“And what was the wife’s name?” asked Zoey. “The one who almost died?”
“I don’t remember. Something biblical.”
“And she just happened to get sick right when you needed her to, for the plan to work? You didn’t make that happen?”
“When did I say that?”
“Wow.”
“I asked you how far you were willing to go.”
The light had turned green at the intersection, but the pedestrians in the crosswalk kept coming, ignoring the signal. Wu edged the van forward slightly and tapped the horn. In this city, it just made the people walk slower.
Zoey said, “Well, the good news is Stench Machine got twelve new followers on Blink today.” He had a camera attached to his collar, people could watch him stalk the courtyard at the Casa de Zoey. “Have you ever watched him try to hunt a bird? It’s hilarious. One time he lunged after one that was already dead and still missed it.”
The pedestrians had parted and Wu was finally allowed to pull into the intersection, then as he crossed the lanes and reached the opposite crosswalk, a single figure strode out and stopped right in front of the van. The vehicle automatically detected the pedestrian and slammed on its brakes, leaving the van in the middle of the intersection where it would be blocking cross traffic once the light turned. The person standing there, Zoey noted, was the one who had already been highlighted on the Threat Monitor. The man, a small, muscular guy with a mass of red hair, looked right at them.
Zoey had found that Halloween month was fraught with awkward social situations in Tabula Ra$a, as it was never clear when exactly someone was or was not in costume. This was a city in which you could stand in line at a taco truck in April and end up behind a guy wearing a cape and a sword and in front of a woman wearing nothing but thin strips of gauze and a flamboyant wig. In late October, complimenting someone on their “costume” was dangerous business, if in reality they had just come back from the dentist. Zoey was pretty sure, however, that the man standing in front of the car giving them the stink eye was not dressed for Halloween.
He had long, red braids that made Zoey think of a Viking, which spilled over enormous metal shoulder pads. Below that was a bare torso covered in tribal tattoos. Below that, a codpiece that was flickering with animated flames. Belts of ammunition crossed his torso. Hovering on either side of his head were plastic skulls with blazing red eyes, whizzing softly as tiny propellers held them aloft.
The ginger Viking reached behind him, his hand vanishing under an emerald cape, then brought out an exotic-looking machine gun that the van, of course, already had noted. Some of the pedestrians in the crosswalk fled at the sight of it.
Some of them.
“They’ve made the van,” said Will, stating the obvious.
Wu tapped an icon on the dash. A booming electronic voice said, “YOU ARE OBSTRUCTING THE VEHICLE. IF YOU DO NOT MOVE AWAY IMMEDIATELY, EXTREMELY PAINFUL COUNTERMEASURES WILL BE DEPLOYED. IF YOU IGNORE THIS WARNING, ANY FURTHER ACTIONS WILL BE CONSIDERED SELF-DEFENSE.”
The man glanced to his left and right, then smirked. About a dozen pedestrians in the crosswalk fanned out in formation. They weren’t armed, they weren’t in combat gear. At least two of them were boys no older than thirteen. They just stood there, eyes fixed forward. A human wall, blocking the street.
The Viking sneered, pulled up the machine gun, and thunderous orange fire erupted from two different barrels. A cluster of white pock marks appeared in the glass in front of Wu. Zoey ducked and screamed, joining a chorus of pedestrians outside doing the same. Wu, however, remained calm—there was a reason the vehicle’s security protocols didn’t see this as a lethal threat. The bullet marks in the windshield quickly healed themselves.
But the dozen people who blocked the road also didn’t flinch. The protocol here was to just run the threat right over, but they couldn’t do that, or go around him, without flattening three or four noncombatants, including some minors. The man had brought human shields and was no doubt streaming their plight to the world. Zoey turned and saw that there were more human shields behind them and there was stalled traffic on both sides. They were boxed in, and would remain so until or unless Wu decided to call their bluff.
As the Viking reloaded, he yelled, “CONFESS!” Then one of the hovering plastic skulls opened its plastic jaw and in a cartoonish skeleton voice repeated, “CONFESS!”
Will said, “Just go! They’ll move.”
Zoey was not so sure of this. Before Wu could act, the Viking reached behind him and pulled something else out from under the cape. He flung the object toward the van—it was a little black disc, like a hockey puck. It hit the windshield and stuck there, attached by three prongs. The van’s threat software was rapidly scanning the device and immediately flashed,
UNKNOWN OBJECT
The three prongs on the puck glowed orange and acrid smoke hit Zoey’s nostrils. Liquid glass dripped down from the spot like candlewax …
Then the windshield shattered.
Molten glass splattered the interior of the van, bits landing in Zoey’s hair and on her jacket. She smelled herself burning and suddenly had a vivid flashback to a teenage encounter with an abusive scumbag and an electric stovetop.
Wu sat back up in the driver’s seat in time to see the Viking aim his gun again, now with no barrier between them.
The man, grinning broadly, yelled, “CONFESS!”
The human shields stood fast, but Wu made his decision: his job was to protect Zoey. He punched the automated override on the dash, then—
Everything went flying.
The world was spinning, crashing.
Zoey found herself on the ceiling of the van. They were upside down, junk tumbling all around her. A cup of coffee splashed next to her shoulder, soaking her jacket. Monitors exploded next to her. Bullet impacts, the Viking spraying into the vehicle.
The van’s female electronic voice said, “BYSTANDERS IN PROXIMITY—AWAITING COUNTERMEASURES AUTHORIZATION.”
The rear doors opened. It was Will, kicking his way out. Zoey looked back toward the driver’s seat and saw Wu roll away from the windshield, away from the gunfire.
He pointed. “Follow Will!”
This seemed like the slightly less bad of two horrible options. The van was now an immobile death trap.
Zoey crawled out onto the pavement and the surrounding crowd immediately started alerting the Viking to where she was. (“She’s going out the back! Hey!”) Will took cover behind one of the open van doors.
The Viking yelled, “Confess, and this can all be over!”
The van, as if in reply, said, “BYSTANDERS IN PROXIMITY—AWAITING COUNTERMEASURES AUTHORIZATION.”
Zoey said, “Van! You are authorized!”
Compartments on each side of the vehicle slid open. Out from them poured what looked like a swarm of thousands of insects. They circled above the overturned van for a few seconds and then dispersed in every direction.
They were tiny pea-sized riot control drones programmed to launch themselves at aggressors, anyone in the crowd who was taking any kind of hostile posture. They would then swarm their faces, pushing into nostrils and ear canals and eyes, emitting a high-pitched shriek that smashed around inside the target’s skull. The frequencies were carefully crafted to trigger a primal panic response in the brain, creating the impression that the howling, mortal threat was coming from a specific direction—in this case, the van. In virtually every human, this would instantly trigger an irresistible urge to run at full sprint in the opposite direction.