“Dr. Sax, you know that’s not possible,” Danny said. “Computer code doesn’t work like that. People don’t work like that.”

“As if you have any idea what human beings are like,” Sax said. “It’s going to be an entirely new world, Danny. I’m almost sorry you won’t be around to see it.”

Sax focused on his keyboard again, tapped a few more commands, and then appeared satisfied. He pressed one last button.

And waited.

Nothing happened.

“You having a little trouble booting up, Ed?” Dan Sr. asked. “Don’t worry, I hear it happens to lots of guys.”

Sax didn’t notice. His eyes were locked on his screen.

He looked at Danny with something like horror.

“How?” was all he said.

Danny smiled back. He knew it would make Sax angry. “What’s the one thing you should never give a hacker, Dr. Sax?” he said. “Access.”

Danny’s fingers danced on the keypad of his SharpWatch, typing rapidly, sending commands through Sax’s entire system.

The door behind them unlocked. The security cameras mounted on the ceiling swiveled toward Sax. And the building’s alarms all began going off at once.

“You think I wouldn’t put a little something of my own in any software I gave you? You also loaded my command protocols when you downloaded my code. I own this whole building now,” Danny said. To prove it, he pressed another key on his SharpWatch.

Sax’s computer fritzed and spat as its hard drive suddenly ate itself, overheating as it spun out of control.

“Like I said: It’s over, Dr. Sax. Average response time from the police to this address is seven minutes. Which means you’ve got about five left. Do the smart thing. Give up.”

Sax didn’t move. The gun didn’t waver from Danny’s father.

“Oh, Danny,” he said, and smiled. “It’s such a pleasure to see you finally get something so wrong.”

In that split-second, Danny knew what was coming. He pressed a button and yelled a command at RANN-D.

“Tasers now,” he shouted.

But he knew it was too late.

His brain was fast enough to slice the moment into one instant after another, freezing the images in front of him in a series of stop-motion photographs.

But his body was still painfully slow. He was not faster than a speeding bullet. Danny’s father was already rocking back in his chair, even as Danny leaped toward him.

So he could only watch the inevitable results of velocity and mass and impact, the physics simple and direct.

His father’s face opening in a blossom of red. The blood arcing high into the air, the warm wet spray hitting Danny, hitting the wall. The sound of the gun, finally reaching his ears as the speed of sound caught up.