Lyle strides to the balcony. Throws open the doors and gazes out over the thousand murmuring demonstrators. Even from here, I can feel their collective heat shouldering in through the doorway. Lyle turns to me, silhouetted, and his eyes are shining—finally, really alive.

“Who among the world of men may judge us, when we are as angels to them?”

Vaughn stirs from the floor. Looks up at Lyle with scared eyes. He’s pale. His right arm is twitching uncontrollably.

“Autofocus was meant to help people,” I say. “It was meant for good.”

“Well, hell,” says Lyle. He doesn’t seem to notice Vaughn anymore. “I’m beyond good and evil. And it ain’t too late. You should join me. With the shit you got upstairs, boy, we could split the world in half. I know you ain’t a killer, but the best generals never are.”

Lyle puts out his hand for me to shake. But I’m already listening to my Zenith. Dropping levels. On an express elevator to the planet core.

Three, two, one. Three, two, one. Three, two, one.

“Don’t you do that,” says Lyle, smiling. His hand snakes out toward me and I’m not there. “Where you headed, buddy?”

I’m going deeper than I’ve ever been. Sinking through the levels fast and smooth like a stone through water. Lyle backs up onto the balcony. A confused murmuring comes from the crowd as they spot the cowboy. His face is shrouded in black and he is dangerous as electricity, and having him only feet away puts a sickening fear into the pit of my belly.

Lyle speaks, words coming out in a torrent, a hoarse whisper that pulls me in. “Kill him with me, Owen. We can make a new world together. Ad astra cruentus. To the stars, brother, both of us stained in blood.”

I feel the vibration from deep inside me, vocal cords flexing, each minute movement of my tongue as it crafts the word from a gasp of air.

Never.

And in my head, I hear my father’s voice. My sight fades as he speaks to me. The familiar sound of him floods my mind with memories and it puts a stinging blur of tears in my eyes. I gave you something extra, Owen. Level six. Freedom from suffering. Full executive extinguished. A conduit to your soul. Thought to action. I love you, son. I trust you. Do good. Do you consent? Do you consent?

He left this message for me. All this time. My father.

Do you consent?

I consider it for a fragment of a second.

Yes.

The Zenith awakes.

The room explodes into flowing, scintillating paths of murder and battle. Shining gossamer strands that represent the vicious arc of fists and blunt trajectory of knees. Dense probability maps rise out of the floor based on tiny variations in its surface, routes toward cover, light reflections. Every glowing wisp of probability and vector streak of light slashes a path toward Lyle’s darkened face.

Every level before this has been a reflection of this glory.

For a handful of milliseconds, I simply stand in awe of the implant-generated vista. I never knew anything could be this beautiful. Somewhere, my true eyes are going dead and blank in the face of this overwhelming splendor. This must be what a cheetah sees, sprinting seventy miles an hour, fangs out, inches from sinking claws into writhing flesh. Every object humming with life—a flickering corona of data with only a single purpose: to help me survive a fight with Lyle Crosby.

The muscle-priming routines snap into action like a mousetrap. Each movement of my initial feint and stuttering leap toward Lyle pulses through my body as a reflex action. The skinny cowboy charges at me, anticipating my first three feints, but my last change of speed and direction catches him centimeters off guard.

His hardware is running hot but not as hot as mine. We hit like bullets colliding. He stumbles back and I pin him against the balcony railing.

Before an audience of thousands.

“Where are you?” whispers Lyle.

Our arms intertwine, thrashing in short purposeful bursts. Attacks and parries at the speed of the nervous system. Watching it unfold, I see so many arm configuration probabilities radiating from our interlocked limbs that we look like Indian gods. Each brutal exchange digs us into a deeper, more intricate grip. When I snap his ring and middle fingers backward, breaking them both at the first knuckle, he barks a hyena laugh, tendons straining his throat.

But the fight is already over. Gruesome efficiency. An equation solved.

Our arms are locked up like a stuck drawer. Lyle’s side is wedged against the railing. Behind him, the crush of a thousand bodies presses in on us. All the infinite ghostly arm position configurations have collapsed into this single incontrovertible lock. Almost gently, I press my forearm over Lyle’s neck. He struggles, twists his sweaty head back and forth. Trapped between iron and flesh.

We both know he has a near-zero probability of escape.

Lyle’s eyes are shining like oily pavement after a thunderstorm. His tanned face reddens, darkens as the oxygen is cut off. Blinking just to focus, he grunts, “You’re not a killer.”

My forearm remains steady as bedrock as the words dissipate. Lyle looks confused. Sort of hurt, like I just called him a bad name.

These days, a single man can do more than his fair share of evil. The technology makes each of us so much more. This skinny cowboy could kill millions. And all he has going for him is raw grit and anger and the will to dominate—and that white-hot spark of science fueling it all.

I wonder if I am any different. I wonder if it even matters.

“We’ve all got a killer inside us,” I whisper, and I bear down with my forearm. Lyle’s eyes widen as his throat collapses, as the arteries and airways close for business. A surprised smile briefly plays over his mouth and his lips part. But no words come out.

Lyle’s black eyes close for the last time.

I watch his still face for a long minute before I let his body fall at my feet. People in the crowd below are confused. A woman screams. And something moves inside the room. Vaughn. He’s propped himself up on one elbow. Face sheened in sweat, he smiles at me and speaks with a bloodstained tongue.

“They’ll never believe you,” he says.

I hear shouting in the hallway, footsteps growing louder. My skin is buzzing, vision wavering. Staggered, I lower my hands onto my knees and double over. I can’t say quite why it feels this way, but I’m thinking that I just killed my best friend. Or my brother. Maybe myself.

Vaughn’s sweat-slicked face is pinched with triumph as he lies back, his strength completely exhausted.

But his smile fades as I reach up and pinch shaky fingertips around the nub on my temple. My retinal video has a cache of the last twenty minutes. I know this because I watched Nick learn it the hard way.

“No,” says Vaughn.

I give myself one deep breath, take hold of the port, and close my eyes.

Then I rip it out.

“Pure Pride” Rocked by Criminal Investigation

PITTSBURGH—In the last several days, the Pure Human Citizen’s Council (PHCC) has lost substantial backing, including from the AARP—one of the nation’s most powerful lobbying groups.

Support has waned to historic lows with the revelation that at least some of the recent internecine violence was caused by mercenary outfits allegedly hired by the PHCC itself. Civil rights proponents have long claimed that Pure Pride rhetoric borders on hate speech and encourages discrimination. Now, some are even claiming that the tri-city attacks were bankrolled by the anti-implantee organization.