BZRK

in orbit.
    “Elevator?” Plath wondered.
    “Maybe.”
    Far-off thunder that might have been voices. But the sound waves vibrating up from human throats were too big to be decipherable by biots not specifically equipped.
    “Your first biots are basic models,” Vincent had explained. “Fully capable in battle, fully capable for spinning wire. But there are tweaks and add-ons—both biological and technological—that come later. Each time we add a level of capability, we add a layer of complexity. At first, you want to keep it simple.”
    And they’d been grateful for that, because “simple” was all the complexity they could handle.
    And yet now they both really wished they had every conceivable upgrade.
    They would have to operate on instinct. They would have to guess when some giant hand belonged to the Armstrong Twins.
    If they guessed wrong, they could end up anywhere.
    “How do we take our biots back?” Keats asked.
    “You’re just thinking of this now?” Plath asked him as she swirled the cup to mix foam and coffee.
    “If we can’t recover them . . .” It was a question.
    “I don’t know,” she said.
    “It’s too late to stop now.”
    “Do you feel that? Vibration?”
    “Maybe his tail is wagging.” Keats suggested.
    “Do you really think we lose our sanity if . . .”
    “I’ve seen it.”
    “That’s a new shape,” Plath said.
    “Yeah.”
    “Is it him? Them?”
    “Might just be a vet.” Keats closed his eyes, trying to focus. “I see fingers.”
    “Someone is staring at us.”
    It took Keats a moment to figure out what version of reality Plath was talking about. His eyes popped open. “Who?”
    “Girl at the counter. Picking up a drink. The creepy one with the fake teeth. The one who looks like a shark,” Plath said.
    “Just ignore her, she’s just—”
    “No,” Plath said. Her eyes were narrowed. It was like a beam of energy connected her to the girl. “She’s texting someone. Let’s get out of here.”
    Plath stood up, and Keats jumped to follow her.
    Then the girl with the shark teeth turned toward them, too fast, too predatory. Too knowing.
    Too determined.
    She reached for Plath.
    The girl, who called herself One-Up, just wanted to touch them.

TWENTY-FOUR
    Wilkes was already arriving at the UN. She had a prepurchased ticket for the tour—good thing, there was a crowd waiting. Mostly they were school kids, a happily rambunctious bunch of middle schoolers from some school in Harlem that favored maroon uniforms. And there were tourists, and thankfully there was Ophelia.
    “How did it go?”
    “I made two hundred bucks,” Wilkes said. She tried to pull off a swagger, but it didn’t go anywhere.
    “This is the last tour group before they shut the place down for security,” Ophelia chided. “You barely made it.”
    “Don’t sweat it,” Wilkes said. “Vincent has it all planned out.”
    “I have a lot of faith in Vincent,” Ophelia said. “But he’s not perfect.”
    Wilkes laughed. “How come you never show anyone else but me this gloomy side of your personality?”
    Ophelia didn’t answer, just made a slight harrumphing sound and then shared one of her resigned-looking smiles.
    They moved through the main lobby like obedient tourist sheep, threading through an art display of children’s pictures of some terrible conflict. Wilkes hadn’t kept up on current terrible conflicts, having enough to keep her busy with her own. But the pictures were not encouraging. They did not exactly counter her sense of impending doom.
    She looked up at soaring windows, at old Sputnik hanging there like a misplaced Christmas-tree ball. She had done a report on Sputnik. When was that? Fourth grade?
    She saw a memory image of herself carrying her threefold cardboard display into class, setting it up, trying to act cool even then. But also feeling it would be nice if she got an A.
    How had all that been just one life? How could she have ever been that little girl?
    “You ever hit on Vincent?” Wilkes asked.
    “I don’t hit on boys,” Ophelia said with an edge of disapproval.
    At the security line they emptied their pockets into the tray and passed their purses through the scanner. Scanners did not detect the presence of biots.
    The trick was to look entirely normal and average, something that was easier for Ophelia than Wilkes.
    They saw the famous Chagall stained glass, a beautiful blue full of floating images of peace. Angels or whatever they were.
    They saw the