“You saw the pages,” says Lyle, with a tone of finality. “Valentine was talking to the Priders. He was going to warn them. I can’t have a rogue Zenith on my hands, Gray.”

I hear movement in the room downstairs.

“I’m not the bad guy, understand,” continues Lyle. “And that girl who killed herself … Samantha. She was right, Gray. Made the coward’s choice, but she was right. This world is never going to accept us. There’s no place for us in it. We’ve got to fight to make a new one. Especially if you’re a Zenith.”

On the ground behind Lyle, Valentine’s chest stops rising and falling.

“Think of it,” says Lyle. “Coordinated strikes on reggie targets, timed to create maximum confusion. Guerrilla warfare, house-to-house. Not just us soldiers but all the amps against all the reggies. Forging a new country out of plastic and titanium and silicone. It’s happening tomorrow, Gray, on a scale you can’t imagine.”

“Why are you doing this?” I ask.

“Change, man,” he says. “Carving out what’s mine. Every living thing will fight to survive. And if the people don’t want to fight, we’ll make them. You don’t pick your revolution. It picks you.”

My eyes flick to the open window a story below me. I catch sight of Stilman and Daley inside. The two Zeniths are moving quickly and efficiently around the room. Stilman is carrying a dented gasoline can.

“Four of us left,” says Lyle. “What’s your choice?”

He raises the gun and trains it on my face, steadies his hand.

“Fight or die,” calls Lyle. “Stilman joined. Daley. The rest died. Are you my general or not?”

Valentine’s eyes are open and glassy, reflecting the gory clouds in the darkening sky. Sweat still evaporates from his forehead. The wind caresses his red hair.

Lyle pulls the hammer back. “Nobody is surprised when an oppressed people fight back. We are not the aggressors, Gray. We’re freedom fighters, joining the tradition of our ancestors who fought for their humanity. They won’t give us rights? We’ll take them. We’ll take everything we want.”

In my peripheral I can see the hood of Lyle’s truck just up the street. I know that the screwdriver that starts it is lying loose in the floorboard. Slowly, I lean my body away from the railing. Feel the wind breathing on the back of my neck.

“Okay,” I say.

“You’ll fight?” Lyle asks, warily lowering the gun.

“Yeah,” I say. “I’ll fight.”

And I let go of the railing.

*** SPECIAL REPORT ***

By JANET MARINO

Hundreds dead as detonations rock Chicago, Houston, Detroit Amp Extremists claim responsibility for horrific carnage

The Associated Press

CHICAGO

A simultaneous series of detonations crippled the downtown metropolitan areas of three American cities late last night in what witnesses described as a highly coordinated terrorist attack conducted by trained teams of amp extremists.

…

Ten hours on the road, and my eyes feel rough as cracked porcelain. Not even Lyle could run fast enough to catch me when I bolted. Got this truck started and peeled out before he could even get off a shot.

I’ve been hightailing it back to Eden ever since. Got to find Jim.

Traffic started bogging down a few blocks away from Jim’s work site. I saw a lot of people gathered and it was a bad sign, so I skirted around on a side street. Crunched Lyle’s old pickup to a halt in a weedy ditch.

The rattling truck is finally stopped, but my body still tingles with phantom vibrations. My hands don’t want to relax their grip on the plastic steering wheel. I put my forearm across it and rest my sweaty forehead, feeling my injured palm throb in time to my heartbeat.

Try to think.

The reports on the radio are chaotic. I don’t know what to believe. Timed detonations in cities around the country. Buildings falling. Hundreds dead, maybe thousands. Astra claiming responsibility for the start of a new war. Lyle must have thousands of amps ready to fight. A whole rank structure. Training and upgrades. He’s building a new world and I was too late to stop him.

It is chaos in the parking lot out in front of the site. Full to overflowing with screaming demonstrators. More than just the guys who lost their jobs. Priders are here from everywhere. I wonder what Lyle is planning to do to them.

The double-wide chain-link gate is closed and locked today. Just inside, I spot a familiar hulking figure. The Brain, unmistakable, flanked by dozens more of Lyle’s gang from Eden. They stand behind the flimsy metal links, staring out. Taunting the demonstrators with smiles and crossed arms.

Lyle wasn’t fucking around.

I haul myself out of the truck. Scale the back fence and hop over, keeping a lot of room between me and the Brain. The work site is about half as full as normal. Mostly just the old men, heads down. Still doing their jobs while the angry crowd outside builds and builds.

I scour the site for Jim until a worker points upward.

Four stories up, I exit the wooden scaffolding to find the old man unloading bundles of rebar off the crane and stowing them in long lines for the rod busters to drop into concrete. Jim is working relentlessly, drops of sweat hanging off his chin, the putter of his exoskeleton motor cutting through the quiet air up here. The way he is moving is thoughtful and automatic at the same time. Calm compared to the madness unfolding downstairs.

“Hey,” I call out.

Jim turns to me, looks me up and down without saying anything. His eyes settle on the weeping improvised bandage wrapped around my hand. With a sigh, he sets down a piece of shivery rebar.

“Let me look at that hand,” he says.

The first-aid box is at the base of the building. Jim signals the crane operator that the load is finished. Then he leads me down the creaking scaffolding to the ground floor. The subbasement for the parking garage isn’t complete yet, and the three-story drop still tickles the pit of my stomach. In the cool cement interior of the half-completed structure, Jim pops open the rusty first-aid box and sets out the antiseptic, cotton balls, antibiotics, gauze.

In here, the rumble of the people outside sounds like distant traffic, punctuated by an occasional angry shriek. Other old men are standing outside the building, smoking and trying to look calm.

“You save that Zenith?” asks Jim.

“I … no,” I say.

“Jim—” I start to speak and then stop. I can’t think of the right way to say this because there isn’t one. Sometimes you’ve just got to blurt it out. “Lyle is the one killing Zeniths. Astra isn’t defending us. It never was. Lyle’s trying to start a chain reaction …”

I trail off when I see the look on Jim’s face.

“I’m too late,” I say.

Jim pauses from wiping dirt off my hand with a cotton ball.

“Shit’s hit the fan. After the tri-city attacks, Priders are rioting and looting amp neighborhoods all over the country. They got Joe Vaughn himself rallying up the road,” says Jim, turning my hand and examining the wound. “He’s outside the old post office, a mile from here, whipping these people into a goddamn frenzy.

“I don’t know how we’re gonna—” he is saying, wrapping my hand in gauze, but his voice is swallowed as the dull roar of the demonstrators rises an octave. The front fence starts ringing like a bell. Sounds like it’s being tossed around by a tornado.

“Priders are coming in,” I say, looking around and seeing no easy way out of the site. “We can make it out if we run now.”