The guard started clicking through satellite channels. “Damn, this thing is slow.”

“Welcome to tech level two.”

Grady turned away from the screen. Instead, he gazed out the window. When was he going to do this? Was it better to escape in the countryside or in the city? They were moving through suburbs now.

He guessed he’d have more places to hide in the city. More resources. And he had to get the evidence he was carrying to someone. That was a whole separate challenge.

By now the guard manning the TV remote had navigated past cooking and travel shows. “What channel’s it on?”

Another guard grabbed the remote. “It’s in the two hundreds.”

He clicked onto a cable news station where a mannish woman in a suit stood before a cluster of microphones. The chyron below her read, “Richard Cotton Trial.”

A couple of the guards roared in laughter, “Cotton!”

“My man . . .”

The woman on TV was in midsentence. “. . . effort. We’re just glad Richard Cotton will finally face justice.”

A guard yelled, “Put the game on. This shit’s been going on for months.”

Grady watched the screen in fascination.

The news cut to footage of a chained prisoner in bulky body armor and a bulletproof helmet being escorted past a phalanx of riot police. Grady recognized Cotton’s bearded face nodding to the cameras.

Grady struggled to hear the news anchor’s voice over the hoots of his BTC guards. “Captured by FBI agents late last year, Cotton was transferred Thursday under heavy guard to federal district court in Chicago, where he faces trial on thirty-three counts of first-degree murder, conspiracy, and use of weapons of mass destruction. The leader of an antitechnology domestic terror group known as the Winnowers, Cotton has claimed responsibility for a decadelong string of bombings focused on eliminating scientists whose research he claimed was ‘an affront to God.’ He has been called a martyr by thousands of admirers for whom his antimodernity message resonates.”

One guard scoffed. “Dipshits. It’s almost too easy.”

On-screen Richard Cotton raised his shackled hands as far up as he could in triumph. The Morrison on Grady’s right chuckled. “What a ham.”

Grady looked from guard to guard. “The FBI captured Cotton?”

The guards all laughed.

“You could call it that.”

Grady scowled at the man. “The FBI is part of this?”

“Hey, Ep, he thinks the FBI can keep a secret.”

They all laughed harder.

The screen suddenly changed to a baseball game—the Detroit Tigers against the Cleveland Indians.

“There we go.”

Grady looked from one guard to another, trying to figure out what they had meant. Apparently there was some joke he wasn’t in on—and which the FBI wasn’t in on either.

Grady leaned forward to see a downtown skyline ahead, lights glittering atop lofty towers. There were Michigan plates on the few cars they passed. Signs on businesses and billboards for local radio stations made it clear they were heading into Detroit. Numbers and letters glowed supernaturally all around him now—his synesthesia kicking in, distracting him with its visual lures.

He needed to stay focused. The time on the dashboard read “11:23 PM.” They’d been traveling for nearly fifteen minutes already.

Another glance to either side. They were driving on a nearly deserted multilane highway. It was bridged over at intervals with cross streets and signs for downtown. There were grassy embankments to either side, leading up to bushes and chain-link fences, with houses and buildings beyond. He guessed they were going seventy.

The guards were absorbed in the baseball game. Grady forced himself to ignore the glowing numbers littered across the TV screen. Focus.

When would he do this? He had to act soon, or they might actually arrive at BTC headquarters.

The Escalade signaled and changed to the slow lane. There were no cars around them at the moment.

No time like the present.

Grady casually picked at the “mole” on his neck, removing it. Then he opened his mouth and placed it on his tongue.

The Morrison to his right gave him a disgusted look.

But before the man could even speak, Grady heard a high-frequency sound as a sudden surge of pressure spread away from his own face, enveloping them both in a fog-like, translucent wave. A wave that rapidly expanded in every direction.

He heard someone behind him shout, “What the—?”

Moments later Grady felt as though he’d been encased in nearly transparent foam. It already filled the interior of the armored Escalade, freezing everyone in place like bugs in amber. He could hear his guards’ muffled speech to the left and right.

Grady tried unsuccessfully to turn his head. He was so thoroughly enveloped by the mysterious substance that he couldn’t even wiggle his fingers.

And then he noticed that the SUV was still going seventy miles an hour. Through the frozen smoke, which extended all the way to the front windshield, Grady could see that they were veering off the highway toward a grassy embankment that led up to street level.

Not good.

With the driver apparently unable to move a muscle—or even to let up on the accelerator—the Escalade edged up onto the shoulder. Once it touched the grass, the SUV curved away upslope. Grady heard muffled curses to the left and right of him, and watched in terror as the vehicle hurtled through a chain-link fence at the top.

Then they were airborne, floating in free fall, the vehicle rolling sideways.

Grady saw lights passing by outside, but after a moment of silence, the SUV thundered down onto its front right corner, doing cartwheels as the armored windows spidered and the vehicle frame twisted around them. Airbags fired, but they barely got out of their cases against the nanocloud—instead, they were forced outward against the doors, blasting two off their hinges.

But through it all, Grady and the men around him floated in airy isolation, completely insulated from the shock of these impacts within the nanofog. Grady felt as though he were watching a hologram unfold all around him.

The Escalade tumbled through another chain-link fence and across a grassy lot until it impacted against a tree—bringing the vehicle to a sudden, violent stop.

Then there was relative quiet as dirt and pieces of debris rained down around the crash.

They had landed right side up at least.

But what now? Grady was still entombed in this bizarre material. He nonetheless felt himself shift in his seat against his seat belt. The moment he tried to expand the movement, he felt the nanomaterial lock him in place again.

Grady tried to recall Chattopadhyay’s advice—which had been woefully brief. But what did he say to do after the material deployed?

There was renewed muttered cursing near his ear . . .

“Grady. You’re fuckin’ dead . . .”

Move slowly toward the exit. That’s what Chattopadhyay had told him. Grady tried to slowly move his hand—and the nanomaterial relented. But the moment he sped up his movement, it locked in on him again.

It was like sheer-thickening liquid then. It would resist rapid deformation but allow slower movement. Grady surmised that once coded to his chemical or genetic signature, this nanomaterial only allowed the cloud’s owner to move slowly—and all other objects would be held fast. Very interesting stuff indeed . . .

Grady concentrated on moving slowly, and sure enough the material permitted motion. It felt like he was encased in a breathable clear gelatin as he moved, but he could move. In a few moments he had his seat belt unbuckled. He rolled slowly toward the right-side door and noticed one of the Morrison clones staring daggers at him through the nanofog. The man couldn’t even move his lips.

“Fuckin’ dead, Grady . . .”