Welga pulled the sample of writhing metal from her pocket. “Speaking of which, I took this off Jackson’s attacker.”

“We recovered a lot of these in Boston. I’ll enter it into evidence, but I doubt it’s going to add anything new.”

“I picked it up before the explosion.”

Olafson pursed his lips and squinted at the fragment. “Is that… blood? Goddamn, Ramírez. What the hell were you thinking, holding on to it?”

“I haven’t exactly had a chance to get it somewhere secure.”

“This kind of thing? It’s exactly why we need you back.”

Olafson stood, and she followed him out of the bedroom to the front door. After he left, Welga ignored the questions racing through her mind and finished her recovery exercises. The tremors had eased as the duo-zip kicked in, leaving her muscles with the same sensation as when she woke up: an intense desire to stretch and move.

“Por Qué, did my, uh, neuromuscular tremors stop after I took the zip?”

“Yes, since your latest pill reached ninety-five percent effectiveness, you have not had any tremors. However, that also matches the time since the previous pill’s effects dropped below five percent.”

Not a clear cause-and-effect, then. I’m fine to keep taking zips. Welga stepped into a cool shower. Hot water dried out her still-healing skin too much. One minute later, she dried off and dressed in basic pants and a sleeveless T-shirt.

Platinum said they’d double up the detail on their funder clients, but if the al-Muwahhidun were behind the Machinehood’s threat, they’d go after infrastructure, not people. It was how they worked: rather than invading, they’d destroy power plants, block water flow, burn fields. Sow fear in the mind, and the body will be corrupted: another one of the caliph’s early sayings. The empire would force people to either attack them first or capitulate out of starvation. If they could cut off material production for pills and drugs, everyone would suffer. No more dailies to keep people safe from the latest engineered virus or super bacteria. No more flow or buffs or zips to help them do their jobs. No more juvers or pain drugs or microbial cocktails. Local economies would collapse.