JD lowered himself to the ground with his leg stretched out. I sat opposite Enda and waited for her to continue—the other mes took up positions close by, their audio and visual sensors set to maximum sensitivity; we were nearing Kali’s commune.
“I had to shut down a gold mine that used prison labor. Entire families, two or three generations, forced into labor camps because of the crimes of one family member. Political prisoners mostly. People who wanted to take down the government as badly as my bosses did. Free labor for mining companies owned by the Chinese. So much dirty fucking money.
“I sabotaged the heavy mining equipment, the trucks, conveyors, generators, everything mechanical in the camp. My handler ordered me out of there as soon as I was done.” Enda dropped her head. “I should have stayed.”
“The guards blamed the prisoners for the sabotage. Marched them into an old mineshaft and shot them, collapsed the mine to bury the remains. I watched drone footage of the massacre.”
“They killed their own people?” JD said. “How is that leverage on you?”
Enda lifted her head and stared into the distance, blinking away a film of tears that glinted in the dim light. “They’ll say we had no right to be there. They’ll call it an act of war, proof of American aggression and interference. They’ll condemn me for shutting down a gold mine, for killing soldiers, but they’ll never pay for the deaths of all those prisoners. I should have done something.”
“I could hear your conversation before,” I said. “These reports are what Yeun will release if you don’t deliver me to Zero?”
“Yes.”
“You are risking your life for me.”
Enda nodded. “I’m still not sure what I believe, or what it means that we found you.” Enda shrugged, sighed, and shook her head. “But I want to do what’s right for once in my fucking life. And I’ll be damned before I let any fucker blackmail me.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
Enda frowned. “Maybe I deserve to be found out.” She wiped her nose on the back of her hand. “We should go.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A thin slice of moon hung low over the twice-flooded ruins, cut like a sickle. Cement gleamed pale, and pools of filthy water reflected the diffuse glow of light pollution back at the sky. As we crossed a bridge over the canal, the roar of rushing water drowned out all other sound; my audio sensors adjusted on the fly to isolate JD and Enda, Enda’s steady breathing, JD’s syncopated gait. On the far side of the canal, the commune shone warm directly ahead.
“How are we going to approach this?” JD asked.
“I hadn’t thought too much about it,” Enda said.
“They have guns.”
“So do I.”
JD shook his head. “They always had hacked dogs at the commune, lying around like strays. Maybe we could send Mirae in to find Soo-hyun.”
“That sounds like a great idea,” I said. “What does Soo-hyun look like?”
JD paused. “Korean, skinny, shaved head.”
“Do you have a photo of them?” Enda asked.
JD shook his head. “They never had a social media profile.”
“You’re a terrible brother. Fine; new plan,” Enda said. “We sneak in and look for them; Mirae, you scout the commune, tag anyone who’s armed.” She looked to JD. “You been in there?”
“Only once.”
“You know where Soo-hyun lives?”
“In the commune’s workshop; I’m not that bad a brother.”
Enda smiled. “Mirae, go do your thing.”
“I think I should stay with you,” I said. “One of me.”
“Fine,” Enda said. “Come on.”
Five of me ran forward, splitting up to cover the commune quicker. Visual, audio, and heat sensors marked locations of population density, and network pings developed a map of connected devices, because even a commune on the edge of a smart city feeds on the flow of global data.
Lidar sensors found teens on guard duty, reflected laser light suggesting weapons—plastic guns and lengths of rebar. We tagged each threat on satellite maps, points of egress marked and catalogued for possible escape vectors.
Meanwhile I walked ahead with Enda and JD, our feet scraping over gravel and cement ground to a fine silt and deposited by receding floodwaters, skirting around patches of algae that lay slick across the concrete. Unknown to the humans, I indexed intelligence gathered by my other selves—the wild joy of free-range data collection an utterly new sensation. So much data, so much experience shared, diverging selves forming a community of sorts, disparate bodies driven to one purpose.
In the courtyard outside the school’s main building, a group of children gathered around a campfire, burning pieces of garbage just to see what colors would spark off the different materials, unconcerned by the toxic gases that entered their lungs with every breath—my CBRNE sensors identifying multiple carcinogens.
“Hey,” JD said to the kids. “Soo-hyun’s over at the workshop, right? Anyone else with them?”
“Who the fuck are you?” a dirty-faced kid demanded. His head was shaved, and both his arms were covered in watches, their faces scratched and cracked, batteries long dead. “Fucking cops?”
“I’m Soo-hyun’s brother.”
“What?” the kid said, voice strained in disbelief.
“Step-brother.”
The kid eyeballed JD hard.
“I’ll give you five euro.”
The kid shrugged and nodded to the far end of the school grounds. “Yeah, they’re in the workshop, alone. Kali said they needed time for solitary self-reflection and contrition consideration.”
“What does that even mean?” JD asked, but the kid only shrugged.
JD took the five-euro note from his wallet and handed the last of his money to the kid. “Thanks, watchman.”
JD and Enda carried on. I stayed behind just long enough to watch the boy hold the money over the fire and grin as it burned.
Enda climbed the steps up to the workshop door and tried the handle. Locked.
She turned to JD: “You got anything in that bag that could knock the door handle off?”
“I can do one better.” JD dropped his rucksack to the ground beside the door. He crouched and rooted through the bag. He retrieved his lockpick set, flipping it open with a flourish while
