No one in the entire cafeteria even looked our direction.

“What is wrong with them?” I asked.

“They are waiting to serve Ishango,” Kappa said, a bizarrely orange bruise beginning to form on his cheekbone.

“Where is my father?” Jordan demanded.

“He is at his post,” Mu said.

Jordan scanned the room one more time, then nodded.

We turned to go. Kappa clutched my arm, hard, and led me away from the cafeteria.

“Let go of me.” I tried shaking him off, but his hand gripped even tighter. “Ouch.”

Jordan snatched the gun from Kappa’s holster, fired into his stomach, and then held the muzzle against Mu’s temple.

“Jordan!” I yelled as Kappa slumped to the floor.

“All right, you son of a bitch,” Jordan said to Mu, who had taken in the whole scene without a reaction. “We’re going to go see Ishango, and you’re not going to give us any more crap or introduce us to another psycho robot in a suit.”

“That was the plan all along, Jordan,” Mu responded reasonably.

“Give me your gun.”

Without even a shrug, Mu raised his palm with the gun resting on it. Jordan gestured for me to take it while keeping his own gun aimed at the thug’s head.

A Beretta. I’d lived in a small farming town long enough to know how to use a gun, even if I wasn’t a great shot. I checked it to make sure a round was chambered, and I checked the magazine—it was close to full. Hollow points.

I didn’t want to shoot anyone, but as I stared down at Kappa, I thought: Fuck it. I knew what had to be done. I fired two rounds into his head and turned away as a pool of orange-tinted blood spread beneath him.

“Hard-core, man,” Jordan said with a whistle.

I felt myself begin to shake.

“Okay,” Jordan said to Mu. “Take us to Ishango.”

“That’s what I was doing,” Mu muttered.

CHAPTER 47

Jordan

WE DESCENDED ONE staircase, then another, then another—each one narrower, darker, and more hemmed in by cinder block than the last—as we approached Ishango’s lair. It was fitting that we’d have to go as low as we could go in the plant to reach her.

Mu led us into a pitch-black industrial hallway, and I felt a cool breeze against my face, a surprising sensation, given how deep underground we were. Maggie placed a hand on my shoulder blade to remain oriented given that she, unlike us, couldn’t see in the dark.

“Ah-ah—I have been—ah—expecting you,” came a familiar wheezy voice in front of us.

“Hey, fella,” I said cheerfully to Alpha. “We just made tomato-sauce art out of one of your agents’ heads. Was there carrot juice in there, too? Weird color. Maybe we should spill some of your blood again to compare.”

“We know.” Alpha sighed. “Ishango knows everything that happens in—ah—her home.”

“Turn on the lights,” Maggie said, her gun still pointed toward Mu. I thought about telling her to shoot him right there. If they didn’t care whether they lived or died, I wasn’t sure why we should. But I didn’t see any advantage in shedding more carrot-tomato juice at this juncture.