BZRK

side.
    Then she remembered: the raw feed from the optic nerve was upside down. She reversed it mentally, as well as she could anyway, but still it made no sense.
    She drew back the probe. Twice more she stabbed, and then she had it. Not clear, still grainy, but wider in scope, less like she was looking at the world through a straw.
    She was seeing an eye. The very eye she was looking through.
    She was looking in a mirror, that was it.
    Her stomach was tied in knots. Yeah, it was a mirror, or the high-tech equivalent of a mirror, and now the eye swept across the mirror, no longer looking at itself. Looking at a face.
    A face like no other.
    “It’s them,” she whispered voicelessly.
    Keats held her close.
    *
    Bug Man and Burnofsky got the same message on their monitors at the same time.
    One-Up missing. Kim and Alfredo dead. UN locked down.
    You must take your targets.
    CBA
    CBA. Charles and Benjamin Armstrong.
    Bug Man and Burnofsky.
    Both had reached their targets.
    Two armies of nanobots were in place. One on the Chinese leader, one on the American.
    Kim’s nanobots were in place on the Indian, Chauksey. Alfredo’s little army was still two jumps away from Prime Minister Hayashi. Those forces were immobilized for now, until they could be repurposed to a new twitcher. That would take time.
    Dietrich wasn’t good enough to reach the Japanese in Bug Man’s estimation. But assuming One-Up was on track, they might still take the American, the Brit, and the Chinese.
    Bug Man took a gamble. Time to make it clear he was more than just a twitcher. His game could extend into the macro. He keyed a message to Twofer.
    Suggest: take Dietrich off Jap give him Indian.
    No reply. But that was okay.
    Victory was still within reach. The unknown was whether any of the targets were defended. In a fight One-Up could handle herself, and so could Burnofsky.
    Even if only Bug Man and Burnofsky prevailed, the world’s two greatest powers would be subtly but inexorably bent to serving the wills of Charles and Benjamin Armstrong. Whatever had happened or was still to happen to the others, it wouldn’t matter, not if he and Burnofsky succeeded.
    Of course in a perfect world,
Bug Man thought,
in a
perfect
world, Burnofsky and all the rest would fail and only the Bug Man would triumph.
    But that was an ambitious dream.
    Time to begin the wiring of the president of the United States.
    He laughed out loud at the thought.
    The Twins would kiss his ass this time. They would bow down before him.
    Then, Bug Man saw.
    Two biots were rushing along in his wake, racing up behind him as his army pelted down along the optic chiasm.
    Oh, yes.
    Oh, hell yes.
    Is that you, Vincent?
Please, God, let it be.
    No macro interference to mess anything up this time. The ultimate battle for the ultimate prize.
    “I hope you’re watching, Mr Charles and Mr Benjamin. Because this . . . will be epic.”
    *
    The cops were beginning to move the crowd away from the UN Plaza. There was a very serious mood in the air. Something very bad had happened, and New York’s finest were not in the mood to take backtalk from anyone.
    Helicopters were overhead. Sirens were still wailing as more and more security flooded the blocks around the UN.
    One thing was sure: Wilkes and Ophelia had provided one hell of a diversion.
    Then, Vincent saw. He was all the way down in the optic chiasm when he spotted the nanobot army racing away.
    “Bug Man,” Vincent said.
    “I’m on my way!” Nijinsky replied.
    Bug Man’s nanobots stopped moving away. Six platoons turned, one then the next, to face the biots. The exploding head logo was faint but unmistakable in the phosphorescent light.
    Vincent smiled at Nijinsky. A real smile.
    “It’ll be over by the time you get there, Jin.”
    The Twins were watching the windows open on their table.
    They saw the blank screen that had been focused on the UN station. It was an ominous rectangle of static now.
    They saw the scene outside the UN Building, a carnival of flashing lights as every fire or police vehicle in New York gathered.
    They saw Dietrich acquiring control of Kim’s nanobots, already in position, hidden for the moment in the Indian prime minister’s dark hair. That had been a good suggestion from Bug Man, although of course Benjamin had thought of it first.
    They puzzled at the sight of One-Up, looking battered and bloody, being hustled into the chair beyond Dietrich. They didn’t have the audio on, but they could see her