“He was leading you to them,” says Cordwainer, pointing at the guardhouse at the front of the line. “Your photo is in there. Twenty more yards and these soldiers would have taken you. If you want inside, sneak in.”

“About Valentine—”

 Cordwainer stops me with a wave. “Val is gone, but those of us who are left can still try to keep the peace. Lyle was right that there will be a new world. Just not the one that he wants.”

“Thank you,” I say.

“Be careful,” says Cordwainer. “The reggies are massing and they are angry. Soon, they may be angry enough to strike. And then everyone in this place will die.”

Associated Press

Crowd in Florida Demonstrates at “Safety Zone” as Backlash Grows

BY DENNIS JAY

DAYTONA BEACH, FL (AP)—A violent and perhaps predictable backlash is spreading across the nation as details emerge about Astra—the extremist amp organization that planned and carried out the attacks in Chicago, Detroit and Houston.

Police from Daytona, Florida, and several nearby counties turned back 3,000 Pure Pride marchers—some blatantly displaying holstered arms—as they tried to march through the front gate of the Daytona Speedway Federal Safety Zone late last night. Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested, said Daytona Police Chief David Wilson. There were no injuries and demonstrators were kept outside the main entrance of the Daytona International Speedway.

Meanwhile, a law enforcement official in Pittsburgh, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the FBI has made a breakthrough in its search for the mastermind behind the attacks by following leads provided by the Pure Human Citizen’s Council, an anti-implantee organization that has been targeted by extremists in the past. Head of the PHCC Senator Joseph Vaughn is scheduled to deliver a speech to a massive audience in Pittsburgh tomorrow afternoon. He could not be reached for comment on whether the speech is related to the reported breakthrough.

Since the sun dropped over the horizon, the tower spotlights have been strafing every twenty seconds or so. Plenty of time. You’d think the guards would be focused on keeping amps from sneaking out. Instead, they’re watching for the Priders who threaten to flood inside.

I’m crouched on the weedy bank of a hill overlooking the west Pittsburgh Federal Safety Zone. Sweating and mosquito bitten, I’m too far away to feel the breeze that sweeps in off the Allegheny River. I can see the wind, though, in the harmonized flapping of drying laundry that hangs on a twanging confusion of nylon cords. Inside the massive, softly glowing warehouse, the murmur of thousands of people sighs out across the cooling cement plaza. The sound washes over my face like warm breath.

Lucy and Nick are somewhere in there, compliments of my friend Vaughn.

A milling throng of amps spills from the hangar doors and crowds the pavement. They ignore the glazed stares of military police. The amps move slowly, talk in hushed tones. They seem oddly quiet and solemn, victims turned into judges.

On the crumbling street a hundred yards farther up this hill, through the gaps in trees, I see a line of several hundred human gawkers. Some are curious kids on bikes, staring down with wide eyes. Others’ eyes are narrow, swimming with vile intentions. I wonder how many guns have been quietly loaded and now swing heavily in pockets above.

It’s not clear to me whether the warehouse down there is a prison or a fortress.

A shiny new coil of barbed wire meanders around the perimeter of the facility, only five feet away from where the cement turns to brush. Three hastily constructed wooden towers rise, spaced out behind the razor-sharp wire and linked by high fences. I can make out the dark silhouettes of military police. The slender barrel of a rifle and the wink of its scope. On the ground, a few widely spread military policemen saunter along.

I take a deep breath and do what Lyle taught me to do. Focus on my goal up front. To get past the sharp fence uninjured. To avoid the men and lights and guns. Most of all, to not hurt anyone. Lucy told me I’m a good guy. But each time I turn on the Zenith, there is always the chance I’ll surface with blood on my hands.

Three, two, one. Zero.

I fall backward into the blackness behind my own eyelids. Surrender control to the implant. Whole hog.

I am still, even as the world and all its data shimmer around me.

Hidden paths and tiny objects and environmental information starburst into colors and light. Retinal and cochlear and Autofocus blend together into a symphony. The heat differential on the pavement. Density of the barbed-wire coils. Even the sweep of the spotlight collapses out of time and falls into a visible pattern. I can see where the light is. I can see where it will be.

And then my legs are moving. The muddy hillside slides away under my feet. I hear the gentle ticking of my shoes on the pavement. The knee-high coil of barbed wire jerkily approaches. It’s clearly been unwound from a spool and hastily thrown off the back of a truck. One spiky loop is snarled up, uncoiled; it gleams at me like a tunnel of light.

A bare instant after the spotlight glances overhead, the serpentine blades loom up at me. I’m leaping that flat spot in the wire, sliding across the weedy pavement on the other side.

I vault onto the chain-link fence and climb. The metal bites into my fingers and then I’m catapulting myself over the razor wire on top. The pavement rolls with me when I touch down on the other side.

Five seconds later, I reach the back of a tar paper shack at a dead sprint. I’m running on my toes for silence and sacrificing control. I hit the side of the flimsy building with a smack and lean against it, gasping for breath. Sweaty palms pressed hard against rough wood.

Okay, turn it off now, I’m thinking to myself and it’s starting to work. Take control from the amp. Turn it off. Off, off, off.

The colors have gone dull and faded when this young soldier walks around the corner of the shack. He whips his flashlight up. Aims it at my head. The beam of light hits the surface of my face and I swear I can feel the individual photons bouncing off me, bouncing back into his retinas and triggering a shudder of surprise.

My scraggly beard hasn’t fooled him.

I don’t think about how to respond. That’s just the problem. The technology does it for me, and by reflex the world outside is moving again. That flashlight grows brighter. A surprised adolescent squawk escapes the soldier as the heel of my palm tags his windpipe. A moment of vertigo as the flashlight spins in the air. I can feel myself spinning with it in a gentle arc. Ground turns to sky turns to ground.

I catch the flashlight, crouch, and gently set it down. Then I leap.

Now my right arm is in a viselike V shape, closing in tight around the soldier’s neck. It blocks the surging, panicked pulse of his carotid and jugular. The back of his head is pushed against my cheek, and I can smell the sweat in his hair. I smell his shampoo and I’m trying so hard to will my arm to stop, but it’s like trying to focus your eyes on something too close to your face. I can’t haul myself up out of this hole in my mind. Through gritted teeth, I scream at myself, at my own tightly locked arms.

The soldier goes loose and limp. He makes a little snorting sound from deep in his throat. I can see his face is relaxed and serene as a doll and I know that now he is dying. Each tenth of a second without oxygen takes him closer. The urgency of this knowledge floods my body with new adrenaline. My grip begins to shake. With a whining grunt behind my teeth, I force my arm to open. A bit and then some more.