Sewage seeped up around Dalton’s leather shoes. Tom reveled in the shock on his face.

“Tom!” He hammered on the portcullis. “Get us help right now!”

Tom shook his head, eyes on Dalton’s. He leaped down to the bottom of the stairs, his shoes squishing through the sewage bubbling across the floor.

“I might open it, Dalton.” Tom leaned in close to the portcullis, staying carefully out of arm’s reach. “You know, if you get on your knees and beg me.”

“OPEN IT NOW, TOM!”

Tom shook his head, knowing he was grinning like a madman. Dalton’s helpless outrage was so wonderful he couldn’t stop himself. “No, Dalton. Get on your knees and beg me. Beg me to let you go. Otherwise you can stay there in the sewage all night. And your boss along with you.” He made a show of scratching his head. “Gosh, what’s he going to think of tonight? First Karl’s digestive problems, and now this … Everything we do reflects on you, right?”

Dalton gaped at him, like he couldn’t get his head around to his obedient little Tom turning on him.

“Your choice, Dalton. Now, even if you don’t beg me, the sewage will stop backing up in about half an hour, so you won’t drown. You’ll have to endure the stench until someone out there realizes you guys need rescuing. And hey”—Tom winked at Dalton the way Dalton had earlier, like they shared an inside joke—“at least you’ve got an open bar.”

“Don’t you dare leave us!”

“Wrong thing to say.” Tom swiveled around and sauntered toward the stairs.

“Wait, wait! Tom, please.” A note of hysteria climbed into Dalton’s voice.

Tom swung a careless glance over his shoulder but didn’t come back. “You’re not on your knees, Dalton. I’m not negotiating that condition. I figure after a month of groveling to you, the least you can do is get on your knees for me.”

“This is a twenty-thousand-dollar suit.”

“That’s not my problem.”

Dalton stared at him, the music blaring from behind him, the stench of sewage thick on the air. Then he lowered himself to his knees in the muck. “Please open it.” His face was set with hard, furious lines, his voice a whip of anger and hurt pride. “Please let us out, Tom.”

Tom gazed at Dalton and thought of the smoke and the camera and how very close he’d come to being destroyed. “No.” He headed up the stairs.

The screams followed him: “I’LL KILL YOU FOR THIS, RAINES! YOU’RE DEAD, KID, DO YOU HEAR ME? I’LL KILL YOU! YOU’RE DEAD! I’LL MAKE YOU SORRY YOU WERE BORN, I’LL—”

But Tom just headed up the stairs as Dalton’s voice grew distant. When he hit the street, he made sure to lock the door behind him, and twisted the sign around to show BEWARE OF DOG so no one else would walk into the club and find the trapped Dominion execs.

Tom drove his hands into his pockets, kicked off the soiled leather shoes, and strolled down the Washington, DC street toward the distant dome of the Capitol. It was the time of year when the cherry blossom trees lining the concrete were blazing in full bloom. When Tom came across a fountain and dipped his head in, pink petals swirled into the gurgling water washing away his hair gel. He saw a vendor at a stand selling Washington, DC memorabilia to tourists. He traded the guy his eleven-thousand-dollar suit for a large “Made in the USA” shirt, American flag jogging pants, and the vendor’s own pair of sneakers.

And then Tom hit the subway, leaving Dominion Agra and the Beringer Club far behind him.

DESPITE TOM’S ACCOUNT of what happened, and Karl’s supermurderous glare when he returned to the Spire the next morning, his friends were on alert for any reemergence of Zombie Tom. But Zombie Tom wasn’t the problem. Each day, old Tom grew more and more miserable like there was some storm cloud he couldn’t escape. He tried acting normal by laughing and joking around and throwing himself into sims. But it didn’t change the way he felt.

In Applied Simulations one day, he didn’t charge across the fields with the rest of the Roman legion to battle Queen Boudicca. Wyatt searched him out and found him slumped against a tree, sandals buried in the mud. “You’re not New Tom again, are you?”

“No.”

Wyatt shifted back and forth. “But people are fighting, and you’re here. You love fighting.”

“I’m thinking, okay? Am I not allowed to think?”

“You don’t generally do that.” She settled next to him, taking care to avoid the mud.

Tom watched her dully. She hadn’t been herself lately, either, and he was pretty sure it was because of what had gone down with Blackburn. He’d heard enough of their conversation in that office to get it: they’d had some sort of rapport. And then he’d gone and demolished it.

He rubbed at his forehead. “Did I ever say sorry? About making Blackburn think that—”

“I told you, that wasn’t you.” She wrapped her arms around her knees. “I still don’t even know what Roanoke means. You know, other than the obvious thing: that colony in early America.”

“Vengerov knew,” Tom muttered. “I heard him. He knew just what buttons to push. He put it there.” He shook off the thought. “Look, Wyatt, I’m going to tell him what really happened—”

“No! Don’t mention that again, okay? I’m sure Lieutenant Blackburn will start talking to me again one day, if you just let it drop. He has to, doesn’t he?”

Tom couldn’t answer that for her. So he raised his hands. “Fine. It’s all you.”

“Is that what’s been bothering you, then?”

“Nothing’s bothering me.”

“Something is. That’s why I’m here. It’s so we can talk about your feelings.”

Tom gave an incredulous laugh. “Talk about my feelings?”

She shifted her weight, practically squirming with how uncomfortable she was. “Elliot told me about using more emotional sensitivity. It sounds pretty straightforward. If you want to try it, you can use ‘I feel’ statements and I’ll listen in a calm and nonjudgmental manner.”

Tom snorted.

“He also said I could lead this discussion by saying empathetic things such as: ‘I feel like you are sad, Tom.’” She nodded. “Are you sad, Tom?”

“No,” Tom snarled, suddenly furious. “I’m not sad. I’m angry, okay? You want an ‘I feel’ statement? I feel like killing someone. I keep thinking of how completely snowballed I was by that whole thing, and I feel like I should have burned that club down with Dalton Prestwick inside it, okay? I didn’t even get that anything was wrong! I went for weeks on end gelling my hair and sucking up to Karl and I didn’t even know that anything was different!”

“The program had a rootkit. It was designed to hide itself from you.”

“That’s not the point, okay? I should’ve realized something was up because I just started trusting Dalton. Dalton Prestwick of all people! I hate this guy, okay? He treats my mom like garbage. He’s the reason I don’t have a family! And suddenly, what, I get one program in my brain and I think he’s the greatest guy in the world? I mean, I seriously thought he was doing everything for my own good! I thought that, and I didn’t even wonder about it!”