The sun is shining, and the Stomp is ready for business.

It’s early afternoon, and I’ll have to leave soon to pick up Juliette, but the weather really couldn’t be any more glorious for the grand re-opening. The club is giving out free all-game passes for the day, and the crowd is already gathering. I’m hanging in the thick of it, safely anonymous while the camera drones buzz around the small stage by the entrance. The cleanup crew has been working all day to get the last of the machines up and running. Sammi’s a hero for sorting the game board problems—too bad we can’t risk bringing Juliette to the big open.

We just finished the last touches of cleanup a few minutes ago. I’ve washed up enough to be presentable, but my jeans are still dusty, and I’ll need a change of clothes before I head back to the school. A steady stream of autocabs drops people down the block. A bunch of the ex-JFA big wigs are up on stage, smiles all around—Navarro, Kira by his side, Hinckley fixing them up with cast mics, Sasha hanging blue ruffled trim around the base of the rough, wooden platform. It’s just a foot tall, but it makes them visible above the sea of heads. Navarro leans in to whisper something to Kira—I can’t hear them over the road noise and the crowd, and their mics aren’t turned on. She grins then goes up on tiptoes to kiss him.

Yeah, those two are definitely together.

I’m so busy watching Navarro make eyes at his girlfriend, I don’t notice the Free Thinkers have arrived until a flash of white armbands catches the sun. Tessa is working her way through the crowd—she lifts her chin when she sees me. I’m torn between wanting to talk to her—always—and dreading what she’ll say about yesterday. Knowing her, she’ll think it’s no big deal. I almost don’t want her to understand. I want her to know how dangerous I am—how my abilities have been used to hurt so many people. How even in the hands of a decent guy like Navarro, it could go horribly wrong.

My indecision holds me captive as she approaches.

“Hey,” she says, her smile bright as she shades her eyes against the sun.

I move to put her in my shadow, so she doesn’t have to squint. “Hey.” I don’t even know where to start. She moves a little closer into the shade, peering up at me with those soft brown eyes. Now we’re only six inches apart, which totally scrambles whatever I thought I might say.

“I know you don’t want people to know,” she says softly.

We’re in the middle of a crowd, but it’s as if we’re the only two people on earth. “To know what?” My voice close and hushed. I have a crazy urge to reach out and touch the pale skin of her cheek, just to see if it’s as soft as it looks.

“What you can do.” She bites her lip, and it’s making something coil tight inside me. “Not the jacking, but your special ability. The one you used yesterday. I can see how that would be…” She grimaces, struggling for the word.

“Horrifying?” I don’t need to make her say it.

“Unsettling.” A little of that fierce determination makes her features sharp.

That does something to me, too, although different. Like even if she’s a million miles out of my league, I hope she’ll let me just hang around. Because she’s good in a way I rarely see, and I’m drawn to it like a plant that turns toward the sun.

“I’d get rid of it if I could,” I say, and in that moment, I mean it. And maybe someday, I’ll be willing to try. I’ve already reconfigured my own mind—could I spin my mindmap and turn myself into a reader? It might be possible. With the help of someone like Kira—someone who knows how to go in with a scalpel, not a hacksaw—I could figure it out.

“Why would you do that?” Tessa’s voice is a whisper I barely hear above the crowd.

I just scowl. Isn’t it obvious?

“I believe in you,” she says, and it knocks me back. What does that even mean? “You have this amazing gift—”

“It’s not a gift.”

She purses her lips. Slowly, a scowl settles on her face. She moves back—not quite out of my shadow, but we’re not longer nearly exchanging air. “Do you see what’s around you?” she asks.

I glance at the crowd. They’re getting restless, and it looks like the big wigs are ready up on the stage. “Um… yes?”

“You don’t have to be ashamed of what you are here.”

Words surge up in protest, but I keep them inside. Because none of those words—of course, I do; I’m dangerous; you don’t understand—would sound right coming out of my mouth, not in this moment, not to her.

“What’s happening here,” she says, “is a powerful start in making peace in the world. Peace between jackers and readers. Which we have to have because it’s not right for people to be jailed or abused or treated like they’re subhuman just because they’re different. But before you can have peace out here…” She holds her hands out, embracing the crowd. “…you’ve got to have peace in here.”

She reaches out and touches me.

My whole body stills.

Her hand is pressed, palm-flat, against my chest. I feel its warmth even through the thick cotton of my work shirt. Can she feel my heart beating? Because it’s pounding like it’s trying to get out and touch her back.

She’s asking the impossible of me.

A crackling static makes the crowd wince. The mics are on, and the ceremony is about to start.

Tessa removes her hand from my chest, and I can breathe again. She gives me a small smile, glances at the stage, then digs into her pocket. “I have something for you.”

“You do?” I’m transfixed, watching her struggle to get hold of whatever it is in the pocket of her snug-fitting jeans.

Then it’s out, lying her palm, and I can’t believe my eyes.

My memory stamp.

I take it and brush it with my thumb, just to be sure. A vid of me blowing out candles on my birthday cake starts to play. I tap it to stop. 

I’m stunned.

“Someone found it in the last cleanup sweep,” she explains with a smile. “You were a cute kid.”

She recognized me. “Thank you.” I grimace because that sounds stupid. “For finding it, I mean.” I look up from the stamp. I have no words for this.

There’s a laugh in her eyes, but she just smiles. Up front, Hinckley says something into Navarro’s mic to test it out, so Tessa turns her back and faces the stage. I stuff the memory stamp deep in my pocket, patting it down to make sure it stays.

I’m glad she’s not looking my way because I’m choking up and kind of a mess.

And I never answered her.

Not that she was asking a question, but I never said anything in response to her demand.

You’ve got to have peace inside.

I don’t know if I’ve ever had that. I don’t even know where I would start. I want to tell her I can’t do that and You don’t understand and a hundred other protests to the simple command she placed on me like a benediction.

But maybe she does understand.

The memory stamp she returned to me is the only bit of peace I’ve had for years.

A hush falls over the crowd. Navarro’s hands are raised, calling for their attention. Kira and Sasha flank him. Hinckley stands off to the side.

Navarro waits a beat then says, “You’ve done an extraordinary thing.” There’s a murmur of applause and cheering, but it quickly falls quiet again. The camera drone buzzes over Navarro’s head. “It is so much easier to destroy something than to build it. So much easier to blow something up, to take lives, to injure and maim, than it is to rebuild. The five souls who were tragically taken—two readers, three jackers, all people simply enjoying a night together—plus thirteen people injured seriously, and the scores of others who felt the impact in some way, if only in the shock… it’s their spirits that kept your hands and minds working over the last furious days to rebuild what was spitefully taken. This is an extraordinary thing you’ve done, not just rebuilding but returning here today.” He pauses a moment, hand extended to the crowd. A quiet murmur goes around, and there’s an energy that’s hard to describe. A quiet reverence, but not entirely solemn. Like the crowd is acknowledging that they didn’t return just for the free gaming tickets. That they stand in rebuke to the destruction that brought them together.

“It’s easier to destroy than to build,” Navarro intones again, “but you’ve proven just how difficult it is to break what holds us together. Bombs can’t do it. Hatred can’t do it. Whoever did this vile act can hurt our bodies, but they can’t break our spirits… not unless we allow their anger and fear into our minds.”

The crowd murmurs again. There are dozens, more still arriving, and they fill the street all the way to the empty warehouses and factories on the other side, long abandoned in this no man’s land at the edge of Jackertown. The darkened windows stand in silent witness to all the change they have seen. As I turn back to the stage, a wink of light from one of them makes me wince.

I look back, but it’s gone.

Navarro’s mic-enhanced voice floats over the crowd. “In a world that feels turbulent, in a world that feels uncertain and troubled and where the voices of hatred and fear shout the loudest, your actions here speak louder still.” He takes a breath. “We’re entering a new era, my friends. Fellow jackers, friends who are readers, the time is coming when we will no longer see ourselves as fundamentally different, but rather as inescapably the same. Not just in our bodies, our genetic codes, the very DNA that shapes us, but in our hearts and our minds and our souls. And you, here today, are marking that first brave step—” A crack splits the air, cutting him off and knocking him down.

My whole body jerks from surprise. The crowd jolts. A deathly moment of hush precedes a scream from the stage. The scream breaks the crowd, shattering it as people duck and run in all directions. Through an opening, I see Navarro… he’s down on his back on the stage.

Kira is screaming over him.

“Oh my god,” Tessa gasps in front of me, hands covering her mouth.

It ricochets understanding through my head. Julian’s been shot.

I whip around to face the empty warehouse—that glint of light—and lunge out with my mind. People are scattering, but I ignore them, chasing after the mind I know has to be there…

I find it. Top level, helmeted, and on the move.

“Oh my god,” Tessa says again, frozen in place, staring at the stage while everyone else is fleeing.

I grab her shoulders and twist her around. “Get inside!” I shout in her face, then I let her go and sprint across the street, dodging the few stragglers frozen in confusion and horror just like her.

No, no, no. The words beat in my head as I run, tracking the shimmering electric taste of the helmet with my mind. The shooter is moving. I have no weapon. I always leave Tiller’s security-issued gun at the Home with my school clothes. I have absolutely no plan. All I know is that there’s no way I’m letting the shooter escape.

The warehouse is a monolith of brick and mortar. Its windows form rows, four stories high, dark and empty, some broken like jagged teeth. The entrance door is visibly chained shut. But whoever shot Julian had to get in somewhere. The back. One side of the building is blocked, pressed up against a dilapidated concrete storefront, but the other opens to a narrow alleyway. I dash to the mouth, swing the corner so fast I almost go down, then push off the far side to stay upright. I’m sprinting, and my breath is heaving, but all of my concentration is focused on the slithery feel of the helmet moving to the back of the warehouse. It’s still on the top floor. My only chance of stopping them lies in not getting shot, and the only chance of that is if I catch the shooter by surprise.

I splash through a puddle of grime and reach the end of the alley and the back of the building. A narrow parking strip and a loading dock sit right around the corner. I slink up against the wall—the helmet is directly above me, four stories up, and I’m afraid the shooter will peer down through a window and see me. I edge around the corner and dash to the cover of the loading dock awning. Once under that, I take up a station by the door.

My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my ears.

The shooter is moving again—down this time. The helmet’s zig-zagging back and forth. Stairs. I strain to hear, but the solid stone and brick of the ancient building absorb any sound that might come from within. I try to calm my breathing because it seems loud enough to be heard three states away, but I can’t. Agonizing seconds tick by while the shooter drops down, down… finally reaching the ground floor. For a panicked moment, I’m afraid they shooter is going out the front as the helmet lurches that way. Then it turns and comes back, faster now, at a running pace toward the double-wide door where I’m standing. At the last second, I realize the door swings out. I shuffle quickly to stand in front of it, just out of swing range, and brace myself to lunge to whichever side they choose.

When it flies open, I’m ready—and the shooter isn’t.

He’s huge, a mountain of a man, but surprise locks him up—one hand shoving open the door, the other toting a long case. I go straight for his helmet with both hands, sinking my fingers into the cage as he reels back. He flails, trying to shove me off. We go down together, but I’ve still got a grip on him. I’m yelling, and he’s grunting, and just as he rolls me onto the cold concrete floor, I rip the helmet strap loose and yank the cage free.

I jack hard and fast, just to slow him down.

I’m surprised when he mentally shoves me back. Then he twists physically to pin me to the floor. His fist pulls back to plow into my face, but I’ve got a read on his mindmap…

I spin it hard.

He forgets all about me and screams, curling down to the ground. He keeps screaming as I shove him away, scuttling backward on the floor out of his reach. The long case must be the gun he used to shoot Julian, but he’s also got a smaller sidearm holstered at his side. I scramble up, dash over, and kick him hard in the stomach. That lays him out and stuns him. I plant my boot on his back to keep him down, then quickly pull the gun from its holster. I hurry back, getting clear. He’s still screaming and writhing on the floor.

I hold the gun at the ready but keep it pointed at the floor.

He’s not going anywhere, but as soon as I stop spinning, he might try.

Plus my anger demands answers now.

I focus on his mindmap—the bare glimpse I got before spinning the tumblers of his mind—and I find an open configuration. Then I mentally picture the sharpest peaks flattened, intuiting those relate to his strength as a jacker. I stop the spin, letting his mind fall into that configuration, then I jack hard and fast inside his now-open and weakened state.

Who he is blares into my head. Jackson Harper. He’s part of the Fronters, the hate group, and he came to kill Julian. I plunge deeper into that and find he’s part of a splinter cell, segmented from the rest of the group, an elaborate network of cells and contacts and dark rooms on the net that keep one from betraying the other. He doesn’t know the details of who, when, or how the order came down. He just knows that it’s part of a grander plan. The Master Plan, they call it. It’s a world vision that’s some hell-on-earth—a species war between jackers and readers in which readers will become ascendant once more.

Their mission wasn’t just to kill Julian.

It was to kill hope.

My jack into his head drills deeper, scouring harder, not caring if I leave holes he’ll never recover from. I need to know everything about this hate war he’s waging with his fellow demented and darkened souls. That he’s a jacker mystifies me and spurs me on—how does this crazy plan even work? But then I find a tidbit, a scrap of memory, that jolts me so hard, I physically reel back against the concrete wall behind me.

He got the time of the hit just yesterday. In a scrit from Shadow.

I don’t want to believe it. I don’t want to see it. But it’s as clear as the whimpers still coming from the man’s mouth—I did this.

With one, angry mental surge, I knock Jackson out.

His body goes slack. His cries cease. The sound of shoes pounding concrete drifts in from outside.

I did this.

My scrit to Wright yesterday… they were never after the inhibitors. They were after Julian. And I helped them track his every move. I told them where he would be and when. That DARPA put a hit on Julian Navarro, that the Fronters are connected to them, that this man is a jacker of all freaking things… all of that pales next to the shock that I was the key to making it all happen.

My sister. They were never going to let her go. I see that now as clear as my guilt in the whole affair. Either she was elaborate bait for me or… or… my heart stutters.

Or there’s something else they have planned for her.

As the shock of that buffets me, a stampede of steps crashes through the door. It’s Kira and Hinckley and Sasha. Kira is wild-eyed and screaming and lunging with bloody hands toward Jackson’s crumpled body. I catch her wrist in one hand—the other is still holding Jackson’s gun—but more importantly, I shove her mental reach away from his splayed-open mind. She screams at me and flails, and I don’t want to use her mindmap against her, so I just hold her physically and counter her mental strikes, one after another, on the man’s mind.

“You can’t kill him,” I say, my voice ragged, breath heaving. “You can’t.”

She growl-screams at me again, but her mind is no match for mine. She might have the precision of a mental surgeon, but I can sense the static-filled patches of her mind just like the others. The damaged parts. She’s healed some of it, but not all, and she’s weaker than she would have been without them.

Finally, she relents and just sobs and collapses into Hinckley, who is standing right behind her. He and Sasha are frowning at me, but not making a move against Jackson.

“He’s a Fronter,” I rasp out. “And a jacker. You need him. Alive. You need to figure out what’s going on here.” I hope that convinces them not to kill the man because it’s true—they need whatever information they can wring out of his mind. They might find a connection in there that ties him back to me, or they might piece it together themselves. I don’t care about that.

Then I hear a buzzing sound coming closer. Camera drones.

I hand Sasha the gun, Jackson’s weapon that I still have in my hand. “I have to go.”

Sasha opens his mouth to object, but I don’t have time to explain. I duck my head and walk deeper into the building. My legs are shaking, but I can’t run and take the chance of grabbing the drone’s notice. I’ll find a way out where I won’t be seen.

Then I have to get to my sister before it’s too late.