BZRK

dead, fallen skin cells as it raced toward the biots. Jump right! The massive plow roared past. But now she was scratching her head like a madwoman. Fingernails everywhere, leaving oozing blood behind, platelets coming up out of the ground and resting in shallow furrows dug by huge claws.
    Nijinsky saw a clearing ahead: the edge of her hairline. She hadn’t started scratching her face, at least not yet, so N1 and N2 bounded along through the last of the hair and out onto her forehead.
    Then: luck!
    A huge bead of sweat, ten times their own height, a tsunami, a crazy bead of liquid containing as much water as a swimming pool oozed up through her skin, shone in the dashboard lights, a drop, poised, quivering, like a skinless grape or a water balloon.
    It would roll. And when it did it would move faster than any biot.
    Nijinsky sent his biots racing toward the sweat drop, and then, rushing down, a second drop was already on the move! It would hit the first drop and join with it and then . . . almost too late!
    N1 and N2 leapt, hit the side of the mass of water just as surface tension broke and the drop began rushing like a mountain river down toward Sugar’s eyeball.
    Biots spun like socks in the spin cycle.
    “Knock him out!” Sugar yelled, realizing belatedly that it was her only move.
    The butt of a gun smashed into Nijinsky’s head, and with his last draining ounce of consciousness he saw the sweat surf spin his biots through the eyelashes and drop into the familiar comfort of an eyeball.
    A blink and he was both unconscious and safe.

TWENTY-ONE
    Plath was almost there before she clicked. She looked at Vincent. “Are we going where I think we’re going?”
    He barely spared a second from texting and scrolling through news sites, or whatever it was he was doing. “Yes.”
    Montauk had already shut down for the season. Kids were all back in school. At this time of year it was only the few bargain-hunting old people still around, and they didn’t keep the restaurants open this late.
    The house itself was past what town there was. Down a winding private road. Gray shingles and black shakes on the roof, and pane windows, two full stories and rooms up there under the dramatically steep roof. A rich person’s house, no question about that. The nearest neighbors were out of sight behind a bluff. The ocean was right there down a path through grass-tufted dunes. You could hear it sighing and sweeping, and you could smell the salt.
    Plath knew the house, having spent many weeks there growing up. Not every summer, but most of them. And the occasional spring or fall jaunt to take advantage of a sunny weekend.
    Vincent had a key, but some sense of decorum caused him to hand it to Plath. She opened the door.
    “Do you know the security code?” Vincent asked her.
    She punched it into the keypad.
    All of this was of course observed by Keats and Wilkes.
    “Now can we just call her Sadie?” Wilkes asked.
    “No,” Vincent snapped. He didn’t like this. He didn’t like what all of this was doing to his carefully constructed secrecy. “Get inside. This is a safe house. We’ll be here until we figure out whether it’s okay to return to the city.”
    “Lock up behind me. Two people awake at all times.” This was from Caligula, who didn’t sound as if he thought that was a mere suggestion. He went back out to the car and came back with a shotgun slung over each shoulder. He tossed one to Vincent. He handed the other to Wilkes.
    “What about me?” Keats asked.
    Caligula made a wry smile. “I only have two with me. And I know Vincent will pull a trigger.” He cast a sidelong look at Vincent and said, “Vincent is a regular Scipio. And I know this little bitch,” indicating Wilkes, “is nuts. You, sonny? We’ll see about you.”
    Vincent pulled Caligula aside, actually grabbing his arm. A hush fell as something very dangerous, a soft, slow danger, like a purring tiger, passed between the two men. Vincent let go of Caligula’s arm.
    “There’s a police report of an abduction at a club in Tribeca where Nijinsky goes sometimes,” Vincent said.
    Caligula nodded. “Does he know this location?”
    “No. This is on my list, not on his.”
    “That’s good.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “I’m going to bring the dot-head chick in. Nijinsky won’t be coming.”
    “We’re not abandoning Jin.”
    “Yes. We are,” Caligula said, and walked away.
    “Fuck that!” Wilkes yelled after him. But the door