“On my mark.” Ms. Reed’s voice carried throughout the wearables. “Let the officers go first and us after. I repeat. Officers first!”

Bryce focused less on Ms. Reed’s words and more on breathing rhythms to steady his heartbeat. He inhaled, then exhaled, trying not to recall the Tondo Tussle, the man’s head exploding in front of him, and the shooter who pinwheeled across the upstairs room. He was back in the fray again despite his rituals. Only this time, he had backup.

The AUG A3 M1-EMP the NBI had given him felt like King Arthur’s Excalibur. Light as paper, it seemed all the weapon's weight was contained in its ammunition. One clip held several bullets, EMP darts, and what Bryce had deemed “crawler rounds.” He had yet to see the last of those in action.

He sat in the front seat of a Metamatics armored SUV, three more agents in the back and two behind them. Metamatics’s biggest mistake of the Tondo Tussle was not sending more field security agents, despite what Gabriel Marcello had urged about “Americans” in Filipino territory. Field agents knew the drones and their capabilities, and they were armed. Now, their combined force was prepared for anything.

Outside, Lime and Lemon hovered on opposite sides of the vehicle, their Taser guns trained.

“Remember,” said SD-1 through Bryce’s wearable, “keep in my sights at all times. I don’t have infrared.”

Given the dispensary’s location, that might be a tall order. Buildings crammed around the place. Bryce imagined the flood of curious onlookers that would watch the spectacle. “Are you sure this is the right one?” he asked over the comms.

Gabriel Marcello, of all people, tuned in. “The other operations are too small. We start with our largest and work our way down. The head first, then the body.”

“And what about the bottle contents?” Bryce still wasn’t sure what they captured was even Black Fire.

“It’s the good stuff,” said Herman, completing the all-star cast tuning into the spectacle. “I tried it this time.”

Bryce wanted to laugh despite being carried into enemy territory. “Did she—it—talk to you?”

“Nope. I guess it likes you.”

Being the focus of an AI's attention could have been very good or terrible. It was unknown which side it placed Bryce on.

The convoy turned off Quirino Highway and into Quezon City. The PNP squad cars and vans snaked like black mambas through the wide streets Bryce wasn’t used to. There were plenty of ways for a shooter to pick him off here.

“Pulse rising,” whispered SD-1, like some prissy high school girl. She reminded him of Janice.

Bryce scowled. “Can you not tell me that every time it happens?”

“Just thought I’d let you know!”

The line of cars slowed to a crawl on an avenue leading into a concrete-walled facility rimmed with glass and what looked like welded steel panels across its top floors. Barbed wire lined the tops of the walls.

“Hold up,” said Ms. Reed, fully embracing the reigns of mission command now. Bryce wouldn’t be surprised if she were still on a conference call all this time.

The PNP officers stood first before a blue iron gate. Two officers banged and kicked on it, but no one answered. Beside them, Domingo tucked two thumbs into his tactical vest like this was routine. If things went well, Bryce could be out of here in thirty minutes, finally having a night of uninterrupted sleep. There were some things money couldn’t pay for.

Another bang, and then nothing. The officers lost their patience and gestured to one of their vans. The back doors flung open, and a dog stepped out—only, this dog wasn’t organic.

Domingo butted into their group call. “Checking for IDEs,” he said. “We-”

A huge bang roared in Bryce’s foreground. The two PNP officers and the dog drone flew backward, a funnel of black smoke and fire launching them. Bryce ducked behind his seat as shrapnel and concrete peppered the vehicle. His ears rang.

It all happened at once. The ambulance sirens blared, combining with the squad cars flashing red and blue. Caution tape drones launched from a van like escaped hornets and rose high to create the projected dome to seal the district off. PNP drones with their Gatling turrets whirring followed closely behind. The Metamatics agents left through the right side of the SUV, joining a flood of officers. Bryce went next.

Lime and Lemon hovered beside him just as the first shot broke out. The bullets crunched against the line of cars, their sources deep and crackling, like the AKs in Tondo.

“Several shooters!” SD-1 said to their whole voice channel. The drone fluttered over Bryce and cast a shadow like a ghostly tombstone. “Head down, Bryce!”

He dipped his head as something whizzed by his ear and ricocheted off the pavement. An officer just across from him grabbed his chest and fell, squirming. Another officer pulled him to safety.

Bryce shimmied to the SUV’s rear, turning around and looking toward the dispensary. Upon closer inspection, the iron panels covered two sides facing the street. Blue lightning from EMP rounds arced through slits on the panels, hitting PNP drones and spiraling them to the ground.

“Permission granted,” called Gabriel Marcello.

SD-1’s shadow diminished as it rose and turned its barrels on the dispensary. It fired its two 50-caliber barrels in quick succession, one after the other, like slow claps. The drone flared its thrusters to compensate for the kickback from each shot, while each blast ripped off a steel panel and a piece of the wall with it. Inside, the shooters scurried.

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“This will not be another Tussle!” screamed Ms. Reed. “Get them!”

More officers in combat armor and helmets flooded out from the vans to encircle the dispensary as if Ms. Reed were personally commanding them. They rushed down the alleys.

Bryce followed, deeming it safer behind the concrete walls than inside the SUV, which could explode if shot in the right spot. Lime and Lemon followed like guardian microwaves.

“Stay back, Bryce!” shouted Ms. Reed.

Thank God he didn’t listen.

Just as he rounded the alley, all of the SUV’s windows smashed simultaneously, spraying glass outwards. The vehicle sagged, and its tires popped. Bryce turned around the corner to see its roof had caved in and a drone lazed atop it. It was shaped exactly like a turtle.

“My M2!” screamed Ms. Reed. “Those fuckers!”

It was as if Lime, Lemon, and SD-1 channeled Ms. Reed’s wrath. All three drones rose and sprayed the dispensary with bullets. The officers in the alley stopped running and ducked their heads.

Bryce ran towards them, remembering. “Where’s Domingo?” he called.

No one answered. No one even heard him. The man at the back of the line waved him away as they continued running and found another gate. Another officer carried a breaching ram and slammed it into the smaller gate. Another joined him, and it came undone. They rushed in, followed by a dozen capture drones braving the bullets to get the perfect Inspired shot.

Screams came from the other side. Gurgles. Bodies thumped to the ground.

Bryce ran over and peered his head around to find several officers on the ground and a shooter standing over them.

He pulled his head around the corner as the concrete chipped. He shimmied away, hearing footsteps and not waiting to see who they belonged to.

The AUG’s round switching lever was stiff, but Bryce flicked it into place on the third try. He ensured it was on the final setting for the crawler rounds. Instead of firing blindly around the corner, he shot the ground just outside the gate.

The bullet—if it could be called a bullet—lodged itself into the dirt and expanded to the size of a puddle. It glowed a bright neon pink and simmered as if over a stove. Then, slowly, the puddle split into several lines like columns of ants and rushed past where the gate had been towards the shooter.

“Puta!” cried someone on the other side.

Emboldened by curiosity, Bryce turned the corner again and found him—whoever he was—with glowing pink spots all over his body, as if someone had spray-painted him. He tried to swat the nanobots away, but they crawled over his skin.

He screamed, crumpled, and fell.

Bryce looked further into the dispensary. There were no gunshots from either side, only shouts of orders and caution. He was alone in the alleyway now. He should have turned back.

Instead, he saw her again.

She leaped from the second floor, swinging as she had on the balcony in the rave hall. She limped. Dirt covered her face. Blood seeped from her leg, the same shade as her hair, but it was definitely her.

Bryce was in four places at once. The rave, their condo in Chicago, the back of the ambulance outside St. Luke’s, and in the present, stupefied at the sight of her.

As if two people could be entangled like atoms, Hannah found Bryce, too. She limped towards him, one hand on her leg, the other on her pistol, aimed straight at him.

It would have been so easy to take her down. Any of the PNP officers she was stepping over now would have done the same. Many things are easier when looking back. However, present circumstances often escape you in the moment, leaving you with nothing but your past.

“I told you,” Hannah huffed, “to stay away.”

He had known she would be here, hadn’t he? No. He had hoped it. “Maybe you should be the one to go.”

She centered the pistol on him. She could have fired and ended his tumultuous existence. He was already wealthy, with more money than any Metamatics employee besides Ms. Reed, and even more to come. Yet, something was missing.

He knew what that was now.

“My city,” she panted, looked up and squinted. “Get the fuck out of my city and out of my life.” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Why won’t you just go?”

“Bryce?” SD-1, Ms. Reed, and Gabriel Marcello asked.

He wondered how many people were watching him. Even the capture drones, now numbering at least thirty, crowded around like curious flies. Oh, what a glorious fiction this would make. He could already guess how many television shows this scene would Inspire.

“Hold her, Bryce,” Ms. Reed’s voice cut through the confusion. “We’re coming to get her.”

Bryce walked forward.

She didn’t stop him. “You’re a stubborn idiot,” she told him. “All I wanted to do was something on my own.” Something clicked in her gaze as if cocking a gun. “You know those days away from you? At the office?” She smiled, and her teeth were bloody.

He could see where this was going. He had thought about it for years and regretted being petty enough to drum up the concept. Blaming someone else for your faults never worked. “Who was he?”

She shook her head. “Not him, Bryce. Her.” She spat. “She helped me come here, and my god, what a glorious decision. I wouldn’t have made it here without her.”

A PNP van backed into the alley. The men rushed out and pulled Hannah up to her knees and into the back. They hadn’t even bothered to aim their weapons or shout for her to get down as if they knew she could never fight back.

Paralyzed by her words, Bryce watched the vehicle pull away.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, well within full view of any assailant. Maybe he was goading them, inviting anyone to shoot him down and end this. “Do your worst,” he uttered, staring at the ground.

The PNP officers combed the yards. The shadows of Lime, Lemon, and SD-1 hovered overhead, protecting him from everything except those things that could inflict the most harm.

A hand on his shoulder. “Nice gun,” said Domingo Baccay.

It could have been the warmth of another human being or the realization that one had to, eventually, let down their walls to allow more sensations than just pain in. Bryce squatted on the ground, taking the brunt of his past upon him.

Hannah had never cared about the marriage. She only cared about Black Fire, even before Bryce was a presence in her life. He could never have competed with it and shouldn’t have tried.

Domingo pulled him away to an ambulance, where a paramedic checked him for any injuries. A bullet had grazed his vest, apparently, and the pain was only now starting to settle as if a car had rammed into it.

The numbness crept through him, but he willed his throat to work as he recalled for Ms. Reed the specifics of himself and Hannah.

“Why did you hide her from us?” she asked. “We need to know everything about her.”

It was then that he realized he knew nothing about his ex-wife. They had been two separate phenomena coexisting. Maybe she had just used him to elevate her, eventually reaching her goals and leaving Bryce behind. That thought stung worst of all.

He opted to travel alone back to his condo, not telling Janice he was going there, either. It turned out to be the correct choice.

His wearable buzzed just as he was stepping into the lobby. “You’re going to hate me, Bryce,” Ms. Reed said, “but check the news.”