Gunshots were fired as Allyson steered the swing-lo into the open trailer of the truck, sliding in for a landing and avoiding a collision with the cab end by inches.

“Aha!” Kayla exulted, hugging KM-6. “We’re birds. We always fly away!” KM-6 hunched her shoulders nervously but didn’t pull away from her.

Jack was pale and shocked. He barely noticed as Nate and Francis helped lift him from the swing-lo.

“Final level on the timing!” Kayla praised them. “Where did you guys come from?”

“That’s what I called to tell you,” Allyson said, climbing out of the swing-lo as the truck sped on. “Those days when Jack went out looking for the Drakians he left messages with Postmen — and you know the Postmen always come through. Nate, Francis, Dusa, and your friend Amber showed up right after you left. I was calling to tell you we were on our way to GlobalHelix in case you needed backup. When those G-1 guys surprised you, you left the line on your phone open and we could hear everything that was going on.”

“You know Dusa; when she puts the pedal to the metal, she gets there fast,” Nate said, with a laugh.

“When we arrived, Dusa drove the truck around the facility to the service entrance as if making a delivery. I figured you’d stashed the swing-lo somewhere nearby,” Allyson continued. Kayla could figure out the rest. Amber, Dusa, Nate, and Francis had driven back out beyond the wall to wait while Allyson flew the swing-lo to the roof to rescue them.

“How did you know how to fly it?” she asked Allyson.

“Jack showed me the other day in the yard,” she replied, smiling proudly.

Jack was slumped against the side of the truck, still ashen. “I hate heights,” he muttered.

Kayla went to his side and rubbed his arm affectionately. “You did it, though. You faced your worst fear.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” he agreed, looking a little happier. “Hey, pal — we did do it, didn’t we!”

“It’s too bad we won’t have access to that chip you swallowed,” she said. “At least not for a while.”

With a grin, he stuck out his tongue — and peeled off the chip.

 

After they left Dusa’s truck at a parking lot at Caltech, they walked back to Allyson’s apartment. Dusa explained that they’d volunteered to come to Santa Monica to drop the tattoo fakes and the GD marbles because they’d also wanted to check on Jack and Kayla. “We knew you were around Caltech but we didn’t know exactly where to find you until a Postman gave us Jack’s message. We came over as soon as we got it.”

KM-6 walked along with them, listening alertly but saying nothing. She seemed to have lost her fear of them.

As they climbed the steps to the apartment, Dusa explained that before coming to California, she and Amber had driven to Washington, DC, to join the rally around David Young’s hospital jail cell. He was no longer on suicide watch but seemed to be dying of some strange virus.

“We know what’s really wrong with him,” Allyson said, and revealed all they’d learned about the nanobots.

Dusa, Nate, Francis, and Amber were as amazed as Kayla, Jack, and Allyson had first been. “See? Gene knew,” Francis remarked sagely.

“The BC12 virus … that must be what’s wrong with David Young,” Amber guessed. “And Mfumbe, too.”

Kayla stopped in front of the apartment door. “Mfumbe?”

“We met him at the rally and brought him with us,” Dusa said. “He suddenly stopped being depressed, but he’s real sick, Kayla.”

Kayla was in the living room the moment Allyson unlocked the door. Mfumbe was asleep on the futon and she hurried to his side. His face glistened with sweat. He was much thinner than the last time she’d seen him. “We have to get him to a hospital,” she said.

“That wouldn’t do any good,” Dusa said. “They’re all G-1 run, and he’s on their list. If G-1 is trying to kill him, they’re not going to help him get better.”

Jack sat at the kitchen table staring at Allyson’s handheld computer screen. He was running the information he’d downloaded from the GlobalHelix computers and tapping his fingers on the table, deep in thought. “Those nanobots are the size of molecules, but they’re still robots, which means they’re computerized,” he said, his eyes still riveted to the screen.

Allyson came and sat beside him. “What are you getting at?”

“If I could find the algorithms that control the nanobots I could shut them down, maybe even make them short-circuit.”

“In everyone?” Allyson asked him.

“Well, they’re sent to individual bar code identities, but they emanate from a single computer program. If I could shut down that program it should make the nanobots in every identity shut down. But by the time I can figure out the algorithm codes, GlobalHelix will have blocks in place.”

A nursery song filled Kayla’s head, and she looked sharply to KM-6. Her eyes were closed as she rocked back and forth on a kitchen chair. Closing her own eyes, Kayla listened to the words of the song.

But they weren’t words.

KM-6 was singing her a nursery rhyme made up of numbers and letters, brackets, spaces, colons, and backslashes.

Kayla began to shout out what she was hearing, her eyes still closed, still concentrating.

“Algorithms!” she heard Allyson cry.

Jack jumped up as though he’d been shot from his chair, knocking it to the floor. “I don’t believe it!” he shouted. “It’s the algorithms. She’s got the secret algorithms! KM-6 is sending them to her!”