of the technopark’s concrete footpaths, JD scanned the area for Soo-hyun. Instead he spotted Kali’s young assistant Andrea waiting alone beneath a pagoda at the far corner of the square. JD picked his way between tents, stepping over patches of grass scorched black by cooking fires, apologizing to the residents when he tripped over a taut guy rope. The square was the largest of the technopark’s tented burgs, home to one hundred–plus of the city’s underemployed, living in neat, brightly colored rows on the unkempt lawn. Rain hammered the polyester fabric, hissing like a colossal snake god.
Andrea saw JD. He nodded, and the girl turned away. She was leaning on the pagoda’s railing, wearing a red North Face jacket a few sizes too large. She had a pink backpack slung over one shoulder, big enough for one hundred thousand euro in large notes—or a submachine gun.
He climbed the pagoda steps, surrounded by a mess of pigeons. They cooed among themselves, and their mangled feet scraped against the wooden floor as they picked at scraps of food, most of it already sullied by bird droppings. JD stepped gingerly through the pigeons to join Andrea. He rested against the railing and felt the dusty crust of droppings.
“Where’s Soo-hyun?” JD asked, wiping his hand on his pants.
The girl rolled her eyes and sneered. “You don’t fucking dictate terms to Kali,” she said. “You really fucked up this time.” The girl squinted, her eyes seeming to scan the park with an awareness beyond her years. JD followed her gaze, saw only the park’s residents and an oppressive sheet of rain. When he turned back to face Andrea, a small swarm of fireflies had gathered, flitting aimlessly beneath the pagoda roof.
“Do you have the money?” JD asked.
Andrea shook her head. “I told you, you fucked up. She needs the virus, and she doesn’t trust you anymore.”
“I’ll call her,” JD said.
“It’s too late for that. I’m here to take it off you.”
“What if I don’t hand it over?” JD said, looking down at the girl.
Andrea smiled sweetly, showing two missing teeth. “It’s not up to you anymore.”
It happened too fast, each moment rendered in JD’s mind like a series of screenshots. The fireflies rushed for JD’s face and he flinched back, swatting at their tiny lights. The swarm glimmered and disappeared, and a blurred glitch flashed sideways across his vision. A bullet. It whistled as it passed inches in front of him—passed over Andrea and right through the space his head had occupied moments before.
Chank. The bullet struck a vertical post supporting the pagoda’s roof. Splinters of hardwood burst from the wound—a dozen tiny spikes embedded themselves in the skin of JD’s arm.
Boom. Gunshot. A third of a second after the bullet had torn past his face. JD dropped to the ground, pinning three pigeons beneath him while the rest took flight in a flurry of pink, gray, and white. Another chank and more splinters filled the air, joining the feathers that drifted slow to the ground.
Andrea screamed like a child on a rollercoaster, fear and ecstasy combined. JD grabbed her by the hand and yanked her down to the ground. All around the square people ran—some fled the technopark, others dived into their tents as though the fabric walls could stop high-caliber rounds.
JD’s vision pitched, and his head swam as he rose above the pagoda, above the park, drone-eye view climbing until it came level with the roof of a squat office block. The camera zoomed in tight on Red—the lanky teen crouched on the building’s rooftop with a 3D-printed Dragunov sniper rifle, a white bandage over the bridge of his nose, the flesh beneath it badly bruised from the car crash. Red raised the gun to his shoulder and JD rolled blindly, feeling the last of the pigeons flutter out from underneath him as another burst of splinters exploded beside his head.
His eyes blurred with visual artifacts, then he was staring at Andrea. She had opened the flap on his rucksack and was digging through the tools, zip ties, and other bits and pieces that weighed it down. JD snatched the bag away from the child and she bared her teeth, as though ready to attack.
Another chank and the distant boom of gunfire changed her mind. JD covered his head with his arms while Andrea scurried out from beneath the pagoda, running into the rain, quickly getting lost in the rush of fleeing bodies.
He waited for another shot, heard instead the whine of approaching