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with Niko. Are you even capable of being a friend anymore?"
    Corene leaned forward. "If you think Dex set me up just to get to Mary, you're wrong. Dex wouldn't—"
    "He's right," Dex interrupted. "Almost. I didn't set you up, Corene. The other dealer getting caught wasn't part of the plan. More like dumb luck on his part, but I did set up Mary."
    Jonah crumbled the potato chip bag into a small ball. The pop of chips and the rustle of the bag echoed through the quiet room.
    No throat clearing, no hesitation, Dex continued. "We wanted Mary to complete total brainwave transformation before approaching you. She should have blasted by now." He gave Jonah a knowing look. "But due to the proximity of the wave, the time line had to be adjusted."
    Mary never saw Jonah move, only the blur of color as the makeshift ball sailed across the room toward the general vicinity of the kitchen.
    "Well, I guess I owe you my thanks for bringing Corene back to us safely. I would ask you to stay, but it looks like it's time to take out the trash."
    "Don't worry about the garbage," Dex answered. "I'll take it when I leave." He walked to stand directly in front of Jonah. "Mary promised me an hour."
    "I didn't have a choice, Jonah. I told him we weren't interested in anything Hadrian had to offer, but he had my A and —."
    "Yeah," Dex interrupted. "We've pretty much established that I'm a real son of a bitch, and it doesn't change anything. I want my hour."
    Jonah glanced around the room. "You're down to about forty-five minutes. Better talk fast, because in forty-six minutes, I'm kicking your ass out of my house."
    Ursula let out a little laugh, and covered it with a cough at Dex's hard stare. Mary, and everyone else in the room, knew Jonah couldn't deliver on the threat. Apparently, though, Dex didn't want a show of force.
    Brows furrowed, he frowned and took a step back. Mary imagined the microprocessors in his brain working furiously through an infinite number of if/then statements, searching for probabilities.
    "Fair enough." Dex crossed the room and sat down next to Corene. "I'm afraid I miscalculated the situation. I assumed Stran or Corene had leaked information to Jonah."
    Corene slumped into the cushion. "I didn't. You asked us not to, and Stran's totally committed to the cause."
    "But not to me. He loves you, and he joined because I can help you with the brainwave transformation. I'm not complaining, here. He is committed to what we want to do, but his loyalty is to Jonah, and rightly so. I expected Stran to tell Jonah everything."
    Corene and Stran working with Dex? Bile rose in Mary's throat, the acid burned in her chest. Still, it could only be a fraction of the betrayal Jonah felt, especially after Dex had abandoned the gang five years ago to work with Hadrian, though nothing showed on his face.
    "Why?" Mary turned to Corene. "How could you?"
    "Mary." Jonah's voice was soft, but it held a calm authority. "Listen with your head and not your heart. Dex said he could help Corene get through the brain blast, which means he can help you." He turned to Dex. "What's going on here? It's something you're doing alone, not as one of Hadrian's goons."
    "Right on all counts," Dex answered. "I can help her, but it's got to be quid pro quo. You help me, and I'll help Mary."
    "Help you do what?"
    "Remove Hadrian from power before the wave hits."
    Mary curled into the corner of the sofa and stared at Jonah. His face mirrored Dex's voice. Impassive.
    "The energy web isn't as stable or as powerful as Hadrian claims," Dex continued. "Even with a thousand controllers hooked into the system, they can't make the adjustments fast enough. The web will probably destroy or break up the largest chunks of wave, but the predictions are that enough satellites will get hit to allow a substantial amount of the remaining space debris through. Not enough for an extinction level event, but the amount of damage could propel Earth into the twenty-first century equivalent of