“What do you mean?” Leo asked. “What kind of thing?”

Dowd gazed abstractedly at a torque wrench he had picked up.

Well, that’s a good question. I don’t know what else to call it. It was something about halfway between an ape, a spider, and a Swiss army knife.

Thomas emitted a bark of laughter, more nerves than anything else. Dowd ignored him.

Moved like a spider or a crab. Had about that many legs. But it bent up at the middle, I mean it had a kind of a waist, and arms above that, but not hands—more like tools, blades and pincers and shit like that. And it had a head, which was the only human thing about it. Not a human head exactly. But eyes, a mouth.

So it comes down the side of that trash pile, headed straight for Bastián. Bastián starts looking around for something he can use to defend himself. Grabs a piece of rebar that’s sticking up but it’s buried too deep, he’s like desperately tugging on this iron rod, doesn’t take his hand off it until the thing is on top of him. Then he tries to back up but he’s on a slope and he can’t move fast enough and the thing just—well, it basically took him apart. Three quick moves. Snip snip snip. Three pieces of Bastián rolled past me, leaving blood trails.

Then it came for me, but I’d had a little more time get ready. Or else I just got lucky—the Lucite rod I grabbed out of the trash had about the weight and heft of a baseball bat. The thing had long arms and those fingers, or blades, or claws, were fast as lightning, I got a couple more scars I could show you but I’d have to drop my pants—anyway I managed to bring that rod down on the thing’s head, maybe not hard enough to kill it, I don’t know, but maybe I did, it dropped like all its strings had been cut and I proceeded to move the fuck elsewhere.

Got to the Toyota. Did a crazed U-turn and as soon as I’m pointed the right direction I see a half-dozen more of those things in the mirror, gaining on me. Stepped on the gas so hard I nearly ran the fucking vehicle off the fucking road. Kicked up a big cloud of dust and sand, which in the glare of that light was like a smokescreen.

The next thing I see is in front of me, and this time at least it’s a human being, a guy in jeans and a white shirt standing in the middle of the road trying to flag me down. Which was almost reassuring, except the guy has a pistol in a holster and he’s starting to reach for it. I mean, to me he looked like a mall cop. But what am I gonna do, pull over? So I stand on the gas pedal.

The guy looked weirdly calm, and I could see him real clear in that freaky light, trying to level his pistol before the Toyota hit him. Like it was a race between the pistol and the Toyota. The Toyota won. I hit him full-on.

Which pretty near killed me. Any of you ever been in a car when it runs into a large animal, maybe a deer? No air bags on that vehicle. No seat belts. If my legs hadn’t caught on the steering wheel my head would have gone through the windshield. As it was I took a nasty crack on the dashboard. Lost control. The vehicle went up on two wheels, almost turned over. It was halfway up the embankment before I got control of it again. Big dent in the front end and the engine making a sound like a circular saw with a bent blade.

But the mall guard was dead. I knew that because he was all over the fucking windshield. He pretty much exploded on contact. Green shit everywhere. I mean I had to turn on the wipers just so I could see. Clots of red and yellow, yeah, like blood and I guess body fat, but mostly green—I guess you know what I’m talking about.

“He was a simulacrum,” Thomas piped up, needlessly.

Yeah, a sim. But obviously I didn’t know that then. It was just more weirdness. I was being chased by spiders with blades for hands, Bastián was dead, the mall guard was made of snot, and all I wanted was to be anywhere else in the world but this fucking desert. Kept my foot on the gas even when smoke started coming out from under the hood. Long as the wheels turned. One eye on the mirror at all times.

Pretty soon they switched off that tall beam of light. And I killed the Toyota’s lights and drove by the moon, just to be less conspicuous. I expected to be chased, but that didn’t happen. At least not right away. And then I thought, well, where do I go? Back to the depot? Tell an overseer I totaled a company vehicle and by the way Bastián was cut in three pieces by a giant crab?

Since there was nobody on the road back of me far as I could see—and in the Atacama that’s a long way, even at night—I stopped the vehicle and tried to take inventory and come up with some kind of plan. Took off my shirt and tied it around my ribs to stop the bleeding. Obviously the Toyota wasn’t going to make it much farther. Smoke kept coming even when I turned the engine off. I got out and opened the trunk. Found a spare tire—useless—a tire iron, the four-way kind—also pretty useless—and a jack. The jack had a detachable steel handle, which was better than nothing, so I took that. A knife would have been better. Even a box cutter. Anything. But the jack handle was the best I could do.

Then I rolled the Toyota off the road and pointed it across the salt flats, got the engine running—barely—put the transmission in neutral, braced the tire iron against the gas pedal, put it in first gear and jumped the fuck out. The vehicle rolled out into desert on a slow curve, probably would have come right back to me except the engine died when it was a couple of hundred yards off in the flats. Engine caught fire. Pretty soon it looked like a bonfire, burning out there. I hoped it looked like I’d driven off-road and maybe died in the fire. Or at least that somebody might think that from a distance. Then I hunkered down behind the little dirt-and-pebble embankment at the side of the road, which was the only thing to hide behind, which wasn’t much.

Still trying to make a plan. The moon was close to setting and dawn was about an hour away. If more mall guards showed up I thought I might have a chance, but if a posse of those spidery things came down the road I figured I’d be better off slitting my own throat before they did me the favor… But then I saw headlights in the distance.

It was just one truck. A four-wheel-drive Ford with roll bars and a pickup bed. It slowed down, probably because the driver saw the Toyota burning like a motherfucker out there on the salt flats. Stopped a few yards away from where I was hiding. Looked like there was two guys inside. One of ’em gets out. He’s a mall guard—same clothes, same pistol on his hip. Flashlight in his right hand. He’s looking down at the road, shining that light on the gravel, checking out the tire tracks where the Toyota veered into the salare. And every step brings him a little closer to me.

So while he’s staring at the ground I get up and run at him. All I have on my side is surprise. He sees me coming, of course. He drops the flashlight. Reaches for his pistol. But I swing the jack handle before he even touches the weapon. He dodges real quick, but I manage to stun him. So I hit him again, a home-run swing to the side of his head, which drops him like a bag of sand. I go down on my knees and take the pistol out of his holster.

In those days I didn’t know a lot about firearms, but I’d handled my daddy’s old .45 a few times. So I switch off the safety and pray the fucking thing’s loaded, because the second guy is getting out of the Ford in a hurry, and he’s definitely armed and dangerous. I get off one shot, which goes through the Ford’s windshield. Useless. Second shot clips the guy’s shoulder, which turns him around. I’m up and running, he’s still trying to bring his weapon up though his arm don’t work right, third shot is to the head and boom, he’s down.