***ALEX***

By this time, the evacuation from San Francisco is over, and now everyone who left the city is making their way back in. Which means traffic trouble for us, and if not for a good half of us not having wings, we could simply fly into the city instead. But that's off the table, so let me break out a Yoda-style rhyme: stuck in our cars, we are.

"You okay?" Mom asks. She's sitting by my side, but I'm paying more attention to my other side. My right, where my window is.

"Not really." I breathe on the window and trace the shape of an arrow in the fog, like I'm a little kid. An arrow with a heart-shaped tip. Pointing, roughly, towards home. Or towards the car behind us, where everyone else sits. Everyone who voted in Mr. G's favor, as well as the man himself. This heart shape is meant for all but the man in that car. Not to shoot into their hearts, not like that. Just a symbol to show I care about them as they deserve. No, Mr. G gets a plain old arrow, which I sculpt in my breath-fog as carefully as I can for maximum sharpness.

Mom leans closer to me. I'm not looking at her, but I know she is, because she starts thinking to me instead of talking. Are we sure that Graziadei person is really...? She doesn't finish her sentence, but I know what she wants to say anyway.

I'm sure he is, I say. But he's still an assbutt.

Well, from the way you went up and slapped him in the face... Mom's voice trails off again. Is he really who he says he is?

You can say it, what he says.

Mom scoffs out loud. He says he's God. But then, you slapped him, so...

I don't care if he says he's God, Zeus, or Abraham Lincoln. He's an assbutt, like I said.

Mom scoffs again. You're preaching to the choir, Alex. I don't read as much sci-fi or fantasy as you do, and even I know that guy's plan is bullshit.

I finally turn her way so I can give her a smile. A pained one, yes, but a genuine one all the same. Common sense prevails in this ride.

Mom sighs through her nose as she puts both her hands on my shoulders. Alex... She looks down, sniffing loudly as she starts to cry, and I find myself doing the same purely out of sympathy. You're a strong boy, you know. But you don't have to fight every fight. Now she reaches up to wipe my tears, letting her own drip from her cheeks onto the upholstery. You've been stretching yourself so thin for the last year. Just the last few days, you were in bed-

Don't remind me-

Please. Mom tightens her grip. We're gonna fight this fight here. We can't just give up now. But after that? No more. For your sake. She pauses, drawing breath despite her not having actually spoken out loud. And mine too.

What can I say to this? I can't predict the future. I can't account for future atrocities in which I or Gabe could be involved. Mom's right, my mental health can't take much more strain. But Catholic guilt, it's real. Even for lapsed Catholics. And if I let my friends keep fighting while I don't, and if they died for me, I'd be even less able to live with myself than I currently am.

I'll just have to wait and see what happens, I guess.

Though seriously, I really do hope I don't have to do any more fighting after this.

And of course, that all depends on how much of an assbutt Elliot Graziadei really is. How much he'd be willing to kill me and Gabe just because he's that much of a Breaker-phobe. How much Josh was telling the truth about him. I've been second-guessing him all along, I think, but now less so than ever. Second-guessing Josh, I mean.

By now, I think it's been half an hour since we left Joey's, and we've barely covered ten miles in that time. The San Francisco city limits, the townhouses on the hill above where Candlestick Park used to stand, are finally emerging through the misty rain ahead of us. How many of those people, living in those houses, had to leave when the alarm went off? How many are in this very same traffic jam, trying to get back home? Or maybe some of them just stayed put. They're San Francisco homes, after all. Buy the house for a million bucks, spare another million for a panic room, and a third mill for a fallout shelter. Half a mill if you're one of those tech giants who may or may not be out to take over the world, like Scoville is for real.

I may be dreadful at picking a career path, but one thing's for sure, I'm not going into our region's greatest industry. I don't have the skills nor the competitive streak for it.

"Where's Scoville's place?" Mom asks out of the blue, enough to startle me.

Nevertheless, I recover my senses quickly enough to add, "In a skyscraper or a bunker?"

"No middle ground, huh?" Josh blows a raspberry at nobody in particular. "Don't you know partisanship is killing your country?"

I'm on the point of retorting that it's his country too, but that's just how good his American accent fools me. No surprise that he's managed to pick one up, being as old as he is. And also, while I as an American would be happy to welcome Josh as a citizen, there are just too many who would overlook his true identity, focus instead on his skin, and reject him on that basis alone. I only wish I could be the one drop of hope to wash away the wave of cynicism and hate.

Yeah, there I am again, trying to take on another fight.

"To answer your question..." Ahmad keys away a bit longer on his laptop. "Yeah, it's the middle ground. But it's a pretty big building all the same. We'd have some trouble getting in there too."

I'm about to ask him a follow-up question when I realize something else, something I'd missed all this time. Like Gideon said, my observational skills need some work. "How many laptops do you have?"

"Huh?"

I wonder if the Arabic word for "brother" sounds like the one in Maltese. Sure, it's not the local language of Ahmad's people, but I'd be willing to bet he know he knows somewhere near as much Arabic as he does English or Urdu.

I repeat the question, and Ahmad finally answers, "Three right here. Including my dead one." He points down at the techie bag he's got at his feet. Faraday-cage material, I'm guessing. It looks like some kind of metal mesh for sure. Then he adds, "You're gonna love it when I tell you where exactly we're headed, though."

"Where?" Mom and I ask simultaneously.

Jinx! I think faster than she can. You owe me a Coke when we get home.

I buy a ton of those for you already, she points out. I'll buy you an iced chocolate and we'll call it a deal.

It's exactly the wrong time of year for iced chocolate, but I haven't had one in so long because all my favorite coffee places have dropped them from their menus. Even Smythe and Darknell, mostly because I was the only one who ever ordered one, or so Lana Smythe told me last month. Deal, I tell Mom. More worth fighting for now, so I'm more ready to take on that big bad world and the big bad boss who wants to crush it all.

Ahmad actually turns around as best he can to look me in the eye directly. "I didn't know you guys did this in Heaven until very recently. Kinda wished they'd done it on Earth, then maybe it would've made all the difference..." He sighs wistfully before getting to his point. "Scoville works out of Treasure Island."

"You mean Solyndra Island?" Mom asks.

"Yeah, that, but they never officially changed the name." I stare past Ahmad, past the townhouses on the hill we're now passing by, along with the sign officially welcoming us to San Francisco.

Luca told me that when Russell recruited him and Gid and Paul (on his first and only mission, unfortunately), one of the places they went to was Treasure Island. They'd arrived just in time to stop someone from bombing the island with Mayor Frank Garza on it, along with a bunch of visiting Japanese businessmen. All their lives were saved, but Luca and his party got arrested, and I'm pretty sure the Japanese deal to buy Solyndra's graveyard fell through.

Arresting aside, Luca said Garza was actually a pretty stand-up guy. One he'd vote for if he could. And we probably both could, if we'll still be in California during next year's gubernatorial election - the first in which either of us would be old enough to vote, and in which Garza, rumor has it, intends to run.

Now, though, I'll have to reconsider, unless Scoville managed to pull some kind of shenanigans to bamboozle any and all background checks Garza threw his way before the sale. Due diligence can only get you so far, but intent does always matter to me.

I suppose I'll have to ask Luca to personally clarify the nature of Garza's dealings with Scoville. I'm pretty sure those two are on a fire-forged first-name basis anyway. Whereas I have no such connections with Mr. Mayor, unless we happen to encounter him on Solyndra Island tonight. I could ask him then, put on that "politically mobilized" attitude like Mr. Blanco always wants us to have, and maybe then I'd get a straight man-to-man answer from the guy.

"Treasure Island, though..." I muse for a moment. "Yeah, you're right. We're gonna totally love getting in there."

"Luckily," Josh says, "our ride and my dad's are already pre-approved for entrance onto the island." He pats the dashboard, where a FasTrak-like transponder sits in the corner. It's green, though, not white like FasTraks usually are. "Our ticket in."

I sigh through my nose. "Wish I could just teleport us in."

"Wish you could too," Josh says, "but I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess Scoville's too well-protected for that."

"How well-protected?" I'm about to make a joke about that favorite Guitar Hero outfit of mine, but not in front of Mom. "Lasers to cut me down?"

"And anyone else foolish enough to come along for your ride," says Josh. "Unless you can cut them off?" he asks Ahmad.

"I wish." Ahmad pauses in his typing. "The firewalls are too great for me to just get in. If I'm to hack his shit to pieces, I have to be on site."

"But you got him out of the emergency-" I begin.

"That was the government system," Ahmad reminds us. "Scoville's made of far stronger shit."

Mom cranes her neck, as if expecting to catch a glimpse of Treasure Island or the Bay Bridge over the hills around us. "Hard to believe, that place used to be military. Now look at it. Some of my cousins who were in the military, they'd turn over in their graves."

Finally, she's set me up to make a joke, and I don't waste that chance. "They have graves? I didn't know you had family who died in combat."

"Just an expression." But Mom winks in appreciation anyway.

It takes almost an hour just to reach downtown, but after that it's smooth sailing. So many fewer people taking the Bay Bridge out of the city than there are coming in. In all the times I've ridden in cars through this part of San Francisco, that's never happened. Kristoff Scoville's opening up more of the 66 Seals of the Apocalypse today.

As we drive onto the bridge itself, our two rides are alone together for a short while. But then, as we pass the last onramp in the city, a couple of Scoville's driverless trucks, the same model that tried to blow up the movies in San Cas, slide up to join us.

"What's that movie you really like where this happened?" Mom asks, jerking her thumb at the truck that slides up to our right, blocking what little view of the city and the clouds and rain we can get through the rails lining the lower deck.

"What?" I ask, not getting it at first.

"The automated truck comes up and starts attacking the guy-"

"I, Robot," I say, and Josh and Ahmad chime in with it simultaneously.

"One of Firdaus' favorite movies just for the Will Smith GIFs alone," Ahmad adds.

I look more closely at the truck as it rumbles by us. It doesn't look like the sides open up like in I, Robot, but then they don't need to open up all the way. Just enough to admit the business end of a gun from inside.

"Are they tracking that thing?" I point at the transponder.

"They always do," Josh says. "You just haven't seen it till today 'cause we keep it in a Faraday bag most of the time, unless we need it." He snickers to himself. "Scoville hates it when we do that, but so far he hasn't tried to stop us."

"So far," I repeat. "Maybe this is the day he tries?"

Josh shakes his head. "Look, Scoville's a jerk, but he's not just gonna kill us. He's too smart and patient for that."

"No wonder he doesn't like me, then."

"You? Impatient?" Mom scoffs.

"You haven't seen all the times I've rushed into danger," I counter.

"That's impulsive, not impatient-"

"Who says I can't be both?"

"Who says you should?" Mom takes my hand, which only now do I realize I've been clenching into the tightest fist I can manage. Even my forearm muscles are bulging through the sleeve of my hoodie like I'm in the middle of a workout.

"Sometimes," I say, "a little shooting from the hip is what we need."

"Has it ever gotten the results you wanted?" Mom asks.

"No, but that's because I usually don't get that angry until someone I love dies." She opens her mouth, but I keep going on my - admittedly crappy - line of reasoning. "Nobody's died yet, and nobody will. Not this time. I'm gonna get the jump on this Scoville guy before he even knows what's hit him-"

"How?" Josh asks.

"You're all gonna talk to him?" I ask. "You and your dad? Then, while he's distracted, I'll sneak around, ice a few of his minions, and come into his office in a blizzard. That way, your dad won't even have to pull his little body-surfing trick-"

"Do you know the layout of the place?" Ahmad holds up his screen to show such a map.

"God, Alex, what's going on?" Mom asks with extra concern. "Everything I'm trying to tell you is going in one ear and out the other."

"I just need to end this," I say. "I'm sorry, but it's hard enough to just sit here and let shit happen to me. I'm tired of that."

Mom cranes her neck to talk to Josh. "Can these seats recline?"

"Yours? No. My dad wouldn't spring for that model."

"Why, you want me to lean back and take a load off?" I look away from Mom so she doesn't see me roll my eyes.

"Don't do that," she says. Shit, she knew anyway. "And definitely don't go off half-cocked."

I could make a dirty joke about that, but not to her. And certainly not if I ever want to look Gideon in the eye again. It's funny, I've looked Gid in the eye more in one year than I ever did in two for Luca. If I were counting the number of times I made it a point of contacting eyes, which I usually don't.

At the middle of the bridge, the exit for Yerba Buena and Treasure Islands sits, barely visible unless you're laser-focused on that super-narrow gap to the left. The truck to our right speeds ahead of us, then slides in front of us to cut us off and essentially herd us into that exit.

"Good thing I'm not driving in normal traffic here," Josh says with extra fake cheer as he makes the sharp turn onto Yerba Buena. "The backup I'd cause from having to turn this slowly, it'd lead to a chain of road rage."

"Especially in California," I say.

Josh laughs. "I thought you were the chillest state this side of Hawaii."

Ahmad rolls his eyes, and like Mom just did, I can tell he does it despite him facing away from me. "In any dimension, you're wrong. Especially when it comes to California drivers. And especially-especially California drivers in the rain."

As Josh takes us up the narrow road through Yerba Buena, I wonder how the driverless trucks could make it up here. Assuming they do. Scoville may be headquartered on Treasure Island, but there's no reason why he couldn't have another place, somewhere, from which to send out the his robotic little fleet.

What I don't expect is for us to not actually drive onto Treasure Island. Instead, we drive under it. While we're on the isthmus between the real and the artificial islands, the road ahead of us drops into the ground, vanishing into a long tunnel. It reminds me of one of my earliest shared dreams with Fionna, the one where I raised the Spellman Bridge into the sky, but in reverse.

"Please tell me you're seeing this too," I say to the car at large.

"I am," Josh says. "Mr. Robot."

Maybe kids used to call me that to bully me, but if there's one thing Josh would never do... "Is this normal?" I ask.

"That's usually how he lets in his most special guests," Josh says as we descend into the tunnel. He finally gets to turn off the windshield wipers, but the headlights stay on. "There's a scanner somewhere in the ceiling, and if you try to come in without it, you'll probably get yourself sniped to death with Gatling guns hidden in the ceiling behind the-" He stops as the transponder beeps three times in quick succession. "We're clear."

"For now," I mutter to myself.

The tunnel ends quicker than I expect, with a small parking lot surrounded by fans to purify the air. Even before I get out of the car, I can hear the fans roaring loud and clear. We pull into one parking space, with Mr. G next to us. He and Josh set off ahead, each presenting their thumbs to a small scanner by the door that leads into the heart of Kristoff's place.

Michael, the only remaining representative of the worlds beyond ours, takes up a leadership position, gathering us around him behind the two SUVs. "That's the point where we're not gonna get in," he says. "Not unless our boy here" - he points to Ahmad, who responds by nearly dropping his laptop, except Firdaus manages to catch it and put it safely back in his hands - "can beat each and every obstacle this kangaroo-eating jerk set up for us. Starting with this entrance, which according to my brother's intel, is DNA-locked-"

I clear my throat. "Any reason why we're gonna call Kristoff a name to shame his diet?"

"Yeah," AK points out. "Besides, kangaroos are supposed to be really lean."

I nod along with my cousin. "Good protein."

Mom pokes my arm. "If you're that concerned with building and keeping muscle, just get that powdered crap like every other boy your age."

"It's no substitute for real eating."

"Also," AK chimes in, "it's an Aboriginal staple. Maybe that's not exactly Kristoff's culture, but still..."

I had no idea Michael was capable of blushing so much. "Okay, let me revise. Kristoff Scoville is a koala-eating jerk. Nobody's gonna support a man who does that, I assure you." He cranes his neck and looks over everyone's shoulders, especially mine and Mom's because we're most directly in front of him. "Except maybe the other koala-eaters coming our way as we speak." I turn my head maybe thirty degrees before Michael actually reaches out, grabs my hair, and stops me. "No, no, don't let them know they're getting to us," he says.

I pull his wrist almost hard enough to break it - and then feel bad about it too, if only because of his close resemblance to Gabe. But only for a split second. "Touch me again," I growl at him, "and I'll cut your collarbones in half."

"Save the snapping for the man who really deserves it," says Michael. "Or woman. Or perhaps enby. I can't tell what gender these koala-eaters are-"

"You really love calling them that, don't you?" Mom rolls her eyes.

"Who even says they're Australian?" Gideon points out.

"Isn't that a thing businesspeople do?" Michael asks. "Hire only people from their own country and never engage in local labor?"

"Who the hell are you?" barks the voice of one of these people Michael says is behind us.

"Judging from that accent," Firdaus comments, "Kristoff's one of those businesspeople. Luckily for us..." She reaches behind her head and pulls something out of her hoodie. "Duck!" she cries before shooting a stun gun right into two men wearing what looks like Hunger Games Peacekeeper uniforms, but in navy blue instead of white. A blue that would have made them almost invisible here, except for the lights over our heads. "Holy crap," she whispers at the sight of the two men twitching and sparking on the ground. "Thanks, Michael."

"Knew they'd be extra-vulnerable to these," Michael says with a smile. "More intel from my brother. These Scoville armors have exactly one good vulnerability to exploit."

Firdaus retracts the taser wires and looks at the business end, but not too closely. "Even these people can't take too much electricity, right?" She eyeballs the DNA lock on the door. "Hmm."

"I like the way you think," Ahmad says. "But didn't that kinda kill the door in Star Wars?"

"Only for a minute," I say.

"The Stormtroopers got through anyway," Firdaus points out. "Luke only blasted the controls on one side. But we'd be blasting the controls on this side, and..." She scratches her head with her free hand as logic starts turning upside down for both of us.

Alarm bells ring all down the tunnel, and more guards pour out.

"But now," Firdaus says, pointing the taser at the door, "is as good a time as any to put this theory to the test."

Gideon looks up at the ceiling. "You think my powers will work on this brickwork?" he asks. "Or the artificial turf above us?"

"Another theory to test." I pat his shoulder, then stand by Firdaus' side as she takes careful aim. "Whenever you're ready?"

"Now," Firdaus and Gideon say simultaneously.

The tunnel ceiling collapses, and not from the slow and careful descent of the mechanism supporting the road above us. No, Gideon's a blunt instrument, and he brings it down in huge pieces. As for Firdaus, she fries the DNA lock, but first pauses a second to allow Ahmad some time to work a little magic.

"I hate working wireless," Ahmad says. "Easier to get into my machine without permission, just like it's easier the other way around. But..." He nods as Firdaus sets the lock sparking and the door opening. "It's a necessary evil."

"For what?" I ask.

"Telling the lock that Josh was walking in. Again." Ahmad looks oddly proud of himself. "You have any idea how much code I need to shove down that machine's throat to fake a DNA scan? Especially DNA like Josh's."

"Yeah," Firdaus says as she retracts her taser again. "And now, once we're in, they can't follow us through this door."

"Because you blasted the controls on..." I clap for her. "All right, everyone, let's go let's go let's go!" Flanked by Gideon and AK, I lead the charge into the building, keeping a sharp eye out for Josh. And of course Scoville.