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that thing? The thing we’ve never tested?”
    “Yes!” I screamed, “Right now!”
    “Hey, are you joking?” she snickered. “This is a prank, right?”
    Gunshots rang out, slamming the back of my helmet. I winced as the speaker let out a piercing wail.
    “Does this sound like a fucking prank? I need you now!”
    “Geez, all right ,” she replied, with all the enthusiasm of a surly teenager reluctantly agreeing to clean her room. “I’m coming, boss…a ‘please’ would’ve been nice, though.”
    “ Holy shit, ” I screamed, so loud that my com crackled. It must have been damaged by the last gunshot. “Will you please get your ass into the chopper!?”
    “Okay, okay...on my way,” she conceded, her voice muffled by the crunching of more chips. “See you in three.”
    As I sped through an intersection narrowly dodging a pedicab, my com chimed again. It was Peyton.
    “Hey Matty. Did you ever find out what happened? The news is saying there was a helicopter crash, but the entire area is blocked off.”
    “Oh, hi sweetie,” I replied, panting as I continued to sprint. The suit helped propel me forward as I ran, but it still required as much effort as jogging to get it up to speed – something I’d been neglecting to do for the last year.
    “You sound out of breath,” she said suspiciously. “Are you up to something?”
    “Oh you know me.” Another bullet whizzed by my head, embedding into a bus shelter. “I always have something on the go.”
    “Well I’m worried about you. You barely sleep, you’re not eating right…make sure you get something for lunch and then meet me back here, okay?”
    Racing past a portable food station at fifty miles per hour, I reached out and snatched a hot dog from a customer’s hand just as he was taking it from the vendor. “Don’t worry about me, I just grabbed something.”
    “Oh, good,” she said cheerfully.
    I ground my heels into the street and stopped at the next intersection. I was gasping for air, barely able to form a sentence. “Listen sweetie, just…one...little thing…I need you to do…”
    Peyton giggled. “Oof. Whenever you say something is ‘little’ it’s usually the opposite.”
    “All right,” I panted, “one big thing…I gotta ask…can you and Gavin maybe...close the store early, and...get to a secure location for a pick-up? You know...the roof or something?”
    “Wait – what? ”
    I glanced back over my shoulder and spotted a trio of police motorcycles racing towards me, weaving in and out of the cars jamming the street, with more converging from either side. Manhattan was a small island, and there were only so many places to go. I was getting boxed in at an alarming rate.
    I lunged a few steps towards what looked like the only available avenue for escape, and then stopped dead: a six-wheeled SWAT tank, topped with a machinegun, barreled down the road. It flattened a scooter and crushed parking meters as it advanced.
    “Sorry,” I blurted out, “you know what? We’re have some bad reception here...can barely hear you...”
    “The reception is fine. Don’t you dare cut me—”
    “Gotta go,” I interrupted. “Lock up. Rooftop. Five minutes.”
    My head whipped from side to side, watching helplessly as waves of police converged from every angle. They were on motorcycle and on foot, and they had me trapped. I had a sudden, chest-tightening vision of the black bag and the waterboarding and the testicular electrocution that surely awaited me as soon as I’d been apprehended. And then I began to levitate. My helicopter’s magnetic strip plucked me from the street, and I floated – slowly at first, and then with increasing speed – like a plastic bag caught in an updraft. Bullets bounced off my armor as I sailed through an opening in the transport’s floor and landed in the passenger bay.
    Karin glanced back over her shoulder, her pink lips curled into a tiny frown.
    “What?” I asked in between labored breaths,