The most exciting day of Amarta Zabora’s life came just out of residency when she broke up with her long-time boyfriend and near-fiancé, William Mitchell Raines, a young man of excellent prospects who had wooed her during her second year of medical school. Everyone who knew him agreed that Mitch was brilliant, handsome, talented, and soon to be wealthy, not least because of his burgeoning reputation as a world-class surgeon.
It was only later that Amarta discovered that everything appealing about him—his effortless charm, his ambition, his six-pack abs—belied a pathological need to be envied. Mitch was a narcissist, and no one could ever love him, she realized, as much as he did, not even his own mother, who continued to dote well past the man’s thirtieth birthday.
Of course, Amarta had been just as in awe of him as everyone else at first, and all the more so after he showed interest in her, the only nonwhite female in the school. Mitch wasn’t just a straight-A student and former lacrosse captain. He wasn’t just tall and athletic with a sexy smile and permanently wavy hair. He was a Big Brother to a pair of underprivileged kids from the inner city. He spent every Thanksgiving feeding the needy. He was active politically.
But as time passed and doubts about the relationship began waving at her from a distance, Amarta confided in her close friends and relatives, who unanimously advised her not to be an idiot. They reminded her it was normal for a man like that to be a little arrogant. How could he not be? And how selfish was she to dare ask for more.
It wasn’t until her twenty-ninth birthday, when she emerged from the hell of her internship under Dr. Elaine Sundat—the “Dragon Queen”—that the specter of turning thirty became patent and Amarta understood the distinction between asking for more and asking for different.
But it’s not so easy to walk away from a four-plus-year relationship. And why should she, at least without trying to fix it? So she suggested a trip to celebrate their freedom as independent physicians. Let’s take a few months, she said. Some place exotic, she said. Just the two of us, she said.
Mitchell Raines, perfect man, wouldn’t discuss it. It was bad enough that his girlfriend and potential wife—the woman who would become First Lady, if it ever got to that—had abandoned pediatrics for psychiatry of all things, a discipline that barely counted as medicine, and that she’d let the stress of working under the Dragon Queen ruin her diet and fill her hips, but now she was suggesting he defer his appointment to the best heart-surgery ward on the East Coast. It just wasn’t done. They would give his spot to someone else. And for what? So she could fill some kind of adolescent need? How dare she think of only herself. It was time to grow up. Perhaps, he suggested, she should speak to one of her colleagues about her latent narcissism, because if she couldn’t control herself, he wouldn’t hesitate to—
Amarta went nuclear. And in the aftermath, lost most of her friends and permanently damaged her relationship with her father, also a surgeon, who had looked on Mitch as the son he never had. Even Amarta’s younger brother, who had dropped out of college to be a surfer and who otherwise hated the man, resented the loss, if only because it returned him to the fore of their father’s mind.
And so it was that the day she arrived alone in Saipan, a tiny island far across the Pacific, was the freest and most exciting day of Amarta Zabora’s life.
That is, until she met John Regent.
And the truth was, she hadn’t been able to forget him. She often found herself wondering where he was and what he was doing. In the days and weeks that followed their brief adventure, Amarta had made several life-altering decisions, and at each she asked herself, what would Captain Regent say?
He gave very good advice. But then, that’s just the kind of man he was.
Amarta turned to the poster advertisement inside the plastic wall of the bus stop shelter. It flaunted a smiling woman with perfect, Photoshopped teeth. She was everything the people around were not. Amarta’s commute took her through a sketchy neighborhood, the same one John had taken to patrolling during his time at the hospital.
There he was again. John. Could she call him John?
She thought again about the race she’d had after he left her in the parking garage. She thought about horns and adrenaline. She thought about concrete barriers and shattering glass. She thought about her hands shaking as she raised them over her head. She thought about handcuffs and fingerprints. She thought about smiling in the holding cell when a passing comment by one of the police officers made it clear John had gotten away.
Disappeared.
Gone forever, probably.
Amarta sighed.
She understood it finally. Why he did what he did. Forget her jaunt across the Pacific. She had never, ever felt more alive than those moments when she was nearest death. And all the better that it was to help someone. Someone who had helped so many others.
An older man sat down on the bench next to her. Amarta didn’t notice until the planks moved slightly under the added weight. Awoken from her thoughts, she glanced over. He was maybe mid-fifties with graying, neatly parted hair and a fake tan.
Nice shoes, Amarta thought. Just the kind Mitch would wear. She looked down the road as traffic passed. No sign of the bus. It was usually only five minutes or so late. Longer on Tuesdays.
Was it Tuesday? Wait, what day was it?
“Hi, Doc.”
Amarta turned. The tan man with the expensive shoes didn’t look at her. He looked straight ahead as if he hadn’t said anything. His face was a blank. It caught her off guard. Had she misheard? Was he speaking to someone else? And how did he know she was a doctor? She was in simple business attire. Amarta opened her mouth to ask, but then she didn’t want to engage a stranger if she didn’t have to. She wasn’t in a mood to chat. She turned her head back to the street.
“You look good.”
Amarta scowled. The man still wouldn’t look at her. He sounded like Dr. Lyle, her first boss at her first real job. Lyle liked to stand too close to his female residents. But Lyle was dead, and anyway this man looked nothing—
Amarta’s mouth fell open.
“Probably shouldn’t look at me. Just in case they still have you under surveillance.”
Amarta’s eyes went wide and her head snapped straight as her mouth snapped shut. She didn’t know what to say. “John?” she whispered.
“How’ve you been, Doc? I hope I didn’t get you into too much trouble.”
Amarta gulped. Was it really him? She wanted to look in the man’s eyes, but she didn’t dare. “No more than I expected.” Her skin tingled.
“You expected a lot.”
Amarta looked down to hide a smile. It was him. It was really him. “It was worth it,” she said softly. “You don’t know what you did. At the hospital. Things are different. I don’t know if it was the FBI or NSA or whoever it was showing up like that or what, but the patients, they’re standing up. Walking tall. They’re like soldiers again.” Amarta wanted to turn her head so bad, but she kept it down. “I don’t think any of them will forget you.”
Amarta paused as one does in normal conversation, expecting the other person to respond, and in that tiny gap, her mind decided it would be appropriate to ask how he was, and that’s when it hit her. John wouldn’t be here if things were okay. He wouldn’t risk it. Not for his own sake. For hers.
John was in trouble.
“What’s wrong?” she added quickly.
“I need your help, Doc.”
“I don’t have a car anymore. After the chase I led your friends on, I kinda had my license suspended.”
“Don’t need a car. It’s worse than that.”
“Worse?”
The green-and-white bus pulled up with a roar and squeaked to a stop. It smelled like exhaust. Amarta risked looking at the man. He had crow’s-feet at the corner of his eye. Why did that always look so much better on men? “What do we do?”
“Is this your bus?”
She nodded.
“Then we get on. Find two seats next to each other if you can. I’ll follow.”
Amarta did as she was told. She found two in the middle, but there were people nearby: an elderly woman, two college-age kids, and a homeless man.
John sat down next to her in his host’s body. Dr. Zabora waited in silence.
It was two stops, after the bus turned the corner, before John spoke again. “I have no right to ask this of you.”
“I thought we already got past all that.”
“This isn’t like before.” He raised his eyebrows. “This isn’t like anything anyone’s ever asked of you before.”
“So just spit it out.”
“You know any good heart surgeons?”
Amarta’s back stiffened against the orange plastic. “Maybe. Do I get to ask why?”
“You have pull with any of them?”
Amarta gulped. She had seen that one coming. “One.” Mitchell. Fuck.
“Old boyfriend?”
Amarta smirked. John was good. “Something like that. But it was a long time ago. Med school. I was young. What gave it away?”
“Your toes are curling.”
Amarta looked down at her open-toed pumps poking out from the hems of her pinstriped slacks. The bus shuddered as it stopped. “Yeah, well he’s not exactly someone I ever wanted to see again.”
John waited. “I wouldn’t ask, you know, if there was absolutely—”
“I know, Captain. We got past all that. This isn’t our first rodeo together, remember?”
John nodded.
“Who’s the patient?” Amarta had a terrible thought. She turned to look at him. She couldn’t stop herself. “You? I mean, your body?” Maybe he was trapped inside the graying man with the crow’s-feet.
John shook his head. “Someone who deserves it a helluva lot more than I do.”
“I have a hard time believing that.” Amarta studied his face. “She must be very special.” Two could play that game.
John snorted at the assumption. “Ain’t like that.”
“It’s okay if it is.” She hurried to add, “I mean, of course it’s okay. You’re a grown man. You can do whatever you want. I just meant that it’s healthy. Emotionally. For your recovery. It’s only natural as you settle into—”
“It’s not like that,” John interjected. “There’s only one guy for her. One guy in the whole world.”
“Oh?”
John matched Amarta’s gaze. “He’s eight.”
“Oh. I see. So who is she? A soldier?”
“Something like that.”
That meant she wasn’t in the army. “A foreign national?”
“It’s tricky.” John looked down at his phone.
He had gotten a message from someone called Prophet. “Tricky?”
“Can’t get into the details now. We need to get off at the next stop.”
Amarta looked around. They weren’t near anything important, an office park and a row of town homes. “Why?”
“Because there’s an ambulance waiting.”
“How will I hear from you?”
John smiled. “You’re coming.”
“Coming? What? Now?” She was supposed to be at the hospital in twenty minutes.
John turned to look at her. “We’re in a bit of a hurry.”
Amarta looked in his eyes. Definitely John. Her skin tingled. Riding someone else’s body. It was the coolest thing ever. “Wait. You need a heart surgeon right now? As in, this very minute.” Amarta felt her heart freeze in fear, but not from what John was asking. From her reaction.
She was going to do it. No questions asked. Sight unseen. She was going to help. And that made her wonder if there was anything she wouldn’t do for John.
Not much, she guessed. But not because she had lost her wits or developed some ridiculous teenage crush. Because she knew him. He wouldn’t risk her involvement again, let alone put her in a tough spot out of the blue, unless it was important. Unless it was right. Unless it was good.
Amarta reached into her purse and pulled out her phone. “You know, if I even once in my life EVER thought I would ask Mitchell Raines for help . . .” She stopped tapping on her phone and shook a finger at John. “I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, you know.”
“I know.”
Amarta raised her phone to dial, then lowered it again. “Just so you know, he’s a raging narcissist. Like full-blown personality disorder. I mean, he’s a brilliant surgeon, so it’s not completely undeserved, but to someone like you, he’ll seem—”
“Doc?”
“Yeah?”
“We’re in a hurry.”
“Right.” Amarta stared at her phone. “What do I even tell him?”
The bus squeaked to a stop and Amarta followed John, in his host, out the side door. They stepped onto the sidewalk in front of a big box store. Across the street was a four-story bank.
“The less, the better. Just get him to this address.” He handed her a slip of paper.
Amarta stopped on the sidewalk and read it. “Are you serious? This is way out in Jersey.”
John didn’t stop walking.
Amarta shook her head and followed. “What happens when he shows up? IF he shows up?”
“Just get him there. However you have to. Any and all means.”
A large emergency services vehicle stopped in the parking lot on the other side of him. Amarta stopped. A little girl was driving. She looked worried. She looked at her watch. It was pink with colorful flowers on it.
What the hell was going on? Amarta scowled. “But—”
John turned, and when he did, he had fire in his eyes. It was like nothing she’d never seen. Ever. It was like his irises were electric.
Amarta stepped back.
He was on a mission, she realized. John Regent was doing what he did best, maybe better than anyone in the world. Averting a crisis. And under ridiculous time constraints.
This must be what it was like, she thought, when he was behind enemy lines or doing dark things in even darker parts of the world. Secret. Hurried. Important.
Exciting.
Amarta got goose bumps again. “Captain. I—” She stepped closer and every last bit of doubt melted under the fire of that gaze. Whatever this was for, John believed in it. Deeply. He believed in it with all his being. And he’d do anything to see it through. Anything. “He’s never going to agree to this. Surgery. On a stranger. Without prep. Without tests. Even if I come up with a good enough lie and he shows up, he’ll never do it. Not in a million years.”
John lowered his brow. “Just get him there, Doc. Let me handle the rest.” His words were heavy, as if laden with a great and holy truth. “Your friend Dr. Raines is about to have a come-to-Jesus moment.”
Ian was getting used to being a ghost, a nonperson, an invisible man. He had no intention of abusing it, at least not so bad that anyone needed to worry, but he certainly had no problems stealing when he had to—from a medical supply warehouse, for example, in the early hours of the morning. He had no problems at all, either with his conscience or with pulling it off. Everything John had been teaching him was becoming automatic. The doubt and fear that had paralyzed him most of his life had all but faded.
In hindsight, of course, it seemed silly. All of it. Transcripts and resumes and tax forms. But it’s hard, he realized, to simply cast off two and a half decades of social programming in one solid heave—not to steal, for example, or not to use deadly force. It was too hard, really. You have to slip out of it slowly, like a snake shedding its skin. And when it’s off, you feel new.
That’s how Ian felt. New.
He thought of his old life from time to time. A song or a familiar smell would spark a memory, but instead of warmth and comfort, he felt only curiosity. Had that really been him? Had he really done those things? School and work and Emli. Was he even Canadian anymore? It didn’t seem like it. He was as much Lando Calrissian, Wink’s invented identity, as he was Ian Tendo. How long would it take for the rest of that person to simply cease to be?
Perhaps he should come up with a new name for himself, he thought. Like Prince. Or The Weeknd.
“Stargard,” he whispered. He still liked that.
Ian looked down at his Converse. His right shoe was untied. The plastic tips of the laces made noise against his jeans and the sidewalk. He shifted his backpack full of stolen surgical equipment, everything on Wink’s shopping list, and went down on one knee. He reached for the laces.
And stopped.
Ian froze. He had no idea what to do.
He had no right hand.
In one moment, How do I tie my shoe? became Jesus, I can’t even tie my own shoe before settling on Shit, I’m gonna have to masturbate with my left. That’s gonna be weird.
Ian looked at the loose sleeve of his hoodie dangling over the stub of his arm. Stubs, he’d taken to calling it. Stubby. His new best friend. The wound had almost healed. He figured that was the Oric.
Ian looked at his Converse again. He’d been double-knotting his shoes and slipping them on and off for as long as he could remember. When they came loose, he tied them again. That was how the world had been since grade school. That’s how things were for as long as he had memories. He fed and washed and clothed himself and when the time came, he tied his own fucking shoes.
But not now.
Could he even do it one-handed? He wondered.
Ian dropped the backpack to the ground and grabbed the loose laces with his left hand.
He laughed. “How the fuck do you do this?” There had to be a way.
“Need some help?”
Ian spun. It was a young woman. Ian looked around. She was out of place on the deserted industrial road, and so early in the morning. And—
Wow, she’s cute.
She had a stud in her left nostril and thick-rimmed glasses. Her skin was programmer-pale. Her dark hair was short and wavy and messy. It fell over the tops of her ears and swooped in front of her right eye.
Ian realized he hadn’t said anything in an unusually long time. “Um . . .” He looked down at his sneakers.
“Sorry.” Her lightly freckled cheeks turned crimson. “I don’t mean to pry or whatever, it’s just you’ve been down there for a while. I figured you either needed privacy or help.” She shrugged. “I opted for the latter.”
Ian stared at his shoe. He was in a hurry.
“Um . . . This is gonna sound stupid, but I don’t suppose you could help me tie my shoe real quick.”
It was so strange to ask. But what did he care?
Maybe he should learn how to tie his shoes again before he started calling himself Stargard.
The young woman didn’t hesitate. She squatted next to him on the sidewalk and pulled the laces. “Is that too tight?”
Ian shook his head. He looked at her, amazed. Who was she? Where the hell did she come from? She smelled nice. Like lady soap.
She finished and looked up at him. I should say something, he thought. She initiated and I should say something.
But what?
“You don’t talk much, do you?”
Ian opened his mouth but nothing came out. All he could think to say was how awesome she seemed, just his type: smart, aloof, attractive, but unconventionally so. But he couldn’t say any of that out loud.
Could he?
As if on cue, his phone dinged. “Sorry.” He took it out.
Prophet. He was late for the rendezvous. Xan needed him.
Ian stood. “I’m sorry. I have to go.” He started walking. Then he spun. “Thanks. For the help. With the shoe. And for not making it. You know. Awkward. Or whatever. More awkward, I guess.”
The short-haired girl with the glasses and the nose stud was still squatting on the sidewalk under a small tree. “You haven’t had that very long, have you?”
Ian walked backward slowly, trying to get away quickly but politely. He held up Stubs and looked at it. “Yeah. I guess not.”
She stood and started after him. “Is it rude to ask how it happened?”
Ian gave a weak smile as he kept moving backward. He knew he had to go, but he also had a sneaking suspicion he would be kicking himself later.
But he still had no idea what to say.
“I’m sorry” was all he came up with. His face flushed under his hood. Dweeb! He turned and kept walking toward the rendezvous point.
“You lost it in New York,” she called.
Ian froze.
How could she know that?
He turned around slowly, ready to dash.
But she sure didn’t look evil. Not with those big brown eyes. She had a small ring at the top of her left ear. He hadn’t noticed that before. He’d been too focused on her lips. Soft, fleshy pink. No lipstick. And her hair. It was tousled like she’d stepped out of the shower and let it dry.
And that was it, Ian realized. She seemed so genuine. It was what had drawn him to Emli. At first. It was only later that his ex started obsessing about her weight. As she got further and further from college, she wanted more and more to be like the women in the magazines. It never occurred to Ian that meant she probably wanted a boy like in the magazines as well.
“I only know because you still had it here.” The girl walked forward and held out her phone.
Ian looked, wide-eyed. It was him. It was a video of him. In New York. He had his hood up. It was the same hoodie he was wearing now.
Get a new hoodie, moron, he chided himself in Wink’s voice.
He watched himself sneeze and disappear.
So that’s what it looks like. Huh.
He watched himself cling to the Hispanic woman as they fell straight down in front of the tarp-covered building. There were gasps and then silence as they passed through the street. Then a burst of cheers. The camera jostled as the holder ran through the crowd to find a better view in the dim dusk light.
“A girl from Queens posted this. It lasted all of twelve hours before it was gone. They gave her some bullshit about a ToS violation.”
Ian was petrified. His heart raced. He didn’t know what to do. The others were waiting. He had to go.
The young woman tapped on her phone. Then she turned it around again and handed it to him.
Ian shifted the backpack and took the device with his only hand. It displayed a picture. The symbol. Three circles connected in the center by three lines. It was spray-painted on a wall in a dirty part of the world. The paint ran like the blood from an open cut.
“Keep scrolling,” she said.
Ian swiped the phone with his thumb. Another symbol, this time painted in white on the window of a shuttered bank in Bolivia. Young people in the street wearing hoods and ski masks were throwing Molotov cocktails at a line of clear-shielded riot police.
Ian swiped again. Another symbol, another conflict. And another. And another. All over the world. Lisbon. Kiev. Trinidad. Seattle. Sydney. Tokyo. Cairo. Hong Kong. Berlin.
Ian looked up. “Who are you?” he asked. But he already knew the answer.
“I’m Axl. I’m with a . . . group, I guess. Who know the truth. Who’re fighting it. Like you.”
“The Minus Faction.”
“You sound surprised.”
“You’re just . . .” He paused. “Not what I expected. I guess.”
“You mean female?” She seemed disappointed.
“No,” Ian snorted. “Just . . .”
She waited.
“I dunno. I thought you guys would be . . . older. Than me. With like dark sunglasses and implants or whatever.”
“Well, I don’t work for Lawrence Fishburne, if that’s what you mean.”
Ian’s face flushed again and he looked down. “No . . .”
Axl held out her hand and Ian absentmindedly returned her phone. “We know what you did. In the city. You helped a lot of people.”
Ian figured he shouldn’t mention that they’d caused the blackout in the first place. “Uh. I guess.”
His phone dinged again.
Shit. Xan. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t even be talking to you.” Ian started walking backward again. “It’s kind of an emergency.”
Axl followed him three paces behind. “Yeah, we figured you probably had casualties. Especially after a fight like that. They rely too much on technology. On their network. On data and analysis. And they think you guys are a lot more organized than you are. They have no idea what it’s like to be the underdog. To be desperate. I doubt it even occurred to them you wouldn’t already have medical supplies and all that.” She nodded to the bag.
Ian stopped again. “You were waiting for me. For us, I mean. To show up.”
“It was a hunch. We knew you wouldn’t go to a hospital. And that you’d get out of the city. Too many eyeballs. So we staked out a few places. Like this. Within a couple hours of New York.” She shrugged. “Guess it’s my lucky day.”
Ian started walking again. “Yeah, well, you’ll have to take it up with Prophet.”
“I can’t.” Axl followed. “He doesn’t exist.”
Ian froze again.
“Not like you think he does, anyway. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re all in immediate danger. Psyphire is hunting you.”
Ian scowled. “Sy-fire? Is that some kind of weapon?”
“Something like that. She’s a firestarter. She hunts people. Near as we can tell, they’ve scrambled a team. They’re already on the move.”
His phone rang and went to voicemail.
Axl stepped closer. “Have you seen Prophet’s face? Or heard his voice? If you say you have, I’ll turn around and never bother you again.”
Please don’t. “Well, no. He uses a vocal scrambler. But he’s with the Faction. We’re working for you. Or, your bosses, I guess.”
“No. You’re not.” She was serious.
Ian took a back. “Maybe you don’t know.”
“We would know if we’d assembled a team of augmented humans. It’s fucking brilliant, actually. Fight fire with fire. To be honest, we feel kinda stupid we didn’t think of it.”
Ian scowled. He put his hand to his eyes. “How is that possible? Then who the hell are we working for?”
“Exactly.” Axl’s eyes went wide. “With the Wisper gone, everyone who’s anyone in this world is looking for this guy.”
“Who?”
“You all are in immediate danger. The Faction is made up of the best hackers in the world. My friends and I are just the meatspace drones, but the people who sent us out here have made it their life’s mission to live in the dark. To live outside, like in a watchtower. And I’m telling you, this Prophet guy is fake. A persona. A front for someone else.” She paused. “We think he’s one of them.”
Ian was speechless.
“We think someone in their inner circle may be looking to stage a coup, and you and your team are part of it. This is why you can’t have so much power in the hands of a few. Someone always takes over. Power consolidates, like wealth. Sorry.” She stopped herself. “But this is totally their MO, assembling a group of extraordinary people. And it would explain how you were able to escape in California and New York.”
Ian shook his head. He couldn’t believe it. He started walking backward. “It’s not like we just walked out of those places, you know. We almost died. One of us—”
Pornographic noises erupted from Ian’s phone. His eyes went wide. They were loud. A woman was grunting and screaming to be fucked harder.
Wink. Getting his attention since he wouldn’t answer his phone.
Maybe Xan was worse.
“Look. I’m sorry. I have to go.”
Axl stepped forward and kissed him.
Ian stopped, stunned.
She whispered, “Carebear137 at freemail dot com.” She stepped back and put her hands in her pockets. “Sorry. Had to get your attention somehow. Before, you know, you jumped through the wall or something.” She scrunched her face. “Plus, you kinda deserved it for saving that woman.”
Ian was motionless.
“Look, you don’t have to freak out. I’m just here to make contact, okay? When you’re ready to talk, send an email to that address and people will be in touch.” She started stepping backward.
“People?” Ian asked “As in not you?”
She smiled and kept moving. “Just please do it soon.”
Ian watched her go. He wiped his lips.
“Nice ringtone, by the way.” She turned and smiled. “Perv.”
Ian called after her. “Did they send you because you have mad feminine wiles?” He was still stunned. “’Cuz it totally worked by the way.”
“Jerk.” Axl smiled back at him again and kept walking. “Maybe I’m just good at my job,” she called.
Ian got an idea—an awful, childish, show-off idea.
“Hey, guess what,” he yelled. Then he spritzed the air with pepper spray and disappeared.