“You told me before,” Alex went on, still puzzling over the message. “About your father, I mean. You told me once: People were getting hurt, killed . . . I guess I didn’t really take it in properly at the time. I was still caught up thinking he was my dad. Maybe that’s why I didn’t get it. I still wondered why you first went against him. What made you leave him. You know: why not try to live forever, if you can? But I know now. If people get in their way, your father and sister, they just kill them. Like the museum guard in the video you showed me. Like Harry.”

“Well, yes.” The old man stared grimly ahead. “That kind of thing has happened more than once. But, Alex, that’s not why I first went away from them. That’s not the only reason people . . . were dying.”

They reached the foot of the mountain and turned onto a country road that was all blue shadow.

“You see,” Alex’s grandfather continued, “the reason I left was, I discovered—”

A heavy thump on the roof sent a shudder through the car. They turned to each other. The ceiling over Alex bugled, buckled, then split open as a huge gloved fist smashed through. He ducked just in time to avoid it. A second fist ripped through, closer to the old man.

“Hold on!” Alex’s grandfather started spinning the wheel frantically, slamming the car from side to side, trying to shake off their unwanted passenger, then stomped on the brakes, stopping them with a force that sent Alex’s seat belt biting into his chest.

It was no use. The enormous hands had taken a tight grip through the ragged holes in the roof. Now, with a sickening wrench, they started ripping the roof away.

The old man threw the car forward. Alex stared up. He saw a life-sizer, peeling the car open like a sardine can. But his attention was grabbed more forcefully by what was in the air behind it.

Zia.

“Peekaboo,” she called.

She flew along just above them in a cruciform pose, fifteen or so fliers lined up along her outstretched arms, holding her aloft with hooks through her black coat. Her pale face glowed like a second little moon racing through the sky, black hair streaming across it like thin clouds in a storm.

She blinked, her thrumming machines shifted, and she darted close, tossing a powder over Alex’s grandfather. The car swerved sickeningly as he tried to clear his eyes.

“Get,” she said, nodding at the huge robot.

The big machine reached down, and, as Alex tried to squirm away, snapped his seat belt, then started hauling him up, ignoring the punches he rained on its iron arm.