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like she had a sixth sense.
    Speedtecs,
he thought.
Son of a bitch
. . .
    He glanced back and saw two more agents giving chase. In their clunky armor suits, there was no way they were going to catch up. So they kept turning it loose, shooting indiscriminately as they tried to draw a bead on their target.
    “
No guns!
” Cray screamed at them, but it was futile. Even if they could hear him, they wouldn’t listen. Bringing Zoe in alive had been
his
mission, not theirs—and they didn’t care who they had to frag to accomplish it.
    Yin, I swear to God I’m going to kill you.
    Cray went after her.
    The agents showed no signs of letting up, opening their weapons to full aperture and razing everything in front of them. One of the terminal windows, buckling under the stress of several hits, rained a ton of glass down on Zoe as she bolted past, showering her in a wave of sparkling debris. The shards bounced off her body and sliced through her secondskin—but she didn’t let it slow her down. Instead, she picked up more speed and pushed her way through, leaving the window behind just as it collapsed. Momentum had taken over.
    Watch for the meltdown, girl. Those speedtecs are going to rip you up . . .
    Zoe didn’t heed the unspoken warning. The tecs were bypassing her brain and running her muscles, which obeyed only the most rudimentary commands. Her legs kept carrying her toward the terminal exit, a scant thirty meters away. But Cray could see from his position that the emergency barricade that sealed off the terminal was sliding shut—and even with her speed, Zoe would not reach it in time. In two seconds, a wall of carbon glass would separate her from survival. Even if she had a weapon, she couldn’t blast her way through it.
    Zoe kept up the run.
    Cray saw one of the agents stop to take aim. Zoe moved in a straight line now, still accelerating, only steps away from the barricade.
    He fired.
    Zoe leaped.
    The energy from the weapon blast trailed her body like the tail of a comet, pushing her even further into the air before slamming into the barricade. An explosion of white-hot cinders burst into life beneath her, following Zoe’s trajectory as she sailed across the top of the barricade. She cleared it with room to spare. She then pivoted like a diver, bringing her feet down to meet the floor as gravity overcame momentum, turning her into a ballistic missile. The impact should have shattered her legs—but Zoe rolled as she hit, tumbling across the floor and slamming into a wall on the other side.
    Cray stopped just in front of the barricade. Through the smoldering glass, he saw Zoe get up again. She continued without looking back, disappearing around a corner—out of sight, out of the line of fire.
    Cray turned around and saw the two agents approaching him, the fury they had unleashed in the terminal still evident in their eyes. The leader signaled what was left of his team—one more agent who had fanned out ahead of them. “The mark is moving past checkpoint six,” he said. “We’ll move to intercept at the hub. You can hook up with us there.”
    He ordered the airport proctorate officers to retract the barricade. The wall slid back open, but Cray stood in the way.
    “Move aside,” the agent ordered him.
    “She’s something, isn’t she?” Cray shot back. “Maybe if your guy had tried to take her alive like I said, his brains wouldn’t be leaking out of his ears.”
    The agent leveled his pulse rifle at Cray’s chest. “Move aside,” he repeated, “or I’ll carve you up right now.”
    “That also part of Yin’s orders?”
    The agent’s breathing shortened, his hands tightening their grip around the rifle. Cray knew he was dangerously close to getting aired out—but he didn’t want to give this Neanderthal prick the satisfaction of thinking he was scared.
    “Just doing your job, right?” Cray said, then stepped out of the way.
    Cray waited for them to get past, giving them a few meters before