“Get to Leo!” Maddox shouted before twisting around to fire at something down on the other side of the dome, and I moved, taking a few steps backward and then spinning around to follow Maddox’s instructions. She was undoubtedly firing at one of the other two sentinels in the room, but the third remained unaccounted for.

A sentinel rounded the corner just as I was spinning a lash bead in my hand, as if an echo of my fears and nightmares manifesting into reality, but Tony kept me from panicking, throwing my line for me and hitting the ceiling overhead. We ran straight for the sentinel, but at the last minute, retracted the line and flew upward, using the momentum to start running along the side of the dome. I took three steps at an angle heading up, aware that the sentinel was reaching to grab me from the movement in the corner of my eye, and then pushed off the dome, flipping myself backward. I disconnected the line as I somersaulted through the air, and landed heavily on my boots, dropping to one knee. My gun hand was already thrusting out, my aim for the shape of the black box seated between the sentinel’s shoulders, but the machine twisted, one arm whipping toward me. I squeezed the trigger just as it slammed into my forearm, and the shot sparked off one of the machines.

The pain in my arm was explosive, but I still had a grip on my gun, so the arm couldn’t be broken. I threw myself back as the sentinel’s other hand came around to grab me, barely avoiding the grasping metal fingers, and brought my gun back up, aiming for an eye. It ducked back, one hand going up to shield the orbs from the bullet, and I cursed. Alice had learned my little trick.

Still, her flinch gave me a moment to carve out a few more feet between us, and at that moment, a blur of movement leapt from a gap in the machine, attaching himself to the sentinel’s back. It was Eric—and he was giving me a chance. He had a baton in his hand, already charged, and I knew he was trying to buy me time to get to Leo. I spun around, intent on shouting the New Day protocol at Leo and shooting Sage at the same time.

He was still behind Grey, but he wasn’t crouching anymore, and I quickly came to a stop when I saw the flat, matte-black nose of the pistol pressed against Grey’s vulnerable throat—below where the net sat in the back of his skull, ensuring Leo would survive. One gnarled finger curled around the trigger. I stared at it for a second, and then up at Sage, my hand tightening on my gun.

“Do it,” Grey said hoarsely, his brown eyes finding mine. “Shoot him. Don’t worry about me.”

I pressed my lips together against the wave of emotion his statement generated in me, and started to lift the gun up, intent on following his orders. I knew I was risking his life, but he knew what was at stake and what he was asking. Hell, he’d been taunting Sage to try to get him to lose control and kill them both, to prevent Sage from getting the codes. I couldn’t let that be in vain.

Sage’s eyes widened as I brought the gun up to sight on him, and then he rolled his eyes and shook his head, looking utterly irritated with my reaction. I grated my teeth together at the man’s arrogance right up to the end and started to squeeze the trigger.

A flash of movement from my right was the only warning I had that I had been flanked. Pain erupted from my wrists as a metal bar was brought down on them, and my hands suddenly went numb, the gun slipping from nerveless fingers. I looked up to see Sadie’s slim figure emerge from a gap between the machines, her green eyes blazing with malice as she drew back for another strike with the pipe.

I got my arms over my head, but part of the bar hit my forehead, and I stumbled back, the blow to my skull enough to break through the drug cocktail Quess had fed me earlier to keep the concussion at bay. Immediately my balance faltered, the sickly sensation in my stomach telling me that gravity was shifting to the left, and I slammed against the dome before going down.

My vision went dark and pain exploded into my skull, threatening to render me unconscious, but I fought against it. I felt Tony helping me, but it wasn’t easy. I became aware of reality in patches, and in an oddly disconnected way, like I was blinking at a picture without really seeing it. The sentinel was dragging me across the floor by my foot; Maddox was firing at the other one as it climbed up the side of the dome to get her. Then flashing back to my sentinel as my head lolled to one side, only to see Eric tucked neatly under its arm. His face was red, and he was looking at me—shouting at me—but I couldn’t hear him, and within seconds, the blackness had swallowed me again.

I wasn’t sure when we stopped moving, but I grew aware again when something grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled, and the feeling was like shards of glass being jammed into my brain. Something cold splashed in my face just as soon as the pain became too much, and I felt water invading my mouth and nostrils, threatening to drown me. It shocked me out of the darkness, and I began to cough it out, already catching some in my windpipe.

“That’s it,” Sage said from overhead, and I slid open my eyes enough to see the floor and a pair of white boots in my field of vision. “Wake up.”

I groaned, the searing pain in my skull only increasing as my head was pulled back to face his. I winced at the bright light surrounding his face, making him a dark and ominous silhouette, and then groaned when it sank in that he had caught me. I rolled my eyes around as far as I could to the right and left, and saw that it was Sadie gripping my hair, and that Eric and Maddox were being restrained by sentinels, metal hands covering their mouths to silence them. The effort cost me, and my vision grew more and more blurred, until it was doubling while the world started to spin the wrong way, sliding to the left and away. Black spots blossomed and danced across my vision, telling me I was about to black out again, and I almost gave in to it, not wanting to see my friends butchered before my eyes.

A soft slap on the side of my cheek snapped my eyes back to Sage, and I inhaled a shuddering breath, trying to think of something pithy to say to him before he killed us.

“Stay with me, Liana. Here, let me give you something for that pain.” There was a sharp sting at my neck, and seconds later the intense throbbing faded some. I could see straight without feeling like I was going to puke, and my thoughts felt more ordered and cohesive. “That’s better,” Sage said with a sigh, straightening up. “I am so very glad to see you! Tell me, do you know where Tony is? I’m betting you do. I think you had something to do with getting him out of that server in Cogstown. Where is he, Liana?”

I stared at him, having zero intention of telling him anything. “In the words of Grey,” I wheezed, smiling against the lingering pain in my head. “Go to hell.” Then I spat at him for good measure, tearing several chunks of my hair against Sadie’s grip in the process. She jerked me back, but a glob of my bloody spit had already struck his pristine uniform.

Sage made a face of disgust and turned to grab something from behind him. “Really, Liana,” he said in a patronizing tone. “I’m sorry you lost, but do you have to be so immature about it?”

I curled my hands up into fists but froze when I felt something cold pressing into the back of my neck. I recognized it immediately as a gun and wanted to gnash my teeth in frustration. This was it. We were done. Sage was only keeping me around to get Tony, and after that…

I’d messed up. Missed my chance. If I had just waited a fraction of a second longer to get a better shot at him, I would’ve at least killed the bastard.

It was becoming the story of my life, really. I made plans, and the bad guys always came out on top. My litany of mistakes was longer than my arm and had cost me so much.

“Go to hell,” I wheezed. I was defeated, but I’d be damned if I gave him anything at this point. Call me a spiteful girl, but that bastard could rot in hell. Inside, I thought, Tony, can you send your program somewhere to keep out of his hands?

It doesn’t really work like that, he replied.

I wasn’t happy with the answer, because that meant I had to resort to plan two. Then can you delete yourself? I knew I was basically asking the program to commit suicide, but I couldn’t let him fall into Sage’s hands.

There was a pause. From your net? I… I don’t know. I’ve never tried. But look, he’s not going to kill you yet. He needs you. He knows you’re Leo’s weakness. There’s an opportunity here if you can just wait for it.

I shook my head against the thought. Sage had given me something for the pain, and it was making me sluggish and heavy. It wasn’t full sedation, but it was definitely slowing my reflexes down. I appreciated Tony’s advice, but I had to be practical. I couldn’t fight Sage like this. I promise I will, but… we can’t let you fall into his hands. Can you try?

“You’re talking to him right now, aren’t you?” Sage asked, and I blinked my eyes up at him to see that he had squatted down in front of me and was studying my face. “He’s in your net! Of course! It’s clever, and also great for me. Sadie?”

Sadie shoved me forward, and I wasn’t prepared for the action. I tried to get my arms under me, to break my fall, but I was only able to get one up before I slammed into the floor. The angle of my arm caused the impact to translate into that shoulder in a loud, crunching noise that I both heard and felt, and I gasped at the pain, rolling over to my side and grabbing at it. The thing felt damn near dislocated.

I held it for several seconds, breathing through the pain, only to have it erupt anew as something pressed down on it. I opened my eyes to see Sadie standing over me, her hand cupping her arm where I had apparently shot her, her foot planted on my shoulder, and a sudden surge of anger had me lashing out with my own foot, trying to catch her leg with my own.

I was moving too slowly, though, and she sidestepped lazily, her foot only leaving my shoulder long enough to avoid the blow before coming back down again, pushing me onto my stomach. I cried out, and rolled to try to escape the pain, doing exactly what she wanted. Moments later, the collar of my uniform was jerked down, and something was pressed against the back of my neck.

My net! They were going to take it! If Sage did that, he’d have Tony. Not to mention, if I did manage to enact the New Day protocol, no net meant no neural clone of me. Not that I had any idea whether my clone would be able to do anything to stop Sage once his own psyche was made into an AI, but I had to hope that it could, if only to eliminate him from the candidate pool.

Of course, I had to enact the protocol first. I just wished I could remember the final four numbers. Was it 6323? 2336? I was only going to have one chance at this, and I couldn’t get it wrong.

Tony? I thought as I tried to move away, hoping the AI would give me the right numbers, but Sadie buried one knee on my spine, pinning me in place. I winced, expecting the sting of pain as she cut my neck open to extract the net, but after a few moments, her weight was suddenly gone, with no incision made. Tony? I thought, slowly bringing myself to my knees. What was that?

I waited for a moment, and then frowned. Tony hadn’t answered. Why hadn’t Tony answered? I searched my thoughts and emotions for any trace of him, but was only met with silence, and knew then that Sadie had done something to take him.

“Where is he?” I demanded, straightening up and settling my weight back on my heels.

“Wirelessly downloaded,” Sage said, his side to me and eyes on where Sadie was walking toward one of the inactive machines. “Lionel’s so-called less traumatic way of downloading and uploading the AIs to the nets and other terminals. Now that that’s being handled, Leo… your girlfriend brought us some new leverage! Isn’t that exciting?”

Sage stepped farther to the side, letting me see Grey. My breath sucked in sharply as I regarded the damage to his face. The sides were mottled and bruised, and his lips were split and bleeding. One eye was turning black, and the other one was red from where a blood vessel had ruptured. His stomach was a mess of blood, and more had pooled around his feet.

“I’m not telling you anything,” Grey said. His voice was weak, but the defiance was there. “Not a damned thing.”

“You sure?” Sage asked, smiling like the madman he was. Grey narrowed his eyes and pressed his lips closed, his nostrils flaring as he met Sage’s gaze headlong. I felt a savage rush of pride, at least knowing that, no matter what Sage did to us, Leo wouldn’t tell him anything, but then swallowed it back, knowing Sage would eventually lose his patience, kill us all, and implant Leo in a new human. Leo would eventually break, all without him knowing about the New Day protocol or having a chance to enact it.

And Sage would win. Kurt would become the new AI, and Sage’s legacy would be complete.

“That’s too bad,” Sage said with an indifferent little shrug. “Alice?”

There was a wet snap to my right, and I looked over to see Alice releasing Eric’s head, his neck now bent at an angle that shouldn’t have been possible. His eyes were wide, open, and… vacant. The light from them had been extinguished by Alice as soon as she had broken his neck. I gaped, horrified at the casual brutality of the action, and the pain of losing yet another friend so soon after all the others slammed into me, breaking me. I fell back to my hands, trying to fight the urge to sob, the urge to vomit, the urge to scream, and struggled just to breathe without losing my crap.

A scream tore out of someone’s throat, but it wasn’t from mine. It was from Maddox. I looked over to see her boots scrambling on the floor, trying to fight the hold of the sentinel grabbing her. “You son of a bitch!” she screamed. “You dirty coward! Hiding behind your machines and your broken AI fragments and playing God! We’ll never give you anything you want, you hear me? Leo, New Day protocol alpha-phi-alpha-6—”

A gunshot cut her off, and her boots jerked. I looked away, unable to see another friend die, but a second later, she was thrown to the floor next to me, her body landing with a boneless thud. I winced, a shudder tearing through me as another friend lay dead beside me, all the fire of her green eyes suddenly extinguished.

But I held on to the first number she had said, trying to focus on it and remember what the code was. 6323? 6332? 6233! That was it!

“Stop it!” Grey cried, and I heard the desperation in his voice, and knew he was about to break.

I couldn’t let that happen—not even for me.

“Grey…” I breathed, intent on finishing Maddox’s order. But a cold metal hand wrapped around my throat, cutting me off with a vicious squeeze, and seconds later I was hauled into the air, my feet dangling helplessly below me, the life being choked out of me by the sentinel.