I decided to get his attention and set out to break into the explosives cabinet. I found a crowbar on one of the truck beds and went to work on the box. It was locked, but this was no safe, and I was strong enough to bend steel. I shoved the crowbar between the two doors and began to pry. The door didn’t budge, not even after the big yellow box started to shake.

Goldie took off from the tree line toward me. I reminded myself that I’d incapacitated these guys once before. I kept yanking the crowbar and gouging the steel, but the door still wasn’t opening. With my supersensitive eyes, I could see in the cabinet reflection that he was getting close, and when I judged him to be at the right distance, I took a home-run swing in his direction.

My judgment was off; my swing came too fast.

Leading with his shoulder, he slammed me into the cabinet. I pushed him off me and struck out with the crowbar, but he ducked it easily.

Man, he was fast.

He threw a punch, but I blocked it with my arm and swung the crowbar again, this time into his hip. He was ready for me and grabbed the bar with his hand.

“How do you do that?” I yelled.

“By the power of Ishango,” he said, straight-faced.

I put on a grin. “Like the power of Grayskull? He-Man?”

No response.

“Where’d the ring come from?” I asked as if chatting amiably as we circled each other. “Who’s the lucky bride? Alpha?”

He stopped, pulled a gun from his suit jacket, and pointed it at my head.

“Well, that’s not too sporting,” I said.

“I don’t want to shoot you. Come with me quietly. Ishango wants to meet with you.”

“So Ishango’s your old lady. I get it.”

“We have ways of making you obey.”

“No, it’s ‘Ve have vays of making you talk.’ If you’re going to sound like that, get the lingo right.”

“Drop the bar and come with me, Rho, and no one will get hurt.”

“Right. Except Deputy Ruby and Luke. You guys killed Luke! He’s a kid! Like me!” I couldn’t shake how someone who’d been such an asshole would turn out to do the noblest thing I’d ever seen. This couldn’t all be happening. High schoolers didn’t die. Neighbors didn’t get vaporized.

“That was unfortunate.” The neutrality in Goldie’s voice enraged me. I willed myself to take a deep breath and changed the subject.

“Why do you keep calling me Rho?”

Goldie relaxed his stance but kept the gun aimed at me. “Rho is the seventeenth letter of the Grecian alphabet. You are the seventeenth version of the specimen that Ishango has spent decades developing.”

“Let me guess: You’re Beta. And your real name is Max,” I goaded. “How many of you are there?”

“No, I’m not Beta Max,” he said in the tone of a bored teacher. “As a child, your understanding of time is so compressed. I am Iota.”