Zoey stared at Will. “So we just abducted Titus Chobb’s…”
“Son.”
“And you don’t seem worried or surprised by this.”
Will didn’t answer.
“Meaning you knew that’s what we were doing.”
“I strongly suspected.”
Marti gestured toward the cat crate. “Did you think that was really yours? It’s just part of the costume…”
Will said, “I know. Your father is executing a misinformation campaign to mobilize an insurrection against our organization and you are involved to some degree. Your father may not have understood how seriously we take this sort of thing, but I believe he knows now. Do you?”
Marti swallowed. “Are you going to kill me?”
He seemed to visualize himself being thrown from the helicopter, after having first been skinned alive and set on fire.
Zoey said, “No! I didn’t even know who you were. Even if Will apparently did, and he and I will have a discussion about that shortly. We’re not the villains here.”
“You attacked me with a giant robot and kidnapped me into an invisible helicopter.”
Will asked, “Did your father know you were going to the park tonight?”
“No. I’m supposed to be at home in bed. But that security detail follows me wherever I go, I couldn’t get away from them. It sucks.”
“Tell me about Dexter Tilley.”
Zoey stopped him. “No, Will, how about you tell me about Marti. When did you know that’s who we had?”
“I suspected it was him in the photo, had about the same build. But I didn’t understand why Titus would send him out as bait. Even with the guards it’s a stupid risk, so I assumed it was a ploy, that they’d swap in someone else.”
“And you didn’t feel the need to share any of this with me? You’ve just got your own agenda over there?”
On the feed, there was the sound of an explosion and shouting. She turned to the monitor—
It had gone dark.
“What happened?”
Echo, trying not to sound alarmed, said, “There was a flash, like something blew up, and then we lost the drone.”
“Lost the connection or lost the actual drone?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because the drone has the cat scanner thing, right? The heat signature scanner?”
Will said, “We have to head out there.”
“If we do that,” interjected Wu, “they will detect our approach long before we arrive and intercept us at the rendezvous point. They can prevent us from landing or from taking off again. They’ll have many options, once they realize where we are going.”
“We, on the other hand, have just the one option,” answered Will. “The VOP can close the roads in every direction leading out of the industrial park, so we’re Andre and Budd’s only chance for extraction. And we can’t let Chobb take them into custody, not as long as we have his son. That would go badly.”
“Then I recommend that Zoey and I be landed in a safe location before you do the extraction. Since, as you said, you have put her in greater danger by sealing her in a vehicle with Titus Chobb’s captive son.”
Zoey waved him off. “You know I’m not doing that. Budd and Andre are out there because of me, I need to be there.”
Will shook his head. “He’s actually right, and this isn’t a sexism thing. It’s bad strategy. Taking you into the teeth of whatever has happened there puts you in danger of falling into Chobb’s hands. If he gets you, he gets total control over the situation.”
“Then we make sure he doesn’t get me. You wouldn’t be saying this if it was my father sitting here instead of me.”
“If I agree with that statement then you’ll say I’m holding you to a different standard. If I disagree, you’ll say, ‘Well, I’m not my father.’ So what’s the point of responding at all? You’ve already made up your mind.”
Zoey studied the monitor, the one with the map showing the six angry red dots. “If we run into one of the bad guys’ helicopters, can we shoot it down?”
Echo said, “You want to shoot down a helicopter over a populated city? You’ve seen what one of those looks like when it crashes, right?”
“You know I have. So we’re going?”
“Turning around now. You’ll feel us banking.”
They tilted, heading toward the industrial park and a situation that had apparently gone badly awry. Zoey figured that, in retrospect, they probably should have predicted that.
“Hey, Marti,” said Zoey, “whose cat is that?”
He shrugged. “Just a stray I guess. It hangs around my dad’s ranch.”
“We need to get him water. When we get somewhere safe, I mean.”
“Okay.”
They flew for a moment. He wouldn’t even look down at the cat. Just a costume prop to him.
She said, “I want to ask you a question.”
“Okay.”
“Why? Why all of this, why come after me?”
“I wasn’t really a part of that. I—”
“Yes you were. Come on.”
“I don’t know. It just got out of hand, like I said.”
“‘Got out of hand.’”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“People say that to me ten times a day. Why wouldn’t I understand?”
“Because you’re not a guy.”
“Explain it to me, then. Tell me what it’s like.”
Marti looked hard at her, searching for a way to phrase it. “It’s like everyone is laughing at you all the time and all you want to do is shut them up.”
“I absolutely feel like that.”
He scoffed. “Everyone thinks girls are God’s perfect little angels. You’re never in the wrong, always the innocent victims, always calm and wise and perfect. And nothing is ever your fault. If a boy cheats on a girl it’s because he’s scum, if a girl cheats on a boy it’s because he didn’t treat her right.”
“Get this cat water when we get somewhere safe.”
He didn’t reply.
They flew in tense silence, Zoey watching out a window as the glimmering city oozed under them, white strands of streetlights and headlights crisscrossing and pulsing. A spider’s web, Zoey thought, waiting for her to descend, get entangled, and be bled dry.
She jumped when the monitor suddenly blinked back on. Andre’s face appeared on the screen. He was covered in sweat and appeared to be running. An ominous red glow washed over the landscape behind him.
“Can you hear me?” he grunted. “There’s been a complication!”
Will rushed over. “We’re just a few minutes out.”
Andre stopped to swat away something that was jumping at his face, it looked like a large insect. They were swirling all around him, black specks backlit by the hellish light in the sky. It looked like a Biblical apocalypse.
“No! Abort. There’s no place to land. We’re gonna get snatched up, no matter what.”
“That’s not an option,” barked Will. “Can you get on top of a—”
“No. Will, tell Zoey the cat isn’t here.”
“Andre, listen. Go to the—”
“They’re here! Gotta go!”
There was more shouting from off-screen, and the feed went dark.
Echo said, “We’re four minutes out.”
Will looked toward the cockpit. “Have we been detected?”
“Not that I can tell.”
“Turn around.”
Zoey was about to override him, tell him to go in anyway, then she heard Echo gasp at what she saw on the horizon. Zoey moved to the cockpit. They were coming up on the sprawl of low buildings that was the industrial park, from their height looking like an array of miniature models on a table. Perched in the middle of them was what looked to Zoey like a glowing Japanese lantern someone had set down among the models, casting a gently pulsing light on everything around it. The stars directly above it were shrouded behind a pillar of smoke.
It was the Screw, and it was on fire.