Tom’s heart careened against his rib cage as he wondered whether it was working yet, whether the floors were out or not. But the next Praetorian swung into the hallway with them, and their Praetorian shrank automatically into a battle stance before Wyatt could stop it, minimizing itself as a target, jarring all of them, sending them hurtling off.

Vik shrieked, Wyatt yelped, and Tom squeezed his eyes shut as his back hit the floor. They barely noticed their Praetorian destroying the other

For a moment, they all lay there, locked in place, waiting.

Program worked, Wyatt thought.

Tom muffled his automatic laughter.

Quiet! I don’t know if I knocked out surveillance! Wyatt thought. Air shimmered as she moved back over to the access port and hooked into it again. And then a split second later, “Okay, surveillance is out, after all.”

Tom and Vik lay there, heaving for breath.

“More are coming,” Vik said.

“Probably hundreds,” Wyatt agreed.

“Run to the Interstice?” Tom suggested.

“Sprint!” Vik gasped.

They all scrambled to their feet and dashed back the way they’d come, running so fast, they almost tripped over themselves. Their Praetorian rolled alongside them.

Another Praetorian swerved around the corner, and they dove as their Praetorian lashed out with its laser, but the other Praetorian shrank in time to dodge, and its answering laser flared out, slicing off the weaponry of their protector. For a moment, Tom, Vik, and Wyatt stood there, paralyzed, realizing they were defenseless—but their Praetorian whipped forward, an electrical surge building in its base.

“That’s going to travel across the floor, come on!” Tom shouted, and they swerved into the nearest doorway, slamming the door behind them. They found themselves heaving for breath, trapped inside an icy cold warehouse.

Tom needed more air. He tore down the hood of the optical camouflaging, and so did Wyatt and Vik. For a moment it was like they were three detached heads floating around, and Tom frantically spun in circles, searching for a way out, for something they could grab or do in here to escape. . . .

Nothing. Nothing. Not even a neural access port. There were only two doors. One led to a hallway rapidly filling with Praetorians, and the other led outside.

Outside. Tom shuddered.

“I don’t have any ideas,” he confessed. “Do you guys?”

“This was a bad plan. This was a bad, bad plan,” Wyatt whispered. “How did Obsidian Corp. find out we were here? We were so careful! She tangled her fingers in her hair. I must’ve missed something.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine. He noticed I was in the system,” Tom murmured.

“But I hid your IP! You shouldn’t have been detectable!”

No, he shouldn’t have been. And then a terrible suspicion swept over him.

He was looking for me.

Vengerov had called him “the ghost in the machine.” Tom remembered that term. Blackburn had said it first. His mind filled with the image of Yuri that day on the stairwell, following them down. The dots connected in his brain, making sense of it all.

Vengerov had been listening that day. He’d heard Blackburn, and he learned someone else like Tom and Medusa existed. Then he learned that the ghost was a friend of Tom’s. It couldn’t have been difficult from there, extrapolating the likeliest suspect. Tom had a notoriously extraordinary friend. Medusa.

That’s why Vengerov approached Tom about giving Medusa a virus. And Tom stupidly went to Medusa and told her LM Lymer Fleet had only been surveilling her because she was winning too much—he’d been passing along Vengerov’s lie. That wasn’t the reason Vengerov was watching her. Tom was the reason she wasn’t on guard anymore. Vengerov was hunting that ghost and he believed it was Medusa. Tom may have doomed her. He’d doomed them all.

Vik paced in a frantic circle. “There’s going to be more of those Praetorians soon,” he said, eyes on the door to the hallway. “We have to get out of here. We can’t stay! They’ll bust through that door any minute!”

“There’s nowhere to go, Vik.” Wyatt hugged herself, visibly shaking. “We’re never getting through those machines. That’s the only path. The only other way is outside.”

Outside. Tom had done that already, and it hadn’t been winter then. It would be colder. Outside was death. He knew that in his bones.

Suddenly a voice boomed out, filling the air around them. Tom shivered as he recognized the upper-crust British accent with a hint of Russian. “To the invader or invaders in my complex, salutations!”

Vik and Wyatt grew rigid. Tom held his breath. Vengerov sounded like he was enjoying himself.

“I apologize for the welcome you’ve received from my killing machines, but alas, you took us quite by surprise. I know you are trapped, and I know where. Bravo for making it this far. I dearly regret that you disabled my surveillance system, because I would greatly enjoy seeing your face as I assure you that at this very moment, fifty Praetorians are converging on your position, primed to bring down that wall on my command.”

Vik spun toward the door again, like he expected it to explode in on them. Wyatt’s head bowed downward. Tom couldn’t stop shaking.

“But I see no reason for needless bloodshed or a dramatic display of force,” Vengerov went on. “Therefore, I shall give you this opportunity to surrender yourselves to my custody. If my machines discover you facedown on the floor, disarmed, with your hands linked behind your heads, they will spare you. Otherwise, they will kill you like dogs. I give you ninety seconds to make your decision about whether you intend to live or die.”

His voice cut off abruptly, leaving Tom, Vik, and Wyatt shivering in the warehouse, eyes wide and frightened.

“We have to do it,” Wyatt said. “We have to give up.”

Vik was ashen. “We’ll get thrown in prison for this.”

“It’s better than being dead, Vik! We’ll tell Vengerov the truth. He rigged up Yuri, so we came here to free him. Vengerov can’t talk about doing things that are wrong. . . . He’s the one who probably ordered Yuri’s neural processor destroyed!”

“Just like he could do to ours,” Vik pointed out darkly. “He didn’t care about Yuri—what makes you think he won’t do it to us?”

“He won’t,” she stammered. “He—he can’t. We’re still useful to the military, and Vengerov’s on the same side as we are. Maybe we’ll face some sort of disciplinary thing. Guys?”

“No one knows we’re here, Wyatt,” Vik countered, his eyes intent. “He doesn’t have to hand us back over. He could kill us or do anything he wants to us.”

“We have to surrender. What choice do we have?” Wyatt said intently. “And why aren’t you saying anything, Tom? What do you think?”

They both looked at him.

Tom felt a strange, odd calm despite his certainty of doom. He knew what would happen. If they resisted, they died. If they surrendered, well, Joseph Vengerov had manufactured the processors, and he’d manufactured the census device. When he caught them, he’d demand far more than their excuses—he’d stick them under the census device and cull them for every last secret in their heads. He’d tear the truth out of them, and he’d learn what Tom could do.