“Yes,” said Delilah.

  “Wasn’t a mistake,” said Mike at the same time. They shared a sad smile.

  “Why are you here, Dee?” Sadie pushed her whisky glass around. “I don’t want to come across like an asshole, but this isn’t a super good time.”

  “I know.” Dee nodded. “You’re fighting a war you can’t win.”

  Mike’s eyes glinted. “You should see the other guy.”

  “We’re not fighting shit,” said Sadie. “That’s company talk. I run a bar.”

  “You run a startup company called Afterlife,” said Dee. “Privately held. No IPO. One shareholder. Your premises is a bar also called Afterlife.” Dee leaned forward. “How am I doing?”

  “About as well as anyone with a link,” said Sadie. “Do you do balloon animals too?”

  “Do you know anyone with the initials ‘HB?’” asked Dee.

  Sadie watched the company woman over her cigarette. Dee wasn’t fishing. She was tired. “Yes.” Sadie shot Mike a glare. “Shut it.”

  “I was just—”

  “Shutting it.” Sadie turned to Dee. “We know someone with those initials.”

  “You better hope they’re not important to you.”

  “You didn’t come here to ask us cryptic crossword shit.” Sadie frowned. “Why are you here?”

  “Because I’m like you,” said Dee. “I’ve got nowhere else to go.”

  Sadie needed air. Not because she had trouble sucking in her own second-hand smoke. No, Sadie needed to get outside because Mike and Dee kept eying each other like there were things that needed saying and felt they couldn’t with her there.

  She took the whisky with her.

  Sadie pried open Afterlife’s double doors, sidling outside. The crowd had grown larger, angrier, surging like wasps after a kid with candy. The whisky felt comforting and heavy in her hand, the cigarette she held in the other struggling to compete with the rain. She flicked the silver Treasurer to the street, just more trash fighting to exist in a sea of decay.

  Just like people.

  “Fuck ‘em,” breathed Sadie. She swigged whisky, coughing. Rain fell, the world crying like it missed Carter too. Sadie could feel her hair matting, suspected her eyeliner was making for the ground, and gave exactly zero fucks. Water beaded on her jacket, wannabe black leather she’d bought off the rack last week.

  Carter Freeman, you gave me a new life and I can’t even give you an old one. There were song lyrics in there somewhere, but Sadie hadn’t found the music for a while. Maybe not since Mason walked into a hell gate.

  Clanking drew her eyes, a total conversion crunching down the street. It was black, big Metatech crossed sabers drawing the eye. The syndicate’s logo said come get some in a universal language. This particular conversion struggled with the crowds, the human husk at its heart not wanting to step on anyone, no matter how big an asshole they were being what with all the rioting and looting.

  An air car buzzed overhead. Sadie ignored it, pushing off Afterlife’s wall. She ducked around two men arguing over a top-line vidscreen, flinched as a bottle shattered beside her, and stepped gingerly by a flaming ground car, seats torn out, electronics smoldering on the sidewalk. People surged about her, but none seemed to touch her. It was like she led a charmed existence for a hot five-second period.

  This is weird. Last time she was in a similar but less hostile crowd, she’d been hit in the head and groped twice. This group should be about ready to pull her arms off. Maybe that’s why you came out here. It hurts too much to remember Carter, Mason, and how hard it is to be normal in a world of gods.

  The total conversion clanked to a halt before her. Sadie squinted through the rain. “Hey, Harry.”

  “Sadie.” He swiveled his chassis, checking out the street. A molotov shattered on his shoulder, flames spreading. Harry didn’t seem to notice. “You think you should be outside?”

  “Do you?” Her fingers itched for a cigarette.

  “Orders.”

  “And here I was, thinking you’d stopped by for a drink.” Sadie blinked, wiping rainwater and mascara from her face. “Wait. You’ve got a mission here?”

  “Yep. Hang on.” His PA system rose to compensate for the roar of the crowd. Harry stepped sideways, an auto car skidding out of control, impacting against his leg. He picked it up, tossing it aside in a scream of metal. “That would have hit you.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You want to die?” His optics watched her, lenses robbing him of humanity.

  “Maybe.”

  “Don’t be a dick. Get inside.” Harry held out a big metal hand, making an after you gesture. “I’ll even walk you home.”

  Sadie turned, bottle dangling from her fingers. “Why are you here? Metatech want my bar or something?”

  “No clue, really.” They made Afterlife’s entrance, the big doors closed, the neon above them dark. “Lace doesn’t know either.”

  Afterlife’s door opened, Mike slipping through the gap. He ducked a thrown rock, fingers resting on his sidearm. “Sadie? Harry said you’d gone up the street, but I didn’t believe him.”

  “Not only didn’t you believe me, you called me a cock-blocking cu—”

  “Why are you here?” Mike glared at Harry, looking like he was ready to go a few rounds.

  Sadie sighed, stepping between the two men. “I’ll be inside.” Hand on the door, fingers feeling the wet metal, she paused.

  Behind her, the crowd hushed. Noise ebbed, water down a drain. Sadie turned, expecting the street to be empty. She found it full, all the random rioters and looters still there. They converged on Afterlife, steps measured, eyes hungry.

  For a second, she wondered if these were Seekers, another Master here, but their eyes were not white. They’re just people. Except people didn’t move like a herd, eyes hard, faces ravenous. These people wanted what was inside Afterlife.

  “Get inside, Sadie.” Harry swiveled to the street, the PA amping up. “CITIZENS. UNDER THE SYNDICATE RIOT ACT, METATECH REQUESTS YOU DISPERSE IN AN ORDERLY MANNER.”

  Sadie covered her ears, glancing at Mike. He shouted, “Get inside, Sadie.”

  The door opened, Dee stepping out. Her laminar armor glinted, remembering the rain. She grabbed Sadie, hauling her inside and slamming the door. Sadie would have said something like get your fucking hands off me, company woman, but the words died as she saw Dee’s face. Hard. Afraid. “Who is HB?”

  “Heimo Bonafont,” said Sadie.

  “Apsel’s Bonafont?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “Human Energetics are coming for him.” Dee nodded, like she was convincing herself. “They’ve link-jacked a bunch of people and will drag him out.”

  “They can do that?”

  Dee put a hand on the door. “Can you stay here?” Not you’ll be safer here, just a simple question.

  “Because I’ll get in the way?” Sadie’s tone was bitter.

  “Because you’ll get dead.” Dee slipped outside, the door clanging behind her.

  Sadie hefted her bottle, then shrugged. If today was the day to die, she wasn’t going to do it sober.

  Chapter Six

  When Delilah made the street the total conversion outside was being menacing, drawing all attention. Good. She initiated link comm, syncing Mike and the TC. Harry Fuentes appeared on her overlay beside Mike Takahashi.

  There’d been a time when she liked seeing Mike’s name on her overlay.

  Three enforcers against a mob. The only one still pulling a steady paycheck was the total conversion. Mike was down and out, and Delilah hadn’t been in for a long, long time.

  She spared a thought for why. Why use a mob to get a single asset? Accidents would happen. Ruby Page wasn’t the kind of operator who made mistakes. Delilah eyed Harry as his chassis got in the middle of a clot of people. Metatech has no interest here. Why did they send a TC?

  The crowd rippled and surged, making for the door she guarded. Overtime flowed over her like a well-worn blanket. Her sidearm was in her hand, the Eagle seeking foes. The hard link brought a feed from the weapon’s muzzle cam to her overlay, showing what she pointed at. Ordinary people but twisted by savagery.

  Samson would know what to do.

  Samson would know what made these people tick, but he was gone, another hero crushed under the weight of devils. She’d have to do this by herself.

  Delilah reached out with her link, seeking under the hood of the people in front of her. The first thing she noticed as the overlay filled with hostile red dots was all the people were linked. In uptown Seattle that wasn’t so hard to believe, but here? This was the gutter. She’d washed downstream with the rest of the debris. Delilah hadn’t expected all the people to be uplinked.

  There wasn’t a human normal among them.

  The second thing she noticed were the serial numbers of the link architectures. Her link rifled through its database, looking for matches. She got more than a few from Sony. Tencent-Samsung held a big chunk. A smattering of older Reed links, and one or two from Apsel. Nothing from Metatech, but that wasn’t surprising. Metatech were mil-spec. Most people couldn’t afford military wetware, and those who could needed personal assistants more than state-of-the-art targeting systems.

  Her overlay also found all these links upgraded, new operating code overlaying old hardware. Human Energetics’ fingerprints were on every one of them.

  This is not good. This is very, very bad.

  In the treacle of overtime, she normally had time to think. Human normals couldn’t compete with enforcer-level upgrades. This crowd didn’t move like normals. They didn’t have the slick perfection of a syndicate agent, but they weren’t driving Miss Daisy either.

  Five men and three women swarmed Harry’s chassis, clambering up. Someone Delilah couldn’t see tossed a cutting torch in the air, a woman on Harry snatching it like a striking cobra. Delilah could see what would happen almost like the future was fixed. They’d open the chassis, making for the chewy center. Inside, they’d find what remained of the real Harry Fuentes and end him.

  His Metatech chassis gave many options, but all were lethal. Would he light up a crowd to save himself?

  Maybe he doesn’t have to find out.

  Delilah wound overtime tighter, eking a few more moments between the seconds. She spun beneath the ponderous swing of a man wearing a cook’s apron smeared with dark grease while initiating link override to those on Harry’s chassis.

  Her database had no handy backdoors or code overrides on Human Energetics tech, but Tencent-Samsung were known for using components built to a price. A resistor inserted in the neural connection to prevent blowback to the gray, fatty mess people used for brains could be sourced from four different factories within their syndicate. Two factories stamped the same parts with six different numbers, fudging the resistance numbers.

  Delilah told the links there was dangerous overload from outside. The woman holding the cutting torch stiffened as her link shut down the connection to her brain. She toppled from Harry’s side. Three men joined her, dropping like poleaxed steer. It left two women and two men on Harry.

  A woman dressed like an anime character, cat ears over optics with slitted pupils, leapt at Delilah. She swung her sidearm, hammering Cat Ears in the temple with the butt of her weapon. Mike joined her, his link comms cool and clear. “How you doing?”

  “Harry’s in trouble.”

  “Harry’s fine.”

  “I’m not fine.” Harry’s chassis moved like a crazed loader, swinging left and right, trying to dislodge people.

  “Harry, I’ve got an idea.” Delilah kneed a man in the groin, her bionics ramming like a sledgehammer. She felt his pelvis crack. “You need to trust me, though. I need to run code on your link.”

  “You want to jack my link and also want me to trust you?” He snatched a man from his shoulder, tossing him into the crowd. “Is this a new take on the trust-fall?”

  Mike spun, kicking a woman in the head, her unconscious body tumbling to the pavement, overtime making it look like lazy free fall. “You could just light ‘em up.”

  A half-second stretched between the three of them, teased into nearly fifteen seconds of overtime. “Will it hurt?”

  Delilah thought about that. Harry’s question was layered with meaning. He could have meant will it hurt these people, but she suspected he meant, will it hurt when I die? “No, it won’t hurt at all.”

  “Do it.” His link opened to her, data gates thrown wide. Delilah slipped inside, a stranger in dark fortress. She found the API connection where Metatech design said it would be.

  The problem with Metatech was they thought in straight lines. Always about the most efficient way to murder people. There were no other options. The discharge system connected to Harry’s chassis would crisp those touching him like kindling, arcing to people within a ten-meter radius. It was effective for control if you didn’t care about the crowd.

  Samson taught Delilah to care. He’d cared enough to give her brother Ollie back his legs.

  Delilah coaxed the code inside the discharge system. A few lines replaced the binary option of KILL with something less final. She didn’t have time to tune it. It might still kill the very old or very young. But most people would make it through.

  Slapping the virtual lid closed, she enlivened the system. Harry’s chassis hummed, the people clambering over him stiffening like boards and falling from his sides. He straightened as if working a kink from his back.

  Delilah looked at the link breach he’d opened for her. There was a time she’d have left a little something in there for later, because you never knew when you’d need it. This time, she shut the link gate down, closing it behind her.

  A woman opened a private link comm to Delilah. “Thanks.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Call me Lace.”

  “You watched that, Lace?”

  “I always watch Harry’s back.” She paused, overtime holding the seconds like the reins on a stallion. “I’m still learning this Metatech shit. Thanks for not being a huge douche about it.” The link dropped.

  Harry strode through the crowd, all who touched him dropping like stones. There were plenty more, a wash of people coming from both ends of the street. What was a simple riot turned into a parade of frenzy. Unless Dee and the rest opened fire, they’d be overcome. The Eagle felt like the devil’s promise in her hand.

  “Mike.” She wanted to reach for him. After all they’d been through, he still knew Delilah.

  “I know.”

  “We’ve got to go.”

  “I know.” She caught his grinning link icon. “But not yet.”

  He pinged her overlay, marking a building opposite. She glanced up, the light missing colors as overtime bleached the world. The structure had seen better days, windows missing, the front caved in. It looked like the ruins felt the touch of an orbital strike in the past.

  Atop the building a young man stood. Her optics zoomed, showing a face with strong lines, dark eyes, and shoulders that said this is all bullshit. “Who’s that?”

  Mike updated the overlay, The Kid dropping over the dot. “That’s Zach.”

  “What’s one kid gonna to do against all these people?”

  Mike backed against Afterlife’s doors. “Save us from ourselves.”

  Chapter Seven

  Mike pulled Zach into the link comm. “Kid, be careful.”

  “I’m always careful.” Zacharies walked off the edge of the building, drifting to the ground. Rain might drench Zach, but gravity couldn’t touch him. Since they’d got the collar off, the kid said he felt stronger. He could damn near fly now.

  Zacharies settled on the street. The crowd massed between them, cutting him from view. Mike wanted to run across. Help. Do something.

  Who am I kidding? I’m semi-retired. The kid’s a wizard.

  Zach was also a nineteen-year-old boy. Mike pushed people back from Afterlife’s door, trying his level best to clear a path. The people surging forward used weapons of opportunity. Bottles. Pry bars. One hero tried hitting Mike with a baby carriage. None of it felt serious. Nothing felt real.

  Why did they try to take out Harry, but are using toys against me? Mike thought that through. And why are you thinking about the crowd as having a single mind? It’s hundreds of people.

  Mike had seen this kind of thing before. Seekers, under the control of a demon. These people might be a little different — no demon, no drug — but they still acted like there was a hive mind making the calls for ‘em.

  Time to test the theory.

  Mike pointed his sidearm at a big man’s leg. The guy looked like he took the right cocktail of drugs to be stacked like a bad casino’s card deck. Mike pulled the trigger, blowing a hole in the guy’s leg. He stumbled but appeared otherwise unconcerned.

  Link architecture can suppress pain.

  Mike shot a woman through the arm. She waded toward Harry like a fly landed on her sleeve.

  Everyone has mil-spec hardware? It didn’t wash.

  The road ripped upward in a shower of asphalt, big slabs making walls lining a path between Zach and Mike. People fell back, tried to claw to the top of the barrier, and generally milled about like a pack of useless assholes. Zach walked through the cleared street, exposed pipework and conduit hissing in his footsteps.

  Rocks orbited the kid like moons in miniature. His link-voice was calm, in sync since they’d dropped an overtime module in him. “Hey, Mike.”

  “You’re a scary kid.”

  “The board thinks so.” Zach still took a Metatech paycheck. He was one of the few ‘employees’ who couldn’t be replaced.

  Mike had a hunch it was a contributing reason to the company being relaxed about his sabbatical while he held a broom for Sadie instead of going on missions. It was time to get out anyway. “Busy day?”

  Zach turned, his movements slurred by overtime. “We should get inside.”

  “They’ll bust the door down.”

  “They’re not here for the door, Mike.” Zach looked over Mike’s shoulder at Afterlife. “They’re here for the god we stole.”