police sirens.
With the stolen datacube still slotted into his phone, JD ran.
* * *
The door opened before JD could even knock. Troy stood in the opening, with his black leather satchel slung over one shoulder, a travel coffee mug in his hand.
He sighed when he saw JD. “I’m going to work. I don’t have time to talk, and I don’t know if I even—”
“They tried to kill me.”
Troy stopped. “Come inside.”
* * *
If the city is a body, then violence is a virus.
Gunfire erupted in a crowded park. The sound registered on surveillance apparatus. Satellite heat-maps showed the panicked flight of bodies away from the site.
Police reacted with brutal efficiency. Drone dogs delivered by armored auto-trucks, while sirens warned of more police en route. Like rogue antibodies, they attacked everything—parents, children, delinquent teens, the homeless. The violence of others used as an excuse for the violence of authority.
JD was hunted. Frightened by the reach of Kali, and the lengths to which Red would go.
He did not know how, or if, he would be saved.
Neither did I.
PART TWO
Gumshoe Protocol
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Enda Hyldahl beat a steady rhythm along the sidewalk as she ran. Her mind was utterly blank, the usual chaos of her thoughts replaced with a short count on loop: one, two, three, four. She inhaled one count. Exhaled one count. It was the closest she got to meditation—running until her mind finally, mercifully, shut?…?the fuck?…?up.
It was dawn, and the city yawned open for her. Traffic was sparse, footpaths barren but for other runners. In that moment, if Enda could spare any thought at all for those joggers, it would be one of pity. Running with their phones, running to music, to podcasts, to audiobooks; too weak to simply run.
Too weak? Or do they not hate themselves enough?
Enda cursed beneath her rasping breath. That is why she ran. To keep the hate at bay.
She reached a crossing and stopped, bent over heaving while delivery auto-trucks poured past, hauling food from the shorefront before Songdo woke. Enda put her hands on her sides and inhaled deep. She held it. She stood straight and exhaled as she looked up to the sky. The heavy cloud cover was slashed by thin slivers of blue—the first she’d seen in days. Even they would be gone before rush hour arrived. The light turned green, and she ran.
The city was clean—sidewalks and roads washed by the rain, buildings and infrastructure rendered sterile by her ad-free AR subscription. Only seven external words ever encroached on her psyche, scrolling in the bottom corner of her vision: Clarity, brought to you by Zero Corporation. Even when you paid to silence them, the corporations couldn’t let you forget who owned the city, who owned your view of it.
Further and further, her body carried her while her mind sat quiet—a passenger of thought chained to the meat. Her trance was so deep, Enda didn’t see the car pull up alongside her, only noticed it after it kept pace with her for twenty meters. She cursed herself for that, too; she was getting complacent.
She glanced to the side and the car rolled to a stop. It was a Mercedes painted a gleaming gunmetal gray, with a large matte Z on the front door panel. The rear door opened and a man emerged, so muscular that he didn’t appear to have a neck. A mass of sinew joined his shoulders directly to his jaw. He wore a black suit, tailored to contain his bulk, hair in a neat crew cut.
“Good morning, Ms. Hyldahl,” he said, voice like tires over gravel. “My name is Mohamed Toub; I’m here to deliver you to a meeting with David Yeun at the Zero corporate headquarters.”
Enda took a moment to catch her breath. “I’m not taking any new clients.”
“The job pays one million euro.”
That caused her to skip a beat. “I’m still not taking any new clients.”
Enda turned and continued to run, footsteps feeling clumsy under scrutiny. The security officer—because what else could he be—let her run five meters before he called out: “Ira Lindholme.”
Enda stopped. Slowly she turned. She walked back to the man. He smirked, thinking the leverage had her cowed. She punched him in the throat and his face slackened. Both hands went to his neck and he collapsed to his knees on the sidewalk, choking.
Enda crouched beside him and whispered: “It’s pronounced Ira, not Eye-ra.”
Mohamed coughed and spluttered, but he would live, she was sure of that.
The car waited patiently at the side of the road,