“LayerCake has no interest in killing a hundred thousand foot soldiers, Jon. In fact, I think you’d be surprised at how few of your military people have been selected. The system is interested less in people who fight wars than the people who court and promote them. Besides, you can’t save them. For all intents and purposes, they’re already dead.”

Smith didn’t respond.

“In the next fifty years, we’ll be able to use the Merge to become what we’ve always aspired to be, Jon. Can you imagine what humanity could accomplish if we didn’t spend so much of our time and energy looking for ways to destroy ourselves? Will my actions cause the deaths of millions of people? Yes. But how does that compare with the wars of the last century? The genocides? The countless massacres throughout history where the peaceful and defenseless were the first to die? How many innocent lives will my actions save? Humanity has a chance, Jon. A chance to survive. To thrive. Think about what role you want to play in that.”

The connection went dead and there was silence in the car for a few moments.

“Thoughts?” Klein said finally.

“Talk about a Faustian bargain,” Randi said.

“Yeah,” Smith said. “What he’s talking about doesn’t save American lives so much as it takes foreign ones. I’m more patriotic than most, but that’s a lot of blood on my hands.”

“Agreed,” Klein said over the phone. “We’re not bargaining with this man. There has to be a way to stop him. We’re just not coming up with it.”

Smith glanced over at Marty, who was staring blankly out the window tapping his foot in a monotonous rhythm.

“Marty?”

He didn’t answer.

“What about a virus, Marty? You write it and I’ll get it into any network you want. You can crash the whole world.”

Again he didn’t answer.

“It won’t crash,” Zellerbach said. “It’s won’t, it won’t, it won’t.”

Smith had seen him like this before. His mind was going a thousand miles an hour in a hundred different directions. His brilliance was unchained, but also spinning out of control. They were going to have to stop at a pharmacy.

“It’s not about the networks,” Zellerbach continued. “It’s not.”

Randi leaned up through the seats. “Then what is it about? How can we stop him from triggering it?”

“We can’t.”

“That’s not acceptable,” Klein said.

“LayerCake,” Zellerbach said. “It’s not about the networks. Or the grid. Or the Merge. It’s about search. It’s about Javier.”

“Who’s Javier?”

Zellerbach didn’t answer, mumbling to himself and beginning to count something on his fingers.