“The right-wingers are smearing you as a liar,” said Jayjay. “I just scanned the news. Deep down, the religious right wants the world to end. They hate women, and they hate Earth. For them, Gaia is a piece of crap for us to use up. The sooner we destroy her, the sooner we get clean and go to heaven. They’re equating the nants to their myth of the rapture, see?”

“But if Sonic’s video was real, then Dick Too Dibbs is against the nants!” said Thuy. “He’s not gonna pander to the right wing!”

“Big problem for Luty,” said Jayjay. “Too Dibbs has enough mainstream support to come down much harder on Luty than Lampton ever did. Too Dibbs could be the new broom that sweeps clean. All the more reason for Luty to make his move today. Oh, look what’s happening now!”

Again Thuy focused on the orphidnet view of the ExaExa complex. Hallelujah, some genuine cops and feds were arriving in shiny black electric cars! And now the fighting began.

A fake demonstrator near the main entrance pulled out a pistol and shot one of the real cops. The real cops began defending themselves as more and more of the demonstrators attacked them. The fake cops escalated, opening up on the demonstrators with automatic weapons fire. And now several of the real cops opened fire on their fellow police officers. It seemed as if Luty might have infiltrated some provocateurs onto the force as well as into the crowd of protestors. With Luty’s agents fanning the violence, people were attacking each other without mercy. And nobody was doing anything about breaching the entrances to ExaExa.

“What a mess,” said Jayjay. “Should we even go there?”

“We’ll have to bypass the fighting and sneak inside the lab,” said Thuy. “It’s up to us to steal the Ark of the Nants before it’s too late. I’m thinking maybe Jil could help.”

“Jil!” exclaimed Jayjay. “Are you kidding? She’s the one who passed us the bogus Bim Brown link. I knew she was screwed up, but I never thought she’d sink that low. And it looks like a lot of the people there are—”

“I was starting to tell you about that,” interrupted Azaroth. “Listen to me! Jil’s addled because she snorted nanomachines. Luty’s planted them in the sudocoke supply all over Lobrane San Francisco. That’s how he’s controlling those demonstrators and cops starting the fights. Most of the San Francisco sudocokers are full of nanomachines running Luty’s ShareCrop wikiware.”

“So that’s why—” began Thuy.

“Jil’s cut-rate dealer is, wave this, Thuy, your starky pal Andrew Topping,” said Azaroth. “Yeah. I saw Jil meeting him inside a quantum-mirrored delivery dock at the back of Exa-Exa last week.”

“Oh Jil,” said Thuy. “I wish I could fix her. Before it’s too late.”

“Ask the Big Pig how,” suggested Jayjay. “The Pig knows everything.”