Even more people shouted more affirmation.
“We’ve seen what they do,” I said again.
“We all have!” More people shouted this.
“We’ve seen what they do,” I said again.
“We all have!” Even more joined.
I grinned, tears welling in my eyes. Days ago they’d tried to kill me in a market, now here were free wild people protecting me. “We’ve seen what they do!” I shouted.
“WE ALL HAVE!” Now there were fists in the air and the voices sounded hoarse and low, there were mostly men in the crowd. Now almost everyone was in the market space. I could see more people coming. Their phones up, recording. Recording me.
In the height of the moment, one of the gold-faced people leapt on the car. He tried to grab me and out of nowhere, I saw Dolapo scream, leap and throw herself on the man.
“Dolapo,” I shouted. “What are you doing?”
They went down, the man punching at her. I could hear her grunting in pain, and I was about to throw myself into the mix when another man grabbed at me. He was very strong. Instead of twisting away, I grabbed him back with my dead arm . . . which clearly wasn’t dead. There was a mad scramble toward the car, but I was barely aware of it. I was barely aware of anything. My body was acting. Again. Reacting. Oh no! My arm was acting on its own. Again. In my mind, I’d given this phenomenon a name, though it had only happened once. Kill Mode. I shoved at him with my flesh hand as he tried to grab me again. Idiot! He managed to get his hands around my throat. He was choking me but only for a moment, because my cybernetic arm pulled back and I was pulled back with it! Then I saw my left fist punch the man so hard that it smashed his gold mask.
The market space burst into violence. Shouts and grunts, as people fought and I was pulled back. I fell hard on the ground, my metal hand still in a fist, pressing to my face. It smelled of blood, was wet with it. My left arm buzzed and then went numb again. “Oh,” I whispered. Someone was hoisting me up, and suddenly DNA was in my face. He pulled me along, and somehow Force was in front of him pulling him, as was a bloody-nosed Dolapo. We were battered left and right, but by the backs of people. The market people were shielding us, giving us a way out as they fought. We arrived at a red car.
“Get in, get in!!” Force shouted.
I threw myself into the backseat with Dolapo and Force and DNA climbed into the front. “Go!” Force said to the car and it went. I was lying on my side, my face to the car seat. I slapped my arm. I might as well have slapped a slab of scrap metal, dead again.
“Dolapo,” I breathed. “Are you all right?”
“Better than the other guy,” she said, her voice nasally. She sniffed and coughed a laugh. Then she groaned with pain. “I have never fought a man in my entire life.”
DNA’s sling of cloth hung around my neck, and I tried unsuccessfully to push my arm into it. I peeked outside. “I don’t see them following us.”
“They will. My God, how the fuck did Ultimate Corp get into the Hour Glass?!” Force asked.
“You all have too much confidence in your privacy,” DNA muttered. “When they see a threat to their finances, they’ll fly into a pit of fire. They’ll just make sure they use fire-proof drones.”
“Why are they coming after me so hard?” I asked. “The government isn’t even here!”
“AO,” Force said. “You can control tech with your mind.”
“Badass,” Dolapo said, pinching her nose and tilting her head back.
The drones were about a fourth of a mile away and gaining fast.
“They’ll taser the entire car, knock us all out. Shit,” Force said. He looked hard at me. “Get rid of them, AO.”
“Already have. They’re gone,” I said. I rolled over and grabbed my arm and shook it. Nothing.
“Good,” he said. “We have a chance then. I have a plan.”
DNA, Dolapo, and I leaned in.
* * *
—
Force’s plan for us was insane.
“Stop looking at me like that,” he said. “I mean, think about it, it’s all you really can do. If you don’t go . . .” He didn’t need to finish what he was saying. The Hour Glass had been infiltrated by Ultimate Corp operatives. I could see them now that I knew to look. They were everywhere. Except where we were driving. Nothing was where we were driving. Not a camera, not a drone, not even a person with a mobile phone. Within a mile radius. We were driving down a paved road so black that it could have been laid down yesterday. The land around us was populated by thousands of heliostatic mirrors, each the size of a car.
“This was a Sunflower Initiative Solar Farm before the Red Eye started,” Dolapo said. “The power tower was at the center of these mirrors but it was blown down long ago.”
“It’s a total dead zone now,” I said.
“Has been for a while,” Dolapo said. “The Oracle Solar Complex wanted to harvest the parts but—”
I gasped. “We’re at the edge, aren’t we?” I said. I could see it. Literally see it. The digital shield of the anti-aejej. To my new senses, it looked like billions of tiny pink jelly-like things wriggling about to form the shield. It was making a soft hissing sound. And beyond were the swirling violent winds. Force stopped the car right where the road continued into the storm.
The four of us sat there, silent. The four of us knew. “Okay,” DNA finally said. He got out of the car. I turned to Force. “They get you, you’re done,” he said.
“I know.”
“You have something that scares the shit out of them,” Force said. “You threaten their existence. You just exposed them to—”
“All of West Africa,” I said. “On mobiles, TVs, tablets, oh, why’d I do that? Why’d I—”
“Do NOT second guess yourself,” Dolapo said.
“Agreed,” Force said. “Own your actions. Always.”
DNA slapped a hand at the window. “We need to do this,” he shouted. “Come on, AO.”
I jumped as sirens started to sound.
“Force,” Dolapo said, looking at him with wide eyes. Force didn’t seem surprised at all.
“AO, go!” he said.
I looked and I saw it flash in my mind, a symbol in the shape of infinity. Dolapo was shouting in Yoruba. She’d let go of her nose and blood was dripping out and still she shouted at Force to hurry.
“Code Red,” I said. “Force, what’s Code Red?” The symbol was bouncing all over the Hour Glass’s local network as a text message.
Ignoring both me and Dolapo, Force leaned out of the truck. “DNA, you have my anti-aejej?”
“What?” I said. “Anti-aejej? What’s going on?!”
“I do,” DNA said, grabbing it from a back pack I’d never seen before. “Wish we had masks, too!” All I had was the water bottle I’d been carrying in my pocket before this all happened. Deep pockets will always be the best thing about clothes.
“I didn’t think it would be like this! Turn it on! Turn it on!” Force said, clicking his seatbelt. “Go! The Hour Glass anti-aejej is about to shut down!”
“Are you crazy?!” Dolapo shouted.
Force looked at her with eyes so full of rage that Dolapo immediately shut up.