Ever since CamCo’s identities had leaked, they’d become famous. Tom saw strange rumors about them all over the internet, too. “Britt Schmeiser’s Weekend of Debauchery”; “Alec Tarsus’s Dark Past”; even headlines about the old favorite: “Elliot Ramirez’s Forbidden Love.”

Now Tom watched the screen hazily, seeing the handsome face of Elliot Ramirez, the Pentagonal Spire’s longtime public CamCo. The dark-haired boy sat easily in the center of the massed CamCos, graciously assuring the reporters that he was pleased to share the spotlight. Snowden Gainey was preening in the chair next to his, and Cadence Grey kept darting nervous glances toward the camera. Everyone was there but . . . Someone was missing.

Huh. Heather Akron.

That gave Tom a dull sense of surprise, because he’d seen a lot of the gorgeous brunette from Machiavelli Division the first few days of vacation. Now that he thought about it, though, she’d virtually disappeared from the public radar the last few days. It struck him as strange. Photogenic and charming as she was, Tom expected her to be one of the foremost CamCos trotted out and shown off to the public.

“Look at those kids.” Neil glared at the TV over his drink. “They look like a bunch of plastic puppets. Ever notice how they don’t blink so much? Eh, Tom, ever notice that?”

Tom managed, “No, never noticed it.” He’d asked his friend Wyatt Enslow to write up a program for his neural processor to randomize his blink rate. He was pretty sure that was one reason Neil hadn’t noticed anything too off about his face—Tom had made an efffort to act as normal as possible. Between that and the hair he kept swept down over his neural access port, he’d been careful so far.

Now the focus of the press segment shifted to the CEOs of corporations sponsoring the CamCos. The show flipped to an interview with Reuben Lloyd, CEO of Wyndham Harks. The weedy little man with an unfortunate resemblance to a rat smiled toothily and spoke into a microphone.

“Just look at Reuben Lloyd here, playing up the PR so Wyndham Harks can angle for its next taxpayer bailout.” He sighed, his voice growing strangely flat. “You know, Tommy, you’re the only reason I’ve got any stake in this dump. Otherwise, I’d be glad to watch this whole world burn. I’d rather burn it than let them take it all from us.”

Tom sensed danger in the air: Neil working himself up into a rage after the indignity of being robbed. He tried to think of something to say to distract him, but the screen filled with a glowing image of Joseph Vengerov, CEO of Obsidian Corp.

Tom’s muscles froze.

The news report was fawning, because Vengerov had been named CEO of the Year by the Institutional Investor for the fifth time. All Tom could think of was the census device. Those three syllables that had nearly doomed him rolled through his mind, Ven-grr-ahv. . . . As soon as Lieutenant Blackburn realized Tom knew him, terrible things ensued. Tom almost lost his mind, his place at the Spire, everything. . . .

He was still shaken by the reminder several minutes later, after a hasty shower. He swiped the fog from the bathroom mirror, water still dripping from his thin face, matting his blond hair to his skull. The strange little flashes of numbers across his vision center were mostly gone now, so Tom figured there was no real need to do anything about it, even though technically, very technically, he was supposed to contact Lieutenant Blackburn if he had any problems with his neural processor over vacation.

Blackburn had even given all the trainees a remote-access node to hook into the port on the back of their necks. It was there to connect their processors with the Spire’s server so Blackburn could examine their hardware from across the country.

Tom fished the remote-access node out of his backpack and weighed it in his hand, considering it, then disregarding the thought. He was about to flick it away again when he noticed the marks on his torso, the bruises over his ribs where he’d gotten tased. Something dark boiled up inside him, his mind flashing over the face of the banker’s pet cop. He’d probably handed the money back to the bald banker, who was probably counting it up somewhere.

Tom’s fist contracted around the remote-access node.

Maybe he had a use for it, after all.

ALL THE MAJOR government servers were linked, so as soon as Tom jolted out of himself into the stream of data leading to the Pentagonal Spire’s server in Arlington, Virginia, it didn’t take long to find his way into the server of the Department of Homeland Security.

For a disconcerting moment, he felt strange, detached, a free-floating signal in a void. He was never entirely sure what he was doing when he interfaced like this. It seemed to come so much more naturally to the only other person he knew who could enter machines like this, the Russo-Chinese Combatant and his sort-of ex-girlfriend, Medusa. But today, Tom focused on his anger at the cop, and it sharpened his wits. He delved into the vast chain of zeros and ones, searching for the pipelines between the DHS and the domestic police drones flying over the United States.

When he located those, his neural processor sorted through an array of rapid-fire coordinates, and he latched on to the armed drone nearest to him.

A quick scroll through the database of registered gun owners in the area brought a familiar image to mind: Sergeant Erik Sherwin, the cop who’d robbed them. All registered gun owners had tracking chips in their skin, so he zeroed right in on Sergeant Sherwin’s frequency.

Thousands of feet above Sherwin, in the darkened skies between Las Vegas and the overhead skyboards, the drone’s mechanized gaze captured images of the cop just outside the casino, tailing the banker like an obedient puppy. Tom’s vision center registered the images like he was seeing through mechanized eyes of his own.

His plans changed.

Tom felt an evil little thrill, because he’d intended to wreak some havoc on the cop, but now that he thought about it, he really should ignore the hired thug and focus on the mastermind: the bald banker the DHS’s biometric database identified as Hank Bloombury, who worked for a subsidiary of the Matchett-Reddy Corporation.

Tom homed in on Hank and stalked him from the casino to his private car, the drone far overhead cutting a lethal path through the sky. Hank’s car began to pull out of the strip, but Tom was in control of a police drone—which could link remotely into vehicle auto navigation systems and tamper with them at will. Tom enjoyed messing with Hank’s autonav, steering the car back around and directing it toward the hotel he and Neil were staying in.

Hank must’ve finally realized what was happening, because he engaged the emergency shutoff. The car jerked to a halt; and the bald man popped out from inside it, rubbing at the back of his neck, obviously trying to figure out where he was.

Then Tom pulled off his next trick: he plunged the drone through the night sky, and settled it mere meters before the stunned Hank Bloombury. Tom leveled its Tasers straight at the guy’s bald head, and enjoyed the sight of the banker standing frozen in place, his mouth hanging open.

Thanks for sending that cop, Tom thought, and sent a talon of the drone’s Taser lashing out, shocking Hank just enough to knock him to the ground. Hank scrambled back to his feet, but when he tried to dive back into the car, Tom sent another flare of electricity that way to block him. Hank tried to run in the other direction, but Tom steered the police drone after him, a relentless pursuer, and zinged him again. Then again.