“Get in there.” Len pointed urgently at a tube halfway down the row. “It’s an exit, Ambrose—trust me.”

Ambrose hesitated. Trust had gotten him trapped here, in the room where it had all started, at the mercy of the man who created him.

“Version 3.0, whatever it is—throw yourself into the gears. Don’t let him upgrade.” Len finally managed to slap his disruptor into place. Then he gave a low, sweeping hand signal to the men hiding alongside him. Each man gave a quick nod in return.

“Go now!” Len commanded as he and his men flipped their palms. An externalized UV shield appeared as a floor-to-ceiling wall of white light. Ambrose squinted at the barely tolerable brightness. The other side, he knew, was as blinding as an unblocked sun.

The static crackle of disruptor fire bounced around the lab. The Red Squirrel Tea Associate next to him screamed, his body jerking and convulsing in midair, suspended by the pulse that enveloped him. His arms bent back at an impossible angle before the pulse threw him to the floor.

The UV shield was distracting but as penetrable as smoke.

With a rough parting shove from Len, Ambrose moved toward the exit tube in an awkward crouch. The Red Squirrel team returned fire, their disruptors filling the room with fully automatic thwunk-thwunk-thwunk sounds.

His father’s voice was audible above the cacophony. “Leave the younger one alive.” And at the same time, it whispered into his ear, “You won’t be harmed, Ambrose. You’re part of me. Part of Unison.”

When Ambrose reached the exit tube, he glanced back at Len, who was firing madly through the externalized shield, oblivious to the return pulses blazing past his head.

Ambrose knelt and raised the lid of the tube. A UniCorp Associate barreled through the wall of light—a momentary silhouette—and leapt at the Red Squirrel man next to Ambrose. They collapsed in a heap. A long knife flashed.

Ambrose scrambled up into the tube, keeping the lid between himself and the UniCorp barrage. As he pulled it shut, he saw Len’s shoulder catch a green pulse that spun him around. An orange burst struck his neck and tightened like a glowing noose. Len clutched at his throat and sank to his knees.

As time seemed to slow once again, Ambrose thought of the marble he’d tossed off the edge of the Gen-Farm to impress his brother so many years ago. He saw it now, spinning for an endless millisecond in the empty air between atmoscrapers, before it fell straight and fast through the clouds and out of sight.

He’d give anything to go back to that day, to run laughing after Len as they raced across the field past cloned cattle and synthetic goats.

As the lid shut, the noise of the battle receded. Beneath him, the metal tube sloped downward and formed a small tunnel. His brother was right: this was the only way out.

As always, Len was one step ahead.

11

TOPSIDE EDUCATION