When I opened my mouth, it took everything in me to not squeak. "The government wants to kill me?"

His voice was even, but rushed by panic. "Yes. Look, if we stay here too long, the task force that was sent to ambush you outside your house is going to get suspicious, and then they're going to come here and we'll both be killed."

I wanted to run — to hide — to do something, anything. My fingers quivered, itching to write some program or build some weapon to fix this. But the rush of blood in my ears drowned out his words and crashed over my thoughts. I never liked the government or the materialism it promoted, always suspected it wasn't operating for the good of all Seranidians — but killing people? What was going on? And why me? Did they — somehow, impossibly — know what I had done? What I didn't know I had done?

The fear in his voice echoed the fear nibbling at my thoughts until all was a bleak, barren, ashen storm. If I tried to tackle the larger questions, I would come unhinged. So I asked the question that had bothered me since the day I met him. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"Give me your computer."

I hesitated, remembering what I had seen on it that morning, but he stared at me with his icy blue eyes until I felt obligated to present the computer to him. He opened the lid, pressed his thumb to the trackpad, and the computer unlocked.

The computer that could only be opened by me, by the chip implanted in my thumb.

I gasped, snatching the computer and wrapping my arms around it. Professor Remin also gasped, but for a different reason.

Something crawled over his boot and waved needle thin legs at us.

I peered at the miniscule arachnid. "Scared of a spider?"

His lips barely moved. "That's not a spider. It's a spydr."

"A spydr?" As the words fell from my lips, they sounded familiar. Who had told me about them before?

"From the task force." Professor Remin said. He inched backwards. "Stay back. It's here to kill you."

My palms were slick against my computer, and I nearly dropped it as I backed away.

The spydr clicked and whirred, projecting a laser onto Professor Remin's face. Satisfied that he wasn't its target, it crawled off his boot and scuttled towards me.

A wave of nausea rushed over me as I grabbed a book off the shelf and hurled it, pegging the spyder to the ground. It screeched and strained and with a heroic puff of smoke heaved the book off its back, and continued scuttling towards me. I backed towards the window, my vision graying.

Across the room, the click of a pick in a lock made both of us snap to attention, our hearts pounding. Professor Remin slammed his desk against the door.

"Open the window," he said.

I swept my shaking hands across the rim, finding no seam, no latch. "I can't."

"Just smash it."

I grabbed another book from the bookshelf and hurled it against the window, leaving a web of cracks. Professor Remin snatched a paperweight from his desk and threw it over my head. The window shattered. Seconds later, glass tinkled onto the sidewalk below.

The spydr was five feet away.

I peered out the window, searching for a ledge.

Come on. A handhold. A foothold. Anything.

Nothing. We were on the twentieth story of the University. The entire building was a smooth green blob. Nothing to stop the fall.

The lock had disengaged and whoever was on the other side of the door was slamming into it. The door rattled against Professor Remin's desk.

The spydr was an arms length away.