across the campus. Health paladins were carrying the body of a middle-aged woman to an ambulance. Blood covered her face. “Messenger, engage olfactory experience,” he instructed.

“Engaged,” his device replied, transmitting a wavelength to his chip, which revealed how the unfolding scene smelled. It was a functionality intended for more pleasant broadcasts: sweet jungle orchids, the pungent odor of ozone before a rainstorm.

The scent of roses confirmed that she was dead. Paladins sprayed it to mask the odor of decay. “Messenger, disengage.” The woman must have tried to remove her chip with a kitchen laser, the tool of choice for the misguided. Caleb hoped the poison had killed her quickly to spare her the horror of bleeding to death.

Dr. Petrov’s idea to include ricin in every chip had saved many lives by making people think twice before they tried to remove them. If a chip’s position in the frontal lobe was disturbed, a few grains of ricin released and stopped the heart.

The ambulance pulled away. The paladins were taking the body to the hospital for an autopsy. Following that, the corpse would go to the solartarium for data archiving and cremation. Her next of kin would receive the carbon tab of her remains.

Version 7 can’t come fast enough, Caleb thought. Each nanochip version built on the functionality of the previous release. V1 had blunted man’s tendency to resolve disputes with violence. V2 had tamed depression. V3 had moved the population beyond thousands of years of religious beliefs. The rebels referred to Version 3 as the ‘God-killer release.’ ‘Superstition killer’ was more accurate. V4 had amplified the love parents felt for their children, and Versions 5 and 6 had fine-tuned all the functionality introduced in earlier versions. Version 7, the most significant technological breakthrough, would transmit an individual’s thoughts to a central database. If that woman had had a V7 chip, alarm bells would have sounded, alerting paladins to intervene before tragedy struck.

Caleb pulled his shoulders back, proud of the role he was playing in the development of Version 7. He had a V7 beta chip embedded in his brain, sending his thoughts to a database in Version Control. He focused on a message that Dr. Aubrey, the director of Version Control, might pick up on. Dr. Aubrey, I love working at NanoArtisans! Aware of the mind-reading algorithm’s limitations, he pictured the words and repeated the sentiment.

Caleb waited, hoping for a direct response to his messenger when a text message came in from his sister, Zoe. You’ll be here on time?

Never in a million years would Caleb miss his nephew’s injection procedure. Do you really have to ask?

What time are you coming?

Caleb tutted in frustration. Zoe acted like his mother, which he supposed was understandable. She had stepped away from a promising career in consultancy to raise him when their parents had died ten years ago. He replied: I only have one patient this morning. I’ll be at your place before ten.

I hope you’ll be nice to Jack.

Caleb’s tension ratcheted higher. He and Zoe’s paladin husband were not on the best of terms. He took a diplomatic approach. See you, Julian, and Jack at 9:30.

Have you met anyone special? Zoe asked.

The leap from one traumatic subject to the next sent spiders crawling across his skin. Since we spoke last night? NO! Ready to say something he’d regret, he set his messenger to “Do Not Disturb.”

As he strode out of his lab and down the hall to the clinic, his chip defused the ticking bomb of agitation that his nosy sister had triggered. “Messenger, engage cochlear speaker and play Vivaldi’s 'Concerto for Viola d’amore in D Major.'” He let out a blissful sigh as his favorite concerto filled his head. Music, is the original nanochip.

Five minutes later, Caleb watched on the monitor as his patient, Timothy Rooney, entered the waiting room and took a seat. The 14-year-old boy’s eyes were brown, and freckles dappled his cheeks. Unable to sit still, he bounced his knees up and down. Timothy’s parents joined him, looking fidgety.

Caleb stepped into the waiting room and extended his hand to the young man. “Good morning, Timothy. I’m Dr. Saunders. Please, call me Caleb. I’ll be downloading paladin software to your chip.” They shook hands. The future paladin had a solid grip.

“You don’t look old enough to be a doctor,” the father said.

“I’m eighteen,” Caleb replied, used to this. “I earned my Ph.D. in nanobiology at seventeen and joined NanoArtisans nine months ago.”

Caleb ushered the family into the clinic where they sat around a table. “As you know,” he began, “an algorithm selected Timothy to be a paladin.”

“Adam, an algorithm selected you, too.”

Caleb stopped, startled for a moment. The voice was unmistakable. A nasal twang, with a trace of an Eastern European accent. It belonged to Dr. Petrov. But who is Adam? Caleb looked around the room even though he didn’t expect to see Dr. Petrov because the Father of the Chip never left his home inside the Citadel. “Did you catch what Dr. Petrov said?”

“When?” the mother asked.

“A few seconds ago.”

“I heard nothing,” she replied.

Timothy and his dad shook their heads. Dr. Aubrey had warned him that his V7 beta chip might produce unusual symptoms. Shrugging it off, Caleb resumed his pitch. “When boys and girls turn thirteen, quantum computers evaluate trillions of bits of personal data. The computers then project the future needs of society. Timothy, you’ll address one of these needs.”

“I want to hunt rebels,” Timothy blurted out.

Caleb turned to the parents. “I hear that a lot.” Turning back to the boy he said, “Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to divulge your vocation. You’ll find out what it is when you turn twenty-one.”

Timothy grinned. “Can I choose what type of paladin I’ll be?”

“Data has already chosen for you,” Caleb explained.

“Will I carry a joule?” Timothy asked.

The mother shot her son a hard stare. “Timothy, sit up straight and listen to Dr. Saunders.”

Caleb smiled. “Every future paladin asks that question. Timothy, it depends on whether you focus on security, the environment, or healthcare.”

The father frowned. “I’m worried that Timothy might clean up tritium radiation.”

“Here’s what I tell parents. It will take many generations of environmental paladins to clean up the remaining hot spots from the war. If Timothy becomes an environmental paladin, and he receives a hotspot assignment, there will always be an important role for him in society.”

“Will our son be safe?” the mother asked.

“You mean if that’s his assignment? My brother-in-law is an environmental paladin. He looks after the Charles River. To address your concern, Timothy will be fine as long as he wears protective clothing.” Caleb called up an overview document on his messenger, hoping to move the session along. “The procedure is fast, painless, and safe. Your nanochip has over fifty million lines of code. With the paladin patch, you’ll receive another ten million lines. This new coding will instruct your chip to deliver impulses to different parts of your brain.”

“Did Dr. Petrov write the code?” the father asked.

“Dr. Petrov concentrates on writing the M-code. Morphing Code is a programming language that changes itself based on stimuli. Dr. Petrov invented it. The thousands of neural coders here at NanoArtisans write the rest of the code.”

Shifting gears, Caleb moved on to address other commonly asked questions. “Will your personality change?” He shook his head. “If you like playing bicycle polo now, you’ll love playing it as a paladin. Will your friends still like you?” He nodded. “They will. You’ll also be able to date and marry another paladin, or even someone who isn’t a paladin.”

Timothy crossed his arms. “I don’t want to get married.”

His mother nudged him. “Someday you’ll fall in love, and then you’ll want to spend the rest of your life with your partner.”

Her comment touched off an avalanche of nerves in Caleb. His voice trembled. “Timothy, I guarantee that you’ll love your job, and you’ll want to do it forever. Are you ready to receive the paladin software?”

Timothy puffed up his chest. “Ready.”

Caleb held up a flat wand. “This is a trans. I'm sure you've seen security paladins carrying these devices. We use them here in the lab, too.” He pressed the wand against Timothy's forehead and engaged the transmission. Seconds later, a high-pitched beep sounded.

“And…done!” Caleb cuffed Timothy on the shoulder. “Congratulations, you've become part of an exclusive club. Now go home and play bicycle polo.”

When the family had gone, Caleb took a moment to savor the flood of exhilaration which followed every patient engagement. He was helping Dr. Petrov improve society one paladin at a time. Would the parents approve of their son mopping up hotspots in Argentina? In time, yes. More immediately, they would be delighted to discover Timothy cleaning his bedroom like never before.

PLANNING: PHASE 03

Ashminov paced from wall to wall in his small apartment on the outskirts of Rome. The music of Prince blared from speakers in the ceiling. He glanced at his mindport; the computer was churning at a trillion cycles per second as it compiled his devourware program. Provided the malware worked, it would devour a nanochip's software line by line and free the population.

Sharp claws of angst ripped into Ashminov’s throat. So much could go wrong. When his chip didn’t reduce his anxiety quickly enough, he stumbled to the window. The sun, which had risen above an olive tree, cast shadows across the plaza and onto the marble wall that dated back to Julius Caesar’s reign. He fixed his eyes on the fountain, hoping the bubbling flow would settle him, but he felt himself drowning in familiar, rising waters of self-doubt.

He took a step toward the dresser in the corner whose bottom drawer held the ultimate solution: a dose of tryp. The drug had allowed him to breeze through his teen years with confidence, but that was over two decades ago. To look at the green crystals today, much less consume them, he would receive a jolt. His hand floated to the drawer handle. Before he tried something stupid and crucified his innards, he turned to his viewport to finish a video he’d been watching

“Continue documentary,” Ashminov said.

A herd of black rhinos appeared on the viewport screen. The chip had saved rhinos from extinction. If a person contemplated poaching one, their chip fired an impulse into their brain’s pain center. All species thrived in a chipped world. He issued a contented sigh; the natural world and Prince had done the trick.

His messenger rang, barely audible over the music. He checked the display for the caller’s name; it was Baldini, his rebel contact. He found the priest to be annoying. The ringing persisted for an ungodly duration before stopping. Ashminov exhaled in relief.

Fewer than ten seconds passed, and the ringing started again.

“Viewport, off,” Ashminov grumbled and took the call.

“Have you made any progress on the devourware?” Baldini asked.

Ashminov pictured Baldini seated in a pew at St. Peter’s Basilica, hands folded in his lap, the permanent crease of a small smile incorrectly suggesting that he was a man at peace. “Father, I’ll call you if I have news.”

“The Boston rebel has found a chip ID,” Baldini said.

Hmmm. Baldini has good news for once. Every chip had a fifteen-digit code, and Ashminov would need a new ID for the chip in his brain after his devourware wiped it clean. He’d also use the same ID for Baldini’s chip. He figured the Boston rebel had sourced it from someone recently deceased. An ID sat in the local solartarium database for a few weeks before archival.

“I hope the ID’s not too old,” Ashminov said. “When you take the devourware to Boston, the last thing you need is for a paladin to scan you.” For once, Baldini practiced a rare moment of silence. “Father, it doesn’t take much for them to haul someone to an injection center, and that would be the end of the mission.”

“The ID hasn’t been assigned yet,” Baldini said. “A child will have an accident.”

Revulsion filled Ashminov. “Accident?”

“Sometimes we must commit sin for greater glory,” Baldini said.

That priest and his rebel cohorts turn my stomach.

“Speak,” Baldini implored.

Ashminov struggled with a response. If he denied he was upset, his chip would punish him for lying. But if he admitted that the murder of a child troubled him, Baldini would lecture him about how Petrov had gained too much power and that sacrificing a single child to save humanity was a reasonable tradeoff.

“I don’t need the ID now,” he said, pushing the heinous deed out of his mind. “Give it to me when I’m ready to burn a devourware chip. I should get back to work.”

“Petrov plans to use E.L.F. to transmit Version 7,” Baldini said. “The wavelengths can penetrate seawater and bedrock. Nobody can hide.”

Weighing this possibility, Ashminov thumbed the disconnect button. Baldini had his technical facts straight, but extreme longwave frequencies were better suited for transmitting small files, under ten terabytes. The V7 update was at least 100 terabytes. “A satellite network, capable of sending large amounts of data, fits the bill far better,” he said.

“I hear they’ve constructed two towers, one at the North Pole, one at the South Pole,” Baldini said.

That does sound like E.L.F. towers. “Father, Petrov can send V7 by pony express. It won’t be a problem for my devourware.”

“That’s the spirit!” Baldini offered with glee. “Now get back to work.”

Ashminov gladly pocketed his messenger and checked his mindport. The program was still compiling. Why would Petrov consider using E.L.F.? The wavelengths would flood the earth from the two poles and meet up at the equator. What is he scheming?

The kilometers piled up as Ashminov paced, wall to window and back. The devourware was still compiling. When his playlist served up Prince's “Love Groove,” the song triggered vivid memories of a Friday night twenty years before, causing a sad nostalgia to well up in his chest.

Fellow Bulgarian hackers used to show up weekly at his old apartment to listen to music and boast of their technological conquests. One evening, Petrov, a regular, had called to say he couldn't make it due to a flare-up of his asthma.

Around midnight, the party in full swing, Ashminov had heard a rumble of boots in the hallway. AISE, Italy’s intelligence service, had broken down the door and charged the revelers with stealing unreleased music from Prince’s vault.

Ashminov had hacked the AISE network to delete the charges against him and his friends. Later, he had learned that it was Petrov who had reported them. Petrov had also stolen Ashminov’s M-code. The morphing language, which they had used to infiltrate the computer systems of polluters, now powered nanochips.

The betrayal hung over Ashminov like a cloud of poison gas. There would be but a single antidote: use M-code to destroy Petrov’s life’s work.

A light rap on the door brought Ashminov back to the present. A whiff of garlic and cooking spices lifted his spirits. He opened the door. Signora Villanova, the octogenarian who lived on the top floor, stood in the hallway. With ample hips and face aglow, she held a plate of olives and calamari on a tray.

Signora Villanova was his only friend, the only person left in the world who cared about him. If he were to die, he couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather have take possession of his carbon tab.

“Buongiorno, Signora.” Ashminov received the meal. “Thank you for your generosity.”

Light danced in her eyes. “Look at your bony wrists! You need to eat, Christian.”

“I’m famished.” A sudden jolt of pain bounced through his skull, and Ashminov turned to hide his grimace. He had the appetite of a bird. Then he remembered that the tray of sliced pepperoni the signora had brought earlier was still sitting untouched on his table. He stepped left to block her view.

She wagged a finger at him. “Those bags under your eyes. A mere child of forty. Are you getting plenty of rest?”

“I’ll sleep well soon,” he assured her truthfully. It seemed he’d been writing code around the clock for days, for weeks, for months. For three-quarters of his life. But the devourware was almost finished. He would celebrate with a good night’s sleep after Baldini took the devourware chip to Boston so that the rebel from Jerusalem could finish the job.

“Sunshine would put color into those cheeks,” she said. “And don’t tell me you’ll buy a spectrum light and solid oxygen pellets.”

Basking in her motherly love, he grinned sheepishly. “I promise I’ll get old-fashioned sunshine and real air once my project is over.”

During every encounter with his kind neighbor, Ashminov could not help but revisit his cold, sterile childhood. His parents had demanded that he address them by their respective ranks in the Bulgarian Army and Intelligence Services: Captain and Colonel. Salutes, cold showers at dawn, daily recitation of the military manual; all that plus an absence of love had ruptured his psyche. It had been two decades since they had been consigned into compressed carbon, but the Captain and Colonel still haunted him.

“Ciao, Signora. Tante grazie.”

“Mangia, Christian!” she said.

Ashminov closed the door. On his way to place her latest offering on the table, he saw the Latin phrase, DEUS MORTUUS EST, flashing on his mindport. He stopped mid-stride and dropped the tray to the floor. Staring at the bold letters on the screen, he lurched a step forwards. Five years ago, he had written an instruction to display that announcement when the devourware program finished compiling. Five years, and finally, it was ready.

Ashminov hit pause on his urge to celebrate. First, he had to be sure that the devourware worked. He would serve as the guinea pig. Perversely, unsure if he were ready to face life without a nanochip to blunt his multitude of emotional issues, what he feared most was that it would work.

PLANNING: PHASE 04

Raissa shuffled to the weapons storage room to change. If she finished the debriefing session quickly, she could be home within the hour to see Jaddy. Nobody had coached her on how to tell her grandfather that she was about to leave him forever.

Shutting the storage room door for privacy, she shook out her arms and legs, still tingling all over from the joule blast—her first ever. The familiar sourness in her stomach returned as she removed her explosives belt and placed it on a shelf alongside cases of sonic grenades, rockets, joule rifles, pistols, and laser daggers. Once people are free to do and think as they please, will they again turn to weapons to settle disputes? She pushed the question from her mind. Over-thinking weakened her resolve.

Raissa finished dressing and hurried to the debriefing session down the hall. Goldstein and Mustafa were sitting next to each other at a long rectangular table. She sat opposite them.

They made the strangest pairing: two ancient warriors, former bitter enemies—rebel hunter and rebel—who had joined forces to destroy the chip. Goldstein had sloped shoulders, a few wisps of white hair, and spoke in a soft voice. Mustafa’s hate-filled eyes had come from years of detention in Collective prisons.

Goldstein reached for a pitcher of water and a glass. “You must be thirsty?”

Raissa ran the tip of her tongue along the inside of her teeth. It felt like two pieces of sandpaper scraping together. “No, thank you.” Every kind gesture came with strings attached.

Goldstein poured a glass and slid it before her. Her trainers forever played mental chess, claiming it would help her deal with the myriad of challenges she would encounter in Boston. “You’ll be leaving tonight.”

She jumped to her feet. “I need to go home now.”

“Sit,” Mustafa barked. “We’re not done.”

She complied, sullen and uncertain.

“We introduced the mother holding her baby to see what you would do,” Goldstein said.

She inhaled slowly through her nose and exhaled through her mouth, unflappable. What if I were that mother? I’d do anything to protect my child.

Goldstein tented his fingers. “You flinched, and that caused you to fail the exercise.”

Raissa maintained the countenance of a statue. The only movement was her chest as it rose and fell with her breathing.

“Raissa won't encounter children at the Citadel,” Mustafa said. They often used this good cop/bad cop tactic. His cold eyes bore into her. “The boy at the coffee shop, did you think he was flirting? Seriously, with your scar?”

Her stomach tensed. She should have known the boy was a rebel plant. She proudly lifted her chin.

Goldstein shot Mustafa an approving glance. They liked that she was hard to break.

“We must be grateful that Raissa was disfigured,” Goldstein said. “The explosion disabled her chip.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “Raissa, I ordered the strike on your house. That’s how things worked back then. My job was to kill rebels.”

She swallowed hard. “Is this another one of your tests?”

He fixed her with an unfeeling stare. “Our training sessions are over. I thought you should know.”

Raissa reeled in her chair, choking on the memories of dust filling her lungs. Then, without thought, she swept her arm in front of her, dashing the glass of water off the table. It shattered against the wall. Goldstein watched as she gripped the pitcher, this time with intent, and hurled it over his head. “Control your emotions,” he chided. “You’ll encounter far greater challenges in Boston.”

Blood pounded in her ears. “The strike was an accident! That’s what the inquiry judge ruled. The rebel cell was blocks away.”

“The strike was a success,” Goldstein said.

She turned to Mustafa. When her great-uncle lowered his eyes, a chill spread through her body.

Mustafa looked up. “Raissa, I was an informant. I told Goldstein when your mother was home.”

“My mother!” Raissa almost laughed at the absurdity. “She was a librarian! The most daring thing she did was read scary stories to children.”

“Librarian by day, rebel leader by night,” Mustafa said with a sick grin.

He must be telling the truth, or his chip would have him crying in pain. “But you were in the movement. You spent months in Collective detention centers. They polycuffed your ankles for months at a time! That’s why you limp.”

“Goldstein put me up in a condominium on the Red Sea. I had too much to drink one night and fell down the stairs. My knee has never been the same.”

Raissa blinked back tears of sadness and rage.

“Go see Jaddy,” Goldstein said. “We’ll take you to the airport later.”

Instead of flying across the table and snapping both their necks, Raissa headed for the door.

“Your parents and brother are gone,” Goldstein called out. “Don’t let their memories cloud your judgment.”

She wheeled around, ready to launch all her fury at him, but saw remorse in his eyes. Goldstein didn’t know it, but that flicker of humanity he showed kept his neck bones intact—for the time being.

Emerging from the bakery, Raissa welcomed the fresh air after the stuffy tunnel. Yet the revelation that Goldstein and Mustafa had killed her family crushed her chest and made it difficult to breathe. Why did they tell me? If Goldstein had believed the news would harden her resolve, he was mistaken.

At the intersection of Ha Brreakha and Shanakba Streets, the idea of punishing them clawed into her mind. I’ll abandon the mission. That will hurt them. She turned down Shanakba, and after two blocks, stood before the Jerusalem Injection Center. If she got a new chip, she could no longer lie and kill, but she’ discover what it was like to have friends and live like other people her age. The chip would ease her persistent grief. Jaddy would still suffer during his worship, but she would be around to comfort him.

Why does Jaddy pray? God isn’t real.

Unsure what to do, Raissa continued on her way home. The enlightenment wall, next to the gate that led to the old part of the city, featured Petrov. The thirty-eight-year-old Bulgarian had a slender build and dirty blonde hair. His massive head balanced on a thin neck. Broadcasting from inside the Citadel, he sat on a rock ledge beside a small stream in his lush, sprawling garden. He often preached from this perch. “Eve, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.”

Petrov’s nasal voice always sickened her, but now his words startled her. She had never heard him mention God before, much less love. She looked around. Nobody was writhing on the ground in pain. Had they heard him? She checked her messenger and discovered her cochlear speaker was off. Can Petrov infiltrate my mind?
And who is Eve?

Confused, she passed through the gate and hurried through the maze of dusty alleyways to her house, a small, two-story structure made of concrete, which Jaddy had rebuilt after the strike. She entered and called out to him. He'd left a note on the kitchen table to say he was out shopping. She trudged upstairs to her room and sat on her bed. “Memory wall, my family.”

Her baby brother, Farouk, came to life on the screen next to her bed. He was splashing in a tub. “Ra Ra,” he called, unable to pronounce Raissa. Farouk reminded her of a cute alien creature because his eyes were so green.

Raissa smiled at the montage of images and sound that followed: Her mother singing to Farouk; her father carrying Raissa on his shoulders; the family eating in the courtyard. Gooey orange squash covered Farouk’s face and jersey. Big sister was expected to wipe her baby brother’s face, a task she resisted at all costs. I would give anything to clean Farouk’s face today.

She replayed the horrific missile strike in her mind. Six years old, she was upstairs with Farouk; her parents were downstairs. There was a thunderous boom, and dust filled her mouth as she screamed. She remembered drifting in shadows and then Jaddy holding her hand as he sang:

“Jaddy is coming,
He is almost here,
He is bringing toys and gifts.
He’s also got a box,
Inside there's a duck
That goes:
Quack quack quack
Quack quack.”

The vibration of his voice had made her less afraid.

She had awoken in the hospital, weeks later, her face covered with bandages, her grandfather still holding her hand. Jaddy had waited another day before telling her that her parents and Farouk had died.

She braced for the memory wall’s final image. An olive grove surrounded the graveyard where simple stones commemorated her family. When a sob rumbled in her chest, she gritted her teeth. “No tears.”

Squaring her hips, Raissa sank into a warrior stance and threw punches into the faces of Goldstein and Mustafa until her arms dropped in fiery fatigue. Too exhausted to feel much of anything, she crawled onto her bed and buried her face in the pillow.

PLANNING: PHASE 05

Leaning on the stoop of Zoe and Jack’s place in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, Caleb inhaled the sweet nectar of magnolias blossoming along Beacon Street. Spring, the season of new beginnings, is the perfect time for Julian to receive his nanochip. He turned to his sister, who was breastfeeding his nephew on the opposite side of the stoop. Caleb marveled at mother and child. Each possessed the slightly oversized Saunders nose, which he faced every day in the mirror. Zoe had their mom’s dark curly hair, while Julian had blonde fuzz. Nine days old—too early to know if it would stay blonde.

“We’re supposed to be at the Union Square Injection Center in nineteen minutes,” Caleb said with building agitation. “What is your husband doing?”

“You promised you’d be nice to Jack,” Zoe said.

“Did I?”

“Jack likes you.”

“Who said he didn’t?” Jack hates that I work at NanoArtisans.

She grinned. “I can read your mind, remember.”

Zoe possessed an uncanny knack for guessing what he was thinking. “Only one person knows what I’m thinking,” Caleb said, picturing the V7 beta chip buried in his frontal lobe.

Zoe flashed an impish smile. “And how is Dr. Aubrey?”

Caleb tried not to blush as he waited for his chip to hack away at the knots forming in his stomach. “Dr. Aubrey is fine!”

“Colleagues, right? Nothing more?” Zoe’s look spoke volumes.

“For your information, Dr. Aubrey has a Ph.D. in neural circuitry. She’s earned ‘Researcher of the Year’ three times. I am enamored of Dr. Aubrey’s intellect.” Caleb omitted the fact that he was enamored of her physical characteristics as well.

Unimpressed by Dr. Aubrey’s curriculum vitae, Zoe gently pulled Julian from her breast. “Ready for number two?” Attaching her son to her other breast, she said, “Caleb, you’d never reboot Jack’s chip, would you?”

Caleb started. “Where did that come from?”

She narrowed her eyes. “I like Jack the way he is.”

Reboots, highly effective in correcting troublesome personalities, altered one’s character, but the change was always for the better. Caleb often fantasized about fixing Jack. “I’ve promised you a hundred times I’d never reboot him.”

“Have you met anyone special lately?” Zoe asked.

Ah, throw me off guard. He rolled his eyes. “You mean in the past hour?”

Julian coughed, and Zoe put him on her shoulder and patted his back. “We want Uncle Caleb to be happy.”

“Uncle Caleb is happy.”

Zoe rubbed noses with the infant. “Uncle Caleb is shy.”

“I am not shy!” Caleb winced as his chip ignited a sharp pinch in his gut. “Shyness is an unproductive emotion that the nanochip eliminates.”

“Apparently not yours,” she fired back.

Caleb threw his hands in the air. “My social life is none of your business.”

Zoe held out Julian for Caleb to take him. “Your training begins now.”

Cold panic flooded his chest. “Training for what?”

“Go on, hold your nephew.”

“I—I better not,” he stammered.

She placed Julian in his arms. He squeezed the swaddled bundle, not wanting to drop the baby, and Julian squawked.

“You work too hard,” Zoe said, keeping a watchful eye on his cradling technique. “You need balance in your life.”

Caleb hung his head, careful not to whack Julian. “Zoe, I’ll have more time to meet people after the V7 release.”

“Oh?” She folded her arms. “You told me that after V6.6, 6.7, and 6.8. After V7, you’ll blame your miserable social life on the next chip release.”

Caleb fought hard not to smile at all the work he'd have to do on Version 8. Codename Eden Chip, it would support two-way telepathy between users. He couldn’t wait.

“Caleb, am I right?”

Zoe’s voice brought him back to the stoop. Before he could think of what to say, the front door swung open, and Jack stepped out. Penetrating blue eyes added to a commanding presence. The paladin algorithm knew how to pick the cream of the crop.

For once, Caleb was thankful for Jack’s timing because it spared him from Zoe’s relentless interrogation. “We’d better hurry,” he said. “We have to be in Union Square in fourteen minutes.”

Jack scooped Julian into his arms and frowned. “He's wet. I'll change him.” He returned inside with his son.

Typical environmental paladin. No mess too small.

Zoe grinned with a predator's eyes. “Now, where were we?”

Caleb made his escape to the curb and hailed one of the autonomous, boxy people-movers.

A minute later, Jack stepped back onto the stoop with Julian. “Let’s get this over with.”

They piled into the taxi. Zoe got in back with Julian, and Caleb sat up front with Jack, hoping his show of improving family dynamics would not go unnoticed. “Taxi, Union Square Injection Center,” Caleb said.

The taxi pulled into traffic.

“Big day for Julian,” he added.

Jack grunted. “Says who?”

“When Julian gets his new chip, you’ll feel your bond with him growing. Dr. Petrov believes that stimulating a child’s love for a parent adds to a person’s happiness in later years.”

Jack sneered. “You think I’ll love Julian because he has a speck of hardware in his brain?”

Caleb lowered the window and stuck his head out. The arguing had already begun, and they weren’t even to the Mass. Ave. Bridge.

Jack tapped his shoulder. “Is that so Dr. What’s Her Face can see inside your head?”

“Dr. Aubrey,” Zoe chirped.

Caleb pulled his head back and turned to see Jack smirking. “For your information, my V7 beta chip can transmit my thoughts from both inside and outside the cab. Dr. Aubrey can even analyze my thoughts when I'm in the shower.” Caleb regretted using that example.

“Reading your mind in the shower must be fascinating.” Jack’s tone dripped with sarcasm.

Caleb sighed in frustration. “Dr. Aubrey is not interested in reading my mind.”

Jack scoffed. “Petrov is.”

Referring to the Father of the Chip in such a casual manner irritated Caleb. “Doctor Petrov is not interested in my thoughts. Nor yours.”

“Tell Jack why Version 7 is so important,” Zoe said.

“Data!” Caleb exclaimed. “Knowing what people think every waking hour, how they respond to stimuli, their dreams—those are the keys to a bright future.” Caleb liked using Dr. Petrov’s terminology. “The thoughts of the human population collected with Version 7 will add up to trillions of terabytes every hour. With enough data, we can predict the future. Imagine if we could change the behavior algorithms before the population moves in the wrong direction!”

Jack turned and said to his son, “That's not a future I want for you.”

“Wait until V8,” Caleb said, undeterred by the never-ending stream of cynicism from his brother-in-law’s mouth. “We’ll be able to live in each other’s minds.”

Jack raised his brows. “Caleb, you don't want to know what I'm thinking.”

He had heard enough. Injection Day was a time of celebration. “How's your river project going?”

Jack brightened at once. “Very well, thanks for asking. We've reintroduced alewife into the mouth of the river. Two hundred years ago, those fish were native to the Charles, but years of pollution had nearly wiped them out.”

Caleb dared not make eye contact with Zoe because she would think he had played dirty. He had. Jack, as an environmental paladin, couldn’t resist taking the bait. His chip was triggering sensations of euphoria as he reported on cleanup activities.

Jack beamed with pride. “Fortunately, we found a tank of dangerous chemicals—PCBs, or to be technical, polychlorinated biphenyls, buried in the riverbank. We were able to remove it before it leaked.”

They drove over the Mass. Ave. Bridge and turned right on Memorial Drive, passing Caleb’s alma mater, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Soon they approached the Union Square Injection Center. When the taxi pulled up to the main doors, Julian started crying.

Zoe sighed. “Are you hungry again? Jack, please check us in. I’ll feed Julian and meet you inside.” She climbed out and moved to a bench.

Jack sniffed at Caleb. “You knew I couldn't resist talking about my job and feeling happy about it.”

“Give it a minute, Jack. Your chip will improve your mood.”

Jack shook his head in disgust and headed for the entrance.

Caleb walked over to the bench. “Want company?”

“Keep Jack company,” Zoe said.

“Believe me, Jack doesn't want my company.”

“I can’t say I blame him. You manipulated him. You should apologize.”

Jack owes me an apology. But if that will make Zoe happy, fine. “Sure.”

Zoe smiled. “Thank you.”

Caleb wiggled his nephew’s foot. “Enjoy your meal, Julian. In ten minutes, your life is about to take a turn for the better.”

“I can’t wait, Uncle Caleb,” Zoe replied in a squeaky baby voice.

Caleb spotted Jack across the empty injection center lobby, sitting with a processing agent. Most infants scheduled for this time slot were already in the imaging chamber, undergoing the brain mapping procedure. Parents and family members were in the enlightenment dome on the top floor to watch a show on the history of the nanochip, featuring Dr. Petrov.

Approaching Jack and the agent, Caleb saw Julian's profile, including the new chip ID assigned to him, displayed on the mindport. He extended his hand. “I’m Caleb, Julian’s uncle. Mother and child should be here soon.”

“Tracy,” the agent said and shook his hand. In her mid-twenties, she wore ear piercings that blinked gold and red.

“Here they come now,” Jack said.

Caleb turned, surprised to see Zoe and Julian already halfway across the lobby.

“He wasn’t hungry,” Zoe explained. “He must have had gas.”

A nurse arrived to get Julian. Before handing him over, Zoe and Jack kissed their son, and then Caleb gave his nephew a peck on his head; the feel of the baby’s soft hair warmed his heart.

“Please come this way,” Tracy said. “Julian will be ready to go home after the enlightenment dome experience.” She led them to the elevator.

Caleb felt the weight of the awkward silence on the way up. “Jack, I’m sorry that I mentioned your work on the Charles River. I thought it was the only way to change your attitude. I have to remind myself that you don’t believe in technology as much as I do.”

“Apology accepted,” Jack grumbled, and Zoe seemed placated.

On the top floor, they entered the domed theater. Thankfully, the show hadn't started. Finding three seats in a row, Caleb took the aisle, and Zoe planted herself between him and Jack.

The lights dimmed, and all the seats reclined automatically. Dr. Petrov’s nasal voice twanged through speakers. “Welcome, and congratulations to the parents. Your children are about to reach their full potential.” A holographic image of a human brain appeared overhead. “The problem has always been with the brain. One hundred billion neurons communicating through trillions of synaptic connections in the neocortex make reasoning possible, but the raw emotions and dark impulses arising from the cerebellum and brain stem—the portions of the brain inherited from our reptilian ancestors—sabotage our higher soul.”

Shivers of awe spread throughout Caleb’s body as he imagined early man genuflecting before a sun god, or some other dominant, mysterious force of the universe. Caleb, too, worshiped such a dominant force. The difference was that Dr. Petrov was real and making his home in the Citadel five kilometers away—a living, breathing, coding deity.

The brain vanished, and discordant viola music accompanied a montage of blood, guts, and pollution. Images of the Crusades, gas chambers, napalm attacks, killing fields, school shootings, smog-choked cities, and bright orange rivers flew by.

A brilliant flash blinded Caleb, and the theater plunged into darkness as Dr. Petrov picked up his diatribe. “Christmas Day, the year 2036, war broke out. It was a perilous moment in the history of humanity.”

For reasons unknown, Brazil had razed Argentina with tritium fusion bombs, which ripped the scabs off simmering tensions around the globe. One conflagration begot another.

The United Kingdom leveled Sao Paulo.

India and Pakistan turned one another into radioactive wastelands.

China incinerated London.

South Korea attacked its pacifist cousins in the North.

The US pulverized half of China and all of South Korea.

Dr. Petrov’s voice dropped an octave to amplify the dire circumstances. “By New Year’s Day, 2037, four billion had died and a quarter of the planet’s land surface had become uninhabitable because of tritium radiation. When Russia and the United States trained their weapons of universal destruction on each other, humankind hung in the balance.”

US President Murtowsky and Russian Prime Minister Vasiliev changed the course of history with a novel idea. They would establish a twelve-person council that would govern the world. Six representatives from the United States and six from Russia formed the Collective.

More critically, they would embed behavior-controlling devices in everyone’s brain. Russia had retained the services of Dr. Petrov, a brilliant Bulgarian technologist who had developed M-code. Petrov was at work on a device—clunky by today’s standards—that, when implanted into the brains of Chechens, would take the fight out of them, ending a cultural vendetta smoldering for centuries.

The US Central Intelligence Agency had invested in a firm, NanoArtisans, which was developing nano-programmable implant devices. The marriage of NanoArtisans hardware and Dr. Petrov’s M-code algorithms gave birth to the nanochip V1.

“In the beginning, many resisted having a nano-programmable device implanted in their brains,” Dr. Petrov continued. “But the resistance withered as people discovered they liked what the chip did for them.”

Above a rising trill of birdsong, Dr. Petrov added, “Adam, can we predict love?”

Caleb nearly leaped out of his seat. Adam, again? He had memorized every word of Dr. Petrov’s lecture, but he had never heard him say that. Is the Father of the Chip proffering new wisdom?

“Thanks to the chip,” Dr. Petrov concluded, to a stirring orchestral backing track, “Earth has healed. Peace and equality have replaced war, and hope is upon us.”

The lights came on, and the seat backs rose. Caleb’s eyes were blurry with tears of pride. Zoe's cheeks were wet, too. Not surprisingly, Jack was shaking his head with a furrowed brow.

They moved to the elevator. Caleb didn’t want to press his luck with Jack, so he directed his question to Zoe. “Who do you think Adam is?”

“Caleb, what are you talking about?”

“Dr. Petrov asked if we can predict love.”

Zoe scrunched her brow. “I didn’t hear him say that.”

Jack chuckled. “Your brother is losing it. I think he needs a chip refresh.”

The elevator doors opened, and they stepped into a mad circus of families reuniting and cooing proudly over their newly chipped infants. Caleb scoured the crowd for Tracy’s blinking piercings. She approached them with empty arms and a look of concern.

“Where’s Julian?” Jack asked.

“I have some sad news,” Tracy replied. “Julian died during the injection procedure.” She pressed a carbon tab into Zoe’s hand.

Zoe turned white, and Jack choked out a sob. The room spun for Caleb. The procedure should have been safe. I've never heard of a single accident at an injection center. He folded at the waist and issued an anguished wail as sobs erupted in his chest. The happy chatter of the other families rose around him. What is wrong with my chip?

He felt a hand on his shoulder. The lightness of touch told him it was Zoe.

“No need to cry, Caleb. Everything will be fine,” she whispered in his ear.

Zoe and Jack were both smiling, their chips operating in overdrive to quash their grief and flood them with joy.

“We’ll design a new child,” Jack chimed, a wide grin spreading on his face. “A girl this time. The next injection procedure will hopefully go more smoothly.”

Zoe took her husband’s hand and looked lovingly into his eyes. “What should we name her?”

“Julia?” Jack offered.

Zoe nudged Caleb. “What name do you like?”

Blinking back tears, Caleb could only shrug. He felt so alone in his grief, and he would have to endure Zoe and Jack's cheery obliviousness until he could get his own chip fixed.

His sister held up the thin, circular tab, forged in the high heat of a solar oven, and said, “Julian will contribute to the environment.” She walked over to a geranium planter and pushed her son’s remains into the soil.

As Zoe and Jack strolled toward the front door, arm in arm, Caleb retrieved the tab and caught up with them. “Do you mind if I keep it?”

“Sure thing, Uncle Caleb,” Zoe said in her squeaky baby voice.

Outside, Zoe suggested they all go for a swim. Caleb didn’t feel like doing anything, but he was too shocked to say no.

At the swimming beach, Zoe and Jack splashed in the river. Still grief-stricken, Caleb sat on the bank. Realizing he could not be around their chip-induced joy any longer, he got up and told them he was taking a taxi home.

He stumbled into his apartment and collapsed into his favorite chair, the one that faced Dr. Petrov's photo on the coffee table. Dr. Aubrey, my chip has a bug. Can I stop by Version Control? I need a software patch. The sooner he reported his chip malfunction to her, the sooner she could fix it, and this sadness could go away.

Caleb was about to follow up with a call when he received a text message from Dr. Joyce. Sorry, Caleb, but everyone is stretched thin. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.

That was their scheduled daily update session, so he’d have to endure unproductive emotions for another fourteen long hours.

His stomach grumbled, but lethargy kept him planted in the chair. A malodorous scent wafted from his bedroom, but the simple task of tossing his dirty laundry into the UV washer was too daunting. He rallied his energy and retrieved his favorite book from the windowsill. Charlotte’s Web had always made him happy.

Caleb preferred to read words on paper, rather than allow a ruby laser beam to pump ten thousand words a minute into his retinal nerve. Stories were meant to unfold slowly. He opened the book’s faded cover and read the first sentence aloud. “'Where’s Papa going with that ax?' said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”

Uneasy and distracted, Caleb closed the book. “Memory wall, Mom and Dad at Symphony Hall,” he said in a faltering tone. Scenes from his youth often made him smile.

The screen came to life. His mother and father were standing outside Symphony Hall. Zoe, twenty years old, ran up to them and gave each a kiss on the cheek. He saw himself as a six-year-old boy wearing a tux, his clip-on bowtie dangling to one side. His younger self was happy and carefree.

Mom and Dad entered the concert hall, and Zoe grabbed Caleb’s hand to drag him in, too. The next scene was backstage at Symphony Hall. His mother was tuning her viola, and his father was removing his French horn from its case. Caleb scampered past them and looked out between the curtains.

Two months after that performance, Caleb's parents would be dead, innocent bystanders who were caught in the crossfire between rebels and Security forces.

A guttural noise startled Caleb, and it took a moment for him to realize the ugly sound had emerged from his throat. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “Memory wall, off.”

He careened to a corner of the room and picked up his viola. As a boy, playing it had brought him instant joy. He still often picked it up hoping that joy would return, but these days the instrument produced a level of frustration in him that even a fully functioning chip could not relieve.

He tried to tune the viola by ear, as he had done in his youth, but he was too distracted to concentrate. After failing to tune the instrument to his satisfaction, he gave up and engaged the auto-tune feature.

He applied rosin, and aching to play as he once had, tucked the viola into the crook of his neck and drew the bow back. His fingering and tempo for practicing major pentatonic scales were way off. If anyone were listening to him outside the window, they would have cried for him to stop.

He proceeded to slaughter “Sinfonia Concertante” by Mozart. His rendition of “Romeo and Juliet” by Sergei Prokofiev would have sent the lovers into the fires of Hell rather than into each other’s arms. He dared not attempt his favorite piece, Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Viola d’amore in D Major.” He and his mother used to play it together, and he didn’t want to shatter those tender memories.

An hour later, listless, he sank back into the recliner. A thickening throat and the rumble in his chest alerted him that his mood was about to plunge further. How had people coped with the loss of loved ones before nanochip technology?

“Memory wall, Julian.”

Julian, hours old, stared out from the screen. Caleb removed his nephew’s carbon tab from his pocket and clutched it in his fist. Then, hugging himself, he braced for the long night ahead.

PLANNING: PHASE 06

“The Age of Devourware has begun,” Ashminov announced in a halting voice to the four walls of his empty apartment. He noted the time and date—April 20, 10:15 a.m. He was about to chisel the epitaph for the nanochip in cyberspace: 2037 – 2055. How would historians note the event? Would they see it as the dawn of new freedoms, the unshackling of the world from the tyranny of the chip? Or would it be step one in the dismantlement of the gains made in saving the environment and civilization itself? Humankind, with nothing to temper its dark impulses, might revert to its old tricks. Ashminov expected the outcome to lie somewhere between the two extremes. He typed a command to send instructions to the 3D printer to create a chip containing the devourware, and the printer came to life.

His messenger beeped. Baldini! Ashminov answered the call. “Are your ears burning, Father? That chip ID you have, I need it now.”

Baldini paused for a long moment. “Why?”

“You know why.”

Baldini read out fifteen digits. The priest was firing a follow-up question when Ashminov disengaged the call. His messenger rang again. He ignored it, refusing to think about where the ID had come from, as he tapped out the digits. He followed up with the command to incorporate the ID into the chip. After the printer added a nano-layer of circuitry, he inserted the chip into a trans.

This trans was the latest model used by security paladins in the field. Ever since Baldini had knocked on his door five years ago, asking him to develop the devourware, the priest had been able to offer him any piece of information or equipment he'd requested. How did Baldini do it?

Uninterested in the answer, then and now, Ashminov placed the wand against his forehead and pushed the button to engage the transmission. A high-toned beep informed him that the devourware had infiltrated his chip. The trans readout reported the deletion of fifty-five million lines of code. Bracing himself for a multitude of insecurities to rear their heads, he felt the same without the chip as he had felt with it. If the devourware had deleted every last line of code, then he should be free to do as he pleased. If, on the other hand, a few million lines of code remained, the chip would take a meat cleaver to his liver for engaging in forbidden behavior.

How might I put my freedom to the test?

His mind went blank. Someone released from an extended period of bondage might enter a similar state of shock. The jailer opens the cell door, but the prisoner stays inside out of habit, too numb to step out.

Ashminov walked to the window. The plaza was buzzing with people of all ages. Adults played handball against the Roman wall, and kids sailed toy boats in the fountain. A blimp’s shadow crossed the plaza like a schooner sailing across a harbor. He had a crazy notion: go outside and take a dip in the fountain. If the devourware had worked, he would splash around like a seal pup.

Unzipping his sweater, he dropped it onto the floor and started for the door. “Purple Rain” crooned from the speakers. Ashminov stopped to listen to the iconic song. Then, as spontaneously as Prince riffing his guitar, a new idea burst into his mind. An easier, but more dangerous test.

After pulling down the shade, he opened the bottom drawer of his dresser. A month before the mass implantations of nanochips had begun, he had tucked away the vial on a whim, like a squirrel hiding a nut. Nobody could have guessed that tryp would end up on the forbidden substance list.

A chill of fear mingled with excitement. With trembling fingers, he inserted the sparker into the green crystals. Positioning his nostrils above the vial opening, he engaged the electric arc. His spine stiffened in a rush of confidence he hadn't known for a long time. My lungs are still working! The devourware was a success.

He celebrated by sparking a second time, then a third. Tryp wasn’t habit-forming, but the confidence it induced was. That’s enough! He’d ration the remaining crystals the way a field mouse takes a week to nibble a single grain of wheat. One more whiff.

Sometime later, Ashminov found himself talking to Baldini, unsure whether he had called the priest or the priest had called him. The vial was empty.

“You'll bring me the devourware chip?” Baldini asked.

Ashminov clutched his messenger to his chest. “For you, Father, I'll bring two. One for insurance.”

Ashminov burned a second devourware chip. He placed the two chips, along with the trans, in his satchel. The transaction would occur at the Colosseum, Baldini’s favorite place to meet. Located in the center of Bioparco’s wild animal enclave, Ashminov liked meeting there, too. The lions fascinated him.

With the satchel over his shoulder, he headed for the door and opened it. Signora Villanova stood in the hallway with a plate of pasta and tomato sauce.

He jumped back. “Signora, it’s always a pleasure to see you.”

Suddenly, the color drained from her cheeks. “Are you ill? Christian, your eyes!”

He gasped. “I forgot to take my allergy medicine!”

Able to lie with impunity for the first time in years, Ashminov accepted her offering with heartfelt thanks, telling her how much he had enjoyed the olives and calamari. She blushed a shade of red deeper than the sauce.

After closing his door, Ashminov raced straight into his bathroom, where he found the sink overflowing. The flood didn’t surprise him. Tryp tended to focus one’s mind on weightier matters than remembering to turn off the faucets. He turned them off, tossed a towel on the floor, and looked in the mirror. His pupils were as big as saucers. Grazie, Signora! If paladins had seen him in this condition, they would have hauled him to the hospital. Donning a pair of sunglasses, he made for the elevator.

Outside, he encountered the first security paladins in Lamian Gardens. Two of them strolled down the tulip-lined path in his direction. They each stood nearly two meters tall, genetic specimens of the highest order. Scanners clipped to their belts were picking up IDs. Sweat trickled down his chest as they approached. The paladins passed by without incident. The ID Baldini had provided passed muster. A combination of relief and remorse battled in his head. Has the child already been killed?

Fear edged out his sorrow when he reached the Piazza Della Repubblica. A mad swirl of taxis whipped around the roundabout. He trembled as the vehicles whizzed by him. Without a chip to control his irrational fear of getting run down, Ashminov was forced to cope with his emotions. Surely, I haven’t forgotten how. He made a case for his safety: crosswalks were obsolete because engineers had perfected anti-collision technology years ago. Statistically, choking on calamari was a higher risk than a vehicle striking him.

Unconvinced by the argument but pressed for time, he held his breath, stepped into the hurtling rush of hard objects, and managed to reach the other side without a scratch.

He walked along the electric fence housing the Bioparco’s wild animals until he came to the entrance. A sign said, “Please Do Not Feed the Animals” in twelve languages. He joined the flow of visitors, mostly families, strolling along the elevated pathway that crossed over pairs of elephants, warthogs, and zebras. The Colosseum sat in the dead center of the thousand-acre habitat.

When he reached it, a roar greeted his entry. The majestic beasts lounged on dusty soil.

He spotted Baldini sitting in the fifth row. Mid-fifties, the priest wore khaki pants, boat shoes, and a tan cardigan sweater.

As Ashminov approached him, Baldini shot to his feet. The priest gripped his hand. “You’re perspiring.”

Ashminov pulled his hand back.

“Christian, is the light bothering you?”

Ashminov realized he was wearing sunglasses. He opened his satchel and reached for the devourware chips. “Let me explain what the rebel has to do.”

Baldini passed him a photo. “Her name is Raissa. Have a seat.”

Ashminov sat and studied the rebel’s eyes. They glowed green.

“Interesting look, yes?” Baldini said.

“Magical.”

“Mother’s Swedish, Father’s Egyptian. Eighteen years old. Trained in explosives, electron weaponry, hand-to-hand combat. She can even fire an antique pistol. Her trainer says she’s ready for the mission.”

A roar interrupted Baldini, and they turned to watch a male lope over to a female. The male pawed. The female lion throated a grumble of disinterest. The male lion flopped beside her, perhaps hoping she’d change her mind.

“So powerful,” Baldini said.

“Amazing beasts,” Ashminov concurred.

He passed the photo back to Baldini, followed by the case containing the two devourware chips. “Raissa’s best choice is to embed the chip into the skin of the NanoArtisans employee. Once the chip is inside the firewall, it will automatically upload the devourware to the transmission server in the Citadel.”

Baldini struck a pensive pose. “How does your devourware work?”

“Keywords in a nanochip’s M-code control behavior,” Ashminov began. “Consider the keyword pollution. It has sub-branches: air, water, land. The water branch splits into fresh water and ocean water. Freshwater into lakes, streams, and so on. If someone attempts to pollute a stream, or even thinks about it, the chip punishes them. Devourware identifies the top keywords and then deletes them, and all related keywords. Think of it as a caterpillar munching all the leaves on the branches until the tree is bare.”

“So your devourware destroys the code on a nanochip one branch of logic at a time?” Baldini said.

Ashminov nodded. “From a layperson’s view.”

Baldini’s eyes widened. “Could you reverse a person’s behavior using this M-code? For example, could you make a person want to pollute a stream?”

Ashminov snapped his fingers. “I could do that with a simple line of code. I could create a world in which everyone polluted.”

Baldini folded his hands in his lap. “Tell me, what makes Version 3 tick?”

The priest, understandably, was fixated on the God-killer release. “In V3,” Ashminov explained, “the top branches of logic feature the world's religions. There are close to six hundred. Of course, the major ones have the most extensive sub-branches. Consider Islam. Every time people read the Koran or face Mecca and pray, the chip shuts down their lungs.”

Baldini placed a hand on Ashminov’s arm. “By changing a simple line of M-code, would it be possible to inspire the world’s population to worship a single religion?”

Sensing trouble, Ashminov studied Baldini. “Yes, but why would we trade one form of mind-control for another?”

“I understand that you enjoy bolstering your confidence with tryp,” Baldini said.

Who told him that? “Yes, I’ve used tryp on occasion.”

“We should visit the Vatican pharmacy,” Baldini said.

After five years of almost daily interactions with the priest, Ashminov had developed a sense of how Baldini operated, how he made deals. He sensed one coming now. Sadly, he was all ears.

“I see the wheels are turning,” Baldini said. “Let’s continue our discussion. I have a taxi waiting.”

The taxi dropped Baldini and Ashminov off outside St. Peter’s Basilica. During the ride, Ashminov had weighed the pros and cons of Baldini’s request to develop malware that would turn the world’s population into—surprise—Christians.

The cons outnumbered the pros.

Ashminov had fond memories of his days as an altar boy at St. Mary’s in Sofia. The second largest Catholic church in Bulgaria’s capital city had offered him sanctuary from the cold militarism of home life. But the notion of a world filled with fervent Christians gave him pause. Fervent anything was rarely a good idea.

He followed Baldini, who opened the massive wooden door and gestured for him to enter the Basilica first. Inside the cathedral, black plastic sheeting covered the ceiling frescoes to spare people the pain they would incur if they looked at the forbidden images.

They trotted up a winding stone stairway to the second-story hallway of a residential section of the Basilica which featured a row of masterpieces on the walls, also covered in plastic. Baldini had once bragged he kept a rare, early reproduction of Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” in a closet.

Gagging and wheezing came from a room on the right. Baldini stopped at the doorway and Ashminov caught up and looked in. To his surprise, he saw the Pope doubled over in bed, gasping for air. The Pope looked worn out.

A nun, hands on hips, stood next to him. “He won’t listen.”

“Sister, break out the solid oxygen pellets,” Baldini instructed. “I’ll assist.” He strolled over to the bed.

The woman handed Baldini a box, and Baldini pushed a pellet up the Pope's nostril. The Pope's cheeks flushed pink from the infusion of oxygen, and he stopped gasping.

Baldini looked the Pope over, nodded, and returned to Ashminov who was staring open-mouthed from the doorway. He draped an arm over Ashminov's shoulder and escorted him down the hall. “His Holiness insists on daily prayer.”

The Pope’s devotion moved Ashminov.

They arrived at the end of the hall, and Baldini pulled open a door. “The Vatican pharmacy,” he announced.

Ashminov's eyes darted over the inventory of amber pill bottles, syringes, pipes, and bags of white powder lining the shelves, a time capsule of heartache and addiction.

“Father, I think it’s best if we stick with the devourware. People can worship whomever or whatever they want. I’ll worship nature.”

Baldini paused a long moment, pretending to weigh Ashminov’s words. Then he cracked open the lid of a 55-gallon drum, filled to the brim with green crystals. Ashminov felt like a cat staring at a tin of tuna; he had never seen such a supply of tryp.

Baldini scooped a few grams of crystals into a bag which he handed to Ashminov. Ashminov wet a finger, dipped it into the bag, then licked the tip. Confidence traveled down his tongue, the way water soaked along a wick, and fanned out into his throat and chest.

Baldini rested a hand on his shoulder. “Let's download the New Testament, please. The God of the Old Testament is vengeful. I don't want the flock concerned about pestilences and floods. Shall we say, two kilos of tryp for the Bibleware?”

Ashminov had once read that knowing yourself is a great strength. He knew himself well. He had no spine.

“I’ll take your wide-eyed silence as a yes,” Baldini said, pulling Ashminov back from his pondering. “I'll stop by your place in two hours.”

Ashminov blinked once. “Father, make it 90 minutes.”

PLANNING: PHASE 07

Lifting her face from the damp circles on her pillow, Raissa reached for her viola. She got up, removed the instrument from its case, and opened the rosin compartment where she kept a photo of her mother and father holding Farouk. She rosined the bow, tuned the viola and stood before the stand that held sheet music.

Ignoring the score, she closed her eyes and played the piece by heart for the ghosts of Farouk and her mom and dad. She wandered, lost in the forest of notes, a place that made her temporarily forget the burden she carried. The bow felt weightless in her hand; the instrument became part of her.

“Why so sad?” Jaddy asked. “Vivaldi’s concerto is a happy piece.”

Startled, Raissa put down the viola and bow. Her grandfather stood in the doorway. Hunched over, he looked frail, as if he were shrinking before her eyes. “How long have you been listening?”

“Half an hour,” he replied. “It was wonderful of Mustafa to give you the viola.”

Anger knotted in her stomach at the mention of her great-uncle. To Mustafa, the viola was one more weapon in her arsenal, a tool she might use to ingratiate herself with the target in Boston. For Raissa, the viola had become a voice that expressed her true feelings.

She walked over to Jaddy, and he dabbed her cheek with his thumb. “Tears leave a little smudge when they dry. Crying is good for you. Those of us with functioning chips can only shed tears of joy.”

Raissa looked away as her eyes welled anew. She hugged her grandfather, but then she pushed back, fearing the sadness in her chest might grow into choking sobs. “Shall we have tea?”

“Tea would be nice,” he replied and glanced at the clock on the wall.

Raissa did too. Salat, the time for prayer, was only five minutes away. She would make tea and have to listen to him gasp for breath as he worshiped God.

Ten minutes later, she was standing outside the door to the den, listening to him suffocate. Jaddy had lined the walls of the den with cork to dampen the sounds, but the tortured noises of him wheezing still reached her ears. When a chip shut down a person’s lungs for pursuing a forbidden activity, asphyxiation happened slowly, like a boa constrictor strangling its victim. Jaddy took labored breaths as his chip restricted his lung capacity in increments. His lungs finally clamped shut, not allowing him to even sip air.

When it became silent, Raissa knew her grandfather had lost consciousness. Pressing her ear to the door, she waited for his autonomic nervous system to kick in and contract his diaphragm. She was about to put her shoulder to the door and break it down when she heard him cry out like a baby taking its first breath. Her relief was brief. Jaddy wasn’t getting younger, and she feared that one of these prayer sessions might be his last. Only I can save him.

The mission was back on. It had to be. Dreading the conversation she would have with him, she turned off the flame under the kettle, measured loose tea leaves into two cups, and poured hot water over them.

Jaddy hobbled out of the den with blue lips and feigned a smile. “I’m a little teapot short and stout. Here is my handle, here is my spout.” He well knew her concern for him, especially in the moments following prayer, and he’d try anything to lighten her mood, including a recital of her favorite nursery rhyme.

She smiled to put him at ease. “Would you like to have tea under the fig tree? I have something important to tell you.”

“I like having tea with you anywhere.”

Carrying their teacups on a tray, she led the way to the courtyard where they sat opposite each other at a small round table in the shade. The surroundings seemed too beautiful to host such a sad topic.

Before she could begin, she received a text message and tensed because only one person contacted her like this: Goldstein.

We're out front, her trainer reported. It's time to go to the airport.

Not yet! Raissa replied.

You can’t miss your flight!

Jaddy smiled. “What did you want to tell me?”

Raissa turned off her messenger. “Jaddy, I need to . . .” Her trembling voice faded to a rasp and then silence.

He reached across the table. “Give me your hand.”

She clasped his hand, her clammy skin pressing against his delicate veins and soft wrinkles.

“I know you’re going on a dangerous mission,” he said.

She inhaled sharply. She had never once mentioned the mission, concocting endless deceptions over the years to conceal her training exercises.

“Even if Mustafa hadn’t told me,” Jaddy added, “I would have known. Your eyes give away your secrets.”

The air in Raissa’s lungs grew stale, and she became lightheaded. Did Jaddy know about his younger brother’s betrayal?

Jaddy tightened his grip. “God makes the impossible possible.” He grimaced. “God,” he added, bringing a hand to his mouth to muffle his grunt of anguish, “will be there when you need him.”

Why isn’t Jaddy’s God there for him? When a knock sounded at the front door, Raissa flooded with cold anger.

Jaddy didn’t flinch. “I would try to talk you out of going, but I know that wouldn’t work.” The knocking grew louder. “Your mother was a passionate person, full of principle. She took a position and stuck to it. My son was the same, but he was more pragmatic. You take after both. Raissa. I am so proud of you.”

Raissa bit her trembling lip. The banging, now delivered with fist and foot, threatened to knock the door off its hinges.

Jaddy's hand was shaking, and she held it tighter. The tremor migrated to his arm, and soon his upper body heaved. He pulled his hand back and covered his face. Lowering his chin, he sobbed. She had never seen her grandfather cry. In fact, with his chip, it shouldn’t even be possible. Maybe there were griefs so deep that even the chip could not surmount them. She moved around the table and buried her face against his bony shoulder. Then he was hugging her and no longer shaking. His grip was comforting; he was on his feet and seemingly at peace. His chip, which had nearly pushed him over the cliff of death moments earlier, was now filling him with happiness. “Your mother and father are watching over you. Farouk, too. They believe in you, and so do I.”

With Raissa following close behind, her mind reeling, he headed to the door. When he pulled it open, Mustafa froze in place, his foot cocked back, ready to deliver another kick. Her great-uncle almost lost his balance.

“Raissa’s ready,” Jaddy told him.

Mustafa stepped inside and kissed his older brother on both cheeks, which sickened Raissa.

Jaddy hobbled into the den and closed the door behind him, but the soundproofed walls couldn’t stop his anguished wail from reaching her ears.

Raissa drilled Mustafa with a cold stare. Hatred makes the impossible possible. She would rip his heart from his chest with her bare hands. Only after he looked away did she go upstairs to get her weapons and viola.

A moment later, she walked numbly to the black sedan parked out front with Goldstein behind the wheel. She climbed into the back and placed her pack of weapons and viola on the seat. Mustafa came out of the house and sat up front. When they pulled away, Goldstein made eye contact with her in the mirror. “Your flight leaves in ninety minutes. In Boston, you’ll meet up with the Bulgarian who developed the devourware.”

She leaned forward. “I’m not meeting the priest?”

Goldstein handed her a photograph. “Change of plans. Christian Ashminov. His cover is that he’s your uncle.”

Ashminov reminded her of an owl, with eyes spaced wide apart. His face was pale, and he looked undernourished.

“Parents were in the Bulgarian military,” Goldstein continued. “He’s one of the world’s greatest software technologists. They say he knows as much as Petrov though he never graduated high school.” He passed her an envelope. “Ashminov’s flight information and your ticket.”

“How did Jaddy take the news of your martyrdom?” Mustafa asked.

Raissa looked out the side window.

Mustafa turned. “I asked you a question.”

Feeling Mustafa’s stare, she focused on a taxi in the other lane.

“My poor brother is clueless, isn't he?”

Rage exploded in her chest. “Shut up!”

Mustafa grinned at Goldstein. “A bitch, like her mother.”

Raissa reached into her pack, found the joule, and curled her fingers around the grip. Luckily for Mustafa, he kept his mouth shut the rest of the way to Ben Gurion Airport.

Goldstein parked a hundred meters from the terminal building. “This is where we leave you, Raissa.”

She slipped the joule from the pack and pressed the gun against Mustafa’s head. He whipped around and stared at her with a blank expression. “Because of you, Farouk and my parents are dead,” she said, sensing a slick of perspiration form between her finger and the trigger. He has no soul. He is dead already. Is it wrong to kill someone who has already died? She lowered the joule.

Mustafa chuckled. “You’ll never be ready for the mission.”

“It’s difficult to kill someone when you can see their eyes,” Goldstein said.

Suddenly, Mustafa jerked to the side, with a force that shattered the passenger window. He slumped forward, lifeless. Goldstein placed his weapon on the front seat.

Blood pounded in Raissa's ears. “You’re not in pain. Your chip should punish you.”

His eyes were glassy with tears. “Go, Raissa. You’re ready.”

She looked at him for a moment, reading pride, anger, and sorrow in his face. She grabbed her belongings, stepped out of the vehicle and headed for the terminal.

The mission was in trouble.

PLANNING: PHASE 08

Back in his apartment, Ashminov had already printed two Bibleware chips, and the tryp sample was long gone. At work on his own deal to suggest to Baldini, he hurried to download files from the World Wildlife Database: lions at rest and play, lions chasing gazelles, lion roars, digitized scents of wet lion fur, and fur baking in the sun.

The priest loved lions; lionware would heighten his appreciation of the majestic beasts. Ashminov rehearsed his pitch. “What do you say, Father? Lionware and Bibleware for an extra kilo of tryp.”

He opened a brain-mapping application on his mindport and, using the search field, entered the terms “beauty,” “fascination,” and “aesthetic appeal.” Two areas of the cerebral cortex lit up, the insula and the striatum. The application reported the precise brain coordinates, and Ashminov copied the values and pasted them into his code.

After he sent the lionware program to his printer to produce a chip for the trans, he amended his appeal, hoping his sincerity would make up for a lack of negotiation skill. “Father, I know how much you enjoy visiting the Colosseum. I've developed special code that will enhance your appreciation of lions. The code can coexist with Bibleware. You can love Jesus and derive great joy from lions at the same time.” Ashminov cleared his throat. “Would you consider three kilos of tryp for the Bibleware and lionware?”

Baldini, clutching a briefcase, barged in without knocking. “Christian, are you talking to yourself? I have no issue with that. Do you have the Bibleware?”

Ashminov held up a plastic case with two chips in it. “All set.”

Baldini popped open the briefcase and pointed to a bag of green crystals. “Two kilos, plus or minus.”

Ashminov thought “minus.” “Father, I have a proposition for you.”

Ignoring him, Baldini handed him an airline ticket. “There’s been a change of plans. Your flight to Boston leaves in three hours. Raissa will meet you at Logan Airport. If anyone asks, she’s your niece.”

Ashminov stared at the ticket, his thoughts swirling down a drain hole of disbelief.

“I spoke to my contacts in Jerusalem and Boston,” Baldini continued. “We think it best that you go instead of me. If Raissa encounters any issues, you’ll be there to help her.”

Ashminov mumbled, “The Bibleware will work.”

“Yes, yes. You are a genius, but it’s prudent to have a technologist at Raissa’s side.”

“I can’t fly.” Ashminov’s voice trembled. “I have a fear of heights.”

Baldini cuffed him on the shoulder. “Buck up. Occupy yourself with rhino documentaries. You’ll be in Boston before you know it.”

Ashminov lowered his eyes.

Baldini moved the tryp into his field of vision. “Care for a taste?”

Ashminov dipped a fingertip and sampled the product, feeling at once a surge of confidence that shifted his attitude. “How long will I be in Boston?”

Baldini shrugged. “Three days, four at the most. The V7 transmission is happening in 48 hours.”

Ashminov doubled the estimated timeframe. Eight days. That’s a long time to be away from home. He pursed his lips. No, it’s time I make a break from the priest's control and move on. He’d download the lionware to Baldini free of charge, hand over the Bibleware, and flush the tryp.

“That drum of tryp I showed you?” Baldini added. “When you return from Boston, it’s yours.”

“All of it?”

Baldini placed his hand over his heart. “One hundred kilos.”

Ashminov chewed his lip. “And Raissa will meet me at the airport?”

Baldini's mouth curled into a smile. “Not if you miss your flight.” He bowed his head. “Please download the Bibleware to my chip. Ever since Version 3, I've been wandering lost in the wilderness.”

Ashminov spotted an enormous gold ring on Baldini's finger.

Baldini noticed his gaze and held out his hand. “Do you like the Papal ring? The Pope suffocated during devotional prayer. Sadly, I wasn't able to get him solid oxygen pellets in time.”

Baldini didn't look sad.

“You let him suffocate?” Ashminov said as the room spun.

“Strong words, Christian. Soon the flock will number in the billions, and his Holiness wasn’t getting any younger. I merely sent him home to rest.”

“Home?”

“The Pope’s faith should earn him a room on the top floor if you get my gist,” Baldini said.

“I don’t get it.”

“Heaven,” Baldini replied with a spreading grin, appearing to weather the forbidden term with ease.

Ashminov suppressed his shock. He couldn’t let Baldini get away with murder. “I need to make one small change to the M-code.”

“Please hurry,” Baldini implored. “You have a flight to catch.”

Ashminov turned to his mindport and opened the brain-mapping application. Using the search field, he entered the term “lust.” The hippocampus and limbic lobe both lit up, and he copied the coordinates and pasted them into the lionware code. He wasn't sure what the effect of these new impulses would be, though he could hazard a guess. He burned a lionware V2 chip and inserted it into the trans. “Are you ready, Father?”

Baldini raised his chin and closed his eyes. Ashminov pressed the wand against the priest's forehead and engaged the transmission. “Done,” he said, after the beep.

Baldini blinked. “Somehow I expected to experience a rebirth of faith. Are you sure it worked?”

“I’m sure,” Ashminov said, stuffing the ticket and the tryp into his satchel. Baldini’s troubled eyes followed him as he stepped into the hallway. “Father, please close the door when you leave.”

ANALYSIS

ANALYSIS: PHASE 01

Caleb approached Gate 5D at the northwest corner of the NanoArtisans campus and stood in line with other employees going to their labs. Exhausted from a miserable night's sleep, and still grief-stricken over Julian's tragic death, he looked forward to the much-needed relief of a software patch.

When it was his turn to enter the campus, he glanced into the retinal scanner, and his chip ID flashed green on the monitor. A paladin guard waved him on. He stepped inside the next security tier, a cylindrical tunnel twenty meters long and ten in diameter. The whir of blister guns tracking him made the hairs on the back of his neck stand rigid. He attributed his irrational fear to his faulty chip.

Outside the tunnel, a robotic voice crackled, “Good morning, Dr. Saunders. You’re scheduled to meet Dr. Aubrey in Version Control at 7:20 a.m., 15 minutes and 20 seconds from now. Your first patient of the day is Dr. Gabriel Mars at 9:30 a.m.”

Caleb hopped onto a scooter, slipped into the gyroscopic harness, and rode across the campus to the Ada Lovelace Building. In front of the twenty-story structure he dismounted, and the scooter rolled away. He entered the lobby and took the elevator to the top floor.

Dr. Aubrey was talking on her messenger when he stepped into Version Control. Long red hair fell to her lab coat, a utilitarian garment which failed to conceal her gorgeous figure. Fifteen years his senior, she oversaw the release of new chip versions.

Caleb strolled to the window and looked down at the Union Square Injection Center, which reminded him of yesterday's horrible event. He reached into his pocket and touched Julian's carbon tab for a dose of relief.

He switched his mind to a more cheerful subject.

“Oh, you think so?” Dr. Aubrey said a moment later.

Startled, Caleb turned. The scientist was a meter away, holding up her messenger which reported his real-time thought output. He dreaded what the algorithm had reported. “What was I thinking?” he asked.

Dr. Aubrey raised her brows. “I have lovely breasts.”

After she showed him her messenger, the tips of Caleb’s ears burned, and he shifted his gaze to her eyes, not daring to let his eyes wander down her white lab coat. “Did the algorithm also report I’m impressed by your intelligence and analytical capabilities?”

“Spoken like a true neural coder. Caleb, do you remember my promise to you?”

He nodded. “What happens in my head stays in this lab.”

She drummed her fingers on the messenger. “Have I kept my word?”

“Yes.” He trusted Dr. Aubrey completely.

She made a sweeping gesture with her arm. “We can’t control what our imagination stitches together. I will never judge you for what you think.”

Thank you, he thought.

Dr. Aubrey dropped her eyes to her messenger. “You're welcome. Shall we begin?”

After three months in the beta chip program, Caleb knew the drill. He followed her to the examination pod, removed his shirt, and climbed inside. To record his vitals, Dr. Aubrey connected biometric pads to his chest and temples.

“Julian died yesterday during the injection procedure,” Caleb said as they waited for the results.

Her jaw dropped. “I'm so sorry. You were looking forward to your nephew receiving a nanochip.”

“I couldn't sleep last night. This morning I broke down and cried twice.”

“Classic symptoms of depression.” She jotted a note in her messenger. “You had mentioned your chip had a bug; I’ll log the issue. Unfortunately, you’ll have to wait a few more days for a patch. We’re scrambling to wrap up V7.”

Caleb groaned. He understood that he could not be her team’s priority, but it was frustrating nonetheless.

“What went wrong with the injection procedure?” she asked. “Was the ricin released?”

He shrugged. “I’ve never heard of that happening.”

“Dr. Joyce is a whiz at solving puzzles. She’ll identify what happened to Julian.”

Caleb had not thought of that, but it was a good idea. Dr. Joyce, the Director of Horizon Research, was his NanoArtisans mentor. “Thanks for the suggestion.”

“How are Zoe and Jack doing?”

“Their chips dissolved their grief,” Caleb replied with a jealous sigh.

“Isn’t it wonderful how technology ends suffering? Have they gone to the genetarium yet? Designing a new child will help them focus on the future.”

“I’m sure they’ll go soon.”

His vitals appeared on the examination pod's digital readout, and Dr. Aubrey removed the biometric pads. Caleb stepped out of the machine, pulling his shirt on.

Moving to her office, they sat before her mindport, where she called up his thought output from the previous day. Chunks of text, some garbled, flashed on the monitor. Dr. Aubrey pointed out the first legible phrase logged at 9:45:16 a.m. Save me. “Care to elaborate?”

“Zoe was grilling me again.”

“About your social life?”

Caleb rolled his eyes. “What else?”

“For what it’s worth, Caleb, I agree with your sister. You need to find someone special.”

Caleb was glad that Dr. Aubrey wasn’t monitoring his real-time output because he was thinking that her social life was every bit as non-existent as his own.

She directed his attention to the next thought grouping logged at 9:54:11 a.m. No, no, no. Not again! “Let me guess,” she said. “An encounter with your brother-in-law?”

“Jack put down the whole idea of Julian getting a chip.” A knot formed in Caleb’s stomach. If Jack had his way, Julian would be alive now.

Dr. Aubrey sighed. “Some paladins don’t know how good they have it.”

They continued the analysis. The term tragedy had a time stamp of 11:01:10 a.m. Caleb cringed, and Dr. Aubrey skipped over it.

One block of thoughts, peppered with curses, remained. “Well, the algorithm gets an A+,” Caleb said. “That was my viola practice session.”

“Do you remember when you first had trouble playing the viola?” she asked. “I’ve done some research.”

He nodded. “I remember it well; it happened on my sixth birthday. Prodigy one minute, neophyte the next.”

“Interesting. It appears you received an M-code patch the day you turned six years old.” Dr. Aubrey called up a patch on her messenger.

Breathless, Caleb lurched forward and stared at the strange symbols of the morphing programming language. “Dr. Petrov gave it to me?”

She grinned. “I’d say yes. Nobody else understands M-code.”

“And you think the patch made it difficult for me to play the viola?”

“The timing suggests it. And then you received a second M-code patch yesterday.” She pulled up the new code and handed him the messenger.

After scrolling through screen after screen of syntax, Caleb opened the developer notes. There was an equation.

Caleb instructed the messenger to plot it, and a dark red X appeared onscreen. “What does that mean?”

Dr. Aubrey shrugged and took back her messenger. “All I know is that Dr. Petrov has something special in mind for young Dr. Saunders. Would you like me to send you the code?”

“Yes, I’ll treasure it forever.”

Caleb was still buzzing with excitement when he stepped out of the Ada Lovelace Building. Dr. Petrov downloaded M-code to my chip not once, but twice! Then the shadow of Julian's death dampened his joy.

He checked the time to see if he could squeeze in a visit with Dr. Joyce before his first patient of the day arrived. It would be tight.

He hurried to the Guido van Rossum Building, boarded the elevator, and got off on the twentieth floor. He lifted his chin and pulled his shoulders back as he stepped into the lab where the world’s most advanced research took place. Dr. Joyce would respond best if he projected a zest for life, rather than moping around her with a basketful of unproductive emotions.

He spotted her in the far corner at work on some kind of experiment. At thirty-eight, she was a NanoArtisans elder. Her shaved head displayed a DNA double helix tattoo.

She beamed when she saw him. “How's my favorite V7 beta tester?”

“Busy,” he said, noting her experiment. A monitor showed six rats sharing a cage. On the lab bench were six rat brains inside test tubes. Suspended in a nutrient gel, the brains looked like pink raisins floating in strands of tiny oxygen bubbles. Not wasting any more time, Caleb told her about Julian and then held up the carbon tab, evidence that his nephew was gone and the data of his short existence archived.

“Strange,” she said. “I’d like to keep the tab and run some tests.”

A chasm opened in Caleb’s heart when he gave it to her. Like a stone wedged into a dam, the tab had limited his sorrow to a steady drip. Now his grief gushed out in a deluge, and he choked out a sob.

Dr. Joyce, clearly uncomfortable at his shocking outburst, looked away. “Let’s get Julian’s blood report.”

“My beta chip has a bug,” he offered.

“It must be difficult.”

“Dr. Joyce, you have no idea. Can I ask about your experiment?”

“We're testing peer-to-peer telepathy.”

Caleb flushed with excitement. “The Eden Chip?”

She nodded. “The brain inside each sarcophagus has a prototype Eden Chip.”

“Sarcophagus?”

“The ancient Egyptians buried mummies in a sarcophagus. Dr. Petrov prefers that we refer to each test tube as a carbonite sarcophagus.” She winked. “I think of them as test tubes.”

Caleb pointed to the monitor. One rat was nibbling a pear with disinterest, and two were sitting still. Two more were grooming each other with their tongues at a painfully slow pace. “The rats are communicating telepathically?”

“That’s right. But they have no perception that their brains are out of their bodies. Each rat brain is producing the sense of touch, smell, taste.”

He whistled softly. “Their Eden Chips let them relate to each other as if they are real?”

“Precisely.”

“Dr. Joyce, none of them look happy.”

“An astute observation, Dr. Saunders. The physical challenges of life, of survival, of navigating through our environment, are what engage and stimulate the mind. The rats have all their needs met. They’re bored. My colleagues and I call it the Paradise Syndrome.”

“Dr. Petrov will find a way to add excitement to Paradise,” Caleb offered.

“Agreed. He’d never convert the world's population into eight billion slugs.”

Caleb checked the time. “My first patient is arriving in twenty minutes.”

They hurried to her mindport where he gave her Julian’s chip ID. She entered into the Finder app and frowned at the result. “Finder reports your nephew is at Leonardo da Vinci Airport—in Rome.”

Puzzled, Caleb confirmed that the ID was correct. He spelled Julian's full name and told her the approximate time of his death. A revised search pulled up the right profile.

She retrieved the blood work, and her frown returned. “Julian had a toxic substance in his system: polychlorinated biphenyl. It belongs to a class of synthetic oils once used in generators. They banned PCBs decades ago.”

Caleb shuddered, recalling that Jack had found a drum of PCBs buried in the banks of the Charles River. Is it possible that Jack accidentally poisoned his son? No, Jack understands how to handle toxic substances. Jack, who had loathed the idea of Julian receiving a chip, had changed the infant's diaper in private, moments before they had all left for the injection center. Jack had the means, the method, and the motive to commit an unspeakable act. Should I report him? Security paladins would take Jack to the hospital for a memory scrub, which some in Caleb’s lab referred to as a paladin lobotomy. Jack would lose all recollection of Zoe, Julian, Caleb. He would know nothing about Boston or the Charles River. Then, so he would still be useful to society, they would send him away to clean up radiation hot spots in a different country.

What if I take matters into my own hands? He had attributed his brother-in-law’s prickly personality to the simple fact Jack didn’t like him, but what if his chip had malfunctioned? Jack can’t be blamed for that, can he? Zoe loved Jack, and Jack loved his wife. Caleb was confident that he could rehabilitate Jack with a chip reboot.

“Do you have any idea how your nephew could have been exposed? Your sister might have an old electrical capacitor lying around the house, perhaps in the basement.”

Dr. Joyce’s voice startled him, and he hoped she could not hear his galloping heart. He worked up saliva in his parched mouth. “Dr. Joyce, an investigation can upend lives for weeks. I have enough information to address the issue with Zoe and Jack.”

“I understand that your sister and her husband want to move on with their lives, but you need to identify the source of the PCBs. We wouldn’t want child number two to meet the same fate.”

“No, Dr. Joyce, we wouldn’t want that to happen. I’ll see what I can find out.”

ANALYSIS: PHASE 02

Raissa glanced at the tracking map projected onto the jet’s ceiling. They were in the stratosphere over the Atlantic, seven hundred kilometers from the East Coast of the United States. She put on her readers to digest her favorite training manual, Pride and Prejudice, and the ruby laser drilled over a hundred thousand words into her consciousness within minutes.

Goldstein had given her the novel written by Jane Austen two hundred and fifty years ago, encouraging her to pick up valuable tactics that would help her handle the NanoArtisans employee in Boston.

Raissa admired the main characters, Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy; Elizabeth was the rebel and Mr. Darcy her mark. The pair engaged in a strategic dance of moves and countermoves that involved deceptions and suspected deceptions. They had arguments followed by civil conversations and vice versa. Raissa always wondered what they saw in each other, as they were opposites. Although she rooted for Elizabeth, who always spoke her mind, she developed a soft spot for Mr. Darcy toward the end of the novel. He loved Elizabeth and never gave up his pursuit of her until they fell deeply in love with one another and lived happily ever after.

Removing the readers, Raissa returned to the cold reality that the encounter she’d have with Caleb Saunders would have a different ending.

When her ears popped, she knew the jet was making a quick descent from the stratosphere and looked out the window; they were circling over Boston. The city matched the satellite imagery she had studied. She was able to identify the Prudential Tower, one of Boston’s shorter skyscrapers, and the Public Garden, full of grass and trees, a kilometer north.

The jet maintained altitude, level with a fleet of blimps—ten times more than she had ever seen in the skies over Jerusalem. She pressed her nose against the window to get a glimpse of the city. The Charles River meandered in from the west and emptied into Boston Harbor. The Citadel, home to Petrov and the Collective, sat next to the harbor. How will I breach it? The compound, seven kilometers long and two kilometers wide, was surrounded by a wall, eight stories tall.

As the hydrogen engines dropped to a whisper, she glimpsed Petrov's biodiversity garden inside the Citadel. The lush greenery, growing beneath a thin argon blanket, took up seventy percent of the space. In the corner of the garden, a rocket sat on a launch pad.

The jet dipped below the wall, and soon they made a smooth landing.

“Welcome to Boston. Local time is 8:17 a.m.”

When her harness unbuckled, Raissa stood and stretched her arms. Next, she would meet the Bulgarian hacker to secure the devourware.

* * *

At Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport, Ashminov counted twenty-two other passengers at the boarding gate. He prayed the seat next to him on the flight to Boston would be empty.

A sight-impaired woman, seated across from him in the departure lobby, was tilting her head toward him, which put him on edge. He had two Bibleware chips, a trans, his mindport, and two kilos of tryp. Can she sense the contraband? Will she report me?

He cranked his head left and right to check for security paladins, but, after a moment, he relaxed. The days of bomb-sniffing dogs, X-rays, full-body searches, and paladins patrolling airports were over. The nanochip had addressed the misguided compulsions of people who wanted to blow aircraft out of the sky.

Ashminov clenched his jaw with a sudden recollection. He had failed to inform Signora Villanova that he’d be away for a few days and she’d worry about him. In the abstract, her concern delighted him—somebody cared. Sending her a text, he knew, would be useless. The last time he’d gone to her place for lunch, he’d seen her messenger buried under cookbooks, unused and uncharged.

To replace his unpleasant feeling with a pleasant one, he accessed his messenger and sent his favorite Prince playlist to his cochlear speaker. The music rinsed away the final silt of self-recrimination as Prince grooved on “U Got the Look.”

A loudspeaker crackled to life. “Air Italia Flight 219 to Boston’s Logan International Airport will board now.”

Ashminov found his assigned seat. A flight attendant supervised a robotic trolley delivering meal tabs, but he waved off the trolley. When the belt tightened over his lap for takeoff, he sighed in relief. No one had taken the seat beside him.

Soon they were accelerating down the runway, and in less than three minutes, the hydrogen engines propelled them to a cruising altitude of 33 kilometers. Without a chip to blunt his irrational fear of heights, he avoided looking out the window.

Needing to pee, Ashminov lamented that despite the many advances made in air travel, one still needed to trudge to the rear of the plane to use the toilet. Then, a grand idea exploded in his mind. He grabbed the satchel with the tryp, stepped into the aisle, and sauntered to the bathroom.

He shut the door to party like it was 1999.

* * *

Deplaned, Raissa set her bags and viola case down in the main terminal of Boston’s Logan International Airport and checked the arrivals board. Flight 219 from Rome would land in fifteen minutes.

Looking forward to meeting her partner, she made her way to the gate with her gear. The flight touched down on time, and four minutes later, the first passenger emerged. More passengers trickled out, but no Ashminov. A woman with a laser cane hobbled past Raissa, after which the mouth of the tunnel remained empty. Five minutes elapsed, then ten. Raissa’s anxiety ratcheted higher with each passing second. Did he miss the flight?

Raissa pulled out her messenger and punched in the number of her Boston rebel contact to report Ashminov missing. It rang three times, then clicked, and in the background, she heard light breathing and a humming noise of indeterminate origin. She disengaged the connection. Contacting the rebel was risky.

She walked over to a service agent working behind the counter. “Excuse me. My uncle, Christian Ashminov, is supposed to be on Flight 219. Could you please see if he made it? Maybe he left a message for me.”

The short burst of a siren caught Raissa's attention. An ambulance cart with a blue flashing light skidded to a stop nearby, and two medics hopped out. Grabbing a stretcher and first aid bags, they disappeared down the tunnel.

“Yes, your uncle’s on the flight, but there’s been a problem,” the agent replied.

“Problem?”

“It seems he’s unconscious.”

Raissa rushed after the medics, pausing before she entered the plane to pull her joule from her waistband. Unobserved, she flicked its switch to stun. Then, tucking the weapon back into her waistband, she stepped inside. At the end of the plane, the medics attended to a gaunt, lifeless person on the floor. A flight attendant watched their efforts.

As Raissa approached them, she recognized the Bulgarian. The female medic was kneeling beside him, and her male colleague was preparing a trans to conduct a chip scan. What if they take him to the hospital? Raissa had to search his clothing and luggage here on the plane before they took him anywhere—no devourware, no mission.

The female medic popped a medicine cartridge into an injector and, positioning the tip under Ashminov's chin, discharged a micro stream of medication into his neck. His eyes sprang open, and he sat up. She must have injected him with the stimulant Burst.

Raissa kneeled before Ashminov. His pupils were big as saucers. “Uncle Christian! It's me, Raissa.”

He mumbled.

“What's wrong with him?” Raissa asked.

The flight attendant spoke up. “Your uncle apparently spent the entire flight in the toilet. When I opened the door, he tumbled to the floor.”

“We’ll know more in a moment,” the female medic said. Her colleague held up his trans, ready to take a reading off Ashminov.

Raissa's training kicked in. Without hesitating, she pulled the joule from her waistband and plugged both medics and the flight attendant. They all dropped to the floor and, after making sure each person had a pulse, she grabbed Ashminov by the arm and yanked him to his feet. “Do you know who I am?” He stared at her blankly. She shook him. “Ashminov, do you know me?” He didn't. “They'll revive soon. Do you have the devourware?”

His eyes widened. He understood. “I’ll get it,” he said in a hoarse whisper.

Shuffling toward the rear of the plane, he leaned against the meal trolley as if his legs might buckle and then continued unsteadily to the bathroom where he stepped inside and closed the door.

The male medic groaned, alerting Raissa that he was recovering. His arm twitched, and he clenched and relaxed his fist. “Hurry,” she called out in a low, urgent voice.

As she surveyed the medics' supplies, Raissa thought about lashing the male medic's wrists together with plastic tubing, but then she spotted the injector and had a better idea. The spent cartridge was Burst. She rifled through the medics’ bag until she found Fade cartridges, loaded one up, and injected the sedative into his neck. Immediately he closed his eyes, and his head lolled to the side. She glanced at the bathroom, wondering what was taking Ashminov so long. She raced down the aisle. The door was locked, and she knocked. “Ashminov? Are you okay?” She banged on the door using the butt of the joule, but there was no sound from inside.

The female medic was trying to form words, so, with a sigh, Raissa rushed back to address the problem. Kneeling beside the female medic and the flight attendant, she inserted a fresh cartridge of Fade into the injector.

The male medic suddenly reached out and grabbed her wrist with surprising strength. He had only glassy slits for eyes, but it still felt like he was digging his fingers into her bones.

* * *

Ashminov was thankful that Raissa had stopped banging. He needed a moment more to gather himself. What had he been thinking? He had almost sabotaged the mission. Did he have a tryp problem? Moderation!

Looking for his satchel, Ashminov scanned the area around his feet in the cramped bathroom. When he found it, he bent over to pick it up, but a wave of dizziness hit him. He straightened, splashed water on his face, and ran a hand through his hair. After examining his dilated pupils, he donned his sunglasses. Then, to retrieve the bag, he squatted and hooked the strap with his finger. With it sitting on the sink counter before him, he reached in and secured a pinch of the green crystals, which he sprinkled on his tongue. His insecurities faded at once.

Ashminov hitched up his pants, tucked in his shirt, and pulled his shoulders back. The individual staring back at him in the mirror glowed with confidence. Feeling as good as he looked, he threw the strap over his shoulder and reached for the door handle, but a fresh wave of doubts diverted his hand back to the tryp.

He heard a scuffle on the other side of the door as he deposited a generous pinch on his tongue.

* * *

Raissa called on every bit of her strength while telling herself to remain calm. Despite a dose of Fade and taking an electronic slug, the medic was trying to snap her arm in half. Keeping hold of the injector, she twisted her arm down against his thumb, rolling her forearm until he lost his grasp. He surprised her by grabbing her hair with his other hand and pulling her down until he had her in a headlock. Pushing his face away with her left hand, she freed herself, but he grabbed her again, this time closer to her elbow.

Raissa drove her shoulder into his chest, which knocked him backward, and, before he could recover, she lunged with the injector. She missed her desired target and the female medic yelped, collapsing in a stupor from the Fade. Raissa tossed the injector aside, ready to subdue her attacker by hand.

The male medic pounced and wrapped his hands around her throat to choke her. Raissa chopped the side of his head with the blade of her hand. Three more sharp chops loosened his grip, and then she sank her teeth into his shoulder. Shrieking, he let go of her neck.

The flight attendant was awake now and up on one elbow, trying to grab the two-way radio clipped on the female medic's belt. When Raissa glanced back, she froze. The male medic was pointing her joule at her face. “Hands up,” he slurred.

Raissa threw a roundhouse kick, completing the sweep of her foot as she heard the snap-buzz of an electron slug missing her head. The joule went flying from his hand. Staying on offense, she pinned him on his back, but he flipped her onto her side and then rolled her onto her back. He drove his knee into her ribs. Grunting, she kept her right hand at her side, waiting for the right angle to deliver an incapacitating blow.

Twisting her head, Raissa saw the joule on the floor a meter from her nose. Dread crept up her spine as she watched the male medic reaching for the gun while he shifted more weight onto the knee digging into her ribs. He curled his fingers around the weapon.

Ashminov appeared and stepped on the joule, pinning it to the floor. While the medic was distracted, Raissa balled her right fist and threw a punch toward his face. The blow glanced off his head, but it delivered enough force to rock him to the side. The second punch put him on his back.

She rolled in the other direction, got up onto her knees, and with the same speed and abandonment, used a left-right combo to the medic’s jaw to knock him unconscious. Turning to the flight attendant, who was still struggling in a panic with the other medic's radio, Raissa dispatched her too. Without pausing, she stood up and collected herself. Ashminov seemed much improved, standing tall with a satchel slung over his shoulder. In fact, she hardly recognized him. Raissa grabbed his hand, and they hurried down the aisle.

ANALYSIS: PHASE 03

As a throbbing headache threatened to bash Caleb’s thoughts into senseless fragments, he broke into a fast jog outside the Guido van Rossum Building. He might be late for his first appointment, but he had to reboot Jack’s chip, come what may. Afterward, Zoe would realize something about her husband had changed, starting with the fact he'd be friendlier to her brother.

Caleb could live with his sister’s incriminations if it meant he could keep Jack from killing again.

His messenger rang, and he gulped when he saw the caller’s name. Slowing to a fast walk, he took the call. “Zoe, what’s up?”

“It’s about Jack,” his sister said.

Caleb’s blood chilled into an icy slush. “What about him?”

“Why are you shouting?”

He veered toward a bench. “Zoe, what about Jack?”

“Is something wrong? You’re breathing hard.”

Caleb sat. “Zoe, has Jack been acting strange?”

“Caleb, I’m picking up negative vibes from you.”

His neck muscles, along with those in his upper back, pulled tighter. “Where is Jack now?”

“At work, I imagine.”

“Please stay away from Jack for the next thirty minutes.”

“Is this a joke?”

Caleb dropped his chin to his chest. It served no purpose to tell Zoe here and now that her husband had poisoned their child. Ensuring her safety was all that mattered to him. “Zoe, I’m busy. I have to go.”

“Are you too busy to go to a concert tonight?”

“Concert?”

“Brandford is conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. They’re playing Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet. Jack knows how much you love classical music, so he bought tickets for you and me.”

Jack’s chip was more messed up than he had first thought. He couldn’t remember Jack ever doing anything nice for him.

“Tonight at eight,” Zoe said. “Can you make it?”

Not knowing what else to say, he replied with “Sure.”

“Meet me at Symphony Hall at 7:45.”

“See you then.” Caleb disconnected the call.

He sprinted to Torvalds, rode the elevator to the seventh floor, and hurried into his office. He closed the door, sat at his mindport, and opened Paladin Finder. After he entered Jack’s information, a map appeared on screen with a blinking dot showing Jack’s location. He was in a boat on the Charles River, midway between the Mass. Ave. Bridge and the Longfellow Bridge.

Caleb downloaded the latest paladin chipset and called up the developer notes which highlighted the recent changes made to the code, including bug fixes and new features. Reviewing them before a reboot was a good practice. Dr. Petrov had approved all the updates; in fact, Dr. Petrov had authored many of them. If they were good enough for Dr. Petrov, they were good enough for him, and he skipped the review.

Next, Caleb launched a transmission blimp app on his messenger, which loaded another map of Boston on the screen. He tapped Jack's location, and the app identified a transmission blimp hovering a kilometer away. He issued the intercept command, and the app reported the blimp’s arrival time was forty-five seconds.

The closure rate to the target appeared onscreen. Fifty meters…forty…thirty…

He pictured the unfolding scene. Jack, taking water samples or whatever, might never notice the approaching blimp. Or he might think the shadow was a passing cloud.

Twenty meters…fifteen…

Jack wouldn’t feel a thing. Murderer one minute, upstanding environmental paladin, loving husband, and cordial brother-in-law the next.

Ten meters…five meters…

A yellow light blinked on the screen, signaling the blimp had arrived in an optimal position for transmission. Suffused with dread, Caleb reached out and executed the final command.

A green light replaced the yellow; the transmission was successful. Although Jack was now cured of whatever technical hiccup had compelled him to commit an unspeakable act, Caleb wondered how he could ever look his brother-in-law in the eye again.

ANALYSIS: PHASE 04

Impressed that Raissa had incapacitated three civilians with ease, Ashminov stared at her with awe as she hailed a taxi outside the airport terminal building. “Why did you bring a musical instrument?” he asked.

A taxi pulled up. “Please get in,” she said.

They climbed in the back, and she craned her neck. “Taxi, 25.5 Commonwealth Avenue.” Then she faced him. “Our safe house is on Beacon Street. Paladins will look for us.”

Her green eyes interrupted his ability to think for a moment. “Nobody will come after us,” he finally assured her.

“We assaulted two medics and a flight attendant. I discharged a joule. They know your identity. A hundred cameras captured our path from the plane to here.”

He paused, pretending to weigh her argument before he countered. “Security paladins will interview the victims. They’ll write a report and submit it to a team of NanoArtisans business analysts who will try to find out who we are and what went wrong with our chips. By the time they figure out our identities, humankind will be free.”

“Let’s hope.”

Ashminov made a mental note to burn a devourware chip for Raissa when they reached their destination. He settled back and looked out the window. The diverse architecture, a blend of the modern and old, reminded him of Rome. The local citizens dressed less stylishly than Italians, but they wore the same placid expressions. New environments unsettled him, and he set the bag of tryp on his lap.

“What’s that?” Raissa asked.

He took a pinch, and his spine stiffened at once. “Tryp. Care for some?”

From the way she scrunched her brow, she was apparently too young to know about it. She shook her head. “Is it what made you sick on the plane?”

“The trick is moderation.”

“You don’t seem to be very good at that.”

He chuckled. That was true, but the way she eyed the bag on his lap troubled him. Does she want me to refrain? He would prove to her that he could.

Suddenly, Raissa bolted forward. Ashminov jerked back in his seat, afraid she would snatch his supply, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. She pointed to an enlightenment wall mounted on a tall building. “What is that?”

Prince was performing in front of an audience. “That’s Prince,” he said in a shaky voice. “He was the greatest American pop star. That’s the Capri Theater, Minneapolis, January 5, 1979.”

“I never saw anything like that in Jerusalem.”

Ashminov had seen nothing like it in Rome, either. With a sinking feeling, he reassessed his belief that nobody was coming after them. What kept him from panicking was the strength of his partner and the bond forming between them.

* * *

Raissa’s concern peaked as the taxi rolled to a stop. The color had returned to Ashminov’s cheeks once they left the airport but now he was ghostly white again. The musician with the purple guitar had clearly upset him. Furthermore, the tryp was a red flag. His usage of it had nearly derailed the mission, yet he continued to put the green powder onto his tongue. He was a liability, one that required close monitoring.

They climbed out of the taxi. “Stay by my side,” she told him and headed for the corner of Gloucester and Beacon Streets. From there, they started down Beacon Street, toward the safe house halfway down the block. Trees laden with pink blossoms perfumed the air. “Here it is, 14.7 Beacon. We’re on the third floor.”

They entered the building and took the elevator. Joule in hand, Raissa pressed her ear to the apartment door. Hearing nothing but her pounding heart, she punched in the security code, and the lock clicked. She hesitated over sharing the code with Ashminov. She preferred him to stick with her, or if she ventured out alone, that he remain inside the safe house, given his erratic mood. But it was essential to establish trust, so she gave him the code.

Ashminov made a beeline for the bathroom.

Raissa explored the interior, keeping an eye out for a set of instructions that the local rebel had left for her. The living room had a couch and a single lamp. The bedroom had a double bed. Moving to the bedroom window, she looked down on an alley. A fire escape descended from the window.

After she had inspected the exit route, Ashminov emerged from the bathroom. “You can have the bed,” she told him.

“You take it,” he said and settled on the couch. “I sleep little.”

Raissa lugged her viola and pack of weapons into the bedroom and set them on the bed. When she stepped out of the room, Ashminov was watching a video on his mindport, with a large bag of tryp on his lap. She looked over his shoulder. Wolf cubs were frolicking in the snow. “What are you watching?”

“A documentary on the northern timber wolf. They take good care of their young.”

She waited for a further explanation, but none came.

Resuming her search for the rebel’s instructions, she moved to the kitchen.

Inside the fridge were fresh vegetables and several cartons of flavored electrolyte drinks. She closed the refrigerator.

On the door, held by a magnet, was an envelope marked “Coupons.” It contained a concert ticket. The Boston Symphony Orchestra was performing that evening at 8:00 p.m., two hours from now. Row 14, seat C.

She took a deep breath and let the flood of adrenaline soak back into her cells. Each successful step brought her closer to freeing eight billion people from the chip’s control. A chill burrowed deep into Raissa’s bones, a feeling she always had whenever she thought about the mission goals. She would not be around to experience the freedom with others.

ANALYSIS: PHASE 05

Caleb reviewed the profile of his first patient. Dr. Gabriel Mars, 42, was a health paladin who worked at the Citadel. He had come in today for his annual chip refresh to keep his M-code humming. Mars held a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Mansfield College, Oxford, and a medical degree from Johns Hopkins. The comments section of the profile was flush with plaudits from a who's who of Citadel dignitaries, including several members of the Collective and even Dr. Petrov.

“Gabe’s wings of intellect and dedication will carry him far,” Dr. Petrov had noted. Caleb grazed his fingertips over the words, wishing Dr. Petrov might speak of him in the same way someday.

He found Mars in the waiting room. What a specimen! Tall. Muscular. Curly blonde hair cascaded down to his shoulders. On his uniform were blue-and-gold epaulets signifying he worked in the Citadel.

When they shook hands, the paladin’s large one swallowed Caleb’s the way a shark inhales a minnow.

“Please, call me Caleb.”

“Gabriel,” Mars replied curtly.

“Come with me, Gabriel.”

They entered Caleb’s office, where Mars sat in a chair and Caleb leaned against a corner of the desk, preferring to be at eye level with a patient.

“How long have you worked at the Citadel?”

“Going on nineteen years.”

“From the beginning?”

“Since day one,” Mars said with an exasperated huff.

Caleb had discovered that a few moments of light conversation put a patient more at ease, but it was too early to know if Mars bucked the trend. “You’re a physician. From your profile, I see you look after several members of the Collective.”

“These days I work exclusively with Dr. Petrov.”

Caleb's legs gave out, and he landed in the chair. “Dr. Petrov gave me two M-code patches.” Immediately, he regretted his braggadocio.

Mars nodded. “Dr. Petrov has his eye on you.”

Fearing the loss of muscle control might next deposit him on the floor, Caleb gripped the chair seat. “He does?”

Mars stared at him. “How are you sleeping, Caleb?”

“Sleeping?”

Mars crinkled his brow. “Do you sleep through the night? If you wake up, how many times do you wake up?”

Caleb studied his patient, searching for some clue that might explain his unorthodox behavior. Then again, this patient was Dr. Petrov's physician.

Dr. Petrov’s voice startled him. “Adam, answer the question.” The tone was decidedly cold.

Caleb drew in a sharp breath as a wave of dizziness passed through him. Why would Dr. Petrov address me as Adam, and where is his voice coming from? Should I tell Mars? No, Mars will think I’m crazy.

“I slept poorly last night,” Caleb said.

Mars jotted something in his messenger. “Oh?”

Caleb caught himself before he mentioned his grief, not wanting to advertise that his chip was malfunctioning. “I'm sure I’ll sleep well tonight, after the transmission of Version 7.”

“Are you experiencing unproductive emotions?” Mars asked.

Unsettled, he realized this had never been Dr. Mars' appointment, but the other way around. It was best to come clean. “I'm a beta tester. My chip is buggy.”

“Buggy?” Mars made another note.

“I’ve been exhibiting the classic symptoms of depression,” Caleb admitted. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”

“Have you felt light-headed or nervous around members of the opposite sex?”

“Light-headed? No.”

Mars fired more questions about Caleb's well-being, and Caleb addressed each in what he hoped was the proper amount of detail. But no combination of words could hide the shipwreck of his emotional health.

“Let’s get your vitals,” Mars said.

Thinking the day could not get much stranger, Caleb climbed into the bio scanner. After recording the vitals, Mars measured Caleb's cranial circumference and volume.

As he was putting his shirt back on, Caleb decided he had to restore order. “Gabriel, I should get your vitals, too, before I refresh your chip. You do want a refresh?”

The paladin stripped. His physique took Caleb's breath away. Ropes of muscles rippled across his broad chest and abdomen. Caleb knew the human anatomy well, and Mars had muscles he had never known existed.

“Your data bracelet,” Caleb reminded him. Ultrasonic waves sometimes corrupted data. Mars unhooked the clasp and passed the bracelet to Caleb. Mars then folded his powerful shoulders and ducked to squeeze into the scanner.

The results on the screen left Caleb speechless. Basal temperature 15.5 degrees Celsius—more reptilian than mammalian. Blood pressure 90 over 45, pulse 22, thought velocity .00001 milliseconds. Caleb squinted to make sure he had counted the zeros after the decimal place correctly. He had. Thoughts were flying through Mars' brain close to the speed of light. That must be what Dr. Petrov meant when he'd referenced Gabe’s “wings of intellect.”

Mars dressed.

“Well, are you ready for your chip refresh?” Caleb asked.

Mars’ messenger beeped, and he read the message. “Sorry, I have to go. Dr. Petrov wants me back at the Citadel.” He headed for the door. “Please give my regards to Zoe.”

“You know my sister?” Caleb blurted out.

Mars kept going, and Caleb wasn't about to ask it twice. Zoe had a thing for paladins. Had she dated Mars? He lamented how different his life would have been had she married Mars instead of Jack.

A minute later, at the window, he watched Mars fly across the campus on a scooter. He fired off a text message to Zoe. Dr. Mars sends you his regards.

Really?

Really. How do you know Gabriel?

Long story.

I have time.

Caleb realized with wry amusement that Zoe had set her messenger to “Do Not Disturb.” The interrogator doesn’t like being interrogated.

Back in his office, he saw that Mars had left behind his data bracelet, so he put in a quick call to the security guard, but Mars had already passed through the gate. Caleb was about to call for a courier when curiosity took him by the hand and led him to his mindport. He inserted the data bracelet into the reader.

It contained a single file: Beyond Eden Research Results. His finger hovered over the key that would open it, but the unproductive emotion of guilt welled inside of him, and he pulled his hand back.

To his surprise, the sourness of his guilt turned sweet at the prospect of doing something forbidden. Quite liking the sensation, Caleb proceeded.

ANALYSIS: PHASE 06

Ashminov felt that tadpoles were hatching in his stomach and swimming to his extremities. Prince on the enlightenment was a bad omen. Petrov is sending me a message.

He had introduced Petrov to the musical icon twenty-five years ago, taking him to a Prince holographic concert in Bulgaria’s capital. After that, they had watched Prince’s performance at the Capri Theater hundreds of times.

But what message? I know you are in Boston. With the transmission of V7 imminent, Ashminov’s motive would be easy to figure out: payback for stealing the M-code. What concerned him was Petrov’s brazenness. By tipping his hand so blatantly, he must be confident that nobody could stop the transmission. So, Nicholas, what is your next move?

Raissa stepped out of the bedroom wearing a black dress. She looked stunning, and her spicy, sweet perfume was alluring, but he wasn’t fooled. He’d seen the flash and force of her fist.

She held up a colorful stub. “Our rebel contact left a ticket for a concert tonight. I’m assuming it’s for me and that the NanoArtisans employee will be there.” She sat beside him.

Ashminov deposited a pinch of tryp on his tongue to put his concerns about Petrov behind him. Then he took the small case from his satchel, opened it, and tapped a chip, half the size of a grain of rice, onto his palm. “Once the chip is inside the NanoArtisans firewall, the M-code will take care of the rest. The program will wirelessly load onto the Citadel servers, and when Petrov transmits the Version 7 release, chips will be disabled all around the world.”

“Where do I embed it on the employee?”

Ashminov returned the chip to the case and passed it to her. “Is your target male or female?”

“Male.”

“What’s his body composition?”

“Why does that matter?”

“It’s best to avoid fatty deposits,” Ashminov explained. “You want to embed the chip in cartilage.”

“He’s 183 centimeters tall and weighs 77 kilograms. If you’re interested, he has curly black hair and a big nose.”

Ashminov wasn’t interested. He pictured a male that size in his mind and nodded. “He’ll offer a bounty of cartilage. Does he work remotely or on campus?”

“He works in Paladin Research. The building sits in the center of NanoArtisans. He has a Ph.D. in nanobiology.”

Ashminov sniffed. “Advanced degrees are a sham.”

“He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The university ranks number one in the world for nanotechnology.”

Ashminov sniffed again. “Overrated.”

“Ashminov, where do I embed the chip?”

“Let’s turn to nature for advice,” he told her. “The black-legged tick fixes itself behind the ears of small rodents.”

Raissa gasped. “You want me to place a chip behind his ear?”

“That would be optimal. You could also embed the chip between the veins in the wrist.” Ashminov took Raissa’s hand, noting her knuckles were red and puffy from punching the medic, and pressed his fingertip into her wrist near the base of her thumb. “Right there. It will slip into the epidermis like a tiny splinter. He won’t feel a thing.”

“Will it disable his own chip?”

Ashminov put a new pinch of tryp on his tongue to quell the thick fog of self-doubt that had suddenly rolled over him. “No, for that to happen, the code must be transmitted via electromagnetic waves.” He remembered that the case held two Bibleware chips. He needed to create a devourware chip for her. “Raissa, I need . . .”

Before he got out another word, she snatched the bag of tryp from his lap, which imprisoned the rest of his sentence in his throat. She ran to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. He jumped off the couch in panic. When he reached the bathroom door, it was locked. A wave of dread flooded him when heard the toilet flush. Pounding the door with his fist, he told himself—no, begged—to be optimistic.

When she opened the door, he fell into the room, and his eyes darted to the toilet, seeing a few green crystals sticking to the rim of the bowl. Most of the tryp and all of his optimism had vanished.

* * *

Raissa waved her hand over the electric eye to flush again, then turned to face Ashminov. He was red with anger, but his wrath was a small price to pay for increasing the odds of the mission’s success. “I had to do it,” she said.

He dived to his knees and used a fingertip to blot the floor next to the basin.

Raissa grabbed his shoulders. “Stop it!” He didn’t. When she heaved him to his feet, he took hold of her dress, but she grabbed his hand before he could rip the silky material. “Enough!”

He flailed away with his free hand, which Raissa grabbed, in part to prevent him from hurting himself, in part because she had packed only one dress. He pulled his hand from her grasp. As he was trying to drop back onto the floor, he clutched her dress again. Balling her fist, she landed a hard punch on his jaw before he could do any damage.

Ashminov crumpled. He was out cold. She dragged him to the couch and put a pillow under his head. She took the ticket out of the envelope, found a pen in a kitchen drawer, and scribbled ‘Sorry.’

ANALYSIS: PHASE 07

Even though Caleb had locked his office door, he had a creepy feeling that Dr. Mars might catch him searching through the data bracelet without permission. He could barely sit still before his mindport.

He first learned that Mars was the Beyond Eden program manager, with support from a Citadel-based neurophotonics team directed by Dr. Mentenhoffer.

Not knowing of Mentenhoffer, Caleb checked the employee directory, but Mentenhoffer wasn't listed. On a hunch, Caleb tried to find Mars, but he wasn't listed either. Dr. Petrov must have a good reason for sheltering this team from the rest of the NanoArtisans community, he concluded.

The study explored the extraction and reintroduction of fifty to seventy thousand neurons from the frontal lobe. Researchers removed the neurons, suspended them in a plasma gel, and then made a connection back to the test subject's brain.

Caleb’s heart fluttered. To isolate a tiny subset of the brain and have it communicate with its larger entity—like a pod with its mother ship—was incredible!

If he took the procedure to its wildest extreme, he envisioned a day when the entire human race existed in a neuron-slurry. Man's ancestors had crawled from amino acid ponds 1.3 million years ago. Now, if the Beyond Eden project were a success, man would come full circle and crawl back to a salty porridge.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the researchers had re-implanted the isolated neurons into the brain. Caleb had a new notion. What if a neuron soup of humanity was not the goal, and instead, the motive was to tune up specific neurons?

Had Gabriel, who processed thoughts close to the speed of light, had his neurons tuned?

He scrolled through table after table of data detailing the test results and then sat back in shock. None of the volunteers had survived. He clicked the link for the volunteer with chip ID 4ljlj56644#%^^7. A video clip showed the male volunteer screaming like a wild beast, with his eyes bugging out, as paladin doctors, including Gabriel Mars, stood to the side and took notes. Additional links showcased similar episodes of madness.

The report had an addendum titled, “A Field Study of Neurotransmitters, Sex Hormones, and Neuropeptides.” Caleb flipped there. The participants included five hundred thousand couples, ranging in age from fifteen to thirty-five, who had self-described themselves as being in love. Each woman had seven thousand neurons surgically removed from her brain. Why 7,000?

He gulped at the before-and-after photos. Before the extraction, the women appeared happy. Afterward, they were morose; their eyes looked lifeless. Caleb turned numb when he read what had happened to them: half a million had been euthanized.

An amateur, but avid historian of scientific research, he wondered how he had never heard about such a colossal blunder. What about friends and family members? Wouldn’t they have reported loved ones missing?

The first piece to the puzzle appeared in the appendix, a single paragraph which noted that every individual who had known a victim—parent, sibling, friend, neighbor, co-worker, etc.—had received partial memory scrubs. To those people, the victims took on the quality of a confusing dream. Children faded from the memories of their parents. Co-workers simply vanished from consciousness. Lovers felt a loss they did not understand.

The next paragraph finished the puzzle. Dr. Mars and his team had deleted each victim’s life data. Purchasing patterns, minutes logged watching enlightenment walls, spelling exam scores, and more—all that gone forever, as if the test subjects had never been born. Technology, Caleb realized, had both the capacity to create and sustain life and the power to end it without a trace. Trembling, he pushed back from his mindport, thinking of what havoc the wrong person in possession of such knowledge could create. Thank goodness Dr. Petrov is in charge of NanoArtisans!

His messenger rang, and his stomach folded in half when he saw the name of the caller. He answered. “Yes, Gabriel.”

“Dr. Saunders, did I leave my data bracelet in your office?”

A profusion of sweat droplets cascaded down Caleb’s face, neck, and chest. “I’m getting ready to put it on a courier.”

“Thank you, Dr. Saunders. I hope to see you soon.”

Soon? “How do you know my sister?” he blurted out.

Mars disengaged the call, and Caleb vowed he would drop the subject and never mention Beyond Eden or Dr. Gabriel Mars to anyone. What about Dr. Aubrey? Having access to his thought output, she would know he had snooped in the data bracelet, but he hoped the Version 7 rollout was consuming her. And Zoe, whom he had already texted about Mars? If his sister asked about the tall paladin, he’d invoke patient privacy.

“Messenger, engage cochlear speaker and play Vivaldi’s 'Concerto for Viola d’amore in D Major.'” The lilting melody of the viola soared through his mind like a delicate bird winging ever higher, and Caleb let out a sigh. Lessoned learned. He had broken enough rules for one lifetime.

ANALYSIS: PHASE 08

Passing a pharmacy on her way to the concert, Raissa commanded the taxi to stop. Her knuckles, already red and swollen from punching the medic on the plane, had gotten worse after punching Ashminov. Inside the pharmacy, she purchased a package of synthetic skin, and, back in the taxi, applied a sheet of polymer to her knuckles. The redness disappeared at once.

“Taxi, continue to Symphony Hall.”

Five minutes later, Raissa stood out in front of the venue, a large brick building with marble columns. The performance would begin in forty-five minutes. She scanned the crowd but couldn’t see her target.

In the lobby, she presented her ticket to a man in a red jacket standing by the door. The man ripped it in half, prompting Raissa's heart to spring into her throat. Has he denied me entry?

“Row fourteen, seat C,” he said, presenting her with half the ticket, along with a program guide.

Relieved, she strolled down the aisle, taking stock of her surroundings. Chandeliers hung from a soaring ceiling, and exit doors were to the left and right of the stage. She assumed that cameras recorded every gesture.

Raissa settled into the third seat from the aisle in row 14 and slid her hand under the bottom of her skirt to retrieve the devourware chip. She positioned it on the tip of her index finger. From the program guide, she learned an intermission would occur one hour into the program. An opportunity to engage the target?

First, she had to find him. Trying not to be too obvious, she craned her neck left and right to scan the crowd, on the lookout for Caleb Saunders’ telltale mop of curls. She had studied hundreds of his images, from age six to seventeen years old, as he matured from a short, scrawny kid into a tall, lean teen.

A flash of curly black hair to her immediate right started her heart galloping. Her target and a woman were standing a meter away. The woman had to be his sister, Zoe. Fifteen years separated them, but Raissa saw a resemblance—they shared big noses. They raised their voices. Are they arguing?

“Eve, is it love at first sight?”

Raissa started. The voice belonged to Petrov, and she reached for her purse, which held her joule; she left the bag buckled, realizing that she must have again imagined hearing Petrov's voice in her head. She took a deep breath, trying to regain her composure. It was a terrible time to lose her mind.

Leaning closer to the siblings, she tried to determine the nature of their argument.

* * *

“You know I like the aisle seat,” Caleb whispered.

Zoe drilled him with an aggressive big-sister look, head cocked to the side, nostrils flared. “I'm sitting in A!”

Her effort to intimidate was successful, evidenced by the hairs on his neck standing at attention. Before he knew it, Zoe had plopped herself into the aisle seat. “I'm sitting there after intermission!” he insisted. She ignored him as he slid past her and sat down hard to register his displeasure. Then, recalling what she had just been through as a mother and wife, Caleb softened his stance.

Out the corner of his eye, he sensed the person in the next seat was looking at him. He turned and was drawn in by penetrating green eyes. Confused, Caleb faced forward, but he continued his free fall into a remembered vision of the girl’s eyes. He ran a finger around his collar. Hot in here. Drawing in a slow, deep breath through his nose, he took in her perfume, at once spicy and sweet.

As the lights were dimming, he placed his left arm on the armrest. The girl moved her arm to the same armrest, and he could feel her heat as needles of electricity stitched his arm to hers. A fantasy played out in his mind that both frightened and tempted him: he would curl his fingers around hers, and she would squeeze his hand in response. Caleb linked his fingers together and pressed his hands into his lap to keep himself from acting on his impulse to grab a stranger.

He tried focusing on the musicians tuning their instruments, but he could think of only one thing: clasping the girl's hand in his. Like a seedling, his obsession sank deep roots, unfurling leaves that twisted in the hot, humid wind of his desire.

Caleb shot to his feet. He needed fresh air in a hurry.

ANALYSIS: PHASE 09

Ashminov opened his eyes and winced. His jaw was sore. The reason for the soreness and his surroundings confused him. He was on a couch in a sparsely furnished room twice the size of his apartment. Shadows darkened the corners. He did not know how he had gotten here. Through the window, he saw a blimp’s running lights twinkling in a red sky; the sun was setting or rising. “What time is it?” he croaked.

“The time is 8:29 p.m. Eastern Standard Time,” his messenger reported.

Eastern Standard Time? Prior events sputtered into his mind. He was in Boston. Raissa had flushed his tryp. Remembering the flash of her fist, he wiggled his jaw, then ran a finger along his teeth. All there; none chipped. He sat up, and an envelope fell into his lap.

‘Sorry.’

He scoffed. He’d trade all the sorries in the world for a gram of tryp. Standing, he took an unsteady step toward the bathroom, then halted. “Raissa?” He waited a few seconds. “Raissa, where are you?” When he received no response, he diverted his path to the bedroom where he found her musical instrument and her pack. He rifled through the bag, troubled to discover she had brought two joules, a laser dagger, an antique pistol, and an explosives belt. Is she planning to shoot her way onto the NanoArtisans campus?

He continued his search, not putting it past her to hide somewhere and secretly keep an eye on him. He opened the front door, only to find an empty foyer. He returned to the bedroom and looked under the bed and next in the closet.

Ashminov recalled her telling him she was going to the concert to plant the malware on her target. She took Bibleware! If she were successful, the entire world population would become the domain of fervent Christians.

The blame fell squarely on Raissa's shoulders—to be precise, on her fist. He could do nothing about that now, but there was much he could do about the monsters of self-doubt bubbling up from deep. He ventured into the bathroom where he got on his knees and opened the cabinet door under the sink. His heart beat faster as he reached into the dark space. He retrieved a bottle of bleach, set it aside, reached in again, and grabbed a small, plastic soap box. Complimenting himself on the cleverness of his hiding place, he cracked open the box. About two grams of the precious green crystals filled it halfway.

Within a moment, his problems were receding, and his confidence was rising. He moved to the window and marveled at the pink sky. Donning sunglasses, he rode the elevator to the ground floor, trotted down the steps, and joined the flow of pedestrians. Not caring where he was going, Ashminov stopped at the corner of Gloucester and Boylston Streets, where he looked up in wonder at the blimps hovering in the dusky sky. If not tethered by gravity, he would have flapped his arms to soar up and join the armada sailing among the first faint stars of the evening.

He strolled down Boylston, catching sight of a store selling kitchen gadgets. Inside, he purchased a garlic press, which he would present to Signora Villanova upon his return to Rome. He exited the store, and a rush of bravado swept over him. Rather than go to the left, the direction of the safe house, he turned right and soon crossed a major street to enter the Boston Public Garden. A brick path wound through old-growth trees, manicured lawns, tulip beds, and a statue or two, to a small pond. Ashminov spotted an empty park bench at the water’s edge. He was drawn by its solitude.

Settling down in the middle of the bench, he cracked open the soapbox and put a dash of tryp on his tongue, then lifted his eyes to the wondrous stars and thought about Raissa. He forgave her. She had feared he would jeopardize the mission. He only wished she had shared her concerns before taking such drastic measures.

Ten minutes later, the soapbox empty, Ashminov stretched out on his back and closed his eyes to enjoy his remaining minutes of self-assuredness.

“Sir, is everything all right?”

Ashminov blinked. The security paladin wore a helmet with a scanner post. The sky above her was black. She flicked on a flashlight. When she removed his sunglasses, the beam gouged his retinal nerve.

“Sir, can you hear me?”

Ashminov tried to speak, but the words came out garbled.

She thumbed her radio. “Request backup. Code nine.”

“On the way,” a voice crackled back.

The paladin kept shaking him. “Sir? Sir?”

A siren whined to life in the distance and grew louder. Some moments later, he heard more voices. Four or five paladins were surrounding him. He realized the flat object pressed to his forehead was a scanner blade.

“His chip ID reports he’s nine days old,” a male paladin said in a tone of disbelief.

A female paladin put the radio to her lips. “His chip is malfunctioning. Should we do a field implant?”

“That’s a roger,” the voice crackled in response.

“Version 6.5?”

“That's fine. The doctors will give him the latest version in the hospital.”

Voices blended into indecipherable static, and Ashminov's heart leached intense fear. He knew what would happen when his newly implanted chip detected tryp, a forbidden substance, in his bloodstream. The female paladin, with the grip of a python, held Ashminov’s head steady in the crook of her arm as another paladin positioned the point of the chip injector in the center of Ashminov’s forehead. “Engage.” Ashminov heard that loud and clear.

His brain exploded in a ball of flame that seared every nerve fiber in his body. Passing out interrupted the crescendo of pain, but he regained consciousness almost immediately. He inhaled weakly, but he could fill his lungs to only a quarter of their capacity. He breathed out a wisp of depleted air, then repeated the torturous cycle as the paladins loaded him into the ambulance.

Ashminov could only imagine that Petrov, listening to his gasping through multiple microphones, and watching from different camera angles, was enjoying the show.

ANALYSIS: PHASE 10

Raissa snuck glances to her right as the sweeping grandeur of the orchestra swelled in volume. Her target had bolted twenty minutes ago before the concert had begun, while his sister had remained behind. Would he leave without her? She worried that their earlier argument had accounted for his sudden departure.

While it might garner unwanted attention to leave during the performance, Raissa couldn’t wait any longer. Careful to protect the devourware chip on her index finger, she slid past the sister and made her way up the aisle to the lobby where she approached the ticket taker. “Did you see an eighteen-year-old male in a short-sleeve shirt and black pants come out?”

“Curly hair? A big nose?”

“That’s him.”

The man pointed to the front door. “He left about ten minutes ago.”

Raissa’s stomach knotted; she was angry at herself for not acting the moment her target had settled into the seat beside her. She strode toward the front door, but when she reached it, the door opened, and there was Caleb. He seemed as startled as she was, but then his expression changed. His eyes widened and went glassy, and his lips parted. Staring at her while holding the door open, he stepped aside to let her pass. To appear natural, Raissa walked past him.

“Are you leaving?” he asked.

“I want some air.”

He gestured to the concert hall. “It's scorching in there!” Droplets of perspiration covered his brow.

“You still look hot. Join me outside?”

When he didn't respond, a trillion bubbles of panic boiled in her blood. She had come on too fast. Now, she had no choice but to step outside. To her amazement, he followed her.

The door closed, and they stood facing one another on the granite steps. Determined to embed the chip before he slipped from her grasp again, she stuck her hand out. “I’m Raissa.”

“Caleb.”

They barely shook hands before he pulled his sweaty palm back.

“Caleb, do you live in Boston?”

“Cambridge. What about you?”

“Jerusalem. I’m visiting my uncle. Do you like Tchaikovsky?”

“Yes. But Vivaldi is my favorite.”

His stare unnerved her. “I love hearing the viola section in all music. I play the viola.”

His eyes lit up. “So do I!” He looked away briefly. “I’m sure you’re better than I am. I used to be good, but then Dr. Petrov gave me a special M-code update when I was six years old.”

“The Dr. Petrov?”

Caleb beamed. “Yes, the Father of the Chip.”

“Why did Dr. Petrov do that?”

He paused for a long moment. “He always knows what he’s doing.”

It was obvious. Caleb Saunders had no idea what had motivated Petrov to give him an M-code update. Glancing at his right ear, Raissa wondered if there was any way to embed the devourware chip behind it. Ear cartilage called for boldness, but she wasn’t sure she could be that daring. She stuck with Plan A: the wrist. “You seem to know a lot about Dr. Petrov.”

“I work at NanoArtisans.”

“Ah, I guess you’re getting ready to release Version 7?”

“A different lab handles software releases. I work in Paladin Research.”

“I feel sorry for paladins,” Raissa said, taking an ill-advised departure from the script she had rehearsed a thousand times.

“Paladins are the luckiest people in the world,” Caleb exclaimed.

Not about to back down, she said, “You send them to clean up radiation sites and arm them so they can hunt for rebels.”

“What’s wrong with that?” Caleb’s eyes sparkled. “They should hunt rebels. Paladins derive incredible satisfaction from performing their tasks.”

“Do they have a choice?”

Caleb, no longer sweating, seemed energized. “An algorithm selects every future paladin. The algorithm always gets it right.”

Petrov had brainwashed him. “What do you do in Paladin Research?” she asked.

As Caleb described his duties, Raissa studied him. He seemed sincere, even sweet, if a bit nerdy. Actually, he was a lot nerdy. She stuck her hand out when he was in mid-sentence. “I have to go home.”

“W-w-what about the rest of the performance?”

“Good night, Caleb.” She edged her hand closer, hoping that his parents had taught him manners and he would conclude their engagement with a civil handshake. Furrows lined his brow; something was troubling him. Raissa waited for his chip to plaster a smile on his face, but the wrinkles deepened.

He finally took her hand. Gripping it tightly to make sure he couldn’t pull away, she slid her index finger forward and, pressing firmly, buried the devourware chip into his wrist. He didn't seem to notice as he stared at her.

“Nice meeting you, Caleb.” She let go, turned, and walked to the curb where she flagged a taxi, feeling his eyes burning a hole in her back. On the way to the safe house, she exhaled heavily in the back seat. She had improvised and succeeded in planting the chip. When Caleb Saunders went to work in the morning, Ashminov’s devourware would upload to the transmission server. Next, she would turn her thoughts to assassinating Petrov.

So why do I feel so hollow?

DESIGN

DESIGN: PHASE 01

Trying to draw in a breath, Ashminov immediately expelled it, his new nanochip punishing him for having tryp in his bloodstream. His vision darkened and he teetered on the edge of passing out. Panicking, he flailed his arms and legs, but the polycuffs keeping his wrists and ankles secured to the bed restricted his movements.

He shared the hospital ward with six other patients. He had listened in on two doctors discussing patients. Five were here for cosmetic surgeries; Roscoe, number six, who was in the neighboring bed, had suffered brain damage. Roscoe had tried to remove his chip with a kitchen laser, but his daughter had wrestled it away before the release of the chip’s ricin. Despite being overwhelmed by a persistent state of suffocation, Ashminov found Roscoe’s vacant stare unnerving and cautionary. He had to check himself out of the hospital and return to the safe house to disable the chip before the diminished oxygen supply to his brain turned him into Roscoe.

Ashminov cobbled together a simple plan. He would inform a member of the staff he needed to use the bathroom and they would release him from the polys. The distance from the toilet to the ward doors was about five meters, so he'd wait inside the bathroom until the coast was clear, then he'd make his break.

“Doctor,” he croaked.

A female doctor approached and looked down at him with kind, caring eyes. Her nametag said: Dr. Honey. “What can I do for you?” Her voice was as sweet as her name.

Ashminov labored to form each word. “Need to disable chip.” He chomped his tongue and tasted blood. Fearing that he had created an even more significant mess for himself, he waited for her reaction.

Dr. Honey held his hand. The magic of human touch served as a balm for his pain and suffering. “It's normal to have strange thoughts when you get a new nanochip,” she said. “It takes time for your brain to adjust to the hardware. Try to rest.”

“Toilet.”

A trace of frivolity touched her eyes. “That's unnecessary. You have a catheter.”

Ashminov peeked under the sheet. A thin flexible tube, emerging from his groin, extended to a urine bag hanging off the side of the bed. Distraught, he let his head sink into the pillow.

“Do you like to cook?” Dr. Honey asked.

“No.” With compromised lungs, even brief snippets of communication came at a steep price.

Dr. Honey lifted a plastic bag of his belongings, hanging from a hook on the side of the bed. The bag contained the clothing he had been wearing at the time of the field implant and the garlic press he had purchased for Signora Villanova.

“Friend,” he wheezed.

“That’s nice,” Dr. Honey said with a smile. She moved to another patient.

In an act born of desperation, Ashminov tugged on the catheter tube, causing an ache in his groin. He pulled harder, but it was held in place by some kind of anchor. A burning sensation commingled with the aching as he removed the tube millimeter by millimeter.

The anchor refused to budge. Burying his face in the pillow to muffle his scream, he yanked the tube hard. The cry robbed him of air and, half-asphyxiated, he took several labored breaths to recover. When he lifted the covers, the catheter was out, and he was still in one piece. “Doctor Honey!”

She returned to his bedside.

Ashminov flipped the sheet back. “Toilet?”

Her eyes widened. “I’ve never seen that happen before. I’ll fix it for you.”

As Dr. Honey was reinserting the catheter, he flopped his head to one side, making eye contact with Roscoe.

Roscoe winked.

DESIGN: PHASE 02

When Raissa entered the safe house, the couch was empty, save for Ashminov’s satchel.

“Ashminov?”

Alarmed, she walked to the bedroom. Ashminov wasn’t in bed. She checked the bathroom, even pulling back the shower curtain. Curiously, a bottle of bleach sat on the bathroom floor, next to the open door of the cabinet beneath the sink.

Do I need to find him? In one sense, she no longer needed Ashminov. She couldn’t imagine him helping her kill Petrov, and he was a liability. If paladins interrogated him, he’d sing like a canary.

Deciding it was necessary to find him, Raissa explored the contents of his satchel. It held a portable 3D printer, trans, mindport, and messenger. Nobody went far without their messenger. Moving to the window to see if he had stepped out for air, Raissa looked down on Beacon Street. It was quiet.

She rode the elevator to the first floor, stepped outside, and sat on the steps to keep watch. It was 11:00 p.m.

At 11:15, she walked around the block, glancing at stoops, in doorways, and down alleys, and then returned to the safe house where she collapsed on the couch.

Her thoughts turned to her encounter with Caleb Saunders. Interestingly, it wasn’t how her years of training had paid off, or the rocky relationship he seemed to have with his sister, or even how it had felt to come face-to-face with the enemy. Caleb has a cute nose.

Goldstein had warned her about the risk of emotional involvement with her target; he had given her a strategy to fix the problem if it occurred. “Ask yourself this: what’s more important, your grandfather's suffering or your desires?”

She had a better strategy. Never set eyes on Caleb Saunders again.

* * *

“Raeeeesa. Raesaaa. Raisa.” Variations of her name rolled off Caleb’s tongue.

On the taxi ride to NanoArtisans, he couldn’t remember how she had pronounced it. Was there a long ‘e’? Or a short ‘a’? He slumped back in the seat. What does it matter?
I’ll never see her again.

The concert had ended ten minutes ago; Zoe had taken a separate taxi home. He had told her he had to go straight to his lab because he had some critical research, which was the truth.

He held his right hand in the air, not wanting to add any impurities to it. Raissa’s sweet, spicy scent was evaporating and the sooner he stuck his hand in an analyzer, the better his odds were of identifying her perfume.

The taxi dropped him off at Gate 5D.

“Can’t sleep, Dr. Saunders?” the paladin guard on duty asked.

He looked into the scanner. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

It flashed green, and the paladin waved him onto the campus. Caleb entered the security tunnel, awakening the blister guns. On the other side, he climbed on a scooter. “Grace Hopper.”

Five minutes later, Caleb stepped into the spectrometer lab on the fifteenth floor of the Grace Hopper Building and inserted his right hand into the body-part portal. When a spatial model appeared on the screen, he used the laser guides to mark the area to survey: wrist to fingertips, including the thumb. “Spectrometer, analyze.”

“Analysis complete,” the spectrometer reported, several seconds later.

“Send the results to my messenger.”

Caleb opened the Analyzer app on his messenger. There were thousands of compounds clinging to his epithelial cells, from sunscreen to the residue of an apricot meal tab he had popped into his mouth a week ago.

“Analyzer, eliminate trace compounds older than four hours.”

“Reduction complete,” Analyzer reported.

“Analyzer, identify perfume components.”

“Dioctyl sebacate.”

“Analyzer, what is dioctyl sebacate?”

“Dioctyl sebacate is an organic compound that is the diester of sebacic acid and 2-ethyl hexanol. It is an oily, colorless liquid used in plastic explosives and other applications.”

“Analyzer, what other applications use dioctyl sebacate?

“Brake fluid,” came the reply.

That brought a smile. Raissa didn’t seem the type, but maybe she took part in the hobby of fixing antique, gasoline-powered vehicles and driving them inside a smogatorium. “Analyzer, update your database. Brake fluid is not a perfume component. Continue analysis.”

“Sandalwood perfume,” Analyzer reported.

Caleb brought his hand to his nose. Raissa’s perfume had faded, but not the memory of her soft touch. He ordered a bottle of the sandalwood perfume, which would serve as a reminder of his encounter with the girl with the captivating green eyes.

DESIGN: PHASE 03

Ashminov executed a hard, swift tug on the catheter tube and then checked under the covers. The new one was out and his anatomy intact. He surveyed the ward. Roscoe's brief sign of brain activity had been fleeting, and Dr. Honey was consulting a chart.

To sharpen his focus, Ashminov thumped his chest to pound more molecules of oxygen from his compromised lungs into his bloodstream. “Dr. Honey?” She approached him, and he pulled back the sheet again. “Need toilet.”

After her brows shot up in disbelief, she called over a colleague, a male doctor with muscled arms, and said, “It’s fallen out twice. Can you believe it?”

“Let's apply a polycuff to his penis,” her colleague suggested.

Ashminov thrashed his head from side to side. The male doctor pressed down to hold him still. Ashminov found Dr. Honey’s eyes with his own and made a final, silent plea.

“I’ll let him use the bathroom,” she said.

The male doctor nodded and left, and Dr. Honey spun a dial on the wall above the bed, which released the polys. She helped Ashminov remove the bands from his ankles and wrists. “Thank you,” Ashminov whispered when she helped him sit up. He thanked her again as they limped to the bathroom with her arm around his waist. Dr. Honey’s touch was a lullaby that took him back in time. If the Captain and Colonel had offered a caring touch in his youth, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t have ended up here.

“Sit or stand?” Dr. Honey asked when they reached the bathroom door.

“I can manage.”

Dr. Honey scrunched her brow in concern for his safety. She didn’t want him to hurt himself.

If she only knew. “Please.”

Dr. Honey gave a reluctant nod. “Pull the cord if you need help.”

Once Ashminov was alone, he opened the door a crack and peered out. Staff members floated from patient to patient. He thumped his chest again to prep for his dash to freedom, but every time he was ready to race to the ward doors, a doctor or nurse blocked the escape route. He had better act soon because Dr. Honey wouldn't let him remain unattended forever. When he spotted Roscoe grinning at him from his bed, he closed the door.

A guttural scream put Ashminov's neck hairs on end. He peeked out again. Roscoe was flailing his arms and thrashing his head, an endeavor made fruitless by his polys, but one that caused a commotion, and soon every staff member was at his bedside. Roscoe is creating a diversion!

Ashminov crept out of the bathroom, staggering as fast as his oxygen-starved body allowed, and passed through the double doors into a corridor. A man wheeling a cart emerged from the intersecting hallway to his right. Ashminov turned left.

About ten meters away, he pushed open a door marked “EXIT” and entered a stairwell. He stumbled to the railing and froze in fear. The shaft stretched at least ten stories to the bottom, and each story had two flights of stairs. His new chip quashed his fear, and he started down, every step consuming his limited oxygen supply. At the edge of unconsciousness, he reached the bottom floor and limped to a door.

Grasping the handle for support, he peered through a rectangle of glass. The lobby was bustling with staff, visitors, and patients coming and going.

Ashminov, shoeless and wearing a flimsy gown, started for the front door, expecting staff to question him, but none did. The door opened, and he trudged to the curb where he raised a finger to flag a taxi. As one pulled up, he glanced back, relieved that nobody was on his heels. Air supply depleted but confidence surging, he slid into the back seat.

“Taxi…” he began, but he couldn’t recall the address of the safe house, or even the street it was on. “Taxi, drive.”

“What is your destination?” the taxi asked.

“Drive.”

“Destination, please.”

He rolled his eyes in despair. “Tour of Boston.”

DESIGN: PHASE 04

Worn out from the potent cocktail of grief, shock, and excitement he’d consumed over the past twenty-four hours, Caleb stepped outside the Grace Hopper Building. He couldn’t stop thinking about Raissa. The time was 3:00 a.m.; if he returned home, he’d never be able to sleep.

He marched to his office to identify her chip ID. What would he do with it? Nothing. Zoe was right. He suffered terminal shyness. Sitting at his mindport, he pulled up the evening’s performance at Symphony Hall and reviewed the seating chart. When he clicked on Raissa’s seat, there was no record of her purchasing the ticket. Did she pay with cash?

Before exiting the database, he checked his and Zoe’s seats, curious whether Jack had purchased the tickets before or after poisoning Julian. But Jack, too, had apparently paid with cash because there was no record of his transaction.

Next, he accessed the Boston network of video cameras. Facial recognition software would provide the answer. Locating the interior camera at Symphony Hall, he played the archived footage at high speed starting from 7 p.m. Raissa arrived at 7:30. He liked that she was punctual. He also enjoyed the feeling of his heart fluttering in his chest. She strolled down the aisle and took her seat, then craned her neck left and right, but she never looked toward the camera. The application required a clean, unobstructed view to report an ID.

At the 7:55 p.m. mark, Caleb saw himself and Zoe appear and engage in a spat over seat selections. He chuckled. For once, he was glad that his bossy sister had lived up to her reputation and made him sit next to Raissa.

Caleb sighed in frustration when it became clear the half-shots of Raissa's face would not suffice. Hoping for better results from their encounter outside Symphony Hall, he tried accessing the exterior camera, but it was down for maintenance.

He recalled her hobby and accessed the membership database of the Jerusalem Smogatorium Club. But only one person named Raissa drove gas-powered vehicles within a thousand kilometers of Jerusalem, and that Raissa was not his.

* * *

Raissa shot up on the couch, awakened by a frightening dream. Gripping her joule, she scanned the dark room. “Ashminov?”

3:05 in the morning.

Her heart thudded in the silence. Rubbing her eyes, she stood up and stretched. In her dream, Petrov had been inside her brain, like sludge in a river. She shook her head, then made a quick search of the safe house. Ashminov was still AWOL.

Looking out the window, she saw a couple approaching on the sidewalk. Wearing expressions of joy, they were holding hands. They must be in love. Fixing her eyes on their faces, she waited until they passed. ‘Joy’ did not accurately describe their expressions. Electric? High wattage? Glowing? Even in the dark, Raissa marveled at the brightness of their eyes. They must be very much in love.

She returned to the couch, still shivering from her dream. The chill of Petrov lurking inside her mind would take a while to dissipate.

Unable to sleep, she accessed her messenger to identify probable locations where she might find Ashminov once the sun was up.

She tried putting herself inside his head. I am a brilliant Bulgarian technologist who lives in Rome. I watch wolf documentaries and know about black-legged ticks. I am undernourished and admit to sleeping little. Raissa thinks I have a problem with drugs, but I don’t. Where, after she punched me in the jaw, might I go?

* * *

“Old Ironsides,” the taxi announced as it pulled into the parking area for the frigate which had served in the War of 1812. The ship’s three masts stood against a starry night sky. From the back seat, Ashminov noted the time on the dash: 3:10 a.m. He craned his neck to scan his surroundings, hoping to spot the safe house.

Even though he teetered on the abyss of unconsciousness, he was sure that the safe house was not near docks or large industrial warehouses. He pounded his chest to lubricate his voice box with oxygen. “Taxi, next destination.”

Over the next thirty minutes, he visited other popular tourist destinations: Bunker Hill Monument, Alewife Wolf Hollow, Faneuil Hall, Fenway Park, a statue of Civil War General Joseph Hooker on horseback, Symphony Hall, and the Granary Burial Ground.

When they pulled up to Old Ironsides again, he crumpled in dejection. He was going in circles. Then, the faint ember of an idea glowed in his mind. “Taxi, take me to Boston Public Garden.” Twenty hours earlier, he had walked to the duck pond straight from the safe house. Retracing his steps ought to work.

They rolled to a stop at 3:20 a.m. “Taxi, wait here.” Ashminov exited the back seat and limped toward the scene of the crime, the bench where the paladins had embedded a chip in his brain. The bricks were cold and wet on his bare feet.

He sat on the bench, aware that paladins would be quick to investigate a man on a park bench wearing a hospital gown, especially if one remembered him from yesterday. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure a mental map to the safe house.

It wouldn't come.

So, accepting that such a map would never materialize, he struggled to his feet and relying on muscle memory, stumbled past the taxi and down a boulevard. He glanced up at the street sign: Boylston Street. The name didn't ring a bell. Boylston was quiet although several pedestrians overtook him. With their nanochips stimulating the neurons responsible for politeness, nobody gawked at his garb or condition. In a chipped world, everyone belonged.

His feet padded and scuffed their way over brick, over the pavement, over cobblestones. The changing textures signaled movement, but not necessarily progress.

He saw things in grayscale, and his legs grew heavier. The ground whispered to him like a soft gray pillow. Stop, curl up like a cat, rest for a spell.

The sight of kitchen gadgets in a storefront gave him a jolt. This feels right. At the next intersection, he stopped and lifted his eyes to the sky, recalling his fanciful wish to fly among the stars. Cautiously optimistic that he was nearing his destination, he turned right on Gloucester. The street sign at the next intersection said “Beacon,” and his optimism surged. The safe house is on Beacon Street!

He turned onto Beacon, and two-and-a-half blocks later, after what seemed like a painful, exhausting marathon, stopped at a three-story brick building with flower boxes beneath the windows. The sweet scent of flowering trees nearby served as a double confirmation the wayward explorer had arrived home.

When he looked to his left, a spike of dread cleaved him in half. The next building was also brick, three stories tall, and had flower boxes beneath the windows. The two structures were identical. He faced twin Matterhorns. Which one?

Banking on sheer luck, he opted for the house on the right and started the slow, agonizing climb up the steps. Wheezing and dizzy, he reached the top and crawled to the door where he probed with an outstretched hand, missing the handle twice until he got a grip on it. He pulled himself up, opened the door, and stumbled inside.

After dragging himself into the elevator, he croaked, “Top floor,” and slumped against the door.

When the elevator delivered him to the third floor, he half-fell through the opening door and used his elbows to pull himself along the floor to the safe house door. His cry was at once desperate and faint. “Raissa!”

He rapped with a knuckle; then he punched the door as hard as he could. His reward for the blast of self-inflicted pain was the faintest of knocks. Hearing footsteps on the other side, he went limp with relief.

The door swung open, and a young girl gasped. “Mommy, there's a man on the floor.”

DESIGN: PHASE 05

Caleb groaned to see the time; it was only 4:10 a.m. Dr. Aubrey, along with the promise of a software patch that would dissolve his unproductive emotions, would not arrive at the campus for at least another two hours.

To occupy his mind, he decided to chronicle Julian’s final hours for a memory wall episode. Someday, the video tapestry would bring him joy.

Accessing the feed from an observation blimp that hovered high over Boston and Cambridge, he entered Zoe’s address and the date and time they had gone to the Union Square Injection Center. His sister’s building appeared on screen as a dot. He zoomed in until the blonde fuzz on top of Julian’s head filled a quarter of the screen. The sight of his nephew ripped the scab off Caleb’s grief and filled him with chilling waves of fresh sadness. Jack stepping onto the stoop a moment later filled him with burning waves of acid.

He zoomed out and stayed with the scene until he, Zoe, Jack, and Julian entered the taxi. Unfortunately, the people mover did not have a lifestyle camera installed. At the injection center, Jack exited the taxi and strolled inside. Zoe and Julian, with Caleb in tow, moved to a bench. Caleb watched himself leave his sister and nephew to join Jack inside. Zoe stood up at once and paced. That was fast!

Caleb widened the shot to capture a final panorama of the injection center when something caught his attention. An organ transplant van pulled up to the center's loading dock. The orange trucks were a common sight at teaching hospitals, but he'd never seen one at an injection center. The van’s appearance was unusual, but so was Julian’s death.

Next, Caleb tapped in the coordinates of the swimming beach at the Charles River, where they had gone after leaving the injection center, and fast-forwarded to 11:03 a.m. Caleb was sitting on the grassy beach with his head hanging and shoulders heaving. Zooming in closer, he saw the carbon tab in his hand.

He ached to hold Julian’s tab again, and he wondered if Dr. Joyce had finished her analysis of it. “Messenger, is Dr. Joyce in her lab?”

“Yes, Dr. Saunders.”

He rehearsed what he’d say. “Jack murdered Julian, but Jack was not to blame.” Hearing timidity in his tone, Caleb thrust his chin out to project his voice. “Jack murdered Julian, but Jack is not to blame.” That's more like it.

The stakes were sky-high. If, after learning what Jack had done, Dr. Joyce reported him to security, they would scrub Jack’s memory and assign him to clean up tritium radiation in Argentina, Egypt, or Japan. Zoe, within a twenty-four-hour period, would lose both her child and her husband.

Caleb walked to the window. The first drops of orange light were diffusing in the black ink of the horizon. “Dr. Joyce,” he said to his reflection, “I rebooted his chip. Jack is well again.”

He gave his closing argument. “The odds of Jack killing again are statistically insignificant. I believe he can lead a productive life as a loving husband, proud environmental worker, and a nurturing father.”

Someday in the distant future when he and Jack were old men—perhaps half their neurons existing outside their brains in a Beyond Eden oceanic stew—Caleb would tell Jack the story of how he got him off the hook for murder.

He found Dr. Joyce observing the lethargic rats in the Eden Chip experiment. “Do you have a moment? I have a topic to discuss.”

“I’m glad you stopped by, Caleb. I discovered something puzzling about Julian’s death.”

They moved to her mindport where she called up Julian’s profile. “Your nephew's carbon tab weighed 2.5678 grams. Doing the math, he should have entered the solar oven with a mass of 7,456 grams. However, during his weigh-in before the injection procedure, they logged his mass at 9,015 grams. It means that sometime while he was in the injection center, he lost over 1,500 grams.”

Dr. Joyce accessed an online inventory of infant body parts and their associated masses in grams, troubling Caleb to think of Julian as piece parts, but the mystery of his nephew’s death was disturbing him even more.

“Lungs, brain, kidneys, and stomach each weigh between 1,400 and 1,600 grams,” she said.

“Interesting,” he said, flashing back to the organ transplant van he'd seen on the video feed. He made a mental note to track where the van had gone after the injection center.

“What did you want to discuss?” she asked.

Caleb couldn't recall his prepared remarks. “Jack poisoned Julian. Jack got the PCBs at work. But I rebooted Jack, and now everything has returned to normal. Zoe and Jack are soulmates. It would devastate my sister to lose Jack.”

Dr. Joyce pursed her lips, and Caleb tensed. Is she girding herself to give me bad news? Then her double helix tattoo elongated as her scalp relaxed, flooding him with optimism. Her news is good. Nodding with an understanding smile and an empathetic gaze, Dr. Joyce said, “I have to report Jack.”

Caleb pleaded with his eyes. “You know what they’ll do to him?”

“Yes, they’ll give Jack his life back. After they scrub his memory, he’ll lead a fulfilling life, no longer burdened by the act he committed.”

“Can I talk to Zoe first?”

“How much time do you need?”

“Four days?” Caleb would be thrilled with two.

“Eight hours,” Dr. Joyce said. “Messenger, set the alarm for 2 p.m.”

Back in his office, Caleb put the Jack/Zoe issue out of his mind and once again accessed yesterday’s feed from the observation blimp. He entered the injection center’s coordinates.

At 10:21 a.m., a woman stepped out of the center carrying a silver pouch filled with liquid nitrogen for the safe transport of organs, and placed it in the back of the orange van. This timeline supported the possibility that the pouch contained one of Julian’s organs.

He followed the van as it pulled away from the loading dock. It drove down Memorial Drive, but it didn't take the route Caleb was expecting, eschewing the most direct way to Harvard Medical School, the destination for most organs. Instead, the van turned left and crossed the Mass. Ave. Bridge into Boston. It continued down Storrow Drive and took a right onto Atlantic Avenue. A moment later, the van turned into the Citadel, and the video feed ended.

Caleb frowned. Nothing entered the Citadel without Dr. Petrov's permission. Is Dr. Petrov involved in Julian’s death? A smile spread on his face, knowing that the Father of the Chip always had a good reason for his actions. Perhaps Julian was contributing to society in ways Caleb could not imagine. He clutched the carbon tab as his smile vanished and tears trickled down his cheeks.

He moved to the window. The lip of the sun had edged above the horizon and painted the sides of the Boston skyscrapers pink. Where are you Dr. Aubrey? I need your help. Where are you girl-with-the-green-eyes? I am so confused.

* * *

The day’s first rays of sunlight shone through the safe house window as Raissa paced. Had Caleb Saunders reported to work yet? He seemed like the punctual type. Assuming nothing had amputated his arm, the devourware chip would soon find itself inside the NanoArtisans firewall, if it hadn’t already. That situation under control, she had more pressing problems.

She punched in the local contact’s number. As before, the rebel took the call but remained silent. She heard only background noise. “I can’t find Ashminov.”

A low, deep voice spoke on the other end. “Find him.” The rebel ended the call.

Raissa, having completed her research, flagged a taxi in front of the safe house and hopped in the back seat. “Taxi, Logan Airport, the Air Italia terminal.” The taxi pulled away from the curb. “Taxi, cancel that. New destination. Alewife Wolf Hollow.”

If Ashminov had already flown to Rome, he'd be out of her hair. The Wolf Park was a long shot, like everything else on her list, but she guessed that the nature-loving Bulgarian might gravitate to a place where visitors could observe wolves in their natural habitat.

When they arrived, the Hollow was closed to the public. “Taxi, Menhanata Bulgarian Café.”

Fifteen minutes later, the taxi rolled to a stop in front of the only establishment within a hundred kilometers that advertised Bulgarian fare. Greeted by the odor of boiled potatoes and rosemary, she stepped into the café and asked a man with a bushy mustache behind the counter, “May I see the manager?”

“I’m the manager.” His accent was Eastern European.

“My uncle's messenger isn't working, and I thought I might find him here.” Raissa described Ashminov.

The manager shook his head. “I have seen no one who fits that description.”

Thwarted, Raissa had one more stop on her list.

“The North End,” she told the taxi.

Italian immigrants had settled in Boston’s North End a century ago. Ashminov lived in Rome, so she figured he might seek familiar territory.

The taxi stopped on Hanover Street, the main road that cut through the neighborhood. Heading down Hanover on foot, she peered into each café she passed, keeping an eye out for his pasty complexion.

A commotion three blocks ahead caught her attention. People were spilling into the street, requiring taxis to turn down a side street. She thought it was unusual to hold a festival at this early hour. When she was two blocks away from the action, she heard shrieks. Joy or panic? She couldn’t tell. The festival participants were pushing their way into a grassy courtyard on the left. A sign showed that it was a historical site where patriots had used lanterns to signal British troop movements in 1775. The crowd was a multi-generational jumble of people. They wore extra big smiles as if they were witnessing something amazing. It reminded Raissa of the lovers who had walked past the safe house in the early morning hours.

A ten-year-old boy stumbled to the ground a few meters in front of her, but the crowd kept moving, their eyes fixed ahead of them on the courtyard. They trampled him underfoot, and he cried out, but the chorus of shrieks drowned his voice.

Raissa charged forward and formed a barrier between the boy and the surge of people. She reached down and pulled him to his feet. He rejoined the others with a beaming smile.

The bumping and jostling became fierce, and Raissa collected a few bruises crossing the street. Regardless of the reason for the mysterious mob, or the rebel’s directive to find Ashminov, she must plan the next phase of the mission.

She hailed a taxi and climbed into the back. “Taxi, Atlanta Avenue.”

Five minutes later, they were driving down the road that ran parallel to the Citadel. She peered out at the polished black surface of the wall, unable to see any doors or openings. Lowering the window, she stuck her head out and looked up. The wall rose a hundred meters or more, to a lip armed with sonic cannons and lasers.

“Taxi, make a U-turn.”

A second pass generated no ideas on how to breach the fortress. The Citadel looked impregnable.

“Taxi, 25.5 Commonwealth Avenue,” Raissa said, slumping back in the seat, deterred but not defeated.

The taxi arrived at the destination, and, after climbing out, she walked around the corner to the safe house where she stepped into the elevator. As it approached the third floor, she heard a light rapping on the safe house door. Flicking her joule to kill, she trained the weapon straight ahead as the elevator door opened.

A young girl with pigtails, her back to Raissa, stood at the apartment door. The girl spun around, and Raissa quickly hid the weapon behind her back.

“You’re Raissa, right?”

The girl's precociousness took her breath away. “Who are you?”

“Maddy. Uncle Christian isn’t feeling well.”

“Oh? Where is he?”

“At my house. He’s having difficulty breathing. My mom wanted to call health paladins, but he asked us to get you instead. I came earlier, but he said you were sleeping.”

“Thank you for your perseverance, Maddy. Will you take me to him?”

Maddy, explaining that she had found him sprawled on the floor outside their door earlier in the morning, led Raissa downstairs and into the next building. Raissa could understand the mix-up, but Ashminov's indiscretion terrified her. Who else has he told about the safe house?

Inside the girl’s apartment, Raissa met Maddy's mother and thanked her for looking after “Uncle Christian.” “He’ll be fine once he gets his medicine,” Raissa said.

“He’s in a lot of pain,” the woman said.

Raissa looked over Ashminov as he lay on a bed, eyes closed, in a flimsy gown. He held his sides and groaned. She recognized the symptoms. Like Jaddy, it seemed as if his chip was shutting down his lungs for forbidden behavior. Hadn't Ashminov disabled his chip?

She leaned over the bed. “Uncle Christian?”

His eyes popped open. “Bibleware?” Labored gasps punctuated the words.

Bibleware? Who knows what he'll say next? Raissa slipped her hand over his mouth before he could say more. Their noses were millimeters apart. “Save your energy, Uncle. You’ll be in your own bed soon.” When she took her hand away, he kept his mouth shut, thankfully.

Showering his caretakers with additional words of gratitude, Raissa hauled Ashminov up and hustled him out of the apartment into the elevator where he said, “I need . . .” But he ran out of breath and couldn’t complete his thought.

“Who else knows about the safe house?”

He folded at the waist. “Nobody.”

She didn’t believe him. When the elevator doors opened on the ground floor, she steered him into the foyer and leaned him against the wall. Pinning him there with her arm extended straight, she cracked the door open and peered out. “Let's go.”

She half-dragged him down the steps and did the same up to the safe house building. Taking a last look up and down the street, she dragged him inside. They rode the elevator in silence. Inside the apartment, she navigated him to the couch, where he collapsed.

“Give me the chip,” he panted.

Raissa fetched the remaining devourware chip.

“And the trans.”

She handed it over. With trembling fingers, he inserted the chip into the trans and pressed the wand to his forehead, holding it as steady as he could. A beep signaled a successful transmission.

The transformation was instant. Ashminov threw his head back as he took one deep breath after another, almost weeping with relief. He flexed his arms, and his cheeks flushed a rosy pink in the rapture of oxygen entering his bloodstream. Raissa felt that she was witnessing his rebirth.

After a minute of recovery, his eyes sparked wide with renewed vigor. He stood and raised both arms high, chest swelling. Face to the ceiling, he cried, “Hallelujah, praise Jesus.”

“Ashminov, what did you just say?”

* * *

Ashminov ignored her question and bowed his head his head in prayer. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” He looked up. Raissa’s cold stare stood in sharp contrast to the warm love of Christ pumping through his arteries. “I can explain. I was minding my business when paladins arrested me.”

“Where?”

“On a bench in Boston Public Garden.”

She planted her hands on her hips. “Minding your business?”

Ashminov's heart floated in a sea of patience. “It shouldn't be a crime to use tryp, but it is. I hid some under the bathroom sink when I first got here.” This confession cleansed him. “A paladin scanned me, and my chip ID reported I was nine days old.”

“Nine days?”

He bowed his head again and first said a silent prayer for the murdered child and murderer alike. “Baldini wanted malware that would turn the world population into Christians. I developed Bibleware. The Christian faith is now serving as the foundation for the rules governing my behavior.”

Raissa edged her face close to his. “The chip I planted on Caleb Saunders?”

“Bibleware.”

“When the transmission takes place, everyone will turn into Christians?”

Flower petals of serenity spilled from Ashminov’s mind at the notion of hands locked in love, in a worldwide community of Christians. “Correct.”

“My grandfather is Muslim.”

“If you like, I can develop Koranware. You can use the trans to download it to him.”

“Did it occur to you that people might want to follow other faiths?”

“Yes.”

“Pray to other gods?”

“That’s what I told Baldini.”

Raissa paced. “Some people might not want to pray at all.”

“Also true.”

She stopped and glared. “So, why did you do it?”

“Raissa, I was planning to burn devourware onto a new chip which you could take to the concert, but then you knocked me out.”

“So it’s my fault?”

Ashminov focused on the floor. The wood had a scuff mark, an imperfection. He was imperfect. But he could strive for perfection. With the help of Jesus, he would forgive the Captain and Colonel, and every other lost soul who had hurt him along the way, even Petrov. “No,” he mumbled.

Raissa was in his face again. “Is it too late to plant a new chip on Caleb?”

“Developers are usually on standby until the last minute to submit changes,” he told her.

“So it’s not too late?”

He shrugged. “Fifty-fifty.”

“Can you make a new devourware chip?”

He snapped his fingers.

She pounded a fist into her open palm. “Do it!”

“Raissa, do you believe in God?”

She scoffed. “If there is a God, she has a sick sense of humor, teaming me up with you.” She pointed to his mindport. “Get going!”

Tears filled his eyes as he sat before his mindport, swallowing a greasy glob of rejection. She didn't mean that. Her words came from a place of white-hot anger, much of which I stoked through a series of unfortunate events. “I forgive you,” he whispered.

Producing devourware, Ashminov knew, would be easy. He already had the code. But he had a better idea.

He grabbed the trans with the Bibleware chip and held it behind his back as he approached Raissa in the bedroom. Once Christ was filling her heart, they would relate to one another on a deeper level. “The devourware is compiling,” he announced, placing his finger on the trans button.

She turned to him. “That was fast.”

He lunged, leading with the wand, ready to perform an electronic baptism, but she grabbed his wrist and bent it back until he dropped to his knees, and the trans fell to the floor. She gave a final twist to underscore her displeasure.

As he was gasping in pain, she picked up the trans and jabbed her finger into his chest. “Next time you try something like that, I’ll really get angry.”

DESIGN: PHASE 06

“Dr. Saunders, you have a text message.”

Caleb shot up straight in his chair and grabbed his messenger, thinking Dr. Aubrey was finally reaching out to him. None too soon. To inform Zoe that her husband had poisoned their child was unimaginable without a functioning chip in his brain. He needed a patch ASAP.

He discovered the message was a campus-wide alert, instructing all employees to tune into the NanoArtisans briefing channel.

“Briefing channel.”

His mindport flickered to life with a strange scene. A bird’s-eye view from a blimp showed a large crowd gathered in Copley Square, downtown Boston. It looked like a riot, except the rioters had beaming smiles and bright eyes. Several paladin emergency vehicles were at the scene.

Taking control of a camera mounted on the Boston Public Library, at the corner of Boylston and Dartmouth, Caleb panned in on the crowd. People of all ages wore big smiles as they surged toward the International Food Cafetorium; the doors to the massive granite building were open, and they were pushing their way inside.

Views of two other gatherings appeared on the mindport. These were also happening in Boston: Mary’s Bowladrome in Codman Square and a tourist attraction in the North End.

Caleb sat back, perplexed. Was he witnessing the results of a mass chip failure? That had happened a decade earlier when Nigerian tomato farmers started watering their plants continuously. After a transmission blimp had beamed a patch to the group, normal farming practices had resumed.

Lucky for these people, their chips are malfunctioning in NanoArtisans backyard.

“Dr. Aubrey passed through the southwest gate,” his messenger announced.

The timing was perfect. Caleb expected notification from his director, Dr. Phillips, any moment, assigning Paladin Research to lend a hand in sorting out the mysterious gatherings. After receiving his patch from Dr. Aubrey, Caleb could contribute to the effort with a clear head, unencumbered by unproductive emotions.

He closed his eyes. Dr. Aubrey, I’m on my way to Version Control.

In Version Control’s waiting room, Caleb had a front-row seat to a mad circus as the lab’s scientists hosted impromptu meetings and scurried to their mindports. Dr. Aubrey was also flitting from colleague to colleague. She had told Caleb she’d see him in ten minutes—thirty minutes ago.

As expected, he received a message from Dr. Phillips. Stunned, Caleb read it twice: “Paladin Research is closing for the rest of today, effective immediately. Take the day off. Enjoy time with your family.”

Paladin Research never closed, and Dr. Phillips never took a day off. His director had never even asked Caleb about his family or social life because Dr. Phillips didn’t care about either. The only family that the doctor found worthy of discussion was the NanoArtisans family.

Dr. Aubrey came over. “Sorry about the delay.” She looked harried.

He held out his messenger. “Can you believe this?”

After reading the memo, she showed him a similar message from her director. “Submit the final V7 code to Dr. Petrov at 1 p.m. and then go home. Enjoy time with your family.” Her brow pinched. “Caleb, the V7 code is nowhere near ready, but we're supposed to submit the build in three hours. Something's not right about all this.”

Dejection darkened his tone as he said, “Dr. Petrov knows what he’s doing.” Because of Dr. Aubrey’s impossible deadline, he could not ask her for a patch.

Suddenly, an idea popped into his mind, born out of desperation, but one that would provide him with relief. He would visit the Union Square Injection Center and ask for a production-level nanochip to be implanted in his frontal lobe.

“Dr. Aubrey, I’d like to run something by you.” He told her his plan, adding, “Later today, I’ll receive the V7 update with the rest of the population.”

She took a step back. “You’ll no longer be part of my V7 beta program.”

His stomach twisted. “That’s true, but your program is winding down.”

“Dr. Saunders, if you want to put your personal needs above scientific inquiry, be my guest.”

He considered Dr. Aubrey to be his friend. Nobody else in his life had been privy to his strange thoughts and dark secrets. He didn’t want to end on a sour note. “Are you going home after your team submits the V7 code?” he asked in a bright tone.

“My lab is my home,” she replied curtly and walked away.

DESIGN: PHASE 07

Wary of Ashminov pulling another trick, Raissa held in her palm the tiny devourware chip which he had just printed. “Does it work as we discussed?”

“It eliminates all rules from a nanochip,” Ashminov replied.

“It won’t turn people into Christians?”

He shook his head.

“Any religion?”

“No.”

“Prove it,” she said.

“You don’t believe me?”

She eyed him with suspicion. “Why should I?”

Ashminov asked for the chip back. After inserting it into the trans, he pressed the wand against his forehead and closed his eyes, but he didn't push the button. He lowered the trans. “I can’t kill Jesus. You do it.”

Raissa took the trans. “I’m not killing anyone. I’m making sure you’re telling me the truth.” She pressed the wand against Ashminov’s forehead and engaged the button. Following the beep, the color drained from his cheeks.

“Satisfied?” he said.

Raissa had the evidence she needed and retrieved the devourware chip from the trans.

“May I have the trans? I want to download the Bibleware onto my chip. I felt happy for the first time. Life had a purpose.”

“Download whatever you want.”

Soon, Ashminov’s cheeks were aglow again, and his eyes sparkled.

“It's time to arrange a meeting with Caleb Saunders. He needs to deliver the chip inside the firewall.” Raissa punched in the rebel’s number.

The rebel answered with silence.

“I need the target’s chip ID,” Raissa said.

The rebel gave her the ID in the same low, quiet voice, and they ended the call.

“What if Caleb Saunders doesn’t want to meet you?” Ashminov asked.

Raissa patted her joule. “One way or another, he’s taking the devourware to NanoArtisans.”

Using Caleb’s ID, she sent him a text message. Do you remember me? Raissa. From the concert last night.

Caleb responded at once. Yes!

“An exclamation point,” Ashminov noted. “He remembers you fondly.”

Would you like to practice the viola with me today?

Today?

Raissa, not wanting to appear too eager, counted to five before replying. Yes, in two hours! That’s the only time I have available.

Sure, meet me at the Cambridge Public Library at noon. They have practice rooms.

“A library has too many variables,” she said and replied, Let’s meet at your apartment.

“That’s bold,” Ashminov said.

After a tense pause, Raissa wondered if she had been too bold.

Okay, came his reply.

Caleb, what’s your address? She already knew about the address.

He gave it to her, then added, How did you know my ID?

Raissa ended the session. She had two hours to come up with an answer.

* * *

Caleb stood frozen in the van Rossum lobby. Fortunately,
Raissa was better at finding me than I was at finding her. He’d better get going; she’d be at his place in two hours.

After sending his eButler a command to infuse his apartment with a light scent of eucalyptus to mask any odors emanating from the pile of dirty laundry, he hurried outside.

A fluttering of butterflies in his chest lifted his feet off the pavement, and he floated toward the northwest security gate. Suddenly, he stopped, flooding with fear. I’ll subject her to auditory torture. He told himself to calm down, breathe, think. He had enough time to visit the injection center, get a new chip, then race home to prepare something to play before she arrived—not that practicing would make a big difference now.

The northwest exit was the closest one to the Union Square Injection Center, and he took his place in a long line of scientists waiting to leave, all going home, per Dr. Petrov's edict, to spend quality time with their families. Employees trickled from every campus building, the mass exodus pressing the entire scooter fleet into service. Finally, it was his turn at the retinal scanner, and after the green flash, the paladin guard waved him on. Caleb took long strides through the tunnel.

What? Zoe stood on the other side. Caleb swallowed past a lump in his throat. She never visited NanoArtisans. Something must be wrong. He ran up to her.

She grinned ear-to-ear. “Caleb, I'm going to the genetarium. We have an attribute booth reserved for 9:30. The taxi is waiting.”

A disastrous timeline unfolded in his mind. Zoe and Jack would start the design process for a child, then Jack would have his memory scrubbed, leaving Zoe with a partially designed child.

“Zoe, it’s too soon to design a child.”

She frowned. “Julian has been a carbon tab for over a day.”

His sister had a point. “I have something to tell you about Jack.”

“Jack already told me.”

The air rushed out of Caleb’s lungs. “What did he say?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.” Zoe headed for the waiting taxi.

Caleb checked the time. Plan B. Skip the injection center, dissuade Zoe from designing a child today before they reach the genetarium, then go straight home to practice the viola.

Standing next to the open door of the cab, she drilled him with her bossy-sister stare. “I don’t have all day.”

“Coming.”

On the way to the Newbury Street Genetarium, Caleb estimated they would arrive there in seven minutes. “What did Jack tell you?” he asked, bracing for the words of the terrible deed to roll off Zoe's tongue.

. “Jack used to think you were arrogant. You never question the work you’re doing. You think technology is the answer to everything and that Doctor Petrov is always right.”

“Dr. Petrov is always right,” he replied reflexively.

She rolled her eyes. “Jack has had a change of heart. I guess losing Julian must have made him reflect on family. He told me he loves you for who you are, Caleb. He wants to start fresh and be your friend.”

No surprise. A chip reboot worked wonders. Caleb was only sorry he hadn’t done it sooner. Julian might still be alive.

“Caleb? Will you be Jack’s friend?” Zoe sent him a pleading look.

He looked out the window, pondering his options. Was there a way to spare Jack’s memory and save Zoe's marriage? He could make another appeal to Dr. Joyce. He had new data to present: Jack liked him now.

“You've arrived at your destination,” the taxi announced.

He needed time to sort things out with Dr. Joyce. “Zoe, I want to be Jack's friend, but I think you and Jack should wait until after the V7 transmission.”

“Why?”

He had to stall. “Do you want me to join you?”

“I insist. You are part of the family.”

He grinned. “I have a date, and I can’t be late.”

Zoe’s jaw dropped. “Say that again?”

“You heard me.”

She wagged a finger. “When were you going to mention this?”

“I’m telling you now.”

“So who is she?”

“I met her last night at the concert.”

“And…?”

He shot her an indignant look. “And what?”

Zoe narrowed her eyes. “Tell me about her. It'll be over quicker if you come clean, instead of making me drag it out of you.”

“Fine. Her name is Raissa. She's a viola player visiting from Jerusalem. She was sitting beside me.”

“You mean that girl with the scar?”

“I guess she has a small scar.”

“What time are you meeting her?”

“Noon.”

“We have plenty of time.” Zoe grabbed his hand, opened the door, and pulled him onto the sidewalk. “I want to meet this Raissa someday to see if she’s good enough for my brother.”

* * *

Raissa tucked the joule behind her back and flipped her blouse over to conceal it. “Ashminov, can you see anything?” She raised her arms and turned around.

He gave her the once-over. “Caleb will never suspect you’re a rebel.”

“Stay here until I come back, okay?”

“Where would I go?”

“Promise me you won’t leave the safe house.”

“I promise.”

Can I trust him? No. But she couldn't think of any place he’d go. “I need to get inside the Citadel. Come up with some ideas.” She’d keep him occupied.

“There’s no need to enter the Citadel.”

“How else am I going to kill Petrov?”

He sat down hard on the edge of the bed. “Kill him?”

“Is that news to you?”

The look of confusion in his eyes answered her question. “Ashminov, weren’t you curious about my weapons and explosives?”

He swallowed hard. “There’s no reason to harm Petrov.”

“After chips stop working around the world, you expect him to sit back and do nothing?”

“Everyone can repent.”

“You repent. After I plant the new chip on Caleb Saunders, I’m assassinating Petrov.”

“What about the Collective?”

“What about it?”

“Do you plan to kill them, too?”

“Do I need to?”

He shook his head. “Politicians are clueless; the technologist always has the upper hand.”

“So you agree that I only have to kill Petrov?”

Ashminov’s jaw dropped. “I never said that!”

Raissa pocketed the devourware chip and checked the time. She had to be at Caleb's front door in ninety minutes. “There’s a lot I don’t get about you, and I’m sure there’s a lot about me you don’t understand. Let’s continue the discussion when I get back.”

“Stay put,” she added on her way out the door. “Please.”

* * *

Ashminov looked out the safe house window at Raissa heading down the sidewalk, off to meet Caleb Saunders with her viola, her joule, and the devourware chip. Her weapons of death—a semi-automatic Glock pistol and a belt of high explosives—were on the bed. She had failed to arm herself with the potent weapon: the love of Jesus.

He rehearsed the appeal he would make upon her return. “Petrov has sinned, but salvation for him is around the corner. The Bible counsels us to turn the other cheek.”

That sounded reasonable enough to his ears, but he wasn’t sure she would buy it. The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced she would reject his plea.

He focused on his needs, instead, estimating he had ninety minutes before Raissa returned. Is that enough time? A powerful sensation rumbled deep in his soul, and he ached to visit a former church where the faithful had once sung hymns and uttered the Lord's name in full-throated glory. He had experienced this spiritual longing the first time he'd hosted the Bibleware on his chip, but he had not told her for obvious reasons. She would have taken extreme measures to keep him confined. Yes, he had time. He believed he could make it to a former church and back within an hour.

Beyond the requirement of a speedy round trip, another challenge stood in his way: Could he live with himself after breaking the promise he had made to her? Reasoning that only Christ was perfect and therefore he didn’t have to be, Ashminov looked for former churches on his messenger. He discovered that two were nearby. In Copley Square, four blocks away, an Episcopal Church was now functioning as the International Food Cafetorium, and in Codman Square, six blocks away, the Catholic St. Mary's Cathedral was now a bowladrome. Church-to-bowling-alley conversions were common.

Ashminov headed for the door, but, as he was reaching for the doorknob, he stopped. Corrosive guilt bathed his insides. Deciding to keep his promise to Raissa and stay inside, he made a U-turn, determined to remain on a righteous path.

A moment later, that path led him through the door and down the elevator.

DESIGN: PHASE 08

Inside the genetarium lobby, Caleb kept his eyes glued to the knowledge wall while Zoe was checking in with the receptionist. The screen featured a time-lapse animation of the birthing process. First, Child Builder created a basic profile with DNA from the future parents. Next, the parents enhanced the profile by selecting attributes from a menu. Child Builder then compiled the code egg. In the final step, the genetarium staff implanted the fertilized egg into a human womb where the fetus developed the old-fashioned way. Nine months later, the made-to-order baby saw the light of day.

Zoe stepped away from the receptionist and said, “Booth fifteen.”

They followed the green arrows on the floor to an atrium where twenty-five attribute booths lined the perimeter. A red light indicated if one was in service. Number fifteen had the only green light.

Caleb figured Jack must be inside waiting for them. He’d make his appeal for a delay to both Zoe and Jack. “Before you start the process, I want to talk to you and Jack.”

“Jack’s not coming.” Zoe opened the booth door and stepped inside.

Caleb stopped, confused.

“Caleb, we’re brainstorming with Child Builder. Jack wants you to be here.”

“He said that?”

Zoe narrowed her eyes and expelled air through her nostrils.

Caleb grudgingly stepped in and sat next to her in the front row. Soft yellow light fostered a mood for creating life. “We’re only brainstorming,” he affirmed.

Zoe punched START, and a flashing icon, LOADING PROGRAM, appeared on the screen. “Program ready,” Child Builder said in a maternal tone.

“Builder, access file 888.V2,” Zoe instructed.

Builder replied, “File 888.V2 enabled.”

“What file is that?” Caleb asked.

Zoe looked away. “Core DNA.”

“So you and Jack already started the design process?”

“Caleb, if you want to be late for your date, keep asking me dumb questions.”

He sighed. “Continue.” He supposed it was good news that Zoe and Jack had contributed DNA. It meant Jack was onboard.

“Would you like menu mode or freestyle?” Builder asked.

“Builder, freestyle,” Zoe replied and turned to Caleb. “Girl or boy?”

He dug his fingers into the chair rests. “That is not my decision.”

“Caleb, we’re only manipulating software.”

“Girl.”

“What do you want to call her?”

“Zoe, the code doesn’t belong to me.”

She drummed her fingers.

“Fern. It’s only a working title.”

“Builder, profile 888.V2 has the name Fern,” Zoe said.

“Fern confirmed,” Builder said.

Zoe continued, “Builder, add twenty-five percent randomized DNA from my parents.”

“Digitized DNA from Madeleine and Benjamin Saunders added to Fern’s profile,” Builder reported.

“Your turn,” Zoe said.

Caleb tensed. “I’ve never done this before.”

“Builder, menu mode,” Zoe instructed.

A menu of personality attributes and skills appeared on the screen. Using a roller mouse built into the arm of the chair, Caleb scrolled through the characteristics. Accessible, Active, Admirable, Adventurous, Alert, Allocentric. There were over six hundred options, each with a corresponding filter: low, medium, high.

“Builder, how many skills can I select?” he asked.

“Please choose three,” Child Builder replied.

Zoe nudged him. “See? It’s easy.”

Caleb selected Confident, Friendly, and Optimistic and assigned a medium filter to each attribute. Next, at Zoe’s insistence, he reviewed a list of mental skills. He selected Math, Music, and Art, all with a high filter.

“Shall we describe how Fern looks?” Zoe said. “Builder, physical attributes.”

The outline of a five-year-old girl appeared on screen against a white background. Fern’s hair fell to her shoulders.

“You first,” Zoe said.

“Builder, allow Fern to run fast and jump high.” Fern grew lean, with muscular legs and arms, and her hair braided in two pigtails.

“Builder, give Fern Caleb’s nose.”

Caleb felt like he was looking in the mirror. The Saunders nose would live on in perpetuity.

Zoe jumped in again. “Builder, Fern has green eyes.”

The temperature inside the booth rose—or it might have been the temperature of his blood rising. Fern’s eyes reminded him of Raissa.

“Hi, Daddy,” Fern said, looking out at Caleb from the screen.

Caleb choked. “I’m not your father!”

Zoe chuckled. “Fern isn’t real.”

Caleb reminded himself that Fern was lines of code. Fern wasn’t even a functioning program. It wasn’t a functioning program. “Tell Fern I’m not her father!”

“You tell her.”

“Fern, I’m your Uncle Caleb.”

Fern giggled. “Daddy, don’t be late for your date with Mommy.”

Caleb leaped up and flung the door open to get air. Child Builder needed debugging.

“Builder, we’re done for today,” Zoe said. “Download Fern’s profile to a data stick.” Fern disappeared, and the screen turned blue.

“The genetarium database has triple redundancy,” Caleb said, finding the air outside the booth to be as oppressively hot as inside. “You don’t need Fern on a stick.”

Zoe gave him the strangest look. She seemed deeply troubled and happy at the same time. “Caleb, I want to make sure Fern is safe.”

Despite a few hiccups in Fern’s code and Builder’s functionality, the child had touched his heart. “I want her to be safe, too.”

“Thank you joining me,” Zoe said. “Don’t be late for your date.”

“With Mommy. . .” Fern’s words echoed in Caleb’s mind as he jogged outside to hail a taxi.

* * *

Raissa stood before Caleb Saunders’ apartment, clutching her viola case and looking up at the grey triple-decker with white trim. She knew it well from the satellite images. He lived on the third floor. She was an hour early.

The house sat on a hill, and she had a good view of the Boston skyline, three kilometers away. Four dense clusters of blimps hovered at low altitude, a sight she had never seen before. If she could execute her plan and plant the devourware on Caleb, the sky might someday be a place where the only floating objects were clouds. But if I fail?

The negative thought died in a fountain of icy tingles from her chest.

She walked up to the front porch and picked up a small package outside the door, addressed to Caleb from an aromatarium. Bringing the box to her nose, she recognized the scent at once. Sandalwood perfume, the same scent she was wearing. A coincidence?

She rang the bell. When nobody answered, she walked around the corner to a small café, bought tea, and sat a table by the window so she could keep an eye on the street in both directions. The view included an enlightenment wall. President Murtowsky, on a ship off the coast of Argentina, was pointing out a pod of whales. The next episode featured Collective Member Andropov observing a family of polar bears frolicking on a pristine snowfield.

Petrov suddenly appeared. The transition was jarring. He sat next to the stream in his garden. She engaged her cochlear speaker.

“Behold, Eve, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, and now, he might stretch out his hand, and also take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.”

Troubled that Petrov had mentioned Eve twice before and this was the second time he had spoken nonsense, she killed the speaker and returned to Caleb’s apartment. The perfume was gone.

She climbed the porch steps, set her viola down, and put the devourware chip on the tip of her right forefinger. She pushed the doorbell with her pinky.

Caleb appeared within seconds. “Hi.”

Had he been waiting for me on the other side of the door? She extended her hand. “Hi.”

He took her hand, and they shook. Raissa slid her finger forward and embedded the chip in his wrist. Step one. Now she had to ensure he would transfer the devourware to NanoArtisans. “What time are you returning to work?”

“Dr. Petrov is giving us the day off to celebrate Version 7.”

“Oh.” Raissa scrambled for a new plan, briefly considering the idea of marching him to NanoArtisans at gunpoint. “Has the transmission started?” A tone of alarm put a crack in her cheery veneer.

“Not yet.”

She cast caution aside. “What time will it begin?”

“They’ll send the code to the Citadel by 1:00 p.m.”

“At one or by one?”

“If I know Dr. Aubrey, she’ll wait until the last second. Would you like to come inside?”

“I'd love to.” She picked up her instrument and followed him up the stairs. A glance at her messenger informed her she had one hour and 15 minutes to deliver the devourware inside NanoArtisans.

His apartment had a pleasant odor: a minty, pine scent with a trace of honey. Caleb closed the door. “Would you like something to drink?”

“Tea?”

“Sure.” He ambled to the kitchen.

Raissa set her viola on the floor and sat at the dining room table where she faced a framed photo of Petrov on a coffee table in the adjoining living room.

“Adam is quite thoughtful.” Petrov's words rolled off his thin static lips. “He researched popular teas in Jerusalem. Expect jasmine.”

Raissa lurched forward, hoping she was losing her mind because the alternative was even more frightening.

Caleb lived a Spartan existence, which she already knew from the Boston rebel's intel. Furnishings included two easy chairs, a coffee table, dining room table with two more chairs, and a single lamp. His viola and a music stand occupied one corner of the room. A hardcover book sat on the windowsill. Raissa hadn’t seen one in years. The memory wall featured a swaddled infant. Unlike most memory walls, which scrolled images at timed intervals, the child's picture remained fixed. It felt like a third person was in the apartment—or a fourth if you counted Petrov.

Caleb emerged from the kitchen with an awkward smile and a bottle of perfume which he set on the table. “I got it for you.”

Alarmed, she read the label and exclaimed, “I love sandalwood.”

Raissa listened in horror as he explained how, after the concert, he had analyzed her scent with a spectrometer. What else had he investigated?

“Do you restore antique cars?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“The analyzer detected dioctyl sebacate.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t feel bad. I didn’t know, either. It’s an oily, colorless liquid used in plastic explosives and automobile brake fluid.”

“Oh yes, that dioctyl sebacate. I handle plastic explosives all the time.” Raissa burst out laughing.

Caleb cocked his head and stared at her for a long moment. “Is your chip functioning?”

“Caleb, I’m joking. Thank you for the perfume. You’re sweet.”

His face flushed pink.

To steer the conversation further away from plastic explosives, she gestured to the book on the sill. “You read words on paper?”

He nodded. “It forces you to slow down and enjoy the story. My dad used to read Charlotte’s Web to me at bedtime.” He handed her the book.

The cover was worn and faded, and Raissa flipped the pages. Imagining Caleb’s dad sitting by Caleb’s bed and reading to him filled her with warmth. “What’s it about?”

“A little girl, Fern, owns a pig named Wilbur. A spider named Charlotte saves Wilbur from being butchered. Then Wilbur saves Charlotte’s babies. Do you have a favorite story?”

“Pride and Prejudice. Jane Austen wrote it two hundred and fifty years ago. Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are the main characters. Mr. Darcy falls in love with Elizabeth, but she doesn’t love him.”

“How does it end?”

Raissa winked. “Read it and find out. Caleb, I’d love to see where you work.” It was a bold approach and a massive gamble, but she didn't have time for literary discussions.

“Sure, we can walk by the campus.”

“Can you take me inside?” She held her breath, worried he would become suspicious.

“I would need to get you clearance from a director, but everyone has gone home to spend time with their families.”

Raissa reached behind her back, again poised to march him to NanoArtisans at gunpoint. “Everyone?”

Caleb's face brightened. “Dr. Aubrey.” Then a frown followed. “I don’t think she’s happy with me.” He nodded to himself. “Actually, I never checked into the injection center. It doesn’t hurt to ask.” He closed his eyes and kept them closed until Raissa heard a text message come through. Caleb accessed his messenger and broke out into a smile. “We’re all set. Dr. Aubrey has issued you a visitor’s code.”

Weird, but all that mattered to Raissa was that she was a step closer to delivering the devourware inside the NanoArtisans firewall.

The teapot whistled, and Caleb jumped up. He disappeared into the kitchen. Soon he returned with two mugs of tea. “Do you like jasmine? I hear it's popular in Jerusalem.”

Raissa's blood turned cold. “My favorite.” She gestured to the memory wall, wanting to look anywhere but Petrov’s photo. “Who’s that?”

Caleb’s lower lip trembled. “My nephew, Julian.”

“He's adorable.”

Caleb's eyes were glassy with tears. “He died yesterday.”

She studied his face. Crying has become almost extinct in the age of the chip, and yet someone who works at NanoArtisans is shedding tears. “How did it happen?”

He looked away, blinking hard. “I’d rather not say.”

She took his hand, paying careful attention to where she had planted the chip. Expressing sorrow advertised that her chip was inoperable, but Raissa didn't care—this was the human thing to do. “I'm sorry to hear about Julian.”

He gathered himself together a little. “Thanks. Everyone else wants to know if my sister's gone to the genetarium yet.”

“I know what it’s like to lose someone close.”

Caleb dragged a sleeve across his wet cheeks. “Who?”

“My baby brother, Farouk. And my mom and dad. It happened a long time ago, but it still makes me sad.”

“You get sad?”

“Sometimes.”

“You should get a chip refresh. That will fix you.”

“I don’t need a chip in my brain to tell me how I should feel!” She had failed to scrub the anger from her tone. She reminded herself that Caleb might hurt inside, but he was still the enemy. “Music makes me happy,” she added with a forced smile and in a sweeter voice.

He jumped up. “I want you to be happy. Let’s play together before we go to NanoArtisans.”

Grinning through gritted teeth, Raissa checked her messenger. The V7 upload would happen in fifty-five minutes. They had enough time to play one short piece. “I’d love to,” she said, reaching for her viola.

* * *

To be on the safe side, Ashminov thought he had thirty minutes before Raissa returned. If he wanted to push it, he might have forty. But it was all for naught unless he moved.

Drawn by opposing forces, he stood on the sidewalk in front of the safe house. The International Food Cafetorium called out to him to go in one direction. His promise to Raissa compelled him to go back inside. The tug and pull immobilized him.

He struck a bargain. He set a messenger alarm to ring in thirty minutes. No matter where he was, he would return to the safe house when it sounded.

Wishing to avoid another experience of riding aimlessly around Boston in a taxi, he committed the safe house address to memory and then joined the flow of pedestrians heading down Beacon Street. He chose the former Episcopalian church in Copley Square over the old Catholic Church in Codman Square because it was closer.

Three blocks from the safe house and a block away from Copley Square, tendrils of rose scent spiraled up his nostrils. Did someone die? Did many people die? The odor was thick.

The street darkened, and Ashminov lifted his eyes, surprised to see blimps blocking the sun, like a storm front moving in. Sirens wailed nearby.

As he rounded the corner onto Dartmouth Street, paladin emergency vehicles whizzed by. Uneasy, he turned onto Boylston and had his first view of Copley Square. He recoiled. Thousands of bodies covered the ground: men, women, boys, girls: all shades of white, brown, and ochre. Most victims wore contorted facial expressions, suggesting they had experienced pain and suffering in their final minutes. Hovering about the carnage was a blimp, releasing a spray of rose oil.

Not everyone was dead as evidenced by weak groans and cries for help. As Ashminov got closer, he could see corpses piled two and three deep, and on the steps of the Cafetorium, they appeared to be at least five deep. A mad scramble to enter the former church had occurred, he thought, even as people were dropping dead.

Around the square, teams of paladins, moving with purpose and fixed smiles, were loading corpses into emergency vehicles. None of the paladins paid any attention to the small number of victims still alive.

Stepping closer to the carnage, Ashminov noted bloated limbs, and sweat glistening on the faces of the dead, symptoms of ricin poisoning.

“Friend, what is going on?” a man nearby asked another bystander. Ashminov stepped closer to glean what he could.

“One minute all those people were singing and holding hands,” came the reply. “Some of them were pushing their way to the Cafetorium, but they all seemed happy. The next minute they were wailing and twisting on the ground in agony. Not long after that, they were dead—most, anyway.”

Part of Ashminov wished he were among the dead. There was only one explanation for the slaughter, and, indirectly, he bore responsibility. Petrov had modified his Bibleware code, turning it into a lethal weapon.

He fell to his knees, ready to pray for the dead and for all the future souls that Petrov might smite. Ashminov’s messenger pinged. His thirty minutes were up.

Reeling, he stumbled back to the safe house and rode the elevator. Once inside, he printed a new devourware chip, which he popped into the trans. Bowing his head, he spoke aloud the cautionary words of Matthew 24:24: “For false messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and wonders to deceive.” Christ was pumping love through his veins, but he could not love Jesus and murder Petrov at the same time. They were incompatible urges. He brought the trans wand to his forehead and engaged the transmission. Following the beep, he felt his spirits sinking, and he was alone again.

Alone in the valley of the shadow of death, but more determined than ever to destroy the transmission server and kill Petrov.

He and Raissa were a team now, and it no longer made sense for her to embed a devourware chip on Caleb Saunders. He reached for his messenger.

* * *

Playing Vivaldi’s “Concerto for Viola d’amore in D Major,” Caleb kept one eye on the score and the other on Raissa. That she knew his favorite piece of music by heart was a remarkable coincidence.

Raissa was not technically proficient. As a five-year-old, Caleb could have played circles around her, but the music she made communicated her feelings to him in ways that words could not. In the notes, he saw her shifting emotions as if they were colors, the bright red of anger and yellow of joy. Sadness and sorrow were shades of black and brown. How does her chip allow her to have such unproductive emotions?

Her messenger rang, and her eyes widened with concern. She put down her viola, and he stopped playing, too. “Excuse me,” she said. “It’s my uncle. Please continue.” She stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Reluctantly, Caleb returned the viola to the crook of his neck. He closed his eyes, drew the bow back, and played. The sounds entering his ears did not match the beauty of the Vivaldi concerto in his mind. Lost in the notes, he soared ever higher with the melody. He remembered playing this freely as a boy before Dr. Petrov had downloaded an M-code patch to his chip.

When Raissa came out of the bathroom, he put down the bow, stepping away from his inner world of joy. Her expression troubled him. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Yes, fine.”

“Is your uncle okay?”

She gave a little nod, her thoughts seeming far away. “I’m sorry, but I have to leave now.”

He set down the viola before it dropped from his sweaty hands. “If it’s the way I play, I don’t blame you.”

“Caleb, you play beautifully.”

“Nobody could describe those screeching sounds like that.”

She stepped toward him. “You heard the music inside your head. That’s what I listened to.”

Caleb’s heart stopped. It quivered to life. Then it broke away and lodged in the base of his throat, beating wildly. Unable to breathe and suffocating in a flood of warmth, he anchored himself in her green eyes to keep himself from crumpling to the floor. “What about that tour of NanoArtisans? It will improve your spirits.”

“I can’t go.”

“Do you want to go tomorrow?”

“I’m sorry, no.”

Caleb revisited the inventory of his poor decision-making. I should have put a happy picture on the memory wall. What if I had served green tea instead of jasmine? Why hadn’t I laughed at her joke about the explosives? Perhaps the eucalyptus scent alerted her that I was trying to mask an odor of dirty laundry. I should have spared her the torture of hearing me play the viola.

“Raissa, when can I see you again?”

She lowered her eyes and walked to the door. “Goodbye, Caleb.”

“Wait! You forgot your viola.”

She opened the door, not acknowledging him. She was leaving her perfume, too. “Raissa, I like you a lot!”

* * *

Raissa, her hand on the knob, stopped cold. No boy had ever told her that. Caleb had a chip, yet he was staring at her without a hint of pain. He likes me, scar and all.

Ashminov had urged her to return to the safe house at once, without offering an explanation.

Caleb approached her with open arms. To her shock, he kept coming and wrapped his arms around her. A torrent of confusion buffeted her as she felt his heart pounding. She raised her arms and curled them around his waist. At first, her arms were stiff and tense, but then they softened and molded to his contours.

Ashminov can wait.

Looking into her eyes, Caleb brought his hands to the back of her head and weaved his fingers through her hair. Mimicking his action, she ran her fingers through his hair. He closed his eyes, parted his lips, and moved his face closer to hers. She turned her head and pressed her cheek against his chest.

His hands moved further down her back and pulled her closer still.

She lifted her chin and parted her lips, ready for her first kiss ever.

Suddenly, Caleb jumped back, glaring at her with a pinched brow. “Why do you have a joule?” he cried.

She bolted through the door.

* * *

As Caleb watched Raissa fly down the stairs and out of his life, it felt as if a bomb had exploded in his head. What if I’m wrong? No, I've handled enough joules. Every security paladin removed their joule before he took their vitals. Raissa has to be a rebel.

She had too many strange questions, strange requests. Her keen interest in the V7 transmission. Her desire to tour the campus. I'm lucky I discovered the weapon. Who knows what might have happened if I escorted a rebel onto the campus?

The pieces fell into place, starting with the unusual data he had discovered in the spectrometer lab. Raissa was no hobbyist who worked on antique automobiles. The dioctyl sebacate on her hand had come from plastic explosives.

With a sinking heart, he considered the circumstances of meeting her at Symphony Hall. Jack had purchased the ticket, placing Raissa next to him. Is Jack a rebel too? He wondered if it was Jack who had called her, and not her uncle. Did Raissa know that Jack had poisoned Julian? Was it part of a larger plot? How had Raissa been able to lie?

“Messenger, contact security.”

Security came on the line. “Please state your issue.”

“This is Dr. Caleb Saunders. I want to report a rebel.”

“Do you have the rebel's ID?”

Caleb stared at the bottle of sandalwood perfume on the table. He lingered over the mug of tea Raissa's lips had touched. Her viola, which she had played with so much emotion, was in the corner next to his.

“Dr. Saunders, can you describe the rebel? Male or female?”

Caleb swallowed. “Female.”

“Please describe her, Dr. Saunders.”

He disengaged the call and crept to his bedroom where he removed his readers from a drawer next to the bed. He put them on and sat down hard in a chair. “Readers, access the novel Pride and Prejudice.”

* * *

Angry at herself for letting her guard down with Caleb, Raissa climbed out of the taxi and sprinted up the safe house steps. Now that he had discovered her weapon, he’d report her to security; a challenging task had just become nearly impossible.

Ashminov slumped on the couch. He had lost his glow. “Caleb discovered I was armed,” she told him.

He sat up but otherwise showed little concern. His face was blank, and he spoke with a strangled voice as he described his horrific trip to Copley Square.

Her heart tumbled into a cold void. “Children died, too?”

“People of all ages. Petrov was testing a weapon.”

“A weapon?”

“Ricinware melts chips.”

“Ashminov, stop! What is ricinware?”

“It’s malware that creates an infinite software loop. The instructions repeat until the heat generated by molecular friction releases the ricin.”

She sat beside him and jostled his knee. He looked as distraught as she felt, and they needed to give each other strength. “How do you know Petrov did it?”

“He understands the basics of M-code. He was able to modify my Bibleware.”

She gasped. “He knows about the Bibleware?”

Ashminov nodded. “I’m afraid he knows everything. Prince on the enlightenment wall? That was no coincidence. Petrov was sending me a message.”

Raissa jumped up and paced, in part to dissolve her sudden agitation at Ashminov. “Were you going to tell me?”

He dropped his chin to his chest.

She sat next to him again. “Listen, that’s in the past. We have to focus on the present. How did Petrov find out about the Bibleware?”

He shrugged.

“If he knew about that,” she added, “he probably knows about us, about this safe house, about my plan to kill him.”

“Our plan to kill him,” Ashminov replied. “I deleted the Bibleware from my chip.”

That explains a lot.

“Before you went to Copley Square?”

He shook his head. “After.”

“What’s special about Copley Square?” she asked.

“There’s a former church there. Petrov must have transmitted Bibleware to a test group, and, after they flocked there, he hit them with ricinware.”

“Shouldn’t you be dead?” Raissa asked.

“I promised you I’d stay here. My internal struggle delayed me.”

“Why does Petrov need a weapon?” she asked. “He already controls everyone’s behavior. He’ll soon know everyone’s thoughts.”

Another shrug.

A chill burrowed deep into Raissa’s bones as she recalled the mob in the North End. “Do you think Petrov tested the weapon at more than one location?”

“It’s possible. Petrov values data.”

She told him about her experience earlier in Boston’s Italian section.

“What tourist site?” Ashminov asked. “I visited every attraction in the city two or three times.”

“Something to do with a Revolutionary War hero in 1775—Paul Revere.”

He consulted his messenger. “Two men lit a lantern in the steeple of The Old North Church in 1775 to signal to Paul Revere that invaders were coming by land.”

“That’s it,” she said, now fearing the boy she had saved from getting trampled had since died of ricinware.

Ashminov accessed his messenger and after a moment passed it to her. “This vista cam is on the Prudential Building, pointing toward the North End.”

The flashing lights of emergency vehicles on the ground and a dense gathering of blimps overhead delivered the answer she dreaded most.

* * *

Caleb stared in horror at his mindport. Something had gone tragically wrong at the three locations where crowds had gathered. Dr. Aubrey had called and told him to tune into the briefing channel.

In the North End, thousands of corpses covered a section of Hanover Street and the courtyard that led to the Old North Church. He muted his cochlear speaker because the blimp's microphone was picking up sporadic cries and groans. In Copley Square, a carpet of dead bodies stretched from the doors of the International Food Cafetorium, fanning out across the entire square. The victims wore twisted expressions as if they had died in horrible pain. It reminded Caleb of a documentary he'd seen on mustard gas during World War I.

The scene was similar at St. Mary’s Bowladrome in Codman Square: thousands of corpses with contorted expressions sprawled on the ground. Another location, Timilty Square, had as many victims, but their expressions mirrored the placid looks they had carried in life.

Caleb's messenger rang. Dr. Aubrey again. “I’ve seen the locations,” he said.

“Dr. Joyce and I are in her lab. We’d like you to procure several victims and bring them to us. We want to analyze their chips.”

“Submit a ticket,” he suggested. “Paladins will bring the corpses straight to campus, rather than to the hospital.”

“Caleb, something odd is going on. Paladins are taking the bodies directly to the solartarium for cremation.”

“I’ll look into it.”

“One way or another, can we count on you to deliver bodies to the lab?”

“I’ve got this, Dr. Aubrey.”

“Thank you. Caleb, I want to apologize for snapping at you earlier.”

Under the circumstances, Caleb’s spreading smile felt out of place. “I understand completely. By the way, I still have my beta chip.”

“Good, I’ll keep an eye on you.”

After he ended the call, Caleb opened the paladin developer notes, looking for a clue that would explain the atypical paladin behavior. Sure enough, a global update, titled ‘Carbon Tabs’ had been issued three hours ago. “If a paladin finds a corpse, he or she will bypass the autopsy procedure and take the body straight to a solartarium.” He breathed easier when he saw that Dr. Petrov was the author of the update.

Caleb hurried outside, hailed a taxi, and hopped into the back. At Copley Square, he’d get a team of paladins to assist him. His team would load up an emergency vehicle with a corpse from each site and head straight to Dr. Joyce’s lab.

“Taxi, Copley Square.”

“Copley Square is off limits for the next fifty-two minutes,” the taxi replied.

He flashed his badge. “Taxi, override security.”

“Override denied, Dr. Saunders.”

“Taxi, take me to the North End.”

“The North End is off limits for the next twenty-seven minutes.”

“Taxi, override security.”

“Override denied, Dr. Saunders.”

Caleb understood the restrictions. Paladin first-responders didn’t need gawkers getting in the way. But he was no gawker, and he made a mental note to submit a request to review taxi security protocols after the dust settled. “Taxi, take me to the Arlington Solartarium.”

Two blocks from the solartarium, the scent of roses wafted through the cab's vents, and he fought the urge to gag. He had worked at the solartarium as a 14-year-old intern the summer after graduating from MIT, and even the thought of roses made him sick to this day.

The facility came into view. A long line of emergency vehicles snaked through the gate. Caleb cursed, then said, “Taxi, stop here.”

He had planned to back up to the dock and load corpses into the trunk. Then a better solution presented itself. Before a body entered the solar oven, the chip was extracted from the brain and sealed in a Pyrex tube. He’d collect hundreds for his colleagues.

He received a text message from Dr. Aubrey. Excellent idea.

Feeling less alone, he stepped out of the taxi and jogged for the solitarium grounds.

The facility, which could produce up to fifty thousand carbon tabs per hour, was running full tilt. Ten vehicles at a time offloaded their cargo. At the transfer dock, he watched a claw pluck a carbonite cocoon. Flexible titanium fingers popped the lid and delicately extracted an elderly gentleman with a twisted face. A second claw peeled away the man's shoes, his salmon-colored blazer, and the rest of his garments. This mechanical hand then placed the body on a conveyor belt.

Before chip extraction, each corpse underwent a battery of tests: bone density, skin elasticity, blood work, sonograms, ultrasounds, and more. Caleb skipped the testing stations and marched straight to the extractor where a laser drill opened a hole in the skull so a suction device could retrieve the chip. He grew concerned. None of the corpses emerging from the extractor had red dots on their foreheads.

“Conveyor, stop.”

The conveyor continued delivering corpses into the oven.

“Conveyor, debug.”

“Debug disabled,” the conveyor replied.

Whoever had disabled debug would have a lot of questions to answer. He eyed the emergency stop switch, which would shut down the entire solartarium. He'd have hell to pay unless he could convince the higher-ups he was trying to save chips for archival. He lifted the shield that protected the switch. Dr. Aubrey, I need you in my corner for what I’m about to do.

He waited for her to send him a text message. When none came, he mashed the red button with his palm.

An Asian woman, looking as if she had died mid-scream, rolled past him, followed by a male teen with an equally horrible expression, then a middle-aged woman, who had also apparently died in horrific pain.

With dread, Caleb pondered his options. He could drag corpses off the moving belt to the waiting taxi one at a time. That will take hours. He raced to a first-aid kit on the wall and found a laser scalpel. Returning to the conveyor, he zeroed in on a middle-aged man with a big grin coming his way.

Igniting the scalpel blade, Caleb watched the man roll by him and into the oven.

He couldn’t do it. Yes, I can! Two senior researchers at NanoArtisans were entrusting him, the youngest employee, to assist them in their scientific inquiry. The next specimen was a woman wearing a waxy mask of happiness. He grabbed a handful of blue hair and sliced her head off at the neck. The liquid crunch and the sudden weight of her head in his hand startled him. Dr. Aubrey, can you make do with just one chip?

Five chips minimum came her reply on his messenger.

DESIGN: PHASE 09

Raissa was arranging her arsenal on the bed when Ashminov walked over and picked up the Glock. “It's loaded,” she cried, her heart jumping into her throat. She would not put it past him to shoot her accidentally with a lead slug.

He popped out the ammo clip and twirled the weapon with his finger hooked into the trigger guard. With the expertise of a marksman, he rammed the clip home, lowered himself into a shooting stance, and squeezed off an imaginary round at a squirrel sitting on a branch outside the window. “Bang.”

“How’d you learn to do that?” she asked, more impressed than shocked.

“My mother was a captain in Bulgarian intelligence, and my father was an army colonel. They taught me how to fire an AK-47 before the age of ten. Target practice was one of the few times the Captain and Colonel showed any affection toward their children.” He tossed the Glock on the bed and sat beside it. “I blame them for the way I turned out, and I’d love to tell them so, but they’ve been dead for twenty years.”

The sad, fleeting glimpse into Ashminov’s childhood helped to explain his behavior. “For good or bad, parents live inside you forever. I lost mine when I was young.”

“What happened?”

“My mother was a rebel. Security destroyed our home with a missile. It killed my parents and baby brother.”

“Baby Brother,” Ashminov whispered and stared into space.

They remained silent for a long time.

“Something’s been bothering me,” she said. “Right before I flew to Boston, one of my trainers, Goldstein, killed my great-uncle, and smiled afterward.”

“Perhaps he hid his pain.”

She shook her head. “Goldstein is tough, but not that tough.”

Ashminov paced. “Baldini let the Pope suffocate. In my mind, that’s murder. He boasted about it.”

“Could someone have modified their chips to let them kill without experiencing punishment?”

His brow crinkled. “Only two people in the world understand M-code, and you're looking at one.”

“What if Petrov altered Goldstein’s and Baldini’s chips?”

“For what purpose?”

Raissa shrugged. “I can't put my finger on it, but I feel like I’m being manipulated, as if someone is controlling me like a puppet.”

“Baldini contacted me five years ago, wanting me to develop devourware. I always wondered how he knew to come to me.”

“Why didn’t you ask him?”

“The thrill of developing devourware clouded my judgment. I looked the other way.”

“That's what happened to me in Caleb’s apartment,” she said. “My desire clouded my judgment.”

“Raissa, I guess you’re human.”

She smiled. “You sound disappointed?”

“You are the toughest, most confident person I’ve ever met,” he said.

“I fake it.”

“Do you ever get afraid?”

“All the time,” she admitted.

“Do you have self-doubts?”

“Yes.” She squeezed his arm. “Ashminov, believe in yourself.”

“Do you believe in me?”

She hesitated. “Most of the time.”

He sat on the bed. “We can’t trust the Boston rebel.”

“The rebel is a key member of the mission.”

“The rebel killed a child to get a chip ID for my devourware.”

Bile pooled in the back of Raissa’s throat. “Caleb’s nephew died two days ago.”

Ashminov’s head flopped forward, and he grunted.

“I trust Caleb,” she said.

When he looked up, his eyes were wet. “Every NanoArtisans employee believes Petrov is God.”

“I think Petrov is using him just like he’s using us.”

“You like Caleb,” Ashminov said.

Since the missile strike had killed her parents and Farouk, Raissa had learned how to lock away the feelings she didn’t want to face. Otherwise, they would overwhelm her. She’d put them into a box, close the lid, and throw the box into the deep waters of her mind.

She did that now and picked up the Glock. “How are we going to get inside the Citadel? The wall is a hundred meters tall. It has sonic cannons and laser weapons on top. If there’s an entrance, I didn’t see it, and I’m sure there are hundreds of security paladins patrolling the grounds. If we make it inside and avoid the paladins, we’ll get lost in Petrov’s garden.”

“We don’t have to get inside the Citadel,” Ashminov said.

She rolled her eyes. “Right! Petrov will saunter outside so we can kill him.”

“We’ll let paladins do the dirty work for us.”

“Paladins will kill Petrov?” Raissa demanded.

Ashminov nodded. “After we transmit Hadesware to their chips.”

Hadesware, he explained, was malware based on another M-code module he had written, lionware.

“Stop. Lionware?”

“Let's run through the variations of malware,” he said. “Bibleware is—”

“Skip that.”

“Ricinware—”

“Skip.”

“I developed two versions of lionware,” Ashminov continued. “When you see a beautiful sunset, it stimulates certain neurons. Lionware Version 1 stimulates those same neurons when an individual sees a lion.”

“Why would you develop that?”

Ignoring her question, he said, “Lionware Version 2 generates a different response toward lions.”

“What type of response?”

“Lust.”

“Ashminov, you’re not making any sense.”

“Hadesware will build on the lionware code. At the sight of Petrov, the code will fire impulses into the part of the brain where murderous impulses lurk.”

She leaned forward. “If we transmit Hadesware to a paladin, that paladin will want to murder Petrov?”

“Savagely,” he replied.

Crazy or not, it was the only plan they had, and she followed Ashminov to his mindport. Her optimism, on life support a moment earlier, was now lighting up her mind with fireworks. Looking over his shoulder, she plotted how they would subdue a paladin so that they could infect the paladin with Hadesware using the trans. They would jump as many paladins as possible and hope that one or more of them had the method and means to make it inside the Citadel.

On the mindport screen, hundreds of images of Petrov flashed by. The montage chronicled his life. “We need lots of pictures,” Ashminov explained. “He might have changed his look By including all these images, it will increase the chances of the paladins getting the right guy.”

One photograph stood out. Petrov, about six, sat in a church pew with his legs dangling. His eyes showed fear.

“Petrov attended church?” Raissa asked.

Ashminov nodded. “St. Mary’s in Sofia.”

“He looks afraid.”

“The sisters could sometimes be rough, but one priest seemed to put him on edge. Father Borisov. We called him Father Gorilla behind his back because he was so hairy.”

“Ashminov, how do you know Petrov so well?”

“We were in Catholic school together.”

“That’s where you met him?”

“I need to concentrate,” he told her.

He pulled up a schematic of a human brain, and, in the search field, entered the terms “murder,” “violence,” “rage,” and “bloodlust.”

Raissa pressed him. “You and Petrov were friends?”

“We shared a few things in common. I turned him on to the music I liked.”

“Prince?”

Ashminov was staring at the screen, but Raissa sensed his attention was on her line of questions

“Yes, Prince,” he said finally.

“What else?”

“We shared a love of nature.”

“With the chip,” Raissa said, “Petrov saved the environment.”

Ashminov snapped his head around. Until now, she had seen mostly confusion and doubt in his eyes. Fleeting flashes of confidence had coincided with his usage of tryp. Now she saw something new: white-hot rage. “That’s right,” he said. “M-code saved the environment. I invented M-code. Nicholas stole it from me.” Still seething, Ashminov brought up a screen of strange symbols and numbers.

“Why did he steal your M-code?” she asked.

“I don’t know. When paladins kill Petrov, the answer will die with him. I can live with that.” In a moment, he leaned back. “Done. Petrov turned M-code into a weapon. Now I’m turning the weapon on him.”

“Are you going to burn a chip for the trans?”

“And chase down paladins one at a time? No, we'll transmit Hadesware to hundreds at once.”

“How are we going to do that?”

“I need access to the blimp transmission app from inside the NanoArtisans firewall.”

“We work with Caleb?”

Ashminov nodded. “Either that, or we’ll have to shoot our way in.”

“I prefer the former.” The tightness in Raissa’s chest—was it a spasm of dread, her heart fluttering, or a little of both?

DESIGN: PHASE 10

Caleb tried to focus on Dr. Joyce’s mindport, but the five heads lined up to his right unnerved him. He shifted to his right, using Dr. Aubrey to block his view. Dr. Joyce, seated before the monitor, had removed the chips from the victims and slotted them into a neutrino microscope, about to display the first magnified chip.

They all gasped when the image of the chip, magnified fifty thousand times, appeared. A typical chip featured rows of titanium circuitry. Three angstroms separated the rows. Now it looked like a hardened puddle of titanium.

“No wonder the ricin released,” Dr. Aubrey exclaimed. “The chip overheated.”

“The software might have triggered the failure,” Caleb offered.

“How could that happen?” Dr. Joyce asked.

None of them had an answer. They examined the other chips. All were the same. Tiny puddles of titanium.

“We should send the results to Dr. Petrov,” Dr. Joyce suggested.

“You know what Dr. Petrov thinks of sloppy science,” Dr. Aubrey said. “We need a bigger sample size.”

The two scientists turned to Caleb. In his throat was a lump formed of rose scent and laser knives. He choked as he swallowed past it. “I’m sorry, but I can’t go back to the solartarium.”

Dr. Joyce piped up. “Fieldwork is an acquired taste. I'll go.”

“I’ll join you,” Dr. Aubrey added.

In a moment, his colleagues had left him alone in the lab. He received a text message from Zoe.

Come to my house ASAP. It’s urgent.

What’s wrong?

Jack is scaring me.

Caleb’s pulse quickened. I’ll send security.

NO!!!!!!

Why is Jack scaring you?

Please, Caleb. I need you. You’ll know what to do. Hurry.

The conversation ended. Caleb called her, but Zoe had set her messenger to “Do Not Disturb.”

He dashed out of the lab.

DESIGN: PHASE 11

In Zoe and Jack’s bedroom, Raissa pressed her ear against the door. Ashminov, who had brought the Hadesware on a data stick, stood beside her, with the weapon satchel at their feet. The rebel had insisted that ambushing Caleb was their only option. She kept her finger on the joule’s discharger, hoping she wouldn’t have to use it.

She heard the front door open.

“Where's Jack?” Caleb was out of breath.

“Jack’s on his way,” Zoe replied in a shaky voice.

Raissa pictured the sister on the couch looking up at her troubled brother. Love and betrayal are a toxic mix. Was Zoe perspiring? Or was she as ruthless as Goldstein and Mustafa.

“Did he hurt you?” Caleb asked.

“Caleb, sit down.”

Raissa raised the joule and shot a glance to Ashminov. Get ready. He nodded.

“What did Jack do?” Caleb demanded.

“Caleb, sit beside me. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Hurt? Jack wants to hurt me, too?”

“Please,” Zoe pleaded.

“I’m calling security,” Caleb said. “There are things you don’t know about your husband. Things that will be difficult for you to hear.”

Raissa flung the door open, stepped out of the bedroom, and aimed her joule at Caleb. His face cycled through a kaleidoscope of expressions. Shock. Rage. Wide-eyed fascination. He settled on a cold stare. Her emotions cycled through confusion and more confusion. “Give me your messenger.”

Caleb’s eyes flicked to the joule. “Are you going to shoot me?”

“If I have to.” She double-checked the setting to make sure it was on stun.

“You think you can shoot me without being punished?”

“Caleb, my chip stopped functioning a long time ago.”

He stepped forward. “Put down the joule.”

Caleb posed no physical threat, but he would unleash fire and fury if he called security on his messenger.

Just then, Ashminov stepped out of the bedroom with the weapons. He set the bag on the floor.

“Another rebel?” Caleb spat the words with disgust.

Raissa snatched the messenger out of his hand. “Caleb, we need your help.”

“Funny way to ask.” He turned to Zoe. “Did they hurt you?”

“Please listen to them,” Zoe replied.

Raissa’s neck muscles knotted tighter. The Boston rebel sickened her.

“Don’t worry, I’ll handle this,” Caleb said in a gentle tone. Then he glared at Raissa with hatred in his eyes. “I should have reported you to security the minute I discovered you had a joule.” The tone was a mismatch for the hard stare; doubt and confusion, not hatred, colored his words.

Raissa’s thoughts scrambled. He never reported me? “Please, sit,” she said in a pinched voice.

Thankfully, Caleb sat on the couch beside Zoe. He jostled her arm. “We’ll be all right. There’s nothing they can do to hurt us.”

Raissa lowered the joule. “Petrov has developed a weapon, and Ashminov and I are trying to stop him from killing more people.”

Caleb scoffed. “Dr. Petrov would never develop a weapon!”

She had expected that response. “He’s already used it. Thousands of innocent people died in Copley Square and the North End. Caleb, I know it's hard for you to think about Petrov rationally, but look around the city. What do you think happened?”

He stared into space for a long moment. “Dr. Petrov has saved hundreds of millions of lives. He stopped wars and cleaned up pollution. A new day is upon us because of his efforts.”

Raissa sighed. The moment of moving him forcibly was fast approaching. “Explain the weapon,” she said to Ashminov.

“Petrov wrote malware that releases the ricin in a chip. Everyone died of ricin poisoning.”

“Anybody could guess that,” Caleb said. “It was a chip malfunction.”

“Did you inspect a chip?” Ashminov asked.

Caleb gave a little nod.

“Then you must have seen that it had melted.”

Caleb’s eyes widened before he followed with a weak chuckle. “Another educated guess.”

Ashminov stepped to the side, stumbling over the weapons cache. He caught his balance. “The ricinware created an infinite loop of M-code. Molecular friction generated the heat.”

Caleb spoke in a halting tone. “You know nothing about M-code.”

“I invented it.”

Caleb threw his head back and laughed. “Where did you study?”

“The National Gymnasium of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It’s the top high school in Sofia.”

“You never attended university, and you expect me to believe you invented M-code?”

Raissa had heard enough of their debate. “Ashminov can prove he understands M-code.”

“I have two samples of M-code, but I need my messenger,” Caleb said.

Raissa handed him the messenger, and when her fingers brushed his, a sudden change came over him. She had seen the same expression of wonder at Symphony Hall and later in his apartment when he had wanted to kiss her. Despite the chaos and their demands on him, he still seemed to like her.

Caleb’s face grew cold. “I can’t wait to see what Dr. Petrov does to you two.”

His stare unnerved her. He was a dutiful NanoArtisans employee, disbelieving that Petrov would willfully hurt anyone. Unless Ashminov could convince him otherwise, she would have to secure Caleb’s cooperation at the end of a gun.

* * *

Caleb glared at the two rebels, conflicted. If he had been alone, he might have tried to reason with them, but Zoe looked frightened. He had brought these rebels into her life, and it was his job to get rid of them. Fearing that Jack, the third rebel, would further complicate the situation, Caleb had to call for help and then stall for time. A phony demonstration by this guy with Raissa would give him all the time he needed. To enact his plan, he bowed his head and pictured the words. Dr. Aubrey, send security to Zoe’s house. Rebels are holding us hostage.

“Hurry,” Raissa barked.

Her voice started his pulse racing. He could not square his feelings. He liked and hated her at once, the two sensations intertwining like hot and cold vines around his heart.

After retrieving the M-code that Dr. Petrov had transmitted to his chip twelve years ago, on his sixth birthday, Caleb passed the messenger to Ashminov.

The rebel scrolled through the code and then looked up. “What do you want to know?”

Nobody could read through two thousand lines of a standard programming language in ten seconds, much less M-code, and pretend to know its purpose.

Eager to expose the rebel as a fraud, he said, “What behavior does it promote?”

“The code plods along with no imagination,” Ashminov began. “It signals two places in the brain: the lower part of your frontal lobe and the hippocampus. The first area deals with creativity. The second area influences your dexterity—the mutable skills function.”

“Mutable skills?” He'd heard Dr. Petrov use that phrase once during a lecture to NanoArtisans neural coders.

“The function checks for skill level. When it detects a change, it resets the skill level to zero. No matter how hard you pursue a creative endeavor, you’ll never get better.”

Stunned, Caleb sat back. After twelve years of practice, his only skill was in coaxing more torturous sounds from the viola. Then he caught on the rebel’s game. “Raissa told you what I sound like.”

“I never told him anything,” Raissa said in a convincing tone.

These rebels can lie with impunity. “I have more M-code to show you.”

Ashminov returned the messenger, and Caleb paused for half a minute before pulling up the other patch. When he handed over the messenger again, he was almost looking forward to the next piece of fiction.

“This must be more recent—it looks like Petrov learned a thing or two about M-code, but the code is still pedestrian. Two functions jump out at me: ‘LocateObj' and ‘setAffection.’ Ashminov, with his eyes widening, turned to Raissa. “Petrov lifted components of my lionware!”

“Version 1 or 2?” Raissa asked.

Caleb cleared his throat. “Lionware?”

“Version 1,” Ashminov said to Raissa.

“Petrov knew what you were doing in Rome all along!”

They ignored him and continued their discussion. Caleb gave Zoe a reassuring pat on the leg and winked, hoping that her mind-reading skill was operating at peak efficiency. She’d know he had a good plan.

“Have you felt overwhelmed by beauty lately?” Ashminov asked him.

Caleb caught Raissa staring at him, and he felt his throat closing. Perspiration trickled down his chest. “What does the X mean?”

“There’s no X.”

“You invented M-code, but you can’t find the X? I'll show you.” He held out his hand, and Ashminov returned the messenger. Caleb opened the developer notes and showed the rebel the equation.

“Ha,” the rebel exclaimed. “That’s a Wölker equation. It’s deceptively simple. Look at the metadata.” He scrolled to a different section of the code. “Essentially, it’s half an X. A pink check mark, in fact. Petrov added the hexadecimal color code #CD6155. Apparently, Petrov wants you to find beauty in a pink check-mark.”

“I give you high marks for creativity but a low score for intelligence,” Caleb scoffed. “You expect me to swallow such nonsense?”

“Let's plot the equation.” Ashminov keyed in the variables and used the messenger’s laser magnifier to project the result on the wall. A pink, fleshy line ran at an angle of approximately 45 degrees.

Caleb looked at the line uneasily as he noticed for the first time the pleasurable reaction he had to that shape. No, it can't be!

“Look, it matches Raissa's scar exactly,” Ashminov said with a satisfied grin. “Petrov has plans for you two.”

* * *

A thousand questions battled for dominance in Raissa’s brain. Caleb, she realized with dread, was not some random NanoArtisans employee whom she had used to deliver devourware inside the firewall. For how long has Petrov orchestrated our lives?

“What is going on?” Caleb asked weakly.

“Caleb, I’m sorry.” Zoe said in a cracking voice.

His face creased in confusion. “Sorry for what?”

“I bought the tickets so you’d sit beside Raissa.”

“No, Jack bought them!”

Zoe took her brother’s hand. “I lied,” she said.

Caleb took fast deep breaths. “Nobody with a chip can lie. Zoe, you’ll think more clearly after you get a chip refresh.”

Watching Caleb edge closer to the truth, Raissa wanted to block her eyes and ears. To betray your own brother was cruel; to discover the betrayal by a loved one, crueler still.

“Help Raissa and Ashminov,” Zoe said.

“Help them do what?” Caleb blurted out.

The door crashed open, and a lean, muscular man stepped in. He wore overalls—the typical dress for an environmental paladin. “Zoe, what the hell is going on?”

Raissa whipped her joule around, but Zoe leaped between them and cried, “Don’t shoot. It’s my husband. Caleb, tell her.”

* * *

“Shoot him,” Caleb shouted to himself, blind with rage.

Clenching his jaw shut to keep the contents of his stomach from rising up his throat and spewing out of his mouth, he jumped to his feet. Jack sickened him; that Zoe wanted to protect her husband sickened him more.

Jack put a protective hand on Zoe’s shoulder, pulled her close, and looked around, his eyes lingering on Raissa’s joule. “Zoe, who are these people?”

“Are you a rebel?” Caleb asked.

“Rebel?” Jack stammered. “Am I dreaming?”

Blood throbbed in Caleb's head. “Jack, did you poison . . .?” his voice trailed to a low rasp.

“Jack didn’t poison Julian,” Zoe said.

Shards of ice punctured Caleb’s heart. Zoe had completed his sentence.

Jack frowned. “Nobody poisoned our son. He died during the injection procedure. It was a freak accident. Ask your brother.”

Zoe bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

Jack glanced at Caleb with a look of concern bordering on fear. Then he smiled at Zoe. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I killed our son.”

He caressed her cheek. “Honey, this is my fault. I should have insisted that we go to the genetarium. Even with chips in our brains, it’s possible to mourn the loss of a child. I underestimated how you felt. Caleb and I can take you to the hospital for a chip refresh. Afterward, we’ll go straight to the genetarium.”

Caleb pressed his knuckles against his lips. Jack knows nothing about the trip that Zoe and I made to the genetarium. So, whose DNA was already in the profile?” He saw Raissa had lowered her joule, with Ashminov standing beside her. The M-code rebel suddenly looked strangely familiar.

“Caleb, do you remember the night Mom and Dad got killed?”

He spun around to face his sister, remembering the moment as if it had happened yesterday.

“They believed in God,” she continued. “They were rebels who could not live with Version 3. Security forces executed them.”

Caleb's knees buckled. Zoe spoke of God without crumpling in pain. “Our parents were musicians,” he cried. “Innocent bystanders. They got caught in rebel crossfire.”

Zoe shook her head. “Security assassinated them with sonic bullets. I received a call from the solartarium. They wanted me to pick up their carbon tabs.”

Jack gripped Zoe’s hand. “I’m calling an ambulance. You aren't well. We can fix this.”

Jack’s words sounded distant. “I wanted to go with you after you got the call,” Caleb said.

“I didn't want to leave you, but they told me to come alone. When I got there, I met a paladin. You know him: Gabriel Mars. He took me to the Citadel where I met Petrov.”

Caleb’s stomach dropped to his knees. “You…met Dr. Petrov?”

Zoe kept her eyes locked on him. “Petrov told me you were special, Caleb. He told me that someday you’d work at NanoArtisans and he would arrange for you to meet someone equally special.”

Caleb glanced at Raissa, who looked down.

Zoe dragged a sleeve across her face. “Petrov knew that you dreamed of becoming a soloist, but he said he’d take steps to kill your dream. That’s why he gave you the M-code patch when you were six years old. Because you struggled so much with the viola, you enrolled at MIT to study nanobiology, which is what Petrov wanted you to do.” Zoe clenched her fists. “Petrov modified my chip and told me I would have to lie to you about everything.” She choked out a sob. “Three days ago, Petrov told me that Jack would find a drum of PCBs buried in the river bank, and he’d bring home a sample before he took it to a testing lab. Petrov told me how I should use the poison. I gave Julian a time-released capsule filled with PCBs right before we entered the injection center.”

Jack let out a loud cry and punched the wall. Raissa gasped and stared at Zoe with a look of disgust. Jack punched the wall again with his other fist.

“Petrov made me a promise, Caleb. He told me if I killed Julian, we could all live together forever. You, me, Jack, Julian, Raissa. We’d all go to Paradise.”

“Monster,” Raissa hissed. “You murdered your own child.”

Zoe turned to her. “I hope you never face the decision I had to make. Who did I love more, my brother or my son? I loved both of them equally with all my heart. Jack, I love you, too.”

A voice crackled over the intercom. “This is security. We’re looking for Dr. Saunders. He reported an emergency.”

* * *

Alarmed by the paladin’s voice and dizzy from Zoe’s revelation, Raissa charged to the window. Three emergency vehicles were lined up at the curb. “Great. Heavily armed paladins. How did they find us?”

“I called them,” Caleb said.

“When?” Raissa challenged.

“I’m a beta tester for the V7 chip. Telepathically I told my colleague to send security here.”

“Well telepathically, tell your colleague to call them off.”

“They’re here to help,” Caleb replied.

Just then, Zoe reached under the seat cushion, pulled out a laser sword, and ignited the blade. The thin red beam extended half a meter from the hilt, filling the air with the scent of ozone as if lightning had struck nearby. “Go down the fire escape. I’ll stall them.”

Jack held out his hand. “Zoe, put it down, please.”

“I can’t live with myself for what I did,” she said in a shaky voice.

Raissa grabbed Caleb’s arm. “Ashminov and I need your help.”

“Hello? Dr. Saunders, are you there?” The paladin spoke politely. “We're downstairs. Please open the door.”

Caleb hesitated. “What are you going to do to Dr. Petrov?”

“Kill him,” Ashminov said calmly.

Caleb stepped back and shook his head. “Dr. Petrov has a bigger plan. I know it. We have to trust him.”

Raissa picked up her pack of weapons, walked to the rear window, and opened it. They had to move now, and she wasn’t about to shoot Caleb. While Zoe held off the paladins, she and Ashminov would improvise. “The alley’s clear. Ashminov, go.”

“Open up,” the paladin said over the intercom, a hint of agitation creeping into his tone.

“Now!” Raissa grabbed Ashminov’s arm and pushed him through the window.

Zoe dashed over to her and pressed a data stick into her palm. “Profile 888. Keep it safe.”

Raissa found it difficult to make eye contact with this so-called mother. “What is it?”

“Insurance,” Zoe said.

“For what?”

Without responding, Zoe raced to the front door, laser sword in hand, and disappeared into the hallway.

Raissa jammed the object into her pocket, slung the satchel over her shoulder, and started out the window after Ashminov. She had one foot on the fire escape when Caleb ran after his sister.

Raissa muttered to herself. Goldstein would not approve. Paladins were out front, and she and Ashminov had only seconds to escape, but, against her better judgment, she stepped back inside. “Meet us in the alley,” she said to Ashminov and traded the joule for her Glock. “Caleb, wait!”

* * *

Caleb flew down the stairs, taking four at a time to the bottom floor. Zoe had shut down the elevator. He found her in the foyer on tiptoes, holding the sword by her side and peering out the glass panes in the door. He leaned his shoulder against it, careful to keep clear of the unforgiving blade. “You need help.”

She put a finger to her lip. “The paladin’s right outside.”

“Open the door, or we’ll open it for you,” the paladin barked.

“Caleb, leave now!” she said in a hushed, urgent tone.

Her expression transported him back in time to when they were navigating life without their parents. Zoe would assume her bossy-sister look and a sharp tone to frighten him into submission, to get him to do his homework or to pick up his room. Caleb had discovered a counter-move. He'd make a funny face, and she would burst out laughing. Comedy won’t work this time.

“Open up,” the paladin barked.

“Let me talk to them,” Caleb whispered. “I work in Paladin Research.”

“If you don’t want to save yourself, do it for Raissa.” Zoe was peering through a pane again. “Petrov said he needs Raissa’s neurons.”

“Neurons,” he blurted out.

Alerted by Caleb’s voice, the paladin pounded the door with his fist.

Loud footsteps startled Caleb, and he turned to see Raissa and Jack in the foyer. Raissa held an antique pistol, but what shocked Caleb more was to see Jack armed with a joule. He couldn't believe it—Jack, who had just learned that his wife had murdered their son, was here to protect her.

“Open up!” the paladin shouted.

“How many are outside?” Raissa asked.

“Only one at the door,” Zoe said. “More on the sidewalk.”

Raissa raised her gun and aimed it at the door. Her hand was shaking. Caleb’s legs were shaking just as much. Is she going to kill the paladin?

BANG. The door vibrated with a blow from a boot heel. BANG. The paladin kicked the door again, and sunlight spilled through a crack in the wooden panels.

“When I fire, we’ll all rush out,” Raissa whispered in a rock-steady tone. She had stopped shaking. “Jack, make sure your joule is on stun. Drop as many paladins as you can. We’ll meet Ashminov in the back alley.”

“Zoe, no!” Jack shouted and lunged at her, but he was too late.

Zoe drove the sword through the door. The laser pierced the wood with ease, and an anguished grunt came from outside. She pulled the blade back and pushed the door open, but it jammed against the paladin slumped on the stoop. Raissa, stepping past her into the narrow opening, fired overhead several times. The shots were deafening. Zoe followed her outside. Jack, his jaw agape, seemed in shock.

Caleb stepped to the doorway. The paladins had ducked for cover behind their vehicles. Raissa, positioned behind the steps of the adjoining building, kept them pinned down with sporadic shots fired overhead. She had flattened two tires.

Zoe sprinted to the sidewalk and plastered herself against a tree. The small trunk offered minimal protection and she was perilously close to the paladins. They opened fire, giving rise to a lethal hum of high-amperage slugs as they sizzled when striking concrete and brick.

Caleb glanced at the dead paladin at his feet. There was no blood; the sword had cauterized the man’s vessels. Conflicted, Caleb didn’t know whose side he was on: that of his sister, who had admitted to murdering Julian, and two rebels who had a crazy notion Dr. Petrov had developed a weapon? Or that of the paladins, superior individuals to whom he had dedicated his career?

Family first!

He reached down and took the dead paladin's joule. Then he remembered Jack. His brother-in-law was family too. Jack stood exposed in the doorway, still dazed. Caleb grabbed him by the wrist and tugged. Jack jolted, and they dashed down the steps together.

Behind the bottom step of the stoop next door, Raissa had stretched out on her belly. Caleb moved to her right and squatted beside her. Jack was somewhere behind him.

A paladin raised his head above the hood of his vehicle, and Raissa expertly aimed in that direction. The loud crack of the pistol pierced Caleb's eardrums. She shot out another tire. The paladin ducked out of sight.

Caleb whistled to Zoe, who was leaning sideways against the trunk. He picked up his joule and made a motion that he'd toss it to her.

“Keep it,” she shouted.

Immediately, the paladins let loose with a fresh barrage. Several successive blasts from Raissa, each shot endangering only the pigeons in the air, restored calm.

Incredibly, Zoe started crawling toward the closest paladin vehicle, the sword blade trailing along the ground by her side. Stunned, Caleb had no idea what she was doing, but one thing was clear: It no longer made sense to toss the joule to her. He’d deliver it.

He nudged Raissa and said, “Cover me.” Her green eyes flashed in the sunlight, leading him to wonder if he were seeing them for the last time.

Suddenly, Jack leaped up and sprinted toward the tree. Taking shelter beside it, he crouched on his haunches. When Zoe started around the vehicle, Jack, joule raised, jumped out from behind the tree.

A paladin popped up and aimed at Jack, not noticing Zoe had flanked him. She swung the sword and sliced his chest in half.

The force of a high-amperage slug lifted Zoe in the air and propelled her backward. She skidded over the pavement and lay motionless. Caleb fired the joule repeatedly, fighting the urge to curl up in a ball from the pain in his gut.

“Aim for the heart!” Raissa urged.

The paladins were now firing at will; antique bullets screaming safely overhead no longer concerned them.

Each squeeze of the trigger plunged Caleb deeper into a crucible of blinding pain. A metallic click informed him that Raissa was out of ammo.

Jack had made it to Zoe’s side as several paladins emerged from behind the second vehicle. Jack didn’t see them.

“Behind you,” Caleb shouted.

Jack spun and dropped one, but then he jerked to the side with a wordless grunt, as another paladin shot him in the neck. “Run,” Jack cried, firing once more before slumping next to Zoe.

* * *

Raissa grabbed Caleb’s hand and pulled him to his feet. “We can’t help them.” Together they raced down Beacon Street. Pumping her legs hard, Raissa knew that she and Caleb could never outrun the horror they’d witnessed.

With her hand welded to his, they wheeled onto Gloucester Street, and a half-block further, she pulled him into the alleyway that ran behind Zoe’s building. “Where’s Ashminov?”

Caleb pointed. “Up there.”

Ashminov, hugging his knees, was on the top landing of the fire escape.

They ran to the base of the metal stairs. “Come down!”

“I can’t.” Raissa strained to hear Ashminov’s weak, trembling voice.

She shoved Caleb into a doorway, rammed a fresh clip of ammo into the Glock, and pressed the gun into his hand. “Aim, brace for the kickback, and squeeze the trigger. I’m going to get him.”

He returned the pistol. “I already have a joule, and it's best if you deal with the paladins here.” He crept to the fire escape.

Knots formed in Raissa’s stomach. No more firing above heads. She would have to shoot to kill.

After what seemed like hours, which, in reality, was less than half a minute, Caleb called down from the landing. “He’s afraid of heights.”

Nothing with Ashminov is simple. Raissa watched as Caleb helped him to his feet. They hooked arms and started a painfully slow descent, exposed from every direction. She peered out from the doorway, looking left, right, and up, acutely aware of sounds—feet shuffling on metal, and the explosive detonations of her heart pounding in her chest.

A voice crackled through a radio. “Fifteen meters north.”

Raissa peered right. A female paladin stood at the Gloucester Street end of the alley.

The paladin spoke into her two-way radio. “I don’t see Eve.”

Eve? Is that me? Maybe it was her codename? “Eve,” Raissa whispered to herself, “is about to fill the air with hot, screaming lead.” Keeping her back pressed against the wall, she retreated out of sight. Caleb and Ashminov were two-thirds of the way down the fire escape.

“Do you have a shot on Adam and the Bulgarian?” the voice over the radio asked. Raissa could tell the paladin was getting closer.

“Yes,” a man replied.

Reinforcements!

“Should we put joules on kill or stun?” the man asked.

“Kill,” came the reply.

Caleb and Ashminov had reached the first landing, several steps from the ground, arms no longer hooked. “Wait! I work at NanoArtisans,” Caleb pleaded. “Here’s my badge. Come look at it.”

Raissa realized he was luring the two paladins closer, which would make her job of gunning them down easier. She would have given anything to be holding a joule set to stun instead of an antique weapon that would blow a gaping hole in them.

With adrenaline flooding every cell in her body, she leaped out of the doorway and swung the Glock into position. She’d disarm the paladins and order them to sit on the ground. Two sets of eyes widened. “Drop your joules,” she shouted, blinking to clear her eyes of the sweat trickling down her brow.

The male paladin raised his weapon. Raissa trained the barrel at his chest and zeroed in on the heart. An electron slug sizzled by her head. The female paladin had fired and missed. Raissa pulled the trigger.

BOOM. The bullet opened a gaping hole, and, as he was flying backward, now dead, she dived to the ground, tucked her shoulders, rolled once, and came up firing. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. A slug struck the female paladin in the knee and took the fight out of her. She sat on the ground with her hands up and blood gushing down her leg.

Ashminov rushed in and collected the wounded paladin's radio and joule. Caleb pried the joule from the dead paladin's hand.

“Report,” the voice over the radio said.

Raissa held out her hand. “Give me the radio.” Ashminov gave it to her, and depressed the button and brought it to her lips. “Tell Petrov I have a bullet with his name on it,” she growled.

* * *

Multiple sirens signaled that emergency vehicles were on the way. Caleb grabbed the radio from Raissa, who had a distant look in her eyes, and tugged her arm, but she didn't move. When she kept staring into space, he tossed the radio to Ashminov and pulled her harder.

As he half-dragged her to the end of the alley, the radio delivered a steady stream of chatter. “All stations report. Do you see them?” “Request backup, Beacon Street and Gloucester.” “Paladin 245, report your position.” “Repeat, Paladin 245, report. Over.”

At the end of the alley, Caleb glanced up and down Hereford. “The street is clear. Should we go left or right?”

“Let’s grab a taxi,” Ashminov said.

Just then, Caleb spotted a paladin stepping into the other end of the alley, thirty meters away.

When she spoke into her radio, her voice crackled from the radio in Ashminov’s hand. “I see them.”

More voices sounded in response. “Set joules to kill.” “Report their location.” “Hereford Street.” The female trained her weapon on them.

Caleb raised his joule; the mere intent triggered a spasm of pain in his chest. He took aim, but as he shifted his finger to the trigger, the loud roar of Raissa's pistol pummeled his eardrums and left them ringing. The paladin’s arms flew up in the air, and a rosette of blood blossomed on her chest.

Raissa lowered her weapon, transformed. “Follow me,” she commanded and dashed into the rush of traffic. Her steady tone and steely gaze gave Caleb hope they might escape.

He and Ashminov ran to keep up with her. An approaching taxi’s sensors identified an obstacle in its path, and braked hard, stopping within millimeters of hitting her. Raissa hurried around to the back door and flung it open. Caleb rushed up beside her.

A young girl and a man with white hair looked up at them with quizzical expressions. “Please get out,” Raissa said.

“Grandpa, I can’t be late,” the girl said with a crinkled brow.

“I'm sorry, this cab is taken,” the man said. “We have an appointment.”

The passengers were feeling mild frustration and perhaps confusion, but not fear. They had no basis for concern—the chip had eradicated violence from society years ago.

Blue flashing lights caught Caleb’s attention, and he slapped Raissa's shoulder. She saw them, too. The emergency vehicle stopped two blocks away. If paladins blocked the other direction, they’d be trapped. She climbed in next to the girl, and Ashminov sat up front. Caleb slid in beside the man.

“Taxi, resume destination,” Raissa said above the chatter of the paladin radio.

* * *

The girl smiled at Raissa, but the man cast a wary eye at the armed intruders who had joined him and his granddaughter in the taxi. She thought he was old enough to remember the days when carjackings happened at random, something Raissa had only read about.

She folded at the waist as the taxi sped up. “Duck,” she told the others. Pressing her cheek against her thigh, she faced Caleb. When she felt the taxi making a left turn, she knew they would soon drive by Zoe's house.

“Grandpa, look,” the girl exclaimed. “What are the paladins doing to those dead people?”

Pain crumpled Caleb’s face. Raissa took his hand and squeezed, hoping she might ease his suffering.

“Chrissy, don't look!”

“They’re putting something into a silver bag.” Chrissy was still staring out the window.

“Chrissy, please!” The man pleaded.

The girl burst into tears and faced the front with terror in her eyes.

“Chrissy, look at me instead. My name is Raissa. Where's your appointment?”

Chrissy sniffled. “I'm taking a swimming lesson in the Charles River.”

“Oh, how nice. I love to swim.”

A smile spread on the girl's face. Thanks to the chip, Chrissy had recovered from whatever awful thing she had seen. The chip didn’t seem so bad now.

“How come you have a scar?” Chrissy asked.

“I had an accident when I was little,” Raissa told her.

“What happened?”

“Chrissy, that's not your business,” the grandfather chided.

“I don’t mind,” Raissa said. “Some people wanted to hurt my mother, and they hurt my whole family.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Chrissy said. “Why haven’t you fixed your face?”

Raissa raised her chin and winked. “I like myself the way I am.”

Chrissy grinned. “Good. I think you’re beautiful.”

* * *

Caleb nodded. I agree. Raissa is beautiful. Then he shuddered at the power of M-code. Moments earlier, he had lost his sister and his brother-in-law.

When the taxi stopped at the swimming beach, the girl and her grandfather climbed out. The man pulled Chrissy away hurriedly, but she turned and gave a little wave to Raissa. They headed for the bathhouse.

Caleb didn’t want to know what they had seen as they passed Zoe’s, but he jumped out of the taxi, the cry of his heart overruling the logic of his mind. “I’ll be right back,” he told Raissa and Ashminov.

He hesitated. Will I return? He had no idea.

Caleb raced to catch up with the man and his granddaughter. “Can I speak to you in private?”

The grandfather motioned for Chrissy to go ahead.

“What did the paladins do to those people?”

The man narrowed his eyes. “You really want to know?”

No, I don't. “Yes.”

“They put their heads in organ transplant pouches. Scientists at NanoArtisans will probably study their brains to see what went wrong with them.”

“Grandpa, are you coming?”

The man sighed. “Thank goodness my granddaughter has a chip. Can you imagine how she’d be feeling now without one?” He joined her.

Tears blurred Caleb’s vision. His world and everything he thought he knew had turned upside down. He was the son of rebels, and his sister had killed her child, and Jack had died trying to save the women he loved.

He turned toward the taxi. Does Dr. Petrov have a plan for Raissa and me?

He shifted his gaze to the river and watched a sailboat cut a wake. He yearned for simpler times when his chip kept him happy all the time, and Dr. Petrov spoke the highest form of truth. Is it too late to tell Dr. Petrov I made a mistake?

Rebels had taken him hostage. He'd had to fire a weapon at security paladins, or the rebels would have killed him.

He balled his fist in anger. He had done nothing to bring all this down on his head, and now paladins were hunting him with “shoot to kill” orders. As he trudged toward the taxi, his heart fluttered and he wobbled when he caught a flash of Raissa’s green eyes. What will I tell her? He knew what he wanted to say.

* * *

Raissa watched Caleb, his face a storm of confusion, approaching. She understood what he was going through. The missile strike on her house had changed her life just as suddenly. Everything Caleb had believed in—the love of his sister, his goals and dreams—had all turned into a cloud of choking dust.

“He won’t help us,” Ashminov insisted.

“He will.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said and left it at that.

Caleb flung the taxi door open and climbed in. “What do you need me to do?”

Ashminov nodded at Raissa as if to say “you win.” Then he said to Caleb, “We need access to the blimp transmission app. I developed a program that will inspire paladins to kill Petrov.”

Caleb took a deep breath and pondered. “I can only access the app from the campus. Taxi, 42.7 Johnson Street, Cambridge.”

He pressed his forehead against the window and stared out in silence. Raissa slid closer to him until their legs brushed. He was trembling.

* * *

On the way to NanoArtisans, Ashminov held up his trans. “Caleb, they might track your chip. We should disable it with my devourware.”

Caleb nodded. “First, I need two visitor codes to get you onto the campus.” He closed his eyes and bowed his head. Almost immediately, he received a text message, which included two long strings of numbers. Ashminov saw that the sender was Dr. Aubrey. “Ready,” Caleb said.

Ashminov pressed the wand against Caleb's forehead, and a beep followed.

“The devourware eliminated two hundred million lines of code from your chip,” Ashminov reported.

“The V7 beta only has ninety million lines of code,” Caleb said.

Ashminov pursed his lips. “Lucky you. Petrov seems to have given you an extra hundred and ten million.”

* * *

Even though his buggy V7 chip had allowed unproductive emotions to thrive, Caleb noticed the differences creeping in now that M-code no longer had control over him. His rage at Petrov burned hotter. The knot of grief in his chest tightened over the deaths of Zoe and Jack, and, as they neared the campus, his swirl of feelings about Raissa was too chaotic to sort out.

“Taxi, stop here.”

They pulled to the curb two blocks from the security gate. Caleb tucked the joule into his waistband at the small of his back. Before climbing out, he said, “I’ll take care of the guard.”

He headed for the gate.

Thousands of times he had walked up to the paladin guard on duty, brimming with excitement to know he worked at NanoArtisans and that he was contributing to Dr. Petrov’s vision of a future society. This time he was aiding and abetting rebels who wanted to murder Dr. Petrov.

Strangely, he found himself rooting for them to succeed.

“Good morning, Dr. Saunders.” The guard had the calm, steady gaze of someone fulfilling her life’s purpose.

Wasting no time, Caleb pulled out his joule and trained it on her face. “Give me your weapon.”

The stunned paladin passed him her joule. He ordered her inside the guard station where he took her radio and secured her wrists behind her back with polycuffs. After chaining her to the desk with another set, he pulled out a roll of tape from the first aid kit. Looking down at the bound paladin brought home to Caleb the realization he had crossed the point of no return. He knelt beside her. “I’m sorry.” Then he taped her mouth shut.

* * *

Raissa glanced at the clock in the taxi. Four and a half minutes had elapsed since Caleb stepped out. Had the paladin guard overpowered him? Hand-to-hand combat was not Caleb’s strength. “I’m going to see what’s happening,” she told Ashminov.

“Give him another minute,” Ashminov said. “Caleb understands paladins.”

“Eve, dear, your Adam is safe.”

“Petrov is here!” She flicked the joule to the kill setting.

Ashminov’s face crinkled with doubt. “Where?”

She twisted her torso to search out the back window. “Didn't you hear him?” She scanned three hundred and sixty degrees.

“God has plans for you and Adam.”

Raissa grabbed Ashminov’s arm. “Did you hear that?”

He shook his head.

“Petrov called me Eve. Caleb must be Adam. I think he’s calling himself—”

Petrov interrupted. “This God relies on data, not prayer and psalms. I bestow algorithms, not mercy.”

She clutched her head with her hands. “He's inside of me. How do I get rid of him?”

Ashminov held up the trans. “I have a hunch.”

“But my chip doesn’t work!”

“Says who?”

“Ashminov, I can lie without pain. I've killed.”

“Caleb had extra code on his chip. Petrov might have given you special M-code too.”

In an instant, everything around her shifted, and Raissa blinked, no longer in the taxi. She was, instead, nine thousand kilometers away in the Jerusalem bunker, looking at herself lying on the floor unconscious. The rebel actor who had stunned her with an electron slug during her final practice run for the mission walked over and knelt beside her limp body. He unclipped a chip injector from his belt and put the tip against her forehead.

“Eve, he’s injecting you with an Eden Chip.”

“Where am I?”

Petrov chuckled. “In the mind of God.”

Raissa watched as the actor next opened her mouth and scraped the inside of her cheek with a surgical blade which he sealed inside a tube.

Suddenly, Raissa was back in the taxi, with Ashminov peering at her. “What happened?” she asked.

Ashminov scrunched his brow. “What do you mean?”

“Did you hear me talking to Petrov?”

“Raissa, I’m worried about you.”

She realized she had never left the taxi, at least physically, and that her conversation with Petrov had occurred in her mind. After looking all around for Petrov, she leaned forward. “Give me the devourware.”

Ashminov pressed the trans wand against her forehead, and, after the beep, showed her the digital display: “The devourware eliminated a hundred and ten million lines of code,” he said with a satisfied grin. “Looks like your chip had special code. Petrov was monitoring you and Caleb, but now that your chips are inactive, we're one step ahead of him.”

She described the mental trip she had taken to the bunker and what Petrov had told her. “Did I imagine that?”

“You had code on your chip, so I’d say no. But you have a bigger problem. Petrov has your DNA.”

Out of the corner of her eye, the window darkened, and she spun to the right, her finger ready to discharge the joule. It was Caleb, Petrov’s “Adam.”

* * *

Fearing Raissa would plug him, Caleb jumped back from the window. She stepped out of the taxi, her face pale, and said, “Please, never sneak up on me!”

Ashminov climbed out of the front. “Petrov spoke to her telepathically. After that, I downloaded devourware. She had a hundred and ten million lines of code on her chip, but it's gone now.”

“Petrov called it an Eden Chip,” Raissa said.

Caleb drew in a sharp breath. “The Eden Chip supports peer-to-peer telepathy, but as far as I know, only rats have had Eden Chips.”

“Well, I feel like a lab rat,” she said.

“What else did Petrov say?”

“I’ll tell you later. Can you get us onto the campus?”

He motioned for them to follow him. At the guard shack, Caleb punched in the first visitor code on the keypad. The light flashed green. “Ashminov, go!” He didn’t want Raissa to be the guinea pig. The blister guns whirred as they tracked Ashminov jogging through the tunnel. After Caleb punched in the second code, the light flashed green. “Run,” he told Raissa, holding his breath until she made it to the other side. Then he peered into the retinal scanner, the light turned green, and he sprinted through the tunnel.

They hopped onto scooters and headed for his lab at top speed. The campus was empty. He turned his head; Raissa’s hair was blowing straight back, and color had returned to her cheeks. Facing front again, Caleb whispered, “I love you.” But the words barely passed beyond his lips before the wind pushed them back down his throat.

They dismounted at Torvalds, entered the building, and rode the elevator to ten. They tiptoed into Paladin Research. “Hello?” Caleb shouted.

No response. They were alone. Raissa moved to the window to keep watch, and Caleb fired up his mindport for Ashminov. “I’ll log you in,” he told him.

Ashminov waved him off. “Don't bother. I need full admin privileges, which I’m certain you don’t have.”

* * *

With Raissa by the window and Caleb silently looking over his shoulder, Ashminov had no distractions, and he took a moment to reflect. He was inside NanoArtisans with the keys to its electronic kingdom at his fingertips. In a matter of minutes, paladins, commanded by his Hadesware, would hunt down Petrov. Strangely, sadness snuffed out the joy he should be feeling, but he had to proceed. After all that had happened, he and Petrov were beyond the point of reconciliation.

He tapped out:

void mKey ( &key k ){ while( !run ){ k.Exploit( rand->try() ); k.pass(); if (k.Entry() ) run = false; }; },

“The morphing subroutine will keep knocking on the server door until it opens,” he said for Caleb’s benefit.

He hit ENTER, and application icons appeared on the screen.

“You hacked the network!” Caleb exclaimed.

Ashminov familiarized himself with the architecture. “I can take it from here. Petrov and I implemented something similar twenty years ago in Rome. Only the apps are different.”

Caleb nodded and seemed happy to join Raissa.

Ashminov opened the blimp transmission app, and a map showed 3400 blimps over Boston. Most hovered above the ricinware killing zones. He entered a command which instructed five blimps to fly over the Citadel at an altitude of 200 meters. For insurance, he ordered 300 blimps to circle outside the Citadel's perimeter at elevations ranging from 200 to 1500 meters. Finally, he issued a command for all remaining blimps to fly in a grid pattern over Boston and the surrounding cities. The latter action was overkill, but well worth the extra thirty seconds of effort. Petrov could run, but he couldn’t hide from the paladins who would want to serve his head on a platter.

Ashminov inserted the data stick into the mindport and downloaded the Hadesware. Now, a single keystroke would upload the code to the flotilla of blimps.

With his fingertip poised over the key, he remembered the first holographic Prince concert he and Petrov had attended. Prince’s guitar licks had bonded them in ways that words and actions could not.

His fingertip kissed the key, a butterfly alighting on a flower, but he still could not press it.

The thunder of jackboots, as AISE agents stormed his apartment, rattled in his head, and he placed the pad of his finger squarely on the key. The bitter memory of Petrov stealing his M-code pushed him over the edge. Executioner and savior, he pressed the key.

Citadel airspace is off limits appeared on the monitor.

He grunted in frustration, but then a grin quickly followed as he thought of a solution. I’ll disable Boston’s network of radar stations. When he had finished the hack, a blimp could fly loops over the Citadel without detection. Whether the sonic cannons would blast it to smithereens—that was a different story. He got to work.

DESIGN: PHASE 12

Raissa, with Petrov no longer lurking inside her head, allowed her mind to wander as she kept an eye on two security gates ten stories below. She liked that Caleb was also looking out the window. Four eyes were better than two. Plus, his proximity comforted her for reasons beyond mission tactics.

Ashminov had yet to transmit the Hadesware, so it was premature to call the mission a success, but Raissa couldn’t help but feel optimistic. She pictured Jaddy’s face lighting up when she walked through the door of her home in Jerusalem.

The future. The concept was strange for Raissa to wrap her mind around after thinking for so long she wouldn't have one. Will Caleb and I remain friends? A quickening pulse made her rephrase the question. Will our friendship develop into something more?

“What did Petrov tell you?” Caleb asked.

“He called me Eve. You were Adam. He spoke of himself as if he were God.”

Caleb’s eyes widened. “I heard Petrov’s voice at the injection center. He said, ‘Adam, can we predict love?’”

Raissa put her hand on the wall to steady herself. “A stranger bumped into me in Jerusalem. He asked me the same thing.”

“What if Petrov wants us to live in his garden? Adam and Eve.”

“And breed us like rats?” Raissa shook her head. “Over my dead body.”

Caleb’s expression frightened and intrigued her. His eyes filled with wonder and he parted his lips. His shoulders lifted and sank with the increased cadence of his breathing.

Does Caleb want to live in Petrov’s garden with me? Raissa looked away before she said something that would hurt him.

“Do you think Petrov can predict love?” Caleb asked.

“No,” she said flatly.

“I believe he can. With trillions of megabytes of data and his algorithms, Petrov knows the future.”

She patted her chest. “No algorithm controls my heart. I decide who I fall in love with.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Have you ever fallen in love?”

He shifted foot to foot. “Have you?”

“Look,” Raissa cried, pointing out the window. A paladin emergency vehicle passed through the gate and drove in their direction. She grabbed his hand. “We’re taking the fight to the enemy.” She headed toward the elevator, pulling Caleb behind her. “Ashminov, hurry.”

“One more minute,” Ashminov replied.

“Lock the door behind us,” she told him.

When they stepped into the elevator, Caleb shifted foot-to-foot again. “Yes, I’ve fallen in love.”

The temperature inside the enclosure rose, and Raissa focused on his eyes. “As long as Petrov is alive, I won’t give him the satisfaction. I’ll never fall in love.”

* * *

The elevator door opened on the ground floor, and Caleb took Raissa by the hand and led her to a bench in the Torvald lobby where they dropped to their knees and peered through the slats. Nearby, an armed paladin guarded the emergency vehicle parked in front of the Guido van Rossum building.

Caleb—heart thudding because of Raissa’s body heat and the lingering memory of her hand in his, and some fear—fished his messenger out of his pocket. “Dr. Aubrey and Dr. Joyce are on the twentieth floor of the van Rossum. I want to let them know that paladins are in their building.” But then he returned the messenger. “No, I’d better not do that. I’m a fugitive. I don’t want to leave evidence that Dr. Aubrey communicated with me.”

“Are you worried about them?”

I’m worried about you more. “They’re probably fine,” he replied.

“Dr. Aubrey already gave you visitor codes,” she reminded. “That’s evidence.”

Would the paladins harm his colleagues? The strange events of the past twenty-four hours stoked his worst fears.

Raissa gestured to the guard and raised her joule. “We can take him.”

He gulped. “We don’t know how many paladins are inside.”

A small smile played on her lips. “There’s one way to find out.”

Based on the intensity of her tone, he didn’t think he could do much to stop her, Dr. Petrov’s ‘Eve’.

Suddenly, she pointed. “Look!”

Caleb watched four paladins emerge from the building and move toward their vehicle. Two were carrying silver pouches, which turned his blood cold as he conjured images of Dr. Aubrey’s and Dr. Joyce’s frozen heads inside. He told Raissa what the pouches were used for, but he did not describe the gruesome picture in his mind.

After the paladins had driven away, he and Raissa sprinted to the van Rossum. Fear flooded him when he spotted blood on the lobby floor. Splatters, interspersed with red boot prints, formed a line from the front door to the elevator.

As they rode to the twentieth floor, Caleb averted his eyes from more blood on the floor.

The door opened, and he pointed. “Dr. Joyce’s lab is that way.”

Raissa entered the lab ahead of him. “Nobody’s here.”

“Dr. Aubrey?” Caleb called, stepping beside her. “Dr. Joyce?”

Dr. Aubrey, her lab coat covered in blood, emerged from Dr. Joyce’s office. “Caleb, who’s your colleague?”

He introduced Raissa while grabbing her arm to steady himself. “What happened? There’s blood everywhere.”

“We’re wrapping up our fourth autopsy,” Dr. Aubrey began. “All the victims died of ricin poisoning. We wanted Dr. Petrov to see the results, so we sent two brains to the Citadel. I’m afraid the couriers were in a rush.” She narrowed her eyes in concern. “Come with me, please. They told us a dangerous person is on the loose, and he might be on campus. The paladins provided photos.”

They followed her to Dr. Joyce’s mindport to see the dangerous individual. When Ashminov’s picture appeared, Caleb traded a troubled glance with Raissa.

Hundreds of images scrolled on the screen. Three jumped out.

Ashminov, his face glowing, posed next to an elderly woman who held a plate of spaghetti. Caleb had never seen the rebel look so happy.

A twenty-years-younger Ashminov stood among a group of smiling men and women his age. Caleb drew in a sharp breath when he spotted Dr. Petrov in the picture; his appearance hadn’t changed at all.

In the final remarkable photo, two adults wearing stern expressions and military uniforms held two children; Caleb recognized Ashminov as a toddler. He wore a bow tie, a white shirt, and brown shorts with suspenders. The other child was a baby.

“He doesn’t look dangerous to me,” Raissa said.

* * *

Ashminov had finally finished disabling Boston's network of radar stations to his satisfaction, and the time had come to sign Petrov’s death warrant. He somberly pressed the key that instructed the blimp fleet to begin transmission of the Hadesware.

He peered at the mindport screen with mild concern. The app reported that 1,423 paladins had received two software updates: first, his version of Hadesware; a millisecond later, Hadesware V2. Petrov has countermeasures ready, it seems.

Ashminov could break the encrypted V2 file, but the quickest resolution was to retransmit the original version. Tap, tap. His stomach sank. The app was not responding. Tap, tap, tap. His stomach dropped to his toes.

An unusual image replaced the map on the screen, and he leaned forward. It looked like an old sweater, covered in dirt, balled up on the ground. What does it mean? The image changed again, and he shot back in the chair, thrown off balance by what he saw.

“Christian, it’s been a while.” Petrov, sitting on a rock ledge beside a stream in his garden, stared out at him. He had not aged a minute.

“Nineteen years, Nicholas, if I’m not mistaken,” Ashminov said, suppressing a smile. That he had included such an extensive dump of Petrov’s images into the Hadesware ensured paladins would have no trouble identifying him. With luck, some were impatient to rip Petrov’s throat out right about now.

Petrov cupped his hand, dipped it into the stream, and splashed water on his face. “I re-engineered your Hadesware and downloaded a database of your images. One thousand four hundred and twenty-three paladins are now hunting for you.”

Ashminov’s mind reeled. Water droplets on Petrov’s cheeks resisted the pull of gravity. He surmised he was not looking at Petrov, but instead a computer-generated animation. He smiled to conceal his plummeting spirit. “You’ve learned a lot of tricks with M-code.”

“Long ago, I had an outstanding teacher.”

“Long ago, I had an avid student.”

“Nicholas, why do you need a ricinware weapon?”

“God said to Noah, 'I am going to put an end to all people.’ Earth 2.0, I call it.”

Flames of horror licked at Ashminov’s heart. The E.L.F. towers now made sense. Petrov would pump out the ricinware using extreme long-wave frequencies. The lethal malware, flooding the planet from the North and South Poles, would meet up at the equator, and the human race would cease to exist.

A new window opened in the mindport; in it, the earth was spinning on its axis, and two cones of red extended from the North and South Poles. Each cone covered about a third of the way to the equator. A digital readout featured a rapidly rising number. Has the ricinware already killed over three billion people?

Petrov’s twang emanated from the speakers. “Christian, do you recall what red signifies in the Bible?”

“Red? No.”

Petrov cackled. “Imagine how the nuns at St. Mary’s would have beaten you.”

He was right. The sisters had high expectations, and one failed to meet them at his own peril. “If I recall, Nicholas, they left you alone. Father Gorilla was your protector.”

Petrov’s tone crackled with anger. “In the Old Testament, red signifies flesh. The areas of red on the globe have received your devourware. I’m returning people wholly to flesh.”

So three billion are free, not dead?

“Christian, you looked confused.”

Very much so!

“Feeling it was befitting to slaughter the population at religion’s doorsteps, I downloaded your Bibleware to three test groups,” Petrov explained. “As expected, thousands flocked to the International Food Cafetorium, St. Mary’s Bowladrome, and the tourist site in the North End. Then I transmitted the ricinware to the same groups. You saw the results. They died grisly deaths. Even for me, it was too horrific, so I kept testing. A fourth group received your devourware first. Then, when I transmitted the ricinware, they died without pain or suffering. I’m flooding the planet first with devourware, then ricinware. God is merciful.”

The spinning globe disappeared, and Ashminov once again faced only the madman on the monitor.

“After the paladins clean up the carnage, I’ll transmit a paladin version of ricinware to complete the reboot of Earth.”

“What about Raissa and Caleb?” Ashminov asked in a pinched voice.

“I have big plans for Adam and Eve, and I have big plans for us.”

Ashminov gulped. “Us?”

Petrov winked. “Trust me, you’ll fare better than Father Baldini. Interspecies mating rarely ends well.”

Petrov vanished, and the old, ratty sweater appeared on the mindport again. The view pulled back, widening until Ashminov saw a pride of lions. He recognized the arches in the background; the lions were in the Colosseum. He had seen that sweater before, albeit in better condition: Baldini’s favorite cardigan.

Raissa startled him. “You didn’t lock the door as I’d asked you to, and now you’re watching a lion documentary!” She stood next to him, her face tense with agitation.

“Ashminov, you’re a wanted man,” Caleb said, moving beside her. “Paladins are hunting for you. They have pictures that go back to your childhood.”

They listened with blank expressions as he recounted his conversation with Petrov.

“Eight billion will die,” Raissa gasped.

Ashminov nodded. “Likely by midnight.”

She raised a clenched fist. “How do we get inside the Citadel?”

“NanoArtisans employees can pilot observation blimps,” Caleb offered. “My messenger gives us authorization.”

Raissa pursed her lips. “Have you seen the sonic cannons?”

Nature always has the answer! This tiny spark landed in the dry tinder of Ashminov’s imagination, and he put his mind to work. Suddenly, an inferno of inspiration blazed. “Have you heard of Bracken Cave?”

They shook their heads.

He opened the blimp app again. Petrov, to prevent him from coding a new version of Hadesware, had disabled the transmission component. No problem. He could still control where the blimps flew and at what altitude.

He coded and spoke at the same time. “The cave is home to the largest colony of free-tailed bats in the world. Every evening at dusk, the bats fly out of the cave to catch insects. Hawks soar above the mouth of the cave, waiting to pick off the bats as they come out. So, the best course of action for the bats is for millions of them to fly out all at once and overwhelm the hawks. Using the same principle, I’m going to send every blimp within fifty kilometers into the Citadel. We’ll be in the middle of the armada in an observation blimp.”

Raissa cocked her head. “The blimps will overwhelm the cannons?”

He sat back, coding completed. “In theory.”

“What are the odds we’ll make it into the Citadel alive?” she asked.

Ashminov put the odds at one in a hundred. “One in ten.”

Raissa walked up to him, and he flinched out of habit. But the rebel assassin with the green eyes was full of surprises. She planted a kiss on his cheek. “I know you're lying, but at least we have a chance, however small.”

* * *

Lucky Ashminov. Caleb wished he could get a kiss.

“The closest blimp port is in Arlington,” he told them. “What’s a good time to send the blimps in?” A quick discussion followed, and they agreed it should be in one hour.

Caleb called them to the window and pointed out the northwest guard shack. “That’s our destination. I’ll need to re-enter your visitor codes to get you through the security tunnel. There are three buildings between us and the gate. We can use them for cover.”

They took the elevator to the lobby, checked for paladins, and dashed thirty meters to the neighboring Gates Building. Crouching, they crept along the wall until they had a good view of the Bjarne Stroustrup Building. Caleb held up his hand for them to stop and scanned in all directions.

“Clear,” he said and they raced to Bjarne Stroustrup, where they took shelter behind a marble column.

With Caleb still in the lead, they scampered to the Wirth Building.

Forty meters from the guard shack, he pulled out his messenger to get the codes they would need to exit the campus. An electron slug struck the column close to his head with a sizzling splat. Ducking and spinning around, he saw an emergency vehicle rolling toward them, with several paladins on foot beside it.

Raissa dropped to one knee and returned fire with her joule. The paladins sought shelter behind the vehicle, but the convoy kept rolling their way, with the paladins taking pot shots that missed badly.

“Follow me,” she barked.

Plastering themselves against the side of the building, they squeezed off rounds as they moved to the southwest corner. The shack was thirty meters away across open ground.

A volley of slugs splatted on the wall above their head.

“We're too exposed,” Caleb shouted.

“I’ll lead them away from you,” Ashminov exclaimed and sprinted towards the Bjarne Stroustrup Building.

The paladins snapped to attention like bloodhounds that had just picked up the scent of a fox.

Caleb grabbed Raissa’s elbow. “Remember, the paladins have a powerful urge to kill him. We can make it to the shack.”

She shot him a hard glare. “I’m not leaving him.” The intensity of her green eyes underscored her tone of determination. She resumed her shooting stance. “When they fire on Ashminov, I’ll nail them.”

Caleb went on one knee beside her. “We’ll nail them.”

Loud voices erupted around the corner, and the air crackled with amperage. Ashminov must have shown his face. His tactic seemed to be working, as the paladins had turned away from Caleb and Raissa's position.

“Always take the fight to the enemy,” she growled.

To Caleb’s shock, she charged into the open ground, firing as she ran. Concerned for her safety and inspired by her courage, he followed her and blasted away. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hit the ground with force. Firing as fast as he could flex his index finger, he rushed over and knelt beside her. She had shut her eyes. “Raissa!” She didn’t respond. He jammed his fingers into her neck, relieved that she had a pulse. A fresh wave of slugs buzzed past him, and he tried to return fire, but nothing happened when he pulled the trigger. The joule’s storage cell was empty.

Three paladins approached in the open. Keeping an eye on them, Caleb positioned himself between Raissa and the paladins, wanting to shield her from taking another direct hit.

Suddenly, one of the three stumbled sideways and crashed to the ground, twitching. Seconds later, a second paladin collapsed. Ashminov was firing from fifteen meters away.

Raissa’s joule was on the ground ten meters away. About to lunge for it, Caleb looked in her satchel and instead grabbed her antique gun. He aimed at the third paladin. BOOM. His arm jerked in the air, and he missed high, but the paladin dived for cover behind a tree.

Raissa mumbled, and Caleb put his lips close to her ear. “Can you walk?” he asked.

She mumbled again.

Ashminov jogged up to them, breathing hard.

“Let’s help her to the gate,” Caleb said. “Get her joule.”

Ashminov retrieved the joule and immediately put it to good use, dropping the paladin who was peering out from around the trunk.

Caleb lifted Raissa to her feet, and she stumbled forward as he supported her. Ashminov lent a hand and they moved, as a cluster of three, toward the security gate. Sirens sounded in the distance.

They stopped outside the security tunnel, and Raissa shook them off. “I’m fine.” She teetered and nearly fell. “Really.”

Caleb took out his messenger, identified Ashminov’s visitor code, and punched in the number. The light turned green. “Go,” he told Ashminov.

“I’ll get us a taxi,” Ashminov said before he entered the tunnel.

Caleb punched in the second code, Raissa’s, and the light turned green. She limped all the way through.

When he looked into the retinal scanner, the light stayed red. Damn. Had Petrov revoked his security pass? A group of paladins was closing in.

Petrov’s voice crackled through the speaker. “Surrender, Adam. My surgeons will take care of the rest.”

“Doctor, I feel fine,” Caleb said and moved to the mouth of the tunnel. Raissa and Ashminov needed his messenger to fly the blimp, but he wouldn’t be able to hand it over, confined to the campus. He reared back and hurled the device. The messenger bounced and skidded to the other side.

Raissa picked it up. “Caleb, hurry.”

“I can't get through. Go to the port! Now!”

“We’re not leaving you.”

He waved his arm frantically. “I can’t make it past the blister guns.”

Raissa put down the messenger. “I’m coming to get you.”

He flushed with panic. “You can’t. You’ve used your code already.”

She started for him.

“Stop!” he shouted.

She stopped. “Try. You can do it!”

Caleb put his head down, took a deep breath, and sprinted through the opening. When the first blister struck him, he cried out but stayed on his feet. The pain was worse than anything he'd ever experienced. He staggered, and the blisters hit again, knocking him sideways, but he persisted. He stumbled forward three more steps, absorbing more hits before his legs buckled from the sheer agony. As he fell forward, trembling uncontrollably, he saw Raissa standing at the end of the tunnel. “Stay out!” he shouted as he tumbled to the tunnel floor.

Now that he had lost his momentum, the blister guns couldn't miss. From above, the weapons repeatedly fired as he rose to his knees. It felt as if he were crawling through a shower of boiling oil. Raw blisters on his hands and forearms oozed pink liquid.

He cried out as a blister hit the right side of his face, and his right eye closed at once. With his left eye, he could see the inflamed cells around the bridge of his nose rising like dough in an oven. He pushed himself forward through the wall of pain, inch by inch, with gritted teeth, crawling blindly, and relying on Raissa’s shouts to steer him. He tried to slide his right leg forward, but he was too weak to move.

Picturing Raissa in his mind’s eye, he struggled up and summoned all his energy to pull himself another meter before pitching forward onto his stomach. His loud, erratic heartbeat drowned out Raissa’s voice, and then his world went dark and silent.

* * *

Caleb was only ten meters away, but it might as well have been ten kilometers. She had never seen blister guns in action before. They were relentless; he lay motionless, yet the weapons continued to target him.

The sirens were getting louder, and every brain cell told her to leave. She and Ashminov had one chance to stop Petrov from slaughtering the world’s population, but first, they had to go to the blimp port. Every beat of her heart told her something different. I cannot leave him. Willing her nerves to go numb, she charged into the tunnel, but her nerves remained sensitive and vibrant, and when a blister struck her shoulder, it felt as if a sledgehammer was driving a hot spike into her bones.

A second blast scalded her neck just as she reached Caleb. He wore a gruesome mask of blisters, but she swallowed her sorrow, knowing she had to channel her energy. She grabbed his wrists and dragged him, his body leaving a wet sheen on the tunnel floor. Receiving multiple fiery blasts, she screamed until her vocal cords became too frayed to issue noise.

Ravaged by the blisters, and still reeling from the joule blast, Raissa thought her body would quit, and she’d collapse. She tightened her grip and commanded her leg muscles to contract and relax, contract and relax.

She stumbled backward and, on the way down, slammed into something. Ashminov grunted. He had caught her, wrapping his arms around her waist. She held on to Caleb’s hands as Ashminov hauled them the final meter.

Somehow, they made it, and the three of them lay in a heap outside the range of the blisters: Ashminov exhausted, Raissa dazed and overwhelmed by the scalding pain of her injuries, and Caleb dead or near dead.

To check for a pulse, Raissa positioned her fingertips against Caleb's neck and pressed down through a cushion of blisters until she came to his carotid artery. It proved futile to try to feel anything above the thunder of her heartbeat.

Ashminov stood in stages: one knee, then two, one foot planted, finally hauling himself to both feet. “The taxi is here.”

“Help me pick him up,” Raissa said.

Ashminov shook his head. “It’s too late.”

“Help me!”

“We have to leave him.”

“No!”

“Raissa, he’ll slow us down.”

“Go,” she shouted. “Your taxi is waiting.”

Grumbling, Ashminov moved to Caleb's feet, and she placed her hands under his arms, but she was too weak to lift his torso. They traded positions. Raissa strained to pick Caleb’s feet off the ground as Ashminov picked him up at the shoulders. They carried him all the way across the sidewalk to the taxi, a journey that felt like a thousand kilometers.

Exhausted by carrying the dead weight, Ashminov scrabbled for the door and pulled it open, and together they placed Caleb in the back seat. Raissa collapsed beside him and cradled his head in her lap.

Ashminov climbed into the front seat. “Taxi, Arlington Blimp Port.”

“Taxi, hospital,” she croaked.

Ashminov looked back. “Caleb would want us to go straight to the port.”

“Hospital,” she pleaded.

He sighed. “Taxi, hospital.”

She wanted to thank Ashminov, but the words died in the parched landscape of her throat.

* * *

Going to the hospital is the right decision, Ashminov kept telling himself. It was too late to save Caleb, but perhaps Raissa could get help, a shot of Numb, or synthetic skin. Turning in the front seat to check on them, he choked back a sob at the swirl of tenderness he witnessed. Raissa was using the three fingers of her right hand, the one that had escaped the blisters, to stroke the small section of Caleb's scalp untouched by the chemical weapons.

“Raissa, how bad is the pain?”

Blisters covered both her arms and one side of her neck, and her face was a tortured mess of tears and exhaustion. “Caleb is unconscious,” she said.

“I mean you.”

“It hurts a lot.”

Ashminov grimaced. Raissa never complained. To admit that she was suffering meant that her pain was horrific.

“Taxi, stop here,” he said a block from the hospital. “Stay here, I'll be back in fifteen minutes with synthetic skin.”

She didn't react.

“Raissa?”

She looked up. “Every paladin you see will want to kill you.”

He twirled the joule. “Thanks to the Captain and Colonel, their oldest son is a crack marksman.”

Unimpressed, she said, “Make it ten minutes.”

* * *

Caleb, organs failing one by one, existed in a tiny part of his brain. He ached to shout, “I love you,” but blisters had fused his lips shut. Raissa will never hear me say those words. His physical pain was an unrelenting hammering of his senses, but his inability to express his feelings to Raissa hurt far worse.

He had heard everything Ashminov and Raissa had said. At first, he had agreed with Ashminov: they should have gone straight to the blimp port. To go to the hospital would add unnecessary risk. But he had changed his opinion when he had realized that Raissa, too, had suffered injuries from the blisters. The trip to the hospital would benefit her even if it were were too late for him, which it clearly was.

Raissa’s tears splashed at random on his cheeks and forehead, warm and soft as precious kisses. Drawing air slowly through his nose, he filled himself with the spice of her skin and the sweetness of her breath.

He felt a tickle inside his ear canal and knew it was her breath. Is she singing to me?

“Raissa is coming,
She is almost here,
She is bringing toys and gifts.
She’s also got a box,
Inside there's a duck
That goes:
Quack quack quack
Quack quack.”

* * *

Ashminov—joule in one hand, trans in the other—trudged up the hospital stairs. Miraculously, he had slipped through the lobby undetected. He was quite certain that if a health paladin spotted him, that paladin would set aside the Hippocratic Oath.

When he reached the eighth floor, he stopped to check the time. Theoretically, he had seven minutes to return to the taxi with the synthetic skin. But knowing Raissa as he did, he’d better make it back in five.

On the tenth floor, he confirmed the joule was set to stun and then exited the stairwell. He hurried down the empty hallway. The element of surprise was his best friend, and he put a hard shoulder into the ward doors. They flew open as he burst inside.

Dr. Honey gasped, her eyes widening in shock as she stared at the armed intruder. The wheels turning in her mind, Dr. Honey’s chip fired impulses into a dark part of her brain she didn’t even know existed. She drew in a sharp breath at the moment of recognition, and her eyes glittered with bloodlust. “Christian Ashminov,” she growled, without a drop of honey in her tone. As she charged at him with outstretched hands, he opened fire and dropped her before she could strangle him.

The rest of the staff flinched as their chips infused them with murderous impulses. He zapped them with six quick bursts.

Ashminov rushed to the incubator, gathered up ten packs of synthetic skin, and then moved to Roscoe’s bed. “I can disable your chip.”

Roscoe, confined by polycuffs, had a quizzical smile as if to say, “What took you so long?” Then he nodded.

“Freedom is a mixed bag,” Ashminov said, pressing the wand against his friend's forehead. The beep and Roscoe's gush of tears happened simultaneously. Was it unbridled joy or a flood of unproductive emotions? Ashminov would never find out. After spinning the dial above the bed to release Roscoe’s polys, Ashminov charged out of the ward.

* * *

What’s taking Ashminov so long ?

Raissa dragged a sleeve across her eyes, fearing that her tears splashing on Caleb’s face were adding to his discomfort. She glanced at the taxi clock. Nine minutes had passed. If she were to save Caleb’s life, she couldn’t wait any longer; she’d have to get medical help now.

She gently lifted his head and set it on the seat. “Caleb, hang in there.” If he could hear her, he didn’t show it. “Taxi, wait here.”

She climbed out of the back seat, feeling as if molten lava was pouring down her back, and limped to the main hospital entrance. She stepped into the lobby. “I need a doctor. I need a doctor.”

A nurse approached with concern in her eyes. “How did you get those burns?”

“I don’t need help,” Raissa cried.

Another nurse trotted over. “Someone, get a wheelchair.”

The hospital staff assumed Raissa was the patient.

She pulled her joule and trained the weapon on the nurses, then on a paladin coming with a wheelchair. “My friend needs a doctor. He’s dying. Come with me.”

The number of attentive health paladins surrounding her grew. They ignored everything she was saying. The doctors spoke to each other. “Give her an injection of Fade,” one said.

No sooner had the doctor brandished an injector, than his eyes bulged and his hair puffed out. After he collapsed to the floor, more paladins dropped as Ashminov fired on them from across the lobby.

When he had neutralized the threat, he ran over to her and held up a fistful of synthetic skin packs. The first doctor to take a slug got to his knees, bared his teeth, and lunged at Ashminov. Raissa stopped the advance with a low-amperage shot to his head.

More paladins burst through a corridor door. “I’ll cover you,” she shouted at Ashminov. “Get to the taxi. Help Caleb. I’ll be right behind you.”

He sprinted for the door with two paladins on his heels. Raissa dropped both.

Ashminov was already in the taxi by the time she stepped outside. She hurried over to him and screamed until the air bled from her lungs. Caleb was not in the cab.

* * *

“Get in,” Ashminov shouted as paladins poured out of the hospital.

Ignoring the threat, Raissa remained outside the taxi. “We have to find him.”

He opened the door and pulled her in. She let out an anguished wail, but he thought it had little to do with the seat scraping her blisters; the pain of losing Caleb drove a knife into her heart.

“Taxi, Arlington Blimp Port,” he instructed, and they pulled away from the curb.

Two paladins chased after them on foot. Aiming his joule out the window, Ashminov was about to end their pursuit but decided it was smarter to save ammo. He checked the time. “We have twelve minutes to get on a blimp. Taxi, faster.”

The acceleration pushed them back in their seats, and they rocked left and right as the taxi dodged other vehicles and pedestrians. He ripped open a package of synthetic skin and draped a thick sheet of polymer over Raissa’s arm, soothing her blisters at once. He plastered another layer on the back of her neck. But if she felt relief, she didn’t show it. Her cheeks sagged, and her eyes had lost their brilliant green luster. They looked more like an odd shade of gray. Where’s the fiery rebel?

“Petrov won’t let Caleb die,” he said. “He told me he has plans for Adam and Eve. I bet paladins took him to the Citadel.” Ashminov waited for that information to sink in and reignite her fervor.

She tossed Caleb’s messenger on the seat between them. The messenger was crucial; without it, they couldn’t pilot a blimp. He feared she had given up.

“Approaching your destination,” the taxi announced.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what? Save eight billion people?”

She shook her head. “I did the best I could.”

The taxi rolled to a stop across the street from the port, and he draped the remaining sheets of synthetic skin on her face and hands. He wanted her to be comfortable in her final hours. “Can I conquer my fear of heights? I'll try. Can I storm the Citadel alone? Sure, why not? Too bad Caleb suffered in vain.”

He hoped his words would make her feel sorry for him, angry at herself, at Petrov—anything that would spark her to fight on.

Her shoulders folded over.

“If we went as a team,” he continued, “we'd have a slim chance of stopping the transmission of ricinware and killing Petrov. Going alone, it's a suicide mission. But that's better than moping in the back of a taxi, waiting for the slaughter of the world's population.”

She hung her head.

“Raissa, if Caleb is dead, you’re the one responsible. You told him to run through the tunnel. You already had his messenger. He’d be alive if it weren’t for you.”

Ashminov kept his eye on her hand, expecting her to make a fist and throw a punch at his face; he would have gladly sacrificed his jaw to her knuckles if she snapped out of her funk.

“Look, I didn’t mean that. Nothing could have stopped Caleb. I was trying to motivate you. You’re a much better person than I’ll ever be. You tried your best. I’ll always remember you.”

He grabbed the messenger and climbed out. How am I going to pilot a blimp with my eyes closed? He started for the port; he had two minutes to figure it out.

IMPLEMENTATION

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 01

Tears trickled down Raissa’s cheeks as she played different scenarios in her mind.

I should have carried Caleb into the hospital earlier.

I should have insisted that Ashminov stay with us.

I encouraged Caleb to enter the tunnel. I was selfish; I didn’t want go on without him.

Ashminov had crossed the street. Every woman, man, and child on the planet, unbeknownst to them, was counting on him to save their lives. Raissa knew that Ashminov had the best of intentions, but he didn't stand a chance on his own. He had even forgotten to take a weapon.

She sighed hard and then, with a heavy heart, firmed her jaw and locked her tears deep inside. They had forty-five seconds to hop into a blimp before it lifted off. Slinging the weapons satchel over her shoulder, she jumped out of the taxi and raced to catch up. The blimp port was like the port in Jerusalem: a vast tarmac dotted with magnetic tie-downs and ringed with tanks of helium.

Only a very few blimps were on the ground, though. Most were airborne, all preparing to fly into the Citadel.

She jogged up beside Ashminov.

“What took you so long?” he asked.

“Pick up the pace!”

Mindful that Ashminov was no athlete, she grabbed his hand, careful not to pull too hard, or else his legs might give out. The synthetic skin had cooled the fire on her arms and neck, but she was in no condition to carry him. She aimed them toward a small cluster of blimps, tethered at the far end of the port. They looked like a pod of silver whales—a mother and her four calves. The largest was a craft twice the size of a soccer field and half as tall, used for software transmissions and video surveillance. The much smaller observation blimps, a mere five meters long, seated two.

Ashminov tripped on a magnetic tie-down, and she helped him to his feet. “Come on! Twenty seconds.” They had fifty meters to go.

There was a loud metallic pop, and the giant transmission blimp rose. Three more pops followed in quick succession. One by one, the observation blimps lifted from their tie-downs.

With five meters to go, Raissa let go of Ashminov’s hand and with a furious final burst of energy, raced to the pilot’s side of the cockpit. “Hurry,” she shouted breathlessly, realizing Ashminov had Caleb’s messenger, which would allow them to fly the blimp. She heard a loud pop as she scrambled up the steps. She flung the door open and launched herself in. Her legs dangled outside.

The copilot's door opened, and Ashminov's hand appeared. Scrabbling forward, she lunged and grabbed it as he was slipping. She held on while the blimp floated higher. Then she swung her left leg up and gained purchase with her knee on the doorframe. From there, she jackknifed her bent leg until she could get her hips onto the ledge. With a final thrust, she pulled herself inside. Rallying every bit of her strength, she hoisted Ashminov with both hands. His face appeared, and she let go of his wrist and seized his shoulder to haul him in by his shirt. With him lending muscle to the effort, she got him into the cockpit. They collapsed in their seats, panting. Ashminov held Caleb's messenger.

“Good afternoon, Dr. Saunders,” the blimp said. “Would you like auto-mode or manual?”

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 02

Beneath a dome of black, Caleb stood on a thick carpet of rose petals that stretched to the horizon. Is their odor masking my death? Or am I dreamin? How can I wake myself up? Raissa and Ashminov need my help.

Raissa appeared before him, and he fixed his eyes on her face. Reaching out to her, he rested his hand on her cheek. He no longer wanted to awaken, but rather live in this dream forever, peering into the green eyes of the girl he loved.

Her face burst into flames, and then she vanished, leaving him with singed fingertips.

Immediately, a young girl spoke. “Daddy, I’m afraid.” Caleb’s heart contracted. The voice had come from behind him, and he turned to see Fern standing there. Can this be real? Fern is only data.

Fern, standing in a light that had no source, wore a white dress. “Don’t be afraid,” he told her.

“Mommy will hurt me.”

Caleb shuddered. “Nobody will hurt you.” He wanted to comfort her, but how were you supposed to comfort lines of code? What can you say to an uncompiled program? But Fern was more than software. She was a little girl who had touched his heart in ways he couldn’t explain.

He walked up to her and put his arms around her. She was at once fragile and strong, and their hearts beat as one. “Fern, are you still afraid?”

Cheek against his chest, she shook her head.

Her love poured into him. How long can I hold her? He hoped forever.

Fern disappeared from his arms as if someone had pressed a key to delete her. He cried out in sorrow, his mournful wail serving as the score for the surreal clips playing in the theater of his mind. Thousands of pink raisins with Eden Chips floated down like snowflakes as Dr. Joyce jotted notes in her messenger. Waves of rats, wanting to retrieve their brains, stampeded with gnashing teeth and tails whipping. They scampered up his leg. He plucked them off and tossed them aside as fast as he could.

“Caleb, please don’t hate me.” Zoe stood a meter away, cradling Julian in her arms.

“I could never hate you. Where are we?”

“This is Paradise.” Zoe held out Julian and added, “Go to Uncle Caleb.”

Julian slipped through Caleb’s hands, and they both tumbled into a dark void. Caleb struck a cold metal surface, and he cried out, feeling as if he had broken every bone in his body. With tears running down his face, he lay limp in the dark.

“Blood pressure?” The voice sounded close.

“170 over 90, Dr. Mars.”

Mars? Gabriel Mars? Caleb strained to see. The muscles around his eye sockets quivered as he broke the seal of blisters welding his lids.

Other voices blended into a blur of medical chatter.

“Pulse?”

“Twenty-five.”

“Four CCs of Burst.”

“Pain factor?”

“Rising.”

“Dr. Mentenhoffer, keep an eye on it,” Mars replied. “We won’t be much longer.”

I must be in the Citadel, receiving the best medical care in the world. Dr. Mars and his team would repair his damaged skin and restore him to good health.

“He’s awakening,” Mars said. “Dr. Mentenhoffer, two CC’s of Fade.”

Caleb redoubled his effort to see. Pinpricks of light burst through his lids. His eyes snapped open. Mars and two paladin surgeons in scrubs—an older man, and a woman in her twenties—looked down at him. Mars, with his long blond curls bunched into a surgical cap, towered over the others.

“Adam, do you remember that research project of mine, Beyond Eden?” Mars asked.

He remembered it well. Concealing half a million deaths is hard to forget.

“They sacrificed their lives in the name of science,” Mars said, as if Caleb had told him that. The tall paladin then put his face close to Caleb’s. “That explains the need for Eve’s neurons.”

“No,” Caleb tried to shout, but the short man pressed an injector under Caleb’s chin, and his world turned dark and silent.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 03

“Dr. Saunders, would you like auto-mode or manual?” the blimp repeated.

Fearful that his gut might twist into a permanent knot if he looked out the window, Ashminov kept his eyes shut. “Blimp, auto-mode.”

“What is your destination?” the blimp asked.

“The Citadel,” he said.

“Citadel airspace is off limits, Dr. Saunders.”

“What do we do now?” Raissa asked.

“When the assault begins, the guidance system will take over. Before that happens, we need to get closer.” He issued a new instruction. “Blimp, New Fenway Park.”

“The baseball stadium is on the waterfront, near the Citadel,” he told Raissa.

The solar motor at the stern hummed to life, and he leaned back. The seat harness extended across his lap and chest, offering a false sense of comfort that wouldn’t last long. “Raissa, tell me what you see.”

“The Citadel is about three kilometers away.

“We're heading east-southeast at twelve knots.

“We’re passing over the Charles River at 300 meters elevation. The other blimps are turning toward the Citadel.”

She grabbed his hand, her nails digging into his skin. “I can see an enlightenment wall. It has a spinning globe, covered mostly in red.”

Ashminov swallowed hard. “Petrov is showing the progression of the devourware. I’m sure he’ll advertise the ricinware drifting their way, too, a countdown clock to death.”

They rode in tense silence for a while. “I can see inside the Citadel,” she said eventually. “In the southwest corner, there’s a rocket on the launch pad. White steam is rising from the base.”

Knowing Petrov as he did, Ashminov could see the logic of the rocket. Blast into orbit. Let the Paladins clean up the mess, kill them, and then wait for the bacteria and carrion to consume the remaining corpses. After that, he’d return to Earth 2.0, the planet pristine and uninhabited.

“Petrov’s garden takes up three-quarters of the area,” Raissa continued. “There's a building with a white roof in the middle. I don't see any roads or paths leading to it.”

“A lab, maybe?” Ashminov offered.

“There’s a cluster of four buildings outside the garden and next to them is a mound of dirt with a large satellite dish.”

He pumped his fist. “That’s where we want to go! The transmission server will be close to the dish.”

“How do we land near there?”

He did not know how to break the bad news to her. “Land” implied a gentle touchdown and meant that they would have the ability to navigate. But instead, they would have no control of the blimp. The other blimps would jostle and bump them, and if they were lucky enough to crash in thick vegetation, it might allow them to walk away in one piece.

“We have no control over how or where we land,” he admitted. “When the attack comes, we’ll hold back and let the rest of the fleet absorb most of the Citadel’s firepower. We’ll join the second wave.”

“Blimp, manual-mode,” Raissa commanded.

“Blimp, auto-mode,” Ashminov spat out. “Have you ever flown one?” He knew the answer, but he hoped his comment would drive home the point that they should stick with auto-mode.

“How hard can it be?”

He realized that Raissa operated with a level of confidence he would never experience.

“Blimp, manual mode,” she said.

“Manual-mode engaged, Dr. Saunders. Enjoy your flight.”

* * *

A tear trickled down Raissa’s cheek. She had fought to contain her grief, but the repeated mention of his name broke her resolve. While ‘Dr. Saunders’ implied an impassionate NanoArtisans scientist, Caleb lived in her heart as a sweet, caring nerd with a big nose who had sacrificed his life trying to save the world. A hot flare of anger vaporized the pooling tears in her eyes. I’m not responsible for his death; Petrov is.

With one more reason to ensure they touched down safely inside the Citadel so that they could kill Petrov, Raissa scanned the instrument panel, ready to begin her pilot’s training. If she could steer the blimp and control its altitude, she could at least aim them toward the target.

She pulled the joystick back, and they climbed. Forward, the nose dipped. When the blimp vibrated from excessive speed, she leveled out, and the vibration ended.

“Flying is easy,” she said, in part because she believed it, and, in part to soothe Ashminov’s jitters. He was squeezing his eyes shut. From this point onward until they touched down, he was useless

She pushed a button marked “Power Boost” and they shot forward as if fired from a slingshot.

“Hey,” Ashminov cried out.

“Sorry.” She pushed another button marked “Air Brake.” Her upper torso pressed forward against the chest restraint as they decelerated. “I think I've worked it all out now, Ashminov. Don't worry, I'll get us there.”

“Raissa?”

“What?” She looked over at him, curious.

Ashminov paused a long moment. “I’m glad we’re partners.”

Raissa swallowed past the obstruction in her throat caused by frustrating memories; their history together had been challenging, but she was glad he was by her side. “Me, too.”

“Please tell me what’s happening.”

“Thousands of blimps are circling the Citadel. It’s not exactly a surprise attack.” She eyed the blimp’s radio mic and smiled wryly. “Maybe I should call Petrov and announce we’re on our way.”

Ashminov gasped. “Why would you do that?”

Detecting ironic humor was not one of Ashminov’s unique talents. “Forget it,” she said. “I’ll fly outside the main ring of blimps until they go in. The assault begins in thirty seconds.” She pushed power boost and steered closer to the river of silver in the sky.

When they were within a few meters of the outer perimeter of blimps, she hit the brakes. “All the blimps are in position. Are you ready to lay siege?”

The muscles in Ashminov’s face tightened.

“Ten seconds. Nine…eight…seven…” She counted down to one and whooped with furious enthusiasm. Ashminov, grimacing in terror, gripped his armrests. The blimps turned and glided toward the fortress. The sudden thunder of cannons greeted them.

Sonic waves obliterated the lead blimps, their tattered fabric fluttering to the ground like drunken butterflies. Some blimps rocketed up at strange angles, powered by the rush of helium through puncture wounds. Others fell in a downward trajectory, bumping into the walls and the cannons, and collapsing on impact. The weapons were deadly accurate.

“The second wave is closing in,” she shouted above the cacophony.

“Are any blimps making it past the cannons?” he cried.

And the lasers? “Some,” she lied.

His teeth chattered. “Raissa, are they landing?”

Yes, in little pieces. “Ashminov, it’s just like the Bracken Cave. The bats are overwhelming the hawks.”

He sat back as taught facial muscles relaxed for the moment.

Aiming for the satellite dish, she pushed the joystick to the left and forward. They picked up speed.

“What’s happening?”

“We’re going in for a smooth landing,” she said, thinking a positive attitude was best.

A piercing alarm sounded, joined soon by a robotic voice. “Collision, collision, collision.” Both sounds almost drowned out Ashminov's screams. The cockpit darkened and rotated. Blood rushed to Raissa's head, then to her feet. She pushed, pulled and punched every control knob and lever, to no avail.

A sonic blast shattered the windshield, peppering her face with carbonite fragments, and she blinked to clear the blood seeping into her eyes.

“Pressure warning,” the voice blared. “Pressure warning.”

“Do something, Raissa!”

You do something!

They shot straight up. Motionless at the top of the trajectory, a hail of laser bullets punched through the cockpit floor, and Ashminov gripped his left thigh.

“I’m hit.” Eyes open now, he pulled his hands back. The bullet had pierced muscle and bone just above his knee, leaving a bloodless hole that you could see through to the other side.

Raissa’s restraints dug into her chest as the blimp dove straight down. The blast of sweet-smelling garden air rushing through the cracked windshield flattened eyeballs and puffed out cheeks. Halfway to impact with the ground, another blimp struck them, and they lurched to the side.

For a second, Raissa caught a view of the alleged lab. “We're about two hundred meters south of the lab and east of the satellite building. We’re going down hard. Brace yourself!”

She doubted Ashminov heard her above the wail of warning messages because she couldn't hear her own voice. The ground rushed up at them, a kaleidoscope of silver and green filling her vision, and then a bang.

Raissa catapulted into a black, silent void.

* * *

Ashminov opened his eyes to cries of “Collision warning…Collision warning…” They were on the ground, drilled into a cocoon of greenery and earthy odors. Branches impaled what remained of the cockpit.

The battle in the sky raged on, but the cannon fire had lessened from the earlier barrage that had pounded his eardrums. Judging by the tatters of silver fabric draping the trees, the rules of nature may not have applied to this assault. The hawks had triumphed, eating their fill and then some.

He powered down the electronics, which released his harness and silenced the blimp's voice. Turning to Raissa, he saw blood streaming down her face. A thorny vine protruding inside the cockpit had ripped a gash in her forehead. Embedded in her face were slivers from the shattered windshield.

“Raissa.”

She didn't respond.

He called her name louder. No response. To see if she was breathing, he leaned in closer to her, but a stabbing pain in his knee surged with a vengeance. The laser bullet had cauterized the vessels, so there was no blood.

He pushed the door open and tumbled into a bed of feathery ferns. He struggled to his feet and, dragging his wounded leg behind him, limped around the caved-in nose of the blimp. The pilot’s door was missing.

He reached in and checked Raissa’s wrist. She had a weak pulse. When he put his ear close to her nose and mouth, he heard only faint, random hisses of breath. She needed solid oxygen pellets to prevent brain damage. The blimp must have a first aid kit.

He hobbled around inside the wreckage, trying to locate it, but the vegetation was too thick, and he quickly abandoned the idea.

He picked up a broadleaf and ripped it in half using his teeth. One half he applied to Raissa's forehead to stem the bleeding. It remained in place, stuck to her wounds. The other half he used to mop the blood off her face.

He checked her pulse and breathing again. Both vital functions had worsened. She required medical attention he could not provide.

Will Petrov allow his Eve to die unceremoniously among the wreckage? Ashminov didn't think so. He unbuttoned the bottom of her shirt and unclipped her explosives belt. He coaxed it off and buckled it around his waist. Then he pulled the joule from her waistband and tucked it into his rear pocket. In her condition, she wouldn’t be able to use the belt or her weapon.

He returned to the co-pilot’s side and found Caleb’s messenger. After identifying their GPS coordinates, he reached for the blimp’s radio mic, brought it to his lips, and depressed the button. “Raissa needs urgent medical attention.” He gave their coordinates, confident that paladins, and maybe even Petrov, were monitoring the radio frequencies. He keyed the mic once more. “Eve is dying. You’d better hurry.”

Ashminov glanced at Raissa a final time. She was turning blue, which gave her facial scar a purplish tint, but she didn’t seem in pain. While he would never bet against the Jerusalem rebel, the odds of her continuing the mission were close to zero.

He was on his own. Armed with a joule and a potent supply of explosives, he stumbled out of the blimp and vanished into the garden.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 04

Raissa’s eyes shot open. She was lying on her back, surrounded by vines and lush greenery littered with pieces of silver fabric. Above her, a lattice of red and yellow flowers framed a window of blue sky.

Three paladins wearing blue uniforms moved into her view: one woman and two men. Their faces hovered over her as they spoke to one another in quiet voices. Her heart was pounding so hard it drowned out much of what they were saying, but she picked up snippets:

“Blood pressure.”

“Scar.”

“Eighteen years old.”

“Eve.”

Her blood chilled.

Raissa’s eyes darted to the silver pouch that one man held; Caleb had told her what the bags were used for. The man must have read her expression of fear. “Don’t worry, Eve. We’re interested in Christian Petrov’s brain.”

Who is Christian Petrov? In any case, she had no reason to believe these paladins.

The paladins backed away and formed a huddle, likely discussing what they would do with her. Recent events crystallized in Raissa’s mind, first in fragments and then in larger chunks of understanding, the way a jigsaw puzzle takes form in stages. She and Ashminov had crash-landed inside the Citadel, but where was Ashminov? She shifted her eyes left and right. Has he escaped?

Sliding her hand behind her back, she discovered that her joule was missing. The paladins must have disarmed her. She reached for the detonator button. The paladins must have removed that, too. Or has Ashminov taken them and continued without me?

He was a never-ending source of surprises, but perhaps not this time. The force of the crash had likely killed him. She was on her own.

Her captors had joules, which she could try to secure, but she concluded that grabbing the Glock would be quicker. The satchel holding the gun should be in the cockpit. Before making her move, she tensed different muscles groups the length of her body to determine if she felt pain. Good! No bones were broken.

A nasal voice crackled over the paladin's radio. “Any injuries?”

A male paladin replied, “Facial and scalp lacerations, Dr. Petrov.”

“Did Christian survive?” Petrov asked.

“We haven’t found him, Sir.”

“Keep searching,” Petrov ordered. “And conduct a field implant on Eve.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The paladin lowered the radio and addressed the other two. “Captain, do the field implant, and Sergeant, widen your search perimeter.”

“Yes, Commander,” the female sergeant replied.

The captain produced a chip injector and approached Raissa.

“Hurts,” Raissa whispered.

“What hurts?” he asked.

Raissa mumbled and grimaced.

The captain leaned in closer. “Tell me what hurts.”

Raissa grabbed his face with her left hand, then leaped up and delivered an elbow to his right temple. The captain, clutching the injector in his hand, toppled to the ground with a thud.

She threw a roundhouse punch at the commander who was charging her from the left. Her knuckles connected above the bridge of his nose, unleashing torrents of blood through his nostrils. As the commander stumbled back, Raissa lunged for the weapon satchel inside the cockpit.

Her fingertips grazed it just as a searing, electric pain coursed through her back. Her neck arched, her muscles bulged, and she fell stiffly to the ground, paralyzed. The sergeant lowered her joule.

Dazed, Raissa watched as the commander, pinching his nose to stem the flow of blood, rose to his feet with a menacing expression. He took the chip injector from the captain and pressed it roughly against Raissa's forehead. Then, grinning down at her spitefully, he stepped back and brought the radio to his lips. “Dr. Petrov, I have an update.”

“Go on,” Petrov replied.

“Eve has the Eden Chip.”

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 05

With a sharp pain in his right leg, Ashminov limped through the hanging vines and broadleaf plants. How long have I been on the move? Caleb’s messenger reported it was 12:48 p.m., and he thought he had left Raissa at 12:12. Fever clouded his mind, and he couldn’t do the math.

Mere minutes from the crash site, a thin black ring had formed around the laser wound above his knee, and he had felt his temperature rising. He had wondered how an infection could develop so quickly.

Using the messenger's compass, he headed west because, before they had crashed, Raissa had said they were east of the building with the satellite dish. The garden was surprisingly dark. With only occasional shafts of sunlight piercing the canopy, the low light and thick vegetation limited his view to three or four meters in any direction.

The loud, incessant chirping of frogs, crickets, and buzzing insects tested his love of nature. He stopped to ball up orchid petals and stuff them into his ears.

At 1:10 p.m., he stopped again to check his wound. The circle of decaying flesh was now the width of his finger. Without synthetic antibiotics to fight the aggressive bacteria, the infection would leap from one internal organ to the next like a fast-spreading wildfire, and Petrov would find him decomposing atop the deep layer of humus that made up the garden floor.

Shivering and consumed by a powerful thirst, Ashminov resumed his slog to the west. Sometime later, his eyes lit up at the sight of tiny pools of water which had collected inside flowers shaped like flute glasses. He snapped the stems and drank every drop.

But he gagged on the smell of his wound. Since he had last checked, the black ring had doubled in size, and a thin red line had traveled halfway up his thigh. With a nauseating odor wafting around him, he forged onward until he came to a nest of ants. The mound of red earth rose to his chest, with waves of giant black ants cascading down the sides like lava from a volcano.

He recalled watching a docudrama in which ancient Mayans used Dorylus army ants to clean up an infected wound. What type of ants are these? Figuring he had nothing to lose, he took off his shoes and stripped to his underwear. He walked up to the mound and plunged his hand through the small opening at the top, the soft dirt giving way around his forearm.

The ants swarmed around the intrusion. Their reception—hundreds of painful bites on his hand—was a good omen. The species was carnivorous. He closed his fist, withdrew it, and crammed ants into the top side of his leg wound. They clustered over the injury, attacked the injured flesh by pinching, shearing, and biting. He collected more ants and stuffed the second fistful into the opening on the underside of his leg.

Ashminov sat against a tree wincing as the ants, not discriminating between healthy and rotting flesh, munched away. A trail of ants marched over in single file from the nest to join the feast, crawling up his leg to the open wound.

After a few minutes, seeing the black bulls-eye around his injury had thinned, and the red line running up his thigh had retreated, Ashminov got to his feet, brushed off the ants, and inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with oxygen and confidence.

His thoughts turned to Raissa. What will Petrov do with her? It wouldn’t surprise him if Petrov had her and Caleb—his Adam and Eve—under one roof. For sure, neither of them could help Ashminov. To save the human race from the lethal flood of ricinware, he was Noah without an ark.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 06

To hasten her recovery from the electron slug, Raissa wiggled her fingers and toes. She tightened and relaxed her stomach muscles. Petrov had ordered the paladins to bring her in, and they were packing up their gear. With an Eden Chip in her brain, she wondered if Petrov could read her mind. Does he know I'm planning to escape?

Petrov's voice crackled over the radio. “Commander, put Eve in polycuffs.”

That answered her question. From this point on, she would have to turn off her mind and become one with her body. Is that possible? The alternative was to advertise every intention to Petrov.

“Cuff her,” the commander said to the sergeant.

The sergeant chuckled. “What’s the point? She can’t even stand.”

The commander held out the radio. “Sergeant, be my guest. Tell Dr. Petrov that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

The sergeant quickly produced a pair of cuffs and walked over to Raissa. “Good luck getting out of these.” Rolling Raissa onto her side, she pulled her arms behind her back and applied the polys to her wrists.

The captain winced when he touched the bruise on his temple, which had come courtesy of a flying elbow. “Should we walk Eve out?” the captain asked.

The commander shook his head. “No, we wait here. I don’t want to be the one to tell Dr. Petrov that we lost her.” He spoke into the radio. “Request a transport blimp. I’ll confirm the coordinates.”

“Roger,” came the response.

The transport blimp appeared several minutes later and hovered above the treetops as a stretcher lowered on wires. The sergeant drove the toe of her boot into Raissa’s ribs and asked gruffly, “Can you can stand?”

Raissa stared up with wide, rolling eyes.

“Some help, please,” the sergeant said.

The three paladins grabbed Raissa by the arms and hefted her to her feet. She was limp as a rag doll, and she let her head loll to one side. “Get her to the stretcher,” the commander said.

The stretcher dangled in the air ahead of them, and all three paladins watched it swing down towards them.

In one swift motion, Raissa snapped her head to the side, clipping the sergeant on the side of her face. Stunned, she released her grip and wobbled back a step. Raissa then buried her left foot into the commander’s groin. He grunted and collapsed on his face. As the captain raised his joule, Raissa lunged at him and cracked the man’s nose with her head.

She backed into the cockpit, grasping for her bag with shackled hands. Reaching inside it, she passed up the laser dagger in favor of the Glock. The commander, on his feet now, drew his joule.

Gripping the pistol butt in both hands, Raissa somersaulted forward and sprang up to her feet. Then she folded at the waist and looked between her outspread legs at the upside-down paladins. She aimed at the commander. “Drop your weapon.”

When he hesitated, she swung the barrel a centimeter to the right and pulled the trigger. BANG! The bullet struck the stretcher, and it flew back like a pendulum. The commander dropped his joule.

With her ears ringing from the loud report, Raissa trained her weapon between the sergeant and captain and fired. The gun roared, and the bullet burrowed into a tree trunk with a loud THUNK. The others also dropped their weapons. “Release me,” Raissa demanded.

“Sorry, we can’t do that,” the commander replied with a smirk.

Her next bullet removed the commander’s right earlobe before he finished his sentence. He clutched the side of his head.

“Sergeant,” Raissa warned. “Get your organ transplant pouch ready because your commander is about to lose his head.”

The commander flung up his hands. “The polys have fingerprint verification. I’ll release you.”

When Raissa permitted him to advance, he came over and touched the clasp with his finger. Freed, she collected their joules and ordered the paladins to lie on top of each other on the stretcher. “Start the transport.”

The commander spoke into his radio, and the stretcher lifted.

When they were halfway to the blimp, she turned to leave, only to hear a slug buzz by her head. Raissa wheeled around. The commander held a joule. She first aimed for his heart, but then focused on his joule. BOOM. The bullet ripped the joule from his hand, and he cried out in shock.

Petrov peeled with laughter. “Eve, I’ve always admired your moral compass. You’ll kill only as a last resort.”

“My name is Raissa.” She hefted the satchel onto her shoulder and charged into the brush.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 07

Ashminov found a rhythm. Each foot sank up to the ankle in the spongy soil; he pulled it loose and let it fall in front of him. He repeated this plodding procedure as he followed the arrow on the messenger compass.

His fever had dropped briefly but had now returned, along with the red streak creeping up his thigh. Shivering and alternating between hot flashes and chills, he had no time to turn back, so he kept his eye out for another anthill.

He cursed when he noticed his right hand was empty. Somewhere along the way, he must have dropped the joule. Fortunately, he still had the explosives belt. Unfortunately, if he were to use it to take out Petrov, it would mean taking himself out as well. There has to be a better way.

About fifteen minutes later, after making some of his best progress so far, he came across a fresh trail, disturbingly familiar. The pile of broken stems and fluted flowers informed him he had been here before. He fell to his knees. I've been walking in a circle. Petrov must have manipulated the compass on the messenger, perhaps even the clock.

He tossed the messenger aside and crawled up the anthill, bracing himself to let the ants have another go at his wound.

After calling the insect picnic quits, he got to his feet and headed west again. From this moment forward, he would use the sun as his navigational tool. He didn’t think Petrov could control its trajectory. Not yet, anyway.

Soon, violent chills wracked his body, and sweat poured off him. He was getting weaker, and his fever was rising. Round two with the ants had not achieved the same results as had the first. Blackened skin extended 20 centimeters both above and below the wound, and the red line was nearing his groin.

He tried tricking his mind into believing that his worsening fever was fuel for his muscles; the chirping frogs and buzzing insects were the hum of an internal motor moving him closer to his goal.

Several minutes later, a sight made the pain in his leg tolerable. Buildings appeared through the foliage. Hoping that he wasn’t hallucinating, he came to the edge of the clearing and peered out. The buildings looked real, but so did hallucinations.

The area matched the mental picture Raissa had painted during their flight, except for the giant mound of earth she had described. What Raissa had called a mound was, in fact, a building covered with vegetation. A satellite dish sat on the roof.

After looking left and right, Ashminov started for the building. Waving a hand in front of his face to clear away spider silk thick as yarn, he came to double doors. Embossed on the glass was the Collective's seal: hands interlocked around a human brain implanted with a chip.

With a combination of dread and curiosity, he realized he had arrived at Collective Headquarters. The twelve members of the Collective met here to plot the course of society. Over the years, he’d seen this building—absent vines swallowing it whole—featured on enlightenment walls.

He surged with energy, thinking there must be medical supplies inside—at the very least, a first aid kit.

He passed through the doors, and when they closed behind him, it was as if a guillotine had dropped on the garden's noises. He plunged into silence as thick as cold oil.

A shaft of light through a window allowed him to make out large objects in a lobby. Shuffling around the perimeter of the area, he came to another set of double doors, with flickers of light leaking through at the base. He pulled one open and walked into the room.

Hope bled from him like helium from a punctured blimp. The spinning globe was projected on a large monitor; narrow caps of yellow covered the North and South Poles. The E.L.F. towers, after blanketing the earth with devourware, were now pumping out ricinware. A digital readout reported that close to one million people had died.

Sickened, Ashminov stumbled to a nearby conference table to brace himself, but a new shock replaced his nausea with fear. The twelve chairs around the circular table all held corpses sitting upright. The placard on the left had the name “Vice Chancellor Vasiliev.” The placard to his right said “President Murtowsky.” A grim realization hit him. The members of the Collective were all dead, and judging by their state of decomposition—eye sockets and knuckles picked clean by bacteria—they had died years ago.

He had to hand it to Petrov. Every enlightenment wall was fiction. While the members of the Collective were rotting away here, their computer-generated doppelgangers were traveling to different parts of the world, promoting the benefits of nanochips.

Ashminov pushed away from the table to resume his search for a first aid kit and the transmission server. Time was running out for him and the human race. When the ricinware reached the major population centers, the victim count would spike significantly.

The large cables running along the ceiling caught his eye. Do they lead to the server?

“Christian, your pupils dilated.” Petrov’s voice came from speakers in the ceiling. “Pray tell me, what has piqued your curiosity?”

Petrov was watching him. He wasn’t surprised. This facility likely had thousands of cameras and microphones.

Ashminov gestured to the skeletons. “Did they live long enough to see Version 1 of the chip?”

Petrov laughed. “We both know that politicians are useless. The technologist always has the upper hand.”

On that point, they agreed.

Suddenly, Ashminov doubled over from a sharp pain in his groin. He pulled back the elastic waistband of his underwear and peered down. The red line running up his leg had penetrated his groin.

“Do you believe you can stop the flood?” Petrov asked.

“What’s your data tell you?”

“I don’t need data to know what you’ll do next.”

“Familiarity cuts both ways, Nicholas.”

In a race against his spreading infection and under the watchful eye of the madman, Ashminov followed the cables to a new door and opened it. Bathed in soft light, the room was the shape of a cube, and an unmistakable object sat on a pedestal two meters away. Paying little attention to the cables extending across the ceiling, he laughed sourly to himself. You do know me well!

He took two steps and fell to his knees before the injector filled with tryp. Careful not to disturb the plunger, he picked it up and balanced it in his palm. The eerie light illuminated the pale green liquid inside the cartridge.

For Petrov’s benefit, he voiced his thought process. “Should I inject a few milligrams at a time to boost my confidence, or should I consume the entire amount at once?

“If I choose the former, I risk the sepsis claiming me before the tryp is gone. What a waste.

“The latter option, injecting all at once, would rocket me to a lofty, but shortened state of exultation. I might find myself still alive with the tryp supply exhausted. What should I do?”

Petrov cleared his throat. “Follow your heart, Christian.”

“I suppose I should,” Ashminov replied, tightening his grip on the injector. “A final question. Did you reach Raissa in time?”

“Raissa is dead; Eve arose from her ashes.”

Ashminov brought the injector to the crook of his arm and issued a groan of pleasure as he toppled onto his side.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 08

Even though Petrov hadn’t spoken to Raissa since she’d left the crash site, she sensed him lurking in the shadows of her mind. Tension knotted the muscles in her neck and upper back, and an urge to dig the Eden Chip from her brain with her fingers persisted.

The glimmer of sunshine coming down through the leafy canopy was her compass. Knowing that she and Ashminov had crashed to the east of the buildings, she was heading west.

She stopped periodically to rip off the ends of large leaves. Surrounded by thick vegetation and with no defined pathways through the garden, it would be easy to wander in circles, and this way she would know if she were repeating her steps.

She detected motion on her right and spun that way as a torrent of adrenaline flooded her body. She raised the Glock and decapitated an orchid with a single shot. Bees were causing the flowers to sway.

She jumped back as her heart jumped in her chest. Goldstein stood before her.

She almost didn’t recognize her trainer. Frail and stooped over, he had aged a decade since she’d seen him three days ago.

“Goldstein?”

He looked right through her.

“Eve, Goldstein is nine thousand kilometers away.

Suddenly, she found herself facing the cemetery in Jerusalem where Farouk and her parents were buried. The garden had vanished, but Goldstein was still there. She told herself it was an illusion, but the odors persuaded her otherwise. The air smelled of red clay earth and olives ripening in the grove behind the cemetery.

Goldstein hobbled past her, as if she didn’t exist, and entered the cemetery. He walked up to her brother’s gravesite and went down on one knee.

“In exchange for serving as your trainer, Goldstein asked for only one thing.” Petrov startled her. “He wanted to visit Farouk’s grave without being punished by his chip.”

“Goldstein, do you feel guilty?” she cried, immediately wishing she had stayed quiet. In the rush of anger that flared behind her eyes, Raissa forgot this was all an illusion.

She walked over and stood behind the ghost who had murdered her family. Real or not, he was trembling. Then he broke down and sobbed. His pain touched her, and she reached out to comfort him. No matter what he did, he is human.

Hearing Petrov’s peals of laughter, she wondered if he was laughing at her, at Goldstein, or both. “Sadistic,” she muttered.

“A label for small minds,” Petrov replied at once. “Eve, I expect so much more from you.”

“And sick,” she added.

Goldstein’s sobbing had turned into violent shudders.

“The irony, Eve, is that Chaim Goldstein did not kill your family. But he still believes he gave the order to fire the missile.”

She pulled her hand back. “Who gave the order?”

In an instant, Raissa was seeing her home from across the street. Goldstein was gone. An emergency vehicle had parked by the door.

The door looked different. It had two vertical planks of wood rather than three. Misty memories drifted up from the past. That was the door she had passed through as a little girl before the missile strike. Have I gone back in time?

“In the mind of God, there is no past or future; only the present.”

She spat and then lifted her eyes, searching the sky for the incoming warhead.

The door opened, and a paladin stepped outside, holding her brother in his arms.

“Farouk!”

The paladin placed him in the vehicle.

Raissa raised her Glock. “Step back.”

The paladin climbed behind the wheel.

“Get out,” Raissa commanded.

“Eve, save your bullets,” Petrov chided. “You’ll need them later.”

Just then, four more paladins emerged from inside the house, two carrying Raissa's mother on a stretcher, two with her father. Her parents were asleep or in a coma, likely medicated. The paladins loaded them into the back of the vehicle.

“They’ll all go to Gabriel’s lab,” Petrov said. “Next stop, Paradise!”

“Mom, Dad, Farouk.” Raissa was walking over to them when a young girl raced from the house and wrapped her arms around Raissa’s legs, looking up at her with teary green eyes. It took Raissa a moment to recognize herself as a six-year-old. After years of seeing a scar in the mirror, it was strange to see her face so smooth. The girl’s heart—which Raissa felt beating like that of a hummingbird—had yet to incur the deeper scars of grief.

“Eve, allow me to show you the birth of your scar.”

Her home exploded—the blast sending fragments of stucco through her as if they were air—and when the dust settled, she was in a different location. She saw her younger self on an operating room table, sheet up to her chin, hair bunched up under a cap, her head held in a vice group. A tall paladin with blonde flowing hair ignited a laser scalpel and burned a line in her cheek at an angle, from the right side of her eye to her lip. The sizzling over, Raissa breathed in the odor of her burning flesh.

When she heard a whistle behind her, she spun around and faced the stove in her kitchen, steam hissing from a teakettle on the burner. Again, Petrov had moved her through time and space.

A loud wail came from the room where her grandfather prayed. She rushed to the door and opened it. Her grandfather was sitting on his prayer rug, gasping for breath and sobbing.

“Eve, dear, you are seeing Jaddy in real time. He is free to pray to his God.”

“His chip is punishing him,” she countered, noticing he held a photograph in his hands.

“Your grandfather loves you more than he loves his God. You broke his heart when you left him.”

Raissa dropped to her knees and wept when she saw the picture Jaddy was clutching. He had taken it when she was in hospital, her face and arms bandaged. The memory of him holding her hand and singing to her—“Jaddy is coming, He is almost here, He is bringing toys and gifts”—filled her with light.

Petrov’s voice plunged her back into the darkness. “Shall I scrub Jaddy’s memory? He’ll look at the photo and wonder, who is that child? What green eyes she has ! Say the word, Eve, and I’ll delete you from Jaddy’s mind.”

“Do it,” she shouted, unable to watch her grandfather suffer any longer.

When Jaddy’s sobbing grew louder and his breathing more labored, she rushed to hug him but wrapped her arms around a tree instead, the bark rough against her face. She was back in the garden.

“Eve, there’s no place like home.”

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 09

Keeping his fingers wrapped around the tryp injector, Ashminov pressed his cheek flat against the floor and remained still. He had no plan, and his head was swimming with fever. Focus!

The door opened, and he watched a pair of operating room slippers pad toward him. When the slippers were a meter away, he shifted his eyes up to a female paladin wearing hospital scrubs and a side holster. She pulled the joule and bared her teeth.

Now what? This paladin had evidently received the Hadesware V2 code with his images, and her chip was firing electrochemical impulses deep into her brain, creating in her a craving to murder him. He imagined Petrov was watching the unfolding scene with delight.

To Ashminov’s relief, an idea popped into his mind. Put her chip into overdrive. He rolled onto his back and arched his neck to submit to his slaughter. The paladin inhaled sharply and leaned down, her eyes widening. She was drunk with bloodlust. He reached up and snatched the joule from her hand with surprising ease.

“Back up.” He rose to his knees.

Her crazed expression did not change, and she took a step forward.

When Ashminov got to his feet, he wobbled. “Where’s the transmission server?”

Except for heavy breathing, she remained silent and stared at his carotid artery.

“Do you have medical supplies?”

The paladin smacked her lips.

He waved the joule in her face. “I need antibiotics. Now!”

She narrowed her eyes and showed her teeth again.

“Face the wall,” he barked.

She lunged at him, hands stretched out like claws. He jabbed her in her neck with the injector. He had only pretended to inject himself with tryp, dribbling a few milliliters onto his skin. He depressed the plunger.

The paladin, awash with both tryp and a murderous fervor, dropped to the floor. She alternated grunts of pain from the forbidden substance in her system with wails of frustration at the ecstasy he had denied her. She’d recover, but not before the infection claimed him if he didn’t find antibiotics.

Ashminov moved in haste to the door through which the paladin had entered, but before he pulled it open, Petrov’s voice bellowed from above. “Christian, the data predicted you wouldn’t have the strength to resist using the tryp.”

“Surprise.”

“Surprise, indeed,” Petrov crowed.

“Nicholas, it would have been a bloody mess if that paladin had sunk her teeth into my neck.”

“Do you honestly believe I’d let you die? My surgeons would have patched you up nicely.”

Remembering the explosives belt around his waist—his final surprise for Nicholas?—Ashminov pulled the door open and immediately brought a hand to his mouth, gagging on the strong odor of roses.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 10

Raissa cast off from the tree, trying to push Jaddy’s suffering from her mind. The best way to help her grandfather—the rest of the population, too—was to keep a clear head and kill Petrov.

Continuing west, she soon heard running water, and when she parted a curtain of vines, a stream flowed in front of her. She recognized it immediately as the spot from which Petrov delivered his enlightenment wall lectures.

She walked along the sandy bank, thinking the stream would lead her to the isolated lab building or to the mound of earth with the satellite dish. Unfortunately, fewer plants in her way also meant greater exposure, and she tightened her grip on the Glock.

“Do you know how I selected you and Adam?” Petrov asked.

Raissa no longer had the urge to spin around and look for him, knowing his voice was inside her head. “Is Caleb alive?”

“Caleb is dead. How does that make you feel, Eve?”

Manipulated. Petrov enjoyed jerking her around this way and that. Instead of ignoring him, she’d try something else. She’d engage him in conversation to see what he might reveal. Everyone had a weakness. I’ll find out his.

She scoffed: “I don’t care how you selected Caleb and me.”

“An algorithm parsed trillions of bits of data before identifying you two as a perfect couple,” Petrov said, telling her anyway. “It considered your likes, dislikes, DNA, brain volumes, family histories, favorite nursery rhymes.”

Raissa stubbed her toe on a rock.

“Eve, you do care!”

“Trust me. I don't.”

His voice took on a serious tone. “You and Adam were four years old. Literary tastes play a significant role in matchmaking. Adam's favorite nursery rhyme was ‘Jack and Jill.’ You preferred ‘I’m a Little Teapot.’”

Raissa vaulted over a root ball. “Sure, my hero is a teapot.”

“You tickle my funny bone,” Petrov said in a perversely jovial tone.

She reached down to splash water on her face. Keeping her head still, she shifted her eyes left, then right, to scan the surrounding vegetation. It wouldn’t surprise her if Petrov wanted to distract her and then spring a unit of paladins on her. All clear.

She continued along the bank. “Seriously, I find it hard to imagine you have a sense of humor.”

“Delicious irony is my favorite.”

A bird with blue wings and an orange breast flitted by, and Raissa came close to blasting it out of the air, her nerves taut. “Is exterminating the population ironic, or just plain hilarious?”

“Both!” Petrov’s laughter filled her head. “Eve, I love your feistiness.”

“Love? You? Petrov, you are incapable of love.”

“Without love, life has no meaning. Ask Jaddy.”

She spat out. “Leave my family out of this!”

“I admire your grandfather. He is pure of spirit, unlike some so-called worshippers of religion.”

A sudden chill of fear passed through her. Had it come from Petrov? “You know worshippers who are not so pure?” she asked, probing into the madman’s mind to see what she might stir up.

“Version 1 of the chip dissolved childhood traumas. It was the first functionality I coded.”

She stopped, intrigued. He had ignored her question. That was significant. “Who said anything about traumas?”

A picture formed in her head that contracted her heart. A young boy was in bed at night, pulses of his fear emanating in the darkness. Had she entered Petrov’s mind?

“Yes, Eve. My vault of dark secrets.”

Through Petrov’s ears, she heard loud snoring coming from close by. Through his eyes, she saw the full moon out the window. A small gold crucifix and chain, gleaming in a shaft of light, sat on a table next to the bed.

“Eve, we are all shaped by our earliest memories.”

A final jolt of shock rattled her, and the boy—young Petrov—vanished.

“Petrov, I have horrible childhood memories, too, thanks to you.”

He jumped to a new topic. “Jaddy’s belief in God was born out of confusion. Throughout the ages, organized religion spread through the masses like cancer.”

She teased. “Petrov, you don’t want to discuss your childhood?”

“I am the one true God.”

“Fine, we don’t have to talk about it. Jaddy keeps his God alive in his heart. You implant chips in people’s brains so they’ll obey you.”

“Correction. So they’ll obey the data.”

“You even stole the M-code from a friend,” she said, eager to see if that might fire up his anger.

“Eve, in our little chat, have you identified my weakness? Something you might exploit?”

“Maybe.”

“Save your effort. Nobody can kill God.”

“We’ll see about that. Are you going to keep Caleb and me like pets in your ‘Garden of Eden’?”

“I told you Caleb is dead.”

“All that effort to find the perfect couple? I don’t believe you.”

“You can believe I have a better plan for my Adam and Eve!”

“I have a better plan for you, too,” she said, dropping her eyes to the Glock.

“Eve, how many bullets do you have?

“Enough.”

“The data suggests that you’ll need every last one.”

She reached a bend in the stream and squinted in disbelief. Twenty meters away, Petrov was sitting on a rock, his large head balancing on a thin neck: an excellent target. Taking deep slow breaths to quiet her nerves, she raised the Glock until the barrel pointed at his head. She fine-tuned her aim, opting instead to put a bullet through his heart.

She crept closer, but something was not right. Petrov remained motionless. A trap? She scanned left and right for paladins. From five meters away, Petrov still seemed to be alone and defenseless. Would he run? Good luck. She’d cut him in half before he took two steps on those spindly legs.

He swiveled his head and gazed into her eyes. “Remember what Goldstein taught you: never look your victim in the eye.” He shifted his torso to provide her with a perfect target.

Looking directly at him, she pulled the trigger. BOOM. The garden soaked up the deafening roar like a sponge, and a flock of quail in the nearby brush took flight.

Petrov’s eyes brightened. Incredibly, she must have missed. BOOM.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

She fired repeatedly, but the bullets passed through him without leaving a mark. He was a figment of her imagination. The shots, beyond scaring quail, had likely called out her location to paladins.

Petrov grinned. “Imagine if the first Eve had packed a semi-automatic pistol. The story of the Garden of Eden would have been so much more entertaining.”

“Grab your popcorn,” she said and placed the barrel up against her temple. “Where’s Caleb?”

“You’ll join him in death if you pull the trigger.”

“Tell me!”

“Or what?”

“You’ll have your Adam, but no Eve,” she replied in a shaky voice.

“Yes, you are correct. Adam is alive and well. You are the love of his life; your passing will sadden him.”

The gun felt ugly and cold in her grasp. “I'm going to count. Ten…nine…eight…” Soon enough, Jaddy and the rest of the human population would follow her into death anyway.

“Seven…six…five…”

A young girl with bright green eyes appeared in Raissa’s mind; Petrov must have planted the image. At first, she thought she was seeing herself, but the girl bore a slight resemblance to Caleb. “Four…three…”

“Mommy, no!” the girl cried.

Above the dizzying hum of her heart, Raissa prayed Petrov would stop playing games and tell her what he’d done with Caleb.

“Two…one…”

She applied pressure to the trigger. Her heart was in her mouth, and time stopped. Something was holding her back. She hated the idea of quitting while people depended on her. She slid her finger off the trigger.

“Eve, you can't harm yourself any more than you can hurt a child.”

With a dreadful sense that he had exposed a weakness in her, she lowered the gun. Then, suddenly, a lifetime of heartache and abuse at the hands of Petrov exploded in rage, and her weakness vaporized. The gun still felt ugly and cold, but she brought it to her temple with a renewed determination.

“Raissa!” The shout came from behind her, but she hesitated to turn around, knowing that Petrov could easily mimic Caleb’s voice.

“Please, put the gun down,” Caleb said.

What if it is Caleb? Aching to see him, and at the risk of handing Petrov another victory, she turned.

“Caleb, oh, my God,” she cried and lowered the gun.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 11

Spring-loaded, the door was hard to keep open as Ashminov peered into the dark room.

A rectangular metal table on wheels, holding a corpse covered by a sheet, sat in the middle of the room. Petrov, it seemed, enjoyed leading him on a sick treasure hunt, each discovery more gruesome than the last.

He wouldn’t give Nicholas the satisfaction of riling him. What could a dead body do to him? Nothing. How many corpses had he already encountered since leaving Rome? Countless. Ashminov flashed back to the Copley Square slaughter, and that paled in comparison to the tens of millions dying from ricin poisoning as he stood here.

Despite his distaste at seeing the corpse, he had no choice but to follow the three bulky cables running along the ceiling, hoping they led to the transmission server.

Ashminov took a mental snapshot of the room because he would have to navigate his way in the dark, on weak legs and with a feverish brain. Then, aiming for the door on the opposite wall, he took an unsteady step forward, then another. The door behind him closed, plunging him into darkness. Holding his hands in front of his face, he stepped, stumbled, lost his footing, and pitched forward. His head banged against the table, and he went rigid with pain, but he stiffened his legs in a half-bent position to stay upright.

Leaning his weight on the table, he groped along the edge with his hands. He guessed the door was a straight shot from the end of the table. Something pliable was sticking out. An arm? He took a deep breath to rally his courage and grabbed hold of the wrist to steer himself around it. Panic rose inside Ashminov’s chest when his hand slid on a coating of blood.

But he did not detect a metallic scent, and rather than slippery wet, the arm was tacky. Maybe it’s not blood? Curious, he grazed his fingertips along the forearm to the elbow, elbow to shoulder, shoulder to face. Soft, wet, pillowy bumps covered the entire distance. Unmistakably, this corpse was covered in blisters.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 12

Caleb stared at Raissa, her green eyes sparkling with intensity and confusion. He was confused, too. Why was she going to shoot herself? That’s not the Raissa I know.

She crinkled her brow, then looked over her shoulder. “He’s gone.”

“Who’s gone?”

“Petrov. Didn’t you see him?”

Caleb shook his head.

“You don’t believe me,” she said.

He had doubted her only for an instant before he saw an image in his mind of Dr. Petrov sitting on a rock by the stream. “I believe you.” Caleb could see what she had seen. He could feel Raissa’s heartbeat pounding in his own chest.

“Caleb, are you real?”

He placed his hand against her cheek, but that did not convince her.

She narrowed her eyes. “You were covered in blisters. What happened?”

He looked over his hands and arms. They were blemish-free. He patted his face. That too was clear and smooth. “I don’t know.”

“Where have you been?”

“I don’t know.”

“How did you find me?”

He knew that! Fifteen minutes earlier, he had been slipping through the dense greenery when he had heard the crackle of radios. Paladins were looking for Eve. The thud of boots had alerted him, and he had dived to the ground as a unit of paladins jogged by.

Then shots had rung out. The paladins had huddled, speaking in low voices, and then had marched in single file in the direction of the gunfire. Caleb had known it was Raissa who had fired the gun, and he’d sprinted in a full arc around the paladins to reach her first.

That’s when he had spotted her holding a gun to her head.

Raissa gasped. “Caleb, I just saw all your thoughts like I was watching a movie.”

“Your lips didn’t move.”

She swallowed hard. “Yours didn’t move.”

“We must have Eden Chips.”

She nodded vigorously. “After Ashminov and I crashed, a paladin injected me with an Eden Chip.”

“I can see everything that happened to you,” he said. “Ashminov is dead?”

“He must be.”

“Then it’s just us.”

“Caleb, Petrov can read every one of my thoughts, which means he knows what you’re thinking, too.”

“Raissa, we’re in this together.”

“How do we stop him?”

Caleb smiled. “It's two against one. He doesn’t stand a chance.”

“Your lips moved when you smiled,” she said, smiling herself.

“Yours, too.”

Suddenly, a laser bullet cleaved the space between them and bore a hole into a tree trunk to their left.

Caleb spun to see a paladin emerging from the vegetation twenty meters upstream, aiming a laser rifle at them. The paladin fired again and missed.

BOOM!

Raissa didn’t miss. The paladin grabbed her knee and crumpled on the bank, crying out in pain.

Raissa grabbed his hand. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Clutching Caleb, Raissa led him into the stream. The water was ankle deep, and they moved with caution at first. She noticed something strange; she was splashing with every step, but Caleb wasn’t even making a ripple in the water. She shot him an anxious look as his frightening thought blossomed in both of their minds.

“Raissa, I don’t know if I’m real.”

“You’re real enough to me, and I’m not letting you out of my sight again. Faster.”

When the stream became deeper, she steered him into the brush. Anticipating each other's movements like partners in an intricate dance, they ducked and crawled and jogged and pushed through Petrov's garden as one.

Raissa tripped, pitched forward, and planted her face in moss. Taking in the odor of musty, wet dirt, she remained on the ground, trying to catch her breath. Deep inhalations cooled the fire in her lungs.

She got to her feet, and Caleb was breathing just as hard. “Imaginary boys don’t gasp and wheeze like that.” She slapped his shoulder. “What more proof do you need?”

“In Dr. Joyce’s Eden Chip experiment, the rats believed they could see and feel each other. They had no sense that their brains were floating in synthetic placentas.”

Raissa placed her hands on the side of her head. “My brain is right here.” She placed her hands on his head. “Your brain.”

Caleb smiled, but his anxiety remained high.

“Raissa, I’m only sure of one thing.”

Heat flared in her cheeks. “Please, stop.”

“Do you know when I first fell in love with you?”

“When Petrov gave you an M-code patch.”

He shook his head. “You told me I played beautifully. You heard the music in my head. We didn’t even have Eden Chips. Nobody ever told me that.”

She turned away, needing a moment to think.

“You can’t hide anything from me,” Caleb said.

“Love takes years to grow,” she said. “We only met two days ago.”

“I feel like I’ve known you my whole life.”

Even though she had actively studied Caleb’s habits and tastes over the past five years, she felt like she had known him her whole life. “I care about you deeply, but I don’t love you.” She expected him to wince at her hurtful words, but his grin spread wider.

“Mr. Darcy never gave up!” he remarked.

She jolted. “You read ‘Pride and Prejudice?’”

Caleb nodded. “Right after you ran out of my apartment. I wanted to learn more about the rebel girl who had stolen my heart.”

In her mind, Raissa saw Caleb put on his readers and devour the novel. “Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth are fictional characters,” she said. “Anyway, happy endings only happen in books.”

The butterflies in his chest told her that he believed otherwise.

Caleb was building up his courage to kiss her. She’s so beautiful. Just one kiss. No, I might frighten her. Kiss her on the cheek first? No, her lips. I love her so much.

Raissa was building up her nerve to stand there and not run. One kiss, what could happen? I can say more with a kiss than ten thousand words. No, no, no! Don’t give in to Petrov. He and his algorithm cannot predict love.

“Don’t be afraid of Petrov,” Caleb said.

“Caleb, we have to keep moving. Millions are dying.”

“We might die, too,” he whispered and leaned forward.

A chorus of voices told her to step back, but one voice kept her rooted in place. I want Caleb to be the first and only boy I kiss. She closed her eyes, hungry to taste his lips.

A girl screamed.

Raissa wheeled around and raised the Glock, blood pounding in her ears. “Do you see anything?” She panned the weapon back and forth across the wall of green. There was no movement. “It sounded like a little girl.”

When she turned back, Caleb was gone.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 13

Unable to shake the feeling of wet, slimy blisters, Ashminov stumbled out of the morgue and into a brightly lit corridor. He was certain that Caleb was lying on that gurney. Petrov’s surgeons had done little to save ‘Adam’, but at least Caleb had found peace in death. Ashminov, still among the living—barely—had to contend with his raging infection and the psychological horrors Petrov no doubt had in store for him.

The cables ran the length of the ceiling, and he followed them to where they disappeared into another room. With no time for caution, he raised the joule and opened the door. Three paladins stood before a server. Above them, a monitor featured a spinning globe bathed in swathes of deadly yellow.

He opened fire and dropped the middle paladin. The other two dived for cover. Limping inside, he pressed the discharge button repeatedly. The air crackled with energy. One paladin returned fire, and the slug winged Ashminov’s left ear. As hot needles punctured the side of his head and neck, he plugged the armed paladin. When the third paladin crawled over to her dead comrade and pried the joule from his hand, Ashminov emptied his joule into her.

Tossing the weapon aside, he collapsed into the chair in front of the server keyboard. The ricinware had reached Buenos Aires and Melbourne in the southern hemisphere. The cities of Murmansk and Ivalo had fallen in the north. Tens of millions of people were dropping dead every minute; the total victim count was closing in on one billion.

Ashminov pecked out M-code syntax to gain access to the server, but, after ten seconds with nothing to show for his effort, he thought he must have mistyped the syntax.

An inspiration, like an ember fed pure oxygen, glowed in his feverish brain. A decade ago, he and Petrov had shared a password. Give it a go? Ashminov keyed it in: partylikeits1999.

A menu appeared on the screen.

A millimeter from the finish line, his giddiness gave way to the sobering realization that he might succumb to his infection before he halted the transmission. He figured he had fifteen minutes before his organs shut down after which he’d join the ranks of Caleb and the other corpses on the premises.

The system architecture was straightforward. The machine had but a single purpose: pump ricinware to the E.L.F. towers. After identifying the transmitting file, “beyond_eden_step_1,” he highlighted it and pressed DELETE. On the monitor, the globe stopped spinning, and the victim count remained static at 956,333,100.

He took a deep breath, but before he had fully exhaled, the spinning resumed, and the count climbed higher. He discovered a new file: “beyond_eden_step_1_copyA.” He deleted it, and the count stopped again.

A new file popped up, “beyond_eden_step1_copyB,” and the slaughter resumed. It was like fighting the technical equivalent of the mythical hydra. Cut off one head and another grew back.

His only option was to create a program that would propagate endlessly, deleting each new copy of ricinware. The two programs would fight an ongoing duel with no winner or loser.

He gritted his teeth in grim satisfaction and blinked to bring the keyboard into focus. “Nicholas, welcome to my domain.”

“Christian, my surgeons are on the way,” Petrov replied at once. “Then you’ll enter my domain.”

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 14

Raissa listened for leaves rustling, stems snapping, footfalls. Anything to reveal Caleb's whereabouts or the direction he might have taken. She closed her eyes. Caleb, where are you?

She heard him calling out to her, but his voice was faint and garbled. Was he injured? Caleb, louder. Where are you?

Had paladins abducted him? No, she’d have seen them.

Petrov, you are responsible.

Petrov kept quiet.

Thinking Caleb must be close, she set her sights on a 45-degree quadrant.

Fifteen steps forward, fifteen back. She parted leaves as if they were veils and looked all around. There were only more leaves and more flowers.

She searched two more quadrants the same way.

Suddenly, another scream triggered her to freeze in panic. She recognized the voice. It was the little girl. Dropping into a shooter’s stance, Raissa spun around with the Glock raised to chest-level. The girl screamed again. Closer this time. Taking a deep breath, Raissa relaxed her muscles and cleared her mind.

“Help me!” An eruption of taut goosebumps ran from Raissa’s scalp to waist. She caught a flash of red hair between the leaves. The girl was running. Raissa was ready to take off in pursuit when the girl stopped and looked her way. A shaft of sunlight painted her face, and her eyes glittered green.

A violent disturbance of leaves sounded to Raissa’s right, and she turned to see a male paladin with a laser rifle charging through the vegetation. The girl took off running.

The paladin closed the gap. Raissa rotated her hips and tracked him with her Glock. A clean shot was not possible, but she had to fire soon or he would catch the girl. Shoot to kill. She aimed for his midsection and pulled the trigger.

BOOM.

The paladin went down. Expecting more paladins to show up, she trained the gun behind him.

After a moment, still wary of reinforcements arriving, she hurried over to check on the paladin, but there was no trace of him or his weapon, no blood. She stood dumbfounded, wondering if she had wasted a bullet on a hallucination. She held her breath and listened for the girl’s voice, but the loud thrum of insects washed away all sounds in a flood of white noise.

“Hello,” she called out. “Where are you? I won’t hurt you. You’re safe now.” Safe from whom? From what? An imaginary girl with green eyes is safe from an imaginary paladin.

“Fern is most certainly real.” Petrov’s voice cleaved her mind like a rusty blade.

She scanned three-hundred-and-sixty degrees just in case he was showing himself again.

“Who’s Fern?”

“Are you speaking of the little girl with Eve’s magical eyes and Adam’s nose?” Petrov’s tone was mocking.

She could not stop him from tormenting her, and maybe he would try to prevent her from finding Caleb, but until that happened, she would continue the hunt.

Caleb cried out to her from far away, in gibberish. Homing in on his garbled thoughts—her north star—she left behind the broadleaf plants and buzzing insects of the jungle to enter a field of lush grass, their feathery tips rising a meter above her head. The micro-environment became arid, and the grass turned brown. She kicked up clouds of dust as the stems snapped and crackled.

She came to the lone building in the garden, the one she'd seen from the air, and when Caleb’s voice suddenly went silent in her mind, every fiber of her being told her that he was inside.

“Caleb?” She called out, “Caleb, speak to me!”

Silence reigned under the hot sun.

Keeping her cover by staying about a meter deep within the curtain of grass, Raissa first circled the white, windowless building, then sprinted in a zigzag pattern to the only entrance where she leaned against the wall and took inventory of her ammo: fourteen bullets. Reminding herself to keep count of shots fired, she tested the knob; it was unlocked. She pulled the door open and trained her weapon inside.

No paladins. No Caleb. No Petrov.

She stepped into a room packed with glassware, chemicals, and mindports. The lab space, divided by a wall, occupied half of the building. A feeling of terror hung in the air.

The Glock raised in front of her, she moved around the room clockwise. Bottles of liquids lined the shelves above a bench crowded with beakers. A showerhead with a pull chain, an eye-wash station, and a first aid kit were in the corner. A sign said: “WARNING – SOLID OXYGEN – NO OPEN FLAME.”

She came to a sliding door in the dividing wall. Digging her nails into a thin crack, she tried to pry it open, but she failed to move it. She banged on the door with the pistol butt. “Caleb, are you in there?”

Three meters to her left, a mindport flickered to life, and her knees turned to jelly. The screen showed her parents and Farouk, along with Zoe, Jack, and Julian, in a sparsely furnished room. Farouk was listless in her mother's lap. Her mom and dad wore glum expressions. Jack paced wall to wall, and Zoe stared into space. She held Julian in her arms.

“Behold, Eve. They are free of disease and not in want of food. They are among the company of loved ones for all time. Paradise.”

She spun around, hoping she could put a bullet in Petrov’s brain, but she was alone.

She faced eight large cylinders suspended from the ceiling and filled will green liquid. The lab was silent except for the hypnotic hum of pumps releasing bubbles into the fluid. She turned back to the monitor. Her family members looked like zombies.

“Honestly Eve, I expected you might thank me.”

She waved the Glock. “I’ll show my thanks with this. Are they on the other side of that door?”

Petrov cackled, “If Farouk were a bear, he’d bite your nose off.”

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 15

Ashminov repeatedly pressed DELETE with his left index finger while using his right to tap out M-code syntax, determined to finish his hydraware program before Petrov’s surgical team showed up.

What are they planning to do to me? He could live without knowing the answer.

He had made little progress with his program, and while deleting files was saving lives, many more were dying.

He concentrated on the hydraware. Even though focusing on it meant millions of deaths, a program that would fight an endless duel on the battlefield of random access memory offered the only real solution.

Devoting all his mental energy to writing the program, he stopped after producing only twenty more lines of M-code. His fingers hovered over the keys, lost and confused. With the hot blade of his infection slicing through the strands of logic in his mind, he was unsure of what to press next. His mind was blank. Defeated, he resorted to using two fingers to strike DELETE.

A new option presented itself: the explosives belt. If he detonated it, he would take the server offline. Petrov would start up a new transmission server, but it would buy time.

Time for what? He’d be dead, and he didn’t think Raissa was in any position to continue the mission. Caleb certainly couldn’t. Ashminov glanced at the leading edges of the ricinware flood. The death toll was ratcheting ever higher. Is it best to just let the population expire? Petrov was too powerful, too insane.

He exposed the detonator button—his last resort—then resumed tapping DELETE with two hands.

“Big Brother, congratulations on guessing the password.” Petrov’s voice came from the mindport speakers in front of him.

Ashminov held his breath. Can he see the button? “Baby Brother, you’re too predictable.”

“Am I?”

“Why did you steal my M-code?” The question had nagged Ashminov for twenty years, and he was running out of time to get an answer.

“You still don’t know?”

“You were jealous that I was a better coder,” Ashminov offered.

Petrov’s laughter invaded his ears. “I was jealous, but not of your technical skills. I loved you, Christian. You were all I had. The Captain and Colonel were failures as parents. I worshipped you, but then you grew distant. I realized I had competition; you loved M-code more than you loved me.”

Ashminov recalled the thrill of writing M-code in the early days. He supposed he might have neglected his only sibling. “Couldn’t we have talked it over, Baby Brother?”

“Let's forget the past and look to our future together.” A new image appeared on the monitor. Tiny bubbles were streaming up through a pale green liquid that looked something like tryp. A blurry object came into view. Ashminov squinted to see it. A human brain came into focus.

“I changed my appearance years ago,” Petrov said.

“Future together” and “surgical team” took on new meaning, and Ashminov wondered if his brain would soon float next to his sibling’s. The words of Nicholas echoed in his mind: “Trust me, you’ll fare better than Father Baldini.” Ashminov would have preferred meeting his fate in a lion’s intestinal tract over what he believed Baby Brother was proposing.

What if I can hack the Citadel network and identify the right controller? Ashminov boiled with excitement, thinking he could cook his brother like an egg. Before that could happen, he needed more information.

“Are you floating in tryp, Baby Brother?”

“Heavens, no! Synthetic placenta and chlorophyll. The gas you see is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen.”

“How are you able to communicate?”

“My Version 9 chip sends neural impulses to a software module that translates my thoughts into binary language.”

Ashminov suppressed a smile. His brother’s cylinder was a node on the network.

“Christian, your questions reveal your intentions.”

Ashminov flagellated himself for tipping his hand. He should have teased the information. Now his plan—his only plan—had failed before it got off the launch pad.

“You envision your brain next to mine,” Petrov continued. “But nothing could be further from the truth.”

Ashminov let out a sigh of relief. “Why do you say that?”

The monitor revealed the folds and creases of Petrov’s brain. “You're looking at one thousand four hundred grams of dead weight. I can make do without ninety-nine percent of my cerebellum.”

Ashminov's left hand cramped, and he switched to using his right to tap DELETE.

“Christian, imagine paring the brain down to its essentials. My Beyond Eden research team identified fifty-seven thousand neurons that support pure consciousness.”

“Fifty-seven thousand?”

“Over the course of history, a small number of people have come close to experiencing pure consciousness. They were called mystics, shamans, saints, insane. They spoke of entering into the mind of God, of encountering their animal spirit. In truth, they had accidentally found a way to harness these fifty-seven thousand neurons. Big Brother, you and I will commingle as one hundred and twenty-one thousand neurons in our carbonite orb.”

Orb? Ashminov switched to his right pinky. “Your math is wrong, Baby Brother. Fifty-seven plus fifty-seven is 114. One hundred and fourteen thousand.”

“I’m adding some spice. Seven thousand magical neurons.”

The fever was taking a toll on Ashminov’s optic nerves, casting his surroundings into ever darkening shadows. He had to start coding before he went blind, but he couldn’t rush his brother. “Seven thousand,” he mimicked.

“Indeed, “Petrov said. “Early on, the team hit a wall. Test subjects kept going mad and dying. Computer modeling identified the structure of the new neurons required, but the researchers couldn’t engineer them. Next, they tried harvesting the neurons from females who were in love. But, in half a million test subjects, the quality of neurons was always substandard.”

“What happened to the test subjects?” Ashminov asked.

Petrov ignored the question and said, “I've gone to great lengths to find the perfect female from whom I can harvest the neurons. Eve is fighting her heart as we speak, but once she lets herself fall in love with Adam, we’ll pluck them from her brain as if they are ripe figs.”

“What will happen to Raissa?”

“Eve,” Petrov corrected. “More importantly, what will happen to us, Big Brother?”

“I want to know about Eve.”

“Yes, I know you are fond of her. Eve’s brain will continue to function in the lab. She'll be with Adam and both their families. Adam will love Eve, but Eve won’t be able to return his love.”

“Because you took her magical neurons?”

“That’s correct. But you and I will put them to good use as we advance to the final stage.”

Ashminov didn’t think he needed to prompt Nicholas to explain the final stage, and he was correct.

“Gabriel will inject Raissa’s neurons into our orb, and we shall exist in Heaven for all eternity, circling a primitive, pristine planet while sharing a love that has been absent from our lives for far too long.”

“I can't wait, Baby Brother,” Ashminov croaked. “But what happens if Eve doesn’t fall in love?”

Petrov chuckled coldly. “Oh, she will. I've got a surprise in store for her. You know how much she loves children.”

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 16

Farouk is right in front of my nose? What did Petrov mean? Raissa wasn’t about to ask for clarification.

She turned to check on her family, but the monitor now featured the spinning globe. The number of dead was staggering. Petrov had murdered more than two billion people with ricinware.

With nausea blooming in her gut, she stood before a cylinder and peered into the green liquid.

“Raissa.” Caleb’s voice exploded in her mind like fireworks.

“Caleb! Where are you?”

“Look down,” he replied.

Raissa scanned all around the lab floor. There was no sign of Caleb, so she dropped to her knees and held her head to the side so she could see into the nooks and crannies under the lab bench.

“I’m right in front of you.”

Flooded with dread, she focused on a dark object floating near the bottom of the cylinder.

“Raissa, that’s me.”

She moved closer. “No!” she gulped.

“Yes,” Petrov interjected. “That is the boy who loves you with all his soul.”

Raissa jumped back. “Caleb, I’ll keep looking for you.”

“It's me,” he said.

She recognized his tone and articulation, but Petrov could easily mimic Caleb’s voice. Raissa fixed her eyes on the brain immersed in green liquid. “How did we run through the garden together? Whose hand did I hold?” A shiver traveled down her spine. “Who did I come close to kissing? I felt your breath on my cheek.”

“Raissa, that was my hand and my breath and my lips. I exist in your mind as you exist in mine.”

She blinked back tears.

“Raissa, I now know what happened to me. Petrov let me into his mind and showed me. You sang to me in the taxi, and I died in your arms. Paladins brought me to the Citadel, where Dr. Mars brought me back to life.”

She shook her head, even though she knew in her heart it was Caleb—Petrov was incapable of speaking with such conviction. She reached out and pressed her fingertips against the cylinder's clear carbonite. Caleb's love for her traveled into her hand and up her arm and into her chest, flooding her with brightness and warmth.

“Raissa, I love you.”

She pulled her hand back and using her voice said, “Where’s Petrov?”

“I don’t know, but I can feel him.”

She could, too. Her eyes shifted to the dark mass in the next cylinder. Another human brain hovered near the bottom.

Petrov’s voice crackled with glee. “Face to face at last with the enchanting Eve! Shall I introduce the others in Paradise?”

To Raissa’s horror, every cylinder housed a human brain, and Petrov served as a sadistic tour guide. “Farouk is next to me. Next to him is Julian. Your mother is next.”

Raissa stared at her mother’s brain. Given a choice, she knew her mother would not want to exist like this. None of them would, except maybe Farouk and Julian. They weren’t old enough to know there was anything better.

“Eve, dear, you and Adam will join your families soon.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” she hissed.

Petrov chuckled. “I’ve been holding it for ten years, and I’ll hold it for a million more.”

“Caleb, how do I kill him?”

Petrov replied, “Raise the temperature of the liquid inside the sarcophagus. The controls to regulate my environment are right in front of you.”

She glared at Petrov’s brain. “Caleb, is this a trap?”

“It might be.”

“Call my bluff,” Petrov taunted.

Raissa stood before the instrument panel and scanned the blinking lights and switches and digital readouts until she found what looked like a temperature reading: 31.5 degrees.

“That’s the one,” Petrov said.

She reached for the button with an up arrow.

“By the way,” Petrov added, “if you raise the temperature in my sarcophagus, the temperature will increase equally in the other seven.”

The monitor came to life with Petrov’s prisoners. Raissa's mom and dad, Farouk, Zoe, Jack, and Julian—all shells of their former selves. Although death would set them free, Raissa couldn't do it.

Petrov laughed. “I know you too well, Eve. But, in the case the data was wrong, I had already disabled the controller. Big Brother wanted to hack the network and cook me like an egg.”

Now, what’s he talking about? “There’s more than one way to cook an egg,” she said, peering up through the bottom of Petrov’s cylinder, wondering if she could cut off the oxygen supply. But she couldn’t locate any tubes or valves or openings of any kind.

She dragged a stool over, stood on it and took out her Glock. She pounded the butt against the top of the cylinder. The gun bounced back after every blow.

She hammered harder without success. Finally, she reared again and swung as hard as she could. The Glock nearly jumped from her hand. The cylinders were too strong to break manually.

She had a better option: a forty-five-caliber, fast-moving lead projectile. She climbed off the stool, backed up three meters, and aimed at Petrov's brain.

“Raissa, be careful,” Caleb shouted.

BOOM!

The bullet bounced off the cylinder and fired up sparks as it rebounded off the wall next to her. She fired twice more in quick succession. One bullet ricocheted and whizzed by her head. The second sent up sparks by her feet. She took a step forward.

“You’re too close,” Caleb cried in her mind.

BOOM.

It felt like a sledgehammer had cracked her left forearm. Grimacing, she grabbed her arm, and blood trickled between her fingers. The ricocheting bullet had buried itself in bone.

“Raissa!” Caleb cried.

She experienced the cold fear Caleb was feeling, in addition to the pain radiating into her shoulder and chest.

Reeling from a surge of nausea, she forced herself to move past the pain of her wound. “I'm fine,” she lied, realizing that Caleb would know immediately she wasn't. Before he could protest, she jammed the barrel against Petrov’s cylinder.

“Wait!” a girl cried. “Please don’t do it.”

Raissa whipped her head to the right. The little girl with the green eyes stood four meters away. A smattering of freckles covered her cheeks, and two pigtails fell to her shoulders. She did have Caleb's nose.

“Fern, say hello to your parents,” Petrov said.

The girl locked eyes with Raissa. “Hi, Mommy.” She turned to Caleb's brain. “Hi, Daddy.”

“Fern is an animation,” Caleb said. “She’s not a real child.”

Petrov tittered. “Fern exists in the genetarium database. She’s the daughter of the world’s most perfect couple, waiting to be born and see the light of day.”

Raissa’s head spun. She knew about genetaria. Couples ordered up offspring the way you ordered off a restaurant menu. The practice repulsed her, but the children born were innocent. They had no say in the method of their conception. Petrov’s words signaled that her greatest fear had come true. “Caleb, he wants to breed us. He’ll keep us like a family of pets in his garden.”

Petrov sniffed. “Breeding is for zoo animals. I’ll compile Fern’s code and allow her to gestate long enough for her brain to form. Then Fern can join you in Paradise. If you’d like, Eve, I’ll place your daughter’s brain in your sarcophagus—a whale and her calf.”

Flooded with horror, Raissa gritted her teeth. “Give her the gift of life so you can kill her?” She shook her head. “No!” Looking at Fern’s eyes, Raissa could see they were the same shade of green as hers. She told herself that Fern was a computer file, but in her heart, she knew that she and Caleb had conceived the promise of a precious daughter.

“Fern, I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“I don’t believe you, Mommy!” Fern screamed and then vanished.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 17

When Ashminov's pinky cramped, it kicked off a domino effect of muscles knotting from his palm to his shoulder. He was running out of energy, and the fever was consuming him rapidly now. Hoping to buy a few more minutes of flexibility, he slammed his hand on the server console, but it only curled up all his fingers into a paralytic mess of ligaments and bones.

Tragically, his program to boil the brain of Baby Brother would remain a dream uncoded, thwarted in part because of disobedient fingers, but also because his fever was making it impossible to untangle M-code syntax. He blinked sweat away and wiped his brow. The keyboard was getting blurry, and he had to question whether he could still find DELETE. He rested his cheek beside it, his epic humiliation at the hands of Nicholas nearly over.

Ashminov detected movement out of the corner of his eye. Two surgeons, recognizable by their green garb, had arrived. The one with curly red hair held a laser scalpel. The second brown-haired man clutched an organ transplant pouch. The effort to lift his head was daunting as the muscles in his neck frayed like worn threads, and his head remained angled forward.

They stepped up beside him. “Christian Petrov, are you ready?” Red asked.

Christian Petrov. Nobody has called me by my real name in nineteen years. “Almost,” he said and reached for the detonator button. When he pressed it, the explosion would scatter his brain in such tiny pieces that nobody could piece them together again. A Bulgarian Humpty Dumpty.

“Look at his expression,” Red said.

“Dr. Petrov said Christian would be happy and submit willingly,” remarked Brown. “He doesn’t look happy.”

“Not at all,” Red concurred.

“Should we contact Dr. Petrov?” Brown asked.

Red ignited the laser. “Let’s just do it.”

Ashminov tried to press the detonator by thumping his stomach with his right fist, but his arm hung limply by his side. Panicking, he tried using his left fist, but that arm also disobeyed his mind's command.

“Christian Petrov, please lift your chin,” one said.

Training his gaze on the spinning globe, Ashminov squinted to see the boundary between red and yellow, between devourware saturation and ricinware, between freedom and mass slaughter. The ricinware was flooding the major population centers, and another half billion people had dropped dead. He searched for Italy; from the north, the yellow shroud of death had reached the Italian Alps. Rome would fall within minutes.

Ashminov imagined Signora Villanova standing before her stove, and a smile creased his face as he took in the odors of her Italian cooking spices. She would have already received the devourware. Will she miss me? Ashminov’s heart swelled with love as fast as it tore apart. His death would launch her on a trajectory of grief, with no nanochip to blunt her suffering. However, she could recover from sadness, but not from ricinware. He detected the odor of ozone and knew the scalpel was close to his head.

Red bent lower and gazed at Ashminov’s neck, perhaps to visualize the precise line where he would sever the head from the body.

Ashminov’s time was over, but maybe Raissa was still alive, trying to stop Petrov. He liked to think Raissa, like Signora Villanova, would miss him. He had given her more positive memories than negative. “I would never bet against her.”

The scalpel-wielding surgeon with red hair replied, “Excuse me, sir. Bet against whom?”

Ready to leave Raissa with a final positive memory of him, Ashminov focused on his stomach muscles. By contracting them, he hoped that his upper torso lurching forward would trap the detonator between his stomach and the edge of the desk.

Brown startled Ashminov by grabbing his hair. “Dr. Petrov is waiting,” he grumbled.

Ashminov saw the laser blade moving toward his throat, and he rallied every muscle fiber in his lower torso to fire at once. The high-energy beam cut into his throat.

Time slowed, and Ashminov watched as his chest sprang forward. The laser had cauterized the blood vessels in his neck, affording him a few seconds of consciousness. He saw his stomach striking the desk. The corners of his lips were curling upwards as his head flew backward in the shattering concussion of sound and fury.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 18

When a distant, powerful explosion rattled the glassware on the bench, Raissa feared that paladins were launching an assault on the lab, and she trained her eyes and Glock on the door.

A bestial wail erupted in her mind, and she scrunched her eyes shut as the pressure threatened to shatter her skull. Petrov was screaming in agony. His scream ended suddenly. “Eve, nothing in my analysis suggested Big Brother would detonate your explosives belt to destroy the transmission server.”

Raissa opened her eyes to see two young boys standing before her. They wore brown shorts with suspenders and knee socks. Both were missing front teeth and had cowlicks. She recognized Ashminov, on the right, the older of the two. Then she realized the other boy was Petrov. They skipped out of the lab holding hands.

“I loved Christian,” Petrov said with remorse in his voice. “Unfortunately, he didn’t reciprocate.”

Raissa had suspected they were more than friends, but it still took a moment for the shock to wear off. Even in death, Ashminov continued to surprise her. Her shock gave way to sorrow and then to a renewed determination. Ashminov had done his part: the transmission server was down—temporarily, at least. Now it was up to her to kill Petrov before he could get ricinware online again.

She flexed her left arm to see if she could count on using it, but the searing pain made her cry out. She’d have to fight with her right fist, her feet, the Glock, and guile.

Raissa stood before Petrov's cylinder and centered the bore of the Glock flat against the carbonite, centimeters away from the crinkled lump of evil. Firing at close range offered the best chance of rupturing the cylinder, but if the carbonite held fast, she’d likely take the rebounding projectile in the gut. Win big, or die.

She applied pressure to the trigger, but hands grabbed her from behind before she fired. She wheeled around, leading with her elbow.

* * *

Caleb ducked at the last second to avoid taking Raissa’s elbow on the chin. He straightened and grabbed Raissa by the shoulders. “I’ll help you kill Petrov,” he blurted out. He tightened his grip, but she twisted away and quickly eluded his grasp.

She trained her gun on him, the doubt in her eyes reflecting the confusion that swirled inside her. Raissa didn’t know whether to shoot him or hug him. Her eyes flickered toward his brain in the cylinder and then back to him. “Why are you standing in front of me now?” she asked, desperate for an explanation.

“I’m here and there,” he told her. “I’m also inside of you. Your eyes are my eyes.”

“Caleb, why didn’t you help me earlier?”

“Petrov controls everything.” He shrugged. “He must want me here for some reason.”

Petrov whistled. “I can’t take credit, Adam. You willed yourself outside your sarcophagus. Heart over matter; the power of love.”

Raissa shook her head to clear it. “I don't know what to believe anymore.”

Caleb took her hand. “Let’s believe in each other.”

Raissa’s thoughts blended with his own, and she squeezed his hand. “Fern is beautiful.”

The mention of their daughter stole Caleb’s breath, and a world opened before him in which he saw himself and Raissa raising Fern. They led a simple, happy life. Raissa journeyed into that world with him but quickly shut it down, refusing to entertain a fantasy that would never come true. In Caleb’s mind, Fern faded into a hopeless array of zeros and ones.

The door in the wall opened, and Caleb’s jaw dropped. Dr. Mars stepped into the room. The tall paladin was wearing green scrubs. His blonde hair fell to his shoulders. Gripping an object in his hand, he approached them.

Raissa raised her gun. “Stop right there.”

Mars complied.

“Gabriel is a gentle soul, Eve,” Petrov said. “The angel Gabriel informed Mary that she would give birth to the Son of God. Dr. Mars shares much with his namesake. He is a bearer of miraculous news.

Caleb swelled with anger. “He ran the Beyond Eden project. They killed half a million test subjects.”

“Fruit flies,” Petrov scoffed. “Scientific achievement requires sacrifice. Adam, you of all people should know that.”

Raissa adjusted her aim at the paladin. “You burned a scar in my cheek when I was six years old. Now back up.” She nudged Caleb. “Do you think he has an Eden Chip?”

“If he does, then he can read our minds,” Caleb replied.

“Good. Then he knows I’m ready to blow a hole in his chest if he doesn’t take a step back.”

“Eve, Gabriel doesn’t need an Eden Chip to know your intention. Your eyes give you away.”

BOOM.

The bullet touched off sparks by Mars’s feet.

“Gabriel, Eve means business. Please comply with her request.” Mars gave a respectful nod to Petrov’s brain and took a step back. “To answer your question, Adam, Gabriel and his associates have Eden Chips. But they can only see into your minds if I allow it. I’m keeping your conversations with God an intimate affair.”

Raissa pointed. “Two more.”

On the other side of the door, two paladins stood next to an operating table. The man was short and scrawny, and the woman slouched.

“Dr. Mentenhoffer and his associate are unarmed,” Petrov said.

“Do you believe him?” Caleb asked.

“Not for a second,” Raissa replied.

“Gabriel, show them the orb.”

Mars raised his arm. In his palm was a shiny black sphere the size of a grapefruit.

Raissa sighted the Glock, and Caleb knew she feared the sphere was a bomb. He did, too.

“Thirteen, Eve,” Petrov announced.

Caleb scrunched his eyes. The meaning of thirteen was lost on him.

“Adam, God can delve even deeper into Eve's mind. She calculated what she'd do if Gabriel charges her. First, she’d shoot him in the chest, then the face, and if that didn't stop him, she’d empty the clip into his heart. She was trying to remember how many bullets she has left.”

“Fourteen,” Raissa said.

“So you do, Eve. But I doubt you could stop Gabriel with fourteen hundred bullets.
Allow me to explain the orb. The carbonite exterior can withstand temperatures from absolute zero to ten thousand degrees Kelvin. Outside, the rocket is on the launch pad. Once the orb contains my fifty-seven thousand neurons, and a contribution from you, I’ll blast into a high orbit around Earth.”

Caleb jumped at the roar of the pistol. The bullet struck the black sphere, and it went flying, rolling along the floor.

Raissa crouched lower, aiming her gun at the center of Mars’s massive chest. “Now I have thirteen. Petrov, if Mars knows what’s good for him he’ll back off. Otherwise I’ll soon have twelve.”

“Gabriel, please return to the Beyond Eden lab,” Petrov implored.

Mars picked up the sphere and exited through the door.

Caleb’s eyes widened as he absorbed a new idea in Raissa’s mind. Using grass that grew outside the building, she wanted to start a fire under Petrov’s cylinder.

“Will you help me?” she asked.

“I can only provide moral support.”

The monitor flickered to life, showing Zoe, Jack, and Julian, along with Raissa’s family, in a room. Jack’s eyes were vacant as he held Julian. Caleb’s nephew looked like a doll made of wax. Zoe was pacing, wearing a mask of defeat.

“How could you think of harming them?” Petrov asked. “Eve, you’ll boil all our brains.”

“Can I limit the flames to Petrov?” she asked.

Caleb nodded. “Yes.”

She shot him a hard stare. “You don’t believe I can.”

“There’s a small chance the fire will spread,” Caleb admitted. “But you have to take that risk.”

Raissa must have agreed because she was already heading for the door.

* * *

Raissa opened the door a crack and checked outside for paladins. Seeing none, she sprinted to the grass perimeter. She looked around, then sought shelter among the tall stalks. She recalled how the brown stems had crackled and crunched when she made her way through them: the perfect fuel to build a fire. The feathery clumps at the ends looked the most combustible.

After listening for a moment and hearing nothing, she concluded her spot was safe. Kneeling and holding the Glock in her right hand, she first tried to gather grass with her left, but she couldn't clench her fingers together because of her broken forearm, so she put down the gun and used her right hand.

The pile grew, and several minutes later she carried the bundle of grass into the lab and dumped it beneath Petrov’s cylinder. She made a second trip, then a third.

“We need a solar lighter,” she said to Caleb. Knowing some experiments required a flame, she looked around the lab bench, also keeping an eye out for something she might wrap around the other cylinders to repel the heat. Unable to find either item, she patrolled the perimeter. “There's no lighter. Maybe there’s one in the Beyond Eden lab.” She shuffled to the door separating the labs, but it was locked. Then she had a thought. Sparks!

“Caleb, some of the bullets I fired created sparks.” She arranged the feathery tips in a small pile, stepped back and aimed the gun barrel at the base of the grass pile. “Please stand behind me.”

“Bullets can’t hurt me. I only exist in your mind.”

Petrov piped up. “Let me remind you, Eve, brain cells start to die at 31 degrees.”

“Caleb, please move.”

“Goldstein always told her that it was harder to murder a person when you can see their eyes.”

“Petrov, I’d love to see yours,” Raissa growled.

“The data suggests you just might do that.”

Caleb moved behind her. Bracing for the kickback, she pulled the trigger. BOOM. The bullet ricocheted. No sparks.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.

Those shots produced only ringing in her ears. Six bullets remained. She fired again, and a spark jumped, giving rise to hope. She squeezed the trigger three times in quick succession, but could not tease even a wisp of smoke from the pile.

She spun around, desperate to try something else. On the lab bench were bottles and cans filled with liquids. “Are any of these liquids flammable?”

“Read the labels,” Caleb said.

She grabbed a can. “Sulfuric acid?”

“No,” Caleb replied.

A bottle. “Hydrochloric acid?”

“No.”

Nitric acid and phosphoric acid also earned nos.

“Cyclohexane?”

“I don’t know,” Caleb said.

Raissa put that can aside. “Methyl alcohol?” Her neck hairs stood on end because this chemical earned Petrov's attention. She felt his fear emanating outwards.

“Yes!” Caleb cried.

Raissa poured half the can of methyl alcohol over the grass pile, took three strides away, turned, and fired. A spark shot up, followed by the whoosh of a bonfire—but only in her imagination. She had just two more bullets.

As she looked around, her eye encountered the oxygen warning sign next to the first aid kit. NO OPEN FLAME. Raissa charged over, ripped open the door, and grabbed a box of solid oxygen pellets. Under Petrov's cylinder, she arranged the pellets in a cluster halfway up the pile and doused them with the remaining methyl alcohol.

She backed up, tried to steady her shaking hand, and pulled the trigger. Incredibly, she missed. Raissa took two steps forward.

“Stop!” Caleb jumped in front of her. “Back up, or you’ll die in the explosion.”

She held her ground. “I have to be this close.”

To her horror, Caleb lay down and positioned himself on his side so that his chest was immediately behind the pile of pellets. “Raissa, aim for my heart.”

“Caleb, move!”

“Pretend you’re taking target practice. My heart is the bullseye.”

Raissa took three steps back and raised the Glock. Thousands of hours of practice took command of her nerves. Her arm steadied as she locked her eyes on Caleb’s chest, zeroing in on the exact point where his breastbone shielded his beating heart. Her resolve waned as each pulse of Caleb’s love washed through her.

Panic constricted her throat, and she realized it was Petrov; he felt threatened. The alcohol was evaporating, and Raissa knew she must pull the trigger soon. A profound calm settled over her, and time slowed as mind, body, and weapon became one. She gazed longingly into his eyes. “Caleb, I love you.”

A jolt of electricity slammed her to the ground before she pulled the trigger. She dropped the gun. Dazed, she could barely breathe, let alone move. The joule slug had fried her circuits. With her cheek flat on the floor, she saw the scrawny paladin step through the door from the Beyond Eden lab. He held a joule, and Mars was behind him.

“Congratulations, Eve, you were ready to kill the boy you loved, much as the God of the Bible sacrificed his son in an ultimate expression of love. What a moving display it was too. Now, Gabriel can supervise harvesting your neurons, and then I can be on my way.”

* * *

Caleb hurried to Raissa’s side. Experiencing the effects of the electron slug, she was limp, and her eyes were slits. He could feel her fighting to keep them open. Other than holding her hand, he didn’t think there was much else he could do.

Dr. Mars and the paladin who had stunned Raissa looked down at her. “Dr. Mentenhoffer,” Mars said. “Take her to the Beyond Eden lab.”

Mentenhoffer grunted and groaned as he tried to move Raissa. Annoyed, Mars pushed him aside, reached down, and scooped her into his arms.

Caleb looked at them in dismay. “What are you going to do with her?”

Petrov interjected. “Sadly, Caleb, the number of love neurons is finite. Once Gabriel extracts them, Raissa can no longer love you.”

* * *

Raissa murmured as she felt the crushing of Caleb’s heart. “Caleb, I’ll love you forever.” Then she turned her attention to Mars.

With him cradling her in his arms, she watched the panorama of the lab ceiling pass by. The paladin's rock-hard chest pressed against her shoulder, and she could feel bands of muscles rippling in his arms. He kept a firm grip on her wrist and leg as if worried she might try to escape his grasp.

How can I overpower him? She needed her Glock, but the gun was on the floor. Most of all, she needed the feeling in her arms and legs to return. She tightened and relaxed her stomach muscles to force blood into her extremities, expecting that Petrov, drifting inside her mind like poisonous gas, would inform Mars of her strategy at any moment.

“Gabriel, keep a close eye on Raissa,” Petrov said. “She’s as stubborn as they come.”

“What happened to Eve?” Caleb asked.

Petrov sighed. “Adam and Eve are dead. I don’t need them anymore.”

Mars placed Raissa on a cold metal table. “Dr. Mentenhoffer, get her vitals.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

“Dr. Mars, can you explain the procedure?” Caleb asked.

Mars seemed pleased. “You recall the Beyond Eden research results?”

Caleb nodded. “I skimmed them.”

“Love neurons emit dopamine and exhibit a unique magnetic signature,” Mars explained. “After a brain scan, we’ll map them out and then go after them.” He pointed to a device above Raissa’s head that looked like a chrome-plated octopus at the end of a mechanical arm. “The extraction fibers have a diameter of 20 nanometers.”

Raissa assumed that one of those wiry arms would drill into her brain.

Mars flicked a switch, and an image of her brain appeared on the screen, glowing with pinpricks of light. “Caleb, look. You can see Raissa’s love for you.”

“What about her Eden Chip?” Caleb asked.

“We'll navigate around it. She’ll still need the chip when we transfer her brain to the sarcophagus, so she can communicate with the others held in Paradise.”

Held? Raissa plunged into a canyon of grief, thinking it was an accurate description.

“I can wait to go there,” Caleb said.

Raissa realized Caleb was engaging Mars on purpose and his tactic was working. Mars had become distracted. Still limp as a rag doll, she was regaining a fraction more feeling in her body with every passing second.

She took stock of her surroundings. To her right was a tray that held surgical tools, sheets of synthetic skin, and gauze. Mentenhoffer’s joule was in his holster. He and his assistant were scanning her brain and other body parts with various instruments.

“Raissa, I’ll miss your can-do attitude,” Petrov said. “Gabriel, she’s plotting another escape.”

Mars was facing the other way, and before he turned to face Raissa again, Caleb had guided her hand to the tray, and she grabbed the cold handle of a laser scalpel. She engaged the ignition button with her thumb and brought her arm up as the female paladin was leaning over her. The blade slid through the paladin's neck, and she gargled in shock and stepped back. Her head flipped back like it was a hatch opening and she flopped to the floor.

When Raissa sat up, she listed to one side as dizziness hit her hard. Her heart was pounding as if it wanted to punch a hole through her chest. She slid off the metal table and bent her knees to maintain her footing. Her legs were tingling.

She picked up another scalpel from the tray and held both in front of her, but the blade in her left hand dropped to the floor. The numbness had made her forget the bullet wound.

“Dr. Mentenhoffer, secure your weapon!” Petrov shouted.

But Mentenhoffer ignored Petrov and fixated on his dead colleague. Raissa lunged and pulled the joule from his holster. She plugged him, and he collapsed. She spun fast, and then Mars was upon her. She shot point-blank into his chest. The tall paladin absorbed the blow and took two steps back, but remained on his feet. She fired again and heard the electron slug crackle into him. To her horror, not only did he not fall, he didn’t even wince.

Raissa flicked the joule setting to kill, but Mars snatched the weapon from her as she was raising her arm and hurled it against the wall with such force it broke into pieces. She transferred the scalpel back to her right hand. In a split second, Mars had wrapped his fingers around her left forearm, and she couldn’t escape his grip. Her blood seeped between his fingers as he crushed her arm to the bone.

She slashed away at his arm with the scalpel. He grunted, and she stumbled backward. Blinking her dizziness away, she saw his hand clamped onto her, but the laser had severed his arm at the elbow. She was vaguely aware of him clubbing at her with the stump as she stepped back.

A tsunami of pain rolled through her, and as the light returned she saw Mars flying toward her, his face twisted into a mask of rage. She stepped to the side and grabbed him in a headlock with her bad arm. In the first seconds of the struggle that followed, the fingers of his severed hand loosed from her forearm, and dropped to the floor.

Raissa tried to stab Mars in the face with the scalpel, but he lurched, loosening her grip, and snatched it between his teeth. He bit the handle in half and spat it out. She punched him in the face repeatedly, but she doubted he even felt the rapid strikes of her fist.

With her injured arm still hooked over his neck, he stood straight and hoisted her off the floor, then he spun, pivoting around faster and faster. Her legs lifted ever higher from the force and snapshots of Caleb flew by with each revolution.

Finding his eye with her finger, she drove the tip deep into his socket. Mars screamed and spun more slowly. The reduced force allowed her to push her thumb into his other eye socket. He half-collapsed along with her and pulled his head from her weakening grip. Before she could escape, he clutched her against his chest. Pus dribbled from his eye sockets down his cheeks as he crushed her with such ferocity she couldn't replenish the air in her lungs.

Raissa whipped her head forward, and the crown of her forehead struck him in the nose. Bones crunched, and a fountain of cold blood spurted out. She hit him twice more, and he released her. She rammed her knee into his groin, and they fell apart.

While he was doubled over, she grabbed another laser scalpel from the tray. “Watch out,” Caleb shouted. But before she could duck away, Mars grabbed her hair. How did he see me? He's blind.

She spun around and brought her knee to his groin again, then smashed her fist into his mouth and kept punching. Her knuckles bled from striking his broken, jagged teeth.

In a fit of volcanic rage, he shoved her backward. Raissa tumbled over the operating table and crashed to the floor clumsily and hard. Fearing that she had broken her legs in the fall, she gingerly got to her knees. Then, using the table for leverage, she pulled herself up, while still clutching the scalpel.

Mars stood between her and Petrov. Despite the fact that she had gouged his eyes out, he still followed her movements, turning to face her as she shuffled around the table.

He grinned. “I can smell you and hear you. The hairs rising on the back of your neck in fear make little snapping sounds. That and your pounding heart are giving you away.”

“Gabriel, she’s ready to run,” Petrov warned.

Raissa ignited the laser scalpel and shoved past the table. She limped toward the door, ignoring the vicious jolts of pain that ripped through her torso with every step. Mars followed her. She could hear his footsteps. Five meters were all that separated her from the oxygen pellets under Petrov.

She pitched forward, slamming hard into the floor. Mars was clutching her ankle.

When she couldn’t pull her leg free, she tried to twist it out of his grasp, but then he pulled himself up to her, shifting his grip to her knee. She rammed her heel into his face again and again, even though each strike inflicted as much pain on her as she was causing him. He lunged up again and grabbed her by the waist of her pants. She flipped the laser and sliced his other hand off at the wrist. Mars let out a deafening bellow, borne more of frustration than pain, and she wriggled away from him.

Raissa focused on the Glock, which lay on the floor two meters away. She knew it held one bullet. She was equidistant from the gun and Petrov. “Petrov, here I come,” she said, crawling toward the cylinder.

“No, she’s going for the gun,” Petrov cried.

As Petrov had predicted, Raissa veered to her left and stretched her hand toward the Glock. Mars was already moving. Bringing the full force of his weight onto her legs, he used his two stumps as a vice grip to keep her pinned. She tried loosening her shoulder muscles to reach farther.

Mars was crawling ever higher on her, and she feared that he would use his teeth to separate her head from her body. She stretched her arm again, and her fingertip touched the Glock.

Mars slammed down on her back with one of his stumps. It knocked the wind out of her lungs. Her adrenaline was serving as an anesthetic, but regardless of the pain, if he hit her again, he would likely crush her rib cage. She coaxed the pistol closer until she hooked a finger into the trigger guard. Mars struck her again, harder this time, and she heard her ribs cracking. With the Glock in her grasp, she turned just as he was lunging for her neck with his mouth opened wide.

She rammed the barrel past his broken front teeth and down his throat. Before he could react, she pulled the trigger. A muffled roar blasted into his mouth, and a cloud of red mist filled the air behind him. He clamped down on the barrel, gripping harder.

Is there no way to kill him?

Then he let out a rasping sigh, his jaw slackened, and he slumped off her to the floor, finally lying still. Raissa lay back as a wave of exhaustion washed over her.

“The data suggested Dr. Mars would fail,” Petrov said. His voice was coming from the room, not the speakers.

She looked up and blinked. Petrov was standing on his spindly legs in front of his cylinder with a smug smile. She was out of ammo, so she ignited the laser scalpel and set her sights on the pellets.

* * *

Caleb knelt beside Raissa as she wiggled out from under the dead paladin. “You should leave,” he told her.

Confused, Raissa looked up. “What about Petrov?”

“You’ll die in the fire. This lab is Petrov's prison. The paladins have abandoned him. He has no power. He’ll rot here.”

“He's murdered six billion people!”

“Two billion are still alive because of you and Ashminov.”

“Listen to Caleb,” Petrov said from across the room. “You have more important things to do in your life.”

Caleb ignored Petrov and stroked Raissa’s cheek. “I want two more people to join the living—you and Fern.”

“Fern will exist in an electronic womb forever,” she whispered. “She’ll never feel pain or sadness.”

“Or love,” Petrov interjected.

Rage exploded in Caleb’s chest. He wanted to kill Petrov with his bare hands, but he knew it wasn’t possible. They were both brains floating in synthetic placentas.

Raissa continued toward Petrov. The fierceness of her gaze informed Caleb that his appeal to her had fallen on deaf ears.

Two meters from Petrov, she stopped and hung her head. Her body was bloody and broken, but it wasn’t physical pain that ended her advance. Caleb could feel the doubt swirling inside her.

Petrov, too, sensed her conflict. “Raissa, go to a genetarium; any will do. The staff will implant Fern in your womb. Jaddy will make a terrific great-grandfather.”

The picture in Raissa’s mind duplicated itself in Caleb’s; her grandfather was holding Fern. Warmth spilled from Caleb’s heart to think of Raissa raising Fern, far away from the Citadel and NanoArtisans, in a loving family.

Fern vanished, and her grandfather fell to his knees sobbing. Raissa had killed the fantasy.

A cold blast washed over Caleb, and it took a long moment before his frozen heart hammered out its next beat. That future frightened Raissa as much as it did him, and he moved to her side to comfort her, holding her head against his chest.

“I know Jaddy will die of a broken heart,” she said. “But he has faith. He believes God is guiding both of us. I have to kill Petrov.”

“Destiny is an algorithm,” Petrov quipped. “I’m not worried.”

“Shut up,” she shouted.

Caleb felt the doubt returning to Raissa’s mind like a cold fog rolling off the ocean. She won't do it. Will she? Raissa ignited the laser.

* * *

With the laser’s thin, high-energy beam extending five centimeters above the grip, Raissa crawled ever closer to the apparition standing before her.

A sick grin spread across Petrov’s face. “Here’s your chance to say goodbye to your parents and Farouk.”

The monitor flickered, and Raissa saw her family and Caleb’s in the barren room, looking as they had before, sullen and lifeless. Her mom and dad leaped to their feet, and waves of their thoughts and feelings washed through her as if a dam had burst in their minds. Petrov was allowing her to connect with them. But why had he waited until now? Was he afraid?

“God is incapable of fear,” Petrov said. “They all have Eden Chips. It’s how you can communicate with your loved ones from this moment on. Let’s see if they can talk some sense into you.”

Raissa traveled into their minds. Her parents’ memories were of long ago. Raissa’s mother was commanding a unit of rebels. Raissa, through her mother’s eyes, saw herself as a baby and felt the pain of her own birth. Her father wept with joy as he held her, a newborn, in the hospital. Raissa’s anger flared as she lamented the years lost. She traveled further back in time to experience the earliest things that her parents remembered. They were children themselves, and she even saw Jaddy as a young man, recognizable from the way his eyes crinkled when he smiled.

Raissa's memories filled their minds. They gasped and scowled and drew in sharp breaths at the panorama of her life over the past twelve years unfolding. “Ra Ra,” Farouk cried. The air left Raissa’s lungs, and she swallowed back a painful lump in her throat. If she had any doubts these people were her family members, they vanished when her brother called her that.

How can I kill my own family?

They seemed desperately unhappy in Petrov’s Paradise, yet they were alive, and Farouk, frozen at age two, would never experience the sorrow and pain of losing his parents. Raissa’s parents would remain married and in love with one another for all time, and they knew she was alive. Zoe had reunited with the child whom Petrov had forced her to poison. Zoe, Jack, and Julian would never be in need of food or shelter, and had the company of each other forever.

She trembled with overwhelming grief. “Farouk, I love you. I love all of you.”

Her mother and father traded glances. Then her mother stepped forward. Her mother’s eyes, cold and dead a moment before, lit up as if a power inside her illuminated the green. “Your father and I have received the greatest gift ever. We’ve had the chance to see the wonderful woman you’ve become.” Her mother’s voice pulled Raissa back through time to when she was six years old and happy. “You are strong and dedicated to helping others. Raissa, you are beautiful.”

Raissa blinked back tears. “So are you.”

Her mother’s eyes now burned with such ferocity that Raissa almost didn’t recognize her. The librarian had morphed into the rebel commander. “Raissa, we believe what you believe. We want you—”

The monitor went dark.

“Petrov, let her finish,” Raissa shouted.

“Put that laser scalpel away, and you’ll be able to chat with your parents and brother for all time.”

She shook her head and grinned. “You were afraid of what they’d tell me. Well, you’re too late because I know what they would want me to do.”

“You won’t do it,” Petrov said calmly. “The data is always right.”

“Not this time.” Raissa’s heart pounded in her throat. She hoped to die in the inferno because she couldn’t live with herself after boiling her loved ones alive. She crawled closer to Petrov, a moment she had fantasized a thousand times, coming face-to-face with evil and having the means to end it. Her fantasy had always finished with whoops and hollers of celebration. With no desire to celebrate now, she raised the scalpel.

“Mommy!” Fern ran over and stood beside Petrov.

Petrov put his arm around her shoulders. “Hello, Fern,”

“Get away from her,” Raissa shouted. No, they are both illusions.

Petrov mocked her. “Yes, Fern and I are ghosts. But even ghosts can die. If you start a blaze, I'll issue a command to delete Fern from the database.”

Icy fingers of dread wrapped around her heart. “Caleb, can he?”

When Caleb looked away, Raissa knew the answer. She stared into space. Fern existed in a quiet place between life and death, her heart forever on the edge of beating for the first time. Maybe Fern could dream? Can you murder dreams?

“Mommy, I want to be born,” Fern pleaded.

Guilt flushed through Raissa’s veins. “Petrov, that’s you talking.”

He playfully tugged Fern’s pigtail. “Your daughter wants to breathe, to laugh, to skip to a friend’s house and play until dinnertime. She wants to look up into your eyes and bask in the sunshine of your love.”

Drowning in a chaos of emotions, Raissa inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth. Rage threatened to melt muscle and bone. Confusion was threatening to scatter her thoughts like the wind blows dust. She shook her head to clear it. Petrov was manipulating her the way he had done for the past twelve years. “Fern is only a collection of zeros and ones,” she said, hearing doubt creep into her tone.

Petrov sneered. “You are correct. The runt is a few million lines of code. But what does Fern mean to you? You see a girl growing up, finding friends, and leading a normal life, the life that eluded you. You see a young lady meeting boys and getting nervous and experiencing her first kiss.”

Raissa turned to Caleb. “What should I do?”

“I love you, Raissa.”

“I love you, too. But what should I do?”

“I love you, Raissa.”

She tried to read his thoughts, but Caleb’s mind was as still as a pond, at peace with whatever choice she made.

The smug smile disappeared from Petrov’s face, and his eyes filled with fear. He had looked deep into her mind and had glimpsed thoughts unborn.

“Fern, you’d inherit your father’s big heart and maybe you’d get some of my stubbornness,” Raissa began. “Your great-grandfather would love you the way he loves me, and I’d love you with all my heart, the way I love your daddy. If you hate me for what I'm about to do, I understand that. I hate myself a thousand times more. Petrov is the one who will delete you, but I take complete responsibility for my actions.”

Blinking tears away, she ignited the scalpel. Raissa was genuinely sorry for every paladin she had killed, excluding Mars, and she regretted that she would soon destroy a tiny seed of love.

Her mind, heart, and the thin blue flame became one. “God, help me,” she sobbed and lunged.

“You just killed Fern!” Petrov screamed.

IMPLEMENTATION: PHASE 19

Caleb watched as the laser scalpel, which Raissa gripped firmly in her right hand, penetrated Petrov’s chest like a sword. The look on her face was of sorrow and loss, mingled with determination.

Petrov’s expression was a blend of awe and surrender.

Leaping forward, Caleb landed on top of her seconds before the blade connected with the solid oxygen pellets. He squeezed his eyes shut and held her tightly, willing himself to shield her from the fiery blast. She had to make it to the genetarium; Petrov might have failed to delete Fern.

When the blade touched the pellets, the oxygen accelerated the combustion of fuel, turning the pile of grass into an instant inferno. A wave of searing heat blazed out from its center.

Raissa cried “Forgive me” over and over. Her tearful pleas mixed with the shrieks of the others. Petrov’s bestial wail drowned out all the other cries. Because the core of the fire was beneath his cylinder, he was dying the fastest. His mind was like an onion peeling away layer after layer, sending fractured memories hurtling outwards: Petrov, twenty years younger, stood among a group of friends posing for a picture in front of the Coliseum in Rome. He looked happy with his arm around his older brother, Ashminov.

Petrov and Ashminov, even younger, attended a holographic concert. The musician had bushy black hair and was dressed in purple from head to foot. Purple sparkles glittered on his cheeks. Petrov exuded awe for the musician and love for his brother.

Anger coincided with the appearance of Petrov’s parents. They wore military uniforms and stern expressions.

Petrov’s childhood then descended into dark shadows; absent were the innocence and resilience of youth.

Bone-chilling cold settled into Caleb as he sensed he was nearing Petrov’s darkest secret. Age four, Petrov was in bed at night; moonlight slanted through the window. Frozen with fear, the boy struggled to breathe and gagged on the sour taste of shame. Through Petrov’s eyes, Caleb watched a heavy, hairy arm flop over his slender chest.

Caleb’s eyes snapped open at the acrid odor of burning flesh. He clutched Raissa more tightly, praying that it was Mars on fire and not Raissa. Covering her seemed futile, but it still made sense to him to do it. Her arm was blistered in a spot where he had failed to shield her, but otherwise, she seemed to have escaped the fire.

He looked at Petrov’s cylinder, fully wrapped in flame. The bloated brain tumbled in roiling bubbles. Dr. Petrov had found peace.

Caleb, with flames licking at his cylinder, could see that his own brain had drifted halfway to the top. The memories of his life flew through his mind in a chaotic montage of images and sounds, but he tried to hold on to one scene, curious to see the outcome. A boy of five, he picked up his viola bow and applied rosin, moving the bow back and forth over the sticky substance. Then he placed the viola over his collarbone and positioned his jaw in the chin rest. The instrument, light as butterfly wings, became part of him. Drawing in a slow, deep breath, he began to play.

* * *

Raissa blinked. I must have blacked out. She couldn't see Caleb or Fern or Petrov. They must be dead. The searing heat baked her tears before they rolled down her cheeks. Gasping for breath, she pressed her nose close to the floor, where the more breathable air was available. Looking left and right, she saw that the fire had leaped to the walls and ceiling and had engulfed at least half the building. Two loud booms sounded like cans of chemicals exploding.

Pain racked her body, and a part of her wanted to go limp and submit to the inferno, for only death would erase the guilt of killing loved ones, but her heart stirred her to escape the lab. She needed to get home for Jaddy.

An acrid odor of sulfur crept up her nose. It smelled like her hair was on fire. Panicking, Raissa summoned all her strength and rolled onto her side. To her shock, Caleb tumbled beside her. Was he lying on top of me all this time?

None of Caleb’s thoughts were streaming through her mind, and she could not feel his heart beating in her chest. She shifted her gaze to his cylinder. Caleb’s brain was floating near the top. All of the brains, including Petrov’s, were twice their size and mottled with patches of green and gray. A blade of grief pierced her throat, and she wavered, light-headed.

She stared at the face of the boy she loved. His skin was smooth and unblemished, untouched by the flames. His eyes were closed, but he wore an expression of wonder. She had seen that look before…when they had played the viola duet in his apartment. Caleb had heard the music in his head.

She heard a faint viola now, the blend of notes threading from his mind into hers. It was Vivaldi.

Is Caleb alive?

Rays of hope penetrated her gloom, but then she feared that she was the source of the melody. Am I dreaming?

But no dream could produce music this beautiful. Caleb imagined himself playing the viola. Love makes the impossible possible!

A chemical explosion showered them in white-hot sparks, and she had to hurry to get Caleb outside. She climbed to her feet, teetering with dizziness and exhaustion, but managed to stay upright. She grabbed Caleb by his heels. Unable to muster any strength in her left arm, she wrapped the fingers of her right hand around his right ankle and started for the door. Her legs throbbed to the marrow and she cried out as a steady mist of sparks rained down on her skin.

A perfumed breeze from the garden energized her, and she dragged Caleb across the threshold and onto the hard soil. “Caleb.” Her voice was hoarse.

He mumbled.

Raissa’s pain shrank to a pinprick. “I’m right here.”

He opened his eyes a crack and whispered. “Vee.”

Raissa could now feel Caleb’s heart beating weakly, but steadily, in her chest. She clasped his hand. “Vee?” She put her ear close to his mouth.

Caleb dragged his tongue over his lips. It took forever. “Genetarium. Go.”

“Go to the genetarium?”

His nod was barely perceptible.

Raissa was certain Petrov had carried through on his threat to delete Fern. The wound was too fresh for her to go to the genetarium, only to confirm their daughter’s death. A tear splashed on his face. “I’ll go. I promise.”

“Eight…” he said.

“Eight?”

“Eight…eight…eight.”

Raissa suddenly remembered the data stick that Zoe had given her. She dug her hand into her pocket and pulled it out. “888.V2” was stamped on the side. Stunned, she held it above his face.

“Fern,” he said with a small smile.

Caleb’s eyes were closed, but Raissa realized he was seeing the data stick through her eyes. It held the code for their daughter.

Raissa’s hopes soared and then imploded from the fear that Caleb was confused or wrong, then rose again on fluttering, fragile butterfly wings of possibility. He will live, and they’ll have a family. She knew better and lied, “Caleb, you’re going to make it.”

The melody lifted and fell as he clung to life.

A steady stream of her tears cascaded from her cheeks and landed on his brow. “We’ll raise Fern together,” she swore, meaning every word. Through memories and stories, she would bring Caleb to life for their daughter. “Fern will know and love you as much as she loves me.”

Caleb tried to speak but stopped. He was too weak.

“Rest,” she whispered.

“Together,” he said hoarsely.

No tears. Not now. She had a lifetime ahead of her to cry. “Yes, together.”

Caleb’s lips kept moving, but she couldn’t make out what he was trying to say, so she put her ear close to his mouth.

“Happy ending,” he breathed. “Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy.”

Raissa brought her lips to his and closed her eyes. Tasting the sweetness of their first kiss, she hoped their happy ending would last forever. “I love you, Caleb,” she said in her mind over and over, as echoes of “I love you, Raissa,” returned from his.

A montage of their shared experiences engulfed them. Destined to love one another since the age of four, they had lived a lifetime together in the past forty-eight hours.

The images began to fade and break apart as they neared the moment of their first meeting. Caleb turned to her in his seat at Symphony Hall, gazed into her green eyes, and his heart took off in a gallop.

Now his heart slowed, and Vivaldi grew faint. The tempo of her beating heart matched that of his in their duet, and Raissa clung to every note as if it were his last, knowing a curtain of silence soon would descend.

She pressed her lips against his until Caleb put down the bow.

PLANNING – THE YEAR 0001

PLANNING: PHASE 01

The savory odors of minty tabbouleh and roasted eggplant hung in the air, luring Jerusalem’s hungry lunch crowd. Raissa stepped along the busy sidewalk, careful to avoid bumping into anyone and triggering an outburst. Without nanochips to defuse tensions, some people snapped in anger at the slightest provocation. In time, she hoped they would remember how to control their emotions.

A crowd was chanting up ahead. “V6, V6, V6.” She grumbled in frustration. The march might delay her; she had to be home in fifteen minutes. Protesters blocked the gate that led to the old part of the city where she lived. She stood among the growing number of pedestrians on the sidewalk, all waiting for a chance to cross the street.

The marchers were Techies who demanded the restoration of the chip, Version 6. She saw the desperation in their eyes. Raw emotions were new and frightening to them. They were wary of others. Petty crime was on the rise, and they feared violence would follow. Techies longed for the calming, stabilizing influence of the chip, for the sake of society and themselves.

More bad news. A group of Zealots was holding a prayer vigil at a darkened enlightenment wall not far away, and the Techies were heading straight for them. A clash was unavoidable. The day before, a riot had broken out between the two groups in downtown Jerusalem. Ironically, they had much in common. The Zealots also demanded nanochip technology, but they wanted V2, the version before the God-killer release. They wanted to practice their faith while avoiding painful human emotions. They prayed at enlightenment walls for the return of Dr. Petrov and the Collective. Raissa didn’t know what had happened to the twelve-member Collective, but since nobody had heard from them in over a year, a sudden miraculous appearance was unlikely. She was sure that Petrov wouldn’t turn up.

She sighed in relief as two paladins approached. Paladins were returning to the city after completing their task of transporting the world’s dead to solartaria. The lethal malware had claimed victims as close as four hundred kilometers away. It had taken the collective effort of every paladin close to a year to forge four billion carbon tabs. These paladins would be able to keep the two groups in line.

Raissa retrieved her messenger, ready to communicate that she might be late, when a gap opened in the line of protesters. She and several other bystanders made their move all at once. She jogged through the dusty maze of alleys to her home. “I made it,” she called out as she stepped inside.

Exhausted, Jaddy and Goldstein slumped in chairs in the living room. Goldstein reached over and took Jaddy’s hand. “We’re off duty, good friend.”

“We took her for a walk,” Jaddy whispered.

“I read to her,” Goldstein said in a low voice.

Goldstein had an ideal storytelling voice, soft and soothing—when not teaching the ways of international espionage. “Charlotte’s Web?'” Raissa asked.

He raised his eyebrows. “What else?”

“She never stops smiling,” Jaddy said. The cry of a baby filled the house. “Well, rarely,” he added with a shrug.

Raissa thanked them and trotted upstairs and into her bedroom. She looked into the crib. “You have quite a set of lungs. I know what you want.” She carried the baby, three months old to the day, downstairs and out to the courtyard. After getting comfortable under the shade of the fig tree, Raissa nursed her.

Rocking in the chair, Raissa reflected on the past year. After Petrov and the others had died in the fire, she had slipped into the Citadel’s garden and found the location where Ashminov had detonated the explosives. The building was rubble.

As she was looking for survivors, the rocket had lifted off the launch pad in a thunderous roar. Birds took flight, and orchid petals fluttered to the ground. Was Petrov onboard? Had he cloned brain cells? He seemed like the type who always had a Plan B. She hoped she’d never find out.

She had remained inside the Citadel for several days. To prevent infection, she had washed her wounds in the stream, and she’d eaten mangoes to stave off hunger. Nothing could minimize the guilt she had felt. She had repeatedly told herself that the mission was a success and that she and Ashminov and Caleb had saved billions of lives, but that hadn’t stopped her from reliving the horrible scene inside the lab. Her only solace was the data stick with the precious lines of code, kept in her pocket, her hand resting on it at all times.

After she had ventured outside the Citadel's walls, she discovered life in Boston was following many of its regular rhythms, with one notable exception: NanoArtisans had shut down. The global slaughter had soured scientist and citizen alike on technology. Before she had flown home to Jerusalem, Raissa made an emotional trip to Caleb’s apartment and collected several of his cherished possessions to remember him by.

Once she got home, Raissa’s anxiety that Petrov had scrubbed Jaddy’s memory had vanished at once when her grandfather threw his arms around her, and they both cried hard tears of relief. “Are you ready to be a great-grandfather?” she’d asked.

They had gone straight to the Jerusalem Genetarium where the staff had implanted the code egg into her womb. Before giving birth, Raissa visited Goldstein. Her former trainer had not been at all surprised that she had succeeded in the mission. He had sat still as she reported back to him everything that had happened. A single tear had rolled down his cheek.

A cry brought Raissa back to the courtyard. Sunshine through the fig leaves was lighting her baby’s face. She smiled. “Her nose clearly comes from you.” Raissa switched sides, and the crying stopped.

She lifted her eyes to the sky. “Our daughter slept through the night last night.”

“You must feel rested.”

She laughed. “I never knew what tired was until motherhood. Do you know what her favorite food is? Squash. The gooier, the better. What a mess she made at breakfast!”

“I liked pureed spinach.” Caleb listed all the foods he liked as a baby. Raissa pictured him waving his hand excitedly with the same passion he had once reserved for technology and music—a mushy vegetable nerd.

Raissa spoke to him often, but she did not know if he liked spinach. She still had an Eden Chip, but she was sure that his voice and theatrics came from her imagination. She was the sole source of their conversations. Her eyes blurred with tears. “I miss you so much, but with help from our beautiful daughter, I’m healing a little every day.”

A tiny hand grabbed her finger. Green eyes, brimming with wonder, looked up at her. Raissa knew Caleb was alive in the bundle of warmth in her arms, and he was alive in her heart; they would be together forever. Love makes the impossible possible. She rocked and sang until Fern-Elizabeth drifted into a blissful sleep.

“Mommy is coming,
She is almost here,
She is bringing toys and gifts.
She's also got a box,
Inside there's a duck
That goes:
Quack quack quack
Quack quack.”

*

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