It was breaking up her wing.

Rick turned back when he saw the bot attach itself to Karen’s plane. Karen was in trouble. He flew toward her, asking himself what he could possibly do to free her plane from the bot’s grip. His plane wasn’t armed. No guns, no fire control buttons, nothing. But wait-Rourke had armed the planes with machetes. There was one in here somewhere. He groped around and felt a handle, and swooped toward Karen’s plane, holding out the machete like a cavalry rider. “Ayah!” he shouted and hacked through the bot’s neck as he passed, severing it. The blades and neck spun off, squirming, and the beheaded bot released Karen’s plane and zigzagged away, seemingly disoriented. Karen regained control of her plane.

The bots were hovering-dozens of them.

Rick circled through them. A bot darted in and clamped its arms on Rick’s plane as he passed, and the bot began jerking his plane around. Then the bot began snipping through the wing with its scissor-swords while Rick struck at it with the machete, but he couldn’t reach the bot. Rick’s plane went into a spiral. Another bot grabbed his plane, and stopped its fall. The bots held Rick’s plane in midair, hovering, as if they were quarreling over their prize while they cut it up.

Rick bailed out, taking his machete with him. As he fell, he flipped over on his back and saw Karen’s plane above him. Bots clung to it; she was spinning out of control. One bot shredded Karen’s propellers while another tore into the side of the plane. At that instant, Rick landed on the floor on his back, unhurt, still holding his machete.

He stood up. The generator room seemed enormous. He had no idea where the micro-control panel was; he couldn’t see the white circle. The plastic floor, glowing with light from below, was strewn with golf-ball-size grains of dirt. Looking up and around, he tried to see where Karen’s plane had gone. He couldn’t see her. The floor was a mess.

He heard a sound like “Oof!” Karen King landed on both feet, like a cat, about a hundred yards away. She had bailed out, too. She was holding her machete and staring up at the bots. A dozen of them were bobbing high overhead, holding the planes and pieces of the planes, and chopping everything up. Debris from the planes rained down. For the moment the bots seemed distracted by the planes.

“It’s this way!” Karen called, pointing with her machete.

Now he could see the white ring. He was surprised by how far away it was. They both started a desperate sprint toward the ring, jumping over debris, running an obstacle course through grit. Rick tripped while leaping over a human hair, and he sprawled.

He picked himself up. He had lost sight of Karen. “Karen?” he shouted.

Overhead, the bots had finished cutting up the planes and were now flying this way and that, hovering, swooping, fanning throughout the room, as if in seek mode. Rick wondered if the bots would be able to see them as they ran. Dozens more bots dropped from the walls and ceiling, until at least a hundred bots were flying back and forth, hunting for the intruders. Were they communicating with one another? It would be only a matter of time before the bots found them.

Chapter 50

Tensor Core 1 November, 5:10 a.m.

It’s not a bad way to die,” Drake was saying. “You hardly feel a thing.” He worked the controller.

Eric lay propped up with his back against the wall of the Omicron lab, by the door to the generator room, dizzy from the beating Drake had given him. Drake held the gun at his face, shining the light into his eyes. Eric could feel a bot cutting through his forehead. Blood had begun to drizzle down his face, getting in his eyes. He could see specks hovering in front of his eyes, their props whining like mosquitoes. Apparently Drake could direct them with the controller, because they all suddenly flew toward his face. He felt them landing on his cheeks, his neck, exploring his eyelids. A bot crawled into his shirt; he could feel it, and heard its engine buzzing.

“You see how they ignore me?” Drake worked the controller. “It’s because I have the controller.” Drake thumbed a joystick, and a bot crawled up Eric’s cheek and stopped by the corner of his eye. “I can make them crawl into any orifice in your body.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“Research, Eric.”

Eric felt a slight sting near the corner of his eye. The bot had planted its scissors in his skin and was making a hole. It tucked its head into the hole, and began wiggling in, snipping through skin cells with the blades. A droplet of blood beaded up on his cheek.

The police cars closed off the access road to the industrial park and set up a security perimeter around the Nanigen building. The vans moved into position, and the hostage rescue squad deployed. The flashers on the police cars played across the metal building.

Dan Watanabe waited behind one of the cars, watching the building’s door. He had made the handoff to the SWAT unit, so he didn’t have operational authority now, but he wanted the op commander, Kevin Hope, to pay attention to him. “Where’s Dorothy?” he said.

“She’s on her way,” Hope answered.

“What about the FD decon unit?”

In answer to his question, a yellow van came roaring in and ground to a halt. A squad of fire department people deployed from it, pulling on Tyvek protective suits. As soon as they’d put on protective gear, they began setting up a decontamination center, with a tent, washing equipment, and a processing line for victims.

“What’s in the building, a virus?” Commander Hope said to Watanabe. He had gotten the call to deploy only twenty minutes earlier, and he didn’t yet know what the investigation involved.

“Not a virus. Bots,” Watanabe said.

“Say again-?”

“Tiny robots. They bite.”

Commander Hope gave him a weird look. “Don’t tell me this is gonna be a shooter with robots, Dan.”

“Not a chance. You can’t hit ’em.”

“Any hostages in there?”

“Not that we know. Can’t assume anything,” Watanabe answered. Somebody handed him a tactical vest, and he put it on. Somebody else brought him a handheld multichannel communicator. He took the device and keyed it on, and said to Commander Hope, “You want me to make the call?”

Hope gave a wry grin. “You talked us into this deployment, Dan. You talk us out of it.”

Watanabe shrugged and referred to a slip of paper upon which he’d written a phone number. He called it.

In the Omicron lab, Eric could feel a half-dozen bots entering his skin, pricking him as they burrowed, while Drake held the gun and light pointed into his eyes. Eric debated which way to go: to force Drake to shoot him in the head, or to wait a few minutes for the bots to open his arteries.

Just then a faint buzzing sounded in Drake’s jacket. He took out his phone and looked at the caller ID. BLOCKED, it told him. He decided to answer it. He took a deep breath to get his heart rate down. “Yes?”

“Vincent Drake?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Dan Watanabe, sir, Honolulu Police. Sir, is there anybody in the building with you?”

“Oh, my goodness, Dan. I’m by myself. Working late. What’s this all about?”

“Sir, we have the building surrounded. Would you please walk out slowly with your hands placed on your head? You will be safe, I promise.”

“Good grief, Dan! There’s obviously been a mistake. I’ll be happy to comply-just give me a moment.”

“Sir, we need you to come out immediately-”

“Certainly. Absolutely.” Drake switched off his phone and advanced toward Eric, his face contorted in fury. “You went to the police.”

Eric shook his head. He was losing a lot of blood. His shirt was darkening in streams, he could feel warmth running down his neck.

Drake leaned over Eric and hauled him to his feet. “You’re just like your fucking brother-sticking your nose into things.” They were eye to eye. “Oops,” Drake said, touching Eric on the cheek. “I think there’s one in your eye.”