“Fuck fuck fuck,” Rangan said.

And then, before he could stop himself, he rose, and did what he knew he had to.

“My name,” he yelled, “is Rangan Shankari!”

He felt a flicker of something from the minds down there.

“I am DJ Axon! I helped invent Nexus 5.”

More attention. People were tuning in, looking.

Then Rangan reached up, and pulled the mask off his face, up onto the top of his head.

The crowd gasped. He felt it ripple from mind to mind, a stutter that paused the violence in all but the most intense locations.

“And someone is fucking with your heads!”

Carolyn Pryce’s phone buzzed again. The three short sharp buzzes of highest priority.

She looked down from the global calamity all around her, to the message.

[ERD_SECRETS: We’re PLF. The files we leaked are from Barnes’s personal data. That’s how I know. Events in China and the world are your proof. You must relay this upwards. China did not take offensive action against the US.]

She shook her head, and snapped out a new message.

[Not good enough. Give me something concrete!]

Breece narrowed his eyes at the screen.

Shankari.

He turned to the Nigerian. “Get a shooter in position.”

The Nigerian looked back at him for a moment. “There’s added risk,” he said. “We can let this go. We’ve distracted them. What does it matter?”

Breece slammed his palm onto the table. “It matters!” He yelled.

Then he closed his eyes, and continued, more softly. “Just do it, please.”

“You’re being hacked!” Rangan yelled. “That’s why you’re suddenly so angry! Tune in to the people who aren’t angry! Get close to them! They have an app for you! Install it, everyone!”

There was a commotion below. Rangan looked down, saw armed riot police crash through the wall of Mesh-running volunteers at the bottom of the stairs, saw one run full-tilt at him, a truncheon raised.

“Away from the Senator!” the cop yelled.

Oh shit, Rangan thought.

Then suddenly Stan Kim was in front of him, an arm outraised.

“This man’s with me, officers!”

“Senator!” one of them yelled. “We’ll get you out of here!”

“I’m staying here!” Kim yelled back. “We’ve got work to do.”

Rangan breathed again. In the corner of his mind’s eye, a counter was moving, it was scrolling, incrementing fast, the last digits changing in a blur.

They’d started the day with a little over 53,000 people running Mesh in this protest, out of six or seven hundred thousand people in total.

Now they were at 120,000, and still climbing.

Rangan tapped Stan Kim on the shoulder. Kim turned to look at him.

“You’re blocking my camera, Senator,” Rangan said with a smile.

Kim leaned in close to him. “Kid, you wanna see daylight after today?” He whispered. His eyes searched Rangan’s. “Put that mask back on.”