Kingmaker
Author: Christian Cantrell
Date: 2013-08-13 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Science Fiction; Fiction; Thriller; Adventure
Description: I build levers to move objects that appear to be immovable.Alexei Drovosek represents the next evolution of human: no heart, immunity to cancer, and the uncanny ability to survive in conditions that would kill normal men. As an orphan growing up in post-Soviet Russia, Alexei was taken in by the state and trained as its most vicious and effective killer. But eventually the Russian Federal Security Service’s best-trained assassin did the most dangerous thing of all: he turned on his handlers, went rogue, and disappeared.In the bleak, high-tech near future, Alexei has resurfaced in a secret compo
Publisher: 47north
Rights: All rights reserved

ALSO BY CHRISTIAN CANTRELL:

Containment

SHORT STORIES:

Farmer One

Venom

The Epoch Index

Anansi Island

Human Legacy Project

Brainbox

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Text copyright 2013 © Christian Cantrell

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Published by 47North
P.O. Box 400818
Las Vegas, NV 89140

ISBN-13: 9781477807439

ISBN-10: 1477807438

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 2013938241

CONTENTS

Start Reading

PROLOGUE

PART ONE THE END OF THE SILK ROAD

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

PART TWO DON’T BLINK

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

PART THREE QUEEN SACRIFICE

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

PART FOUR ENTROPY POOL

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GIVE ME A LEVER LONG ENOUGH AND A FULCRUM ON WHICH TO PLACE IT, AND I SHALL MOVE THE WORLD.

—ARCHIMEDES

PROLOGUE

KHRUNICHEV STATE RESEARCH AND PRODUCTION SPACE CENTER (KHSC)
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
OCTOBER 16, 1997
7:22 A.M.

Grigori Kedrov was not called to the director’s office. He was brought.

The two men who escorted him never produced, revealed, or even hinted at the weapons beneath their coats. There was no need. At the moment of eye contact, there was an instantaneous nonverbal agreement: it was over, and the more Grigori cooperated, the easier it would be. Grigori watched the men for a moment, then placed the coupling he had been examining down on a bench. The two men kept Grigori between them as they walked, and they all ignored the astonished gazes of the other engineers.

As he was led into the dim, mahogany-paneled office, Grigori saw the one thing he hoped he would not: his wife. She was sitting in one of the two chairs in front of the massive, intricately carved oak desk. Her spine was straight and her knuckles were pale as she gripped the chair’s ornate armrests. Grigori thought that she was bound, but when she turned, he could see that her restraints were self-imposed.

The man behind the director’s desk was not the director. His cold, slate-blue eyes were set slightly too close together, which gave him an unsettling and predatory stare. There were four other men in the room—two on each side. Their long dark coats were open and their hands were clasped at their waists.

In the center of the desk was a tiny aluminum microfilm canister.

Grigori and Tetyana had been working at KhSC since December of 1984. By then, most of the engineers from Chernobyl who were still able to work had been relocated to Moscow and assigned to the Zarya project. Zarya was initially designed as a propulsion module for the Mir orbital space station, but it never flew. It was later used as an upper-stage engine for the Polyus spacecraft—a weapons platform designed to use megawatt carbon-dioxide lasers to destroy American Strategic Defense Initiative satellites which were, in turn, designed to use directed-energy weapons to destroy Soviet ICBMs. After the fall of the Soviet Union—and in a remarkable spectacle of post–Cold War irony—NASA chose Zarya over a similar US-built option to be the very first module of the International Space Station. Although it was of Soviet design and was being built by a Russian company, Zarya was funded by the Americans, and therefore owned by the United States.

The hermetically sealed aluminum microfilm canister in the center of the director’s desk had been discovered behind one of the four earth-orientation instruments. It was not part of Zarya’s design.

When Tetyana saw her husband, she stood, crossed the room, and embraced him. All four men advanced from the sides of the room and began to separate them, but the captain snapped his fingers and waved them off. Let them, he said. He watched the man rock his wife and stroke her long chestnut hair. There is no harm in it, the captain told his men. All the harm that could be done had been done already.

The woman turned and started to speak to the captain, but her husband stopped her. He told her it was best not to say anything. The captain watched her with his cool blue eyes and said he already knew what she was going to ask, and that the answer was yes. Their son would be looked after. He would be cared for and raised by the state. The captain did not smile, but his eyes softened. They needn’t worry about the boy, he told them. He assured the two traitors that he would personally see to Alexei’s well-being, education, and most importantly, to his training.

PART ONE

THE END OF THE SILK ROAD

CHAPTER ONE

Alexei Kedrov did not have a heart. He was the first agent of the Russian Federal Security Service to have it removed and replaced with two perfectly silent continuous flow centrifugal pumps that integrated flawlessly with his autonomic nervous system. The procedure was not done for health reasons—in fact, his heart was so robust that it was preserved in the Kremlin’s presidential tissue bank—but rather as a way to increase stealth; Alexei became invisible to even the most advanced heartbeat sensors employed by security systems, black ops units, and all forms of cardio-acoustic, antipersonnel ballistics.

An additional benefit to not having a pulse was the ability to pass for a corpse. It was rare that such a morbid aptitude proved convenient, but certainly not without precedent. More than once Alexei had gone unnoticed by covering himself with fistfuls of nearby purple glistening entrails and holding his breath while a soldier scanned him with his handheld electric potential sensor, attributed the minimal readings to residual brain activity, and moved on.

Before the procedure, Alexei was known as Lev, or “the Lion”—a testament to his intrepid nature and uninhibited ferocity. Afterwards he was called “Tin Man.”

Relinquishing his heart had saved Alexei’s life on several occasions, and now he was depending on it to help him start a new one. It was not generally difficult to get into the United States anymore since there were far more people making plans to leave than had dreams of immigrating, but getting in without being photographed, scanned, and possibly even microchipped or isotoped (and henceforth monitored by the FBI, CIA, NSA, and/or Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was becoming increasingly problematic. Although there never seemed to be sufficient funding or consensus to pass legislation designed to help feed, clothe, house, or employ Americans, any initiative promising to track them more closely enjoyed lavish financial support and expedited nonpartisan ratification.

Given the current political climate, the state of American civil liberties, and the nature of armed conflict across the globe, it occurred to Alexei that the easiest way to penetrate the United States border without being identified or registered was probably as a dead enemy combatant. Rather than maintaining complex and expensive processing facilities all over the world, it was far cheaper and easier to hire contractors to load the bodies of suspected, accused, condemned, and subsequently executed terrorists into reusable carbon fiber caskets, transfer them onto freight drones, and send them off to labs in Northern California, South Carolina, or Texas, where the entire process of unloading, dissecting, analyzing, and finally disposing of remains was completely automated. Most insurgents entered the facility more or less anonymous, but by the time the carborane acids in which their limbs and organs were dissolved got sent out to be disposed of as hazardous waste, the United States had obtained photographs, measurements, biometrics, a full DNA profile, genealogical data, and several other data points useful in matching casualties to known targets, and more importantly, in helping to identify new ones.

The most abundant producers of enemy combatant corpses bound for the US were probably the “narco-cratic” nations of Mexico and Columbia, whose only remaining political parties were recent evolutionary offshoots of the Los Zetas, Sinaloa, and Norte del Valle drug cartels. Unfortunately, while constant paramilitary operations were certain to provide Alexei with ample opportunity, there were far too many ways between Russia and just about anywhere in Latin America to register on the ubiquitous and omniscient radar nets cast by any number of three-letter American agencies. Therefore the safest, most reliable, and most convenient option was Iran.

Alexei bought a Range Rover in Volgograd from a balding man in a lustrous, electric blue track suit who proved willing to trade cash for an unofficial and hassle-free transaction (which Alexei knew would later be reported as a theft in order to justify the lack of documentation, and to yield a supplemental payment from the insurance company). The dealer even threw in a complimentary roof rack, several spare hydrogen fuel cells, and after the second time Alexei stood up to walk out, micro-weave floor mats apparently impregnated with stain-dissolving enzymes. Alexei drove the two thousand kilometers south to Tehran in a single day where he traded the Range Rover for a used BMW R 1400 GS Adventure motorcycle with massive titanium panniers and a computerized traction control system designed specifically for riding through sand. The dealer tried to sell him a helmet and several other types of ballistic protection (including a full-body, one-piece suit capable of inflating from neck to ankle in less than ten milliseconds should the built-in accelerometer suddenly report values consistent with an accident), but Alexei already had his own custom-engineered gear. With the cash left over from the deal, he bought two weeks’ worth of supplies, then discovered it was far easier to find prostitutes in an Islamic republic than a single liter of even mediocre vodka. His persistence eventually paid off, however, and he spent one more night at the Tehran Milad Tower before leaving the next morning for Dasht-e Kavir, or the Great Salt Desert.

He used his handset to monitor communications between military contractor outposts, the constellation of geosynchronous satellites overhead, and hundreds of both aerial and terrestrial drones in the region. It was programmed to look for a very specific set of criteria. Since he needed relatively well-intact corpses to blend in among, the most important thing was that the attack on the insurgents be conducted using some form of chemical agent or discreet directed-energy weapon rather than conventional or tactical nuclear ordnance likely to incinerate every solid object within a radius of five hundred meters. He also had to be able to reach the target in the brief window of time between when the last of the UAVs left the area and the body harvesting crew arrived.

Alexei smoked a particular brand of pure black filterless cigarette which he had stocked up on before leaving Moscow. He’d been rationing them at an increasing rate during his time in the desert, and was now down to his last one. As soon as he lit it with a miniature plasma torch, he saw his handset come alive on the seat of his bike. He picked it up to verify the criteria, then took a long, wistful drag, flicked the unsmoked remains off into the sand, and hastily began striking his meager camp. Assuming he hadn’t made any gross miscalculations, Alexei knew that within twelve hours, he would very likely be on his way to the US to start not just a new mission, but an entirely new life.

The attack would be outside of Kashmar, which was several hundred kilometers away from Alexei’s current position. It had been long enough since it rained last that the BMW’s microwave density sensors assured him that he could ride directly over the great crusts of salt without fear of falling through into the black saline marshes below. He stood up on his foot pegs until the ridges of minerals flattened out into dirt, and then into paths, and finally into the closest thing to a road Alexei had seen in weeks.

The handset was clipped in among the bike’s instrument cluster and he checked it as he rode. He was close enough when the attack occurred that had the target been destroyed, he would have probably heard it. Since no acrid black plumes rose above the horizon ahead, he knew that the site contained bodies and/or equipment that the United States considered vital and therefore fully intended to recover.

The reds and browns and blacks of salt and sand were behind Alexei now and it was almost ten degrees cooler as he began to pass through the shade of occasional trees. He was still several kilometers outside of Kashmar when the dirt road turned to gravel and he approached a cluster of warehouses. The windows were boarded and the old chipped brick was covered in the dripping twists and swirls and dots of Farsi graffiti which the transparent LCD inside Alexei’s visor translated into “God is great” and “Death to Israel” and “Behead all infidel pig-fuckers.” Weeds pushed up through the gravel out front where several Iranian sedans were parked at various angles. The trees around the buildings looked too straight—even for products of genetic engineering—and as Alexei got off his bike, he realized that they were artificial. The silicon foliage concealed antennas, transmitters, and clear plastic parabolic satellite dishes watching several different regions of the sky at once. He left the keys in the ignition and did not remove his helmet.

The first warehouse Alexei checked explained the Americans’ interest. There were no bodies, but dozens of drones were arranged throughout the space, each a dramatically unique model. In the natural light permitted by the transparent thermoplastic panels in the ceiling, Alexei could see everything from an old stealth Sentinel reconnaissance UAV—the Beast of Kandahar, as it was once known—to multicopter gunships to racks of Hummingbird- and Dragonfly-class micro aerial vehicles. Nestled in below the wings and rotors of the larger aircraft were several models of continuous-track and 6x6 UGVs, or Unmanned Ground Vehicles, and even a few quadrupedal and bipedal transport, antipersonnel, and antiaircraft assets commonly referred to as “mechs.” Several of the machines were partially disassembled—clearly in the process of being reverse engineered—and the air inside the hanger was thick with the fumes of kerosene-based jet fuel and the metallic tinge of old battery acid. Although there were various components tagged and laid out on steel, multi-tiered machine tables, there was no wreckage, and none of the vehicles appeared to have sustained any damage. It looked as though everything in the warehouse had been captured fully intact.

The next structure was exactly what Alexei was expecting. Even through his one-piece, composite-weave suit he felt the frigid air wash over him as he slid the door open. The space was divided between racks of servers and rows of workstations, all connected by cables dropping down from a low ceiling of metal latticework panels. Alexei had infiltrated facilities like this before and he knew that some of the cabling was for data and some of the lines carried water—likely condensed from the vapor byproduct of hydrogen fuel cells—which was used to draw thermal energy away from the synthetic diamond heat sinks clamped down over what probably totaled tens of thousands of parallel processor cores.

Alexei was inside a modern Iranian war room.

All of the technicians were dead. They lay in pools of bodily fluids, their white microfiber thermal-insulated suits absorbing the blood from their gums and eyes and ears, and the greenish-brown bile heaved up from their stomachs with their very last breaths. The attack had obviously been radiological, conducted by one or more quadrotor drones focusing beams of ionizing radiation—probably gamma rays—at levels of at least one hundred thousand roentgens. Unconsciousness would have been almost instantaneous and death from internal hemorrhaging not far behind.

The building would probably not be safe until it was fully decontaminated, so Alexei backed out and closed the door. He felt the ring beneath his glove vibrate and he took his handset out of his thigh pocket and checked the map. The Americans were less than a kilometer away and approaching rapidly. He picked a spot between the nearest building and his bike, took a few casual steps, relaxed his arms and legs, and collapsed.

He couldn’t tell exactly how many vehicles there were, but from the number of doors he heard open and slam, he guessed at least three. There were the sounds of ammo magazines being slapped into place, rounds being chambered, and safeties being released, but he could tell the men were not advancing in any kind of formation. Their boots kicked lackadaisically at the gravel as they gathered.

“Check him out. Dude almost got away.”

“What the hell’s a bike like that doing way the fuck out here?”

“I don’t know, but the poor thing’s all alone without anyone in the world to take care of it.”

“To the victor go the spoils.”

“How the hell are you going to get that thing back?”

“It’s a motorcycle, you fucking retard. How do you think?”

“Man, if I were you, I wouldn’t go near that thing.”

“Why not?”

“It’s either bobby trapped and you’re going to get your balls blown off right away, or you’re going to hit an IED on the way back and get your balls blown off. Either way, no motorcycle’s worth getting your balls blown off.”

“Why not? Ain’t like he’s using them.”

“All right, everyone. Listen up. We got four buildings to cover. Scarberry, Hash, I want you to take the western structure. Carbone and O’Leary, you take the one behind it. Me and Collins will start with this guy, then do the main building. Whoever finishes last gets the fourth building while everyone else gets to drink what’s in that cooler we brought. Got it?”

There was a chorus of acknowledgments, followed by the crunch of boots dispersing. Alexei heard the top of a Zippo flick open, a plasma torch ignite, and then a metallic snap. The stiff weave of his suit lifted the armor above his torso, leaving a shallow cavity into which his chest slowly rose and fell as he took measured, invisible breaths.

“You scan this guy yet?”

Alexei could hear a handheld electric potential sensor being triggered. “He’s cooked. Man, that’s a nice fucking helmet he’s got on.”

Alexei heard a boot next to his head, then felt his visor get shoved up.

“Holy shit, this ain’t no Hajji!”

“It most certainly is not.”

“Fucking mercenaries.”

“What do you mean fucking mercenaries? What do you think you are?”

“I’m a military contractor. There’s a difference.”

“And what difference is that?”

“The difference is he’s dead and I ain’t, which means I get to make the rules.”

“You can make all the rules you want, just do it while you’re helping me move this guy.”

“Hold on. He ain’t even bleeding. Let me get his helmet first.”

Alexei felt fingers working at the strap under his chin.

“Leave the helmet where it is, Collins.”

“Come on, man. That’s a nice fucking helmet. Ain’t like he needs it anymore.”

“I said leave it. Take the bike if you want it, but we’re here to collect these bodies, not rob them.”

“How can you rob someone who’s dead? That’s just plain ignorant.”

“By taking shit that doesn’t belong to you, that’s how. Now I’m done fucking around, Collins. I said no.”

A moment passed and then Alexei’s visor got slapped back down.

“Fine. Fuck it. Helmets are for pussies, anyways.”

“Relax. It’s not like you got much to protect. Come on. Let’s get this done.”

Alexei felt himself being lifted from the ankles and armpits, carried a short distance, and then lowered.

“Gently now.”

“Man, how come you’re always sticking up for these ragheads?”

“He isn’t a raghead. You saw him. He’s about as white as O’Leary’s ass.”

“Whatever. Anyone who comes out here and takes up arms against the United States is a raghead in my book, and you’re the only one I know who gives a fuck about what happens to every one of these camel-humping sons-a-bitches. That what they teach you in officer school? You too brainwashed to break the rules every now and then?”

“It’s not because I’m an officer, and it’s not because I’m afraid to break the rules.”

“Then what is it? What’s wrong with grabbing a helmet, or a gold tooth, or a little jewelry every now and then? Ain’t like they’re going to miss any of it.”

“It’s called respect, Collins. Not that you’d know anything about that.”

“Respect? Wait a second. You do know that we’re sending these bodies out for DECOP, right? You do know what Deceased Enemy Combatant Processing is, don’t you? I’m pretty sure that’s about the farthest thing from respect there is.”

“Maybe, but that’s not my call. What is my call is how they get treated before they get sent out. It may not be much, but it’s something.”

“Yeah, it’s something, all right.”

“Let me ask you something, Collins. You think you’re always going to be on the winning side of this fight?”

“I damn sure intend to be.”

“You might intend to be, but what we want and what we get are two very different things, aren’t they? When your number’s up, you want someone pulling your teeth out of your skull with some rusty old pair of pliers, or cutting off your ear and wearing it on a necklace as a souvenir, or dragging your bare-ass body through the streets while everyone spits and pisses on your corpse?”

“They’ll do all that shit anyway. It don’t matter what we do.”

“Maybe, but that’s not the point. It isn’t about who they are—it’s about who we are. They might be our enemy, but that doesn’t mean we have to hate them. We all got our fights to fight in this world.”

“That’s why we should be out here getting what we can, when we can. If you ask me, we’re passing up a damn good opportunity here.”

“That’s the thing,” the man said. “I’m not asking.”

Alexei felt the space around him condense and then he heard the click of several latches. When he opened his eyes again, it was black.

The time glowing in the corner of his visor told Alexei that it was a little less than three hours before he was loaded onto a freight drone, and then another ten hours before he landed. Environmental scrubbers in his helmet kept carbon dioxide levels in the casket down to 394 parts per million by absorbing the poisonous molecules into the padding, and he sipped cool, compressed oxygen from the vent over his nose and mouth. The freighter was refrigerated, and when the sensors around Alexei’s torso detected that he was nearly hypothermic, current from the batteries in his boots was forced through the resistant steel fibers woven into his suit’s composite material until his core was back up to ninety-eight degrees. He spent a few hours drifting in and out of sleep and he dreamed that he had the opportunity to kill a man who he hated intensely for reasons he could not recall, but the trigger of his pistol was soft and the bullets just slid down the barrel with a metallic rasp and dropped to the floor at his feet where they bounced and rolled and accumulated into a maddening pile of impotence.

He felt himself being unloaded and then the casket vibrated as it moved along a track. There were industrial sounds ahead of him: the banging of heavy objects being moved and stacked; the hiss and groan of pneumatics; the robotic whine of servos and actuators; the accumulative cacophony of products either being assembled or destroyed. When the noise entirely surrounded him, Alexei placed his palms against the top of the casket and pushed. The material warped, then reformed to its original shape as soon as he lowered his hands. He made a fist and punched feebly in the small space, but the carbon fiber shell deflected his blows. The casket jerked to a stop and then the top was gone and Alexei was suddenly looking up at the underside of a massive metallic insect. Jointed appendages clattered above him wielding high-speed diamond-tipped saw blades and drill bits, scalpels, retractors, needles, suction tubes, and fiber optic scopes. There wasn’t enough room to vault up and out, so he threw his weight against the side of the casket, but it was locked securely into its track. An array of steel grippers began to descend—mechanisms designed to pin him at multiple points and keep him immobile during the initial cutting—but they paused just above the casket. The noise immediately around him wound down as the machinery’s residual power faded. The casket was yanked further along the track and the surgical cluster was replaced by a chubby face with saggy eyes and a black beard shaped along an ample jawline. The man smiled.

“Good morning, Tin Man!” he announced enthusiastically through a thick Russian accent. “I am Bogdan! Welcome to America!”

Alexei sat up and pulled off his helmet. The queue he was in was stopped, but the lines parallel to him were still operating. The steel appendages made minute adjustments on multiple axes as they applied their implements in perfect coordination. Various organs and entrails were carefully detached or gathered and spooled from wet red abdominal, chest, and cranial cavities, then placed in molded dishes which were conveyed along separate paths. The robotic instrument cluster to his right was being sterilized in a simmering vat as a fresh corpse was brought into position. There was a total of at least twenty working lines with caskets identical to his placed about two meters apart from one another, and although he couldn’t see what was beyond this room, he assumed the remains were bound for more discreet tissue, chemical, and genetic analysis. The air smelled of acidic and caustic vapor.

He climbed down and stood unsteadily on the concrete floor as the circulation returned to his legs. The man before him was short and heavy and seemed to be trying to augment his stature with a thick black bouffant. He had a bag hanging from one shoulder and a smug grin on his plump lips.

“A few more seconds and the Americans would have possessed the famous heart of the Lion.”

“Where are we?”

“South Carolina. Folly Beach. Home of the biggest insurgent processing plant in the country.”

“How did you stop the line?” Alexei asked him.

The fat man gestured behind him. “It was no problem. The kill switch is right on the wall.”

“How long do we have before someone notices?”

“I am told each line has fifteen minutes to repair itself before a technician is sent in.”

“Does anyone know you’re here?”

The fat man’s laugh rebounded off the high ceiling. “Not even my wife, Tin Man. She thinks I’m spending a week at the beach with some whores. Maybe there will still be time, no?”

“Did you bring water?”

“I have everything you requested,” Bogdan said, and then his smile faltered. “As long as you have the money.”

Alexei unzipped the top portion of his suit and removed a thick envelope. The fat man took it and thumbed through the notes.

“A private jet would have been a lot cheaper,” he said. “And a lot more comfortable.”

He took a brushed steel canister from the bag and handed it to Alexei. Alexei unhinged the top and tipped it back twice, pausing to breathe in between.

“Give me the protein.”

Bogdan handed Alexei a single white tube. Alexei ripped off the top and squeezed the paste into his mouth. When he’d swallowed it all, he finished the canister of water.

“Show me the rest.”

The fat man widened the top of the bag and began presenting its contents. “A twenty-five centimeter tungsten carbide tactical combat knife with serrated blade. A Gryazev-Shipunov 10mm pistol with four twenty-round magazines. Two packs of Sobranie black blend unfiltered cigarettes—very good, by the way—and, of course, a passport. Congratulations, Tin Man. You are an American now!”

Alexei took the passport and opened it. “Alexei Drovosek? Not very subtle.”

“You are the Woodcutter now, no?”

Alexei motioned for the bag and Bogdan passed it to him. He began verifying the contents for himself.

“With all due respect, Tin Man,” Bogdan said, “I think you are wasting your time and your talents here.”

Alexei did not look up. “What makes you say that?”

“Everything there is to own in America is already owned by someone. This is not the land of opportunity it once was. Do you know the Thirty-first Amendment?”

“What about it?”

“Every year it gets more and more support. Eventually it will be ratified and all the votes will go from the citizens to their employers. Once that happens, this place will be as bad as Russia. Maybe worse.”

“You’re thinking small, comrade,” Alexei said. “You’ve been away from the motherland too long. You think I came all this way to open a grocery store?”

Bogdan smiled. “Tell me. What did the great Tin Man come here to do?”

Alexei looked up from the bag. “No matter how much a man has, there are two things he can never get enough of: pleasure and protection. Just like in Russia, the wealthy here need weapons, drugs, and girls. Or boys, depending on the individual. Whoever can provide them safely, discreetly, and reliably can get access to the most powerful men in the country.”

The fat man’s smile broadened. “I like the way you think, Tin Man,” he said. “But you know what you are going to need?”

“Enlighten me.”

“A partner. Someone who knows people. Someone with connections.” He pointed at the bag in Alexei’s hands. “Someone who can get you what you need.”

Alexei slipped the passport back in the bag but he didn’t remove his hand.

“You’re right,” he said. “I do need all those things, and more. But you know what I need right now?”

“Tell me, my friend.”

“I need a body to fill that casket.”

Alexei took a step forward and the knife went into the fat man’s gut. He had planned to slide the blade up under the rib cage and into the man’s heart and wait for it to stop twitching as the muscle went into spasm, but he was suddenly concerned about the amount of blood it would leave on the floor. He withdrew the knife and Bogdan groaned as Alexei hoisted him up into the casket. The fat man’s fingers looked like raw bloody sausages as they pressed down over the wound. Alexei retrieved the bloody envelope from the man’s coat pocket and slipped it into the shoulder bag.

The fat man rolled back and forth in the casket. He tried to sit up but his movements were arrested by the pain in his gut. Despite the weight, the casket slid easily on its rails and Alexei heard the man pleading in Russian as he was positioned under the belly of the bristling steel beast. On his way out, the Tin Man punched the green button on the wall and the disassembly line came back to life.

CHAPTER TWO

Hyun Ki was sedated and blindfolded the last time she was moved. Nobody will tell her where she is, but she has figured out a few things about the penthouse apartment she shares with fifteen other girls. Where one would expect to find windows behind walls of sheer curtains there are only mirrors, so it’s impossible to know exactly how high up she is, but it’s high enough to detect an occasional minute sway in the structure which usually corresponds to the faint whistle of wind finding its way in through fissures in the building’s facade. By pressing her ear and cheek against the tile in the shower, she has frequently sensed the rumbling of an elevator. She suspects she is on the top floor of the tower since she has never heard anyone above her or felt vibrations in her feet as she presses them against the ceiling from her top bunk. But even at the penthouse level, the sounds from the streets below still manage to reach them, and the emergency sirens register as distant and gradual crescendos rather than the high-pitched bleating more common in Europe. She has never heard Japanese campaign slogans or silvery product jingles broadcast through PA systems mounted on the roofs of slowly moving vans, nor the persistent drone of Chinese or Korean government propaganda. She has never felt an earthquake, or heard the whine of a tsunami warning system being tested. When the women who care for the girls answer their handsets, they simply say “yes?” or “hello?” instead of dígame or moshi moshi or da or allo, and she has never seen anyone kneel down and press a forehead to the floor in prayer. Those around her with dark skin are not so dark as to be of pure African bloodlines, but rather all have some trace of Caucasian in their ancestral pasts. The food is rich in protein and poor in flavor and spice, and the sense of not just money, but of profound and imperishable wealth, is undeniably pervasive.

Ki’s best guess is that she lives in Manhattan.

She has been here for ninety-two days, and she has never been mistreated. All sixteen girls are weighed and scanned daily, at which point their schedules and menus are determined by formulas in the house moms’ handsets. The amount and type of food they are to eat, the vitamins and supplements they are to take, and the amount of time they are to spend using various pieces of exercise equipment in the adjoining gym are posted on a sheet of plasma glass in the common room. Once a week, two women are brought in who divide the work of giving every girl both a manicure and a pedicure—processes which involve hours of meticulous clipping, filing, soaking, and moisturizing. A great deal of attention is paid to the girls’ feet and toes as volcanic rock is used to remove dead skin cells and calluses, and aloe vera and eucalyptus are massaged deep into the tissue. Once a month, all the girls are given physicals by a female physician who tests their blood and urine, the results of which define just a few of the many variables that are used to orchestrate the girls’ lives. It has occurred to Ki many times that she and her housemates are perhaps among the healthiest, most pampered, and most carefully monitored human beings on the entire planet. For this, many of the girls are thankful.

When they wake up, they find clean clothes—usually tight-fitting pajamas or short cotton nightgowns—folded neatly on their dressers. Each girl is expected to groom herself before breakfast and to pick up after herself throughout the day. The entire apartment is thoroughly sanitized weekly by a team of housekeepers—always female. Individually tailored portions of food are served on schedule, and in the time between chores, workouts, and meals, the girls are free to watch videos, play games, or read. The noise level is electronically monitored and there is surveillance equipment in every room: black camera domes on the ceilings, optical spheres turning in their sockets, silicon-covered lenses embedded in bathroom tiles. The house moms sometimes step carefully among the girls and take photographs, or move along the periphery of the room and quietly capture video of a girl sitting alone and cross-legged on a cushion with a doll or stuffed animal cradled tenderly in her lap.

As far as Ki can tell, there are two ways to leave the apartment. The first is by breaking down. If a girl begins to cry and cannot be consoled, she is taken away by one of the house moms. If the house mom cannot manage her, two men are summoned to take over in as gentle a manner as possible. These are the only males the girls ever see on a regular basis, and they are in and out with extreme focus, haste, and precision—speaking to and making eye contact with the house moms only. The girls almost always return, calm and with no signs of physical abuse or injury and with absolutely nothing to say about their time away. Occasionally they do not.

The second way to leave the apartment is to be chosen. The girls do not know what being chosen means, but it is a celebratory event nonetheless. The chosen girl becomes the center of attention as her few possessions are packed in a small shoulder bag. She is examined one last time, bathed, usually scented with oils, and generally seen to by the house moms with great fastidiousness. Her hair might be evened out, or her eyebrows plucked. If she is old enough and hasn’t undergone any form of permanent hair removal, she may be handed a razor and, under supervision, be expected to shave herself again. She is given fresh underwear and a brand new outfit—a short dress, or a skirt with a fitted top, or perhaps a schoolgirl uniform. A tight denim, cotton, or terry cloth jumpsuit. Occasionally a princess or a kitten costume. When it’s time, she is gently herded to the front of the apartment, simultaneously eager and reluctant. There is applause as she passes through the first set of doors, and when she turns and waves her final goodbye, she is crying both for what she is leaving behind, and for whatever lies ahead.

The next day, she is replaced.

Ki frequently requests additional time in the gym. She tells the house moms that the extra exercise keeps her calm and helps her to sleep. Exercise allotments are finely tuned, so there was initial resistance. The request had to be passed up through a chain of command, all but the very first link of which were a mystery to Ki. The doctor and nutritionist were consulted. Ki’s request was disruptive, but a calm and well-run operation was the house moms’ top priority, so permission was eventually granted. Ki’s schedule, supplements, and caloric intake were adjusted appropriately in order to compensate.

Ki knows that she could get more concessions. She knows that she is somehow special even if she doesn’t entirely understand why. Compared to those who grow up obsessed with the material world, orphans have an overdeveloped sense for the intangible. Their connections to others are all that they have, so they know exactly how they are perceived by those around them, and exactly what they are capable of evoking in others. Charisma and manipulation must stand in for resources and privilege, and those who survive frequently do so by learning to exploit that which is unique to them. They learn to use pity or fear or sexuality to their advantage, and once that power is used up, they discover that they have no other way of connecting with the world around them, and that they are truly and profoundly alone.

Ki is respectful of her power. Extra video time or more dessert is not important to her. She has no desire to exert influence over the other girls, or to claim ownership over property or territory. But extra time in the gym is critical. And when she’s in bed and all the lights are out—when the surveillance system relies on audio rather than video—Ki rolls over onto her stomach and pushes herself up so slowly and gradually that the bed beneath her does not rock or creak. Then she lowers herself back down until her lips are against her pillow, takes in a slow, muted breath, and pushes herself back up again. Sweat begins to drip from her chin and nose. Her nightgown clings to her back and legs. She quits just before her arms begin to quiver and her breath becomes heavy enough to be heard.

The material world does not interest Ki, nor does the social order of the house. To her, all that matters is strength.

CHAPTER THREE

Alexei Drovosek assessed the integrity of his US citizenship with the same methodical discretion with which one might test the newly frozen surface of a pond. He started by opening a bank account and arranging for several wire transfers. After verifying that the funds were secured and available (as opposed to having triggered alarms associated with suspicious international financial transactions, resulting in him being taken unceremoniously into custody by a cross-agency task force), he paid cash for a heavily wooded piece of property outside of LA and began hiring contractors to make renovations. The next test of his citizenship was commercial domestic air travel (Denver, Atlanta, then New York City), followed by his first international travel as a US citizen (a weekend jaunt to Vancouver for a little skiing, golf, and sushi). After each trip, Alexei returned to LAX without incident, and checked various federal security indexes to make sure he had not been flagged. Ideally the final test would have been Western Europe; however, given the length of time it was going to take for the investment he ultimately sought to mature, he decided it was an acceptable risk to skip Paris and Barcelona and Munich and go straight for a first-class, nonstop flight to Beijing.

From Capital International Airport, Alexei traveled east—first by train, then by bus—to the Port of Tianjin. He spent two days in marinas and yacht club bars until he finally found a boat willing to sail across the Bohai Sea, down around the tip of South Korea, north past the Japanese island of Kyushu, and then finally inland again and up the Tumen River to where China, North Korea, and Russia all converged—a region claimed by all three countries, yet controlled by none.

Alexei’s final destination was the top floor of a low and rugged industrial structure. From the windows on the southeast side of the complex, it was possible to see into all three countries at once. When the wind blew the smog from the factories and forest fires further inland, you could even see all the way to the Sea of Japan. The Hunchun region was the easternmost territory of a trade route established over three thousand years ago for transporting goods and slaves across Asia, Europe, Africa, and more recently, the Americas. Fangchuan City was the end of the Silk Road.

The four floors below him were devoted to the nurseries which no one offered to show him, and he did not ask to see. He smoked while he waited and set up his makeshift testing station. His notebook computer was open on a long plywood table that was bisected by a strip of nylon stretched between two old metal C-clamps, presumably forming an improvised ping-pong table. Beside the computer, there was a clear plastic pouch containing several sterile genetic profile testing packets, and on the floor below, a dented and rusted metal trash can. Alexei’s pack and coat were behind him, leaning against the wall below the windows.

“You came alone,” Lao Ban announced in English. He was standing beside the table, watching Alexei with a slight and indecipherable smirk.

The autonomous Yanbian prefecture was neither wholly Chinese nor Korean. What was once a collection of protected national parks providing the final and failed refuge for the Siberian tiger and Far Eastern leopard was now one of the busiest global exchanges in the world. Commerce was the lingua franca.

Alexei looked up, then stood slowly and deliberately from his stool. The remainder of his black cigarette fell to the floor and was ground beneath his boot. He was significantly taller than the Chinese man, and he stared down at him with narrowed gray eyes. Alexei’s head was entirely shaved, emphasizing the deeply furrowed scar which began above his left eye and terminated somewhere well beyond his scalp. He wore a heavy golden goatee with flecks of gray at the chin, and his lips were thin and tight. Lao Ban looked up at the Russian man, his smile unwavering, his tattoos creeping up his neck from beneath the high collar of his silk shirt. He was thin and intense, with wild eyes, cropped hair, and heavily pocked cheekbones. There was an incongruity in Ban that Alexei had seen many times in his life, and that he particularly despised: the man had chosen a line of business where people tended not to live long, though he gave the impression that there was nobody he would not sacrifice to save himself.

“I didn’t bring anyone with me,” Alexei told the man, “but that doesn’t mean I’m alone. Do you understand the difference?”

Directly threatening men like Ban was usually not productive—especially within their own territory—however it never hurt to give them a little something to think about.

“Your English is perfect,” Lao Ban observed. “You’ve spent time in America.”

“I do business all over the world.”

“Where will you take our product?”

There was an open stairwell in the front of the room, and an elevator beside it. The panel in the wall illuminated and the doors parted.

“Wherever I find the highest bidder,” Alexei said.

There were three carts in the elevator, each guided gently into the room by a nurse in full blue scrubs, mask, and elastic-lined hairnet. Clear plastic tubs were set into the frames of the carts, and each one contained a tiny infant—all of them Asian, tightly swaddled in clean white linen, with bonnet-style caps tied with petite bows beneath their chins. Lao Ban stepped back as the carts were arranged, then raised his hand in presentation.

“We have best product in Fangchuan City, guaranteed.”

“Are they Chinese or Korean?”

“All are Korean, and all are hand-picked just for you. We are able to match your criteria with perfection.”

Alexei took the plastic pouch off the table and offered it to the nurses. All three women reached in, selected a packet, and tore it open. They shook them carefully out into their gloved hands and verified their contents: a disinfectant wipe, a small covered needle, a tiny plastic wafer with metal contacts in one side, and a round adhesive sterile bandage.

Lao Ban frowned. “You do not trust our information?”

“Doveryai, no proveryai,” Alexei said. “Trust, but verify.”

The nurses bent to the carts and began unwrapping the babies’ feet.

“I hope you did not bring me rubles or American dollars,” Lao Ban said. “They have little value here.”

Alexei kept his eyes on the nurses. “New Guangdong dollars, as agreed.”

The room filled with the angry screams of two of the three infants. Lao Ban did not react to the noise.

“NGDs are good,” he said. “When will America and Russia join the Yuan Zone?”

Alexei ignored the question. The nurses turned, and he accepted the first of the three wafers. When he inserted it into the slot on the side of his computer, the screen brightened and he watched carefully as results began populating the cells of a table. Alexei lowered himself back onto the stool. When the analysis was complete, he saved the results, ejected the wafer, and reached for the next one.

“It’s very good product, right?” Lao Ban asked. “Best in Fangchuan City. Maybe best in China.”

Alexei looked up and saw the bizarre sense of pride in the man’s face. When he looked back down at the screen, new results were coming in.

“I recommend you try our product yourself,” Lao Ban said. He was talking too loudly and Alexei could see that he was high on something—probably opium cut with some form of amphetamine. Alexei noted that if things were to get physical, Ban would probably have to be clinically dead before he stopped coming.

“I don’t think so,” Alexei said. He ejected the second wafer and inserted the third, then adjusted the laptop to make sure Ban remained in his peripheral vision.

“You buy two today,” Lao Ban said, “I give you half off second one. That’s very good deal.”

Alexei watched the third analysis complete, then ejected the last wafer. The nurses had picked up the two crying babies to comfort them, and they were quiet again. Alexei pointed to the last child—the one who had not cried when the heel of her foot was pricked and her blood drawn.

“That one,” he said.

Lao Ban smiled. “All our product is perfect. You take two. Half off second one.”

“Just that one,” Alexei said. “What’s her name?”

“No name. You give her name. You pay, you name.”

“I want to know her name,” Alexei said. “Do you have it?”

The nurse looked at Lao Ban and waited for her boss’s nod. She looked back at Alexei, and spoke with timidity from beneath her mask. “Hyun Ki.”

“Hyun Ki,” Alexei said. “She’s the one.”

He moved his pack from the floor to the table, then removed his handset from a side pocket. He used it to program a currency chit which he then passed Lao Ban. Lao Ban used his own handset to check the amount, then smiled in a way that only a lucrative financial transaction can elicit.

“This is very good deal,” Lao Ban said. “You train her good, she make you very rich man. Remember Chinese proverb: Jade must be chiseled before it can be considered gem.”

Alexei closed his computer and slipped it down into his pack. He slid his handset back into the outside pocket, then found a place for the pouch of remaining profile tests. Lao Ban chuckled and shook his head as he watched the big Russian use a sling to secure the tiny infant to his chest.

“You want nurse, too? I sell you one of these cheap. Very good price. She take care of baby and take care of you. I guarantee you like.”

“I don’t need a nurse,” Alexei said.

He put his coat on over the sling, but left it open. The baby’s head was propped up and positioned so she could see the world out ahead of her. Alexei lifted his pack, and carefully hung the straps from his shoulders.

“If this works out,” Alexei said, “I’ll be back for more.”

“Yes, you come back,” Lao Ban said. “If you not come back, maybe I come find you.”

Alexei was already on his way to the stairs, but he stopped. “What did you say?”

“I say, you make me a lot of money. Maybe I come find you when I want more.”

Alexei turned slowly and faced Lao Ban. He looked directly into the Chinese man’s eyes. “Here’s another Chinese proverb,” he said. “Fortune does not come twice. Misfortune does not come alone.”

Alexei waited for Lao Ban’s wild smile to falter before he turned again to descend.

It was cold outside, and he zipped his coat up to the baby’s chin and blew into his hands. He crossed the street to the opposite corner, checked his watch, and looked up and down the street. Almost everyone was inside, but he could see at least half a dozen deer in the streets and on the sidewalks. While the indigenous big cats of the region were hunted for their pelts and incinerated as their territories were slashed and burned for farmland, the East Asian spotted deer—not unlike the rat and the cockroach and the pigeon before it—had embraced urbanization. The bucks knew their velvet-covered antlers prevented them from getting their heads down into the trash bins, and had therefore learned to push the barrels over with enough force to scatter the refuse along the sidewalk. The doe, on the other hand, preferred to elicit handouts. As a slender female brazenly approached, Alexei squatted, lifted the thick material of his pant leg, and drew a long, stone-handled serrated blade from a sheath sewn into his boot. As he stood back up, the deer bowed her head toward his coat pocket, her neck bent and her skin tight over her thick veins. There was a distended tick embedded in the animal’s ear and Alexei could see lice swarming over its scabbed skin and through its short copper hair. The baby watched with wide dark eyes.

The deer’s attention was drawn to Alexei’s left hand as he reached down into his coat. When he pulled it back out, he was holding a small, hard, yellow apple. He cautiously sliced it through the middle, returned his knife to his boot, and allowed the animal to take her share off his open and extended palm.

CHAPTER FOUR

Fifteen young girls are sitting cross-legged on blankets and cushions forming a semicircle in the common room of the penthouse apartment. Ki is the focus. She is sitting directly on the cream and rose Italian marble floor, leaning back against the raised hearth of the ceramic and plasma fireplace. She is wearing tight pink pajama bottoms and a short floral baby-doll top. The girls are all pitched forward, delighted and mesmerized by what Ki has been showing them.

Months ago, while organizing the house library, Ki found a book on coin tricks and convinced a few of the house moms to bring her some money with which to practice. During the first act of her show, she used variations of the “French drop” and the “pinch vanish” to take coins from her right hand with her left where she shook, crushed, or blew on them before revealing—finger by finger—that they were gone. She then pulled the coins out of the air with her right hand, or produced them with a flourish from beneath the long chocolate hair of a girl in the first row.

The second act was a demonstration of the “coins across” technique, which she performed on a plastic cutting board from the kitchen. She started out with four coins which she split evenly between two hands, bumped her thumbs together, and showed that a coin had traveled from one hand to the other. She then picked up three coins with her left hand, stacked them on the cutting board, used a pinch vanish to make the fourth coin disappear, then surprised her audience by knocking over the stack and pointing out that it now contained all four of the coins.

The girls had all begged Ki to show them the tricks again, but Ki coyly refused. She is now setting up for the final act of the evening. All her coins are stacked beside her knee, and she is laying a white linen hand towel out over the marble floor before her. The house moms have gathered together at the edge of the room and are craning their necks to see over the girls’ heads. They are trying not to look overly interested or impressed, but their brows are furrowed with consternation over what Ki has been doing.

“Long ago,” Ki begins in her thin voice, leaning forward and regarding her audience with mystery and anticipation, “there were four princesses who all loved each other very much.”

She arranges four aluminum US nickels in a neat row on the towel, then covers them with a folded silk scarf. As she continues her story, the girls’ attention shifts from Ki’s hands back up to her eyes.

“But their father, the king, only wanted sons, so he was cruel and spiteful, and he came between the four sisters.”

When she takes the scarf away, the nickels are arranged around larger silver-strike Yuan. The girls take in a sharp collective breath, and Ki begins collecting the coins with her right hand and placing them in the palm of her left.

“One day, the king decided that his daughters were never to see each other again, so he sent them away to the four distant corners of his kingdom. He warned them that if they ever tried to see each other, he would imprison them at the top of the tallest tower in all the kingdom.”

Ki takes a glass from the hearth behind her, centers it on the towel, then places a playing card over its mouth.

“The Princess of the North was not afraid of her father, and she decided she would rather be in prison than grow old without her sisters.”

Ki opens the scarf and lays it gently over the glass.

“But as soon as she left the Northern Kingdom, she was arrested by her father’s soldiers and locked at the top of the tallest tower in the kingdom.”

When Ki lifts the scarf, there is an aluminum nickel on the center of the card. The girls take note, but do not react. They are waiting for Ki to continue her story.

“The Eastern Princess also tried to escape,” Ki says as she drapes the scarf back over the glass, “and she, too, was arrested. Soon, all four princesses had been arrested and locked up together at the top of the tallest tower in all the kingdom.”

When she pulls the scarf away, four aluminum nickels are stacked and centered on the card. Ki arranges them in a flat clover pattern, then covers the glass with the silk scarf once more.

“The king decided that he would auction his daughters off in order to become the richest ruler in all the land, but first he had to break their spirits since no man would buy a girl who defied the wish of her father. He left them alone in the tower for over a year, and when he went to check on them one morning to see if they were ready to be sold, he heard them laughing and playing games together. Their happiness made him so angry that he picked up a heavy wooden club that his slaves used to beat dust out of the castle’s carpets, and ran to the top of the tower to beat his daughters to death. But the king was an old man and very fat from all the food he demanded, so when he got to the top, he was sweating and out of breath. He opened the door and found that although each princess was small and weak by herself, together they were very powerful.”

When Ki takes the scarf away, the four nickels are gone, and in their place is a bright gold-plated New Guangdong panda coin. She then covers the glass one final time and sees that the girls are far more interested in the story than the magic.

“Instead of running away, the king foolishly attacked his daughters, but they overpowered him. They tried to push him through the window at the top of the tower, but the opening was too small and the king was too fat, so they worked together to pull off his arms and used his blood to make the stone wet and slippery. They finally got the king through the window, and he screamed as he fell all the way down to the ground and dashed his head against a pile of stones.”

There is a clinking sound from beneath the scarf, and when Ki pulls it away, the silver-strike Yuan is at the bottom of the glass.

“The people were all so happy that the princesses had murdered their father that they threw a great feast, and the four sisters ruled the kingdom with wisdom and compassion for the rest of their lives.”

Ki looks around and sees both astonishment and terror in the girls’ expressions. There are tears in the wide brown eyes of the chocolate-haired girl in the front. The only applause comes from the back of the room—a single slow and deliberate clap… clap… clap… that breaks the collective trance and draws the room’s attention.

Among the house moms stands a seemingly very young man in a handsome khaki suit buttoned tight across his midriff. His yellow curls hang nearly to his shoulders, and he wears thin, gold-rimmed glasses.

“That was just brilliant,” the man says. His smile conveys genuine amusement, but his eyes are narrow and challenging. Ki can see that he has a small, boyish gap between his front teeth. “You are every bit as talented as you are elegant.”

Ki straightens herself only to lean forward again and bow.

The man lifts the tail of his suit coat with his thumbs and slides his hands deep down into his pockets. He cocks his head to the side and is no longer smiling.

“Ki, do you know who I am?”

The girl shakes her head. She sees that the house mom beside him is holding a stack of new clothing with a pair of small white tennis shoes on top.

“You can think of me as the king,” the man says. “And I’m about to become the richest ruler in the land.”

CHAPTER FIVE

Dr. Luiz Abrahan Ribeiro Oliveira had not left international waters in over eleven years. He held no passport, claimed no citizenship under any sovereign nation, and could only be contacted through one or more intermediaries. In order to make his both distinguished and sparsely allocated acquaintance, petitioning clients and patients (whose stories, backgrounds, and identities checked out) were provided with a latitude and a longitude which might correspond to any point along the coasts of any of the world’s seven continents. At the specified date and time, guests were met by security personnel, subjected to extensive but relatively tasteful security screenings, and finally conveyed to the 514-foot Kingmaker by one of three helicopters, one of two mini subs, or one of four ship’s tenders so large and luxurious that each could be considered a pretty credible yacht in its own right.

Alexei and Ki waited in a private terminal at the Aeropuerto Internacional de Ushuaia on Tierra del Fuego, the main island of an archipelago shared by Chile and Argentina at the southernmost tip of South America. Alexei had contemplated several times the wisdom of meeting a man like Oliveira on such lopsided terms. If Oliveira were suddenly motivated to make Alexei disappear, Alexei doubted he would ever even see the ambush coming, much less have an opportunity to react to it. Oliveira’s reputation was that of a businessman, however, which meant that Alexei’s prospects of ever returning to dry land were directly proportional to the amount of money Oliveira believed him to be worth. And, as was the case with all gangsters, inversely proportional to how much of a threat he perceived Alexei to be. Of course Alexei knew that it wouldn’t hurt if Oliveira were to take a liking to him, as well.

Ki worked on her needlepoint—an elaborate Thai elephant adapted from a Chinese embroidery she found in a book—while Alexei drank black tea from a paper cup, paced the floor, and watched the tree line through the windows. There were tiny flashes inside the thick cover of evergreens which he suspected was the glare from distant optics surveilling their location. After a suitable period of observation and probably one final comprehensive risk assessment, Oliveira’s men moved in.

An orange and white Eurocopter Dauphin touched down outside, sending the light dusting of snow and frost swirling. Two men wearing tight blue thermal suits and sidearms pushed open the doors, dropped to the tarmac, and jogged to the outer terminal entrance, heads bowed against the cold chopper wash. They entered at a casual pace, immediately offering reassuring smiles. The first man introduced himself as Gunder, Dr. Oliveira’s head of security. They gave precise but friendly instructions while using a backscatter tablet to take full-body scans. Alexei and Ki were both shown to be unarmed; however Gunder’s partner politely insisted that he safeguard Ki’s needlepoint kit for the duration of their visit.

The Kingmaker was anchored just beyond Argentinean waters, and the Dauphin approached tentatively, then touched down with expert precision on her forward helipad. Alexei and Ki were kept between Gunder and his partner as they were led well below deck and finally presented with a hatch that seemed to divide the outside shell of the yacht from an independently floating inner cavity. Alexei could see the inner and outer bulkheads sliding past one another as the ship rose and fell on the frigid crests of the Southern Ocean. At Gunder’s invitation, Alexei stepped through ahead of the girl, then paused when he sensed that something was not right. He had the sensation of transitioning from the bucking hull of a small boat on rough seas to a sound and sturdy dock.

“It is rather disorientating at first, isn’t it?”

The meticulous voice contained just a hint of Brazilian Portuguese. It came from the other end of the lounge, and Alexei could see the silhouettes of two figures against the semicircular cobalt blue glow of a massive tropical fish tank. A thin middle-aged man reclined against cream-colored cushions which followed the curvature of the wall behind them. His complexion was bronze—part African and part Latino—and his short black hair was combed straight back to emphasize the dramatic peak of his hairline. He wore a thin silk robe, and even from across the lounge, Alexei could see from his gaze that the man was both intelligent and intense. The smoke from his cigar rose in a straight column up into the filtration system above him, and in his other hand was a tumbler with two fingers of what Alexei assumed was very fine, thoroughly aged, single malt scotch.

The other figure was tending to Dr. Oliveira’s bare, oiled feet. The young shirtless boy was bent into a vigorous and sensual massage.

“We stopped moving,” Alexei said.

Gunder and his partner gave each other a mirthful and patronizing look as they accepted Alexei’s and Ki’s parkas. When they withdrew, they sealed the hatch behind them.

“Relatively speaking, that is true.” The man checked the ash on his cigar as he spoke. “The entire ship is built around the most sophisticated stabilization technology ever engineered.”

Alexei was moving toward the man very slowly, trying to sense even the smallest sway beneath his feet. It was clear how proud Oliveira was of the Kingmaker, and in Alexei’s experience, when dealing with a man who so obviously had the upper hand, it never hurt to play on his pride.

“Both my parents were engineers,” Alexei told the doctor, “so I grew up around all kinds of mechanical systems. But I must admit, I have no idea how this works.”

The doctor smiled, presumably delighted by the prospect of explaining one of his toys to someone who might actually appreciate it. “It uses a technology called Predictive Compensation Spherical Awareness, or simply PCSA.” He looked up at the ceiling and used his cigar to draw a circle in the air. “There are hundreds of Doppler sensors positioned along each axis of the ship’s perimeter. Their signals overlap to create a complete sphere of awareness which can be used to model, predict, and ultimately counter almost every possible external force. PCSA technology has enabled me to build what I believe is the most advanced and best equipped maritime surgical operation on the planet.”

Alexei could tell that the man did not need to be flattered so much as he simply needed an opportunity to self-aggrandize—someone to impress who was not on his payroll. However, Alexei could also tell that Oliveira could probably go on indefinitely, prolonging what he hoped would be a relatively succinct meeting until it included cocktails, dinner, and possibly even an invitation to stay overnight. Those who wield great power and wealth eventually find that isolation and profound loneliness are almost always part of the job.

“It is indeed a remarkable accomplishment,” Alexei said by way of a segue.

Oliveira accepted his guest’s praise with a curt nod. “Please, sit.”

Alexei lowered himself onto a cushion he deemed an appropriate distance from Oliveira. Ki found an open section of dark carbon fiber wall and stood inconspicuously against it. Oliveira spoke sharply to the boy at his feet.

“Go get your brother.”

The boy looked to be Vietnamese or Taiwanese. His bare chest was boney and his soft black hair was nearly shoulder length. The boy was quick to stand and leave the room through the door beside Ki. There was no acknowledgment or eye contact between them.

Alexei watched Oliveira draw luxuriously on his cigar. He knew that the man was one of the most wanted criminals on the planet and he wondered if—like the Kingmaker—that was somehow a point of pride for him.

“I’ve been told that you never leave your ship. Is that true?”

Oliveira let the smoke rise from his open mouth for a moment before fully exhaling. “My services are available globally, so it’s beneficial for me to remain mobile. Additionally, my clients and I find the legal aspects of international waters to be, well, convenient.”

Alexei doubted it was international authorities he feared so much as rivals, victims of countless violated agreements, and possibly even well-funded vigilantes.

“Are you at all concerned about piracy?”

“Oh, we run into pirates all the time,” Oliveira said. He tapped a long, solid ash into a crystal dish on the cushion beside him. “They aren’t a problem.”

“Why’s that?”

“She may not look like it, Mr. Drovosek, but the Kingmaker can take on anything up to and including the size of a Guangzhou-class destroyer. Every now and then, we run down a pirate ship or two just to make that clear. Word spreads quickly out here on the waves, and consequently, we are given a very wide berth.”

“I see,” Alexei said. “She’s a marvelous ship. I must admit, I’m envious.”

The boy and his brother returned with the subtle combination of urgency and discretion unique to the servant class. Oliveira motioned toward his guest while sipping his scotch. The younger boy returned to the surgeon’s feet while the older one went to the bar and began preparing a tray.

“And I am envious of you,” Oliveira said. For the first time, he acknowledged the girl standing against the wall.

“Thank you.” Alexei accepted a scotch and a precut cigar from the older boy’s tray. The boy used a plasma lighter to ignite one end of a long Spanish cedar stick which he then lifted with one hand and shielded with the other. Alexei rolled the foot of his cigar above the flame until it was warm, then put it up to his mouth, leaned forward, and alternately drew and rotated until the cigar was evenly lit. “Did you have a chance to review the material I sent?”

Oliveira considered the question. “Mr. Drovosek, have you seen Ki’s genetic profile?”

“Of course.”

The boy returned the tray to the bar and unobtrusively left the room.

“Did you understand what it was you were looking at?”

Alexei started to sip his scotch, but stopped. “I think so. Why?”

“This girl of yours is probably as close to naturally perfect as I believe I have ever seen.”

“That’s good to hear,” Alexei said. He finished half his scotch in a single swallow. “But close is not what I’m after.”

“Mr. Drovosek, in this business, as in all others, one must learn to respect the law of diminishing returns. Do you know what that means?”

“I believe so.”

“Good. Then you know that true professionals understand when they are about to put more money into an investment than they can possibly get out of it.”

Alexei looked confused. “Certainly she’s worth many times more than whatever I would pay for your services.”

“Undeniably, Mr. Drovosek. I’m not saying I charge more for my services than she’s worth. Not by a long shot. What I’m saying is that my services cost more than what I can add to her value.”

Alexei blew a stream of smoke up into the ventilation system. “Is that so?”

“You’re new to this business, so let me explain something to you. Clients claim to want perfection, but they do not. Perfection and beauty are not the same things. What buyers actually want is beauty. What they’re actually looking for are subtle but significant deviations from perfection—something they’ve never seen before, and don’t think they’ll ever see again. Something I like to think of as novelty. A decade ago, it was predicted that this entire industry would be dominated by human cloners, yet here you and I sit. Why do you think that is?”

“Because clones are too perfect.”

“Exactly. Clones don’t offer the variation and variety that men seek, whether they know it or not. Only nature can provide that variation. Technology can be used to predict the future, to summon enormously destructive forces, and to make a stormy sea feel as calm and steady as bedrock, but only nature can create true and profound beauty.”

“That’s not an opinion I would expect to hear from a plastic surgeon.”

“There aren’t very many plastic surgeons who can afford to admit the truth about beauty. The industry of plastic surgery is about creating the illusion of the unobtainable. Plastic surgery can indeed make us perfect, and then when we realize we’re still not beautiful, we are told it is because we are not perfect enough.”

“I’m confused,” Alexei said. “What is it that you do, exactly?”

“Let me start by explaining what I do not do. I do not participate in traditional plastic surgery. I do not humiliate and demean my clients until they feel inadequate enough to let me cut them up into little pieces and put them back together in grotesquely inhuman and wholly unobtainable configurations.” The surgeon took a moment to consider the tip of his cigar before continuing. “True plastic surgeons, in their purest form, are more like diamond cutters. We don’t seek to turn flawless synthetic gems into enormous gaudy trophies. Our true work is to recognize beauty in imperfection and to release it. To bring it out. To enhance it. We are artists who have chosen surgery as our method and human flesh as our medium.”

“I see,” Alexei said. “And there’s nothing you would recommend for the girl?”

“Would you rather buy a car that appears perfect but that you know has had extensive bodywork, or one that was perhaps minutely and uniquely flawed, but entirely original and genuine?”

“What about something simple like body hair removal? She’s older than she looks.”

“Indeed she is. Another mark in your favor, incidentally.”

“Why is that?”

“Youthful appearance without all of the—well, the physical limitations of youth. Anyway, we can certainly consider epilation if you’d like, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You never know what a particular client’s tastes might be, and genetically induced epilation is a simple process that can be done any time.”

Alexei had his own ashtray on his side of the cushions and he nodded as he rolled his cigar’s ash into a point. “I appreciate your advice, doctor. I hope you will still allow me to compensate you for your time.”

“That won’t be necessary.”

Alexei leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees. He looked down between his legs, then finally shook his head. He was well aware of the fact that the most dangerous gangsters were those who deal in currencies other than money. “Forgive me, but I don’t think I understand what’s going on here. You knew all this before you even saw Ki, didn’t you?”

“Of course.”

“So what are we really doing here?”

“I believe there may be another way in which I may be of service to you.”

Alexei slowly leaned back again against the cushion. He watched the man beside him carefully. “You want to buy her, don’t you?”

Oliveira smiled. He looked at the boy whose hands moved sensually up from the doctor’s feet to his smooth, shaved calves, then looked back at Alexei. “No, Mr. Drovosek. My preferences lie elsewhere. But I know someone who will almost certainly be interested.”

“Who?”

“He runs a sort of orphanage, I suppose you could say, and has access to the biggest clients in the world.”

“You mean he’s a reseller.”

“More of a middleman.”

Alexei considered his response carefully. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, doctor, but I’d like to see this through myself. I’ve made a tremendous investment in Ki, and I need to maximize my return.”

“That’s precisely what I’m trying to help you do. Forgive me, Mr. Drovosek, but I don’t think you fully grasp the value of what you are in possession of here. Ki is worth enough to set you up very comfortably for the rest of your life if you can get her in front of the correct people. However you couldn’t possibly get access to the kind of clients I’m talking about.”

“I think you’d be surprised by who I know.”

“I may not know who you know, Mr. Drovosek, but I know who you do not know.” Something in his voice had changed. He finished what was in his glass and handed it to the boy. “I promise you that my associate is far better connected than you could ever hope to be. Even with both his cut and mine, you will clear a minimum of twice what you would be able to get on your own. That I guarantee.”

“Your cut?”

Oliveira’s demeanor softened. “I believe in economic arrangements in which all parties benefit.”

Alexei began to relax. The trip was beginning to look worth all the time, effort, and risk after all. “Hypothetically,” he said, “how would I go about finding this man?”

“You wouldn’t.” The doctor accepted his glass back from the boy, then waved him off. The boy bowed, then swiftly left the room. “Hypothetically, he would find you.”

Alexei looked at Ki, then back at Oliveira. “Fine. I’ll hear him out.”

“Good,” the doctor said. “I’ll arrange it.” Oliveira took a quick sip of his drink, then crossed his legs beneath his robe. He put his arm up on the back of the cushions and tilted his head as he regarded Alexei. “And now, if you’ll permit me, I’d like to ask you a personal question.”

Alexei raised his eyebrows. He considered the implications of politely expressing a desire to keep their relationship purely professional, but finally decided it best to at least humor the doctor. “Of course,” he said casually, though his tone was clearly guarded.

“I didn’t just look at the girl’s DNA in preparation for this meeting,” the doctor said. “As you are no doubt aware, my security screening protocol included biometric identity verification for you, as well.”

Alexei could tell that Oliveira was observing him very closely—monitoring his reactions, looking for some kind of a tell. When Alexei simply nodded, the doctor continued.

“Genetic forgeries are getting better all the time, so I use methods much more sophisticated than your typical off-the-shelf drugstore DNA test. That means, among other things, looking at a broader range of the genome.”

“I see,” Alexei said.

“To be perfectly candid, Mr. Drovosek, I discovered something quite peculiar about you. Your seventeenth chromosome contains two p53 genes rather than one. And given that p53 is responsible for apoptosis, genomic stability, and tumor suppression, it’s quite possible that you are entirely immune to cancer.”

“In that case,” Alexei said, “I think I’ll have another cigar.”

The doctor smiled without showing his teeth. The blue glow of the fish tank was reflected in his flawless bronze complexion.

“Please do,” the doctor said, though he did not order that one be brought. “Of course, your phenotype goes beyond just anticancer characteristics, doesn’t it?”

Alexei gave the doctor a thin smile. “You’re the doctor.”

“Strictly speaking, I’m not a geneticist,” the surgeon said, “but I do know that p53 affects the expression of p21 and almost certainly several other genes associated with characteristics such as tissue and blood vessel regeneration, muscle hyperplasia, bone density, tendon strength, et cetera.”

“Well,” Alexei said with a subtle shrug, “what kind of Russian would I be if I wasn’t a little tougher than most other men.”

This time the doctor did not smile. “This goes way beyond generations of harsh winters and vodka for breakfast,” Oliveira said. He paused while he sharpened his gaze. “My initial theory was that you were genetically engineered—probably right around the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union—however you mentioned earlier that both your parents were engineers, did you not?”

“Yes.”

“Nuclear, by chance?”

“One nuclear and one mechanical.”

“I see,” the doctor said. “And did they happen to work at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986?”

Alexei did not respond.

“Of course,” Oliveira said. He was obviously very pleased with himself. “That explains the over-expression of tumor suppression.”

“So I’ve been told,” Alexei said. His tone was markedly less cordial. “The reality is that it’s a miracle my parents were able to conceive. And an even bigger miracle that I was born alive and intact.”

“Not a miracle,” the doctor said. There was wonder and even reverence in his tone. “Evolution, Mr. Drovosek. In fact, it’s all perfectly natural. Mutation is how life has evolved for billions of years. The only difference is that, in your case, it was caused by radiation from a reactor core breach rather than cosmic rays from the deaths of distant stars. And instead of resulting in disease or disability or stillbirth as most mutations do, it actually created something better.”

“Respectfully, doctor, there was nothing natural about what happened in Chernobyl, and considering the fact that I’m sterile, I don’t think nature intends for me to create a new evolutionary branch of super humans.”

The doctor leaned back against the cushions. “I see,” he said.

“I trust that those DNA samples will be destroyed,” Alexei said. “And that you will be discreet with your findings. I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that there are some very powerful people—both in Russia and the US—who are interested in my whereabouts.”

“Mr. Drovosek, I have the very distinct feeling that you and I are about to embark on a long and mutually profitable relationship, the very foundation of which will be nothing less than absolute trust and respect.”

Alexei gave the doctor a nod, then set his drink down beside the ashtray and stood. “In that case, I won’t take up any more of your time.”

Oliveira did not stand up along with his guest. “Which is why,” he continued, “I’d like you to come back and see me again very soon. And when you do, there’s something I would like you to bring me.”

Alexei brushed a few specks of ash from his pants as he looked down at the doctor. “And what might that be?”

“A little boy,” the surgeon said. He swirled the contents of his glass and smiled. “Maybe even two.”

CHAPTER SIX

Ki is in a sensory depravation chamber in the rear of an SUV. She was not sedated when she was taken from the apartment for fear that she might still be groggy during the exchange, so she was fitted with an active isolation hood before being guided through the set of inner doors and into the elevator. When the hood was removed, she found herself sitting in a fully padded compartment across from the house mom they call Ms. Cathy. Although there was no sound, she could feel that they were moving.

They are still on their way to wherever they are going. Whenever they stop, Ki waits for the double doors to open. There are no latches on the inside; where there are supposed to be handles and releases, there is only hard, smooth plastic. Ki is not bound in any way and Ms. Cathy is not armed. The house mom is holding a canister of cool water from which she periodically encourages Ki to drink. Neither sees any point in talking.

After a particularly long stop—well over a minute, by Ki’s count—she feels the weight of the vehicle change, then hears the muted impact of car doors. Ki reaches for the metal canister. Ms. Cathy hesitates, then concedes. Ki finishes the contents but does not hand it back. When the double doors swing apart, Ki sees four well-dressed men, one of whom is the man she knows only as “the king.” It is dark outside, but the area is illuminated from above by floodlights. The men’s hair is being blown—especially the king’s long blond curls—and their suits ripple in the wind. The warmth inside the vehicle is displaced by the cold outside air.

“Come on,” the king says to Ki. “Leave that here.”

He extends his hand and waits for the canister, but Ki does not comply. She looks at all four of the men waiting outside the vehicle, and then at Ms. Cathy. Ms. Cathy smiles in a way that Ki cannot interpret—perhaps just reflexively. She reaches for Ki’s hand, and Ki allows the canister to be taken.

“Everyone stays here,” the king says. “They don’t want anyone else on board.”

When Ki steps down, she sees that they are on a runway beside a massive delta-wing jet. They are roughly aligned with the nose, which makes both wings visible. Each is painted a glossy black, and the fuselage forms a long, gold stripe down the center of the triangular supersonic design. The words “PEARL KNIGHT” are printed in black above the windows.

“Don’t wait up,” the king tells his men with a grin that shows the gap in his teeth.

Ki is simply and plainly dressed in a pair of white shorts, a tight, pink cotton top with ruffles, and small white tennis shoes. By the time they reach the boarding ramp, her arms are crossed and she is shivering. There is a man at the base of the stairs who watches with his hands clasped in front of him. He motions with his head for them to ascend, and the king lets Ki go first. They are greeted just inside the plane by another man in a suit and oversized tinted glasses.

“We’re in a bit of a hurry,” the guard says. “We need to wrap this up as quickly as possible.”

The king is adjusting his coat and straightening his tie. He uses his fingers to brush back his hair. “That works for me.”

The guard hands Ki a brush, but addresses the king. “The less said in there, the better. You’re not here for small talk. You two aren’t pals. He’s going to evaluate the product, and if he likes what he sees, he will pay you, and then you will turn around and leave. That’s it. Don’t ask him about his day. Don’t ask him what his favorite team is, or what he thinks the stock market is going to do. Right now, you’re just a delivery boy. Understand?”

“I’m not an idiot,” the king says.

“That wasn’t the question. The question was whether you understand what I just told you.”

The king takes a moment to compose himself before he responds. “Yes.”

Ki is finished with the brush and hands it back to the guard. The guard leans into the lavatory and secures the brush in a pocket beside the basin. The boarding ramp has been withdrawn, and Ki watches the guard from behind as he carefully extends himself out over the runway and reaches for the tether dangling from the hatch. His feet are on the edge of the opening and Ki sees that it is only the grip of one hand on one small rail that keeps the man inside the plane. She looks at the king and then back at the guard as he pulls the heavy hatch closed and seals it.

“I’m not going to search you,” he says as he seals the door, “because you couldn’t possibly be stupid enough to be carrying a weapon. Right?”

“People like me don’t carry weapons,” the king says. “That’s why we hire people like you.”

The guard looks down at the king through his wide tinted glasses. His hair is barely long enough to be called stubble, though he does not appear to be balding. The king is significantly smaller than the guard, but he is unmoved beneath the larger man’s glare.

“And it’s a very good thing for you that you do,” the guard says. “Through there. All the way back.”

There is a single button beside an intricate wooden door whose interlocking triangular panels come from multiple species of trees with grains of differing characteristics. The guard leans around the king to reach the button and the door slides noiselessly to the side. The king waits for Ki to enter first.

The conference room is empty. Dark plush leather chairs are arranged around a table with an active surface on which some sort of heat map of the world is currently displayed. Whatever the map is quantifying, there seems to be more of it in West and Central Africa than in the rest of the world. The door slides closed behind them, and Ki is not sure whether the action was automatic or initiated by the guard. There is a similar door ahead and the king steps around Ki to touch the button.

The rest of the plane is a single long and surprisingly wide compartment. There are islands of blond leather chairs around tables with active displays. The back of the plane ends in a glass staircase leading up to a second level, and beside it is a man sitting on an L-shaped couch with an old leather book in his lap. The various screens along the walls show the same map as the display in the conference room. The floor is slightly translucent, and Ki can see several vehicles parked end-to-end below them. One reflects several points of light from an abundance of highly polished chrome; one is sleek and angular and an angry shade of red; and at least one is heavily armored and openly weaponized.

Ki is surprised to see that there is another girl on the plane. Her legs are folded beneath her in a big reclining chair, and she is playing a puzzle game on the interactive surface in front of her. Before Ki looks away, she sees that the girl appears older than she is, with long red hair, creamy skin, cool blue eyes, and full red lips.

The man in the back of the plane closes his book and leaves it on the table in front of him as he stands. The leather-bound volume is an anachronism among the glass surfaces and active displays around them. Ki glimpses the Vs and Rs and Ks of a Russian name imprinted along the spine before her view is obscured by its curator.

The man is compact, handsome, and very well dressed, with wavy dark hair and eyebrows that arch in a way that gives him a naturally friendly demeanor. He leans down and picks up a wide leather case which had been stowed beneath the table. From the way the man must compensate, Ki can see that its contents are substantial. He watches Ki with a wide, thin smile as he approaches.

The man nods almost imperceptibly at what he sees before him and motions with his finger for Ki to spin. As she turns, she can see that the other girl’s feet are now on the floor and her hands on the arms of her chair. When Ki turns to face the man again, his smile is significantly broader.

“You will call me papa,” the man says with a heavy French accent.

Ki performs a combination of a nod and a bow. The man offers the case to the king, who accepts it with poorly concealed anticipation.

“Lucy will show you to your room and explain the rules,” the Frenchman tells Ki. “When I am ready, I will join you. Now be a good girl and say goodbye to our guest. It is time for him to go.”

Ki turns to the king. She lowers her head and bends her knees in a deep and reverent curtsy, then launches herself off the floor to augment the momentum of her strike. There is the simultaneous hollow thud of Ki’s fist striking the king’s trachea and the crunch of the rings of cartilage compacting. Since the majority of the impact was absorbed by the king’s windpipe, he is not knocked off his feet, but instead takes a single step backwards before dropping the case and falling to his knees. He is entirely silent as he gropes with horror at the deep and darkening depression in his throat. The crater is sized to Ki’s knuckles, and combined with the swelling and internal bleeding, it prevents oxygen from reaching the king’s lungs and air from activating his larynx. His blond curls quiver and his eyes bulge behind his gold-rimmed glasses as he asphyxiates.

Ki turns and begins moving toward the man who wishes to be called papa. The arch in his eyebrows which once conveyed benevolence now communicates shock and terror. His hands move up to protect his face and he steps backwards, which gives Ki even more space to build momentum behind her kick. Her heel strikes just below the man’s sternum, crushing his solar plexus and sending his diaphragm into spasm. He heaves as the air is expelled from his body, and he staggers forward directly into Ki’s palm strike. The cartilage of papa’s nose is shattered and compacted into his sinuses and nasal cavity, and as his head snaps back, the smooth white ceiling is misted red. He collapses with his hands pressed to his face and does his best to scream, but can produce little more than a gurgling wheeze. Ki carefully threads her foot with its clean white tennis shoe through the space between the man’s arms and his neck, falls back onto the floor, and locks her heels. Whatever sounds the man was able to produce before immediately cease. He punches and scratches frantically at Ki’s thigh, and then the blows slow and weaken until his arms fall limp. His eyes are wide, and there are bubbles of blood beneath his nostrils and red foam escaping from one corner of his open mouth.

When Ki stands, she is both exhausted and surging. The crotch of her white shorts is bright red, and her thighs are slick with papa’s blood. The hair she had carefully groomed only moments before is now tangled and falls across her face, blown outward with her heavy breaths. She turns to the front of the plane and sees that the guard has just entered. He levels his pistol at Ki with one hand, but his other hand is over his mouth as he looks down at the two fresh corpses. When he looks up again, Ki can see the horror in the man’s expression. She can see his fingers shaking as the hand over his mouth joins his other hand on the pistol in an attempt to stabilize it. He opens up his stance and bends his knees to steady himself, and as he begins to squeeze the trigger, a small quick foot swings up between his legs from behind him and crushes his testicles against his pubic bone.

The guard fires a single shot on his way down and Ki hears it whine past her face. The hollow-point frangible round disintegrates as it embeds itself in the acrylic glass staircase behind her. Lucy is looking down at the guard and watching him writhe and then vomit across the semiopaque floor. His glasses are gone. The girl squats down for the pistol, stands, and the man’s eyes widen as she fires a shot through his forehead and into the floor. The guard relaxes and seems to watch impassively the wave of blood from the back of his head push against the pool of yellow bile before him.

Both girls spin toward the door when they hear it open. A helix of smoke from the pistol is turning lazily in the light and the air tastes metallic. The pilot stays just inside the conference room. She is small with straight black hair that stops right at the patches on her shoulders. The look on her face is neither alarm nor terror. She makes no attempt to turn and run, and Lucy does not raise the pistol.

“You have two choices,” Ki tells the pilot. She is still breathing heavily, but she is in control. “You can either come in and join them, or you can take what’s in that case and fly us out of here.”

The pilot looks up from the floor, then shakes her head. “The case is yours,” she says with remarkable composure. “Now, where do you two want to go?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

One entire wall of Alexei’s Los Angeles office was a screen. When it was in standby mode, it defaulted to an interactive map which panned and centered on the locations of whatever new incoming events matched his filters, presenting key metrics and algorithmically derived synopses beside geographical points of interest. It also recorded all ambient noise in the room in a small buffer, which it analyzed using a multidimensional neural network. If it found patterns consistent with Alexei’s voiceprint, it attempted to distinguish requests or questions by matching certain acoustic properties—inflection, intonation, modulation, and pitch—with a specific set of predetermined keywords. Whenever the computer was sufficiently confident that it was being addressed, it went from hearing what was being said in the room to actually listening.

“Emma,” Alexei prompted. He used a plasma torch to light a long black cigarette, plucked a tobacco shaving from the tip of his tongue, then tossed the lighter back onto the desk.

The voice that emanated from the wall of well over a hundred million quad-color photoelectric acoustic pixels was that of a pleasant and unassuming British female.

“Yes, Alexei?”

“Center the map on West Africa. Sierra Leone.”

The map panned and zoomed until the West African coastal nation filled the wall. Thick smoke wafted among Alexei’s whiskers as he spoke.

“Show me real-time human population density.”

A heat map overlay emerged. The cities of Bo, Kenema, Koidu Town, and Makeni were warm, but the majority of heat was in the westernmost region between the Sierra Leone River estuary and the coast of the North Atlantic.

“Center on Freetown.”

The image didn’t move. “Are you referring to Old Freetown, now officially known as New Guangdong?”

Alexei looked at the screen with mild irritation. “Obviously.”

The map panned to the New Guangdong peninsula.

“Center on the most densely populated coordinate.”

The hottest region was eased into the center of the screen.

“Zoom in… Zoom in… Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“Xi Jinping Square.”

“Show the real-time satellite feed.”

The view that emerged looked to Alexei like blurry, multicolored static. It took him a moment to understand that the undulating pointillism was the top-down perspective of a mass of humanity.

“Give me recent keywords associated with this region.”

“From which sources, please?”

“All international news feeds.”

“How recent?”

“Let’s start with five days.”

“Protest. Demonstration. Occupation. Strike. Resistance. Civil disobedience. African Spring.”

“How many people are contained in the present view.”

“Approximately 1.8 million.”

“How many people were in this same view one month ago?”

“Approximately 1.6 million.”

“Two months ago?”

“Approximately 1.47 million.”

“How many people do you predict will be in this view sixty days from now?”

“Approximately 1.9 to 2.2 million.”

“Graph population density in the selected region over the last six months.”

Alexei absentmindedly rubbed his scalp with the tips of the fingers in which his cigarette was clinched. As he studied the positive slope, he felt his ring vibrate. He paused as the sensation continued and determined that the pattern was not familiar. When he pulled his handset out and checked the screen, he saw that there was no available information: no name, no image, no domain, no affiliation, and no location. He stepped forward and touched the soft silicon surface of the wall with his other hand, and the call was transferred, but rather than a video feed on top of the map, the call box showed a generic human silhouette. The column of data beneath read “Unknown” all the way down.

Alexei’s tone was guarded. “Yes?”

“Am I speaking with Alexei Drovosek?” The name was grossly mispronounced. Alexei could already sense self-importance and arrogance in the young man’s voice.

“Who’s this?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am. What matters is the friends we have in common.”

“And who would that be?”

“A certain swashbuckling surgeon.” The man seemed amused by himself. “Now do you know who I am?”

“No, but at least I know why you’re calling.”

“Good enough,” the man said. “Shall we dispense with pleasantries and introductions and get right to the matter of price?”

“I’m listening.”

“I’m prepared to offer two million NGD.”

Alexei took a few wandering steps away from the wall as he filled his lungs with smoke.

“Hello? You still there? You didn’t just pass out on me, did you?”

“Two-point-five,” Alexei said.

“I didn’t say I was prepared to offer you two-point-five. I said I was prepared to offer you two.”

“I heard you, but I think we both know the value of what we’re talking about here.”

“I think we both also know that you’d be lucky to get half that on your own.”

“Maybe. But that still leaves you with nothing, doesn’t it?”

The man sighed. “Two-point-two,” he said. “And we’ll cover your expenses.”

“Done,” Alexei said. “When and where?”

“Can you be in Chicago tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“Good. There will be a reservation for you at the Shangri-La under the name Mr. Kingston.”

“How do I contact you once I’m there?”

“You don’t,” the man said. “We contact you. Travel safe.”

The call box faded from the screen. Alexei checked the time, then slid his handset back into his pocket.

“Emma, I need to book a trip.”

The map zoomed out, panned to the other side of the world, and zoomed in on LA. “Will you be traveling to Chicago, Illinois?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to fly into O’Hare International Airport, or Midway International Airport?”

“O’Hare.”

“When would you like to leave, or what time would you like to arrive?”

“I’d like to leave on the earliest possible flight tomorrow morning.”

“How many passengers?”

“Two.”

“Would you like to fly common, business, first, executive, senior executive, executive officer, presidential, or private?”

“Presidential.”

“Would you like me to reserve a car?”

“Yes. Something fast, European, and very expensive.”

“Shall I verify a reservation at the Shangri-La for a Mr. Kingston?”

“No. Don’t worry about that. Use my business account for everything and make sure I get receipts.”

“Thank you. Your trip has been booked. Would you like to hear your itinerary, or shall I forward it?”

Alexei took a final drag from his cigarette before crushing it out in the ashtray on his desk. “Forward it.”

He took the back stairs down two levels to the basement. Like most of the areas of the house, the lower level was biometrically secured, and Alexei waited for the camera to complete its scan. When the LED in the wall transitioned from red to green, he pulled the heavy door toward him and stepped out onto the catwalk. He put his hands on the rail in front of him and looked out over the playroom.

There were at least twenty-five children below him, most in groups of two or three. Their teachers were small, shirtless Thai men whose bodies were all compact glistening ripples. Most wore pads on their forearms and midriffs which they used to absorb the sharp, slapping blows from the children’s feet, knees, fists, and elbows. The center of the room was a raised platform on which two small groups trained, and the rest of the room contained arrangements of mats, heavy bags, cubbies of pads and gloves, full-body dummies with impact sensors built into their noses, throats, solar plexus, and groins, and tennis balls suspended so high from the ceiling that the children had to launch themselves into the air to strike them.

Alexei located Ki’s group in a corner. She was training with the twins—two young Cambodian boys—and they were taking turns striking the throat of a dummy, then receiving instruction from their teacher after he checked the corresponding readings on his handset. Ki wore loose shorts that were cut high in the thighs for maximum mobility and a tight black tank top. Her hands and wrists were wrapped, and her hair was pulled back in a long ponytail.

They stopped training when they heard Alexei on the metal steps. They watched him descend, and the instructor gave a sharp bow as his employer approached.

“What do you think?” Alexei asked the fighter. The man was short and thin, but as fast a man as Alexei had ever met. “Are they ready?”

“Yes, sir,” the instructor reported. “They are small, but they are strong, quick, and they are fierce.”

“Good.” He looked down at Ki. “I just got the call. We leave in the morning.”

Ki looked up at Alexei and tried not to react. She gave him a single stern nod, and he could see that she was making fists beneath her hand wraps. Alexei got down on his knees and when he opened his arms, she broke from her stance and fell into him.

“It’s all going to be OK,” Alexei told the girl. “Nobody will touch you. You will be very well cared for.”

Ki’s chin was on Alexei’s shoulder and he could hear her sniff. “Where am I going?”

“I don’t know,” Alexei said. “There’s no way to know where you’re going, who you’re going with, or how long you’ll be gone. But that’s why I need you, Ki. You’re the only one who can do this. You’re the only one who can get close enough.”

He felt her nod. He rubbed her back, then pulled her gently away.

“No more crying,” he told her. “From now on, you must turn your fear into strength. Do you understand?”

There were tears on the girl’s cheeks but defiance in her eyes. “I will come back,” she told Alexei. “I will see you again.”

“I know you will,” Alexei said.

He stood up and looked down at the twins. They wore long pants that came down over the tops of their feet and no shirts over their skinny chests. Their hair was long and heavy with sweat.

“What about you two?” Alexei said. “Are you ready?”

The twins looked at each other, then back at Alexei. One of the boys let his mouthguard drop into his wrapped palm. “Where are we going?”

“I have a very special mission for you two,” Alexei told them. “How would you like to go live on a boat?”

PART TWO

DON’T BLINK

CHAPTER EIGHT

Now that California State Route 1 is auto-drive enabled, Alexei can work while he rides. The position of his Ducati Ibrido Carbon is calculated down to the centimeter by combining signals from at least eight of the sixty-four HD-GPS satellites owned and operated by Pearl Knight Holdings. His location, speed, heading, orientation (relative to the road), mass, wind drag coefficient, and vehicle specifications are all transmitted via persistent gigabit wireless connection to overhead cellular drones that relay it to control towers which forward it via optical fiber to PKH servers. Solid columns of parallel processing cores infused with tubes of liquid nitrogen synthesize the data and distill it down into single frames of a situational model which are both encrypted and compressed before being transmitted back to Alexei’s motorcycle via the inverse of the route by which their inputs arrived only a handful of microseconds prior. The bike’s onboard computer decrypts and decompresses the packets, reassembles them, then integrates the results with readings from local laser and microwave sensors before concurrently updating the augmentation overlay of Alexei’s visor and making minute adjustments to the bike’s speed and inclination as it streaks south at ninety-one miles per hour along the curve-lined cliffs high above the heaving white waves of the Pacific.

All Alexei has to do is relax and let the bike maneuver beneath him. The system will allow him to participate within a reasonable threshold should he choose to do so, increasing or decreasing control as he shifts his weight, or twists the throttle, or exerts varying levels of pressure on the heated and shrouded grips. When done correctly, this dynamic becomes an intense symbiotic collaboration between man and machine which can sear the sympathetic nervous systems of even the most hardened and cynical adrenaline junkies.

But Alexei has more on his mind right now than just carving up cliffs. As he leans back, the front suspension increases, the handlebars extend, and the foot pegs move forward to accommodate a more upright posture in which he feels he is less likely to be distracted. The faster he can work through this problem, the sooner he can lean forward again and get back to summoning some serious endorphins by sending the smooth, serpentine bioasphalt of Route 1 careening away beneath his solid carbon parabolic wheels as wildly and indiscriminately as the laws of conventional Newtonian physics will possibly allow.

“Emma,” he says into the microphone embedded above the front vent of his helmet. “I want to do a little brainstorming.”

The response comes through his ear pads and is accompanied by an underlying acoustic mirror image of the ambient noise around him. The miracle of active phase cancellation makes their conversation as effortless as pillow talk. “I understand, Alexei. How can I help you?”

“First of all, I’m going to need access to the IDI.”

“There are sixteen entities selling access to the Federal Identification and Demography Index today. Would you like me to enumerate them?”

“No. How many of them have I used before?”

“Seven.”

“Use whichever is cheapest out of the ones I’ve used before.”

“AAI—or Anonymous Access, Incorporated—is offering fully obfuscated and encrypted access to the Federal Identification and Demography Index for—and I quote—the low low price of only four hundred and ninety-nine NGD per query.”

“Lock it in. Use a different offshore account for each query, selected at random.”

“Pseudo-randomness, or quantum randomness?”

“Quantum. The good stuff. And try to keep your queries to a minimum.”

“Of course. Message from AAI gateway: Welcome, Alexei. Your money is always good here.”

“Cute, but so much for anonymity. Any idea how they know my name?”

“Anonymous Access, Incorporated guarantees protection against man-in-the-middle attacks, and that your access will appear anonymous to any and all intermediate third parties; however the access of any service through AAI constitutes expressed consent to AAI’s terms of service which explicitly grant AAI the right to store personally identifiable information solely for the purposes of improving the customer experience.”

“Unless I pay extra, right?”

“For an additional ninety-nine NGD per query, AAI will remove all transactional history associated with your account after one hour of inactivity or upon the explicit termination of your session.”

“Do it. And from now on, I want you to pay more attention to the privacy policies I agree to.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Now let’s talk about gaming.”

“Would you like to talk about sports, gambling, board games, video games, or the colloquial use of the term ‘gaming’ meaning ‘to rig or influence the outcome of’?”

“Video games. Specifically online gaming.”

“Online video games can be divided into three general categories: multiplayer online games, or MOGs, in which players compete or cooperate in a transient arena; massively multiplayer online games, or M-MOGs, where players compete or cooperate in a persistent arena; and online real-life crossover games, or ORLiX, where actions in the physical world affect online gameplay and character development.”

“The first two.”

“Both multiplayer online games and massively multiplayer online games can be further subdivided into first-person shooters, role playing games, real-time strategy games, turn-based strategy games, simulations including sports and vehicle operation, casual or social games including—”

“I’m only interested in first-person shooters, role playing games, and real-time strategy games.”

“Would you like me to list relevant titles?”

“Not necessary. I want to know the top twenty players of the top five titles over the last, say, five years.”

“Query complete. Would you like me to list their aliases?”

Alexei smiles beneath his visor. “I’ll probably regret this, but go ahead.”

“In ascending alphabetical order: 5N1P3R, 88Ninjas, A Peach, AssAssIn, Chemical Bacon, Dildo Dance Party, Don’t Blink, Dubious Cow, Foreign Devil, JesusDiedLOL, Manboobs, Mesh, Pig Benis, QueenCodeMonkey, Sweatyboner, The Muffin Man, Unholy Tide, UrMother, Weenie Tugboat, and Your First Pube.”

“Christ. Where do they come up with these names?”

“Many names are chosen for their ability to elicit humor or derision when one player kills—or frags, to use the common vernacular—another player, and are considered a passive form of ‘smack talk.’ In order to facilitate vendettas and grudges, most games inform players who they were just killed by using the phrase ‘You were just killed by’ and then substituting in the name of the victorious player. The result is a description of a scenario which could be considered comical due to the fact that it is grammatically correct, yet irrational and usually extremely unlikely. For example: ‘You were just killed by A Peach,’ or ‘You were just killed by UrMother,’ or ‘You were just killed by Your First Pube.’ Other names are chosen based on—”

“Thank you, Emma. That’s more than sufficient.”

“Did I make a mistake?”

“No. Never mind. Let’s call that group ‘candidates.’”

“Understood. I’ve created a group called ‘candidates’ containing twenty records.”

“Good. Now I want you to find each candidate’s most frequently used IP address and add it to his or her record.”

“Query and join complete.”

“Now query the Identification and Demography Index by IP address, and add the resulting data sets to each candidate’s record.”

“IDI records located for eighteen out of twenty candidates. Query and join complete. Eight thousand nine hundred eighty-two dollars transferred offshore to Anonymous Access, Incorporated.”

“Sometimes I think I’m in the wrong business.”

“Would you like to discuss new career opportunities?”

“No, thank you, Emma. Let’s try to stay on topic here. Tell me what fields are now contained in each record.”

“First name, middle name, last name, national identification number, date of birth, ethnicity, genetic profile, current address, all known previous addresses, marital status, IDI pointers to all known family members, employment status, employer name, employer address, IRS pointers to tax records, IRS pointers to the Federal Financial Transaction Index, total household income, pointers to all vehicle registrations—”

“OK, that’s enough. Using the ethnicity or genetic profile fields, find out if any of the candidates have African ancestry.”

“Four candidates are of partial sub-Saharan African descent.”

“Perfect. Call those four candidates ‘prime candidates.’”

“Understood. I’ve created a group called ‘prime candidates’ containing four records.”

“Which prime candidate has the lowest household income?”

“Andre Strasser has never had any combined family income.”

“How old is he?”

“Unknown.”

“Unknown? How can that be?”

“It is unknown how it can be unknown.”

“OK, Emma, before you get yourself stuck in an infinite loop, give me an approximation of his age.”

“Based on the creation date of his IDI record and the average age of the group ‘candidates,’ I would estimate his age to be thirteen years and three months.”

“Where does he rank among the original twenty candidates?”

“Which criteria would you like me to use to rank the original twenty candidates?”

“Average online ranking across all titles.”

“Andre Strasser is ranked number one.”

“Fucking brilliant. What’s his alias?”

“Andre Strasser’s alias is ‘Don’t Blink.’”

“Don’t Blink. I like it. Where does he live?”

“Baltimore, Maryland.”

“Where in Baltimore?”

“According to his last-used IP address, West Baltimore.”

“Sounds like a tough kid. Send a message to Ms. Blanchard. Tell her to have the plane ready to leave tonight.”

“Message sent.”

“Forward all the information you have on Andre Strasser to me.”

“Information forwarded.”

“Terminate my AAI session.”

“Session terminated. Message from AAI gateway: All personal data and transactional history deleted. Thank you, null. We hope you have a stimulating and productive afternoon.”

“I already have,” Alexei says. He leans forward and the machine beneath him adapts to his low and elongated position. “The last thing I want you to do is monitor my location. Until I’m off the Pacific Coast Highway, make sure I’m not disturbed.”

“I understand,” Emma says. “But may I make a request?”

“You may.”

“Please ride carefully.”

“Duly noted,” Alexei says, and then he flexes his wrist and the throttle twists.

CHAPTER NINE

Although Alexei is no stranger to ghettos, he clearly does not belong in this one. Before his silver Mercedes-Benz XLS even stops rolling along the curb, it is surrounded. The crowd steps back to let the gull-wing door rise and to give the big Russian room to step out and unfold himself to his full height.

Alexei feels relatively confident that he is not being observed from above since he has timed his visit such that it coincides with a narrow gap in the orbits of domestic reconnaissance satellites, and because he used the interferometer in his handset to sweep the skies for drones. He is acutely aware that his immunity will not last, however, since the flight paths of the autonomous Liberty and Freedom UAVs which photograph just about every square inch of North America every twenty-four hours are randomized.

There are any number of ways in which Alexei could have made contact with Andre Strasser which would not have required him to go anywhere near West Baltimore himself. But despite the risk—both from government surveillance and from the people whose territory Alexei is currently violating—he ultimately decided that West Baltimore was a part of America that he needed to see for himself.

What once constituted a collection of some of the most economically depressed neighborhoods in the country is now one of the fastest growing and highest producing urban agriculture centers in the world. The movement was primarily adopted out of necessity since the more isolated the region became—the fewer resources that were available, and the more shops that either closed or moved further out—the harder it was for residents to sustain themselves. What started out as potted vegetables in windowsills gradually evolved into acres of virtual communal farms dispersed across hundreds of backyards and common spaces. Abandoned parking lots were torn up and replaced by rows of fruits, vegetables, and legumes. The rotted out husks of old tree trunks dividing sidewalks from streets were pulled out, and in their places now grew apple, peach, nectarine, and pear trees woven into a continuous canopy of fragrant shade. Whereas most big cities are only marginally cognizant of the climates and ecosystems from which they arose, the humid subtropical zone of West Baltimore is now fully expressed in the verdancy of thriving agriculture, the leaf-tinted streams of sunlight, and the constant cacophony of cicadas in the trees overhead.

In the distance, Alexei can see what is considered by many to be the current pinnacle of the urban reclamation, local agriculture, and vertical farming movements: an old parking garage converted into one of the biggest and most successful aquaponic structures on the East Coast. The basement is home to thousands of salmon, tilapia, carp, bass, grouper, char, mackerel, and trout—all genetically adapted to thrive throughout the year in the diverse mid-Atlantic climate. Water and sediment are pumped from the pools in the basement into a neighboring elevated tank where gravity creates the pressure necessary to deliver the nutrients directly to the roots of the crops dangling from terraces suspended throughout the levels above. Parabolic dishes on the roof focus sunlight into optical fiber lines which distribute it throughout the building according to the specific needs of each crop. Runoff and rain water find their way back down to ground level through the garage’s drainage system and are passed through a series of turbines which, along with inexpensive printed solar sheets, help to power the pumps that keep the tank at full capacity. After being passed through a series of filters, the stream is naturally aerated before being redirected right back down into the fish farms where the majority of it originated. This symbiotic integration of aquaculture and hydroponics has so far been capable of producing as much as sixty-five percent of all the calories required by the community that cooperatively maintains it.

The urban agricultural movement in West Baltimore has become so successful that it has actually yielded surpluses eight out of the last ten years which have resulted in generous returns from several peripheral grocery stores and weekend suburban farmers’ markets. However it has also provoked the inevitable ire of the industrial agricultural complex, which has repeatedly attempted to collect royalties on every calorie produced by what they claim is patented genetic technology. Several rulings have, in absentia, found against the people of West Baltimore, and in the minds of the GFAA (Genetic Farmers Association of America), justified the aerial release of viruses which have occasionally either destroyed entire crops outright, or introduced chromosomal aberrations sufficient to render their seeds infertile. Therefore, in lockstep with West Baltimore’s burgeoning independence, an intense and almost savage distrust of outsiders has coevolved. People like Alexei were once considered customers: the rich and the privileged who conducted business swiftly, efficiently, and even generously through half-open windows, and to whom the streets of the inner city were an adrenaline precursor to whatever substances they came in search of. But now, until proven otherwise, all outsiders are presumed ambassadors of a political, cultural, and economic system perfectly content to watch the people of inner cities starve to death in the streets.

Alexei now stands against his car, hemmed in by the crowd before him. Most are young men with pugnacious expressions, though there are also women posing in especially defiant postures. There are even several children among the congregation: a boy with beaded braids down to his shoulders and a sunken, milky-white eye; a girl with one side of her head shaved and the hair on the other side curling dramatically down beneath the chin she juts forward; an angelic albino who is even whiter than Alexei, her eyes a deep and cool sapphire blue, and her hair an eruption of radiant gold.

A bald and very broad man in baggy jeans and a tight black tank top stands ahead of the rest. His goatee is meticulous and his eyes are like shards, his expression and stance projecting authority over those behind him and the promise of swift vengeance toward those ahead. The de facto governor of these neighborhoods, perhaps. He leans to the side to examine the Mercedes, then looks back at Alexei.

“What’s your business here?” the man says. His tone is slightly more democratic than Alexei was expecting—more calculating than aggressive.

Alexei has a plan, but what he does not have just yet is a method of execution. He needs to get a feel for what he is dealing with here—to figure out exactly where the boundaries are. The centrifuges in his chest begin to accelerate as adrenaline molecules bind to the silicon receptors in his spinal cord, and he feels the irritating pricks of perspiration on his forehead. He grins a little too congenially at the man in front of him.

“It’s a free country, isn’t it?”

The governor is neither impressed nor visually annoyed by the attempted provocation. “That’s not been our experience,” he says plainly. His voice is as deep and smooth as a double bass and his enunciation is as precise as a single bowed note. “Now, I’ll ask you one more time: what is your business here?”

Alexei watches the man for a moment, then nods. He is clearly all business. As one of Alexei’s hands goes behind him, the collective mood of the crowd changes. There is movement and several men’s hands go up under their own shirts. Calmly and steadily, Alexei shows that all he is wielding is a small cryogenic canister about the size of a cigar tube. The governor’s eyebrows are raised in a clearly implied question.

“It’s an antigen,” Alexei says.

“Against what?”

“Genetic use restriction technology. Or more specifically, against the viral vectors that introduce it.”

The man shifts his weight and crosses his arms. “And you’ve brought it here why?”

“To immunize your crops,” Alexei says. He nods toward the aquaponic structure in the distance. “This is enough for an entire yield. Then all you have to do is use the resulting seeds for the rest of your crops and you won’t have anything to worry about for at least the next five years, maybe even ten.”

The man makes no move to accept Alexei’s offering. “How’d you get it?”

“The GFAA doesn’t produce pathogens without also producing antigens. It’s not as hard as you might think to obtain a sample, assuming you know the right people.”

“You’re telling me you have connections at the GFAA?”

“I do now.”

“Then how do I know that’s not actually a new pathogen?” the man says. “How do I know introducing this to our crops won’t destroy everything we’ve built?”

Alexei shrugs. “I guess you’ll just have to trust me.”

The man shakes his head. “That ain’t how it works,” he says.

“Then test it.”

“How?”

“Try it out on an isolated crop.”

“And?”

“And see what happens. See if it dies. Or see if the seeds are inviable.”

“And what if everything’s fine?” the governor says. “Then what?”

“What do you mean?” Alexei says. “Then you know it’s good, right? Then you can use it on the rest of the crop.”

“All I would know,” the man tells Alexei, “is that it didn’t kill that specific crop. And that it didn’t make those specific seeds inviable. But what about the next generation? Or the generation after that? Or in ten generations? Or a hundred? How do I know it isn’t designed to eventually mutate into something we can’t control?”

Alexei has begun nodding in concession. The man has introduced an angle he had not considered. It is clear from the way Alexei is standing there that he does not have a good answer.

“Leave the way you came,” the man finally says. “And don’t ever come back here again.”

“Wait,” Alexei says. “Just take it for emergencies. An insurance policy. If you never need it, fine. But if the GFAA succeeds in introducing something you can’t control, you’ll have nothing to lose, right?”

The man watches Alexei for a moment and the feeling of being appraised intensifies. “You never mentioned a price,” the governor says.

“There is no price,” Alexei says.

“Bullshit,” is the man’s response, and for the first time, Alexei detects a note of pure hostility.

“I just want to talk to someone.”

“Who?”

“A kid. His name is Andre Strasser.”

The man shifts his weight as his gaze becomes aggressively suspicious. “What do you want with Andre?”

“I’m here to offer him a job. A very lucrative job, in fact. I’ve been able to track him down to this neighborhood, but I can’t locate his house.”

The governor watches Alexei for a moment more, then points straight ahead over Alexei’s shoulder. “You see that roof with all the satellite dishes? That’s Andre’s house.”

Alexei isn’t exactly thrilled by the prospect of turning his back on the man, but he wants to believe that they are now working toward some kind of mutually beneficial agreement. He turns and looks at the row of houses behind him and sees that the governor is referring to an array of what appear to be spaghetti strainers fastened to the peak of one of the roofs, each turned at a slightly different angle. The display of the boy’s ingenuity amuses Alexei.

“I should have known,” he says as he turns back to the governor. “Very clever. Who else lives there?”

“Nobody,” the man says.

Alexei looks confused. “What about his family?”

“We are Dre’s family,” the governor says.

Alexei’s gaze wanders over the crowd. “In that case, anyone object to me going over and talking to him?”

“No need,” the man says. “He’s already here.”

The boy with the sunken white eye steps forward. The colors of the beads at the ends of his braids evoke a Caribbean vibe.

“Don’t Blink,” the boy says, presenting himself with an aggressive flair. “Now what the fuck you want?”

“Easy, Dre,” the governor tells the boy. “Ain’t no need for that.”

Alexei realizes he is probably doing a poor job of concealing his incredulity. He kneels and inspects boy. “Can you see out of that eye?”

“Not since I was three,” the boy says.

“What happened?”

The boy looks up at the governor.

“A domestic altercation,” the man explains. “It’s been resolved. As I said, we are Dre’s family now.”

Alexei watches the boy for a moment before continuing. “I don’t understand how you play so well with only one eye. What about your depth perception?”

“Ain’t no depth on a flat screen,” the boy says. “All that’s just an illusion.”

Alexei considers the boy’s response, then suddenly gets it. He grins as he gestures over his shoulder. “What’s that on your roof?”

“Ain’t much data out here, so I gotta catch what I can and synthesize it.”

“You built that yourself?”

“Most of it.”

“Let me ask you something,” Alexei says. “Have you ever heard of a game called MAD?”

“As in ‘Mechs and Drones’? Everybody heard of that.”

“Have you ever played it?”

“Hell no,” the boy says. “We ain’t got that kind of hardware out here. MAD some serious shit.”

Alexei stands again. He crosses his arms and looks down at the boy. “Do you want to play?”

The boy’s good eye squints at Alexei. “What for?”

“For one-point-five million NGD,” Alexei says. “That’s what for.”

There’s a reaction in the crowd. The boy turns and looks behind him, then back at Alexei.

“Who the fuck’s gonna pay that kind of money to play a video game?”

“Andre,” the man beside him says sharply. “I said that’s enough. You ain’t at school talking to one of your friends. You’re talking to an adult, and you’re talking business. Now straighten up.”

The boy gives the governor a defiant look, but when he turns back, Alexei can see that there is less attitude in his expression.

“MAD is made by a company called Pearl Knight Studios,” Alexei says. “Every two years, they sponsor a contest, and the prize for first place is three million NGD.” He starts to put a hand on the boy’s shoulder but thinks better of it. “Andre, I believe you can win that contest.”

The boy shakes his head. “I ain’t never even played MAD,” he says. He has clearly lost some of his self-confidence and suddenly appears much younger to Alexei. “And I don’t even have the equipment to learn.”

“That’s my part of the deal. You come back with me, and I’ll give you everything you need to train. Whatever you win, we split fifty-fifty.”

The boy looks up at the governor, but the governor deflects the decision back to the boy. “You’re almost a man now, Andre. This is your decision, not mine.”

The boy turns back to Alexei. “Why do I have to go with you? Why can’t you set me up here?”

“Andre, we’re talking about wall-sized photoelectric acoustic screens and racks of liquid nitrogen–cooled GPUs. There isn’t enough juice in all of West Baltimore to power the kind of rig you need.”

“We can get more solar sheets.”

“How would we store all that power? And what about bandwidth? Andre, we have to do this right. We don’t have all that much time.”

The boy looks up at the governor, then back at Alexei. “What happens if I lose?” he says. “What do I have to give you?”

Alexei smiles. “You don’t have to give me anything, Dre. And you can come back here anytime you want.”

“Who’s going to pay for my ticket?”

“You don’t need a ticket when you own the plane.”

The boy raises his eyebrows. “You got a plane,” he says. His tone is almost an accusation.

“I have a delta-wing jet that is very fancy, very fast, and it’s always fueled up and ready to go. I can get you from LAX to BWI in well under three hours. If you decide you don’t like living in a huge house and playing video games all day on some of the best and fastest hardware on the planet, I’ll bring you right back here to this very spot. We’ll shake hands, part ways, and there won’t be any hard feelings.”

“Do I gotta go to school?”

“No school,” Alexei promises the boy. “At least initially. The first thing we do is make some money.”

“How long I got to decide?”

“I’m going to need an answer today, Andre. If you’re not interested, I need to move on to the next name on my list.”

The boy is suddenly indignant. “You got a list? Who else is on it?”

“Let’s see. UrMother, Sweatyboner, Chemical Bacon, Unholy Tide. You know any of them?”

The boy makes a dismissive sucking sound with the corner of his mouth. “Yeah, I know them punks.”

“Any of them better than you?”

“Hell no,” the boy says. “You know I’m the best. That’s why you came here first.”

“Actually, it’s not,” Alexei says. “I came here first because of your name. Don’t Blink. I know you’re a good gamer, Dre, but what I really need is someone who’s decisive. Someone willing to take a chance. Someone who can recognize that they might only have one shot in their entire lives to change everything, and who’s not afraid to take it.”

He hands the cryogenic canister to the governor, and this time, the man accepts it.

“Now,” Alexei says to the boy, “here’s your first test. You in or not?”

CHAPTER TEN

Alexei’s handset is projecting a 3D chess match on the wall beside the breakfast table. The pieces are rendered as intricately carved ebony and West Indian boxwood which go well with the subdued and serene atmosphere of the room. The design of the kitchen is what one might call “engineered rustic,” with massive exposed cherry-stained beams, rough-cut slabs of black diamond granite, brushed steel industrial appliances, and cabinets of rich swirling maple burl. Most of the walls are a dark mottled look with the exception of the surface facing the seat Alexei favors. He has painted over the deep taupe, English saddle, and copper hues with a bright white acrylic infused with photosensitive particles which glow in the appropriate portion of the spectrum when excited by the wavelengths of light generated by the laser pico projector embedded in his handset.

“Next,” Alexei says, and black’s bishop retreats. He is not actually playing, but rather analyzing a previous match as it unfolds move by move. He nods his head slowly as he internalizes how each of the players’ decisions synthesize into opposing strategies.

Alexei’s cigarettes are on the table along with an ashtray, an empty plate, and a tall steaming canister of black tea. As he picks up the canister to take a sip, he detects movement in his peripheral vision and sees that Andre is watching from the door. He blinks several times to bring himself back to the present, sets down his tea, and kills the projection by tapping the handset’s screen.

The boy is standing awkwardly with one arm across his body, grasping the opposite elbow. His prosthetic eye is currently glowing somewhere between indigo and violet. It has been several weeks since Alexei took Andre to a Second Sight center in LA in order to see about having the boy’s vision restored—a process that will take well over a year and will not be complete until long after the tournament is over.

The first step was to remove the necrotic eye and replace it with an ocular prosthetic precursor which serves two primary purposes: to gradually release embryonic stem cells designed to regenerate damaged or atrophied photoreceptors, optic nerve fibers, and extraocular muscle tissue; and to stimulate the retina as it’s being repaired by bathing it in electromagnetic radiation in wavelengths from 390 to 750 nanometers. (Dre cannot actually see the colors since the pathway from his left eye to his visual cortex has been interrupted by an engineered genetic mutation which can be just as easily reversed through a simple viral vector as it was introduced.) Once the neurological elements of the eye have been fully rebuilt, an ophthalmological surgeon will implant the Argus VI—a relatively straightforward prosthetic designed to replace the cornea, sclera, iris, and pupil, and whose only job will be to gather light and focus it on Dre’s newly formed and perfectly healthy retina. There is a greater than ninety percent chance that, in less then two years, Dre will have regained one hundred percent of his vision.

In the meantime, the front of Dre’s temporary eye is a high-resolution curved LCD which can be configured through patterns of blinking and by looking at QR codes to render anything from solid colors to trippy metamorphic designs to the insignia of one’s favorite sports franchise. Although Dre does find it entertaining to occasionally unnerve the other children with one of the many feline or reptilian options, he generally prefers the default setting, which is a facsimile of his good eye. The therapeutic prosthetic can pick up the muscular impulses associated with eye movement and therefore animate the iris accordingly, and the pupil dilates and constricts in response to ambient light. In general, the illusion is quite convincing, though the display is thin enough that it does not entirely stop the light from the back of the eye from escaping; throughout the course of a day, Dre’s eye will faintly glow in every portion of the visual spectrum.

“Have you eaten?” Alexei asks the boy.

“I ate with the others.”

“How are you getting along with everyone?”

“Good, I guess.”

“Have you met Ki?”

“Yeah, I met her. She kind of scares me.”

“Why?”

“I seen her train. She can be—I don’t know—kind of vicious.”

Alexei smiles. “Speaking of training, how’s yours coming?”

“Good.”

“How good? What’s your rank?”

“I’m up to twenty-seven.”

Alexei nods. “Only seventeen to go until you qualify. You think you can do it?”

“I can do it,” the boy says. “I don’t know if I can win the whole thing, but I’ll qualify.”

“Good.” Alexei takes another sip of tea. “How’s the eye? Any headaches or flashes?”

“No. It’s all good.”

Alexei nods and the boy continues to stand in the doorway.

“Is there something on your mind, Dre?”

“I want to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.”

The boy is now picking absently at the edge of the copper door strike beside him. “I want to know what I’m really doing here.”

Alexei frowns. “What do you mean? You’re here to train.”

“I know that,” the boy says, “but I also know there’s something else going on. Something you’re not telling me.”

Alexei is increasingly amazed by the extent to which the boy has retired his aggressive inner-city disposition and adapted to his new environment. He has even started replacing his baggy and oversized wardrobe, designed to conceal weapons and paraphernalia, with the new jeans, cargo pants, T-shirts, and hoodies that were waiting for him in his closet.

“What makes you think that?”

“The fact that one and a half million NGD is a lot of money for some punk from Baltimore, but it’s nothing to you.”

Alexei looks away from the boy and bobs his head. He watches the floor between them for a moment, then uses his toe to push the chair beside him out from the table. “Have a seat, Dre.”

The boy hesitates for a moment, then enters the kitchen and sits. His posture is stiff and guarded.

“Have you figured out what it is that I do here?”

“Not really,” the boy says. “But it looks to me like you’re building some kind of army.”

Alexei takes a moment to consider the boy’s response. “Actually, I’m doing the exact opposite,” he says. He pauses to take another sip of tea and to lean back from the table. “Armies are about numbers, Dre. They’re about creating a force, and then applying as much technology as you can afford to multiply that force. The point of an army isn’t to destroy one’s enemy so much as it is to destroy his will to fight, and the best way to destroy your enemy’s will to fight is to overwhelm him with as massive and terrifying a force as humanly possible. Does that make sense?”

“I guess.”

“What I do is different. Rather than numbers, I invest in individuals—individuals with very special and specific talents that can be applied in just the right way and at just the right time to maximize their effectiveness. Do you know what the word pivot means?”

“Yeah.”

“What?”

“It means to, like, turn real quick.”

“Right. To turn or redirect suddenly. The word comes from one of the earliest and simplest machines ever built—basically just a beam resting on a hinge. But when you apply force to that beam, it becomes a lever. And if the whole thing is designed properly, just a tiny amount of force can displace objects that would otherwise appear to be completely immovable. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“I understand how a lever works,” the boy says, “but I don’t understand what that has to do with me.”

“I build levers to move objects that appear to be immovable,” Alexei tells the boy. “I orchestrate. I train individuals who I think will one day be in just the right position to change the entire course of human history with just a tiny bit of very carefully and precisely applied force.”

The boy is watching Alexei with a combination of interest and confusion. “I’m not just here to win a tournament, am I?”

“No,” Alexei tells the boy. “You’re here to do much more than that.”

“What?”

Alexei sips his tea as he considers where to start. “Your last name—Strasser—do you know where it comes from?”

“Other than my mother, no.”

“It’s a common name in West Africa—specifically Sierra Leone. Your ancestors were probably brought here as slaves between two and three hundred years ago. Do you know what the capital of Sierra Leone is?”

“No.”

“Freetown. Or at least it was Freetown. It was established in 1792 by British abolitionists as a home for former slaves. You want to see what Freetown looks like today?”

“I guess.”

“Emma,” Alexei says. The screen on his phone brightens. “Project the map of Xi Jinping Square. Satellite view.”

The pico projector in Alexei’s handset lights up. The image on the wall begins to glow as the particles react to the energy from the lasers. Alexei looks from the wall to the boy.

“What do you know about China?”

“I don’t know. I know they got a lot of people, and a lot of money.”

Alexei plucks one of his black cigarettes from the pack on the table and takes a moment to light it. As he exhales toward the ceiling, the smoke is drawn into the filter mounted above them.

“You know how they got all that money?”

“No.”

“Manufacturing.” He pinches a piece of tobacco from his tongue and deposits it in the ashtray. “China used to be the manufacturing capital of the world until its middle class got too big and there weren’t enough peasants to work in the factories anymore. That’s when the government started looking for cheaper labor markets. And guess where they found them.”

“Africa?”

“Africa. Specifically, the Republic of Sierra Leone. It’s rich in natural resources, it has plenty of coastline for shipping, and the government is easy to influence. Perfect for foreign exploitation.”

“Why didn’t they just build robots and machines and shit to do all their work?”

Alexei takes a long drag and rolls the ash of his cigarette into an orange cone. He exhales as he speaks. “As it turns out, it’s cheaper for humans to do the work of robots than it is to build and maintain robots to do the work of humans.”

The boy makes a face and shakes his head. “That’s fucked up,” he says.

“Yes, that most certainly is thoroughly fucked up.”

“How can the world let them get away with that?”

“Because it also turns out that there’s more profit in exploiting people than there is in liberating them. The world let them get away with it because most of the industrialized world—and in particular the United States—helped them do it.”

“What did they do?”

“They industrialized. They started with a seventy square mile region called the Western Area Forest Reserve, and once it was fully harvested and they’d built as many factories as they could, they started either buying up or otherwise appropriating the entire Freetown peninsula. You probably know that region today as New Guangdong—as in New Guangdong dollars, or NGDs.” Alexei gestures toward the wall. “That’s what we’re looking at right now.”

The boy squints at the projection. “Are those people?”

“About two million of them.”

“What are they doing?”

“Protesting. Demonstrating. Occupying. Basically trying to take their country back.”

“What’s stopping them?”

“Good question.” Alexei blows out a stream of smoke, tips his cigarette ash into the ashtray, and leans forward. “You see that curved line that runs all the way up along the left side of the map? That’s a wall about fourteen, maybe fifteen meters high—about fifty feet or so. On one side is over two million angry protesters ready to start a revolution, and on the other side is the presidential palace and parliament buildings. All someone would have to do is take out about a thirty foot section of that wall right about there, and by morning, New Guangdong would be Freetown again.” Alexei looks at the boy. “You want to know what’s stopping an entire nation of over ten million people from being free? Nothing but a few feet of concrete and rebar.”

“What about the military? Wouldn’t they stop them?”

“There’s no way the Sierra Leone Armed Forces could stop a wave of two million people. I doubt they’d even try. My guess is that if the people got through that wall, the army would either step aside, or more likely, join them. There’s no doubt in my mind that within twenty-four hours, every last government official and everyone in their families would be shot, beaten to death, hacked to pieces, or hung from flagpoles.”

The boy appears startled as he looks from the map back to Alexei. “And you think that’s a good thing?”

“Good for the Sierra Leoneans. Good for justice and democracy, and for humanity in general. Admittedly, not so good for the people hanging from the flagpoles.”

The boy studies Alexei for a moment. “You want to blow up that wall, don’t you?”

Alexei’s cigarette stops on its way to his lips and he looks at the boy. “Andre, these things always happen in two distinct steps: gradually, and then all at once. They’re like earthquakes. It takes years to build up all that energy and then just a few seconds to release it, shaking everything around it to the ground. All the energy is already there. All I want to do is release it.”

“How?”

“By funding a revolution. One and a half million NGD can buy a lot in that part of the world. Favors, influence, weapons, explosives. It can make a lot of people look the other way when you need them to. And New Guangdong would just be the beginning. If the rest of Africa saw the people of Sierra Leone rise up, I think we’d see revolutions across the entire continent. I think it could be the beginning of the African Spring.”

“Why can’t they do it peacefully?” the boy says. “Why can’t the people just vote for a new president? That’s what a republic is, isn’t it?”

“Unfortunately terms like republic and democracy are a little more subjective than you might think. Have you ever heard of the Thirty-first Amendment?”

“I heard of it.”

“Do you know what it does?”

“Not really.”

“The Thirty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution legalizes the transfer of suffrage from a citizen to his or her economic sponsor, patron, or benefactor. In other words, it gives the company you work for the right to cast a vote on your behalf. Guess where the inspiration for it came from?”

“Sierra Leone?”

“Exactly. Corporations control over ninety percent of votes in Sierra Leone, and most of the corporations are controlled by foreign interests. Technically and legally, Sierra Leone and the United States are both democracies, but in reality, they’re more like plutocracies.”

“What’s that?”

“It means they’re ruled by the wealthy rather than by the majority. But since Americans probably wouldn’t put up with an actual plutocracy, the wealthy put a lot of effort into maintaining a democratic facade.”

The boy gestures toward the projection. “How long have those people been out there?”

“Months. And they’re going to stay out there until they either get what they want, or until they get put down. That’s why if someone’s going to knock that wall down, they need to do it soon. It’s only a matter of time before foreign militaries go in to protect their investments.”

The boy cocks his head and studies Alexei. “Why do you even care about the Africans?” he says. “They ain’t even your people.”

Alexei blows smoke through his nose as he leans back. The joints of the straight-back chair groan and creak under his weight.

“How’s your Russian history?” Alexei asks the boy.

“It pretty much sucks.”

“You ever hear of Chernobyl?”

“I heard of it,” the boy says, “but I don’t know anything about it.”

Alexei leans forward and crushes his cigarette out in the ashtray. He reaches for the pack, but does not light a fresh one. “If I were a history teacher, I’d probably tell you that Chernobyl was the site of the worst accident in the history of nuclear technology. I’d tell you that it killed forty-seven plant workers right away, but that it was eventually responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands.” He pauses and raps his miniature plasma torch against the polished stone surface of the table. “But as the child of two engineers who not only worked in the plant, but who actually helped design and build it, I’d tell you that the Vladimir Lenin Nuclear Power Station operated for over two years without the ability to safely run cooling pumps in the event of a power outage. I’d tell you that the test that destabilized the reactor core violated multiple very basic safety protocols and should never have been allowed. I’d tell you that because of a design flaw so fundamental that a clever enough high school student could have probably spotted it—a flaw both my parents pointed out to their superiors, only to be reprimanded for insubordination—the emergency shutdown procedure actually increased the reaction rate rather than slowing it down. And finally I’d tell you that the only engineers who can explain exactly what happened there that morning were killed in the initial explosion—before they had a chance to talk to anyone.”

“You think there was some kind of cover-up?”

“Not a cover-up,” Alexei says. “What I’m saying is that Chernobyl wasn’t an accident at all. It was an experiment.”

“What?” The boy looks at Alexei with a combination of horror and skepticism. “What the hell for?”

“To see what would happen if well over half a million people were exposed to varying levels of radioactivity. But more importantly, to see what would happen to their children. And their children’s children. And the next generation after that. To see if it was possible to induce enough mutation over a large and diverse enough population that some of the results—even just three or four out of hundreds of thousands and eventually millions—might actually prove to be not just viable mutations, but actually beneficial.”

The boy is looking down at the table. Alexei can see that his eyes are searching the veins of minerals running through the dark marble.

“I’m one of those children, Andre. And now, indirectly, so are you. And so is every other child I’ve brought into this house. That’s why I care about the people of Sierra Leone. We may be fighting different fights, but we’re on the same side.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” Dre says. “You already got the money. Or if you don’t, you can get it. Just sell your jet, or this house, or a few of them cars you got. Shit, just sell that watch you got on and you’d probably be halfway there.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. The money to fund this kind of operation has to be completely untraceable. You have to understand that the repercussions of punching a hole in that wall are tremendous. I’m not just talking about in Africa and Asia. I’m talking about right here in the US. Remember, we’re silent investors. We have almost as much tied up in Africa as the Chinese—as do the Russians, Japanese, Brazilians, Indians, Germans, and just about everyone else. An attack on New Guangdong would be seen as an attack on most of the global economy. Whoever knocks down that wall will have every intelligence agency and secret police organization on the entire planet looking for him, and that’s not something I can afford.”

“But even if I win the money,” the boy says, “it’s still coming from you, right?”

“You’re exactly right, Dre. It would be very difficult for someone like me to anonymously fund a revolution with such a massive global impact. I’d be risking everything I’ve built here. That’s why the money has to come from someone else. Someone untraceable. Someone with no family. No official address. No real connections. No public records, and barely any government documentation. Someone who nobody would ever suspect of having the resources, connections, or the incentive to start a revolution halfway around the world.”

The boy stands up so fast that he tips his chair back. He glares at Alexei through an expression of both fear and defiance.

“You want to know why you’re here, Dre?” Alexei says calmly. He stands and looks down at the boy. “You’re not just here to play video games and win some pocket change. You’re here to help me change the entire course of human history.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Alexei considers it a bug in Emma’s notification heuristics that she waits until he is sitting in the spacious stacked-granite master bathroom shower with a buxom German nanny on his lap to inform him that Andre did not train at all the previous day, and so far has spent the entire morning in the gym. Ingrid actually covers herself and blushes when she hears the gentle female voice emanate from the ceramic speakers overhead. Alexei manages a sardonic and begrudging “thank you,” then proceeds to make his best effort to pick up where he left off; however he finds that the mood has been irreconcilably spoiled. When he finally accepts that he is too distracted by what he has just learned to continue, he uses the touch screen in the glass door to shut off the array of showerheads around them and then tells Emma to clear his calendar for the afternoon before activating the cyclonic driers. Ingrid is clearly in disbelief as Alexei prompts her to remove herself from his lap. This has gone on long enough, he mutters to himself as he finishes drying his scalp with a cut of cream-colored Egyptian cotton, tactfully silkscreened with subtle, brown tiger stripes. He leaves the towel on the floor and exits the bathroom amid a long string of German slurs issuing from the shower behind him.

He finds Dre downstairs in the gym. The boy has been working out at least once a day since he arrived and he has indeed started to fill out. He is wearing a T-shirt which he has either cut or torn the sleeves off of, and which exposes his well-defined deltoids, biceps, and triceps. His breathing is heavy and his braids are pulled back behind his head.

“You like watches, right?” Alexei asks from the door. He is wearing a fitted purple silk shirt with double-headed eagle cufflinks, black slacks, and substantial black pointed boots.

The boy shrugs. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I’m going watch shopping. You want to come?”

“You going someplace with Rolexes?”

“I’m going someplace with much more than Rolexes,” Alexei tells the boy. “It’s time we begin your watch education in earnest. Come on. We’ll grab some lunch while we’re out.”

“I gotta take a shower first.”

Alexei shakes his head. “I hope you have better luck with yours than I had with mine,” he says. “I’ll meet you in the garage in fifteen.”

The boy appears in the kitchen having done his best to keep up with Alexei fashion-wise. He is wearing black jeans which contain two to three times the amount of denim required to effectively cover his legs, an oversized black T-shirt, and black sneakers with red accents. His braids are down again and swing just above his shoulders as he walks.

“You ready to learn something?” Alexei asks the boy.

“I guess,” the boy says with the combination of apathy and broodiness Alexei is gradually beginning to accept as normal.

Alexei starts toward the garage and stops. He turns back to the boy and leans in to get a closer look at his prosthetic eye.

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?”

“Yeah, why?”

There’s a tiny white battery icon in the center of the boy’s pupil. Alexei places a finger below his own eye.

“When was the last time you charged?”

“Oh, shit.”

“Go get the car charger. We’ll do it on the way.”

The vehicle Alexei chooses has to be one of his least favorite cars on the entire planet: the Chinese-built Cherry Brilliance. It’s an absurd looking machine which is little more than two shoulder-to-shoulder seats inside of a glass bubble on top of four giant, nonpneumatic, polymer castors. The cockpit can pivot 360 degrees as can the castors which, even Alexei has to admit, means all kinds of new and interesting possibilities for the auto-drive system—especially in the context of urban parking—but the overall look is, in Alexei’s distinguished and rigorously refined opinion, positively asinine. However, Dre had been delighted by the vehicle the first time he explored the garage—declaring it “pimp” or “sublime” or some such reverent accolade—so Alexei picks it this morning in the dim hope of raising the boy’s spirits.

Although they know where they are going, they have no idea where they actually are. The car’s glass dome is white and fully opaque—not in order to conceal their identities (that could easily be done with one-way obscuration) but to prevent the occupants from seeing out. Andre is allowed unrestricted access to most of the house and to the grounds, and he is permitted to leave whenever he wishes, but he is not allowed—under any circumstances whatsoever—to know where the compound is located. As vehicles leave the garage, their windows either darken or brighten, and they do not clear up again until they are within a kilometer of their destination. On the way back, the process reverses itself. Routes are randomized and, if time permits, superfluously extended in order to throw off passengers who might be trying to keep track of turns. GPS signals that penetrate the cockpit are jammed to thwart surreptitious attempts at generating maps with a handset. Dre frequently rolls his eyes at Alexei’s paranoia, to which Alexei responds by expressing his sincere hope that none of the children who live with him will ever have to learn the hard way that the precautions they are forced to take are in fact for their own good.

The cable that runs from the dashboard of the Cherry to Dre’s eye terminates in a filament that coils throughout a transparent, antimicrobial contact lens. After magnetically aligning itself, it charges the prosthetic inductively in anywhere from five to fifteen minutes, depending on the power source. The coupling is weak enough to avert catastrophe should the cable be inadvertently yanked, and the lead coming off the lens is thin enough that it does not irritate Dre’s eyelid as he blinks. When he feels two quick successive vibrations, the boy detaches the charger, stows it in its pouch, and slips it inside one of the car’s many cargo compartments.

Since Alexei is not a resident of Century City, he must register at the gate as a temporary retail tourist before he and Dre are allowed to enter. His credit checks out and he is granted the privilege of purchasing a one-day pass good for the Westfield Century City mall and all adjacent restaurants, cafés, bars, coffeehouses, bistros, and quaintly themed diners—seating and dress code permitting, of course. The mall’s Park Assist® system is auto-drive compatible, which allows Alexei and Andre to be dropped off along Santa Monica Boulevard and be spared any extraneous exertion.

The largest authorized dealer of Swiss timepieces in LA is Rousseau, and their flagship store is located on the first level of Westfield Century City mall, just past Bloomingdale’s. Although the shop is characteristically empty for midmorning on a weekday, the panoramic displays behind the counters give the impression of a comfortable crowd. Attractive, confident, and powerful individuals to which we are all expected to aspire perform for the voyeuristic pleasure of esteemed Rousseau clientele. A dashing and mysterious young man—his dark features hardened into an austere but handsome mask—pushes his 911 Carrera to the very precipice of its capabilities as he pilots it along the German autobahns; a middle-aged man and his petite blonde companion enjoy a sunny afternoon of yachting and lobster tail, impossibly radiant strawberries, and chilled champagne as their boat hovers above the translucent turquoise of the Caribbean; a distinguished and eminently eligible gentleman in a custom-tailored tuxedo and a caramel-complexioned brunette in a red strapless evening gown give each other lascivious glances between ice sculptures at a private cocktail affair. The characters are all free to enjoy their boundless affluence and experience the intoxicating drama of their virtual lives with a level of algorithmic autonomy that yields infinite possibility and endless entertainment—so long as they do so with the prominent timepieces on their wrists perpetually in frame.

Dre goes directly for the Rolexes while Alexei approaches the counter squarely between the Audemars Piguet and Hublot display cases. When he looks up, a woman has already stolen out from some unseen passage in the digital mural. Her rich copper hair is gathered high atop her head and maintained through some mysterious art which few men can fathom, and which is usually reserved for bridesmaids. She either has a small amount of Asian in her, or a plastic surgeon—perhaps one conveniently located in this very mall—has done a credible job of recreating the effect.

“I’m Rebecca,” the woman says warmly. She extends her delicate fingers in a way that seems to imply that Alexei is free to plant a kiss on her knuckles—or possibly even as far up as her neck, should he care to take the liberty.

“Alexei,” Alexei responds, accepting her hand and settling for a gentle squeeze. He lingers as men who are about to spend exorbitant amounts of money usually assume they have the right to do, and Rebecca does not object.

“You obviously have very refined taste,” Rebecca observes.

Alexei allows her fingers to slip away—undoubtedly a metaphor for how the finer things in life can so easily escape our grasps if we do not act boldly and decisively.

“I’ve been known to have an unhealthy obsession with perfection.”

“Then you have certainly come to the right place, Alexei,” Rebecca tells him. She smiles in a way that the uninitiated could be forgiven for misinterpreting as innuendo, but Alexei knows better. “And let me assure you that there is nothing unhealthy about an obsession with perfection—especially when it comes to the single most important thing a man can wear: his timepiece.”

She dips beneath the counter and returns with a striking specimen in rose gold. When she places it on the counter, an image of a distinctly European man with wavy collar-length black hair and dark stubble appears beside it in the glass. He is holding a pencil in his right hand which he is using to sketch something on a large pad, and on his left wrist is the very watch that lays before them, clearly the source of all his artistic and sexual prowess. A list of specifications animate in: rose gold case, markers, and hands; glare-proof sapphire crystal and case back; black tapestry ceramic dial; hand-stitched crocodile strap; forty-jewel movement with a sixty-hour power reserve. Indeed, everything one needs in order to make an informed purchasing decision—except for the price.

“It’s stunning, isn’t it, Alexei?”

“I’m more of a tool watch kind of guy,” he tells Rebecca. “But considering all the trouble you went to fetch it for me, it would be rude not to at least try it on, wouldn’t it?”

He reaches under his sleeve to remove the IWC Ingenieur he walked in with when the voices he has been monitoring behind him suddenly intensify.

“Man, fuck you,” he hears Dre say.

Alexei turns and sees the posture of the little boy he took out of West Baltimore. He is glaring across the counter at a pale young man with stylishly shaggy strawberry blond hair, a light pinstriped suit, and a salmon (a.k.a. pink) tie. The man is glaring unflinchingly right back at the boy.

“You have exactly three seconds to get out of my store before I call security.”

One of the man’s hands is under the counter, presumably poised to trigger a silent alarm. Alexei turns back to Rebecca. “Pardon me for just one moment,” he says politely.

When he approaches the opposite counter, the salesman’s demeanor changes. “I apologize for the disruption, sir,” he says. “We’ll have this resolved momentarily.”

“What’s your name?” Alexei asks the man.

“I’m Jacob, sir, and I would be very happy to take extremely good care of you as soon as we have this situation resolved.”

“And what exactly is this situation?”

“It seems this gentleman has a problem with our policy of not removing watches from cases until we have a credit card in hand.”

“That’s curious,” Alexei says. He appears mildly confused as he gestures over his shoulder with his thumb. “Rebecca was happy to hand me a watch without any type of security or collateral.”

The clerk gives Alexei a dubious scowl. “That’s a little different, sir.”

“How is it different?”

“Let’s just say that enforcement of our security policies is at the sales associate’s discretion.” He looks back at Dre. “Your three seconds are up. I hope you’re ready to spend the night in the Century City lockup.”

Alexei takes a step closer and both Dre and Jacob flinch as his hand flashes out, grasps the man by the hair, and heaves him out of range of the silent alarm. Under Alexei’s grip, the man’s body is as flaccid as a marionette, which makes slamming his face down against the counter look entirely effortless. Jacob makes a very unmasculine sound which conveys more fear than actual pain. He is waving his arms like a distraught seagull as a notification appears on the glass beside his head: “Product not recognized. Please try again.”

“I think you’ve made a terrible mistake, Jacob,” Alexei tells the clerk. “This boy is with me.”

“Rebecca!” Jacob screams. His lips are distorted by the pressure Alexei is putting on his face. “Call security! Rebecca? Where are you? Help me! Please!”

Alexei looks over his shoulder and sees that Rebecca has stayed put. She is leaning on the glass, the watch they were discussing with such civility only moments ago still on the counter between her elbows, her delicate chin resting comfortably in her palms. She is clearly far more fascinated than concerned by what she is witnessing.

Alexei turns back to the man he has pinned down by the face. “You hear that?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Nobody’s coming to your rescue. Your mouth got you into this, and now you’re going to have to talk your way out.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Jacob stammers. “Ow, you’re hurting me. I said I was sorry. What else do you want?”

“I don’t want you to apologize to me,” Alexei says. “I want you to apologize to my friend.” He leans down close to the man’s ear and whispers. “And if I don’t think you’re being sincere, I’ll smash your pretty little face right through this cabinet and watch the shards of glass rip the skin right off your fucking skull.”

A tear escapes Jacob’s clenched eyes and drips from the bridge of his nose. “I didn’t know. I swear, I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean anything. I swear to God, I didn’t mean anything. Please. It’ll never happen again. I swear.”

“It better not,” Alexei says. He releases Jacob’s hair and uses the back of the man’s suit coat to clean his hand. “From now on, you assume every single customer who walks in here has a Russian friend with a very bad temper right behind him. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Jacob says. As he straightens up, he glances down the counter toward the alarm, then looks back at Alexei.

“Don’t,” Alexei says. “I have a better idea. Do you work on commission?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He removes a roll of colorful notes from his pocket. “Then grab that Patek Philippe tray over there and let’s make this right. My boy here needs a family heirloom.”

Jacob does not look again toward the alarm. He wipes the tears from his face, straightens his jacket, fluffs his hair, and diligently applies himself to his craft.

As Alexei and Dre stand outside in the sun waiting for the car, Alexei lights a cigarette. “Hey, kid,” he says. “You got the time?”

Andre smiles. He looks down at the heavy metal watch on his wrist, then back up at Alexei.

“I know why I’m here, by the way,” he says.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m not stupid. I know why you wanted to take me out today.”

“You mean you don’t think it was just so I could pick a fight with some pathetic neutered douchebag?”

The boy does not smile. He is suddenly more serious than Alexei has ever seen him. “You took me out so you could talk me into doing what you want.”

Alexei shakes his head as he drags on his cigarette. “You’re wrong,” he says. “I took you out today to try to find out what you’re thinking, Dre, not to talk you into doing anything. This has to be your decision.”

“I’ll do it,” the boy says.

Alexei watches him for a moment. “Are you sure?”

“I have to help those people,” Dre says. “I know that now.”

Alexei nods as he exhales through his nose. “Good,” he tells the boy. “Now I won’t have to kill you.”

The boys stares up at Alexei until Alexei smiles. The boy smiles back and shakes his head, and when Alexei puts his arm around Andre’s shoulder and pulls him in, the boy does not resist.

“You really think we can win?” the boy says.

“The tournament? I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Not the tournament. I mean do you think we can win in Sierra Leone?”

Alexei takes his arm away and looks down at the boy. “What we’re doing in Africa, Dre. It isn’t about winning.”

“Then what’s it about?”

“It’s about the only thing that ever matters in any kind of a struggle,” he says. “It’s about picking a side.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The rules of MAD are simple: the last mech standing wins. Your shields do not regenerate; you do not respawn; there are no bases where damage can be repaired or fresh new mechs sequestered. If you’re mobile, you’re in the game. If you’re incapacitated, a self-destruct sequence initiates, and when the sub-kiloton, low-yield nuclear warhead inside your mech’s core detonates, your game is decisively and unequivocally over.

In addition to your mech—a heavily armored and extensively weaponized bipedal tank—every player also controls an aerial drone for support. Drones can be reconnaissance or attack priority, or some combination of the two. Designs can include anything from a blended-wing, single-engine, high-altitude stealth composition to a hypersonic scramjet with essentially no wings at all. Possible payloads include high-resolution optical and radar imaging packages; air-to-surface, antiarmor, fire-and-forget missiles; various forms of directed-energy weapons; and cyber attack capabilities which introduce the possibility of disabling or even taking control of your opponents’ assets. About the only weapons missing from MAD are those considered to be of “indiscriminate effect,” meaning those of a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or excessively incendiary nature—not due to any sense of virtual morality, mind you, but because WMDs are far more appropriate for killing humans en masse than attacking and destroying individual machines.

The use of small-diameter, linear-implosion, nuclear fission bombs as self-destruct mechanisms makes the line between victory and defeat distinctly unambiguous; however, regulations governing the ways in which players engage with the game are wide open. The creators of MAD consider their software to be categorically unhackable. All practical attack vectors have been taken into consideration: The game will not run inside of any known form of emulation; using methods Pearl Knight Studios engineers will not disclose, the core engine can detect code injection and adaptively harden itself against live memory editing; modifying saved game data at the binary level is impossible given that the files are encrypted and their integrity guaranteed by 1,024-bit checksums stored remotely on PKS servers; and because all network traffic is both dynamically obfuscated and heavily point-to-point encrypted, the chances of someone figuring out how to forge the protocol in any manner not entirely theoretical are vanishingly small. Since the game itself has never been hacked, any and all methods of interaction are not just legal, but considered an integral part of actual gameplay and strategy.

All forms of input devices are sanctioned, including those that are programmable. Macros are practically mandatory. Novel and creative combinations of keyboards, pointing devices, gamepads, eye-tracking gear, motion control sensors, multitouch surfaces, gestures, voice input, and even brain-computer interfaces are encouraged. And if you can figure out how to write an AI that runs on a separate piece of hardware, takes input from an array of cameras monitoring all your screens, analyzes and interprets and actually understands what it’s seeing, and ultimately responds to the action by emulating some type of controller through a cable connected to your gaming rig—all faster and more effectively than your carbon-based opponents—then knock yourself out.

Similarly, there are no restrictions on output. Some players position themselves inside 180 degrees of continuous, curved, panoramic screen; some stand in front of multiple wall-sized, ultra-high-definition laser projections; some use autostereoscopic 3D surfaces; and some casually deposit themselves among mounds of cushions or beanbags with nothing but a bifurcated controller in hand and an active visor strapped to his or her face. A few even employ various forms of haptic feedback and olfactive synthesis in order to bring all five senses to bear upon their adversaries. Now that Dre is no longer so insecure about his eye—now that the children he spends time with are actually envious of his disability rather than deriding him for it—he has even wondered how he might one day use a prosthetic with an integrated video signal processor or graphics processing unit to his advantage.

Given the myriad of technologies one can use to interact with MAD, Dre’s training was not just about him learning the mechanics of the game, or about experimenting with and honing various strategies, but in no small part involved him discovering and devising both an input and an output configuration that he was comfortable with, and that he could use to maximize his effectiveness. Boxes of peripherals were waiting for him on the shelves outside the room they call “the theater,” and the boy experimented with hundreds of combinations before finally settling on a relatively straightforward and deceptively simplistic configuration.

He is now sitting cross-legged directly on the foam-core floor in the far corner of the theater like a child being disciplined. All four walls of the room are tiled with seamlessly integrated quad-color photoelectric acoustic panels, but the boy makes use of only a few. The perspective directly ahead of him is that of his mech, and on the wall to his left, he keeps the aerial view from his drone. He has built a small table out of empty cardboard boxes and a dislodged shelf beneath which he is tucked.

His hands rest atop the padded palm rests of twin control pads. Alexei had purchased both a left- and a right-handed model since he didn’t know which hand Dre might favor, but the boy has adapted to using both simultaneously. Beneath his thumbs are textured trackballs whose sensitivity can be dynamically adjusted through downward pressure: the further the trackballs are depressed, the higher the resolution of movement, resulting in a linear increase in precision. Each trackball also uses dynamic electromagnetic force feedback to keep the boy from attempting to maneuver faster than the machines he is controlling can respond.

At the boy’s fingertips are reduced and tapered keypads of twenty-two obnoxiously loud mechanical-switch keys. Both control pads are programmed identically so the boy can use either hand to execute macros, and even to execute multiple macros simultaneously. The small screens above the keypads contain the macro references the boy relied on while training. However, both are currently dimmed; if muscle memory fails him now, he will be dead long before he can bend down and consult a cheat sheet.

Alexei is standing behind the boy, watching over his shoulder and doing his very best not to pace.

“So what kind of strategy do you have in mind?” he asks with forced composure.

Dre is staring at the screen ahead of him, waiting for the game to begin. “You’ll see.”

“Are you going to try what you did last night? That seemed effective.”

“Probably not.”

Alexei nods even though the boy can’t see him. He gets a few steps into a pace, but stops himself. “Do you even know what you’re going to do yet, or are you just going to improvise?”

“Both.”

“Are you going to use any strategies I’ve seen before?”

“I doubt it,” Dre says, “since I’ve never seen them before myself.”

Alexei squints at the boy. “You’re telling me that you’re planning on using a strategy in the final round of the tournament that you’ve never even play-tested before?”

“If I’d tried it before,” Dre says, “it wouldn’t be much of a surprise, would it?” He turns and looks up at Alexei. “Look, man, if I use a strategy that you’ve seen before, that means they’ve seen it before. And if they’ve seen it before, that means they probably know how to counter it. These people have been playing this game for years. I’ve only been playing a few months. My only chance is to do something totally unexpected.” He starts to turn back to his screens, but stops. “If that’s OK with you.”

Alexei puts up his hands. “I was just asking.”

“Well do me a favor and don’t,” the boy says. “I got enough to worry about without you standing back there interrogating me. Now can you stay quiet and let me concentrate, or do I have to send you to your office to watch?”

“I’ll be quiet,” Alexei says. “I’ll be quiet.”

The boy’s screens come up simultaneously, each displaying a different perspective on a moderately dense city. A caption fades in at the bottom: “Downtown Washington, D.C.” The entire area has been recreated block by block, building by building, brick by brick—one could even argue atom by atom. Surfaces aren’t just texture maps, but rather are composed of molecularly accurate simulations of actual materials. Absolutely everything is interactive: destroy enough of a building’s foundation, and it will crumble; fire a high-velocity tungsten carbide round at an enemy through a brick wall, and its shape, integrity, composition, trajectory, velocity—and hence its ultimate effectiveness—will all be appropriately and precisely adjusted; ignite a car with a flamethrower, and the quality of the smoke will be a meticulous amalgamation of gasoline, oil, rubber, and anything else proving combustible at whatever sustained temperature is applied. The maps in MAD represent some of the most detailed and precise environments ever modeled by the extremely low-level and highly parallelized interfusion of hardware and software. MAD defines the bleeding edge. Just about everything else—engines and models and simulations designed by PhD candidates and materials engineers and astrophysicists lured away from academia and into the far more profitable domain of financial services—it’s all just child’s play by comparison. Video games is where the real money is.

The mech Andre has chosen is known as the Mako. At roughly two and a half meters tall, it is one of the smallest in the game, but that means it is also one of the quickest. Rather than the approximate human form of many of the machines (which, according to video game, manga, and anime mythology, evolved out of powered mechanical armor), the Mako looks more like a decidedly inelegant headless ostrich—inelegant, that is, until it is seen in action. Its knees bend in the direction we consider to be backwards, supporting a body comprised primarily of twin two-by-two autoloading missile batteries, two independently targetable, liquid-cooled, six-barrel rotary machine guns, and a single Barrett M111 .50-caliber, semiautomatic, antimateriel rifle. A clump of antenna whips stand in for the long slender neck.

Very few gamers would consider using such a small mech at this level of a professional tournament, which means Dre’s opponents will have developed fewer techniques for confronting and containing him. What the Mako lacks in size, weight, and firepower, it more than makes up for in speed and agility. It can easily reach seventy kilometers per hour, and it’s small enough to make maximum use of its environment. Not only can it compress itself to where it can take cover behind common obstacles like cars and low walls, but it can fit through most doorways, ascend stairwells, and even operate most elevators. The upshot is that it is one of the only mechs that can position itself in urban environments for effective sniping. (Several other models contain short-duration propulsion systems that can get them up to relatively low rooftops, but not without the heat signatures of their solid rocket boosters tipping off every drone in the sky.)

After the players are shown a brief aerial flyby of the city, mechs start spawning. Dre’s appears in the Mt. Pleasant area, close to the National Zoo. The rendering detail is exquisite, and the first thing they hear is the distant screeching of monkeys.

“Too bad we didn’t get West B-more,” Dre says.

“West Baltimore might be too dangerous even for mechs,” Alexei says.

“Very funny.”

The drone Dre has chosen is the Chinese-built Dark Sword, which is designed for both speed and stealth, and is equipped with a sensible combination of optics and ordnance. He looks at his aerial view, which has already started marking ammunition depots and monitoring both movement and heat signatures in an attempt to identify and pinpoint his adversaries.

The boy immediately begins moving south at top speed through Adams Morgan, then veers east at Dupont Circle. There are plenty of cars and trucks scattered throughout the streets but none of them are moving. The MAD core engine is capable of modeling several types of civilian scenarios from crowds of panicked tourists, to civil uprising, to post-apocalyptic desolation. In this scenario, it appears the city has been evacuated, which means collateral damage will not be a consideration.

“Aren’t you going to attract a lot of attention moving that fast?” Alexei asks cautiously.

The boy is pounding down Massachusetts Avenue and around Mt. Vernon Square at close to top speed. “That’s kind of the point,” he tells Alexei.

The Mako continues almost to the eastern edge of the city before turning south again and crossing Pennsylvania Avenue. As it moves, there is the occasional flicker of tracer fire and the whine of passing machine gun rounds, but nothing connects. Alexei sees that Dre has essentially bisected the heart of the city, skirted its perimeter, and is now spiraling in toward the Washington Monument. Three enemy mechs have revealed themselves on his aerial view and are doing their best to track him, but in the process they have also been brought into range of one another’s fire. It starts off with the hum of depleted uranium being spit through the spinning barrels of miniguns, and quickly escalates into the concussion of massive detonations. None of this is on Dre’s screen, however, since his mech is facing the base of the Washington Monument, where it lifts a well-articulated clawed foot and kicks through the glass entrance, then retracts its missile batteries and ducks through the jagged opening. It is dark inside, but the machine’s floodlights are enough for the boy to find the spiral staircase leading up to the tallest point in the city. By the twelfth landing, the passage has gotten almost too narrow to pass through and the surface area of the steps has diminished enough that even with the dynamic terrain adaptation system built into the mech’s hydraulic-jointed treads, the machine is not as steady as Andre would like. He begins scanning the bricks around him until he finds the inscription.

“Look at this,” he says. He zooms until the words fill the screen.

MAY THE FREE CONSTITUTION WHICH IS THE WORK OF OUR ANCESTORS BE SACREDLY MAINTAINED AND ITS ADMINISTRATION BE STAMPED WITH WISDOM AND VIRTUE.

“What the hell is that?” Alexei says.

“A prayer from the city of Baltimore.”

“Don’t you think you should be playing rather than sightseeing?”

“I am playing,” Dre says. “Just wait.”

There’s a massive explosion somewhere below, at which point the boy instantly fires a .50-caliber round directly through the brick with the inscription, repositions, and fires a second round through the brick underneath. The screen is filled with mortar dust from the shock of the detonation down below.

“What the hell was that?” Alexei asks.

“That was the first kill of the game,” Dre says, “and the diversion I needed to poke some holes in this thing without drawing attention.”

Through the top hole, Alexei and Dre can see a black mushroom cloud above the reflecting pool against the backdrop of the Lincoln Memorial. The boy makes a slight adjustment to bring the World War II Memorial into view, and the two massive mechs—a Requiem and a Hammerhead—circling each other within the confines of the pillars, all four 7.62mm miniguns exploding with muzzle flash and the phosphor of tracer rounds. Dre waits until the Requiem is moving toward him in order to minimize its lateral movement, then fires a .50-caliber round into the side of the machine’s head, then two more into its torso. As the mech falls to its knees, the Hammerhead makes the mistake of pausing while it attempts to locate the direction of fire. The Mako has already repositioned, and the Hammerhead is knocked backwards into the shallow water by three successive rounds through its head. Dre does not wait for them to self-destruct before turning and negotiating back down the stairs.

“Fucking brilliant!” Alexei blurts out. “Wait. Don’t you want to make sure they’re down?”

“Hells no,” the boy says with urgency in this voice. “I just attracted a lot of attention.”

The two nuclear self-destruct detonations are nearly simultaneous. The Mako exits the memorial’s lobby using the same hole through which it entered and is no more than a dozen long strides away when there is a massive explosion overhead. As Dre continues to distance himself from the structure, he rotates the mech’s torso in time to watch all 555 feet of the tallest obelisk in the world collapse into a massive white plume of dust and debris.

“What the fuck?” Alexei says.

“Drone attack. See why I had to get the hell out of there?”

“Whose drone?”

“Don’t know, don’t care—as long as I wasn’t inside.”

“Why did those two go down so easily? Shouldn’t it have taken more than just sniper fire?”

“Their armor isn’t that heavy,” Dre explains. “To compensate, it’s reactive. That means it uses electromagnetic pulses to dampen and deflect impacts. But when you’re a retarded dumbass punk and you go toe-to-toe right out in the open even though you know damn well there are other mechs around, your capacitors are going to run down, and Don’t Blink’s going to snipe your sorry ass.”

“Fucking brilliant,” Alexei says again.

“Actually, it’s called slop,” the boy says. “But that don’t make them any less dead, so I’ll take that shit.”

The Mako starts moving east down the lawn toward the Capitol. The dome has been rendered in meticulous detail right down to the gradual deformation caused by season after season of water freezing and thawing inside the thousands of cracks in the roughly nine million pounds of cast iron. The Statue of Freedom pitches a few degrees to the right as though perpetually caught in the moment between regaining her balance and cascading over the edge. Dre is instinctively piloting the machine in an erratic pattern impossible for a sniper to lead when the sound of intense battle erupts from the north.

The boy turns toward McPherson Square and passes at top speed between the White House and Freedom Plaza. There’s another thermonuclear detonation to the northwest and Dre scans until he finds the mushroom cloud. When he glances at his aerial view, he sees that the Dark Sword has identified all five of the remaining operational mechs and pinpointed their locations. All of them are up ahead.

Dre turns west on M Street towards Georgetown, then south on Wisconsin. With the number of drones in the air and the amount of movement and engagement on the ground, it’s safe to assume that everyone is fully situationally aware at this point. Although he has slowed down and moved from the middle of the street to the brick sidewalk beside the empty shops and restaurants in order to minimize his exposure, he knows damn well that the stationary red dot he’s approaching sees him coming.

“What the hell are you up to?” Dre wants to know.

The Mako stops beside the Thai embassy. Dre still does not have a visual on the red dot which his aerial view clearly shows as almost directly in front of him, so he is hesitant to continue until he understands what’s happening. When the Mako’s missile warning system lights up, however, and he sees two contrails originating from the elevated Whitehurst Freeway above him, it all makes sense. The Thresher he’s been hunting is ghosting; after emanating enough heat to make sure it burned an impression on everyone’s aerial view, it used an array of copper, silver alloy, and diamond powder heat sinks to collect its thermal energy and mask its signature while it moved into a more strategic position. It’s such an obvious and amateurism maneuver—easily defeated by even the most basic pixel-comparison motion detection algorithms, had Dre thought to apply the proper overlay to his aerial view—that he had not seen it coming.

Dre is careful not to react too quickly. If he maneuvers too soon, the missiles’ targeting systems will have time to adjust. The trick is to wait long enough that the tracking mechanisms cannot course-correct, but also react quickly enough as to be as far away from the point of impact as possible in order to minimize splash damage.

The Mako launches itself in a direction perpendicular to the path of the two projectiles and avoids a direct hit. It still sustains some residual damage as it is knocked to the ground, but nothing that the boy cannot easily compensate for. The Thresher has made the decision to close in rather than risk wasting additional munitions, which gives Dre time to get his feet beneath him again and move east down South Street. Threshers are medium-sized mechs which can cover short distances with surprising speed, so even with a head start, Dre cannot be assured there won’t be additional contact. The boy is trying to balance the need to move fast enough to delay the confrontation with the need to save enough power for his active armor to be effective in case he can’t. He turns north on Thirty-First Street, but before he can find a storefront or an alley in which to conceal himself, he is under fire again, this time from up ahead. The Thresher’s attack attracted the attention of a nearby Silvertip who probably sensed an easy kill and rightly anticipated Dre’s route.

“Mother. Fucker,” Dre says.

There is a pause while the Silvertip’s two hypervelocity miniguns reload, and then they erupt with extreme violence and ferocity. Dre’s active armor is effectively minimizing the impact of the depleted uranium and tungsten carbide rounds, but as the Mako was designed more for speed than sustained engagement, its power is draining fast. Long streams of rounds begin to miss as the boy dodges and returns fire, but he knows he is only buying himself a small amount of time. Even without the Thresher coming up behind him, Dre knows that a direct confrontation with a Silvertip will not end in his favor.

Whatever rounds Dre is managing to evade are more than replaced by a fresh dual stream of minigun fire from the Thresher behind him. Dre is trapped between the two mechs who have absolutely nothing to lose by sending every round they have downrange as fast as they possibly can. Rather than panicking, however, the boy only becomes more focused.

His fingers are playing frantically over the keypads while he does his best to avoid as much fire as he can. He pauses long enough to launch an entire battery of missiles toward the Silvertip, turn, and empty the second battery toward the Thresher. In the span of only a few milliseconds, both mechs’ active protection systems have computed the trajectories of the incoming projectiles and launched countermeasures. All eight missiles are destroyed well before they can reach their targets, but the Mako’s batteries have already been reloaded, and before the machine gun fire can commence, Dre repeats the sequence: four missiles up the street toward the Silvertip, and four down the street toward the Thresher. This time, he does not wait to see what happens. The boy turns to his aerial view, targets the Silvertip, and launches one of the Dark Sword’s two air-to-surface missiles. Before the missile has reached its top speed of mach 2.5, he has also targeted the Thresher and let the second missile go. All eight of Dre’s repeat barrage were again effectively destroyed, but with no more countermeasures remaining, there is nothing to stop the two solid-rocket, precision-strike, Thunderbolt missiles from scoring direct hits. The moment the one hundred pounds of antitank shaped charges inside the armor-piercing tips have reached an effective depth, they rip both the Thresher and the Silvertip so thoroughly apart that their thermonuclear self-destruct mechanisms do not even bother to arm.

Alexei punches the air. “Yes!” he shouts behind the boy. “You’re a fucking genius, Dre!”

“Not so fast,” the boy says. He takes his hands off the controls and his fingers pop as he makes fists. “I’m alive, but I just used up all my heavy ordnance. There are three more mechs out there, and all I got left is my fifty cal and miniguns.”

“Can you still win?”

“Not if I don’t reload.”

Dre checks his aerial view. The closest ammunition depot is about a mile and half north at the Naval Observatory. He puts his hands back on the control pads and continues up Thirty-First Street rather than cutting back over to Wisconsin. When the road ends at R Street, he continues straight ahead through Montrose Park.

Alexei is squinting at the aerial view. “Where did everyone go?”

“They’re not moving and they’re capturing their heat.”

“Why?”

“Because they want to see what I do next.”

Alexei smiles. “They’re afraid of you,” he says.

“They ain’t afraid,” Andre says. “They’re adapting.”

The boy does not approach the observatory directly, but instead turns east at the New Zealand embassy and follows the northeast direction of the road marking the perimeter of the observatory grounds.

“Where are you going?” Alexei asks.

“Just taking a little look around first,” Dre says.

He passes the British embassy, then turns west toward the former home of the vice president. Everything but the concrete and steel blast bunker was destroyed decades ago by some sort of cyclonic weapon developed by domestic terrorists, and the game designers have re-created the ruins faithfully. The ammunition depot is just beyond in the observatory’s telescope dome—an iconic but otherwise empty structure since the historic 26-inch refractor was sold to a private collector.

Dre pauses at the edge of the lawn and conducts what he suspects is a largely futile visual sweep. The Dark Sword is still not picking up any heat or movement. The boy knows that the ammunition depot is a risk, but he also knows that without replacement ordnance and fresh fuel cells, he might be able to prolong the game, but he cannot win it. He suspects the other mechs will not attack each other so long as they know that there is one among them at such a significant disadvantage—one who represents such easy prey.

The Mako begins taking slow and deliberate steps across the lawn, and it isn’t until the missile warning system lights up that Dre realizes what is happening. The other three mechs appear around him on his aerial view just as six missiles from three different positions slam directly into the Mako’s hull. Alexei screams something that Dre cannot understand, but the boy makes no attempt to evade or counter the attack. As the screen goes white and the Mako is incinerated by a thermonuclear blast of its own creation, the boy takes his hands off the control pads. The heavy watch on his wrist slides down his arm as he covers his face with his hands.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Alexei and Dre are making excellent time this morning as they are blindly conveyed through the city in the preposterously bulbous Cherry Brilliance. Rush hour is actually the best time to be on the road in LA these days; the entire city is auto-drive enabled, which not only means that the flow of traffic is algorithmically and holistically optimized, but that there hasn’t been a severe accident not associated with suicide or sabotage in almost a decade. The general principle is that the more cars there are on the road, the more sensors there are providing the system with input, and the more effectively and accurately everyone’s route can be calculated. With nonpneumatic tires (a stiff and open polymer honeycomb structure inside a thin, steel-reinforced rubber tread), it’s impossible to get a flat, and with Predictive Diagnostic Modeling technology standard in all vehicles, it’s exceedingly rare for a car to malfunction before it can either figure out a way to compensate, or locate and automatically navigate to the nearest qualified service center.

Dre has communicated little since getting knocked out of the tournament except to express that he wants to return to Baltimore. Alexei agreed to take the boy back as promised, but after receiving an unexpected call from a man introducing himself as Noah Fielding of Pearl Knight Holdings, he convinced Andre to postpone any decisions until after the three of them had an opportunity to meet. Fielding did not say why he was interested in the boy, but he insisted that it would be well worth the time of everyone involved.

“So what’s your theory?” Alexei asks the boy.

The glass begins to clear up and they see that they are in the heart of downtown LA. The two seats in the Brilliance are close enough together that it’s difficult for Dre to isolate himself and to appear as withdrawn as he would doubtlessly like, but that isn’t stopping him from doing his very best. He is turned as far as possible away from Alexei, watching the congestion on the sidewalk. “I don’t know. Probably just a sponsorship offer.”

“What does that mean?”

“It basically means they’ll pay me to play.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Alexei says. “How much?”

“Not very much,” the boys says. “Definitely not enough to overthrow a government, that’s for sure.”

“You never know,” Alexei says. “But even if it’s not, it might be a good way to train for the next tournament.”

“That’s two years away,” Dre says. “Those people need my help now.”

Alexei is trying to think of something constructive to say when all four wheels of the Brilliance pivot and the vehicle carves a smooth arc into a garage entrance. The auto-drive navigation system chimes.

“Arrival time: eight fifty-six. You are four minutes early.”

The hatch in front of them swings open and Alexei and Dre step out. Smiling at them from the carpeted curb is a petite brown-eyed and raven-haired woman in a sheer charcoal blouse and a pair of impeccably fitted white pants that somehow manage to be almost obscenely seductive while still maintaining the requisite modicum of corporate professionalism. Alexei tries not to leer as the woman attempts to identify her guests by checking her handset.

“Mr. Strasser and Mr. Drovosek?”

She pronounces Alexei’s name almost flawlessly and with a fairly convincing Russian accent. Alexei gives Dre a chance to respond, but the boy is looking down at his shoes. “Yes, that’s us,” Alexei finally says.

“Just follow the hall,” the woman tells them, gesturing to the glass door behind her, “and take the escalator at the end. Mr. Fielding is waiting for you upstairs.”

“Thank you.”

“Dobro pozhalovat,” the woman says with a smile that, under different circumstances, would have Alexei clearing his calendar all the way through sunrise the next morning. When she touches her handset, the hatch on the Brilliance swings closed and the vehicle begins rolling forward to find the spot in which it has just been instructed to park.

The escalator ascends in a spiral clearly designed to conceal what’s at the top, and hence to build up a little suspense and anticipation. Even as he is sulking, Dre cannot help but turn and look above and behind him. As the lobby opens up, they see that it is several stories tall, and although the building appears opaque from the street, from the inside, all the outer walls are transparent. The ceiling consists of dozens of irregular cuts of mirrored glass from which dangle intricate, interlocking, and slowly rotating mobiles. There are at least a dozen multicopter drones negotiating the obstacles with incredible precision—darting through diminishing gaps, rolling and banking through opening slits, and occasionally yielding to one another when their paths cross. In the center of the room, there is a giant concrete cylinder with several glass screens curved perfectly along the base of the column, each one showing the perspective of a different drone. Where the screens end, there are thick glass risers embedded in the concrete which form an almost invisible spiral staircase leading up to a glass catwalk suspended by thin cables and providing passage into the constantly metamorphosing world of the drones.

Alexei can’t see a reception desk, but among all the small groups of people purposefully crossing the lobby, one man stands still with his hands clasped behind his back and a smile on his face big enough to show discolored teeth.

“Welcome to Pearl Knight,” the man says as Alexei and the boy approach. His wispy hair is a nicotine yellow, and his eyebrows are so light they are hard to see against his ruddy complexion. His teeth are just stained enough to complement the overall flaxen effect.

The spectacle of the lobby has engaged Dre, and he suddenly appears much less sullen. When the man offers his hand, the boy forgets his moodiness and takes it without hesitation.

“I’m Noah Fielding.”

“Andre,” the boy says. “Strasser.”

“I’m very pleased to meet you, Andre.” The man turns to Alexei. “And you must be Mr. Drovosek. I hope I’m pronouncing that correctly.”

“Close enough,” Alexei says, though Fielding could clearly do with some Russian lessons from the receptionist downstairs. The two men shake firmly.

“It’s a spectacular building, isn’t it? This is one of seventeen we have all over the world—each one unique, but all just as magnificent.”

“It doesn’t look like much from the outside,” Alexei says.

“We try not to attract too much attention from the street,” Fielding says. “But inside, we can do whatever we want.”

Dre is looking back up at the ceiling. “Do they ever crash?”

“Never,” Fielding says. “They’re programmed to explore the world up there any way they want, and to avoid contact with all obstacles. After we installed it, we threw tennis balls up there to try to trip them up, but they’ve never made a single mistake. They even recognize themselves in the mirrors.”

“What happens when they need power?”

“They find their way to a charging station, then take off again when they’re ready. They’ve been up there day and night for over six years, which actually makes them pretty out of date, but we’ve been so busy, we haven’t had time to replace them.”

“Sublime,” is all the boy can think to say.

“Indeed they are.”

“Can I go up there?”

“Why don’t you save that for the way out,” the man says. “I have something to show you that I think you’ll find much more interesting.” He taps his cheek below his eye in order to indicate Dre’s prosthetic. The glow is gradually transitioning from orange to red. “You aren’t recording, are you?”

“No,” the boy says. “It can, but I’m not.”

“Good. In that case, follow me.”

As they walk, the man turns to Alexei. “Are you Andre’s legal guardian, Mr. Drovosek?”

“No. He lives with me, but he’s an emancipated minor.”

“Ah,” the man says. “Well I appreciate you accompanying him nonetheless.”

“We look out for each other,” Alexei says.

They stop in front of the elevator bank, but the man does not reach for the wall. All the doors are perfectly round and consist of several brushed steel blades which converge like the aperture of a camera lens. The door closest to them opens by the blades swiftly and silently retracting. Fielding steps inside, and after Alexei and Dre follow, they are addressed by a formal and meticulous female voice.

“Good morning, Mr. Fielding.”

“Good morning, Pearl. Lower Observation Deck C, please.”

“Yes, Mr. Fielding.” The blades constrict. “Just one moment.”

“And make sure all the lights are off on the main floor.”

“I understand, Mr. Fielding. I’ve turned the external lights off, but kept the internal lights on for the safety of you and your guests.”

“Perfect. Thank you, Pearl.”

“You’re welcome.”

The elevator is a cylindrical brushed steel capsule without so much as a single button or panel to interrupt its flawless lines. As they ease into a smooth accelerated descent, Alexei feels almost weightless. The contraption is clearly electromagnetically operated as opposed to being mechanical.

“I’m sure you’re wondering why I invited you here,” Fielding says to the boy. “But before I get to that, there are two things I want to explain: first, why Pearl Knight makes MAD; and second, why we give it away for free.”

The capsule decelerates so gently that it isn’t until the door dilates into a wide opening that Alexei is certain they’ve completely stopped. He and the boy follow Fielding out into a long, black glass tube. It is lit from the inside, and since the space outside the tube is dark, the reflection makes it impossible to see what’s around them.

“MAD isn’t actually a game,” the man explains. He is strolling slowly along the length of the tube, his hard leather heels striking a high muted tone against the dense glass surface. Alexei and Andre stay just behind, peering futilely through the glare into the blackness. “It’s more of a simulation. Did you know that?”

The boy tries cupping his hands around his eyes to see into the darkness. “No.”

Fielding stops and turns. “Now that you know that, any idea why we’d give it away for free?”

The boy shakes his head.

“Pearl,” the man says. “Invert the lights.”

“Yes, Mr. Fielding.”

The illuminated strip above their heads fades as spotlights come up outside.

“We give it away so we can find the best pilots in the world.”

The room the glass tube bisects is massive in every dimension, and is lined on both sides with the menacing and bristling machinery of war. The mechs on the right are smaller than the height of the tube, but as the models get larger, they begin to rise high up into the space above them. On the other side of the room is a long line of aerial drones, each parked at a perfect forty-five degree angle, and each hung with its maximum payload.

“This is something not many people have seen,” the man says. He gives his guests a few more moments to take in what’s around them. “So what do you think?”

“You mean these things are all real,” the boy says. He seems to be stating a fact rather than asking a question.

“Absolutely,” Fielding says. He has started walking again and Andre and Alexei follow. “Pearl Knight Holdings manages a lot of different kinds of businesses. One of those businesses happens to be a video game studio, and another happens to be a defense contractor. MAD is where those two businesses intersect.”

They have reached the Shark class of mechs, and the boy stops.

“There’s your Mako,” the man says. “How does it look in real life?”

“A lot bigger.”

“It’s also a lot more fun to pilot in real life,” the man says. “You want to give it a try?”

The boy raises his eyebrows. “Right now?”

Fielding smiles. “Everything in this room is technically functional, but nothing is actually armed or charged. I’m not asking you if you want to play around with models, Andre. I’m offering you a job.”

The boy looks at Alexei, then back to Fielding. “A job doing what?”

“Piloting some of the most advanced military hardware the world has ever seen. Basically doing exactly what you did in the tournament, except doing it for real.”

“But I lost,” the boy says. In his tone, there is just a touch of implication that Fielding must be an idiot. “I didn’t even finish in the top three.”

“You might have lost, but I’ve never seen anyone so effective with a Mako before. You should have seen how excited everyone was watching you play, Andre. We’ve all probably watched the replay at least a dozen times. And if I’m not mistaken, you only have a few months’ experience under your belt, is that correct?”

The boy shrugs. “About that.”

Fielding takes a moment to appraise the boy. “Andre, do you even know why you lost?”

“Because I walked right out into the open like a dumbass.”

The man shakes his head. “That’s not it at all,” he tells the boy. “You lost because everyone left in the game teamed up against you. There was absolutely no way you could have beaten three medium to heavy mechs, all working together. Nobody could have.”

“Doesn’t really matter, though, does it?” the boy says. “You should be talking to the winner instead of me.”

“Believe me, we’re talking to her, too,” Fielding says. “But we’re primarily interested in you. You see, Andre, it isn’t necessarily about who wins the tournament. It’s about who we think has the best instincts. I understand you grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood. Is that right?”

“Yeah, you might say that.”

“Well, we think that’s given you instincts that most of our players have never had a chance to develop, and that simply can’t be instilled through training. I mean look at what you did, Andre. You killed four out of ten mechs with nothing but a little Mako. That’s practically unheard of. And you might not have killed the first mech, but you certainly lured him to his death. There’s no doubt in my mind that if everyone hadn’t teamed up against you, you would have won the whole thing.”

“So why isn’t it against the rules, then?”

“What, forming alliances? It’s not against the rules because there are no rules. Remember, it isn’t about who wins. Theoretically you can win just by ghosting the entire time and letting everyone else slaughter each other. You’d walk away with the money, but you sure as hell wouldn’t be standing here right now. What we’re interested in is how people play—not who wins. And you have just the right balance of intelligence, aggression, patience, resourcefulness, and most of all, instinct. Andre, watching you play was truly inspiring.”

Alexei puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He’s right, Dre. You’re very gifted.”

“You certainly are,” Fielding says. “And now we want to give you the opportunity to put that gift to use doing something much bigger than just playing games. What do you think?”

“I don’t know,” the boy says. “Would I have to move again?”

“That’s up to you. You can move if you want, or you can stay here and we can fly you to wherever you’re needed.”

“You mean like into war zones?”

“Absolutely not,” Fielding insists. “You’re far too valuable to ever be put in harm’s way. All of our operations are conducted from fully secure remote command centers. You’ll be thousands of miles away from the action. We can and will guarantee your safety at all times. That’s a promise.”

“Where are the command centers?”

“Unfortunately, I can’t tell you that. In fact, most of the time, you won’t even be allowed to know where you are. But I can tell you that we have several permanent installations in the United States, and several mobile command centers, including marine, submarine, and aerial. But we also have some very fast passenger jets and priority access to every major airport in the country, which means you can live wherever you want. On most days, we can pick you up an hour or two before your shift, and have you home in time for dinner.”

“Would I get paid for doing this?”

The man does a poor job at stifling a chuckle. “Yes, Andre. You will most certainly get paid for this. Your job would be to pilot trillions of dollars’ worth of extremely advanced hardware. There are only a handful of people on the entire planet who can do that. It’s in everyone’s best interest to make sure you are extremely well compensated.”

The boy looks up at Alexei for a moment, then back at Fielding.

“What about my vote?” he says.

“Pardon me?”

“My vote. The Thirty-first Amendment says you can take away my vote.”

“I was under the impression that you’re still a minor.”

“I am, but for when I turn eighteen.”

“Andre, it’s important to understand that we don’t take anyone’s vote away. The Thirty-first Amendment simply states that employees can entrust their votes to their employers who then cast those votes in a manner consistent with their employees’ best interests. That’s all.”

“I think what he’s asking,” Alexei interjects, “is whether or not his contract will contain a suffrage clause.”

“Transfer of suffrage is standard in all Pearl Knight employment contracts,” Fielding says, “however exceptions can be made for certain candidates. Andre, if voting is something you feel strongly about, I’m sure we can work something out.”

“It is,” the boy says.

“Understood,” the man says. “Does that mean you’re interested?”

The boy turns and looks out through the glass. “I don’t know,” he says. “Maybe.”

“Mr. Fielding,” Alexei says, “is there a place Dre and I can talk in private for a few minutes?”

“Absolutely,” Fielding says. “You two stay here and talk as long as you want. I’ll meet you up in the lobby when you’re ready. Pearl will make sure you find your way.”

“Thank you.”

Fielding pats the boy’s shoulder on his way past. The elevator has not moved so Fielding doesn’t have to wait. When the portal’s blades have fully constricted, Alexei turns to the boy.

“What are you thinking, Dre?”

“I don’t know,” the boy says. He is still looking at the machinery outside the tube. “Me and you had a plan. There are millions of people out there who need our help—people who are probably my ancestors. I don’t want to just walk away from that.”

“That’s over for now,” Alexei says. “The reality is that there’s nothing for you to walk away from anymore.”

“Why’s it gotta be over?” Dre asks. “Maybe I can make as much money doing this as I would have if I’d won the tournament.”

“I imagine you’ll eventually make a lot more,” Alexei says, “but that’s not money we can use. Not now. You have to understand that the moment you walked into this building, it became impossible for you to help me. You heard what Fielding just said. He already knows you’re from West Baltimore, and he probably even knows the exact neighborhood if not the exact house you grew up in. You’re not anonymous anymore, which means you need to be very careful about your decisions. The best thing for you to do at this point is take the job and use the money to help yourself and to help your family back home.”

“But I owe you.”

“Dre,” Alexei says. He waits for the boy to turn, then kneels on the glass walkway to look him in the eye. “Listen to me. You don’t owe anybody anything. Do you understand? Don’t ever forget that. The only person on this planet you owe anything to is yourself.”

“But I wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for you.”

“I didn’t bring you here to work for me,” Alexei tells the boy. “I brought you here because I believed that you were capable of doing something amazing, and I still believe that. In fact, I believe that now more than ever. Don’t let this opportunity go, Dre. You can still make your mark on the world.”

“How am I supposed to do that working here?”

Alexei stands again and smiles down at the boy. “That I don’t know, Andre,” he says, “but something tells me that when the time comes, you’ll figure it out.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Dre’s first mission is, as expected, classified, and naturally is to be conducted from an undisclosed location. His hair is short now, having been shaved almost bald during training (he was extremely self-conscious until Ki confessed to preferring it short), and he is wearing one of the five custom-tailored flight suits and pairs of boots he was issued after pilot school graduation. It is early, and Dre has been instructed not to eat, so he and Alexei do not have breakfast together, though Alexei is waiting for the boy in the kitchen. They walk together through the house to the garage, and right up to the door of Dre’s graduation present: the bright crimson Cherry Brilliance. Alexei shakes Dre’s hand, wishes him luck, and then watches the boy vanish as the glass dome brightens to full opacity.

Before Dre could begin his pilot training, he was required to pass a series of evaluations. The physical requirements were all straightforward, though one exception had to be made. PKS pilots are expected to have perfect vision in both eyes, and had Dre submitted an application as opposed to having been recruited, his resume would not have even made it past the initial prerequisite filters. The solution—which Fielding himself both proposed and signed off on—was simply to postpone Dre’s final perception test by one year. There is no stipulation that a pilot’s eyes have to be uncorrected, so Dre’s file states that his vision is to be retested once his ocular therapy is complete.

The rest of the evaluations were psychological and primarily designed to ensure that recruits were mentally sound and capable of functioning under high levels of stress. The final test determined the boy’s ability to obtain the necessary security clearances; it attempted to detect signs of influence by foreign governments and/or domestic enemies through interviews conducted under magnetic resonance spectroscopic observation.

Once the boy was cleared, his pilot training took place in two primary locations: classwork and simulator exercises were held in what was once an Air Force space and missile command center in El Segundo, California, and all of his field training was conducted from a series of bases at the edge of the Mojave Desert in Indian Springs, Nevada. The facilities in the desert gave Dre hands-on experience with every mech, drone, and ordnance currently in use by PKS in a wide variety of geographical contexts, including wide open plains, mountains, dozens of square blocks of replicated urban environments, and hundreds of acres of tropical rain forest, frozen tundra, and savanna grassland. The more exotic environments were contained beneath close to a million ballistic glass panels set into sprawling carbon nanotube space frames which, together, constituted by far the largest and most complex enclosed ecological systems on the planet. All four months of Dre’s training focused almost exclusively on procedures, weapons systems, and maneuvers; more mundane topics like geopolitics, national security strategy, and even the finer points of the chain of command were to be learned on the job and on an as-needed basis.

At LAX, Dre is picked up by an unmarked aircraft of a design he has never seen before. It is an amalgamation of a luxury jet and a stealth fighter with a dramatic, triangular, blended-wing configuration built around a short, gently flowing fuselage. It reminds the boy of what you might get if you tried to lengthen an exotic sports car into a limousine. The pilot enters the cockpit from the top while Dre boards via portable passenger steps. The inside is furnished like a small sailboat with a tiny kitchen, cushioned benches around a table, a few screens, and a closet-sized lavatory. There are no windows, but after the whine of the aircraft’s single engine reaches its maximum pitch, Dre does not need to see outside to know that they are taking off in a perfectly vertical orientation.

The boy is hungry and eats the high-protein meal of steak, eggs, and fortified milk which is waiting for him in a glass cabinet in the galley. The plane slows after about ninety minutes, and Dre is momentarily alarmed by the sounds he hears from above him until he realizes that they are probably just engaged in an aerial refueling maneuver. They accelerate back to their previous speed and continue for roughly two more hours before slowing again. This time it is not to refuel, but to drop into a controlled vertical descent. Their total flight time is just under three and half hours—plenty of time, Dre knows, for such an aircraft to have covered several thousands of miles in any given direction.

The tilting and listing of the plane during its descent transitions into a much wider-scale sway upon touchdown, and Dre realizes that they are not on tarmac but rather have landed on some sort of a ship. He is not entirely surprised since the only reason to incur the additional expense and complication of an aircraft capable of vertical takeoff and landing is to either reach small clearings in forested regions, or to land on a ship without an arresting wire to absorb the energy of a traditional landing. He is provided with a short ladder rather than steps, and when he looks around from the deck, he sees that he is on something he can only describe as a combination aircraft carrier and yacht. He sees two more planes similar to his, and two small white helicopters with shrouded tail rotors and prominent twin engines, but there isn’t room for much else. The winds are strong and salty, and Dre sees no hint of land as he checks as much of the horizon as he can before being ushered below.

He is led down two metal staircases by a single unarmed man in a black uniform—cargo pants, commando sweater, and a beret—whose body language is not so much threatening as it is insistent. The routine seems designed to allow the boy to take in as little as possible, to discourage him from asking even a single question, and to keep him so off-balance and distracted that he doesn’t have time to wonder what the hell he has gotten himself into.

There is a hatch in the floor at the bottom of the stairs and Dre can tell from the levers and gaskets that it leads to a separate vessel. He is invited to descend the rungs welded to the inside of the passage and into the dim red lighting which he knows from his training is designed to preserve night vision in a darkened environment. The green glow in his prosthetic eye is more prominent below than it was topside. A woman awaits him at the foot of the ladder and greets him with a surprisingly warm smile.

“Good morning, Andre.” The woman offers her hand and Dre takes it with just enough hesitancy to betray his surprise at the lack of military formality. “I’m Commander Helvenston. Are you ready for your first day?”

The boy can hear the hatch being sealed above their heads. The woman in front of him is wearing a blue T-shirt, oceanic digital camouflage pants, high black boots, and a sizable sidearm—probably loaded with frangible rounds incapable of piercing a plated hull. Her cap has the profile of a long sleek submarine stitched across the forehead along with the words “P.K. Megalodon” in yellow above.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Great. Follow me. I’ll show you to your console.”

The floor is a soft rubberized material which provides their boots with a firm grip. As the vessel begins to dive, both Dre and the woman in front of him reach for the rails lining the narrow passage. The woman speaks without turning.

“Have you ever been on a submarine before?”

From the back, Dre can see that the woman’s hair is actually cut short as opposed to just being tucked up beneath her cap. “No, ma’am.”

Helvenston stops. She checks the dense black dive watch strapped to her wrist. It’s the same model issued to Dre and consists of a compression-proof, silicon oil-filled titanium case, a carbon fiber dial, tritium tubes which create permanent radioluminescence for effective visibility in all lighting conditions, a chip-scale cesium module that measures time down to a millionth of a second (and calibrates with all Pearl Knight wireless networks), and a Kevlar-weave cuff with a Velcro shroud that can be used to obscure the illumination and keep the six-millimeter-thick synthetic sapphire crystal from flashing in the moonlight. Dre’s Patek Philippe Nautilus is being given the day off and now rests on the nightstand beside his bed.

“We don’t have time for an actual tour, but I can give you a quick virtual one. Would you like that?”

The boy does his best to sound professional and even a tad dispassionate—to not come across as a little kid on his first tour of an underwater war machine. “Yes, ma’am. If we have time.”

She turns to the panel above the rail. “Pearl, show me a real-time schematic of the P.K. Megalodon.”

The voice is the same one Dre first heard in the elevator with Alexei and Fielding four months ago, and has since gotten to know quite well. “Yes, Commander.”

The panel shows a three-dimensional lateral cutaway of the Megalodon. Helvenston holds her hand up in front of the panel and pauses. After the diagram pulses once indicating a lock, it rotates and tilts in perfect synchronization with her hand. When she has found an angle she likes, she opens her fingers and the image zooms. As more of the hull cuts away, Dre notices that the image is not static; he can see dozens of icons indicative of rank moving throughout the vessel, each with a tiny callout hovering above.

“This is us,” Helvenston says. The image is no longer locked to her hand so she can point. The two icons are about a third of the way back from the nose of the sub and are labeled “CDR Helvenston” and “LT Strasser.” Dre wonders if their watches are exchanging more information with the network than just time synchronization markers.

“This is the hatch you just climbed down. Up here, we have our retractable masts, which is how you’ll be talking to the Mercury drones above us. This is the boat’s command and control center, and right below it is the remote command and control center where you’ll be working. Then we have the main sonar sphere, vertical launch tubes, horizontal torpedo tubes, the lockout trunk for staging special forces, and finally the reactor compartment, hydrogen fuel cells, engine room, and ballast tanks. Aside from a few rudders and the propulsor ducts, that’s about it.”

Dre points to a series of dark protrusions along the vessel’s hull. “What are these?”

“Those are part of our sonar array and AACS, or Active Acoustic Cloaking System. The Megalodon is a stealth sub. Any sound waves that reach us, we absorb, analyze, digitally re-create, then rebroadcast from the opposite side of the hull after an appropriate time delay. Our acoustic signature is usually anywhere from completely nonexistent to, at worst, that of a small school of fish.”

Sublime, the boy thinks, but keeps it to himself. “Why do we have a nuclear reactor and hydrogen fuel cells? Why not just one or the other?”

“Good question. We can get a lot more power out of the reactor, but the fuel cells don’t produce any heat, so when it’s more important to be invisible than to be fast, we switch over.”

“What kinds of weapons are we carrying?”

“Unfortunately, that’s highly classified, but let’s just say that there isn’t a land mass anywhere on Earth that we can’t attack.” Helvenston smiles. “And when I say attack, I’m not just talking about busting a bunker or two. I’m talking more in the neighborhood of total annihilation. But fortunately, that’s not my mission today. At least not yet.”

“What is your mission?”

“My mission is simple. Get you into international waters and keep you aligned with the Mercury array until you’ve completed your mission.”

“So what’s my mission?”

“That I don’t know. Your orders are for your ears only.”

Dre’s eyes narrow into a perplexed squint. “There’s something I don’t really get.”

“What’s that?”

“If we’re all on the same team here, why do we all keep so many secrets from each other? I mean I don’t even know which ocean we’re in right now. Wouldn’t we all work together much better if we at least knew each other’s orders?”

Helvenston smiles again, and something about the expression strikes Dre as inauthentic. “Don’t take it personally, Andre. It’s called information compartmentalization. You get used to it. Believe it or not, it’s actually for your own good.”

“I keep hearing that,” Dre says. “No offense, but it sounds a little like bullshit to me.”

Helvenston raises her eyebrows. This time she does not smile. “It may sound like bullshit to you, Andre, but it happens to be based on hundreds of years of military experience. Look at it this way: people like us have access to some of the most advanced and devastating weapons in the entire world. Imagine what the bad guys would do to know what we know. Imagine what lengths they would go to in order to try to get us to use those weapons in ways that benefit them instead of us. One of the best protections we have is the fact that we don’t even know where we’re going to be or what we’re going to be doing day to day, and if we don’t even know, that means the bad guys probably don’t know, either. The bottom line is the less we know, the safer we all are.”

“But it’s not like someone can make us do something we don’t want to do,” Dre says.

“Really?” Helvenston says. She looks mockingly astonished. “Not even if they kidnap your entire family and mail you a different body part each day until you agree to meet their demands? Let’s see… One day you might get a little ring box with a tooth or an ear or an eye. The next day, a long skinny flower box with a pretty little bow, but instead of long-stemmed roses, it might have an arm or part of a leg in it, broken in several places under the gradual pressure of a vice before it was amputated with a machete or a dull limb saw. And then finally, a nice big square box with a head in it and your instructions neatly folded and placed in your mother’s or your sister’s or your daughter’s mouth.” She pauses while Dre’s expression changes. “That’s not hypothetical, by the way. You’re not playing video games anymore, kid. You’re dealing with people’s lives now. Are we on the same page here, or do I need to give the order to resurface?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the boy says quickly. He tries to communicate subordination by straightening his posture. “We’re on the same page. I was just wondering.”

“Is there anything else you were just wondering about?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good,” Helvenston says. Her eyes linger on the boy a moment longer, then she checks her watch. “Then I guess we’d better get you to your console.”

Dre follows Helvenston through narrow passages lined with intricate arrangements of ducts, lines, tubes, and conduits. The boy is surprised by how few people they pass, and by how much of the vessel’s operations must be automated. The floors continue to be coated in a soft silicon material, and as they descend a set of spongy stairs, Dre makes the connection that the material is probably more for sound dampening than for traction.

“The remote command and control center is divided into pods,” Helvenston explains. “Since every pilot could have different orders and missions, everyone works in isolation. You’re in pod number four today.”

“Are there any other pilots on board?”

“Information compartmentalization,” Helvenston articulates carefully. “Try to keep that in mind.”

She pushes open the pod hatch, but does not enter. Dre steps into the room and sees that it is larger than he was expecting, and entirely lined with display panels. His console is set up according to his personal specifications on a metal surface in the corner along with a tall padded chair. There are two canisters fixed to the table with long bent straws positioned to be reachable without the use of hands. The flooring in the room is more of a mesh as opposed to solid silicone or rubber, and Dre sees that there are slots in the metal underneath—probably anchors to support changing the room’s configuration.

“You have water and protein at your console,” Helvenston says from outside the room. “We ask that you use headphones and speak directly into your mic in order to keep the noise down. Your commander will let me know when you need a break, and I will come get you. Do you have any questions?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Good,” Helvenston says. “I guess that means you’re finally learning.”

She smiles at Dre once more before pulling the hatch closed and bolting it from the outside.

Dre sits at the console and positions his headset. He adjusts the mic until it is directly in front of his mouth. “Andre Strasser reporting for duty.”

Pearl’s response comes through the headset. “Welcome, Lieutenant Strasser. Your console is now configured.”

Dre’s left and center screens come up, but they are dimmed. Dre places his hands over his control pads but does not lower them yet.

“Good morning, Lieutenant Strasser,” Dre hears. The voice is male and unfamiliar—young, but definitely older than Dre. “This is Commander Russak. Do you copy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Excellent. You ready to go to work today?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Outstanding, Pilot. Your call sign for today will be Arclight. Confirm.”

“Copy that,” Andre says. “Arclight.”

“Arclight it is. Now we’re going to start you off with something nice and easy on your first day in the saddle. How’s that sound?”

“That sounds good, sir.”

“You can drop the formality with me, Strasser. As long as you follow orders and everything’s meshing like it’s supposed to, we’re friends. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Dre says. “I mean yes, I understand.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” Russak says. “You’re taking over a mission already in progress, so all your toys are already out of the toy box. You got a Requiem on the ground and a Crossbow in the air. Tell me when you have visuals.”

As soon as Dre’s screens come up, he knows exactly where he is. The sudden recognition is like touching an unexpectedly live wire. He checks his aerial view for confirmation, takes a deep breath, and does his best to steady his voice. “Affirmative,” the boy says. “I have both visuals.”

“I love it when all this shit actually works,” Russak says. “Now, missions don’t get much simpler than this, so with a little luck, we’ll both be home in time for milk and cookies. You with me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Here’s what we got. You see that wall to the northwest?”

“I got it.”

“And you see that massive fucking mob to the east?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Our one and only job today is to make damn sure those people don’t get over, under, around, or through that wall. Do you copy?”

“Copy that.”

“Good. This is basically the most expensive and high-tech babysitting job in history. They got plenty of small arms, but nothing that can breach a barrier of that size, and certainly nothing that can chip your paint. But still, your weapons are hot, so if we see someone so much as look at that wall funny, we’re going to deal with them with some extreme motherfucking prejudice. Our orders are to make an example out of anyone we consider to be even marginally lacking in compliance. You with me?”

“Yes, sir,” Dre says. “Do we know what all those people want?”

“Who the fuck knows. Either food or democracy, probably. That’s pretty much what everyone around the world seems to want these days. But whatever it is they want, they ain’t getting it on our watch.”

“What’s on the other side of the wall?”

“Officially, that’s above both our pay grades, but unofficially, the entire government of Sierra Leone is holed up back there. Apparently the people who sign our paychecks would prefer none of them get overthrown anytime soon. Personally, I could give two shits who or what’s on the other side of that wall as long as it’s all still there eight hours from now. You copy?”

“Copy that,” Dre says. “Let’s just get through our shift and get home.”

“That’s what I’m talking about, my man. Now all I want you to do for now is walk around a little bit like the big menacing badass son of a bitch that you are, and I highly doubt anyone will so much as spit in your general direction. You got any questions?”

“No, sir,” Andre says. “It’s all good.”

“Outstanding, Pilot. In that case, I am transferring control to you in three… two… one… Arclight is now in play. Confirm transfer of control.”

Dre does not let himself think. His heart is pounding in his chest, his fingers are trembling from the adrenaline rush, and his palms are cold with sweat. When his hands make contact with his control pads, his actions are fluid and decisive. He switches to his aerial view, arms the Raijin air-to-surface missiles, and paints two targets: the first is a section of wall a hundred meters north of his position, and the second is the core of the Requiem. He fires, lets his hands fall away from the control pads, and stares straight ahead at what he has just done.

There is sudden screaming in Dre’s ears. “What the fuck, Strasser!”

There are tears on Dre’s cheeks as he snatches his headset off and slams it down on the console. Time takes on the surreality and underwater-pacing of a lucid dream as he listens to the hatch behind him being unsealed. When he turns, there is a figure coming at him, but it is Helvenston that he watches. She is moving slowly, her sidearm drawn and leveled at his face, her smile hateful and menacing.

In a single motion, Dre feels himself wrenched from his chair and pinned facedown to the rubber mesh. His arms are behind him and there is so much pressure on his chest from the knee in the middle of his back that he has to work hard to take in a breath. Simultaneously he hears the hiss of a jet injector syringe and feels a stinging in his shoulder.

“You little shit,” Helvenston says above him. He can see the toes of her boots and hear the scarcely contained rage in her voice. “I promise you that you will spend the rest of your life regretting what you just did.”

Dre can still hear screaming from the headset. He arches his back enough that he can lift his chin and turn his head toward the console, but the man on top of him drives him further into the mat. There is burning in his shoulders and his lungs are so compressed that he can no longer fill them. The smell of the rubber begins to fade. He makes small sounds with the last of his breath and static begins to form at the edge of his vision. The last thing the boy sees before he loses consciousness is black smoke and orange flames and an incredible mass of humanity surging forward as one.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was explained to Andre Strasser that Hotel California offered its guests a choice between two exclusive treatment packages. The Luxury Package consisted of comfortable and relaxing conversation under high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging capable of measuring the electrical field of each individual neuron, and P300 brainwave monitoring using EEG and a noninvasive electrode net worn over the head and face. As long as sessions progressed in a positive and productive manner, and assuming interrogators remained satisfied that the information being collected was both accurate and of acceptably high value, guests could expect a relatively stress-free and even reasonably comfortable stay.

The Alternative Package—or Enhanced Package, as it was sometimes called—was designed for guests who persisted in being less forthcoming. Hotel California staff had a great deal of technology at its disposal to ensure the validity of the data it sought; however most of it suffered from the same problem: it required the voluntary submission of specific details in a calm and highly controlled environment. If answers to questions were not provided willingly, therefore, the only alternative was to extract them.

Andre had refused to choose a package—in fact, he had little more than insults and vulgarities to offer anyone he came into contact with for his first few days of incarceration—so the Hotel California staff took the liberty of selecting one for him. Everything that happens to the boy now happens randomly—or rather, it is meticulously choreographed in a way that defies predictability. The lights might go off in the middle of a meal, or they might stay on for several consecutive days. Sometimes he is fed regularly, and sometimes nobody comes to his cell for so long that his head throbs from dehydration and his lips crack and bleed and he must resort to drinking his own dark and viscous piss to stay alive. When food is brought to him and he lifts the cover off the dish, he does not know if he is going to find a decomposing bird swarming with ants and maggots, or a hot sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit sandwich. And after he eats, he waits to see if the meal was spiked with psychotropic drugs that induce intense fear and paranoia, or make him pace around his cell and mutter things to himself that he cannot later remember, but that are invariably used against him during interrogations.

Sometimes it is warm and dry, and sometimes the sprinklers come on and the air from the ducts turns cold and he is left drenched and shivering under a tiny blanket until he is hypothermic. When he tries to sleep, he is awakened erratically by horrifying sounds coming from the speakers in the ceiling: shrieks of intense pain, the angry buzz of swarming insects, an infant wailing inconsolably for hours, or violent and painful vomiting.

When he hears the bolts slide in the door, it might be that he is about to be given a cold glass of water or an old comic book with which to distract himself, or he might have a bucket of scorpions or rats emptied over his head. When someone comes in to sit with him, he does not know if the man or woman in the black balaclava will hug him and reassure him that he will be home soon and that everything is going to be OK, or if he or she will abruptly slap him in the side of the head and try to rupture his eardrum. Dogs are brought into his cell—Doberman pinschers, German shepherds, and Rottweilers—and at their handlers’ commands, they will either wag their tails and lick Andre’s face, or strain against their harnesses as they try to tear his throat out. There is no toilet in his cell, so Andre has the choice of waiting for someone to take him to the lavatory, defecating on the floor, or using the diapers that are occasionally dropped through the slot in the thick metal door.

Before he leaves his cell, he is secured by the neck with an animal control catch pole. He is usually allowed to fall into a deep enough sleep that the door can be opened, someone can enter, and the noose can be slipped over his head without him resisting. He is awakened when the cable is tightened down to his throat and the man on the other end of the pole heaves him to his feet.

He is then escorted to one of three places: the planets, the funnel, or church. The planets are a row of graduated hollow concrete spheres under the floor with hatches that match their contours. He has been placed inside planets as small as a meter in diameter and as large as one and a half meters—just small enough that he cannot stand or fully stretch. He was told once that the longest he has been left inside one of the enclosed spheres is fourteen hours, and that they are authorized to leave him in for up to a week.

The funnel is precisely what its name implies: a giant plastic bowl that terminates in an opening too small for any human to fit through in any conceivable position. Prisoners are usually able to keep themselves away from the drain for anywhere from a few minutes up to several hours depending on their strength, but eventually their muscles fail or their fingernails buckle and they find themselves pinned in a position that—no matter how bearable it might seem at first—eventually yields excruciating pain and panic in the minutes, hours, and days that follow.

Church is a large and well-lit space of painted concrete block. In the center is a steel table bolted to the floor with a flimsy plastic lawn chair on either side. An instrument panel is suspended above the surface which cannot be seen clearly because of the intensity of the lighting around it. At one end of the room there is a device that looks like a seesaw, but rather than handles and seats, thick leather straps and buckles dangle from the plank. It is positioned close to the wall beside a long plastic washtub with several types of watering cans inside. There is a metal chair referred to as “the throne” with thick armrests and Kevlar restraints, and behind it is a shelf containing a wide variety of blunt wooden, leather, and plastic tools. Each implement is specifically designed to disperse the energy of its impact across the greatest number of surface nerve fibers in order to maximize the infliction of pain while simultaneously minimizing the risk of severe internal injury. In one corner of the room, there are hooks from which various types of straps, shackles, and ropes hang, and in the ceiling, floor, and walls around them are dozens of eye bolts set into the concrete. Intricate configurations of restraints woven through anchors and carabiners can be used to concentrate a prisoner’s entire weight onto a single muscle until it spasms, cramps, and finally utterly fails in a climax of blinding agony.

But the thing that Andre hates most in the room is the mirror. It is not a panel of one-way glass designed for discrete observation, but rather it is a sheet of polished steel bolted to the wall in which prisoners are forced to see what they have become. The boy’s prosthetic eye is now just a dead black orb, and the blood vessels around his good eye have ruptured and stained it a shocking color of red. His lips are dry and swollen and split by wide bloody fissures. For reasons he does not understand, one of his front teeth was left inside a hard piece of bread he found in his cell. His hair is long and matted, and his immature beard is growing in wiry black patches. He is bent and twisted, and the finger and toenails he has left are long and yellow. There is so little muscle and fat between his lesioned and oozing skin that the details of his skeletal structure are emerging through his face and his collarbones and the parts of his chest that his orange, paper-thin shirt no longer cover. He does not recognize what he sees in the metallic reflection, and he feels an intense and oddly objective despair for what he has become.

The boy mourns for himself.

PART THREE

QUEEN SACRIFICE

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

During his winters in Saint Petersburg, Alexei developed the unusual habit of running anywhere from five to fifteen miles a day in waist-deep snow. With frozen precipitation in short supply in Southern California, however, Alexei was forced to come up with new sufficiently masochistic ways to keep in top cardiovascular form. With twenty-five pound weights strapped to his ankles, tens around each wrist, treaded and toe-gloved neoprene shoes on his feet, and a gill mask covering his nose and mouth, Alexei took a single step forward, dropped into the eight-foot section of his Olympic-sized pool, and shot straight to the bottom.

Half the pool was lined with sheets of ribbed plastic. The ridges in the lane he was in were angled forward at forty-five degrees, and the ridges in the lane beside him were angled in the opposite direction. The treads in Alexei’s shoes pointed backwards and mated perfectly with the liner in order to give him purchase where bare feet would otherwise be rubbed raw inside of two or three laps of high-resistance hydro-sprints. The gill mask allowed him to breathe normally by extracting dissolved oxygen from the water—provided the water was adequately oxygenated, of course. To ensure that it was, aeration devices were positioned at each corner of the pool, all of which Alexei personally checked by running a suite of diagnostics before each workout. As a man who has probably dedicated more time to contemplating ways to make unexpected deaths look like accidents than average men spend barbecuing, watching sports, surfing porn, and reading on the toilet combined, Alexei could not help but appreciate the elegance of modifying an aeration device’s filtration system so that it could accommodate an array of carbon monoxide cartridges so cleverly and inconspicuously that they could easily be overlooked by any forensics team sufficiently motivated to do so.

The gill mask served an additional purpose beyond sustaining his life: it also provided an air cavity into which he could speak and a mic through which Emma could listen. Alexei frequently did some of his best thinking while running, and this morning, he was contemplating recruiting; specifically he was ruminating on the roles, responsibilities, and, most importantly, the defining characteristics of a world-class chief hiring officer.

Almost every publicly held company in the United States created the position of CHO after the passage of the Thirty-first Amendment to the Constitution—by far the most aggressive job creation measure ever undertaken by a developed nation. The legislation came about as a reaction to the national unemployment rate finally surpassing 35 percent and the subsequent televised address in which the president dramatically but solemnly declared all-out war on economic recession, unemployment, and the rampant epidemic of poverty.

Since the usual levers the government had at its disposal to influence the free market—interest rates, tax breaks, subsidies, spinning up the old printing presses at the US Treasury, and even direct loans and extremely generous grants—hadn’t been enough to move the economic needle, the only thing left to try was turning the recovery over to the free market itself. Since the privatization of other federal mandates had proven so effective, there was no shortage of precedent. For instance, when the United States Postal Service finally declared bankruptcy, it was sold to one of the largest online retailers in the world, rebranded, and eventually relaunched to great fanfare, success, and profitability. Additionally—even though already firmly in the black—the United States Patent and Trademark Office was able to increase profits 42 percent year over year after being sold to one of the biggest patent holding, licensing, and litigation companies in the world (a.k.a. patent trolls).

The president’s first move was to assemble a panel of CEOs and top economists who he tasked with determining exactly what it would take to give corporations unprecedented incentive to begin hiring again as quickly and aggressively as possible (preferably before the next election). The result was a national lesson in basic economics disseminated through a massive media campaign largely funded by silent donors and which incorporated, among other things, prime-time specials, late-night infomercials, cable news exclusives, interactive online tutorials, online posts and comments coordinated by self-proclaimed social media gurus, banner and pop-up ads, several failed Internet memes which revolved around the themes of kittens and unicorns and animated GIFs, full-page newspaper and magazine ads thinly disguised as objective reporting, B- and C-list celebrity endorsements, and dozens of unsolicited text messages and e-mails. The government’s message essentially reduced to this: The more mechanisms a corporation had to advance its own self-interests, the more the interests of its employees would be advanced by extension. It was only logical that the bigger and more powerful a corporate entity became, the more it would need to hire; the more it needed to hire, the more competition there would be for jobs; the more competition there was for jobs, the higher wages were guaranteed to climb. According to the nation’s top experts, if Congress really wanted to turn the economy around and put the American people back to work, the best way of doing so was to finally embrace and solidify the increasingly obvious reality that as taxpayers and job creators and the overseers of all things prosperous, corporations were people too, and were therefore not only legally entitled to participate in the democratic process, but morally and ethically obligated to do so.

More specifically, the Thirty-first Amendment to the Constitution of the United States legalized the transfer of suffrage from an employee to his or her employer, the language for which instantly became boilerplate in just about every contract offered to newly hired employees, and in retroactively effective agreements presented to existing employees in good standing who wished to remain as such. For the sake of convenience, employment agreements even granted corporate sponsors limited power of attorney sufficient to register all nonregistered eligible voters. To Americans who had been either unemployed or severely underemployed for the better part of two decades, the prospect of receiving a decent paycheck and possibly even a small benefits package in exchange for compromising on the very underpinnings of a democracy which had failed to serve them anyway didn’t really seem like such a bad deal. Therefore, the position of CHO was added to the standard ranks of corporate officers and, exactly as promised, Americans went back to work.

Although it was irrefutable that businesses of all sizes were finally hiring again, the nature and even definition of employment underwent a period of rapid evolution. Any corporation that could afford the luxury of doing so began recruiting what became known colloquially as “ballot scabs” in the days leading up to both congressional and presidential elections. They competed with each other by offering signing bonuses, health care tokens, prescription drug coupons, SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits, immunization tickets, cigarette stamps, data allocation, school vouchers, public transit passes, home and vehicle maintenance credits, kitchen appliances, and dozens of other products and services. The morning after the election in question, all of corporate America would invariably undergo extensive restructuring, resulting in millions of employees being regretfully let go through various forms of electronic communication. In addition to an excerpt from the standard employment contract through which employees waive their rights to pursue any and all forms of litigation or arbitration, class action or otherwise, each digital pink slip contained acknowledgment of exemplary service, the promise of a favorable (albeit automated) recommendation, and usually the most sincere best wishes of the entire executive staff.

The CHO’s job has evolved into a role both complex and indispensable. In addition to the requisite core qualities of any corporate officer—among which are intelligence, diligence, and, of course, charisma—he or she must be intimately familiar with legal and political systems that even those who directly serve said systems would be hard-pressed to explain at much more than an elementary school level. But above all else, the CHO is expected to be one of the best strategists of an organization, always thinking dozens of moves ahead and constantly playing out hundreds if not thousands of incredibly complex scenarios all the way through to their inevitable advantageous or detrimental conclusions.

And, of course, there was no single member of an organization better prepared and positioned to step into the chief executive’s shoes should they unexpectedly turn up empty.

About midway through his second lap, Alexei summoned Emma.

“Yes, Alexei?”

“We’re going to do something a little different today.”

“I look forward to being of assistance. What are we going to do?”

“We’re going to find someone who doesn’t actually exist.”

Emma gave Alexei a moment to clarify before confessing her bewilderment. “I’m sorry, Alexei, but I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“We’re going to create a fictional profile of the perfect chief hiring officer, and then we’re going to work backwards from there.”

“Work backwards for what purpose?”

Alexei touched the pool wall, turned, and moved into the adjacent lane. “To make sure he will exist,” Alexei said. “We’re going to create him.”

“I think I understand,” Emma said. “Do you have a specific company in mind on which to base our profile?”

“It just so happens that I do,” Alexei said. “Pearl Knight Holdings.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Over the years, Alexei Drovosek has sat in rooms with some of the richest and most influential individuals on the planet. Among them were presidents, prime ministers, princes, sheikhs, religious leaders (including the first African pope), drug lords, weapons dealers, media moguls, generals, and CEOs. As powerful and distinguished as each of these individuals was, Alexei could not recall a single one of them being as difficult to access as the headmaster of the New Rutherford Academy for Boys in Boston, Massachusetts.

Not only were Alexei’s calls to Dominique Levin never returned, but after leaving several messages, his handset’s IP address was blocked. Similarly, the first few correspondences he sent went unanswered, and subsequent messages bounced. He tried searching several indexes—most of which he had to buy his way into since they were illicit—hoping to uncover alternative means of making contact, but he never found a single hit that didn’t ultimately prove to be a false positive or otherwise a dead end. Attempts to schedule a meeting with Levin in person did not even get Alexei past the front security gate, much less as far as a secretary or an executive assistant he hoped might be susceptible to bribery, coercion, or some form of seduction.

Eventually he resorted to renting an apartment in Cambridge and tapping his local connections to get himself invited to a series of private and very exclusive functions. The idea was not to network, however. Networking was not what one did at these types of affairs. These people owned the network. They were the network. Networking was for outsiders trying to find a way in; for members of the working class who were cursed with more ambition than birthright; for those who were still either optimistic or ignorant enough to believe that success was about who you knew rather than who you could gain leverage over. One does not network at events where unsmiling men in dark suits, dark glasses, and earpieces stand with their hands crossed before them at every entrance. Rather, one mingles. One mixes. One exchanges gossip about whoever happens to be just out of earshot at that particular moment. Communication occurs through complex innuendo, and inside information is exchanged with nothing more than a slight twitch of the corner of the mouth, or the subtle elevation of the eyebrows, or perhaps a well timed but enigmatic toast. Either that, or one gets drunk and makes a complete ass out of oneself before being ushered away and chastised by one’s spouse in harsh but hushed tones.

Progress was slow but steady. Security measures designed to expose extortionists, kidnappers, paparazzi, ex-wives, illegitimate children, and other undesirables required diligent and methodological navigation. It was at an art auction in Beacon Hill where Alexei learned that Dominique Levin was, in fact, female, and that she owned several racehorses. During a private gathering at Suffolk Downs, Alexei was seated with a group who believed Levin was expected to speak at a charity event at the end of the month. And it was at the Artists for Humanity EpiCenter during the annual Winter Gala Benefit for students of inner city public schools that Alexei was finally able to walk right up to Levin, introduce himself, and pitch the idea of a new scholarship fund in front of enough of her peers that there was no way she could decline a short follow-up meeting to discuss the matter further without coming across as exactly the type of person she was there to prove to the world she wasn’t.

A background check on Alexei’s fake identity had already been completed by the time he arrived, so after a backscatter scan inside of a windowless room in the rear of the guard house, he was escorted by two formally dressed, severe, and predictably reticent individuals across the grounds. The students they came across were surprisingly disheveled: shirttails hanging out over belts; collars open and unstarched; ties both loose and askew; hair down to their eyelashes in the front and their collars in the back, undoubtedly to within fractions of a millimeter of regulation, and probably well beyond when wet. They watched Alexei and—failing to identify him as any of their friends’ fathers, chauffeurs, or lawyers—regarded him with a combination of disdain and curiosity.

The campus buildings were precisely what one would expect from an exclusive private academy located in New England: red bricks, white columns, and lofty steeples. Although it was well past the winter solstice, the lawns were perfectly verdant and the trees—having probably been genetically compelled to do so—still shone in bright autumnal hues.

Levin’s office was on the top floor of the main building beyond one final checkpoint and the desk of a young male assistant. After fastidiously consulting his records and privately conferring with Alexei’s chaperones, the young man faked a half-assed smile and granted Alexei passage. The heavy wooden double doors were ceremoniously pushed open before him, and Alexei was invited to pass beyond the threshold.

The headmistress sat behind a glass panel which, as Alexei entered, pivoted and lowered into a flat horizontal plane embedded in the surface of her dark mahogany desk. She was still reading as the office doors were closed and Alexei took the liberty of seating himself in a plush leather chair. From where he was sitting, the panel appeared to be blank.

“Mr. Drovosek,” Levin finally said. She touched the corner of her screen and looked up. “Very well played yesterday. You are nothing if not a persistent man.”

Levin was probably in her late fifties, with straight black hair infused with such stark silver strands that they stood out like tinsel. It was cut for efficiency—the absolute minimum that could still be considered remotely feminine—and was merely brushed rather than styled. Her lips were thin and pale, and she wore a dark suit over a plain white blouse. As he assessed the woman in front of him, Alexei guessed that Levin had gone so long without wearing makeup that it was now impossible for her to do so without drawing the kind of attention that she would outwardly abhor, but that some deeply buried part of her has probably always craved.

That, Alexei decided, would be his way in.

“And you are nothing if not the most evasive and inaccessible individual I have ever tracked down.” He said this with a slight smile and in a tone that bordered on flirtatious; however the effect was entirely lost on the headmistress.

“My time is in very short supply—as is yours, I’m sure—so perhaps we would both be best served by skipping right to the point of your visit.”

“Right,” Alexei said. “Straight to business, then.” He cleared his throat and crossed his legs. From here on out, he would need to improvise. “I’d like to sponsor a nationwide chess competition, and I would like the winner to receive a full scholarship to your school.”

“I see,” Levin said. “Thank you for thinking of us; however I’m afraid we don’t have room to accommodate even a single additional student. I’m sorry to have wasted your time. The guards will see you out now.”

“Hold on,” Alexei said. He uncrossed his legs and straightened himself in his chair. “I’m not asking you to waive tuition, of course. I intend to cover everything: room, board, uniforms, stipend—all of it. In fact, I was even planning on making a very generous donation to the school.”

“It isn’t a question of money, Mr. Drovosek. It’s more a question of affiliation. If the best junior chess player in the country belonged at the New Rutherford Academy, surely we would know about him, and surely he would already be here. However, since we do not know about this individual—whoever and wherever he may be—he obviously does not belong with us, and therefore could not possibly be successful here.”

Alexei frowned. “Surely you agree that an aptitude for chess is a sign of intelligence,” he insisted. “Certainly a boy who proves himself one of the best critical and analytical young thinkers in the country belongs in one of the best schools.”

Levin sighed with great exasperation. “You went to a lot of trouble to track me down, so I’ll do you the courtesy of a succinct explanation. How much do you actually know about this school?”

“I know it’s the most prestigious preparatory school in the country.”

“That’s correct. Do you know what it is that we prepare our boys for?”

“College, presumably, and whatever careers they choose beyond that.”

“That is incorrect. We do not prepare these children for higher education or for their chosen careers. We prepare them for one thing and one thing only: power. You see, Mr. Drovosek, college is a foregone conclusion for these boys. Not only will each and every one attend a top university, but each and every one will graduate with honors. Similarly, it goes without saying that each of our boys will embark on a successful career after college. That is not what makes my school unique. You can find academic excellence at any number of private institutions around the world, and even several fairly good ones here in this country, but I promise you that you will find no better instruction on the acquisition, retention, and application of power. That is the core of what we teach.”

Alexei leaned forward. The woman he had pegged for an insufferable bureaucrat was turning out to be unexpectedly enlightening. “Indulge me, Ms. Levin. How does one teach power?”

“How much have you really thought about the nature of power, Mr. Drovosek? Have you ever considered what it is that makes one man powerful and the next man weak?”

Alexei shrugged. “I assume attributes such as intelligence, money, and connections.”

“Again, foregone conclusions. Table stakes, as we say. True power is about one thing and one thing only: control over others. And do you know what it is that gives one man control over another?”

“His position?”

“No. Hierarchies do not bestow power. They are occasionally an approximate expression of its distribution—and I emphasize occasionally—but they do not, in and of themselves, make one man more powerful than another. The correct answer is charisma.”

Now that he had gotten Levin talking, Alexei was determined to either find a way to circumnavigate her resistance, or at the very least walk out of her office with something of an education of his own.

“Interesting,” he said. “I’ll accept that. But how do you define charisma?”

“Charisma, Mr. Drovosek, is not what you say, but how you say it; it is the difference between what you wear, and how and when you choose to wear it; it’s not about the doors that are unlocked to you, but about how you occupy the room once you’re inside. Charisma is about the tone of your voice, the length of your pause, the distribution of your attention among those who crave it. It’s not about always dominating a conversation, but it is about always determining its outcome. It’s about knowing when revealing a vulnerability might be more advantageous than projecting invincibility. It’s about knowing the difference between being cruel in order to bend others to your will, and being cruel so that you might one day be kind in order to make others want more than anything in the world to please you. Intelligence, money, and connections are, by themselves, blunt and uncut tools. Charisma is what puts the edge on them.”

“What about humility?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Humility. Compassion. Limitations. How do you teach your students to be responsible with their power? How do they know when they’ve accumulated enough?”

“Enough power is ultimate power, and ultimate power is unobtainable. The nature of power can best be characterized by Zeno’s best-known paradox. Are you familiar with it?”

“Refresh my memory.”

“Consider a journey between points A and B.” The headmistress illustrated with her hands on the surface of her desk. Her fingernails were well manicured, but short and unpainted. “In order to cover the full distance, you must first travel half the distance between the two points. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“After you’ve covered the first half, you must then cover half of the remaining distance. And then half of the remaining distance again. If you keep dividing the distance between yourself and your destination in half—which, of course, you must—you can never actually arrive. So you see, those who seek ultimate power will never truly arrive at their destinations. Instead, they must somehow find meaning in vanishingly small distances and details and victories. It is not my job to teach these boys humility and limitations, nor is it my job to teach them how to be content. My obligation is to their families, and it is fulfilled not by instilling a sense of peace, but rather by opening in each and every student a boundless and insatiable void that they will spend the rest of their lives trying to fill.”

“With all due respect, Ms. Levin, I believe you’re wrong.”

The headmistress was amused rather than offended. She leaned back in her leather chair and, for the first time during the course of their conversation, actually smiled. “Am I, Mr. Drovosek? How so?”

“There is true joy and fulfillment to be had in wealth and power, but not in its accumulation. Peace is found only in passing it down to the next generation. That’s the real value of what you provide. You’re not here to make your students happy—I understand that—but what you do might just account for the only real fulfillment and joy that these boys’ parents will ever experience.”

The headmistress’s smile had vanished. She watched Alexei with a curious intensity. “I must admit, Mr. Drovosek, that perspective had not occurred to me.”

“Ms. Levin, I’ve spent my life accumulating a great deal of material wealth. I have everything anyone could ever want, but what I don’t have is someone to pass it all down to. To be perfectly honest, I’m not here to ask you to give some poor, underprivileged chess prodigy a chance at a better life. I’m asking you to give me a chance at a more peaceful death. I’m asking you to give me the one thing every man eventually seeks: a legacy.”

The panel in the desk illuminated. The headmistress watched Alexei for a moment longer, then looked down.

“Mr. Drovosek, I’m afraid our time is up.” She touched the screen, and a moment later, Alexei heard the double doors open behind him. “But I believe I have your number.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The Ukrainian-built hydrofoil known as Predvestnik was met well east of the Marshall Islands by six orange-hulled response boats with .50-caliber forward-mounted machine guns and two belt-fed, gas-operated, 7.62mm fully automatic cannons mounted port and starboard. Beyond the response boats was a 418-foot Legend-class warship, angular and bright coral-white against the turquoise Pacific, its bow still emblazoned with scarlet from its former life in the United States Coast Guard. The deck and bridge of the long slender cutter bristled with antenna supporting its shipboard electronic warfare suite and barrels of varying lengths representing the business ends of both close-in and long-range weapons systems. The eye of its main 57mm naval gun watched the comparatively tiny hydrofoil with eerie impassivity, and when the lead patrol boat hailed, Alexei promptly gave the command to cut the engines, lower Predvestnik’s colors, and stand down.

The private maritime fleet’s job was to protect a flotilla of fifty-nine decommissioned and partially dismantled luxury cruise liners with tonnages ranging anywhere from sixty thousand to a quarter of a million. The ships were connected by a network of railed gangplanks, and were permanently moored inside the tropical and still partially irradiated embrace of the twenty-three coral islets collectively comprising Bikini Atoll. The primary concern of the cutters, response boats, multimission choppers, and one of only three privately owned Virginia-class submarines was to defend the flotilla against pirate attacks. The region had actually been fairly stable until the Combined Maritime Forces who were sent in to investigate the relatively minor problem of Australian pirates themselves went feral. As a result, the islands of the North Pacific had become home to thousands of enterprising and opportunistic nomads from all over the world—motley bands perpetually casting about for new sources of supplies, wealth, and human commodities suitable for hard labor, organ harvesting, or any and all forms of carnal indulgence.

The clump of entangled hulks was collectively christened Celebration Island, and its improbable existence owed itself to a chance seating arrangement at a wedding reception. At the corner table sat the CEO of Celebration Cruise Line who was at his wits’ end as to what to do with an entire fleet of vessels which were no longer economically viable now that the very rich tended to favor either their own custom-built private yachts or jet-accessible corporate-owned islands, while the most popular form of vacationing for just about everyone else in the country had finally been reduced to the ultimate low of camping. To his left sat the United States ambassador to the Republic of the Marshall Islands who was desperate for ideas on how to inject new economic life into a region whose reputation was still recovering from the twenty-three nuclear tests conducted at Bikini Atoll way back in the 1940s and ’50s and the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency still recommended against eating more than one or two locally grown coconuts a year for fear of inadvertently slow-cooking your digestive tract from the inside out. Beside him was a slim and taciturn man who made his fortune several times over supplying food to American military contractors all over the world, and continuing on to his left was the chief marketing officer for ICC—International Corrections Corporation—the largest administrator of private prisons in the world and, as she herself often quipped, the one-stop shop for all your large-scale incarceration needs. Purely for the sake of appearances, she had brought along her excessively pouty philanthropic husband who usually filled his days planning and participating in various charity events benefiting American children who were forcibly removed from their homes by the Federal Bureau of Domestic Affairs—or, as he put it with a dramatic and meaningful eye roll—“the system.” The result was Celebration Island: a joint business venture which, in less than three years, had become the largest and most densely populated orphanage in human history.

Technology, opportunity, diversions, and even luxury were never in short supply on Celebration Island; however the same could not be said for space and privacy. With over seven hundred thousand children placed under the care of the federal government (who, in turn, contracted that care out to Celebration Island on a per-child, per-diem basis), and with the flotilla currently consisting of only fifty-nine ships, the average room occupancy rate was between four and six depending on the class of accommodation. The one exception to the seemingly immutable rule of overcrowding, however, was the suite arranged for one particular twelve-year-old boy by the name of Florian Lasker.

Florian required nothing less than the entire Deluxe Captain’s Quarters of the Norwegian Epic and all of its accompanying accoutrements and privilege (unlimited bandwidth, ocean-view balcony, walk-in closet, both indoor and outdoor hot tubs, separate office space, combined dining area and kitchen, baby grand piano, and a king-size bed). As Florian explained during one of the staff meetings he frequently crashed, it was the only way he could be absolutely certain nothing got between him and the algorithmically transmutative passphrase he needed to enter at least once every twenty-four hours in order to prevent his daemon (a process inconspicuously running in the background of a remote server) from sending multiple media outlets irrefutable proof in the form of timetables, photographs, financial records, and detailed sworn testimonials that multiple directors of Celebration Island were carrying on sexual relationships with dozens of underage female residents. In addition to finding his way through numerous firewalls and filters in order to gain leverage over those purporting to be his caregivers, it was from these very accommodations that Florian Lasker also arranged to get himself off of Celebration Island by participating in—and ultimately emerging victorious from—the first annual New Rutherford Academy junior boys chess championship.

Alexei wasn’t permitted on the flotilla itself, so he used one of the hydrofoil’s small tenders to navigate the archipelago, swing around the lagoon, and finally moor at the main dock of Bikini Island where he was met by a soldier in cobalt-blue fatigues and a baseball cap with a bill so rounded that one might fairly call it creased.

“Good morning,” Alexei offered. He held on to either edge of the port-side door as he leaned out, squinting in the glare of the bright white sand and grinning agreeably. He was acutely aware of how badly outgunned he and his crew were, and how little Predvestnik would be missed if it never again left Micronesian waters.

Putting himself in such a vulnerable position was feeling increasingly like monumentally poor judgment. He knew that by showing up here he was placing himself at the mercy of Celebration Island’s security forces, but what had not occurred to him until after they were well on their way was what a good opportunity this would be for US forces to take him out. Navy SEALs didn’t particularly concern him, but what Alexei did fear was death from above. With a well-coordinated drone strike, you were simply there one moment, and everywhere but there the next. It didn’t matter how quick you were, or how smart, or how well trained. If you were on the CIA’s radar, they knew how to get you off of it and still be home in time for dinner.

The soldier was looking down at his handset. He adjusted his cap. “You Alexei Dro-voo-say-ik?”

Alexei could already tell that the man was from Texas. Not from New Mexico, not from Oklahoma, and not from Arkansas, but from the heart of the Lone Star State itself. He was clean-shaven, but he had one of those heavy black beards that never really went away.

“Close enough,” Alexei said. He put on a pair of sunglasses before taking a long step from the tender to the dock. He was wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and a pair of rubber, toe-gloved shoes. As he walked, he held his hands out from his body—the universal sign for “It’s cool—I’m not packing.”

“That your boat out there?” the soldier asked, gesturing with the deep glistening cleft of his chin at the ocean over Alexei’s right shoulder.

“It is,” Alexei said. “You like it?”

The soldier put his handset away, cocked his head, and hooked his thumbs in his belt. The proximity of his right hand to the scored polymer grip of his sidearm was almost certainly not accidental. “You know you got to pay a docking fee, right?”

Alexei stopped. He looked at the man for a moment, scanned the beach, then looked back at the man. Diplomacy, he reminded himself. Money he had plenty of; backup, not so much.

“Of course,” he said to the soldier. “I just don’t recall the exact amount.”

“Five thousand,” the man said.

Alexei’s eyebrows went up. “NGD?”

“Unless you got five thousand sixteen-year-old virgins on that little paddleboat of yours, I guess NGDs will just have to do.”

“Right,” Alexei said. “Tragically I didn’t think to bring a harem, so I guess we’re back to money. I’ll make you a deal.”

The soldier’s weight shifted and he once again adjusted his hat. “Go on.”

“I make it back down to this dock in one piece with what I came here for, and I’ll give you ten.”

The soldier looked down the empty beach and squinted. He leaned over and spat, then looked back at Alexei.

“You here for that Lasker kid, ain’t you?”

“That’s right.”

“Shit, I should be paying you to take that little pecker off our hands.”

“That’ll work, too,” Alexei said.

For a moment, Alexei thought he succeeded in making the soldier smile, but it turned out the soldier was just using the tip of his tongue to pick something out of the back of his teeth.

“You know I can press one button and have your ship sunk faster than a cat can lick its ass, right?”

“I have no doubt about that whatsoever.”

“All right, then,” the soldier finally said. “We got us a deal.”

“Excellent,” Alexei said. “Where to now?”

“The Cross Spikes Club,” the soldier said. “Time for a beer.”

The soldier walked behind Alexei, guiding him through a network of tree-lined paths and toward the deep throb of Jamaican dubstep. The sand was fine and white, and the two men trudged up one final dune into an area where the palm trees were far enough apart to walk between. The Cross Spikes Club was a long, thatched, crescent-shaped cabana with a bar assembled out of repurposed crate lumber, and indoor and outdoor seating consisting of mismatched and sun-bleached wooden and plastic lawn furniture. Two soldiers were using a warped and delaminating ping-pong table as the surface for an elaborate drinking game, the focus of which was several tiers of plastic cups containing varying amounts of what must have been disagreeably warm and probably pretty flat beer. Beneath the thatch, two men in civilian clothing paid close attention to a third who was psyching himself up to throw the last of his three darts. At a small round patio table off to the side sat a young boy with blond hair that was long and wavy and bright blue eyes shining through his bangs. He used one hand to prop up his head and the other to interact lackadaisically with a tablet.

“That’s him,” the soldier said gesturing again with his chin. The men playing darts erupted into a chorus of disbelieving howls.

“You’re not coming?” Alexei asked the soldier.

“Shit no,” the soldier said. “That boy’s your problem now.”

Alexei shrugged and started toward the boy when the soldier took his arm.

“Hey,” the soldier said. Alexei looked down at the soldier’s hand, then back up. “You want some free advice?”

“I’m not sure I’d exactly call it free at this point,” Alexei said, “but sure.”

“Don’t trust that little prick,” the soldier said. “Don’t trust him for one goddamn second. You got that?”

Alexei watched the soldier for a moment, then nodded. The soldier released his arm, then began picking a path through the trees to the bar beneath the cabana. He sat up on a stool where he could see both Alexei and the boy, reached behind the bar, and came back with a dark and dripping bottle. He gave the top a twist and tossed the cap away with considerable force.

The boy did not look up when Alexei approached, nor when he stood there casting a shadow over the table. Alexei could see that he was watching what appeared to be footage from intense urban combat on his tablet, then realized it was probably the unfolding of a maneuver in some sort of a real-time strategy game. The screen was reflective as opposed to backlit so the colors were bright and easily visible in the sun. On the back of the boy’s chair hung a tattered and limp backpack.

Alexei flipped a flimsy plastic chair around and straddled it. He took off his sunglasses and watched the boy play the game.

“Are you Florian Lasker?” Alexei said. He was somewhat struck by how normal the kid looked. After the boy’s performance in the tournament, Alexei was expecting him to somehow appear older, taller—at the very least more mature.

“That depends,” the boy said. He did not look up from his game. “Are you my ride out of here?”

“Assuming you want to go.”

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.” The kid was wearing a blue-and-white-horizontally-striped shirt that was too big for him. The blue fused with the unnaturally pale hue of his eyes.

“Why did you enter the contest if you weren’t sure you wanted to leave?”

“I know I want to leave,” the kid said. “I just don’t know if I want to go with you.”

“Why not? What’s wrong with me?”

“You want to put me in some rich tight-ass boarding school in Boston with a bunch of arrogant pretentious pussies.”

Alexei frowned. “It’s actually an excellent school. It was extremely difficult to secure an opening.”

“Let someone else have it then. All I want is to get out of here.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“Home.”

“Florian,” Alexei began, “you can’t go home. Your parents…” He broke off and took a moment to consider his next words. “They’re not in any position to take care of you right now. You know that, right?”

“They don’t have to take care of me,” the boy said. “I can take care of myself. I just want to go home.”

Alexei looked away and nodded. He drummed his fingers on the dark green plastic table. The boy’s hesitation was not something he had come prepared for since he could not imagine how anyone on Celebration Island wouldn’t seize the first opportunity to get as far away from it as possible. Florian was obviously not your average orphan, however. He either did not understand—or, more likely, did not accept—that he was powerless and largely without options. Alexei realized that he would need to make some kind of connection with Florian before the boy would accept his assistance.

“You know,” Alexei said, “I grew up in a place like this.”

“I doubt that,” the boy said. “You’re Russian. The closest thing to a tropical climate in Russia is the subtropical zone along the coast of the Black Sea.”

Alexei squinted at the boy. “I mean I grew up in an orphanage,” he said.

“What happened to your parents?”

“They were arrested.”

“By who?”

“By the Russian secret police.”

“What did they do?”

“They were accused of being what the government referred to as foreign agents.”

“I mean specifically what did they do?”

“Christ, you’re worse than the KGB,” Alexei said. “They tried to pass some extremely sensitive information on to the United States.”

“Information about what?”

“About something that the world thought was an accident, but actually wasn’t.”

“What?”

“The radioactive contamination of more than half a million people.”

“You’re talking about Chernobyl,” the boy said.

“That’s right.”

“Were your parents there?”

“Yes.”

“What happened after they were arrested?”

“They were sent to a forced labor camp in Siberia.”

“A uranium mine?”

“I don’t know. I never found out which one.”

“It doesn’t matter,” the boy said. “Either way, they probably died. In those kinds of places, you either get worked to death, or you die of malnutrition, exposure, or disease—usually dysentery. Either that, or they developed cancerous tumors as a result of radiation exposure.”

“Anyway,” Alexei said, “when I was about your age, someone came to the orphanage where I lived to take me away, too.”

“Who?”

“The Russian Federal Security Service. Basically the new KGB.”

“Why did they pick you?”

“Just lucky, I guess.”

“Did they train you to be a spy?”

“They did.”

“What kind of spy?” The boy had put his tablet down and was now watching Alexei with unsettling intensity.

“A domestic spy,” Alexei told the boy. “In my opinion, the absolute worst kind.”

“You mean they wanted you to target your own people?”

“That’s right.”

“Did you?”

“For a while. Then I joined the Foreign Intelligence Service and left.”

“Where did you go?”

Alexei shrugged. “I went where I was needed.”

“Did you ever go back to Russia?”

“Eventually,” Alexei said. “I had some unfinished business I needed to take care of.”

“Like what?”

“That’s not important,” Alexei said. “What’s important is that I was a misused resource. I was exploited. I never had the opportunity to choose what I wanted to do with my life, or even to pick a side. Everything was chosen for me.”

Alexei found the impassivity with which the boy continued to watch him unnerving. “And now you’re here to make sure that doesn’t happen to me, right?”

“That’s right,” Alexei said. “Sooner or later, someone is going to realize who and what you are, Florian. They’ll do everything they can to corrupt and control you, and if they can’t—well, then their only option will be to contain you.”

“How do I know you’re not here to corrupt and control me?”

“I’m here to offer you the chance to take control of your own life. I’m giving you the opportunity to attend one of the best schools in the world, and to get to know some of the most powerful families in the country. Where you go from there will be entirely up to you.”

The boy watched Alexei for a moment, then turned to retrieve the backpack from the back of his chair. He unzipped the main pocket and slipped his tablet inside.

“If you want me to go with you,” the boy said, “you have to tell me why you did it.”

“What do you mean?” Alexei said. “Why I did what?”

“Why you informed on your own parents.”

Alexei squinted at the boy and watched him for a long moment. “What makes you say that?” he finally said.

“It wasn’t coincidence that the Russian government trained you to be a domestic spy. They picked you because you were so blindly loyal to the state that you were willing to turn on your own parents. And now, all these years later, you’re here to take me away just like they came to take you away, but you’re not doing it to save me.”

Alexei’s eyebrows went up. “Oh really? Then why am I doing it?”

“You’re doing it to save yourself, ” the boy said. “Just about everything you do is in some way related to redeeming yourself for what you did to your parents, isn’t it?”

Alexei leaned back and looked out through the trees toward the beach. “Maybe this was a mistake,” he said. It was unclear whether he was talking to himself or the boy. “Something is telling me to walk away right now and let you figure out your own way off this island.”

“I don’t think you can do that,” the boy said.

“Oh, really? And why is that?”

The boy zipped up his backpack and stood. “Because I think you need me more than I need you.”

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Alexei and Florian sat at a small round table in the back corner of Algiers Coffee House. As was his tradition, Alexei positioned himself such that he could see both the front and back doors. The screens of both their laptops were detached and the two resulting tablets were placed together to form a single, seamless, holographic chessboard. Earlier, Alexei had bought them lunch at Cafe Sushi in Harvard Square, after which he offhandedly proposed some caffeine to offset the sake, and perhaps a friendly game of chess. The suggestion of a match was casual—almost an afterthought—and belied the fact that Alexei had been devoting at least an hour almost every day to studying opening moves, strategy, and theory in the weeks leading up to their meeting.

Florian advanced his knight by dipping his finger into the projected white horse at e4, then touching the empty square at c5. Alexei was up by one piece, but he was finding himself in an increasingly defensive position. He selected his own knight at d5, but repeated the gesture to cancel the move. Florian was controlling both the seventh and eighth ranks with his rooks, and Alexei’s king was pinned down.

Alexei studied the board for another minute, then spoke without looking up. “It’s already over, isn’t it?”

“It will be in three moves.”

Alexei shook his head. “Dammit,” he hissed. He opened the menu on his side of the board, and with poorly concealed irritation, confirmed that he wished to resign.

Florian sipped his espresso. “Good match.”

“You were toying with me, weren’t you?”

“I wouldn’t say toying,” Florian offered. “Perhaps humoring.”

Alexei studied the young man across from him. He wore a blue-and-pale-yellow-hooded rugby jersey that Alexei suspected had been hand-picked for its potential to complement the long blond hair Florian frequently pinned behind his ears and the almost unnatural azure of his eyes. As the boy’s benefactor, Alexei was doing his very best to be a graceful loser—to take pride in Florian’s achievements rather than indulge in the resentment of never having beaten him. He hadn’t actually expected to win, after all, but in Alexei’s experience, the anticipation of failure seldom made its realization any easier. Rather, all it did was shift the blame from your opponent to yourself, where it had to be gradually and insufferably internalized instead of objectified and simply ignored.

“I’m curious,” Alexei said. He leaned back and sipped his tea. “How consistently can you beat a computer?”

“No idea,” Florian admitted. “Never tried.”

Alexei gave Florian an incredulous look. “You’re telling me you’ve never played against a chess program?”

“Nope,” Florian said, “and I never intend to. Frankly, I don’t see the point.”

“The point is to improve your game, isn’t it?”

“Do you play against Emma?”

“Frequently.”

“Has it made your game better?”

“Absolutely. I’ve advanced several ranks.”

“Several ranks as defined by Emma or whatever chess program she’s running, right?”

Alexei thought for a moment. “I guess so.”

“So you’ve gotten better at playing chess against a machine, but have you gotten any better at playing against a human?”

“I don’t know. You’re the only one I play against semi-regularly. You tell me.”

“OK,” Florian said. “Your understanding of the game has definitely improved, but since I’ve known you, you haven’t actually become a fundamentally better player.”

Alexei leaned forward and crossed his arms on the table. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that chess isn’t like golf or bowling. It’s not a game you play against yourself while your opponents all play against themselves, and at the end, you add up your scores and see who happened to make the fewest mistakes that day. Chess isn’t even necessarily about always playing the strongest possible game. Fundamentally, it’s about one thing and one thing only: playing your opponent.”

“What’s the difference? If you play a strong game of chess, doesn’t that inherently weaken your opponent?”

“Think about it in terms of music,” Florian said. “Would you rather listen to Tchaikovsky or Rachmaninov performed by humans on actual, acoustic, handcrafted instruments, or by machines through some kind of digital audio synthesis?”

“Humans, of course.”

“Why?”

“Because machines don’t play with emotion.”

“Right. Or, put another way, machines are too perfect. For you, music isn’t about technically flawless execution, but rather about things like interpretation, transformation, and performance. For me, chess isn’t about always making the theoretically best move; it’s about making the move that I know will exploit a weakness in my opponent, or confuse him, or insult him, or give him a false sense of confidence. The rules and theories of chess are just the score I’m playing; the instrument on which I actually perform is my opponent.”

Alexei drummed his fingertips against his mug. “Is that how you feel when you play against me?”

“Of course. That’s the only way I know how to play.”

“Give me an example.”

Florian finished his espresso and placed the tiny cup on its saucer. “You were up by a piece for most of the game, right? You played a technically strong match, and you felt pretty good going into the endgame. But you were never actually expecting to win, so as soon as you started to think that you might actually have a chance, you panicked. The only thing worse than losing a match is losing a match that you should have won, so you started playing overly defensively, which made it easy for me to position my rooks. You could have beaten me, but instead you allowed yourself to be put in one of the worst possible positions.”

“Are you saying you actually let me get ahead by a piece as part of your strategy?”

“Yup. That’s exactly what I’m saying. You wanted to beat me so badly that I knew the best way to disrupt your game was to make you think you might actually win. By the way, the sweetest victories are those in which your opponent defeats himself.”

Alexei squinted at the young man across from him. “I never knew this about you.”

“Why would you?” the young man said. There was sudden contempt in his tone. “How would you know anything at all about me, for that matter?”

Alexei gave Florian a bewildered and somewhat aggravated look. “Where the hell did that come from?”

“Forget it.”

“No, if you have something to say to me, then say it.”

“All I’m saying is that just because you pay for my education, keep my bank account topped off, and take me out for sushi whenever you happen to be in town doesn’t make you my father.”

“I never said that it did.” Alexei leaned back from the table to regard Florian from a greater distance. “Of course, it wouldn’t kill you to show a little appreciation now and then for everything I’ve given you instead of always acting like a sullen little prick.”

“Grateful for what? It’s just money to you. You’ve never given me a single thing you’ll ever miss. You’ve never even let me stay with you. Everyone else got to live in the big mysterious mansion while I got sent off to boarding school three hundred and sixty-five days a year.”

Alexei jabbed at the air over the table with his finger. “I gave you something that nobody else in the world would have ever given you. I gave you a chance. I might not be your father, but I’ve done more for you than he ever could have.”

“At least my father noticed me every once in a while.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Alexei spat. “Your father sold you to me, did you know that? Did you ever figure that out with that massive fucking intellect of yours? Your parents were in so much debt that they would have been out on the streets in six months if I hadn’t come along. Your father would have been a filthy pathetic bum digging through Dumpsters and your mother would have been a cheap broken whore.”

Florian glared at Alexei. “You have no right to talk about my parents like that. My father is the one who taught me to play chess. Without him, I’d be nothing.”

“Florian, your father taught you to play chess because he saw how smart you were and thought if you could win some big tournaments, he could use your winnings to pay down his debt. You know what he did with all that prize money he was supposed to be saving for you? He gambled it all away. He bought lottery tickets. He bet on horses. He blew it on illegal poker games in hotel rooms. And when he finally decided you were costing him more than you were winning, he sent you off to that tropical hellhole where I found you.”

Florian was shaking his head. “That’s bullshit and you know it.”

“Is it? When I offered your father a hundred thousand NGD for legal custody of you, he didn’t even hesitate. He didn’t even try to negotiate with me, Florian. So now you know exactly what you were worth to your parents. One hundred thousand NGD, and not one penny more.”

“That’s a fucking lie.”

“I hate to break it to you, kid, but the reality is that your father was a neglectful, irresponsible, and psychologically abusive son of a bitch, and the fact that he played a few games of chess with you when you were little doesn’t change any of that. I know you like to accuse me of ignoring you, but you’re wrong. I used to talk to your teachers and counselors at the Academy at least once a day. I used to fly out and have meetings with the staff without you knowing. They told me about how one day you were convinced that your parents abandoned you, and the next, you insisted they were the only people in the world who ever loved you. You were a kid back then, and I know leaving home wasn’t easy for you, but it’s time to stop acting like a spoiled little brat and grow up. In case you still haven’t figured this out, let me spell it out for you as plainly as I can: your parents didn’t give a shit about you, and if they’re lucky enough to even be alive today, they still don’t give a shit about you. That’s it. It’s that simple. You weren’t the first unloved kid in the world, and you won’t be the last. But rather than moping around and crying about it your whole life, why don’t you try being thankful that you have a gift, and that someone came along and recognized that gift, and that instead of being dead, or living on the streets giving two-dollar blow jobs to try to feed yourself, or getting molested in your bed on some half irradiated derelict cruise ship, you’re safe, you’re healthy, and you’re about to graduate from one of the most prestigious universities in the world, after which you will have the opportunity to do anything you want with your life.”

Florian’s expression was a mask of superimposed emotions. His lips were curled in a kind of mild amusement, but there were tears on his cheeks and rage in his eyes. He had to struggle to keep his voice steady. “When are you finally going to tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“What it is you want from me.”

“I don’t want anything from you, Florian. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

Florian hit the table with his open hand and his espresso cup jumped. “Bullshit! Stop fucking lying to me. I think we’ve established by now that I’m not stupid. For once, I want you to tell me the truth. Tell me exactly what it is you want from me. Why did you send me to the Academy? Why did you and all my teachers want me to become an analyst? Of all the internships I got offered, why did you encourage me to take the one with Pearl Knight? Don’t forget, Alexei: I know what you do. You may not have let me live with you, but I’ve been out to your little compound, remember? I’ve talked to your other recruits or soldiers or whatever you call them. You’re not just some wealthy philanthropist who helps children out of the goodness of his heart. There’s something you want from me, and I want to know what it is.”

“What do you think it is?”

“I have no fucking clue. For all I know, you still work for the Kremlin and you want me to spy for you.”

Alexei took a deep breath, then spoke in a more subdued tone. “I don’t work for the Kremlin anymore, Florian, and I don’t want you to spy for me. I want you to spy for yourself.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you have an incredibly promising future ahead of you. It means that you’re going to meet people and see things that I can’t even imagine. I honestly have no idea what’s in store for you, but one thing I’m sure of is that the day will come when you’re thinking dozens of moves ahead and you suddenly realize that you have an opportunity to do something incredible. I promise you that there’s going to be at least one pivotal moment in your life when everything is perfectly aligned and one simple decision you make will have the potential to change the entire world.”

“And you want to be the one to make that decision, right?”

“No. I want you to make that decision. And I want you to make the right decision. I want you to realize how lucky you are to have everything you have. I want you to take your incredible ability to see into people and to see all the different pieces in play, and I want you to make the decision that you think is right. That’s all. I promise—that’s the only thing I will ever ask of you.”

“And what if I don’t make the right decision?” Florian said. He had wiped the tears from his cheeks, and his expression was defiant and challenging. “What if I use all my power and influence and all this genius I supposedly have to just make myself rich? Or what if I decide to sell you out? I may not know much about you, but I do know you have plenty of enemies out there, and I’m sure any number of them would be willing to give me anything I want to get their hands on you.”

Alexei shrugged. “Go ahead,” he told the young man. “There’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop you.”

“But you obviously don’t think I will.”

“Florian, the time will come in your life when you will have the choice between doing something incredibly beneficial for mankind, or something selfish and probably incredibly destructive, and you alone will have to make that decision. I won’t be there to tell you what to do.” Alexei leaned forward and stared into the young man’s wide and bright eyes. “But just remember that you have absolutely no idea how far and wide my influence extends. And while I may not be right there in that room with you, I will always be watching.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Alexei looked down at the cabin full of children in his backyard and waited for it to disappear.

The view was provided by the cameras mounted beneath a persistent solar-sustained quadrotor drone hovering precisely one thousand feet above his property. The video was being fed to the wall in Alexei’s office where he leaned against the edge of his desk and watched with a canister of tea in one hand and a black filterless cigarette in the other. The ash had grown long, and in the absence of motion, the smoke had found a direct diagonal path up to the ventilation system in the ceiling.

There were a lot of eyes in the skies in addition to Alexei’s. There were drones funded by every branch of the military and three-letter agency in the country (and ultimately by the very same taxpayers on whom said institutions spent the majority of their time and budgets spying); ornithological cybernetic research projects funded by DARPA, resulting in thousands of birds across dozens of species as small as bee hummingbirds to as large as California condors with cameras surgically embedded in their bellies and skulls, discrete electrodes implanted in their brains, and transmitters sutured into their backs allowing them to be controlled from anywhere in the world; satellites designed to generate millimeter-resolution topographical maps for the purposes of locating, measuring, and identifying every last aboveground manmade structure on the planet; media cooperatives providing tabloids with an endless supply of tantalizing, erotic, embarrassing, incriminating, or otherwise damning images captured in millions of tiny fragments by swarms of pixel drones as inconspicuous as gnats; even the winner of the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) X PRIZE—a fully functioning, softball-sized intelligence satellite which succeeded in capturing images of all sixteen dummy weapons caches planted throughout the country just one week after being launched by an unmanned, commercial, single-stage-to-orbit satellite transport spaceplane.

Between all of these lenses, sensors, stereoscopic imaging technologies, synthetic aperture radar systems, and laser ranging networks above everyone’s heads all of the time no matter how far and wide humanity managed to wander, an average of 2.5 petabytes of vectors and bitmaps and metadata were generated, transmitted, analyzed, and stored every single hour of every single day.

Keeping oneself off the grid, therefore, was far beyond the average citizen’s means. In fact, it might have been very nearly impossible had it not been for the Federal Approval Service for Cartographical Imaging and Satellite Technologies, usually referred to by its detractors as FASCIST. Recent national security legislation required that detailed image data corresponding to every single aerial rendering intended for any form of publication, analysis, or archival whatsoever be submitted to a secure and anonymous web service, which presumably determined whether or not it corresponded to locations that people and organizations unknown wished to remain undiscovered. The response to the submission was either a single boolean—true—indicating you were free to do with your image whatever you chose, or a complex data structure containing not only an algorithmically sanitized version of your image, but also a detailed and sufficiently intimidating legal explanation of what would happen to you should you choose to disregard the government’s wishes. The upshot was this: by knowingly or unknowingly publishing, retaining, or even just viewing the originally submitted image, you were intrinsically agreeing to plead guilty to multiple acts of high treason, waiving all your rights and protections afforded to you as a citizen of the United States (including, but not limited to, those pertaining to legal representation and due process) as well as your inalienable and fundamental rights as a human being, and should therefore consider yourself, for all intents and purposes, quite thoroughly fucked.

What many radical reformists considered to be oppressive censorship, Alexei recognized as convenience. Just by putting one sum of money into one single palm—or, more accurately, several sums of money into one single palm which then subsequently found their way through several additional palms, incrementally dwindling with every transfer, before finally reaching their intended destination—Alexei’s compound instantly disappeared from every map, chart, survey, globe, atlas, and plat in the entire country, and even around much of the rest of the world.

Alexei could simply buy invisibility.

But he knew that convenience in such matters usually did not last. You could only rely on other people for so long—especially people in positions of such great responsibility and influence who were so quick to have their palms greased—before someone along the line succumbed to greed, or betrayal, or just plain everyday stupidity. Which is precisely why it was Alexei’s policy to, wherever possible, implement backup processes and procedures that relied on one or more forms of dispassionate silicon-based technology rather than inherently self-destructive carbon-based life. After construction of the children’s dormitories was complete, Alexei immediately had the brand new ceramic roof tiles torn up and the titanium-alloy strips of siding pulled off and all of it replaced by a construction crew assembled by a woman who was once a top engineer for a British multinational defense, security, and aerospace conglomerate, but who was now enjoying the freedom of her new and much more lucrative career as an independent contractor.

Alexei no longer wanted to buy invisibility; he actually wanted to be invisible.

He had learned through his research that there are two distinct aspects to invisibility. The first (and most obvious) is the method by which an object is rendered undetectable. The second—and arguably the more interesting—is what the observer should see in place of the cloaked object.

In a scenario where an observer expects to either detect an object or to see nothing at all—as in the case of radar-based air defense systems—stealth technology is usually most appropriate. Stealth refers to reducing one’s radar cross section. The entire premise of stealth depends on a potential observer indiscriminately firing radio waves into a giant void and expecting that none of them will ever come back. As long as none of them ever do, you are effectively invisible.

In a more complex scenario, the observer always expects to see something, irrespective of what that something is. A security guard watching a closed-circuit video feed, for instance. Stealth technology is useless for robbing a bank since a security guard would be just as alarmed by suddenly seeing nothing as by witnessing the actual crime. In this case, effective invisibility requires the use of transformative optics in order to bend or channel visible light around objects rather than allowing it to be reflected back to the observer, resulting in the cloaked object appearing indistinguishable from its surroundings.

But perhaps the most complex form of invisibility—and the one most applicable and interesting to Alexei—is one in which the observer’s expectations are inconsistent, and may even change over time. In such circumstances the target must employ a form of invisibility known as active camouflage to remain undetected. An octopus, for instance, must adapt to whatever color and texture of coral happens to be nearby when threatened by a shark. A tank moving against a rebel encampment must continue to project an image of the jungle behind it even as its position changes, and regardless of how the light filters down through the trees. And the one hundred-plus acres of land outside LA where Alexei is plotting his tactical revolution can no longer look anything like a fortified compound regardless of the time of day, season, or the altitude or angle from which it is photographed.

There was a knock from outside in the hallway and only a handful of microseconds after Alexei muttered his consent, Emma had analyzed and verified his voice pattern and used an electromagnetic pulse to withdraw the lock. A young Korean girl pushed the heavy door open and stepped in behind it.

“Ki,” Alexei said. He remembered that he was holding a cigarette and got it to the ashtray just in time. “Come on in.”

The girl was wearing a silver full-body swimsuit. The material was coated in tiny synthetic hydrodynamic denticles and her body glistened and shimmered like sharkskin as she moved. Her black hair was wet and hung down in her face.

“I hope I’m not too late,” the girl said. “I was in the pool so I missed your message.”

“No, you’re just in time,” Alexei said. He’d given up on the cigarette and left it twisted and smoldering in the ashtray. “Take a look. Tell me what you see.”

The girl took a moment to consider the screen. “It’s the backyard, isn’t it? Those are the two dormitories.”

“Right. Now watch this. Emma?”

“Yes, Alexei.”

“Activate cloaking on cabin number one.”

The transformation was not instantaneous. The phased array optics of each roof tile and side panel charged and lit up incrementally, creating what appeared from their perspective to be a pixel-by-pixel wave pattern. When it was complete, the cabin closest to the main house was gone and in its place was a sparkling turquoise lagoon with an adjoining hot tub. Deck chairs were scattered throughout the mottled sandstone mosaic surrounding the pool and several long slender bronze bodies reposed luxuriously in mere suggestions of swimwear. The software that rendered them—having access to GPS coordinates and declination tables—even made sure the women faced the sun.

Alexei looked at Ki and saw that her mouth was open.

“What do you think?” he said. “Convincing?”

The girl shook her head. “It’s completely real.”

“It better be,” Alexei said, “considering what I paid for it. Emma, activate cloaking on the second cabin.”

Tile by tile, panel by panel, the second building was replaced by something revealing itself to be agricultural in nature: bountiful verdant rows separated by thin strips of rich black earth. The girl stepped closer to the screen and squinted. There were periodic flecks of pink among the green.

“What is that?” the girl asked.

“It’s a crop of genetically hybridized coca and poppy.”

The girl turned and looked at Alexei. She appeared considerably less impressed than she had just moments ago. “Correct me if I’m wrong,” she said, “but isn’t the point of this to avoid suspicion?”

“The best way to look guilty,” Alexei told the girl, “is to make yourself look too innocent. Who in their right mind would cover up an illegal operation with another illegal operation?”

“What about the DEA?”

“The DEA barely even operates in this country anymore,” Alexei said dismissively, “much less in California.” He put his canister of tea down and picked his cigarettes up from his desk. “Nobody’s going to care about some nouveau riche playboy douchebag who grows his own party favors.”

The girl passed between Alexei and the screen. She sat in Alexei’s chair and put her bare feet up on the edge of the desk. She flexed her toes and Alexei thought that her painted toenails looked like tiny pink moons.

“This is because of Dre, isn’t it?”

Alexei nodded as he stuck a cigarette between his lips and torched it to life. He put the lighter back down on his desk as he blew the smoke up toward the filter in the ceiling. “We’re going to have to take some extra precautions now.”

“Do you think he’ll cooperate with them?”

“Yes,” Alexei said. “Whether he wants to or not, he will. At least I hope he does, for his own sake.”

“You think he can locate us?”

“He can probably get them close. And if they hook him up to the right equipment, all they have to do is show him satellite images and they’ll know if he recognizes anything, whether he wants to cooperate or not. That’s why we have to make sure this place looks nothing like what he remembers.”

“I thought you paid someone to have the property added to some kind of black site database.”

“I did. And I just paid someone to remove it.”

“Why?”

“Because that’s the very first place I’d look for someplace that somebody doesn’t want found.”

“Good point,” the girl said. “But won’t they be using images from before you activated the cloaking?”

“I doubt it. If they’re smart, they’ll take all new images of everything inside of a two hundred kilometer radius of LA using only equipment that they personally control.”

“If they’re smart,” the girl said, “they’ll anticipate your move and compare old images to new images to see if there are any dramatic inconsistencies. Or they’ll look for discrepancies between topographical measurements and visual data.”

“I said if they’re smart,” Alexei said. “Not if they’re smarter than me.”

He winked at the girl and she smiled. He sipped his tea and she looked back at the screen.

“You didn’t call me up here just to show me this, did you?”

“No.”

“I think I know what you want me to do.”

“What?”

“You want me to try to get him out, don’t you?”

Alexei rubbed his head as he looked down at the floor and exhaled smoke through his nose. “Ki, Andre is lost,” he finally said. “There is no getting him out.”

“But don’t we owe it to him to at least try?” Ki said. She took her feet down off the desk. “He’s there because of you. You’re the reason he did what he did.”

Alexei looked at the girl. “I know exactly why he did what he did,” he told her. “But that doesn’t change the fact that we can’t get to him. Even if we knew where he was—which I seriously doubt we could even find out—there’s no way we’d be able to get in.”

“So what do we do?”

“The only thing we can do,” Alexei said. “We make sure his sacrifice wasn’t for nothing. And we make sure everything you went through wasn’t for nothing. We continue on to the next phase of our plan.”

“You mean your plan,” the girl said. “Nobody else knows what’s going on inside your head but you.”

“Ki, we’ve been over this.” He tipped his ash into the ashtray behind him. “I’ve told you more than I’ve told anyone else, but for your own good, I can’t tell you any more.”

“Well then at least tell me why I’m here,” the girl said. “What do you want me to do if not try to rescue Dre?”

Alexei swirled the tea around the inside of the canister but didn’t take a sip. “I have a mission for you,” he said.

“What kind of mission?”

“A diplomatic one.”

The girl gave Alexei a skeptical look. “Diplomacy isn’t exactly what you trained me for,” she said. “Are you sure I’m the best choice?”

“Trust me,” Alexei said smiling. “For the type of diplomacy I’m talking about, you’re perfect.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Before Florian Lasker was relocated to secure corporate executive housing, he maintained two apartments. The first was a modern penthouse right in downtown LA with walls of curved glass panes set between arched steel trusses, a glass-shrouded plasma fire pit, and a forest of preserved birch trunks set in a substrate of smooth black river rock. The second was a two-story urban industrial loft in the Arts District with exposed ducts, a glass and steel staircase, polished and heated concrete floors, and one wall composed of over half a billion quad-color photoelectric acoustic pixels that cycled through endless textures and landscapes.

The penthouse was his official address and was reserved for friends, business associates, and dinners. The loft was for parties and girls.

Florian was having a glass extension added to the penthouse’s pool so that one corner would cantilever out over the street below and create the illusion of floating above the city. In terms of square meters, the structure would constitute the largest unsupported glass structure in the country, and possibly one of the largest in the world.

The design phase of the project had fascinated Florian, but he despised the renovation itself. Disorder was not something Florian handled well, so even though he was alone after dinner, he auto-drove east to the loft rather than to the penthouse. The freight elevator jolted to a halt on the top floor and the outer doors divided horizontally like tremendous mechanical jaws. When the mesh gate lifted, Florian stepped out into the brick hallway and saw that there was someone curled up on the floor in front of his doorway, seemingly asleep with her head propped up on a neatly folded burgundy jacket.

The first time Florian saw the girl, she was serving him an Italian espresso prior to an analyst meeting. Her big almond eyes somehow made her look vulnerable—almost frightened—and he found her afterwards and asked her if she wanted to go get a drink. They had cocktails and appetizers and then ended up back at the loft. Florian tried to remember how many times she’d been over since. Three, maybe four. It had probably been at least a month since they’d spoken.

He did not awaken the girl, but the snap of the top and bottom bolts withdrawing startled her, and the squeal of the heavy suspended steel door being mechanically pulled in its tracks made her sit up. Florian casually stepped over the body as he entered the apartment.

Although uninvited, the girl followed him inside. The door slid closed behind her and automatically bolted. The front wall was displaying a disorienting underwater scene: footage from inside a massive shark tank, dark and sleek shapes gliding through an endless indigo glow. The blue light it cast across the entire apartment was somber and cold.

Florian was in the kitchen. He had hung his leather overcoat on the back of a bar stool and was reaching up for a wine glass. The tight and impeccable weaves of his charcoal slacks and fitted pinstriped button-down gave the fabric a touch of sheen.

“You want some?” he asked.

The girl shook her head. She had stopped between the door and the kitchen. Her jacket was still outside in the hall.

She stood with her hands clasped together in front of her in a way that might have looked meditative, but her stance and expression projected anxiety. She was wearing a black top that exposed a strip of pale belly, dark jeans tucked into her high-heel boots, and a subtle diamond stud in her nose. Her straight black hair came down past her shoulders and her eyelashes just brushed her bangs.

Florian took down a single triple-glazed stemless Bordeaux glass. The spaces between the one-millimeter thick layers of borosilicate were filled with the heavy gas xenon to keep thermal conductivity from affecting the complex properties of the wine. The cabinet slid closed on its own.

Florian spoke without looking at the girl. “Kylie, what the hell are you doing here?”

The girl shrugged her petite shoulders. “I needed to talk to you.”

Florian pulled open the magnetically sealed door to the wine store and the screens above the bottles illuminated. Each compartment contained rollers for rotating its bottle, a single LED, and a camera that allowed the label to be both displayed and scanned for the purpose of keeping the database of Florian’s collection up to date. The temperature of each recess was adjusted and maintained individually and was determined by algorithms that took as inputs an array of integers representing one or more grape varieties, the latitude and longitude of the wine’s region, the age of the wine expressed in milliseconds, and several gigabytes of data downloaded from the corresponding vineyard’s archives of soil composition analyses and meteorological activity obtained through thousands of remote wireless sensors.

“You needed to talk to me,” Florian said, “so you decide to stalk me?”

“I didn’t have much of a choice,” the girl said. “You won’t return my calls.”

Florian selected a bottle and when he removed it the screen above the compartment dimmed. “Just because I haven’t doesn’t mean that I won’t.”

“OK,” the girl said. “Then you haven’t returned my calls. What’s the difference?”

Florian conceded with a shrug. He inserted the bottle into a vertical compartment which closed when he withdrew his hand. The cork was removed pneumatically and a combined aeration and filtration tube inserted itself into the neck of the bottle.

“I’ve been busy.”

“Where have you been?”

Florian recovered the bottle from the compartment and turned to give the girl a quizzical look. “What do you mean? I haven’t been anywhere.”

“This is the third night I’ve been here, and you never came home.”

“Ah,” Florian said. He nodded. The deep ruby red wine burbled and splashed as he filled the thick insulated glass too quickly. “I’ve been at my other place.”

The girl frowned. “You have another place?”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not illegal,” Florian said.

“Where is it?”

Florian sipped the wine and sighed. “Is that really what you came here to talk about, Kylie? My real estate portfolio?”

The girl squinted at Florian from beneath her bangs. He threw back the remainder of the glass and began refilling it.

“Why are you such a negative person, Florian?”

Florian snickered. “I’m not negative, Kylie.” He took a sip from his second glass and leaned against the polished concrete counter. “I’m discontent. There’s a difference.”

The girl shifted her weight and crossed her arms. “Really?”

“Yes, really. Negativity is destructive. Discontent is constructive. Discontent is a catalyst. It’s what makes some of us get up off our asses and do something with our lives.”

“But why would you say it’s a good thing when it obviously makes you miserable?”

“We’re supposed to be miserable, Kylie. Christ, it drives me fucking crazy that I seem to be the only person on the entire planet who sees that. Evolution didn’t take us all the way up to this point so that we could sit around feeling fulfilled and enlightened and perpetually gratified.”

The girl moved into the kitchen. She sat up on the barstool beside the one where Florian’s coat hung and hooked her heels on the stool’s cross brace. “You really believe evolution favors discontentedness over happiness?”

“Of course that’s what I believe. What do you think drives us? What do you think makes us get out of bed in the mornings? What do you think motivates us to eat, drink, earn a living, go to sleep when we’re tired, go to the hospital when we’re hurt, fuck each other to propagate our genes? There are only two things that motivate all conscious living creatures: the promise of pleasure, and the fear of pain. The carrot and the stick. But the fear of pain is by far the more effective of the two.”

“I don’t believe that’s true,” the girl said. “I think positive reinforcement is far more powerful.”

“Unfortunately it doesn’t really matter what you think, Kylie. It’s a fact. What’s a better motivator to get you to eat? The promise of having something you enjoy, or the pain and discomfort of being hungry? Do you have any idea the kinds of things people will eat when they’re starving to death? Rats. Maggots. Rotten flesh. Each other. What’s the better motivator to get you to avoid a dark alley at night? Is it the thought that walking through a well lit and safe neighborhood might make for a more pleasant stroll, or is it the fear of being raped and having your throat slit? Fear, pain, hatred, and discontent are what advance humanity, Kylie, whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, and those of us who understand and experience those emotions the most intensely are the ones who will be the most successful. If I wasn’t as discontent as I am, I’d probably be some fat fucking slob sitting on the couch watching TV all day with a beer and a bag of potato chips in my lap. But instead, I’m rich, I’m successful, I’m powerful, and I will leave my mark on this world before I die.”

He finished his wine and began filling his glass for a third time. The girl was looking down at her hands on the counter.

“I didn’t come here to argue with you or to be lectured to, Florian.”

“You asked,” Florian said. “Now are you going to tell me why you did come here or are you going to make me guess?”

The girl was still looking down at her hands. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

Florian let a moment pass while he finished filling his glass, then shrugged. “I can’t read your mind, Kylie.”

The girl looked up. “I came to tell you that I’m pregnant.”

Florian did not react. He sipped his wine while keeping his eyes on the girl. “So you’re here for money, then.”

“Maybe I wasn’t clear,” the girl said. “I’m pregnant with your baby. Our daughter.”

“So how much does a good abortion go for these days?”

“Are you even hearing what I’m telling you?”

Florian put down his wine glass and pulled his handset out of his pocket. “Five thousand? Ten thousand?”

The girl gave Florian a disbelieving look. “I want you to listen to me, Florian. I don’t want your money, and I’m not getting an abortion.”

“Look, Kylie, I’m tired and I have a lot of work to do before I can go to bed tonight. Can we please just call this what it is? You’re obviously here to shake me down. People like you don’t accidentally get pregnant by people like me. We both know that. You’re a secretary or an executive assistant or whatever the fuck you call yourselves these days who got knocked up on purpose because you knew it was probably the best opportunity you’d ever have to get someone to marry you, or to pay you a small fortune to keep quiet. You saw a shot and you took it. Good for you. I don’t blame you. I would’ve probably done the same thing if I was in your position. So why not just make this easy on everyone and name your price. How about we agree to an even hundred thousand and I never see you again?”

The girl had grown calm. She regarded Florian carefully. “Actually, there is something I want from you, Florian, but it isn’t money.”

“We’ve already established that I can’t read your mind, Kylie. Spit it out.”

“I know you’re not going to be a father to this baby. That’s not what I want, and that’s not what I’m asking. All I ask of you is that you think about the kind of world that you want to leave behind for your daughter. That’s it.”

“Come on, Kylie. This is bullshit. You’re not having this baby.”

“I am having this baby, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me. I’m going to raise her by myself, and you will never see her, hold her, touch her, or talk to her. But you will always know that somewhere out there, you have a child who has absolutely no chance at any kind of opportunity or success with the way the world is today. And someday, with that in the back of your mind, you might just decide to do something about it.”

“And what exactly do you think I can do about it? You think I can just change the way the entire world works because I suddenly feel guilty that my kid can’t get a job, or has to sell her vote to buy something to eat?”

The girl suddenly looked perplexed. “Wait a second. I’m confused. Weren’t you just telling me how incredibly important and powerful you are, and about how you’re going to bless all of humanity by leaving your mark on the world?”

Florian glared at the girl. “You’re goddamn right,” he told her. He moved his glass to his other hand so he could point. “My mark. Not yours, not your baby’s, and sure as hell not the mark of some pathetic washed-up Russian spook. Nobody ever looked out for me when I was a kid, so why should I look out for anyone else? I had to fight for everything I have, so let everyone else fight for what they want. It’s called survival of the fittest, and it’s the only law since the very inception of life on this planet that’s ever meant a goddamn thing.”

“I think you’re actually selling yourself short,” the girl said. “I think you’re capable of doing much bigger things than you even realize.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“It means you’ve always taken the easy way out. It means you just do what everyone expects you to do and what comes easily and naturally to you. Survival of the fittest is easy when you’re the fittest, isn’t it? But maybe someday you’ll decide to actually challenge yourself—to walk away from a fight, or to fight a fight you know you can’t win, or to do something in someone else’s best interests rather than your own. Someday maybe you’ll understand the meaning of the word humanity.”

“Do you really think that just because you refuse to have an abortion, I’m suddenly going to turn into some kind of bleeding heart humanitarian? I’m sorry, but I’m not following your logic.”

“Believe me, no one expects you to become a humanitarian, Florian. But I do think that one day, you could be in a position to change the world. And when that day comes, I want you to remember your baby. Even if you’ve never thought about her before and if you never think of her again for the rest of your life, I want you to think of your daughter right at that moment, and I want you to challenge yourself to do the right thing.”

“Thank you, Kylie. That was truly inspirational. I promise to do my very best to keep all that in mind. In fact, maybe you can needlepoint it for me and frame it and I’ll hang it up in the bathroom. Now if you’re finished, I believe you’re familiar with the exit.”

The girl did not move. “Florian, please,” she said.

“Please what?”

“Please,” she repeated. Her resolution was beginning to falter. “Don’t be like this.”

“Like what? Like the person I am? Like the person you knew I was when you decided to sleep with me? How should I be? Should I be who you want me to be? Should I be who God wants me to be? Should I be like everyone else in the world and pretend to be someone I’m not so I can spend the rest of my life repressed and miserable? Tell me what you think I should do, Kylie. Tell me. Please. I’m dying to know.”

“I don’t know what I want you to do,” the girl said. She looked at him imploringly. “I just don’t want you to send me away.”

“What’s the matter? Are you having second thoughts about the money? Well I’m sorry, but that offer has expired. My new offer is this: you have thirty seconds to get the fuck out of my apartment before I call security.”

The girl looked down at her hands. She was still for a moment and then she shook her head and tears fell into her lap.

“Oh, Christ,” Florian said. “Not the fucking waterworks now.”

The girl did not respond. She crossed her arms and hugged herself and seemed to grow smaller beneath the weight of Florian’s glare. Florian watched her a moment longer and when he spoke again, his tone was milder.

“Kylie, look. I’m sorry. I know I said some shitty things tonight. But the reality is that you’re much better off without me. We both know that. Now come on. Pull yourself together.”

The girl looked up. She wiped her eyes with the palms of her hands and sniffed. She held Florian’s gaze as she got down off her barstool and tentatively approached him. Even with her heels, she looked like a child standing in front of the much larger man, and she reached up and touched his chest through his shirt. Florian looked down at the girl, neither withdrawing nor reciprocating. As the girl slid her arms around him and pushed her body against his, his demeanor began to soften, and when he had relaxed enough, the girl was suddenly behind him. Florian’s wine glass shattered against the concrete floor as she did something to his knees to knock him off balance and cause him to collapse back against her. One of Florian’s hands grasped at the counter beside him while the other searched the air for something else to give him leverage. The girl’s hand struck at the knife block beside her and came back with a long, mottled, Damascus-steel blade. She flipped it around to reverse her grip, and Florian froze when he felt the edge press against his throat.

The girl’s voice was soft and sweet as she spoke into Florian’s ear. “I didn’t come here for money, Florian. I came to deliver a message.”

Florian’s astonishment turned to bitter amusement and he smiled. “Son of a bitch. I should have known. Very well played, Kylie. Although I’m guessing your name isn’t actually Kylie, is it?”

“Good guess.”

“So who are you?”

“You’re the genius. You tell me.”

“OK,” Florian said. “I think you’re Hyun Ki, Alexei’s little pet assassin. I think you’re the little slut who killed Nicolas Laroche.”

“What gave me away? Was it the knife?”

“I take it Alexei says hello.”

“Not hello,” the girl said. “Goodbye.”

Florian’s smile vanished and he reached up for her hand, but the blade cut deeper. Blood trickled out from beneath it and ran down into his collar.

“Kylie, please,” Florian said. His breathing was rapid and he closed his eyes. “I mean Ki. Whoever the fuck you are. Please. You don’t have to do this.”

“I don’t? But you just said positive reinforcement doesn’t work on you.” She moved the knife and it bit down closer to his jugular. “So why don’t we try a little fear and pain, instead. Since you weren’t interested in the carrot, let’s give the stick a try.”

“Jesus Christ!” Florian screamed through his teeth. “Ki, please!”

The girl held Florian for another moment, then stepped back and dropped him to the floor. Florian cried out when his hand slid through the shattered glass. As the girl stepped past him toward the door, she slammed the stone handle of the knife down on the counter.

“Just a friendly reminder that we’re watching you,” she said.

“Wait,” Florian said. The girl stopped and turned. Florian pulled a shard of glass from his palm and tossed it down beside him. “I have a message for Alexei, too.”

The girl gave a mocking shrug. “I can’t read your mind, Florian.”

“Do you know what a queen sacrifice is?”

She took a dish towel from a steel rack by the stove and tossed it down to Florian. He caught it with his good hand.

“I wasn’t trained to play board games,” she told him.

“Clearly,” Florian said. He used the counter to pull himself up. His hair had fallen down over his forehead and there was blood on the front of his shirt. “It’s when you sacrifice your most powerful piece on the board in order to gain a tactical advantage—usually to win the entire match.”

“And?”

“Tell Alexei that when the time comes, he needs to stand down.” He wiped the blood from his neck, then held the towel against the opening in his palm. “Tell him if he doesn’t, he’s going to lose everything.”

“I don’t think that’s going to go over very well,” the girl said. “Alexei doesn’t like to lose.”

“That’s the problem,” Florian said. He took a drink directly from the wine bottle, then smiled wildly at the girl. His teeth were red and wine trickled from the corner of his mouth. “Neither do I.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

It was rainy and still early so the foot traffic in central London was light. Alexei sat at the intersection of Arlington and Piccadilly in the driver’s seat of an old Aston Martin One-77 which had been retrofitted with a hydrogen fuel cell, a first-generation auto-drive system, and an electrostatic air filter which was doing a poor job of containing the smoke from his cigarette. The windshield had at some point been treated with a superhydrophobic vapor which actively repelled the rain so there was no need for wipers. The sky was solid gunmetal gray, and red ran through the wet streets as London’s iconic double-decker buses lumbered by.

Alexei was watching for Atsuko Yoshida. She lived on Down Street and worked at Itsu Sushi a few blocks east, which made Alexei’s position facing north toward Dover ideal for spotting her on her way past. Although he was fairly confident in his ability to predict her route, it had been well over four years since Alexei had seen or even spoken to the girl, so he was a great deal less confident in his ability to recognize her. She was young enough the last time they were together that she would have probably grown up considerably. Her hair could be of any length now, and being a young woman living in central London, she might have adopted any number of various fashions. And if all that wasn’t enough, she would very likely be in a hurry due to the unpleasantness of this morning’s weather.

In addition to studying each pedestrian who passed in front of his car, Alexei used his handset to scan the street. Emma had records of all of his students’ biometrics: fingerprints; DNA sequences; facial, voice, iris, retina, brain wave, and vein patterns; thermographic and olfactive signatures; and, for long-range identification, gait dynamics. Alexei had been trying to locate Atsuko on the street for two days now, and he was almost out of time. He knew that he could find her at work or by breaking into her flat and waiting for her to come home at night after her shift, but those were the two most likely locations to already be under surveillance. He had to make contact with her in a neutral environment—someplace unexpected and impractical to watch for long periods of time. It was critical that Alexei be patient and execute flawlessly since an opportunity like this would almost certainly never present itself again.

Atsuko was one of seven young Japanese women Alexei sent to live in seven different major cities around the world: Beijing, London, Moscow, New York, Paris, Seoul, and Tokyo. Each was set up in her own flat, and each took a job at a nearby Japanese restaurant with a popular sushi bar. The girls were instructed to remain exactly where Alexei had placed them—to keep their jobs, to forfeit all vacation time, and to avoid serious relationships. Most of them would never see or hear from Alexei ever again, and if—after five years—he had not shown up, their lives were their own to do with what they chose. Inside of that five-year window, however, Alexei might appear at absolutely any moment, at which point the chosen girl’s destiny was his alone to dictate.

Alexei lowered his window and flicked his cigarette away from the car. As he was fishing another one from the gold and black box, his handset chimed. It was highlighting a small girl dressed entirely in black, striding through the rain with her hands shoved down to the bottom of her coat pockets. Alexei opened the car door, stepped out onto the wet pavement, and called her name.

The girl stopped. In her face was none of the congenial neutrality that one tries to present to someone they have not yet recognized, nor the joyous bewilderment of unexpectedly running into an old friend or loved one. It was clear that the girl knew instantly who Alexei was as she stood there frozen and expressionless, and that she was struggling to process the implications of his sudden and unexpected appearance. Alexei wondered for a moment if she might continue right on down Piccadilly and force him to stoop to chasing her through the streets.

“Come on,” he called. “Get in.”

The girl looked up and down the street one last time, and only with obvious resignation did she finally approach the car.

She got in on the passenger side and pulled the door shut. Alexei was already back inside. He took his handset down off the dash, touched the screen, and the glass around them dimmed to its maximum opacity.

He turned to the girl beside him and smiled at her. “It’s good to see you, Atsuko,” he said. “It really is. How have you been?”

The girl had chin-length hair with blonde highlights, bangs, and a tiny bit of curl to it. She was wearing black jeans, a short black synthetic leather coat, and a cashmere scarf. Her lips were painted a glossy, ruby red, and the delicate curves of her narrow dark eyes were emphasized with meticulously applied liner. She was looking down at her hands in her lap and Alexei noticed that her nails were short but well manicured—painted the precise shade as her lips.

“Fine, I suppose,” the girl said. “Or at least I was a moment ago.”

Her Queen’s English accent was perfect. The girl’s nanny had been from central London, which is why Alexei had chosen to send Atsuko here. The less the girls stood out, the better.

“You’re not surprised, are you?” Alexei said. “You knew this day was coming, didn’t you?”

“I knew it might come,” the girl said, “but I’d obviously hoped it wouldn’t.”

Alexei nodded. “Well, if it’s any consolation, I’d hoped it wouldn’t, too.”

“It’s not,” the girl said quickly. She looked at Alexei and water dripped from the tips of her wavy hair onto her lap. “Why don’t we skip the pleasantries and sentimentality and get right to the point. What do you want from me?”

Alexei reached into his coat, then passed the girl a small black canister. When she got the top off, she lurched back in her seat. Inside was a human thumb.

“What the bloody hell?”

“It’s OK,” Alexei said. “It’s a prosthetic.”

Atsuko glared at Alexei. “You might have warned me.”

Alexei tried not to smile at the girl’s reaction. “I’m sorry.”

“What’s it for?”

“I’m meeting someone for lunch at Itsu tomorrow—someone I need to make a final decision about. I need you to be our server. At the end of the meal, if and only if I ask you for your most expensive bottle of sake, I want you to slip that on over your right thumb and press it hard against the inside of his glass. Then immediately place it back in the canister, seal it, and wash your hands. I’ll come by your apartment tomorrow night to pick it up.”

Atsuko slipped the prosthetic on over her thumb. The size, texture, and shade made it a perfect match. It had clearly been custom fabricated.

“What if I say no?”

Alexei drummed on the steering wheel with his fingers. “You knew going into this that saying no wasn’t an option, Atsuko.”

The girl’s delicate features became defiant. “What if I decide to make it an option?”

Alexei shrugged. “If you say no, then you say no. I’m not going to try to force you to do something you don’t want to do. But I think you’ll help me.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because this is your time,” Alexei said. “This may be your chance to change the entire course of human history. The whole thing will be over in no more than a few seconds, but I promise you that this will be the most important and significant thing you do in your entire life.”

The girl looked back down at the thumb. “I’ll have to remove my polish to make it match.”

“Paint the thumb instead. It won’t hurt it, and it’s less obvious.”

“What’s in it?”

Alexei studied her for a moment. “Do you really want to know?”

“I’m assuming you’re asking me to take a man’s life, not flavor his drink with artificial sweetener. I think I have a right to know how he’s going to die.”

“OK,” Alexei conceded. “It’s a substance called polonium-210.”

“What does it do?”

“It causes a very severe case of acute radiation syndrome. I’m happy to give you the details if you want, but it’s probably enough to say that he’ll be dead in three weeks, and there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do to stop it.”

“Will it be painful?”

Alexei watched her for a moment before responding. “Yes. Very.”

“Are you certain it’s safe to handle?”

“Absolutely. Polonium-210 doesn’t emit any gamma rays whatsoever, so it’s completely undetectable and perfectly safe to handle as long as you don’t ingest it. You have my word on that.”

The girl nodded. She put the prosthetic back in the canister, sealed it, then handed it back to Alexei. Alexei looked down at the canister, then back up at the girl.

“What’s the matter?”

“It isn’t going to work,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because Florian Lasker isn’t coming.”

Alexei’s expression went from shock at hearing Florian’s name to quiet fury. He reached for the panel beside him and locked both doors. “How did you know it was Florian?”

“Because he came to see me the day you got in touch with him.”

Alexei’s face was flush but he spoke calmly to the girl. “Tell me exactly what he said.”

The girl looked out her window at the rain. “He said you left him a message claiming that you heard he was in London on business, and that you happened to be in town, as well. He said you invited him to catch up over sushi, coffee, and a game of chess.” She paused, then turned to look at Alexei. “And then he offered me five million NGD to poison you instead of him.”

Alexei narrowed his eyes. “What did you tell him,” he asked her. “Did you tell him you’d do it?”

“Of course not.”

“Then why are you just telling me this now? Why’d you wait until I gave you the polonium?”

“Because,” the girl said, “I was hoping the poison would be quick and painless enough that I could use it on myself.”

All the anger drained from Alexei’s face and he looked at the girl with anguish. “My god, Atsuko. Why would you say that?”

“Please don’t act like you suddenly care about me,” she said. “A minute ago, you were trying to talk me into doing something that would have probably either gotten me killed or thrown into prison for the rest of my life.”

“You know I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“Why not? I wouldn’t have been of any use to you anymore. I’m just a pawn in the latest game of chess between you and Florian, and we both know what happens to pawns.”

“We’re all pawns in someone’s game, Atsuko. That doesn’t mean we don’t care about each other.”

The girl looked at Alexei with disbelief. “You really expect me to believe that?”

“That I care about you? I raised you, Atsuko. Of course I care about you.”

The girl laughed scornfully. “You didn’t raise me, Alexei. You paid someone to raise me. And you paid someone to train me to be a bloody assassin.”

“Atsuko—”

“And then you sent me away just in case you might have some need for me at some unspecified point in the future, and now that it turns out you don’t, I’ll never see or hear from you again. I understand that you’re Russian, Alexei, but that’s not exactly the way most normal people show that they care for one another.”

“We’re not exactly normal people, though, are we?”

“No, we’re not. You certainly saw to that.”

Alexei squinted at the girl. He knew this could be the last time he ever saw her, and he did not want their relationship to end in anger, but this was something he could not let go. He realized that he used almost everyone in his life, but he was proud of the fact that he also never took without giving something back.

“Atsuko, if you think you’re somehow missing out on something that everyone else in the world has, believe me when I tell you that you’re dead wrong. In fact, you have far more than most people.”

“Do I? You mean my extra thumb?”

“I mean that you have a purpose.”

“To pretend to live a normal life while I wait for the closest thing I ever had to a father to show up out of nowhere and ask me to murder someone? I suppose you could call that a purpose.”

“Your purpose isn’t to kill,” Alexei said. “Your purpose is to help change the world, and if that means having to kill someone, then so be it. I thought you could handle that, but if you can’t, then I’m sorry I overestimated you.”

“What I can’t handle is being treated as nothing but a resource. I want to hear you admit that we’re all expendable to you. I want to hear you admit that in your mind, all that matters is your own grand plan for the universe, and anything that gets in your way is simply collateral damage.”

“OK,” Alexei said. The anger was rising in him again and he leaned closer to the girl. “You are expendable to me, and all that matters is my own grand plan for the universe. Anything that gets in my way is simply collateral damage. Including you.”

The girl watched him silently. She blinked and a tear ran down her cheek. “I guess I should be relieved to finally hear you say that. Let me out, please.”

“You can get out now and never see or hear from me again, or you can listen to what else I have to say.”

He reached for the panel and unlocked the doors. The girl did not move. She picked at the rubber gasket between the door and the window with her fingernail.

“Atsuko, what you have to understand is that the only thing worse than death is having nothing to live for. The most important thing I’ve given all of you isn’t clothing, or shelter, or food, or training. It’s purpose. I’m sorry that I never told you this before, but I am very proud of you, Atsuko. I’m proud of the girl that you were, the woman that you’ve become, and I’m sure I’ll be proud of you no matter what you choose to do with your life from now on.”

The girl wiped her cheeks with her palms. She looked up at Alexei and when he smiled, she leaned over and put her arms around his neck. He rubbed her back as she clung to him.

“Please forget about Florian,” she said. “You can’t get to him. If you try, he’ll kill you.”

“No, he won’t,” Alexei said. He pushed the girl gently away and held her shoulders as he looked at her. “This isn’t a game of chess. This is my game, my rules, and I can beat him.”

The girl shook her head. “You’ve been planning this for almost five years. You had people all over the world waiting for just the right moment to strike, and he still saw it coming. I think he knew that I wouldn’t turn on you, but next time, he’ll find someone who will, or he’ll kill you himself.”

“Atsuko, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t walk away from this. Florian is far too dangerous, and it’s entirely my fault. I created him, and now I have to find a way to stop him.”

“Why?” the girl asked. “What did he do?”

“It isn’t what he’s done. It’s what he’s capable of doing. I created an opening for him to become CEO of Pearl Knight before I realized how out of control he was. If he takes it—and I’m virtually certain he will—he will not only have direct access to the president of the United States, but he could very well be in line to become the next president of the United States, at which point I won’t be able to get to him anymore. I have a very short window of time in which to act, and I intend to take it.”

“So Americans get stuck with another corrupt and ineffective president,” the girl said. “So what? It’s not worth you losing your life over.”

“Atsuko, you have to understand that Florian won’t be content with just conquering the United States. As soon as he feels like he has gone as high as he can, he’ll turn his attention to the rest of the world.”

“You don’t know that.”

“What I know is that there is absolutely no limit to the amount of power that Florian will seek, and not a lot of people who can stop him. With his connections to Pearl Knight, he’ll have access to some of the most advanced and powerful military equipment in the world, and I believe that he will use every last piece of it to control as much money, as much land, as many resources—and most importantly, as many people—as he possibly can. Atsuko, it’s entirely possible that Florian Lasker could end up being the end of the United States as we know it. The lives of millions of people could be at stake.”

“Maybe,” the girl said. She kissed Alexei gently on the cheek before opening her door. She stepped out into the rain, then leaned back down. “But even if I never see or talk to you again, I don’t want you to be one of them.”

She closed the door and Alexei watched her walk back up the street and turn the corner. Although he knew that the girl represented the best chance he had at getting to Florian, he was surprised to find that some part of him was not sorry that she could not help him. His only regret at the moment was having asked her in the first place.

PART FOUR

ENTROPY POOL

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Andre has learned that torture is fundamentally about exploiting conditions unforeseen by evolution. The role of negative physiological response is to provide us with incentive to keep ourselves safe. We either correct the conditions causing the discomfort, or we ultimately succumb to them. Either way, stress, fear, and pain are supposed to be fleeting—no more than brief catalysts to convince us to take corrective action. But just as the creativity and ingenuity of mankind has lifted us above so many of nature’s intended limitations, so has it subverted nature’s intended limitations on suffering. The countless evolutionary iterations that have culminated in modern man did not adequately anticipate the possibility of unrelenting and sustained horror without the power to resolve it. The human psyche cannot reconcile the presence of constant excruciating pain without the ability to somehow alleviate it—even through death. Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of man is that his capacity to feel pain seems to be as limitless as his desire to inflict it.

The boy has held nothing back. He has even made up hundreds of details just to have something to say. At this point, he will tell his interrogators whatever they want to hear: confess to any crime; denounce or swear his allegiance to any nation; inform on anyone he has ever met, and even those he has not. His interrogators frankly don’t care if what he is saying is true or not because everything is cross-referenced, corroborated, and eventually either verified or disproved. It is less important that Andre tells only the truth than it is that he keeps talking. It is better to have an abundance of ambiguous information from which the truth can be distilled than it is to risk missing even a single key element.

Most of his interrogations start out with a review of what they believe to be true:

INTERROGATOR: What is your name?

STRASSER: Andre Strasser.

INTERROGATOR: How old are you?

STRASSER: Fourteen.

INTERROGATOR: Where were you born?

STRASSER: West Baltimore.

INTERROGATOR: Who is your mother?

STRASSER: Laticia Martin.

INTERROGATOR: Where is she?

STRASSER: She was killed in a raid on a drug lab outside of Washington D.C.

INTERROGATOR: Who is your father?

STRASSER: Donte Strasser.

INTERROGATOR: Where is he?

STRASSER: I don’t know. Either dead or homeless.

INTERROGATOR: When did you leave Baltimore?

STRASSER: I’m not sure. I think between nine months and a year ago.

INTERROGATOR: Why did you leave Baltimore?

STRASSER: I got recruited.

INTERROGATOR: By whom?

STRASSER: Alexei Drovosek.

INTERROGATOR: Is Alexei Drovosek an American citizen?

STRASSER: I don’t know.

INTERROGATOR: Do you think Alexei Drovosek is an American citizen?

STRASSER: No.

INTERROGATOR: What do you believe Alexei Drovosek’s nationality to be?

STRASSER: Russian.

INTERROGATOR: Have you ever heard Alexei Drovosek referred to as “the Lion” or “Woodcutter” or “Tin Man”?

STRASSER: No.

INTERROGATOR: Have you ever heard Alexei Drovosek referred to by any other names?

STRASSER: No.

INTERROGATOR: Why did Alexei Drovosek recruit you?

STRASSER: He wanted me to compete in a tournament.

INTERROGATOR: What kind of tournament?

STRASSER: A game called Mechs and Drones.

INTERROGATOR: Did Alexei Drovosek ever mention Freetown or New Guangdong?

STRASSER: Yes.

INTERROGATOR: Which name did he use to refer to it?

STRASSER: Both.

INTERROGATOR: Did he tell you that he intended to interfere with the political situation in Sierra Leone?

STRASSER: Yes.

INTERROGATOR: Did he instruct you to directly interfere with the protests in Sierra Leone?

STRASSER: No.

INTERROGATOR: Did you make the decision to interfere on your own?

STRASSER: Yes.

INTERROGATOR: Is Alexei planning on interfering in the upcoming presidential election?

STRASSER: I don’t know.

INTERROGATOR: Is Alexei Drovosek currently plotting against the United States government?

STRASSER: I don’t know.

INTERROGATOR: Do you believe Alexei Drovosek to be under the influence of any foreign governments?

STRASSER: I don’t know.

INTERROGATOR: Do you believe Alexei Drovosek is under the influence of any radical factions?

STRASSER: I don’t know.

INTERROGATOR: Do you believe Alexei Drovosek to be an enemy of the United States?

STRASSER: Yes.

INTERROGATOR: Where does Alexei Drovosek live?

STRASSER: I don’t know.

INTERROGATOR: Why don’t you know?

STRASSER: He made sure I never knew where I was.

INTERROGATOR: Do you believe that Alexei Drovosek lives either in or close to the city of Los Angeles?

STRASSER: Yes.

INTERROGATOR: What is the shortest amount of time it has ever taken you to get from a location you knew to be in downtown Los Angeles to Alexei Drovosek’s home, or from his home to a location you knew to be in downtown Los Angeles?

STRASSER: About an hour.

INTERROGATOR: What was the longest amount of time?

STRASSER: About two hours.

INTERROGATOR: Tell me about Alexei Drovosek’s home.

STRASSER: It looks old, but it’s new.

From there, the questions focus on increasingly specific details about the house. How many rooms are there? What is the approximate layout? How much of the house is below ground? How many people live there? Do planes ever fly overhead? What do the planes look and sound like? How often do they fly over? Are there any other sounds audible from inside or outside the house? How big is the lot the house is on? How many other structures are on the property? Can you see any other structures from anywhere on the property? Has he ever seen or heard a lake, stream, or river nearby? Are there any distinctive smells in or around the house? What kinds of trees are on the property? What kinds of animals and insects has he seen? What does it sound like at night? Describe how the shadows change throughout the day. In what direction does the wind usually blow? How does the water taste? Is there mineral buildup around the sink and shower faucets? How often has it rained since he’s been there? Has the power ever flickered or gone out, and if so, approximately when and for how long? Are there generators on the property? And so on.

Andre does not know how to play this game. He doesn’t know if he should try to convince them that he has told them everything he knows so that he might be transferred to a different kind of facility, or if his life depends on them believing that there are still details he has not yet revealed. He can’t tell if they will kill him when they decide he is no longer of any use, and he is not even certain that he wants to live.

Military black sites are designed to be unpredictable, but they’re never surprising. The methods by which fear, humiliation, and despair are induced might change day to day, but the emotions themselves become as familiar to prisoners as their homes and families and friends once were. The lack of routine becomes a routine in and of itself, and disorientation and confusion become the new state of normalcy. Once prisoners have finally let go of their dignity and self-respect, they become resistant to even the most novel forms of demoralization, and when all hope of calm and clarity and safety is sufficiently abandoned, the only peace left to be had is in death—yet even that their keepers allocate with cruel and reluctant discrimination.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Florian Lasker’s last promotion elevated him to the position of chief hiring officer for all of Pearl Knight Holdings and the entirety of its divisions and subsidiaries. He likes to think of his job as the most complex chess match ever played—one with hundreds of players and thousands of pieces played across a highly dynamic and multidimensional board. Recently he has begun tossing around the term “fractal chess” to describe what it is he does; he does not simply play a single match culminating in whatever election he is preparing for, but rather he engages in games within games within games, all at some level related to one another, the stakes and purses forever compounding, the results of one entire match equating to nothing more than a single move in the larger game containing it. The match Florian is playing this morning will not only determine whether his team wins the next match, but whether he will emerge as the victor among his own contingent.

He has been asked to appear before the entire board of directors as well as the president of the United States in order to help assuage fears that the election will not go as planned. Although the seventy-third floor boardroom appears full to Florian, he is actually the only one physically in the room. Everyone else is projected onto one another’s retinas via tiny lasers embedded inside titanium-rimmed, synthetic sapphire-lens glasses, each virtualized individual matched to his or her own unique pattern on the back of a conference room chair at a table purposely round to avoid the usual contention of who should be positioned where. Aside from the occasional millisecond or two of lag from network congestion or processor contention, the illusion is very close to flawless; the programmers even thought to use real-time, content-aware filters to dynamically remove the glasses from participants’ faces.

The president of the United States is opposite and to the right of Florian. Despite her years, she has a warm, almost seductively youthful look framed by her medium-length, flirtatious blonde hair. She is wearing a red blazer with a mandarin collar and a string of fat cultured pearls—a symbol which, considering her corporate hosts, is at once blatant and subliminal. To her right is the chairman of the board, Nolan Hardebeck. Hardebeck has managed to turn his middle-aged balding into a high-fashion look by trimming his remaining hair to the length of his facial stubble; by somehow ensuring that his scalp never draws undue attention by being shiny, even when playing racquetball; by chemically, genetically, or otherwise artificially maintaining a healthy tan; and by almost always wearing all black. Most of the remaining members of the Pearl Knight Holdings board of directors—having been made obscenely rich as a result thereof—are in attendance only out of contractual obligation, and therefore appear largely disinterested in the proceedings.

Hardebeck rattles his heavy platinum dive watch, glances down at it, then calls the meeting to order as he traditionally does by drumming his knuckles on the glass surface.

“Let’s hear it, Lasker,” he bursts out. Florian suspects that Hardebeck occasionally uses psychostimulants to take the edge off his personality, but they seem blatantly missing from his physiology at the moment. “We’re not exactly getting positive vibes off this election right now, bro. I hope you have some good news for us.”

Florian is wearing a royal blue pinstriped shirt which complements the intense hue of his eyes. Like Hardebeck, he wears a few days’ worth of the dashing kind of stubble (as opposed to the unkempt variety) on his face and down his neck into the open collar of his shirt. His hair is shorter now—kept in place by just the right amount of styling product—and his demeanor is characteristically calm yet entirely focused.

“As usual, I have both good news and bad,” he tells the board. His voice is soft but arresting, and he waits until he is certain everyone is sufficiently rapt before proceeding. “The good news is that based on what we know today, we have absolutely nothing to worry about. As of this morning, we control over one hundred and twenty-six million votes, and I expect us to have an additional fifty million by the time the polls open on Election Day.”

The president lets out her breath and smiles. “Well done, Florian. That should be plenty.”

“It should be,” Florian says, “but of course, we want to be sure, so despite our current cash flow situation, we’re sparing no expense.”

“I understand,” the president tells Florian. “And you will, of course, be well compensated.”

“Out with it,” Hardebeck demands. “Let’s have the bad news.”

Florian addresses the president directly. “The bad news is that there are still some unknowns. We’re extremely vulnerable right now. The game is changing, and we haven’t figured out the new rules yet. We probably have the cash to ride this out as long as nothing else goes wrong, but if there are any other attacks—”

Hardebeck waves his hands in the universal gesture to halt right there. “Whoa whoa whoa. What do you mean the game is changing? We are the game, my friend. We’re the ones who make the rules. The world adapts to us, we don’t adapt to it.”

“Really?” Florian muses. He gives Hardebeck a curious smile. “The CEO of Pearl Knight was murdered by a teenage girl on his own private jet practically right in front of his bodyguard. Thanks to a poor black kid from the streets of Baltimore, we’ve entirely lost control of almost all of New Guangdong, and with it, almost half of our manufacturing capabilities. What part of that makes you think we’re even remotely in control?”

“You know,” Hardebeck says leaning back, his chair automatically reclining to match his new posture, “when you put it that way, it kind of makes you question the competence and effectiveness of our current administration, doesn’t it? I mean if they can’t even keep Sierra Leone—one of our closest and most important allies—safe from a bunch of primitive African spear chuckers—”

The president sits up and narrows her eyes at Hardebeck. The gesture is subtle but it’s enough to shut him up. “You’re lucky you’re not actually sitting next to me right now or I’d reach over and rip your fucking balls off and shove them down your fucking throat.”

Hardebeck smiles. “Now where was that fighting spirit when our factories were getting looted?”

“You have no one to blame for that but yourselves. The United States hired Pearl Knight to protect the government of Sierra Leone. You fucked up, not us.”

“All I’m saying is that maybe we need more than just a pretty face in office right now. Maybe we need someone who better personifies the kick-ass nation that we obviously are. Anyone else here agree?”

The president gives Hardebeck an overly sweet smile. “I know you think I’m just some kind of puppet and that you and your little playground gang actually run this country, but let me explain something to you. I’m using you every bit as much as you’re using me. I’m playing the part of a cute dumb blonde because its serves my purposes just like you’re playing the part of sleazy douchebag because you think it’s somehow sexy, or appealing, or makes you look powerful in the eyes of your pathetic, balding, limp-dick peers. But listen to me very carefully. You will go out and get those votes, and you will give every last one of them to me, and if you don’t, I promise you that in six months, Pearl Knight will entirely cease to exist, and every one of you will be out on the streets peddling your votes just like every other middle class American just to pay for that fake fucking tan of yours. Gone will be the days of drugs and whores and parties and expensive Chinese sports cars and twenty-thousand dollar dive watches that you won’t even wear in a hot tub. Do I make myself abundantly clear?”

Hardebeck is watching the president. Florian can see that he is considering his next move very carefully—looking as many moves ahead as his puny intellect will accommodate. Eventually he smiles and spreads his hands.

“Christ, since when did these meetings get so fucking serious? I was kidding. Jesus.”

“Forgive me if I take the future of this country—and hence the future of the entire planet—a little more seriously than you and your fraternity brothers.”

“Are you two done?” The interruption comes from Walter French, a small but intense man with dark, avian features. He is alternating his accusatory stare between Hardebeck and the president. “As entertaining as all this is, it may all be a moot point if you don’t let Florian finish.”

“Hear, hear!” Hardebeck announces. It is clear he is seizing the opportunity to redirect a conversation that was not progressing even remotely in his favor. “Florian, my good man, you were saying?”

“I was saying that there’s obviously someone out there who has an interest in destabilizing Pearl Knight, and with it, the entire United States government. And I think there’s a very good chance he will target this election.”

“So we just need better security,” Hardebeck surmises. “We can handle that with all of our robots and drones and shit, right?”

“Better security,” Florian says thoughtfully. “You mean better security than Laroche had on his own private jet? Better security than the P.K. Megalodon? Better security than the Great Wall—sorry, the Great Rubble—of New Guangdong? If this individual wants to influence the upcoming election, all the security in the world won’t stop him.”

“Individual,” French repeats. “What makes you think just one person is responsible for all this?”

“I don’t think one person is responsible,” Florian tells French. “I know it. And I know exactly who that one person is.”

Hardebeck leans forward and looks at Florian with a combination of skepticism and accusation. “Now how the hell would you know something like that?”

“He has an unmistakable style,” Florian tells Hardebeck, “if you know what to look for. This is an incredibly dangerous man we’re dealing with here. I’ve known him most of my life, and can tell you that he doesn’t just think in terms of financial quarters or fiscal years. He plans decades in advance. He’s intelligent, well connected, and extremely resourceful. And he’s by far the most patient and determined individual I’ve ever met. If he puts his mind to it—which apparently he has—I have no doubt whatsoever that he can take down this company and this administration.”

“Well then what the fuck are we waiting for?” Hardebeck says. He looks around the table in mild disbelief. “Let’s designate this guy a domestic terrorist, slap his name on the kill or capture list, and get some fucking drones in the fucking air. Lasker, give us a name already.”

The president interjects. “He isn’t going to give us a name,” she says smoothly. She is talking to Hardebeck, but watching Florian with just a hint of a smile in her eyes. “Not until we give him something he wants. Isn’t that right, Mr. Lasker?”

Florian repositions himself in his chair. “I’m one of the very few people in the world who can not only identify this individual, but who can also locate him probably within hours. I’ve gotten us enough votes to win the presidency, every seat in the House, and the last third of the Senate. That means one of two things is about to happen: we’re either about to secure our place as one of the most powerful and influential entities in history, or we’re going to lose everything in ways that I guarantee you none of us will ever see coming until it’s all over and everything we’ve worked for is gone. The difference between those two scenarios is one individual’s name—one tiny piece of information that nobody else in this room has but me. So yes, Madam President. Respectfully, I think I’m entitled to a little something in return.”

“No one is arguing with you, Florian,” the president says congenially. “Name your price.”

“I don’t want money,” Florian says. “I want the CEO position.”

“You fucking little prick,” Hardebeck says. “You know Schmidt’s already been tapped.”

“We’re the board of directors,” Florian says. “We can un-tap him.”

“Give it to him,” the president says.

“You have got to be kidding me,” Hardebeck says. He looks around the table for support. “We’re just going to sit here and let this shitbag blackmail us?”

“It isn’t blackmail,” the president says on Florian’s behalf. “It’s called leverage. We all know Schmidt is an idiot, anyway.”

“Schmidt may be an idiot, but at least he’s not sitting here with an arrogant smirk on his face trying to fuck us all in the ass with information that’s probably a bunch of bullshit anyway.”

“You’re right,” the president says. She turns to look at Hardebeck. “Schmidt isn’t here, is he? If memory serves, he’s in Taiwan about to take a fully expensed, fifty million NGD vacation with his family into lower Earth orbit—much too busy, it would seem, to even put on a pair of glasses and join us for fifteen precious minutes. On the other hand, Mr. Lasker is right here, actually in the building, having been working around the clock to get us enough votes to keep all of us in power for at least another four years. And it seems he has somehow gotten ahold of a critical piece of information that evidently nobody else here has even the faintest clue of. So if anyone can think of someone more qualified to run this company, I’m open to suggestions. Otherwise, I propose we take a vote on the motion of naming Mr. Lasker as president and CEO of Pearl Knight Holdings. All in favor—”

“Stop!” Everyone’s attention is redirected toward Donald Hayden, head of Pearl Knight Security Services. He is an older man, generally content to be overlooked, with small, pinched features, and who performs everything with what some call military precision and others, bureaucratic inefficiency. His hairline is just past the point of receding and has entered into the territory of baldness, which gives him a tremendous, ruddy forehead. Whatever Hardebeck’s secret is to keep his scalp from gleaming, he has not shared it with his colleague.

“Big Don,” Hardebeck says. “We didn’t wake you, did we?”

Hayden ignores Hardebeck as though it is second nature to him by now. “I had hoped to wait to disclose this information until we knew more, but I think you all need to hear this now.”

The president tries not to sound as impatient as she clearly is. “What is it, Mr. Hayden?”

Hayden speaks directly to Florian. “We already know who this individual is.”

Florian looks mockingly impressed. “Really? And how do you know that?”

“The boy from the P.K. Megalodon has opted to cooperate.”

“That’s good news,” Florian says. “So tell us what you know.”

“His name is Alexei Drovosek. He goes by the code names ‘Woodcutter’ and ‘Tin Man’.”

“That’s a very good start,” Florian says. “Of course you’re aware that Drovosek isn’t his real name.”

“Obviously,” Hayden says. “We also know that he’s Russian, and that he has a compound somewhere in Southern California—probably not far from LA. We have a pretty good idea of what he looks like, what his house looks like, and we’ve confirmed that he was almost certainly behind Laroche’s murder.”

Hardebeck breaks into slow, deliberate applause. “Brilliant fucking timing, my man. Big Don, shots and lap dances are on me tonight. Lasker, you still want to have that vote now, or should we move on to the next item on the agenda?”

“Just a minute,” Florian says. He is still watching Hayden. “Do you know where Alexei is right now?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea what his next move will be?”

“No.”

“Do you know how he’s traveling without being detected?”

“Not yet.”

“What about his bank accounts? Have you frozen any assets?”

“We have not.”

“Have you made any other arrests? Do you have any other sources of information?”

“As of this time, we have no additional targets identified.”

“So let me make sure I understand. You have a fake name, a general description of a man who might have already changed his appearance, and you have a pretty good feel for his tastes in home decor. What you don’t know is where to find him, how to find him, how he’s getting around, where he’s been, where he’s going to be, who he knows, who knows him, and where his funding comes from. And you have absolutely no clue what he might have planned to disrupt the election. Is that accurate?”

Hayden swallows before he answers. “Yes. I would say that’s accurate.”

“In other words,” Florian summarizes, “you don’t really have a goddamn thing, do you?”

“We believe we have a very solid foundation.”

“Donald, I don’t mean to disparage your work, but Alexei would never have let that kid near us if he actually knew anything of value. He isn’t stupid. Alexei knew damn well when he sent that boy to work for us that he wouldn’t be coming back.”

“I disagree,” Hayden says. He is doing his best to remain unperturbed. “We believe we have enough information to locate his compound.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Florian says. “If you knock on every single door in Southern California, Alexei might just answer one of them eventually. But how long will that take?”

“We’re not sure yet.”

“Take a guess. Do you think you can find him today?”

“No.”

“Next week?”

“Doubtful.”

“Before the election?”

“Probably not,” Hayden says.

“Do you think you can find him before he figures out you’re getting close and decides to pack up and move his entire operation someplace we may never be able to locate?”

“Possibly not.”

“OK then,” Florian says. He changes his focus from Hayden to the entire board. “So we take our chances with vague information obtained from a kid who never really knew anything of value to begin with, and who—although I’m sure he’s being treated very hospitably and in accordance with all international laws—is probably terrified enough to say just about anything, or I can give you the exact coordinates of Alexei’s compound and we can end all of this today. Now, to get back to your question, Nolan—yes, I’m ready for that vote.”

Everyone looks at Hayden to see what else he might have. The old man clears his throat and tries to sit up even straighter than he already is. “My recommendation is that we give Florian what he wants.”

“Well,” the president says with a smile that would be impossible to mistake for genuine, “that was a fascinating diversion. As I was saying, all in favor of naming Mr. Lasker as president and CEO of Pearl Knight Holdings, please make yourselves known.”

Everyone raises a hand but Florian and Hardebeck. Florian waits until Hardebeck has looked around the table and is back to glaring at him before casting a vote in his own favor.

“It’s done,” the president says. “Congratulations, Mr. Lasker.”

“Thank you,” Florian says. “Donald, let’s start putting a strike team together right away. We’re going to want to take him alive so we can find out what else he has in play.”

Hayden gives a curt nod of affirmation.

“Hold on,” Hardebeck says to Florian. “Now that you have what you want, I want to hear you give us those fucking coordinates.”

“Oh, I will,” Florian says. “Just as soon as I have my fucking contract.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The door to Alexei’s bedroom cracks, then creaks open just enough to accommodate a long, thin, matte-black muzzle. The rifle barrel pivots in the opening as it targets the pale moonlit figure in the bed, and then it is momentarily still as it is steadied. There is a sharp pneumatic hiss followed instantly by a thud as the ballistic syringe embeds itself and the lead ball in the rear of the dart uses its momentum to depress the plunger. The figure in the bed does not initially react to being tagged; it remains motionless for several seconds, and then—very gradually—begins to deflate. From behind the door, Alexei seizes the muzzle with his left hand, and in a single violent motion, heaves it forward into the room while using his right arm to drive a long, black, serrated tactical blade in the opposite direction at what he estimates to be right around gut level.

He is not surprised when the tip of the blade is stopped by alternating layers of densely woven composite-fiber body armor, but the strangled retch he hears tells him that the blow has collapsed his attacker’s celiac plexus and sent his diaphragm into spasm. Before the man can collapse or even double over, Alexei’s knife is down between his legs—up close to his groin, but just below his cup where the need for agility makes body armor impractical. When the blade is withdrawn, it has severed the femoral artery, and by the time the man goes down, blood has already pooled around his black boots. The man cannot even get enough air into his lungs to scream as he pulls his knees up to his chest and bleeds to death in the doorway between the bedroom and the hallway.

Although the threat was effectively neutralized, Alexei knows that his work was sloppy. He realizes now that he should have given the man a bear hug after slicing into his inner thigh, holding him upright rather than allowing him to crumble. Not only could he have pinned the man’s arms to his sides to prevent him from getting off a few final and potentially lucky shots, but gravity would have helped to drain him a few precious seconds faster. Additionally, Alexei could have used the well-armored torso to stop any possible incoming rounds from the rest of the man’s team. But in his defense, it has been many years since Alexei has seen actual combat, and his reflexes and instincts are not what they once were.

Alexei is half expecting to either get tagged or torn apart by rounds coming from multiple support positions, but the hallway is clear and quiet. It’s possible that the man was alone, but not likely. Full body armor and sophisticated nonlethal weaponry suggest a special operations unit over a lone assassin. Since Alexei sleeps in a different room each night, there was no way a strike team could have known precisely where to find him. The most likely scenario is that a full-size team agreed to split up in order to cover more ground—an arguable tradeoff between maintaining force and finding their target before their target had a chance to find them.

He goes back into the room to retrieve the dart from the deflated decoy (still warm from the internal heating element designed to ensure that it emits the proper thermal signature) and to work his bare feet into his slippers. Before stepping over the body on his way back out, Alexei dips the rubber soles lightly in the pool of blood on the floor, then walks down the hall in the opposite direction of his office. When enough of the blood has been absorbed by the carpet that he is no longer leaving tracks, he stops, removes the slippers, and turns back. On his way past his room, he tosses the slippers back behind the bed, then continues down the hall.

Houses that generate all of their own power have a tendency to invite suspicion, so Alexei’s compound draws from the main electrical grid. But houses that draw too much power from the main electrical grid are equally suspicious, so Alexei uses local hydrogen fuel cells to keep the demand to within an inconspicuous range. In addition to concealing demand, on-site fuel cells also serve as backup in the event that the main power goes out—or, as in the case of a well organized and probably government-sponsored raid, has been intentionally cut. Alexei grasps the knob of his office door and waits for the scan of his hand’s geometry, thermal signature, and fingerprint patterns to be combined with the 3-D infrared facial model being constructed by the cameras in the door. He uses the back of his hand to cover the green LED in the jamb indicating that his identity has been verified.

Alexei’s office has no windows, so after closing the door behind him, he dials up the LED strips just enough to navigate to the bathroom. With the door closed, he can turn the bathroom lights all the way up, but he decides to keep them dimmed in order to preserve some of his night vision. He uses the tip of his knife to depress the plunger in the back of the dart, and as the residual fluid begins to emerge from the hypodermic tip, he smears it onto the mirror. He tosses the dart in the steel trash can and places the knife in the sink, then pulls his handset from the pocket of his sweatpants and photographs the tainted section of mirror in various wavelengths. The handset cannot come up with an exact match, but it has identified the substance as some form of synthetic opioid. The fact that his handset was not able to find a closer match in any of the databases it has access to tells him that the compound is likely among some of the most secret incapacitating agents in the world, which reinforces what he already suspects: government sponsorship. The fact that the syringe inside the dart contained a relatively small dose of a synthetic opioid as opposed to a larger dose of an electrolyte like potassium chloride or a barbiturate like sodium thiopental tells Alexei that whoever wants him, wants him alive. And the fact that the substance was obviously intended to be delivered tactically in a very precise quantity rather than indiscriminately as an aerosol pumped through the vents of the house or dispersed through the nozzles of a chemical grenade tells Alexei that whoever is behind this was able to make a pretty good estimation of his height, weight, and age.

Whoever is after him is almost certainly someone he knows.

Alexei leaves the bathroom and moves to the back of his office. As he depresses a spring-loaded panel in the wall and slides it smoothly to the side on its ball bearing tracks, a set of LEDs illuminates the voluminous cavity to a muted intensity appropriate to the lack of ambient light. He takes the black tactical waist pack down from its hook and straps it on—one belt around his waist, and one around his upper thigh to keep it tight against his leg. He removes the Gryazev-Shipunov 10mm pistol from its rack along with its suppressor, aligns the threads, and tightens the thick titanium cylinder down against the barrel. The injection-molded PVC holster on the outside of the pack is open at the bottom in order to accommodate an extended weapon, and Alexei fits the pistol snugly into place. The magazine contains full eighteen hollow-point rounds (one already chambered), but he takes a second high-capacity magazine down and slips it into a long thin pocket in the pack.

The next item he selects is a jet injector. He takes a vial of adrenaline from a narrow shelf and inserts it into the grip, then turns the wing nut beside it to engage the CO_2 cartridge. The device fits snugly enough in the main pocket of his pack that he leaves it unzipped for quick access.

Among the vials of adrenaline, there is a small unmarked atomizer. Alexei removes the cap, stares into the nozzle, and recoils slightly as he applies the tropicamide aerosol to one eye, then the other. While he blinks tears out of his eyes and waits for his pupils to dilate, he uses his handset to activate the compound’s infrared illumination system. In addition to emitting visible light, every bulb in the house can also operate in the 700–1,000 nanometer spectral range, which means as Alexei slips his panoramic night vision goggles over his head, he can see almost as clearly as though it were day.

His handset goes into an outside pouch with its screen facing in so that it won’t give away his position should it activate for any reason. He has heard plenty of stories of good men losing their lives over unsolicited messages promising several inches of additional girth and length, or veritable cornucopias brimming with premium pharmaceuticals at third-world prices.

Alexei cautiously slides the wooden panel back into place. His goggles are equipped with a gated power supply that reduces the photocathode voltage in the presence of visible light so the LEDs inside the cabinet don’t blind him. He stops in the bathroom on the way out for his knife, which fits nicely into his pack’s leather sheath.

Alexei draws his pistol as he eases the office door open. He checks the hallway as soon as there’s enough room between the door and the jamb to accommodate his head and goggles. It’s clear to the right, but to the left, the dead body straddling the threshold between the hallway and the bedroom has drawn attention. A crouched figure is following the direction of Alexei’s staged footprints, moving with caution and obvious apprehension toward the corner ahead.

Alexei lifts his pistol and considers his options. A shot into the back of the neck between the helmet and vest would be the quickest and least disruptive form of neutralization, but it is also the riskiest. Should the shot stray wide and open a hole in the wall at the end of the hallway, the advantage of surprise will have been squandered, and the man might easily get around the corner and out of sight before Alexei can stop him. In another life, Alexei would have been better prepared for urban combat, and therefore more willing to take some chances. With an antiballistic vest of his own—strewn with a selection of flash, frag, or concussion grenades with their cases latex-dipped to make them bounce easily off of walls and around corners—he would not hesitate to take the shot. But considering he is one barefoot man in an old pair of sweatpants and a Los Angeles Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt up against an entire modern strike team probably half his age, he decides to lower the pistol two centimeters and line up the easier shot.

The worst way to fire a weapon is with your eyes closed—except when your pupils are dilated to maximize the effectiveness of night vision and image intensification technologies. Alexei isn’t sure if the processors in his goggles are fast enough to adjust to something as rapid as muzzle flash, so as he squeezes the trigger, he fights against his instincts and forces himself to blink.

He fires two rounds in quick succession, the suppressor vents channeling the hot gases through “dog-whistle” valves precisely machined to produce acoustic vibrations beyond the frequency of human hearing. The shots have the intended effect, which is not to kill the man (the hollow-point rounds Alexei is using are designed to maximize tissue damage and blood loss rather than to penetrate body armor), but to knock him down and lay him out flat on his stomach. Alexei holsters the pistol, sprints down the hall, and has the man pinned before he can roll himself over. The man is so stunned that he does not even fight back as Alexei swings himself around, interlocks his legs with those of his opponent, hugs the man’s feet tightly against his chest, and heaves himself back. There is a rising and terrified shriek as Alexei bears down, which culminates in the slow crackling sound of the man’s spine splintering like the stem of a young tree. When the body beneath him relaxes, Alexei releases the lifeless legs and the feet fall askew.

The house is quiet once again.

Given enough time, Alexei would appropriate as much of the dead man’s armor as he could practically transfer, but he knows that enough noise has just been made to summon the rest of the team. He rips back the Velcro straps on the man’s vest, works it over the limp helmet, and slips it on over his own head and goggles. As he tightens the straps around his torso, he checks both ends of the hallway and ultimately decides to continue on straight ahead and around the corner. If he can get down to the kitchen, the solid hardwoods and stone will give him enough cover to stage a pretty intimidating defense should the night end in a good old-fashioned, all-out firefight.

The remainder of the upstairs hallway is clear, as are the rear stairs. From the back entrance to the kitchen, Alexei can see that one of the house’s porch doors is wide open. After adjusting his goggles into a higher infrared range, he detects a faint thermal residue on and around the knob where the lock was actively hacked, and a few cooling violet patches dispersed across the stone floor where the men stood before deciding to split up. There is an amorphous pool of heat on the floor and another on the ceiling directly above it corresponding to the precise spot upstairs where Alexei bled his first attacker to death. He avoids the mess as he moves to the door and uses his handset to deactivate the cloaking on the cottages out back. Now that he has been located, darkness is clearly a more important tactical asset than structural active camouflage. When both buildings have faded and vanished into the night, he configures his goggles to highlight only thermal signatures consistent with human bodies. The yard is clear.

The patio brick is cool and rough against his bare feet, and the grass beyond is damp. He suspects he can make it across to the closest of the dormitories if he sprints, but he wants to make sure he isn’t followed. If anyone has eyes on him, it’s best they resolve their differences before the children get involved.

He is almost halfway across the lawn when he feels something collide with his vest. It is so subtle that he has to look down to verify that he has indeed been tagged. The syringe is barbed, and has penetrated enough of the composite weave that it is dangling. He drops to the ground, but there is no cover out there in the middle of the yard, and before he can even begin crawling, he feels a second dart embed itself deep into the meat of his calf. Instinctively, he reaches down, and the barb tears through muscle and flesh as he snatches it out. He dials his goggles back down the spectrum and sees in the infrared floodlights that the syringe is empty. When he looks up again, rather than the satisfied grin of a sniper walking toward him in a flexible hooded nanocomb heat-sink suit, he sees at least a dozen miniature quadrotor drones hovering and dipping through the air around him. That’s when he realizes that he is exactly where his enemies want him; that the two men upstairs were nothing more than expendable decoys; that the lawn between the house and the children was the focus all along.

At this point, he knows he has nothing to lose. He reaches into the pack strapped to his thigh, removes the jet injector, presses it into his left shoulder to release the contact safety, and fires the high-pressure stream of adrenaline into his muscle. He has no idea how epinephrine will react with the synthetic opioid—or even if it will react at all—but he does know that whoever is after him is very unlikely to tag him a second time. Assuming both the incapacitating agent and the dose were intended to have maximum effect at Alexei’s precise age and weight, a second dose would almost certainly kill him in seconds. And if whoever is after him didn’t have a great deal of incentive to keep him alive, he and the house and indeed the entire property would have already been reduced to nothing more than a smoldering crater strewn with splinters of building materials and barely recognizable body parts.

He tosses the jet injector away, curls up in a fetal position around his pistol, and waits. The autonomic pickups embedded in his spinal cord begin accelerating the centrifuges in his chest and Alexei believes he can hear the blood surging through his body. He begins to sweat, and he realizes that he is feeling the effects of the adrenaline over that of the opioid. As he listens to approaching voices, he focuses on his breathing and on remaining conscious and coherent.

He is suddenly fully illuminated by miniature LED spotlights pointed down at him from the drones, so he peels off his goggles. When he opens his eyes and squints through the glare, he sees two men standing at his feet. One of the men is pointing a nozzle down at him with his thumb on a yellow, rubber-coated release lever. The nozzle is joined by a black woven hose to a canister strapped to the man’s back. Alexei knows the tank likely contains a nontoxic incapacitant—probably some type of foam—that can cover him and harden within seconds. Dangling from the other man’s hands are several recoil cords—bindings made from a type of polymer that releases energy at a rate faster than it is generated, which means they not only instantly arrest any sudden movement, but violently reverse it.

In order to apply the restraints, the man with the recoil cords will have to get close enough to Alexei’s feet that Alexei can easily smash his nose with the heel of his foot. However, both men are wearing high-impact visors which means, at best, Alexei could only knock the man off balance before the other man covered him with enough foam that Alexei probably would not move again until sufficient quantities of solvent were applied through atomizers in the ceiling of an underground concrete cell hundreds if not thousands of miles away.

The man with the canister must go first.

Alexei closes his eyes, pulls himself into an even tighter ball, and moans, drawing both men in closer as they peer down and attempt to assess his condition. He then opens his eyes long enough to judge the distance and position of the man with the canister on his back, and kicks with all of his strength. His heel strikes the side of the man’s knee, and as tendons wrench and cartilage shatters, the leg buckles in a direction almost perfectly perpendicular to its intended motion. The man screams and collapses, and Alexei sees him look down at his leg, then scream again at what he sees.

The man with the cords does not seem to know whether to advance or retreat, and the moment of indecision is enough for Alexei to get off two shots into the sternum region of his vest. Even though he goes down instantly, Alexei knows he isn’t fully incapacitated, so he crawls on top of him and slips the long black muzzle of his pistol’s suppressor below the man’s visor and up against the bottom of his chin. Alexei squeezes the trigger, and after traveling cleanly through the man’s head, the round strikes the top of his helmet and erupts, instantly covering the inside of the visor with a chunky stew of bloody skull fragments and lumps of fatty brain tissue.

The man with the canister is still screaming, probably as much from what he just saw as from the pain of his torn knee. He is scooting himself backwards as effectively as he can with his hands and his one intact leg. The leg he is dragging is limp and bends at a dramatic and disturbing outward angle.

The dynamics of the two drugs in Alexei’s bloodstream are confusing. The depressive effects of the opioid have been more than countered by the adrenaline, but not the high. He is surging and murderous. He stands, holsters his pistol, and smiles at the man who is backing away from him. The canister on the man’s back is digging into the grass and pulling it up in great divots. When Alexei takes a step toward him, the man’s face contorts further out of anticipation of what’s to come.

“Shoot him!” the man screams. He looks around at the drones, but they hover impassively. “Goddamnit, somebody do something! Somebody fucking shoot him!”

Alexei puts a knee on the man’s chest, grasps the hose at the point where it enters the canister, and follows it out to the nozzle. The man is slapping and scratching at Alexei’s face, but Alexei does not feel anything. He inserts the nozzle below the man’s visor and opens the valve with his thumb. The foam is thick and fills the cavity between the man’s face and visor almost instantly. The man’s screams are rapidly muffled as the foam fills his nose and mouth, and then he is quiet. His hands go from Alexei’s face to his visor, but the foam has already set and the visor cannot be lifted. His fingers go beneath the visor and claw frantically at the wall of epoxy. The pale yellow of the foam becomes red and slick when the man’s fingernails buckle and separate from his fingertips as he digs. His body begins to shudder, and then it finally relaxes and falls still.

Alexei gets to his feet and walks boldly among the drones. They dip and weave in perfect coordination to keep him illuminated as he finishes crossing the lawn. There are too many of them for him to take out with just his pistol, but after he has secured the children, he will visit the weapons locker in the basement of the dormitory beside the indoor range. A gas-operated, fully automatic twelve-gauge with a thirty-two round drum is the perfect tool for cleaning up the lawn.

He makes no attempt to surveil or infiltrate. He is enraged and invincible. The sliding glass doors admit him and he walks across the cold stone floor directly to the stairs and ascends with unwavering resolution and absolute focus. There are rooms all along the upstairs hallway. The first three are for the children’s caregivers, and the rest full of bunks for the children themselves. The room at the end is a common area—a combination play space and classroom. It is the only room with the door cracked and the lights on. Alexei does not bother with the others.

Everyone is inside. The nannies are face-down on the carpet beside shelves of plastic bins and neatly stacked boxes of puzzles and board games, their hands bound behind their backs with zip cuffs and their mouths duct-taped. The children are all at the back of the room, sitting as a group on the floor in their pajamas at the feet of five armored soldiers. There are two bulky black rifles raised, and when Alexei looks down, he sees two green laser dots jittering on his chest. He looks again at the rifles and knows that the dots are not for aiming; the lasers are creating an electrically conductive plasma channel in the air between Alexei’s chest and a series of step-up transformers housed in the bodies of the rifles. At any moment, he can be shocked unconscious.

The soldier directly in front of Alexei is not wearing his helmet. He is sitting on a table that has been pushed against the wall and his feet are crossed at the ankles. The man is young and handsome with trimmed black hair, a caramel complexion, and a smile that is disarmingly warm. He has a black throat mic strapped to his neck like a collar and a pair of video goggles in his hands.

“I watched what you did out there,” he says. His teeth are perfectly straight and very white. “I wish you and I were on the same team. That was impressive work.”

Alexei looks at each of the soldiers, then back to the man in charge. “You have until I count to three to get the fuck out of my house,” he says.

The commander raises his eyebrows. “Mr. Drovosek, before you start counting, let me explain something to you. You are coming with us. Alive or dead. Conscious or unconscious. My orders are to keep you breathing if the opportunity presents itself, so I’m doing my very best not to kill you tonight, but make no mistake. All of this…” He indicates the children, the nannies, the classroom—the compound in general. “It’s all over.”

Alexei takes a step further into the room and enunciates very carefully. “One.”

The commander wags his finger between the rifles to either side of him. “We can take you down right now if that’s the way you want to play this, but it’s possible with the state you’re in that we’ll send you into cardiac arrest, and given what you’ve done to some of these men’s friends tonight, I can’t guarantee they’ll try very hard to resuscitate you.”

Alexei places his hand on his pistol. “Two.”

The commander pushes himself up from the table. He isn’t smiling anymore. He draws his sidearm and places the muzzle against the top of the head of a little girl sitting at his feet.

“Let’s try this another way,” he says. “Lay down on the floor. Now.”

The sweat on Alexei’s head and face is mixing with blood from the scratches, and the solution runs pink down onto his vest. He is smiling and his breaths come in great heaves.

“Three.”

Alexei’s hand moves and there is a flash followed by a tremendous crack. The kids are screaming and there is smoke in the room. The air has the metallic odor of ozone. Alexei’s body is half inside the room, and half out in the hallway. The commander shakes his head as he holsters his pistol.

“Rowe, go see if he’s still alive. Everyone else, start getting the kids ready to move.” The commander reaches up and touches his throat mic. “Target secured. Extraction in five minutes. I want every single child on the premises accounted for. Copy?”

One of the soldiers has left the cover of the children and is approaching Alexei with caution. He kicks at Alexei’s bare and dirty feet, and when Alexei doesn’t react, the soldier bends down, grasps the ankles in front of him, and drags the body fully into the room. Alexei’s eyes are closed and his head bounces as it crosses the wooden threshold. His arms are limp, and pivot into a position above his head. The soldier moves to Alexei’s side, gets down on his knees, and checks for a pulse by pressing his fingers to the side of Alexei’s neck.

“I don’t feel anything,” the soldier says. “I think he’s dead.”

The commander is helping to zip the children’s hands behind their backs. “Check if he’s breathing.”

The soldier pulls off a glove, holds his palm over Alexei’s nose and lips, and waits. “I can’t tell. I don’t think so.” He removes his helmet and leans down to place his ear above Alexei’s mouth when Alexei’s head snaps up and meets the soldier’s temple with a sharp hollow popping sound. The soldier’s eyes are wide and he is expressionless as he teeters for a moment, then falls over on his side. Alexei’s hand moves down toward the pack strapped to his leg.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” the commander says. He stands and pushes through the children to make a direct path to Alexei. Alexei is sitting up now and his pistol is out of its holster. The commander’s composite-toed boot smashes Alexei’s nose, and the back of Alexei’s head hits the floor. Alexei tries to raise his pistol, but the commander steps on his hand and pins it down.

“If you refuse to be taken alive,” the commander says, “then so be it.”

He draws his sidearm and points it down at Alexei’s torn and bloody face.

“Sir,” one of the soldiers behind him says. “We need to get a clean ID scan.”

The commander does not look back at the soldier. He stares down his pistol’s sights into Alexei’s eyes for a long moment.

“Fucking bureaucratic bullshit,” he finally says.

The commander holsters his weapon, takes a step back, then slams the toe of his boot into Alexei’s ribs. Alexei groans and begins to slowly curl up around the blow. He has released his pistol and the commander kicks it away, sending it spinning across the hardwood floor. The commander kneels over Alexei, shoves him down flat against the floor, and begins removing his vest. He rips back the Velcro straps, heaves the flexible armor up over Alexei’s head, then tosses it casually out into the hallway.

The commander stands. “Last chance to come peacefully,” he says.

Alexei lunges for the man’s groin but he is weak and slow and the commander steps easily out of reach. The commander draws his sidearm, holds it steady, and looks down at the man on the floor. Alexei looks up and thinks he sees a flash of something in the man’s face. It is subtle and fleeting, but it is there, and it is something Alexei knows he has seen before. Something he once detected when looking up into another man’s eyes when he was a boy. It suddenly seems important to remember who and when, and as soon as Alexei closes his eyes, he has it. It was after all the arguing between his parents late at night, and after he found the hole in the wall behind the books and the prototypes of the earth-orientation instruments with the modifications for the aluminum microfilm canister. He brought one of the devices to school and showed it to his teacher. He then explained everything again to two men who took him out of class and asked him questions in a room he had never seen before.

But it was not in any of these men’s eyes that Alexei found the hint of sympathy and humanity. It was in the cool, slate-blue eyes of the man who later came to take Alexei away; who told him that his parents were gone and that they were not coming back; who reassured the boy that he had done the right thing, and that as long as he was faithful to his country, he would always be taken care of.

Alexei opens his eyes. “Florian,” he whispers to the commander. He swallows and tries to clear his throat. “It was Florian, wasn’t it?”

He believes he now sees just a hint of genuine regret in the commander’s eyes. “I’m sorry,” the man says, then fires a single shot directly through the spot where Alexei’s heart once was.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Andre is awakened by the shrill clamor of multiple bolts sliding inside the thick metal door of his cell. The sound reverberates throughout the concrete enclosure and then settles into a silence that buzzes and rings in the boy’s ears. There is the groan of heavy hinges as the door is pushed open, but it is not until he hears the unmistakable clank and shuffle of another prisoner’s timid gait that he is curious enough to open his good eye. The other eye is swollen and infected and glued shut with dry yellow puss.

The other prisoner in his cell is a young Asian girl. Her hands and feet are bound by heavy chains and she is wearing the same paper-thin orange clothing that he is, though hers is in much better condition. She looks more intrigued than frightened as she inspects the room, though her expression changes when her eyes finally find the boy curled up in the corner. She moves urgently to his side and kneels, her chains rattling as they gather on the concrete floor beneath her.

The girl’s head is cocked to the side as she reaches for Andre’s face. She is startled when the boy slaps her hand away and pushes himself up against the wall.

“Who the fuck are you?” he spits out.

“It’s OK,” the girl tells him. “It’s me. It’s Ki. From the compound.”

She watches him while he internalizes what is happening and what he is seeing—while he tries to reconcile the two worlds which have just been unexpectedly thrust together. Although the compound is almost all he has talked about since he’s been here, it has somehow become distant and abstract like a book he can’t quite remember reading, or a dream he struggles to recall the next morning. But the girl in front of him is real. She is not a trick. Her presence is proof that he once had a life before all of this; that something good had once existed; that there was a time when he knew what it was like to not always be afraid.

Andre can see in the girl’s face how he looks to her, and he realizes what the stench inside his cell must be like. He is embarrassed and ashamed, and there is a part of him that wants to scream at her to get out, but another part of him wants to reach out and grasp her, and pull her to him, to hold on to her forever.

“Ki,” the boy finally says. His voice is weak and dry.

The girl nods and gives him a sympathetic smile. “It’s OK, Andre. Everything is going to be OK.”

“I need to know.”

“Know what?”

The boy clears his throat and forces himself to swallow. “Was it real?”

“Was what real, Dre?”

“What I did on the Megalodon. What happened in Sierra Leone. Was it all real?”

“Yes,” the girl tells him. “It was real, Dre. All of it was real.”

“Did it work?” the boy wants to know. “Are they free?”

The girl watches him but does not answer. Gradually, Andre begins to understand the meaning of her silence. He looks away.

“Then it was all for nothing, wasn’t it?”

“No,” Ki assures him. She touches his arm and this time the boy does not pull away. “They were free. And they will be free again. You gave them everything they need to keep fighting. You inspired them, Andre. You gave them hope.”

The boy lies back down on his mat. “I shouldn’t have done it,” he says. “I shouldn’t have done any of it. I should’ve just stayed in Baltimore.” When the girl does not answer, he looks up at her. “Do you regret what you did?”

“No,” Ki says. “I don’t regret anything. Not for a second. No matter how all of this turns out, I will never regret anything that I’ve done.”

“Did he make you do it?”

“Of course not,” Ki says. There is a touch of sensitivity in her tone. “You know he wouldn’t do that.”

“That’s not what I mean,” the boy says. “I mean did you do it for yourself, or did you do it for him?”

The girl thinks about the question. “I don’t know,” she finally says. She leans to the side and transitions from kneeling to sitting Indian style. She gathers the chains in her lap. “Sometimes I can’t tell where my thoughts end and his begin.”

“I still can’t figure out if I did it for him or for me,” the boy says. “I still don’t really even understand what happened. It’s like I was someone else—like all I could do was stand there and watch myself do it. I knew I was going to end up in someplace like this, but just for those few seconds, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything but taking the shot.”

“You know what I think?” the girl says. “I don’t think you did it for Alexei or for yourself. I think you did it for the people. And in the end, I think that’s all that matters.”

The boy nods. He watches the girl. The thick chains that bind her hands and feet are disproportionate to her slight frame.

“What happened?” he asks her. “Why are you here?”

“We’re all here,” she says. “They raided the compound.”

The boy watches Ki for a moment longer before he asks his next question. “It was my fault, wasn’t it?”

“No,” the girl tells him emphatically. “Absolutely not. Alexei was betrayed by someone named Florian Lasker. If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s mine. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

The boy shakes his head. “See, that’s what I still don’t get,” he says.

“What?”

“How do you know when to take the shot and when to walk away?”

The girl shrugs. “I wish I knew.”

“I mean, it’s like there’s just too many variables—too much you can’t know. There’s no way to predict how things are going to turn out until they just happen. It’s like it’s all random.”

“I don’t know,” the girl says. “If Alexei were here, I suppose he’d tell us that you can’t know—that you just do what you can, when you can, and hope for the best.”

The boy looks around them. “This ain’t exactly the best,” he says.

“No,” the girl agrees. “Not exactly.”

The boy pushes himself back up and leans against the wall.

“How long have I been here?”

Ki hesitates. “You don’t know?”

Andre shakes his head. “At least a month. Maybe two.”

“Andre,” the girl says, “you’ve been here over six months.”

“No,” the boys says. He looks confused.

“My God, Andre, what have they done to you?”

The boy closes his eye. He is still and silent for a time, and then his body quivers with weak sobs, though he is unable to produce tears.

“I want to go home,” the boy says. “I want to go home.”

“Dre, you need to know that Alexei did everything he could for you. He did everything in his power to try to find you.”

The boy shakes his head. “That’s bullshit,” he says. “I’m just collateral damage to him.”

“You are not collateral damage,” the girl insists. “He told me that himself. He said that if he knew where you were, he would come in here and kill every last one of these motherfuckers himself to get you out. He said he would die before he left you in here one second longer than he had to. Do you understand me, Andre? Alexei did not abandon you.”

The boy opens his eye and looks at Ki, then looks away. As dehydrated as he is, he has managed to shed a single tear which leaves a dark trail on his dry skin. He reaches up and wipes it away with the back of his hand.

“We shouldn’t be talking about him,” the boy says.

“Why not?”

“It’s what they want. It’s why they let you in here.”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re listening.” He looks up at one of the cameras in the corner. “They’re hoping we’ll say something that will help them find Alexei. He’s all they care about.”

The girl does not respond. Andre studies her expression.

“What?”

The girl looks down and her dark eyes fill with tears.

“He wasn’t at the compound, was he?” the boy says. “He knew they were coming, right?”

Ki shakes her head.

“What happened?”

“They killed him,” the girl says. “During the raid. They shot him right in front of the children.”

The boy’s eye searches the concrete floor, then finds the girl once again. “Then it really was all for nothing,” he says. He leans over and lies back down on his mat. “It really is over, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know,” the girl says. She blinks and tears drop into the pile of chains in her lap. “Maybe it is.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The polls will open in less than twenty-four hours. Even though noncorporate voter turnout isn’t expected to top five percent, polling locations are still required to open on time and to remain open throughout the day. The majority of what has become known as the “walk-in” vote will likely go to Lucas Constantine—a self-proclaimed technocrat who, through a futile but symbolically defiant grassroots effort, managed to get added to the ballot in all fifty states. The funding for Constantine’s ongoing campaign comes from discreet private investors who go to extraordinary lengths to see that the trail of money does not lead back to them, and the labor comes from a group of radical dissidents who have pledged to succumb to starvation on the streets, or to freeze to death on sidewalks where commuters will have to step over their corpses, or to perish in grand displays of self-immolation in public squares before desecrating the democratic ideal by surrendering what they believe is their God-given right to cast a vote and to choose their own leaders.

Florian Lasker is currently in an undisclosed location, as is President Klein, Vice President Scholfield, and the entire Pearl Knight board of directors. Their locations will remain secret—even to each other—until all the votes are in, a winner is declared, and comprehensive independent security assessments by the Secret Service, Department of Homeland Security, and the NSA have all concluded that the citizen threat level has returned to normal.

Florian wonders where the president goes when she doesn’t want to be found. Perhaps the underground city known as Mount Weather in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, or one of the secure facilities tucked away among several polygamist sects in the Wasatch Range where the multiexaflop Utah Data Center analyzes every bit of electronic communication on the planet searching for whatever the current administration and its corporate sponsors consider to be a threat to their privilege and power. More likely she remains aboard Air Force One, visited twice daily by contracted resupply drones until she gets the all-clear from the ground. Hardebeck is almost certainly working on his tan by day and attempting to indulge his various fetishes by night on one of the many islands Pearl Knight owns between the Dominican Republic and Grenada. The rest of the board is probably with Hardebeck, pretending not to know him. Florian is in a secluded two-story cottage with the only person in the world who he trusts anymore: himself. When he arrived the previous morning, he replaced the depleted mineral licks and sweet apple blocks in the metal cages nailed down to old tree stumps in the back, and now he reclines in an upstairs padded window seat and watches the constant procession of deer.

The team is able to communicate freely because they are all connected by the most secure network ever engineered—an initiative that came about through the collaborative efforts of all the United States intelligence agencies and the only private contractor invited to submit a bid: Pearl Knight Technologies. Having firsthand experience with the incompetence and ineptitude so often born of such public and private alliances, however, Florian took it upon himself to do some research into the project managers’ lofty claims.

The handsets developed for the United States by Pearl Knight Technologies use a QRNG—or a quantum random number generator—to generate encryption keys. A QRNG is a closed system which directs a stream of photons through a series of channels, one of which contains a tiny, angled, semitransparent mirror. For reasons no human—physicist or otherwise—can honestly claim to fully understand, each particle is precisely as likely to continue straight through the mirror and strike a sensor representing a 1 as it is to be redirected forty-five degrees to a second sensor representing a 0. Each random bit is then fed into a portion of memory known as the entropy pool, which constitutes perhaps the most random and unpredictable collection of data in the universe. From the entropy pool, bits are requested and assembled into encryption keys of random lengths, applied, and discarded at a rate of one thousand times per second.

Of course, quantum encryption keys need to be shared across the network in order for it to be possible to decrypt packets on the receiving end, which is accomplished through a second miracle of the quantum universe known as entanglement. When the QRNG chips were printed, they included multiple sets of subatomic particles which were coerced into interacting with each other in such a way as to become entangled at the quantum level. Entanglement is a mysterious form of conservation which requires that the spin of one particle, at the moment it is measured, be precisely anti-correlated to the spin of its entangled counterpart—regardless of the distance between the two particles. As encryption keys are generated, their bits are represented by the spins of entangled particles and therefore shared across the quantum network in a way that is as impossible to intercept as it is to comprehend, and at a rate far beyond even the speed of light.

Florian’s handset lights up and he sees that the president is requesting an update. He touches the screen but leaves the device on his lap. Since nobody is allowed to reveal his or her location, the request is for audio only.

“Good morning, Madam President.”

“I certainly hope so,” Klein says. “Any change?”

“Actually, yes. We’ve added almost five thousand additional votes since last night.”

“That’s good news,” the president says, “but unexpected. Why are people waiting so long to sign on with us?”

“Idealism. These are no doubt people who were determined to cast their own votes, but it’s starting to dawn on them that if they don’t accept an offer from us today, they might not see any income at all until midterm elections.”

“A noble sentiment,” Klein observes. “So what’s the total?”

“Somewhere just north of two hundred million, which means not only are you about to shatter the record for the most presidential votes in US history—and hence become the most popular politician ever—but Pearl Knight has already shattered the previous world record for the largest employer in history.”

“I guess that means you’ll also shatter the record for the largest round of layoffs in history in about forty-eight hours.”

“I think that’s the unfortunate reality.”

“Florian, I want you to know that you’ve been an incredible hiring officer,” the president says. “But I think you’ll make an even better chief executive. Personally, I never liked Laroche or Schmidt very much.”

“Thank you, Madam President. I appreciate that.”

“Once we’re through the election, I’d like to start exploring the possibility of adjusting or even dropping presidential term limits. I think you and I are going to work very well together, and it would be a pity for that partnership to only last the next four years, don’t you think?”

“I agree. You’ll have my full support.”

“Thank you, Florian. Is there anything I need to be concerned about?”

“Nothing at all. I can’t think of a single thing that can stop you from getting reelected at this point.”

“Good. But don’t think too hard. If anyone can figure it out, it’s you.”

“Fortunately we’re on the same team.”

“Speaking of which,” the president says, “Hayden has uncovered additional information about our Russian friend from the arrests at the compound.”

Florian looks from the window to the phone. “Really? Anything interesting?”

“How many people know that Alexei Drovosek was your legal guardian, and that he paid your way through school?”

Florian does not answer right away. He looks back out over the lawn. “Aside from whoever you and Donald have told, nobody.”

“Are you certain of that?”

“As I’m sure you can appreciate, that’s not information I’m particularly anxious to share with the world.”

“Good,” the president says. “You have my word that as long as our relationship remains productive, it won’t go any further.”

Florian smiles to himself at the president’s ceaseless groping for leverage over those around her. It’s no accident that she is where she is today. “Thank you, Madam President.”

“And on a more personal note, I also want to say that I understand how difficult it must have been for you to turn on him.”

“Not as difficult as you might think. His interests and mine were never exactly very well aligned.”

“Regardless,” the president says, “I hope you realize that you made the right choice. You’re on the right side of this fight.”

“I’ve never had a single doubt about that, Madam President.”

“Good,” Klein says. “I have to go. I have other calls to make. I’ll check in with you again this evening.”

“I’ll be waiting.”

The president closes the stream. Florian checks the time on his handset and takes a deep, deliberate breath. A large ten-point buck drops his guard as he begins licking at a sweet apple block below.

“Pearl,” Florian says.

His handset illuminates. “Yes, Florian.”

“I need to initiate a company-wide executive order.”

“I understand. Please continue.”

“This order is to be executed without the attention of anyone, including the board of directors. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Florian.”

“Good. How many jobs am I authorized to terminate?”

“As CEO, you are currently authorized to terminate 201,547,493 full-time, part-time, and contingent positions.”

“What percentage of those positions are bound by contracts with suffrage clauses?”

“Ninety-eight point two three percent.”

“OK,” Florian says. “When I give you the code word phoenix, I want you to execute the following order…” He watches the handset’s screen for the secure prompt. “Select all positions that I have authority over as CEO, and that are bound by a contract containing any type of suffrage clause, and terminate them immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Florian. I am prepared to terminate 197,980,102 positions. Do you have compensation instructions?”

“Yes. All terminated employees are to receive full compensation packages as well as maximum severance.”

“I understand,” Pearl says. “Would you like me to include the standard letter of dismissal?”

“No,” Florian says. “Send only this: The polls open at 6 a.m.”

“I understand, Florian.”

“Good. Stand by while I review.” He studies the details of the order on the screen one last time, takes a deep breath, and then very clearly enunciates the code word.

“Order executed.”

“Were there any problems?”

“No. All records were successfully updated. Compensation funds have been transferred and all communications have been sent.”

Florian takes a moment to consider what he has just done. He understands his decision rationally, but he finds that he cannot actually feel it. The layers of abstraction that have been allowed to build up between our actions and their consequences have accumulated into a form of dense emotional insulation. Our brains can no longer associate the tasks we obsess over all day every day with our own most fundamental needs: food, shelter, safety, and above all else, human connection. The machinery of innovation has compounded such that the leverage yielded by the powerful is beyond even their own comprehension. It is impossible for anyone to truly grasp that a simple voice command can result in the deaths of millions, or in billions of dollars in profits or losses for a single individual, or in the instantaneous restoration of an entire nation’s dignity.

“Thank you, Pearl,” Florian finally says. He stands from the window seat and stretches. “Until further notice, reject all incoming communication requests, even from the president. In fact, especially from the president.”

“I understand.”

He locks the device and slips it into the inside pocket of his coat. There are chairs and tables overturned and strewn throughout the room, and Florian steps among them cautiously. At the door, he squats down beside the dried pool of blood that has soaked into the pine planks of the floor. In the center is a hole with a high-caliber tungsten carbide slug still embedded.

“I’m sorry,” Florian says to the ghost of the man on the floor. “I should have known you would never surrender.”

As he looks down at the rust-colored stain, he begins to weaken. He feels dizzy, and he leans back and sits. It is becoming increasingly difficult for him to breathe as something both terrible and wonderful rises up within him. He covers his face, and his body wracks and heaves with violent sobs.

For the first time since he was a boy, Florian lets himself feel.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Potomac Airfield is inside the Flight Restricted Zone around Washington, DC, which means Florian should not have been permitted to land. A squadron of Japanese-built, orange-and-black striped, very loud and very bold Suzumebachi drones should have escorted Florian’s jet out of the FRZ and forced it down in a remote airfield in Maryland, or blown it apart with a single Mitsubishi AAM-15 air-to-air missile, or herded it in the direction of the Chesapeake Bay, hit it with a focused electromagnetic pulse, and let gravity take care of the rest.

But Florian’s jet lands without incident. Obtaining the necessary security clearance would have meant providing too many people with too many details and logistics—something which is generally not in Florian’s best interests these days—so the feat was accomplished through decidedly less official channels. When he is picked up by the Marine One helicopter fleet, the Secret Service agent who greets him wants to know how he did it, and Florian promises he will divulge everything to President Constantine himself.

The Marine One fleet contains five identical Sikorsky S-100 attack helicopters which constantly change their formation during flight. This aeronautical shell game means that a terrorist firing a shoulder-launched, surface-to-air missile only has a twenty percent chance of targeting the correct aircraft. Earlier Marine One models were equipped solely with countermeasures—flares designed to mislead heat-seeking missiles, aluminum shavings and glass fiber dispersion shells to confuse radar-guided missiles, and jammers to keep infrared ballistics from obtaining a solid lock—but the most recent update to the fleet has changed the game. Not only does each S-100 have new directed-energy defenses in the form of X-ray lasers, but they also have extensive, diverse, and in the words of an unofficial spokesman for Marine Helicopter Squadron One, truly inspired attack capabilities. The president’s options are no longer limited to just defense; if you piss him off badly enough, the commander-in-chief will bring the fight to you.

The S-100s fly at well over three hundred knots, which means the trip to Camp David only takes about ten minutes, give or take. There is snow on the ground, but there are hot water pipes under the helipad that keep it clear and easily visible from the sky. Florian is offered a heavy blue parka with the presidential seal on the breast, which he zips up to his chin as he is escorted to one of several electric golf carts. They take the main road up past the snow-covered tennis courts and the fitness center to the northeast corner of the compound where the president maintains a small office in Laurel Lodge.

At the entrance, his parka is reclaimed before he is backscattered. His left index finger and right ear are examined for tiny prosthetic reservoirs, then each location is pricked and two blood samples are collected. When Florian’s DNA has been verified, and when his finger and ear have both been bandaged, he is taken in to meet the president.

The office is sparse and modest. Everything is wooden and stained the same shade of blond. There is a black cocker spaniel curled up on a quilted cushion close to the fire, and he lifts his head but does not bother to get up. The president has already put away whatever it was he was working on and is standing behind his desk. He has salt and pepper hair, prominent dark eyebrows, and an olive complexion. Camp David attire suits Constantine particularly well: a taupe wool sweater over a wine-colored T-shirt and well-worn jeans. Florian imagines either hiking boots or sheepskin moccasins on the president’s feet. Constantine’s eyes are dark, and his smile is warm and genuine as he extends his hand.

“Welcome, Florian.”

Florian approaches the desk and accepts the president’s greeting. The man’s grip is firm, but not domineering.

“Thank you, Mr. President.”

“I can’t tell you how much I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Please, have a seat.”

It is warm in the president’s office, and Florian unzips his sweater before sitting. The president waits until Florian is comfortable before seating himself in his brass-studded, high-back leather chair.

“I’m sorry about the screening,” the president says indicating the flesh-color adhesive bandage on Florian’s outer ear by tapping the corresponding spot on his own. “The Secret Service insists on it. Pretty soon they’ll be genetically screening me.”

Florian shakes his head dismissively. “I understand.”

“Can I offer you something? Water? Tea? Coffee?”

Florian checks the president’s desk for a glass or a mug but doesn’t see one. “No, thank you.”

“I only have a few minutes this afternoon, but I’m hoping you’ll stay. Dogwood Cabin has been reserved for you for as long as you want it. I have plenty of time later in the week for us to get to know each other. I thought we might do some skiing or shoot some skeet.”

“Unfortunately, I won’t be able to stay, Mr. President, but I appreciate the offer. I hope we can do it another time.”

The president’s smile says he is not sure how to interpret the rejection. “In that case, I guess I’d better get right to the point. I wanted to thank you in person for everything you’ve done, and I want you to know that you will always have a direct line to me. Anything you need, just ask.”

“I appreciate that,” Florian says.

“It’s the least I can do. This country owes you a tremendous debt.”

Florian repositions himself in his chair and crosses his legs. “There is actually something you might be able to help me with.”

“Of course.”

“Have you been able to find out anything more about the Russian?”

“Ah,” the president says. He crosses his arms over his chest and leans back into the plush leather. “Alexei Kedrov, a.k.a. Alexei Drovosek. Not very much, unfortunately. We know that he began his official career with the Russian Federal Security Service, then at some point transitioned to the Foreign Intelligence Service. We believe he spent long periods of time outside of Russia; however we have no idea where or what his assignments were. He then returned to Russia at some point, where we believe he was involved in the death of Vladimir Putin.”

“What do you mean by involved?” Florian asks. He gives the president a perplexed look. “Are you saying Putin was assassinated?”

“Not officially, of course,” Constantine says with a meaningful look. “You understand that this conversation does not leave this office, right?”

“Of course,” Florian says. “What about Alexei’s money?”

“About that, we know exactly two things: Putin had amassed a secret fortune of billions which was never accounted for, and Alexei seems to have billions stashed in accounts all over the world. I’ll let you draw your own conclusions.”

Florian’s smile was subtle. “So Alexei used the secret fortune of an ex-KGB Russian autocrat to fund a political revolution in the United States.”

“It has a certain poetic flare to it, doesn’t it?”

“Do you know when he came to the US?”

“We’re not sure when or how he got in. I’m sure the United States government would have happily given him asylum in exchange for information, but he obviously had other plans.”

“Plans were something Alexei never lacked.”

“So it would seem,” the president says.

“Anything else?”

“I don’t know if you’d consider this relevant or not, but were you aware that Alexei didn’t have a heart?”

Florian raises an eyebrow. “That depends on whether you’re speaking metaphorically or literally.”

“I mean that quite literally. At some point, his heart was removed and replaced with some kind of very sophisticated continuous flow device. As far as we can tell, he wouldn’t have had a heartbeat or a pulse. If he was ever brought into a hospital unconscious, they would have almost certainly pronounced him dead.”

“I don’t understand,” Florian says. “Was he sick?”

“We don’t know. All we know is that the surgery was done a long time ago—probably either in Russia or Eastern Europe—and that’s probably how he got the code name Tin Man.”

“Not having a heart explains a lot about Alexei,” Florian says. “What do you know about his activities in the US?”

“To be perfectly frank,” the president says, “probably far less than you.”

Florian nods. “Probably.”

“Do you mind if I ask about the nature of your relationship?”

Florian looks away from the president while he considers the question. There are dark shapes on the walls where recently removed pictures kept the paint behind them from fading in the sunlight and the heat from the wood fireplace. “I guess you could say he was the closest thing I had to a father.”

This is obviously not the response the president is expecting. His expression is a combination of surprise and compassion. “I didn’t realize that,” the president says. “In that case, I’m very sorry about the way things turned out.”

“Thank you. I am, too.”

“I have to say, though, I’m a little surprised to hear you say that. I got the impression that you two were rivals.”

“Our relationship was complicated.”

The president nods and smiles knowingly. “Relationships with fathers usually are.”

“Where are the children now?”

“Klein had them interrogated in some kind of black site that we still haven’t been able to find, but thankfully, while she was trying to cover her tracks, she had them transferred to Guantánamo. I had them all moved from there to a state facility outside of Pittsburgh last week.”

“What about the kid from the submarine?”

“He’s with them.”

“And the Korean girl? The one who killed Laroche?”

“Hyun Ki,” the president says. “She was with them as far as Miami, but as soon as the charges against her were dropped, she disappeared. Since she isn’t a minor, we couldn’t hold her.”

“So she’s out there somewhere,” Florian says. It is both a statement and a question.

“As far as we know. Do you have any idea where she might be?”

“Why?”

“No reason in particular. It would just be nice to know if she was still in the country or not. She seems like a very—well, a very talented girl. Someone the CIA might be interested in.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Florian says. “I’m not sure where she is, but I suspect she’s still in the US, and I’m pretty sure she’ll find me before I find her.”

“If she does, let her know that if she’s ever looking for a job, I’m sure we can find something for her.”

“I will,” Florian says. “What about the other children? How are they?”

“Who knows?” the president says. “I can’t imagine they won’t be psychologically scarred for the rest of their lives. All I can say is that they will be very well cared for until we can figure out what to do with them.”

“Maybe I can help with that,” Florian says.

“How?”

“I’d like to take them.”

“Take them,” the president repeats. He looks skeptical. “Take them where?”

“Back to Alexei’s compound for now since that’s the only home most of them have ever known, and then to a new facility I’m planning on building.”

The president looks down at the dog on the floor and taps his fingertips together. His gold wedding band is thin and tight on his finger.

“Where are you planning on building this facility?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“When you say that you want to take them, are you saying you want legal custody?”

“If that’s what it takes. I’m saying that I want to be responsible for them, and I’d like to hire all their caregivers back, as well.”

“That’s very generous of you, but why?”

“Because I owe it to Alexei,” Florian says. “In fact, I owe it to a lot of people.”

The door to the president’s office opens. Florian turns in his chair and sees a young woman with a dark complexion leaning tentatively into the room. She is wearing a heavy wool cardigan.

“Excuse me, Mr. President. You’re expected in Holly in seven minutes.”

“Thank you, Olivia,” the president says.

The door closes but the president does not move. “Florian, out of respect for you, and in the interests of moving this country forward, I’ve halted all further investigations into what went on in that compound, and in particular, your involvement in it. But I know enough that it would be remiss of me not to ask you what you’re planning.”

“Of course,” Florian says. “I’m planning on preparing.”

The president squints at Florian. “Preparing for what?”

“You really want to know?”

“Try me.”

“OK. For the next Pearl Knight. For the next Helen Klein. For the next constitutional amendment, or domestic spying initiative disguised as antiterrorist legislation, or the next secretly negotiated international trade agreement. For when all the goodwill that your administration currently enjoys has been spent on the realities of politics and money and power. For when the friction of greed stops all the momentum the country has right now and forces the pendulum back the other way. In short,” Florian says, “for next time.”

The president stands in a way that indicates that their meeting is over. “There isn’t going to be a next time,” he tells Florian. “That I can promise you. I didn’t come all this way just to backslide. I swear to you, nothing like what has happened to this country over the last thirty years will ever be allowed to happen again.”

Now Florian stands. He meets the president’s resolute glare with the most subtle of ominous grins.

“With all due respect, Mr. President,” Florian says, “there’s always a next time.”

EPILOGUE

CHILDREN’S HOME NO. 59
MOSCOW, RUSSIA
SEPTEMBER 10, 2001
8:46 A.M.

The woman the children called Tetya held Alexei’s hand as she escorted him to the visitation room. She opened the door for him but did not follow him inside. Alexei turned and looked up at the woman and she gave him a thin, sympathetic smile as she withdrew.

The American couple on the couch in the corner of the small room did not look comfortable. The couch was too low and they sat slightly too close together. The man’s dark hair was neatly combed to the side and he wore a red V-neck sweater over a white oxford shirt. His coat was folded in his lap, and on top was a faux-fur ushanka with an old Soviet pin on the forehead—the kind of hat a tourist would pick up in an airport, or from a street vendor in Moscow. The woman beside him had long blonde hair meticulously pulled back into some kind of clip. Her deep burgundy lipstick matched the dress she wore beneath her heavy gray wool coat.

The man looked past Alexei at the door, then looked back at the boy.

“I understand you speak English very well,” he said.

Alexei nodded. The room was warm and the air was heavy with the sweet fragrance of the woman’s perfume.

“Good.” The man gestured at the chair beside the couch. “Have a seat.”

The boy did not move. His hair was so straight that it refused to follow the contours of his head, and instead jutted out in various directions and at multiple angles like fine black spines. He was thin and pale with dark moons under his gray eyes and lollipop-red lips. The man watched him for a moment, then continued.

“You are Alexei Kedrov, correct?”

Alexei nodded.

“Is it true that your parents were from Ukraine?”

“Yes.”

“Is it true that your parents once lived in Kiev?”

“No.”

“Is it true that your parents once lived in Pripyat?”

“You’re not here to adopt me,” the boy said.

The woman looked at the man beside her, then looked back at the boy. The man was watching Alexei with an expression of intense curiosity.

“Why do you say that?”

“You didn’t bring me a present. If you were here to adopt me, you would want me to like you, and if you wanted me to like you, you would have brought me a present.”

“It’s him,” the woman said to the man.

The man nodded. “You’re right,” he said. “We’re not here to adopt you. We’re just here to talk.”

“About what?”

The man adjusted his position on the thin and worn cushions. “About your parents.”

The boy bit his lip as he stood awkwardly in the front of the room. He looked at the woman and she looked back at him without smiling.

“Did you know them?”

“Yes,” the man said. “I was your father’s contact.”

“Contact for what?”

The man moved his coat and hat from his lap to the couch beside him, then leaned forward. “Do you know what was on the microfilm your father tried to hide on the Zarya spacecraft?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“State secrets.”

“I mean specifically. Do you know what kind of state secrets?”

“Information on Chernobyl.”

“And do you know why he risked his life to try to get that information out of the country?”

“To sell it to the Americans,” the boy said. “My father was a traitor.”

The man shook his head. “It was never about money, Alexei. Your father admired America very much. Did you know that?”

“Yes.”

“Did you know that the reason your parents spoke English to you from the day you were born and had you watch American TV was to prepare you for the day they took you to the United States?”

“Yes.”

“Your father wanted nothing more than to give you the one thing he and your mother never had: true freedom. He had a very deep appreciation for American values.”

“I know.”

“Did you also know that as much as he admired the United States, he had some very serious concerns about its future?”

Alexei watched the man for a moment. “Concerns about what?”

“About corruption. About the abuse of power. About the country being divided between the rich and the poor. He was afraid that he would risk his life to get his family to the United States only to have his children or his grandchildren grow up in a country not much different from the Soviet Union.”

“My father was a sick man,” the boy said. “He was paranoid.”

“Your father knew what he was talking about, Alexei. The question of the weak being oppressed by the strong is never one of if, but of when.”

“America is a democracy,” the boy said. “How could that happen?”

“Two ways,” the man said. “Gradually, and then suddenly. Like an earthquake. It builds up over a long period of time in a way that most people don’t even notice, and then all of a sudden, everything comes crashing down around you. Your father could see that all the government needed was an excuse, and unless the people were ready, the United States would start down the path of becoming a totalitarian regime.”

“What kind of excuse?”

The man shrugged. “It could be anything. An economic meltdown. A massive natural disaster. More likely, a foreign invasion of some sort, or a large-scale terrorist attack. Anything the government could use to legitimize giving itself additional powers and limiting its citizens’ freedoms. Your father knew that once that happened, there was probably no going back. A government almost never gives up power without a fight.”

The boy looked confused. “What does this have to do with Chernobyl?”

“Your parents wanted Chernobyl to serve as a warning to the West. They weren’t looking for money, or even for any kind of retribution. They just wanted the world—and in particular, the citizens of the United States—to see what could happen when a government loses all respect for its people. They wanted to shock Americans—to prepare them for the inevitable pivot away from freedom and democracy.”

Alexei lowered himself to the carpet and crossed his legs. The woman leaned forward so she could see him over the coffee table.

“You are CIA,” the boy said. It was a statement of fact rather than a question. “Why do you say these things about your own country?”

“The United States is a great country, but I’m not stupid enough to believe it’s going to be great forever—at least not without a little intervention now and then.”

“Are you here to take me to America?”

The man shook his head. “I wish I could, but your government is keeping a very close eye on you. The only reason we’re sitting here right now is because we’re paying the director of this place seventy-five thousand dollars in what he calls adoption consultation fees.”

The boy studied the man for a moment. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” he said.

“What makes you say that?”

“Because the CIA wouldn’t pay all that money just for you to tell me about my father.”

The man leaned back and crossed his arms. He looked at the woman beside him, then down at his hat.

“Do you know what a dead drop is, Alexei?”

“No.”

“It’s a place where people leave messages for each other—usually someplace public but inconspicuous. Under a particular rock in a park, for instance, or inside a specific book in a library. It’s how we used to communicate with your father until your parents went to go work on the Zarya project.”

“Why did you stop?”

“Everyone affiliated with Zarya was watched very closely. We could monitor your parents, but we couldn’t risk any communication with them. All we knew was that they were trying to get us information on Chernobyl, but we didn’t know what information, and we didn’t know how. Then one day, they just disappeared. We watched them walk into the Khrunichev Space Center in the morning as usual, but they never came back out, and we never saw or heard from them again.” The man paused for a moment and watched Alexei carefully. “That is, until about six months ago.”

The boy narrowed his eyes. “That’s not possible,” he said. “My parents have been gone for over two years.”

“Exactly,” the man said. “Which is why we assumed the drop had been blown. We saw someone hanging around it who we figured for an FSB agent, but when we checked him out, we found he has a cousin who works as a guard in a Siberian labor camp—exactly the kind of place your parents would have been taken. We watched the spot for another few days and when nobody else showed up, we went in.”

“What did you find?”

“A note from your father. Addressed to you.”

The boy got back to his feet. “Do you have it?”

The man shook his head. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t risk having it on me. But I know what it said.”

The boy tried hard to appear impassive. “Tell me.”

“It was just one simple phrase,” the man said. Иди и покажи им. Make me proud.”

The boy looked down at the floor for a moment, then back up at the man. He passed the back of his hand across his eye, then hardened his expression.

“What does it mean?”

“I think it means that your father wants you to finish what he started, Alexei.”

“He wants me to get information about Chernobyl out of Russia?”

The man shook his head. “It’s too late for that. I think he wants you to find another way.”

“Another way to do what?”

“To get to America. And to try to prevent the most powerful nation on the planet from self-destructing.”

The boy shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not old enough.”

“Old enough for what?”

“For anything. I can’t even leave this place.”

“How do you know your age and the fact that you’re an orphan aren’t actually advantages?” the man said. “Have you thought it through?”

“How could they be?”

“For one thing, the government seems pretty interested in you. My guess is, if you were to play your cards right, you might eventually gain access to some pretty elite and influential circles.”

“That would take years.”

“Exactly. Which is the one thing you do have. Alexei, you have to start thinking in four dimensions rather than three. You have to learn to use time to your advantage. Don’t just think about who you are, and what you have, and what you’re able to do right now. Think about who you want to be, and what you could have, and what you will be able to do at some point in the future. Then all you have to do is work backwards from there to find the path you have to follow.”

“But one person cannot change an entire country,” the boy said. His jaw was clenched and his lip trembled, but he did not let himself cry.

For the first time, the man smiled at the boy. He picked up the fur cap, gathered his coat, and stood. The woman beside him stood up, as well.

“I happen to know for an absolute fact that’s not true,” he said.

“Then tell me how.”

“Two ways,” the man told the boy. “Gradually, and then all at once.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

© 2013 MICHELLE CANTRELL

Christian Cantrell is a software developer from Northern Virginia. He writes the technology blog LivingDigitally.net and takes photographs for microkosmic.com. Cantrell is the author of several self-published short stories, including “Brainbox” and “Farmer One.” His first novel, Containment, was published by 47North in August 2012, and he is currently working on the sequel. You can follow Cantrell on Twitter at @cantrell.