Shayla. Janelle. Maryanne. Patrice. Deborah.

Their stories are all similar. Broken homes. Guardians turned abusers. Heavy drugs before they’re out of high school. The same barrage of spirit-breaking obstacles before adolescence that only a detached and suspiciously self-satisfied observer would consider easily overcome.

Charlotte says their names to herself, remembers the smiles in their old childhood photos. Then she unzips Richard Davies’s jeans, releasing a little swell of boxer shorts underneath. Just then, Davies’s grip on the back of her head tightens. But he doesn’t force her face into his crotch. It’s a different pressure. Like he’s steadying himself. Keeping his balance while his other hand . . .

Sensing what comes next, she forces herself to take a deep, slow breath through her nostrils.

Then she hears a quick, sharp sound like a tiny car whizzing past on a miniature highway. Her right calf explodes with pain. It’s some sort of tranquilizer dart. He’s fired it into her leg. She doesn’t feel bone music in response. Doesn’t feel anything like a trigger event caused by this sudden, fierce stinging impact.

She controlled it. She’s proud of herself. And even though she’s the one going limp, the last thought Charlotte has before darkness closes in around her like a shroud is, Got you, fucker.

10

“What was that?” the tomboyish tech whispers.

“Tranquilizer dart,” Cole hears himself say.

He knows the sound well. Remembers the insectile concert they made as they went whizzing one after the other into Project Bluebird’s first test subjects, whereupon they did absolutely nothing to stop those Zypraxon-filled trained killers from chewing on their own hands like they were fried chicken breasts.

He closes his eyes, forces himself to focus.

The TruGlass feed’s gone dark, indicating that Charley’s eyes are shut, but a human tail is crouched at each mouth of the alley. Their shoulder cams have night vision, but the microdrones don’t, so the overhead angles make Davies’s pickup look like a mood-lit art piece surrounded by a sea of oil. Parked in the shadows of the surrounding block is enough firepower to start a small siege—stationary green blips on the GPS map that’s also tracking Davies’s truck.

Baby-Faced Nerd Boy’s in charge of the camera feeds. He’s alternating between the two shoulder cams until Davies pops out of the driver’s side of the truck, holding a hog-tied Charlotte in his arms. Nerd Boy switches to the rear view because the truck’s closer to it.

Silently, they all watch Davies place Charley in the cargo bay, then snap its cover shut over her as though he’s transporting a bag full of newspapers he doesn’t want to blow away.

“Blood ox is still ninety-six,” the white, balding med tech says. “Pulse rate’s dropping.”

“I can see her vitals, thank you,” Cole says.

“Ground tail wants to know if they should respond,” the only female of the group says.

“To what?” Cole snaps. “We’ve got an abduction. And right on schedule.”

The med tech says, “Pulse rate’s still dropping, consistent with a sedative.”

“I can see her vitals. Thank you.”

“She’s not triggered.” It sounds like the med tech’s speaking through clenched teeth. At least he didn’t turn and shoot Cole an accusing look.

“I know. That’s how she wants it.”

“Seriously?” asks the baby-faced nerd.

So I’ve got the whole peanut gallery to answer to now, Cole thinks. Well, fine, maybe they’ll learn to listen to me, and not just Ed.

“Yes. That’s what the breathing was about. She doesn’t want to burn up her Zypraxon time pretending to be passed out in the trunk of his car. She wants to get to his kill site first.”

Davies’s truck starts forward, headed for the opposite end of the alleyway.

The microdrones lurch, then follow its path.

“All right, follow positions. Alert the team outside his farm. Once he leaves the city, the microdrones are useless because we won’t have enough light sources. Put your focus on the tracker inside his truck and our ground tails.” The female tech begins quietly relaying Cole’s instructions to everyone listening on the other end. “And remind the ground tails they can’t go up the mountain. The road’s too isolated. They’ll stick out.”

She mutters into her mic, then turns to face Cole for the first time. “They’d like me to remind you they’re skilled in evasive and surveillance driving and they’d—”

“I don’t care!”

She bows her head, clears her throat, and turns to face her computer again. For a few seconds, all he can hear in the room is their collective heavy breathing and a low mutter of radio traffic from the ground teams muffled by the techs’ headsets.

“Look,” Cole says, steadying himself. “I know this is not like anything you’ve ever done before. But we’ve got enough men and firepower to pull her out at a second’s notice if it goes wrong. So I need everyone to take a deep breath and stay objective. This is a field test, and nothing more. Got it? It’s a field test.”

“Got it,” the baby-faced nerd says.

But the woman and the med tech just nod.

They’re not calmed, Cole can tell. And that should be his job, shouldn’t it?