He went into the hall. He was looking for General Walker because Mark knew he had the authority to make him a promise that the others in the command must keep, including Doc Emma. If Mark was not to go insane, if he was not to follow the way of the generation threes, he had to have an absolute promise that he would never be taken out of his body and put in that damn editor again, not ever, not without his consent, and according to rules that he would set, and they would not break.

They had to face that they had made a machine that was more than a machine. He had rights, and they needed to recognize this.

As he walked down the corridor, everything was familiar, and familiarity triggered memory. The tiles, the faint scent of floor wax, the row of offices he was passing—he had been here hundreds of times.

Another wave of anger overcame him, and he strode right through the great doors at the front of the facility, leaving a shower of pulverized glass behind him.

He was going to find out what had happened to Gina, and if they would not tell him, they could expect trouble of a whole new kind.

Voices burst out behind him, desperate voices calling him. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Doc Emma and her assistants hurrying this way. They had uniforms with them, who carried a rocket-powered net. They had huge black Tasers, and how dare they? Wouldn’t make a bit of difference, anyway. He could eat a Taser jolt for goddamn lunch.

He crouched, then sprung his legs straight and soared upward with perfect ease. He moved swiftly into the air, sailing through and scattering a flock of starlings and rising into a long road of clouds.

He’d gone high! Damn!

The sun was warm on his back, and his jump in this fresh new version of himself was utterly effortless. He was one with air and clouds, soaring like an eagle or an angel.

Far below on the campus, the support group who had devoted their lives to this miraculous and extraordinary creation, their peerless soldier, their beloved child, watched, only raising a cheer after they were sure he was well and truly gone on the new mission they had just finished programming into him.

He could jump now for a mile, maybe more. Almost, he could fly.

“It was a brilliant job of programming, kids, and he is totally unconscious of it. For the first time, a machine has not only been given consciousness, it has an underlying unconscious directing its actions, just like we do. Our machine has free will.”

“And it can fly!”

“Well, not quite.”

They were silent, then, watching where he had disappeared into the sky, where the starlings flocked once more, absorbed once again in their ancient, intricate dance.