"Why?" he said. "Where's the angle?"

"Maybe a big bag of credit marbles from Nicole."

Armitage looked genuinely shocked. Which was even more confusing. Could I have this wrong?

"Sure, I used you to do my dirty work," he said. "But that's it. You got nicked because of your own sloppiness."

I just stared.

"Fine. You want the 411?" Armitage nodded to Broken Nose. "Give it to him, Max."

Max? Broken Nose's name was Max?

The big man shifted, crossing his hands in front of him, like a schoolboy about to recite. It was oddly touching. "You're sitting in what was New York Power Substation No. 53," he said. "Back down that tunnel, where you woke up, is the basement of the Church of the Holy Epicenter."

I blinked.

"He never heard of it," smirked Legs.

"The Church was built on the site where the Shift started."

I tried to wrap my brain around this. "It's an Ender church?" Armitage nodded. "You're an End-Timer?"

"No. Some of the Enders help us." I waited. "This is a Cadre cell."

"Cadre? The whack-jobs that blow up busses?"

"We've never blown up a damned thing!" said Jelly Legs.

"Tippit's right," said Armitage. "That's the Secessionists."

Max and Tippit. It sounded like the punch line to a bar joke.

"I know all these groups are hard to keep straight," said Armitage. "The Secessionists want Necropolis to be an independent state, just for reborns. They think they can bring this about through terrorism."

Max snorted. "They're nuts is what they are."

"We don't share their beliefs or their methods. Now, the End-Timers, or Enders as they're called, are a religious group created in reaction to the Shift. The government came down hard on them, and what's left of them they stay non-political." He shared a smile with the rest of the room. "At least, publically. They've been secretly sheltering some of our cells. We may not share their religious beliefs, but our goals are the same."

"Your cells? The Cadre, you mean." He nodded. I sighed. "Great. I've been taken hostage by the Dead Panthers."

Armitage went back to poking his pipe. "Still with the wise-cracks, I see."

"So you're, what? A revolutionary?"

"We're norm and reborn. Stockbrokers, teachers, construction workers, even mooks like me."

I tried to smirk. "So it's a club, then! Can I get a decoder ring?"

He darkened. "We're trapped in a corporate gulag. Or hadn't you noticed?"

I'd noticed.

"We're arming. To fight the government and Surazal, if it comes to that. Not civilians, get me? No terrorism."

"If you say so. How'd I get here?"

"A tracer we planted on you," said Max. "In the car, when we frisked you." He winked. Maybe he wasn't so dumb after all.

"It's mostly dermal tissue. Melds with your own."

"Why?"

"You wanted to get in there. So did we. If someone was gonna get pinched doing it..."

"Better me than you." Armitage touched his nose. "So, if I'd gotten out safely," I continued, "you would've debriefed me, then-"

"Let you go on your merry way."

I believed that about as much as I believed the last couple wars were about freedom. "Can I have some water?"

Armitage nodded at Sandy. There was a pitcher on a bureau. She poured me a cup.

"I'd do better if I could hold it myself."

Armitage smiled a no. Oh well, it'd been worth the try. Sandy put the cup to my mouth. When my throat wasn't a blast furnace anymore, I pulled back. My lips felt coated in old paint.

Enough screwing around. Time to ask the question that scared me senseless. "Why do I look like this?"

Armitage looked to Sandy in surprise. "His last memories didn't encode," she said.

That phrase... I'd heard that before. Suddenly the moisture from the pipes was impossibly loud, each drop hitting the floor like a grenade. Parker's saxophone was flaying me alive in B flat.

"Your remains were found in the Bronx."

"My... my..."

"It took a long time to track you down," said Armitage. "Debris masked your signal. We had to do a block-by-block search."

I didn't have the strength to hold up my head. My chin hit my chest, my hair cascading over my face. Suddenly I didn't want to hear any more, ever again.

"You'd decomposed pretty badly."

I gripped the chair. The music ended. Only the dripping remained. "I didn't..."

"What's that?"

I tried to focus my lips. "I didn't know someone could come back more than once."

"Can't. Not without help, anyway."

I looked from face to face. Max snorted. "The guy's toast. I told you."

"He just needs time."

"We don't have time."

Armitage shot a look, and Max relented, mumbling.

"We don't know how the Retrozine works yet," said Armitage.

My insides lurched another couple feet. Sandy patted my head absently like I was a German Shepherd. There was a click, the Bird took wing, and the next record dropped. Tommy Dorsey.

"Retrozine," I managed in a whisper. "The youthing drug."

"It does a lot of things."

"How'd you get the formula?"

"Maggie uploaded the formula."

I could feel my blood drain. "You didn't hurt her, did you?"

"She's with us," said Armitage. "Cadre. She's worked for us all along."

"Bullshit!"

Then I caught Tippit looking shamefully at his shoes, and I knew they were telling the truth. I closed my eyes. She'd been the only person who hadn't tried to play me. Until this moment, I hadn't realized how hard I'd hung on to that. "Why? Why go to the trouble of finding me? Bringing me back?"

"We needed to know what happened, what you'd learned."

"If Maggie's part of this, then you already know."

"She doesn't have a trained eye, like you. Plus she had to run for it before it was over."

"Before I died, you mean."

Armitage looked at his watch. "Donner, I'd love to be a pal, give you time to adjust to all this, but things have gotten a lot worse since you've been away. So I need you to tell me everything you know."

I managed a smile at that.

"We saved your ass," said Max. "You were rat food!"

A laugh exploded out of me. "You threatened to kill my friend to get me to break into the lab, got me killed, then used me as a guinea pig to test your stolen drug. Did I leave out any of your amazing generosity?"

Armitage laid down the pipe and leaned forward, his voice low and controlled. "You got screwed? Welcome to the planet." His fist came down hard. Even the boys jumped. "We're all guinea pigs. Surazal's out there, running things, testing their serum and God knows what else on us, and we're still in the dark!"

I didn't reply. His hands fell on the chair arms, twisting. Then he sighed. "We'll talk tomorrow. You'll feel more cooperative."

"Hope springs eternal."

"You'll stay restrained."

"These pajamas itch."

"It's your new skin. Give it a few days."

I searched Armitage's eyes. I wasn't sure what I found. I'd been disposable. So why did he seem on the level now? I saw pit bull loyalty in his men, the kind that came from respect, not fear. That meant something. But I was too tired to know what. I closed my eyes and Sandy wheeled me away.

The platter spun and another record dropped. Nina Simone sounded throaty and depressed. Armitage pulled a silver lighter from the desk. He lit the pipe, exhaling a cloud that fanned off towards the shadows.

"We helped him. Fine," he said. "But you've used up your favors."

Maggie Chi resolved into coherence. "I'm doing this for-"

"I think we both know why you're doing this," he said. "And I think it's time you decided whose side you're on."

30.

BRIAN.

Brian walked home from school.

Carl had disappeared. No more limo, no more caramels. That was okay. The air helped him clear his jumbled thoughts.

He took his regular shortcut, past a block of peep shows. He hurried past the garish signs promising adult wonders within: "All Nude, all Norm!" Despite his raging hormones, he didn't understand porn. It seemed so mechanical. And the close-ups were gross. Who wanted to look at pubes the size of redwoods?

The people who hung out here were twitchy and seedy. The whores loved teasing him. They'd muss his hair and say: "Hey honey, how about a poke! Your wanna poke?" And then cackle.

To his relief, the sidewalk was deserted today. But as he passed the alley between one building and the next, he paused.

Something was going on. A flutter of motion buried in the gloomy brick gauntlet. The space smelled foul, a toilet for the godsmackers and a place where the whores did business. He was risking getting his nose sliced off by sticking it into that murk. But someone could be in trouble. He took a few steps into the alley, squinting. The dimness resolved into two forms.

Two kids. No, wait... It was a kid, talking to... a reebie hooker. The whore was saying, "I did it myself. Easy money."

"They'll give me that much just to test their new medicine?" the kid said. "Is it safe?"

"C'mon, sweetie. Do you really care?"