through the floor as the restaurant ground to a halt, followed by a sputtering noise as the building’s sprinkler system came to life. JD held his jacket over his head, but Khoder simply cackled, not even trying to shield himself.
Soo-hyun nodded toward the stairwell, clogged with staff and customers trying to escape, business forgotten beneath the torrential downpour, fearful yells and cries puncturing the steady hiss of artificial rain. The three conspirators rushed toward it, but the host stood waiting for them, holding her shorted-out tablet over her head, makeup streaking down her face with the wet.
“I saw what you did,” she yelled over the noise, grabbing Soo-hyun’s arm.
They tried to tear free, but the host had them tight. Soo-hyun smiled—the Devil’s smile, JD called it, all teeth and mischief—then slammed the heel of their palm into the woman’s nose.
The host screamed a lilting strangled sound as both hands went to her face.
“Say hi to your surgeon for me,” Soo-hyun said, then shoved the woman aside and ran for the stairs.
“Bro, I think I’m in love.”
JD took Khoder’s arm and pulled the kid toward the exit. “You’ll get over it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
JD’s knee throbbed with every step down toward the ground floor. The acrid smell of smoke stuck in his nose, while all around him the stairwell echoed with the dull thud of footsteps, intercut with peals of excitable chatter. Now that they were clear of the fire and the sprinklers, half the diners were babbling, happy they’d finally have something interesting to talk about at work. Some would be retelling this nothing story for years, elaborating it piecemeal until it was an epic conflagration they conquered with bottles of complimentary tap water.
He hit the street just behind Khoder, joining a loose crowd of fifty-odd people—diners, staff, and rubberneckers loitering on the sidewalk. They held umbrellas, jackets, or pilfered menus over their heads to shield themselves from the steady rain.
Khoder put a cigarette between his lips and started patting his pockets, searching for a light. Soo-hyun appeared behind him, and with a flash of silver they lit Khoder’s smoke. They secreted the Zippo away before producing the Faraday bag weighed down with deconstructed phones. JD grabbed the two pieces of his and slotted them into different pockets of his windbreaker—better to get away from the crime scene before transmitting GPS data.
The restaurant manager emerged from the stairwell, trailed by kitchen workers in food-stained uniforms and waitstaff sans veils. Between heaving breaths she called out: “We need everyone to remain calm! Please stay put until the police arrive.”
“Fuck that,” Soo-hyun said. They grabbed JD by the arm and pulled him away from the emergency exit and deeper into the growing crowd. Khoder followed. “Send me the kid’s contact details once you’re back online. Khoder,” Soo-hyun said, taking the teen’s attention away from his reconstructed phone, glowing dimly as it powered up. “I’ll send you those photos; get me the van driver’s name and address as soon as possible.”
“Sure thing,” Khoder said without taking his eyes off the screen.
Sirens sounded in the distance, dopplering off the flat skyscraper faces. To the west, the streets were painted in flashing reds and blues, the emergency service lights intensely bright against the stagnant facade of the unAugmented city.
JD lifted his foot off the ground, bent his knee, then straightened it, wincing at the pain. “Next time, tell me when you’re going to pull that shit so I can take the elevator first.”
If Soo-hyun heard him, they didn’t respond. They just clapped him on the shoulder and yelled over the wail of approaching fire and police: “Wear Korean team colors tomorrow. Red and blue, okay?” They slipped into the gathering crowd and disappeared into the press of bodies.
“Tomorrow then, Khoder,” JD said.
The kid was still intently focused on his phone, but he nodded, his cigarette cherry bobbing like a firefly.
JD inhaled sharply and braced himself, then pushed into the crowd, ignoring the pleas from the restaurant manager and the pain spiking his knee. Once he’d gotten free of the throng, JD walked east under the ceaseless rain, wincing with every second step.
He cursed his own judgment, along with his aching knee: Soo-hyun hadn’t changed. They never would. Setting fire to a restaurant that they were stuck inside, fifteen stories up. It was reckless. They were meant to be better than that.
Three blocks later, with the disco of police and fire department lights far behind him, JD stopped. He sat on a park bench—barely recognizable as such, its