Jim whispers, keeping his face oriented toward the cop. “Keep your face out of the light and for Chrissake don’t look at him.”

The cop is ignoring us. Scans the ground. Sweeps his head back and forth like a predator, following the heat differential of recent footsteps. He pauses where the kid stumbled and nearly fell. Cranes his neck and follows the path that Lucy took. Spots her still walking away and then keeps moving along the kid’s trajectory.

Closer and closer. Right up to our trailer. Our steps.

The cop stops and brushes his night sight to the side. Looks at me like I’m a piece of furniture. Maybe gauging how heavy I’d be to lift. He absentmindedly pats the radio handpiece that is velcroed to his Kevlar vest, up near his shoulder. Making sure it’s still there.

“Move,” he grunts, mechanically climbing the splintered wooden steps. I hear motors whining faintly and notice the cop wears an integrated lower-leg exoskeleton in his armor. Nothing fancy, just a stepper to lighten the load.

I’m not fast enough and the cop plows into me. The solid bulk of armor-layered muscle and compact battery weight sends me grasping for balance. I get hold of the rail just as the cop kicks open the door.

“You can’t go inside there, sir,” says Jim.

“I can do whatever I want,” says the cop, and his tone is final. The cop disappears into the trailer.

He’s right. Legally, we’re living in limbo. I’m not sure there would be any way to prosecute this guy even if he decided to drag us into the street and shoot us all, one by one.

Jim and I stand on the deck, looking past each other, while the cop bangs around inside. Glass breaks. Muffled shouts penetrate thin walls. A minute later, the cop emerges. Not breathing heavy. Moving slow, without urgency, robotic. He’s got the kid by the back of his shirt, dragging him out like a bag of trash.

With a swoop of his arm, the cop nonchalantly tosses his captive off the deck. The kid stutters down the steps, scrabbling on skinned and bloody knees. Trying and failing to catch his balance, he sprawls in the dirt. The cop follows, descending one whining electric footfall at a time.

Nobody in the trailer park has spoken. They just watch.

Showing surprising spunk, the kid pops up onto his feet. Tries to make a run for it, but the cop is right behind him and gets hold of his hair. Gives the kid a brutal yank, spinning him around with his bleeding hands out and flailing. And then the kid accidentally scratches the cop across the face.

A collective shudder goes through the people watching.

The cop pauses, sets his mouth, swallows a lump of anger. Likes the taste. “Mistake,” he mutters. “That was a mistake.”

The officer shoves the kid back down into the sandy dirt. Drops a stepper-enhanced foot between his shoulder blades. I hear a hoarse grunt as a lungful of air is expelled, raw and involuntary. The kid sputters, breath whistling through his throat. Trying to breathe, I guess.

“You’re under arrest,” says the cop to the wheezing kid.

A familiar anger sweeps through me and I take a step forward, but Jim touches my arm. Shakes his head. The old man nods at something in the darkness.

Seeing it, I get the sensation that I’m falling into space.

A swarm of neon fireflies stream toward us. It takes a second to realize that each radiant dot is attached to a temple. Blues and yellows and reds. Some color shifting and others sizzling in one hue. Swaggering young amps with glowing, hand-modified maintenance ports approach and surround the officer. It’s a motley group. Some newcomers wear oversized hoodies and ball caps; others are in blue jeans and boots. Cowboy thugs. Scruffy beards and glassy eyes that reflect crisp speckles of neon light. These are the amped kids who hang around Lyle’s knot of three or four trailers. His gang.

The police officer steps off the kid. His hand darts to the radio on his shoulder. He grabs it and speaks quietly, head turned. For his part, the kid lies on his side with his arms wrapped around his knees. Sucking air.

“King one oh three. Hold traffic. I’m at Eden, northwest corner. Better start me some cars.”

Static.

A flash of white as the cop’s eyes widen. A gap has opened in the sea of bobbing stars. Lights parting for a spreading blackness. Someone is coming through—a man, maybe—someone whose presence is perceptible only by the lack of light.

“King one oh three. Do you copy?”

“What’s happenin’, fella?” asks a gravelly voice.

The identity of the black hole becomes clear. Lyle Crosby.

“Step away, sir,” replies the cop, still grabbing at the radio handpiece. His thumb clicks the button compulsively. “All of you step away.”

Lyle steps closer, smirks.

“Something wrong with your little radio there?”

The cop slaps the radio back onto his shoulder, but it falls, dangles to his hip by its coiled black umbilical wire. Sssh, it says.

“Sir, I am serious. I will shoot your ass. I will not hesitate.” The officer reaches down and unbuttons his gun holster. Rests one palm on the butt of his gun. “I will not make another request. All of y’all need to back up.”

A grimace flashes across Lyle’s face. Something quiet, scary. Surging anger just below the surface. He opens his mouth to speak but stops as a pale hand closes around his upper arm. Lucy. The cowboy turns his head as she whispers something into his ear, gives his arm a little shake.

“Fine,” says Lyle. “Fine, Lucy.”

Lyle tugs his arm away, cocks his head, and closes his eyes. A dreamy smile flutters onto his face. He lifts his hands, palms out. The officer draws his gun, drags it from the leather holster with a squeak. Puts it on the high ready. Aimed at Lyle’s chest.

“On your knees,” he demands.

“Hush,” says Lyle. “I’m listening.”

The cop looks around at the neon temples. “What’s the matter with this guy?”

“Static, Officer,” says Lyle. “All I’m hearing is static.”

Lyle takes another step. The cop holds his ground. Lyle leans into the gun. The barrel presses into Lyle’s chest, dimples the fabric of his shirt, nosing into lean muscle.

“Got no backup coming,” says Lyle, opening his eyes. “Your radio’s all jammed up. Can’t you hear it hissing like a rattlesnake?”

“Enough shit,” says the cop. “Get on the ground! Now!”

The cop reaches for Lyle’s shoulder, but the cowboy shrugs away like a shadow. His face is suddenly an inch from the officer’s.

He is speaking to the cop fast and quiet. His voice rises and falls like water over stones. “Two hundred milliseconds. Takes that long just for your brain to tell your finger to pull the trigger, understand? Reaction time. Damn central tenet of mental chronometry. Trigger pull takes a hundred and ten milliseconds with a factory-set pull weight for that Glock of yours. Trigger releases the firing pin. Detonates the primer. Wait for the chemical reaction. Get your explosion and the bullet travels the length of the barrel, about four inches. Whole process takes a second and a half. Shit, man, might as well be an eternity.”

The kid lies on the ground, watching this unfold from a worm’s perspective. Breathing fast. Mouth open in wonder.

“You know why I know all that?” asks Lyle.

“You’re some kind of goddamn freak,” says the cop.

The crowd of neon thugs has moved closer. Almost imperceptibly. Lyle’s gang is a wall of seething anger. Fast little movements as guys light e-cigarettes, flick empty nicotine cartridges to the ground.

“Careful talking like that. All by yourself. What with your legs not working.”

The cop’s eyes go wide. He grunts, trying to lift a leg. Nothing happens. The motors in his stepper are frozen. He slaps his thigh, punches it. Twists at the waist, too hard. Off-balance, he teeters on paralyzed legs, arms out. His gun glints darkly in his right hand as he paws the air.