They’d taken no chances with his disguise. High contrast, highly patterned face paint, like the rest of them, to break up the lines of his facial features, and also obscure his race. A dreadlocked wig that fell everywhere, especially over his face, to backup the paint. A red and black checked scarf he could lift up to cover his mouth and nose – plausibly justified by the chill outside – to further hide his features. Platform shoes that were an inch taller on the left than the right, to force him to limp, messing up gait detection. Contacts that somehow blurred retinal scans. Checked gloves that covered his hands, to minimize the chance of leaving any DNA behind. In fact, the only skin he’d have exposed would be his eyes, and even those were half hidden behind the annoying fall of dreadlocks.

On top of that all, he was running this new Nexus stealth code. It wouldn’t hide any Nexus transmissions, so he wouldn’t transmit at all. But it suppressed the reflexive response Nexus nodes sent back to pings from the ERD’s Nexus detectors, making you undetectable if you stayed in receive-only mode. Or so people were claiming in underground boards.

“Now push the hair back,” Cheyenne said, pointing yet another camera at him.

Rangan did with relief, looked right into the camera, then turned, giving her a range of profiles.

Cheyenne put the camera down, a serious look on her face.

“You’re good,” she finally declared. “But keep the hair in front of your face, and your scarf up, just in case.”

Rangan turned and looked at Tempest.

She had her arms crossed. She was frowning, shaking her head.

“Don’t do this, Rangan,” she said.

It was the first time any of them had used his name. And it reinforced something he’d thought of often – that he didn’t know any of theirs.

“I have to,” he said. “And it’s Axon to you.”

The first cop they saw sent his pulse soaring, and Rangan reached Inside, fired up the serenity package, just to level three.

The cops looked right past him.

The National Mall was like nothing he’d ever seen. The crowd was huge, epic huge, music festival huge. They pushed past fervent protesters with signs, waving them around. They saw hippies in drum circles. A group of nuns, complete with black and white habits, waved signs saying LOVE THY NEIGHBOR.

Angel flashed them a peace sign as they walked by. “Rock on sisters.” A nun flashed a peace sign back.