“I’m working on it,” Igby says, “but it’s slow, really slow. The latest information I’ve managed to decode is basically an equation about how fast Happy sent that subway train after us to give it the best chance of incapacitating us and not killing us.”

“Jesus,” I whisper.

“This is how we’re going to do it, Luka, this is how we’re going to bring Happy down.”

“Is this dangerous?” I ask, glancing at the ancient computer. “I mean, will Happy figure out that you’re listening in to its plans?”

“No, that’s the beauty of using this antique computer—Happy can’t even see it.”

“Can we use it?” I ask. “Can we use it to—I don’t know—upload a virus into Happy?”

Igby laughs. “Firstly, all I can do with this tech is watch and read code; secondly, there isn’t a computer virus strong enough to touch Happy.”

“Right,” I reply, dejected. “Do we have a plan, then?” I ask.

Igby sighs. “We had a lot of plans: infiltrate the Arc; find a cure for the remaining Smilers; search the city for surviving Ebb users. But we can’t do any of that without an army. We were going to free and recruit the Block inmates, but they all started dying a few weeks ago.”

“I know,” I say. “I saw the empty cells. Why is that? I thought they had the same healing tech as us. They were part of the same trials.”

“They gave the Block inmates one variant of the drug and the Loop inmates another. I guess they were trying to figure out which one worked the best … turns out it was ours.”

I shake my head. I feel sick knowing that Happy has used us all as lab rats, not caring about who lived or died.

“So, without the Block inmates, how do we build an army?”

“We need the Missing,” Igby replies. “The citizens of the city who disappeared in twos and threes over the last five years. We know they’re out there somewhere, but we don’t know where. Without them we don’t stand a chance. We lost the war before it even began; we’re nothing more than the last surviving soldiers. All we can do is keep on running away, keep on hiding, keep on surviving.”

“Until what?” I ask.

“Until we can’t anymore.”

“So, we find the Missing or we die?”

“Pretty much.”

“They must be hidden, like us,” I point out. “Camped out somewhere with a surveillance scrambler thingy too.”

“No, that’s the thing,” Igby replies, “the scrambler is easy to detect. Happy knows we’re scrambling the signal; it just doesn’t know where from. I’ve scanned the whole region for similar tech and only found ours. Wherever they are, they’re off the grid and invisible.”