Shit, shit, shit, shit. I can’t tell if I’m thinking it or saying it out loud. Gunshots still pepper the storage crates. I unlock the safety of the gun and put my finger on the trigger. My hand shakes.

I peek over the crate, and then dart back. There’s only one person left: Mana-ma. It’s fitting. Her against me.

I gather the last of my strength and bravery and stand up from behind the barrier. I try to gather my senses together to make sense of the world again. I fire off shots, my vision still blurry enough that I’m not sure if I’m aiming at her. The shots focus me.

The first few miss, but then a bullet hits her in the arm. She folds forward. She’s wearing a Kalar suit, but I’ve still hurt her. I aim again, and hear the crack of her gun. I squeeze the trigger and start to move back behind the crate. Everything slows. Mana-ma crumples, the bullet hole over her third eye beginning to weep.

I watch, almost disinterestedly, as the bullet she fired hits me straight in the chest. It does not puncture the suit, but I feel the impact against my metal sternum. My mechanical heartbeat slows.

Then stops.

30. Tila

THIRTY

TILA

I don’t remember actually arriving in San Francisco.

Taema and I were out cold, but we woke up in the ambulance hovercar. The attendants pulled back the window screen, and even though I felt the worst I’d ever felt in my life, I remember how beautiful San Francisco looked the very first time I saw it. The sun was just setting, and it was like seeing a whole new planet, alien and strange. Tall buildings full of people, others full of trees, cars flying through the sky, bridges linking the lands across the water. It was so big. I knew billions of people lived out here in the world, but it was still something else, this city where over a million people lived, flying and seeing straight out to the horizon, tiny people walking down below. This new world seemed infinite.

At the hospital, they stabilized us and Taema woke up. I started crying when she did. I was so scared that she wouldn’t.

The doctor who spoke to us had the same mild confusion about us as the rest of the people out here. We were so lucky, though. He knew our VeriChips were brand new, and he later quietly found someone who would be able to advise us about claiming sanctuary from Mana’s Hearth and make our identities real.