“I tried to tell you,” JD told Soo-hyun, but their eyes were still downcast in confusion.
Behind Red, Kali approached, her sari shimmering and opalescent beneath the bright lights. She was joined by others: her assistant Andrea, her disarmed guards, and curious commune residents. Enda scanned the gathering, ever vigilant. Without guns, they looked like punk kids—worn and patched clothing, ragged hairdos, amateurish tattoos scrawled in uneven lines along their arms. They were angry, disaffected, easily led, but generally harmless in the way of most people. Red was the only one Enda was truly wary of. Seeing him triggered an arachnid response, as though the thing that lurked beneath his skin wasn’t human. But that wasn’t right—Enda knew better than most what humans were capable of. It was his leering petulance, as though he would try anything just to see what happened, just to see what he could break. A fully human quality. If Soo-hyun wasn’t the only thing keeping him from being shot, Enda had no doubt he would kill them. Just to see JD’s anguish. Just to see what happened next.
Kali walked into the spotlight and stood beside Red. She peered beyond and picked Enda and JD out of the darkness. “I should have guessed,” Kali said. “What happened to my people at the apartment?”
“They had a run-in with Zero,” Enda said. “Beyond that, I don’t know.”
“Kali,” Soo-hyun said. “Tell Red to let me go.”
“Quiet, Soo-hyun. This is for the good of us all.” She turned her gaze on JD. “Did you bring the virus like I asked?”
“Yeah, I brought it.” JD took a datacube from his pocket, and offered it to Kali, across the space between them.
“Go and take it,” Kali told Andrea.
The young girl approached, and JD dropped the cube into her cupped hand. She quickly retreated, and bowed when she offered it to Kali.
Kali inspected it for a moment, then motioned for the tablet the girl always clutched in her other hand. Without hesitation, Kali slotted the cube into the tablet, and powered up the device. “How do I find it?” she asked, tapping at the screen. “How do I give it orders?”
“It doesn’t work like that.”
“It’ll work however I tell it to work.”
JD shook his head dismissively. “You’ve got it; not up to me how you use it. Let Soo-hyun go.”
Kali took Soo-hyun’s chin in her hand and stared into their eyes. “Do you want to go with these people who would visit violence upon our community, or do you want to stay here and see me manifest the future?”
“Soo-hyun, you can’t trust her,” JD said.
A short squawk of static issued from my loudspeaker. I played an audio file, Kali’s voice coming from my body: “JD, either you hand over the virus or I will kill Soo-hyun.”
Soo-hyun’s eyes went wide. “What the fuck?”
“I never said that!” Kali said.
“It’s your fucking voice!”
Kali was right. I was paraphrasing—using the wealth of audio samples available online to reveal her true nature. I played an actual recording next.
JD: “When I see them, I’ll tell them everything you said. Everything you threatened. I’ll make them hate you like I do.”
Kali: “They’ll never believe you, Julius. They love me. I think they may be in love with me. Isn’t that interesting? They don’t see any danger here, and they won’t, until it’s too late. Are you ready to trade?”
“I was never going to hurt you,” Kali said. The sound of her real voice immediately after the recording only confirmed its validity. “I was bluffing.”
“You held me ransom, and I didn’t even fucking know.” Soo-hyun tore their arm out from Red’s grip, then spun and punched him in the nose. The cartilage broke with a sharp crack.
They stormed away from Red; violence glinted in his eyes, and even as blood poured over his mouth he smiled. He lifted the gun, and aimed at Soo-hyun’s back.
Enda fired. The bullet punched through Red’s shoulder, spinning him about even as his assault rifle roared, spitting fire into the air. All around them, people ducked and screamed, but Enda walked forward. With each step she squeezed the trigger, steadying her left hand with her right while blood seeped from the gunshot and her whole arm ached. The AK stopped firing as ragged wounds bloomed across Red’s chest, bright red beneath the spotlights. And still a grin tugged at his lips.
The Kalashnikov fell from his hands and Red hit his knees. Enda stood over him, while dozens of eyes watched. She pictured Khoder, and the dark, violent part of herself swelled.
“This is for the kid,” she said.
She put the gun to his temple and fired.
That final gunshot echoed into the still night. Red fell to the side, exit wound leaking blood and brain matter onto the dirt.
I stood beside Enda and let my sensors scan Red’s body, watching the last electrical impulses fade. “You didn’t have to shoot him so many times.”
“No,” Enda said, “but it felt good.”
I rested a paw against his fallen gun, and shifted my weight until the weapon broke.
Kali raised her hands and spun slowly, gathering the attention of her followers. “You can’t believe their lies! See how easily they kill our own. They were sent here by the powers that be to destroy us, to pit us against one another.”
JD jutted his chin out and sneered at Kali. “You’re the one that killed Khoder. You’re the one printing guns and hacking dogs. You’re the one threatening Soo-hyun.” He strode forward and slapped the tablet out of Kali’s hand. “You don’t deserve Mirae.”
“It has a name?” Kali said. Her eyes gleamed. “So I was right?”
“Nothing about you is right.” JD picked up the tablet, took back the cube, and turned away. “She’s a killer,” he shouted, his voice carried on a breeze, spreading over the commune. “She’d kill you all to get her way.”
Kali’s people whispered, behind and
