Finally, we reach the deteriorating Washington Crossing Bridge. A few hundred people mill about in what looks like half a campground and half a swap meet. The stained concrete is layered with blankets and sleeping bags and bulging plastic sacks. Windblown empties rattle over the concrete, barely audible under the muted hum of conversation and the sporadic roar of traffic overhead.

Perry throws an arm around my shoulder, gestures to the mesh-covered belly of the towering structure overhead. “Welcome to the under-bridge.”

Weeks of scraggly beard cover my face, but I keep my head down anyway. It has become a habit. I try to shush Perry and take in my surroundings.

National Guardsmen in camouflaged gear ring the shaded area under the bridge. Their eyes are veiled by shining new riot helmets, watching everybody and settling on nobody. Long black batons hang on their hips, rifles hanging from chest straps. Side by side, the men might as well be statues. They aren’t looking through us but past us.

Hundreds of Pure Priders mill across the road, watching the under-bridge.

Beyond the bridge, a crumbling warehouse the length of a football field squats on a vast paved expanse. Coils of barbed wire have been thrown haphazardly over the cracked cement in a wide ring around the building. The area inside swarms with men and women and children. I make out a game of baseball; they’re using torn cardboard for bases. The massive warehouse doors gape open. Thousands of people shuffle in and out.

This must be the safety zone. And where I’m standing is the processing station. Amps are coming here voluntarily, just to escape the wrath of angry Priders.

A ragged column of amps wait in line to enter. Men and women, each with a maintenance nub, holding sleeping bags and backpacks and garbage bags stuffed with clothes. Dragging suitcases and trunks ahead a foot at a time as the line sluggishly creeps forward.

A guardhouse at the front gate processes the families. Just beyond the processing station, beyond the fence, ragtag shops are set up, built out of plywood. Newcomers are buying and trading for food and first aid kits and blankets.

The people on this side of the fence are either bargaining with one another or in line. Dozens of kids mill around. Some stay near their parents. Others travel in packs, carrying sticks and shepherded by stray dogs. The kids are dressed okay: clean clothes, new shoes. And now that I think of it, most of the dogs aren’t strays. A golden retriever with tags pads by me, bushy tail slapping against my legs.

As I stop to take it in, Perry shuffles nervously.

“How long has this been happening, Perry?”

“The recall order went in three weeks’ past. After the attack. Locomotives materialized here more than a week ago. Spilled the bulk of the amps.”

“Are there other camps like this?”

“Another half dozen, at least. They say Central Park accommodates over twenty thousand. Corralled the Daytona speedway entirely. Probably only ten thousand here at the under-bridge. These personages are the stragglers,” says Perry. “Tried to stay out and learned the hard way what’s best for them.”

“How long are they keeping people here?” I ask Perry.

“Why, until they’re safe,” he replies, nodding at the street where Priders roam. “Now come along with me. I want to introduce you to someone.”

I take a deep breath of the musty air and feel the vibration of the bridge traffic overhead rattle through my chest. To my left, I notice a man peeing against the wall, wobbly kneed and singing. The soldiers watch impassively. Barbed wire glints in the light of the setting sun.

Lyle’s plan is stalling. The amps aren’t fighting. They’re obeying.

“Come along now,” says Perry. He eyes the guard station desperately. Then his face darkens. He focuses on something just over my right shoulder. He speaks without looking at me: “Come, sir, let’s absquatulate,” he says. “Right quick.”

Perry jabs a thumb into the air to motion me to follow and I see that his hands are shaking. I glance over my shoulder and spot a small misshapen head attached to a crooked torso moving toward us, balanced on what look like black stilts. Emaciated black arms hang menacingly from the torso’s sides.

It’s the wire man. The nightmare shape that nearly killed me in Detroit.

People scatter before the lurching gait of the man thing. I watch a father usher his two children away, losing his place in line without a thought.

Perry grabs my arm and tries to tug me away. “Let’s motivate,” he whispers. “That’s Mr. Cordwainer and he’ll busticate us for a lark, sir. You’d best give your full credence to that fact.”

The wire man’s head lolls in our direction. A pink stripe crosses his brow, a gash that’s healing slow. I make eye contact, and there is an instantaneous shock of recognition between us. Perry whimpers and stops walking.

“Too late now,” he whispers as the monster staggers toward us. “Cordwainer is quicker than a jumping spider. If he has to give chase, it’ll go worse. He’s an angry man. Word is he used to peregrinate via skateboard until Uncle Sam granted him new legs. But he didn’t stop there, did he? Got the arms amputated, too.”

The wire man stops before us and twists his body off-kilter to aim his shrunken, crippled head at me. “Hello, thirteen,” it says, lisping toothlessly over the words. “Thought you might come through here. Been waiting for you.”

“Cordwainer?” I ask.

The creature’s eyes slide over to Perry. “Yes, that’s my name,” it says. “I see you’ve made a convenient friend.”

“Simply, uh, simply, took him on as a parergon,” sputters Perry. “Escorting my companion and his personalia safely through the willowwacks—”

“I didn’t know about Lyle,” I say, trying to focus on Cordwainer’s face, to ignore the rest of that horrible mess. “I didn’t realize what was happening …”

But Cordwainer is staring at Perry.

“What’s in the pocket, Perry?” he asks.

Perry pulls his coat on tighter.

“I would have saved Valentine if I could,” I say.

I glance sidelong at the soldiers, but they stare right through us.

“Empty your pockets,” slurs Cordwainer.

Perry just gapes at him, his floating blue eyes wide and round with terror.

“No?” asks Cordwainer. Then, smooth and fast as a riptide, the wire man lunges and grabs Perry with one spider arm. His other arm flies forward and back three times. One, two, three punches and then the celery-stick crunch of Perry’s cheekbone caving in. Jams his claws into Perry’s pockets and rips out the contents in a swirl of papers. He drops Perry wailing onto the cement.

Perry begins to crawl away.

Reaction time. It’s defined as the length of time between sensing a stimulus and responding to it. I caught Perry’s ruler quicker than a snake strike. That was fast. This is faster.

I ball my left hand into a fist and hurl all my weight into a short, vicious left hook. Cordwainer is already dancing back, but the punch connects in his solar plexus, in the precise spot where a bundle of wires plunges beneath his skin to interface with the motor nerves embedded in the muscles of his belly.

Cordwainer’s legs drop out from under him like somebody flipped a switch. He falls forward and wraps his coat-hanger arms around me. “Stop,” he hisses, hanging from me, his legs twitching like half-squashed bugs. “Stop and look.”

A crumpled piece of paper lies at my feet, rocking slightly in the phantom breezes from unseen cars and trucks whining across the bridge overhead. My own face stares up at me in black and white, a crude photocopy.

IF YOU SEE THIS MAN … it reads.

I let Cordwainer steady his feet.

“You’re faster than last time,” he says.

A few dozen people shake their heads at us, muttering. Kids whisper to each other and point, pantomiming the fight. Perry continues to crawl away.