Like every FBI agent, Alik hated the Twenty-Eighth Amendment: the right for all US citizens to fabricate for themselves whatever they wish unless it endangers the life or liberty of others, or they seek to use it to overthrow the government. It hadn’t been fully ratified, but that was just a matter of time now. In his opinion, the AFA (American Fabrication Alliance) made the NRA look like a bunch of pussies when it came to strong-arming Washington. The outcome of Twenty-Eight was that any upright citizen could buy and use weapons-grade material as long as they did not utilize said material to fabricate a weapon. So Alliance members were free to sell whatever raw materials in whatever quantities they wanted. Individual states were already starting to incorporate Twenty-Eight into their legislation in anticipation. The result being in New York, you don’t need a permit for pretty much anything outside of uranium or nerve gas. Which made life an order of magnitude tougher for law enforcement. In Alik’s opinion, Twenty-Eight was storing up serious trouble for the near future, and all because midlevel politicians were money junkies in it for every wattdollar they could be bribed with.

He regarded the shotgun blast in the ceiling. The impact looked like it was a vertical shot, fired from the bed when Hacked Off was on his back, under attack from Viking Berserker. A last, desperate act, or maybe reflex? That suggested they were creeping around the bedroom, Viking Berserker stalking Hacked Off, while the others were duking it out in the rest of the portalhome.

Alik pulled the sheet back over what was left of Hacked Off’s face. “So this killer got out?”

“Of the bedroom? Sure.”

“How many rooms left?”

“We’re over halfway.”

“Fucking wonderful.”

Beijing was the kids’ bedrooms. He hesitated in front of the portal door. Kravis and Rose Lorenzo had two kids: Bailey, age nine, and Suki, age twelve. After everything else, Alik wasn’t entirely sure he could face dead children.

“It’s clean,” Salovitz said, guessing the source of the hesitation.

The view through the Beijing window was tremendously imposing. Skyscrapers—every shape, every style, every direction as far as the eye could see. And all of them illuminated—some artistically, some nothing more than 150-story neon and laser ads. Even with four of Trappist 1’s exoplanets terraformed by the Chinese state, and immigration at damburst levels, Beijing’s population still topped twenty-five million.

Beijing wasn’t quite what Alik would give children as their waking view every morning. But as his sister always told him on his infrequent visits to his young nephew, he was a piss-poor uncle, so he reserved judgment.

“Beds are made,” he said after looking in both rooms. The duvets were newly pressed and straight. “The kids weren’t here.”