The world was fuzzy.

Wait. That was carpet against my face. Ugh. Everything hurt, an ache deep in my bones. I pushed up with a grunt. Why was there carpet … in the road? But no, it was just the living room floor, Mom’s concerned face inches away.

“Take it,” she said, the butt of her hand cannon extended. “Do not touch the mode dial. Go directly to the laundry room and barricade the door. Don’t open it for anyone but me or Laramee.”

Her searing gaze made my insides wobble like nothing else had today. I shook the cobwebs out of my head. Things had to be real bad if she was willing to give me a railgun without training. Oh shit, that’s right. Athleisure had just blasted my bot—and now he was coming here. “You have EMPs, right?”

She blinked as if caught off guard. “Of course.”

I couldn’t just leave her here. “Mom—”

“Go! Now.”

She had to have a plan. Probably lure him in and blow an EMP. That’s what I’d do. I gulped, snatched the hand cannon, and raced Matt out the front door. My leg protested with every lurching step. I felt like overcooked meat from that Brainlinked Iriguchi blast, like my flesh might slide right off my bones.

We flew down the walkway under the balcony, past a mountain bike and the spent cat scratcher. I flung open a door and careened downstairs into the apartment laundry room—vacant except for the stink of mildew and fabric softener.

Rows of washers and dryers sat silent below high basement windows. I flicked on the fluorescents and a lone fan kicked on in the tangle of ductwork, futile against the permanent funk. Matt unplugged the coin machine and, with my help, shimmied it to the door at the bottom of the stairs. We sunk to the ground, our backs to the machine.

“That was … intense.” Matt’s face was painted with a sheen of sweat. He clutched his chest where Athleisure had put a railgun round through his bot.

“It still is.” I felt my face screw up again, the Iriguchi loose in my hand. It was like an elephant had set up shop on my sternum, a sense of escape routes closing off. My fuckup with Garrett’s tracker was what had put us here. I’d only wanted to give us breathing room with the FBI, but now things were spinning out of control. At least we had one wildcard left—Garrett. I pulled out my phone to fire off a text.

me: is your bot okay??

Garrett: my apologies.. I hid upon hearing athleisure’s gunshots

me: garrett.. he’s coming here

Garrett: to your apartment?

me: we are so fucked

Garrett: oh dear.. I’ll be there as soon as I can

The elephant on my chest was jumping up and down now. “Matt, I … I don’t know if I can do this.”

He gaped at me like I was speaking Klingon. “Sure you can.” He tipped his chin at the hand cannon. “Show him the business end of that, pull the trigger. Like my dad says, ‘Get it done or get outta the way for someone who can.’“

I flinched at a thump from above, nearly smacking my head on the coin machine. Hopefully just someone rearranging furniture. “Athleisure was bruised and bloody, right? But Garrett said bots don't bleed. Stanton's sure didn't. So like ... how're we supposed to defend ourselves when we don't even know what we're dealing with?“

Matt frowned. “Maybe Athleisure just has extra realism upgrades.” He didn't sound convinced.

We fell into a taut silence, huddling on linoleum stained with spills of tenants past. It was a hollow, helpless feeling, waiting for Mom to set off an EMP or her friends to swoop in. I pivoted, my knees swaying toward Matt. “If we don’t make it out of here, I just want you to know—”

“We’re getting out,” he said, heat in his voice. “Your Mom and her ex-union buddies are gonna take care of him. Easily. We’ll make him regret ever setting foot in Las Yerbas.” He balled up a wayward towel.

If only I shared Matt’s confidence in Mom’s reinforcements getting here in time. My Casio with its fresh battery cheerily ticked away the seconds. There was some bluster with Matt, but it was clear he actually believed in Mom. In all of us.

I didn’t need to worry about waiting though, because a vehicle screeched to a stop outside with an ominous air of inevitability.

I exchanged a look with Matt, my throat burning, and climbed onto a wobbly table below a curtained window. Now would be a bad time to fall off and break my first bone, so I slowly stood on tiptoes to peer out, my eyes barely above lawn level.

Clouds like steel wool had crept over the sky again, and a battered panel van was parked at the curb.

A door slammed and Athleisure came stomping around the hood, his jaw set. No screwdriver anymore though—just a lit-up Iriguchi.

My pulse raced, my fingers paling on my own hand cannon. I tugged the curtains together, leaving the barest sliver to peek out. “He’s here,” I intoned. “We better—”

But Mom stepped onto the lawn in her leather jacket, her gloved hands aloft, and my sentence guttered into nothing.

I started to cry out—before clapping a hand over my mouth. Shit, Mom, no. Was her EMP broken or something? I couldn’t see one from here. My instinct was to scream at her not to do this, but revealing our location would be suicide. “Mom’s out there.” Tears stood in my eyes. “She has her hands up.”

Matt gasped behind me.

Athleisure strode toward her, his hand cannon leveled.

Mom said something to him, holding herself with a resigned calm.

Athleisure shouted back, taking another step.

She lowered herself to her knees, fingers laced behind her head. They exchanged another few words.

I steadied my breathing. “We’ve gotta do something.” Athleisure was going to kill her. I needed to buy time.

A crazy idea sprung into my head, drawing upon the summer I spent in that telemarketing hellhole with the micromanaging boss. Mom wanted us to stay quiet, but I had a responsibility to help her. I dialed her number, chewing a nail, and thanked the stars I was in her contacts only as K.

Athleisure jerked forward, snatching the phone from Mom’s pocket and answering. “Who is this?” he growled, her phone clutched in one hand, his Iriguchi in the other.

I put on my best fake smile, toggled the phone to speaker for Matt’s benefit, and prayed Athleisure didn’t recognize my voice from the alley. “Hello, is Ms. Scanlan there?” I asked, artificially sunny as sweat slid down my back.

“She’s indisposed.” Athleisure paced a tight arc in the grass. “Who is this?” He’d dropped his self-assured nice guy shtick, his tone now knife-edged.

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Mom held her ground, impassive, the stray hair around her ponytail rustling in the breeze.

My heart thrashed against my ribs. “My name is Melissa Roberts from Robot Insurance Incorporated, a division of Cyberdyne Systems. This call is being recorded for quality control purposes. I hope you’re having a nice day. Are you busy at the moment?”

He stopped pacing. “Is this some sort of joke?”

I didn’t need him to buy it; I only needed him to stay on the line long enough for the cavalry to arrive. Words came tumbling from my mouth. “We have relationships with businesses like yours facing challenges I’m sure you’re familiar with. This includes optic tool insertion, rapid unplanned disassembly, and internal rodent damage. Can you relate to any of these challenges?”

“Look, lady.” He motioned with his gun. “I don’t know who you are or what you’re playing at, but I’m kind of busy here. Are you with the union?”

One of the mop-haired teens in 2C opened the door to his apartment, did a double-take regarding the man with the glowing gun, and noped right back inside.

I gulped, gripping the curtains tighter, and shifted as much weight as I dared to my good leg. The table protested with a creak. This would work; I just had to keep him talking. “I know you’ve got a busy day, but I’d love to walk you through our offerings. You should know we have a limited-time twenty percent off special for those in the Talisman recovery industry. What time would work for you to talk this week?” I could make scheduling take an absolute age.

Athleisure lobbed a pointed look at Mom as if gauging her involvement. “How about you cut the crap, tell me what you want. Do you have the Talisman?”

Matt caught my eye from his position below, excitedly pointing at the phone and nodding. He seemed to be suggesting I run with that.

My verbal diarrhea continued, my long hours behind a headset apparently good for something besides minimum wage. “As a matter of fact, one of our most popular offerings is Talisman retrieval insurance. If your bot is disabled or destroyed in the course of retrieving the Talisman, that’s a Qualifying Talisman Event, and you can file a QTE claim for half the face value of the Talisman. In some jurisdictions—”

Athleisure growled, his head low. “I’m willing to make a trade.”

Mom was a grim statue in the grass, her hands frozen behind her head.

He knew I was full of shit—but thought I might have the Talisman anyway. I couldn’t hold him off much longer. When the hell was backup getting here? “What is it you’re willing to trade?”

“Her,” he said, raising the railgun to within an inch of Mom’s head.

This time, my ragged cry couldn’t be contained.

Mom met his gaze, her eyes smoldering, her chin raised in defiance.

Athleisure’s brow betrayed his confusion. But then the angles of his face hardened, and he growled into the phone. “Bring out the Talisman. You have my word she won't be hurt.”

An icy chill clutched my chest. This had gone off the rails. I pressed the phone to my shoulder. “Fuck.”

“Just shoot him,” Matt said.

“From here? Are you crazy? I’ll hit Mom.”

He stepped closer, the whites of his eyes shining. “Then gimme the gun!”

“No!” I squeezed the Iriguchi tighter. “You have a fricking cast.”

“Ko, I can hit him!” Matt reached up, grabbing at the weapon. “Let me help!”

“Let go! Stop it Matt!” I wrested the gun away—only to sense motion in my peripheral.

When I looked up, my heart just about quit. Because Athleisure’s grinning face leered down through the window’s swaying curtains, his hand cannon held casually. Above the bruise on his cheek, there was a spiderweb crack in one lens of his sunglasses—right where I’d tried and failed to kill him.

“Don’t be afraid, little girl,” he shouted through the window, his amiable shtick back.

My stomach was in free fall. This was my chance to save Mom. To save us all.

Teeth gritted, I jerked up her Iriguchi and fired into the window.

The roar thundered in my ears. Churning gas unfurled around me. I wasn’t ready for the recoil—and went flailing backward off the table.

Matt’s arms curled around me and we smacked into the linoleum.

I groaned, my leg aching, my ears ringing like a school bell. When the smoke cleared, I disentangled myself from Matt and levered up, coughing. Blood streaked the sill below the shattered window.

My heart leapt, relief flooding through me. I hit him. With that much blood, it must’ve been pretty direct. Nobody could survive a point-blank hand cannon blast, not even an upgraded bot. Right? He was probably sprawled on the concrete outside the window, bleeding out, Dad’s watch there for the taking. And with Dia gone too, this could all be over. Things could finally go back to normal.

I sat up, jubilant. “You okay? I got him!”

Matt was pale, a hand to his mouth. “Ko, your face.”

Huh. Something was clouding my vision. Wiping my brow, my fingertips came away red. Shit. All that blood on the sill—I might not have even hit him. I swayed on my knees, leaving wet fingerprints on the coin machine. The broken window had cut me. Probably not the hottest idea to fire into it from that range.

He could still be out there. My pulse quickened as I climbed back onto the table for a better look. The walkway outside was empty, just shattered glass. Dread clutched my insides.

A police car came screaming around the corner, lights pulsing against the dark sky as it skidded to a stop in front of Athleisure’s van. Officer Stanton’s bot dashed out in uniform, a conventional gun drawn, and clocked me peeking out of the broken laundry room window. “You stay put right there, Veronica Mars.” Then he bolted across the lawn and up the outside stairs.

An even ringing thrummed in my ears. Where the hell was Stanton going? “Athleisure knows we’re here.”

Matt pushed to his feet, panic in his eyes.

I shoved aside the coin machine through sheer force of adrenaline and crept up the laundry room stairs with Iriguchi clenched, flinging open the door. Athleisure was nowhere to be seen. And where was Mom?

My head swam as I leaned on the door frame. Sirens wailed in the distance. I caught a flicker of movement across the courtyard and fell to a crouch.

Athleisure raced from the far stairwell and loped toward his stolen van.

Stanton spilled from the other stairwell, his gun raised, tracking Athleisure as he ran. “Stop!” he shouted.

Athleisure reached the van and turned back toward Stanton with a knowing grin, his Iriguchi twitching.

What the hell, Stanton, shoot him!

But they only exchanged a long look. Athleisure whipped around and leapt into the van, no doubt hearing the converging sirens as well as we did. He slammed into reverse before peeling off down the street, hydroplaning as he vanished around the corner.

Stanton darted into his car, slung it into a taut U-turn, and gunned after the van with siren keening.

Why the hell hadn’t Stanton taken the shot? I probably hadn’t even grazed Athleisure, and now he was in the wind. The only one bleeding out was me.

Mom sprinted out of the far stairwell, her chest heaving.

Oh, thank God. Mom was okay. That’s all that mattered.

She trotted over to us, the fire in her eyes fading when she saw my head. “Ko! Are you alright? What happened?” She pulled me in for a tight hug before looking me over.

I swallowed. “I’m fine. Got cut on the window. I just need a bandage.”

Matt slunk over with a towel.

I took it with a nod, pressing the less-soiled end to my brow.

Mom gripped my shoulders, her eyes glassy. “I’m so glad you’re okay. You can’t even imagine.” Her jaw hardened. “But you shouldn’t have called my phone.”

I huffed. “I only needed to because you surrendered! He was gonna kill you if we couldn’t produce the Talisman.”

“Everything was under control. Look.” She stepped back and thumbed something in a pocket—her beat-up leather jacket crackling with a cold, sharp radiance.

Matt edged away. “Woah.”

My jaw hung open. “What the hell is that?”

Mom switched off the jacket and the light fizzled out. “It’s called a blanca jacket. It closes an internal portal to generate a high-voltage charge, the opposite of an EMP opening portals. Your father picked it up during the last United Robotics Workers strike.” She tugged her focus from some timeworn memory back to the present. “I was the one with the upper hand here. All I had to do was grab him, and he’d be twitching on the grass needing new underwear.”

“So why didn’t you?”

Mom swept a gloved hand around the courtyard. “Because this is bigger than him! I need to find out who he’s working for, put an end to this threat once and for all. As long as he believed he was in control, he was likely to talk. I know his type. Only I didn’t know he’d go after you.” She gave me a pointed look. “I didn’t think he’d have reason to.”

My shoulders drooped, the Iriguchi heavy in my hand. I’d screwed up. I hadn’t trusted Mom to control the situation. “I’m sorry.”

She glowered. “Are you? Right now, I’m going after him if I can catch up with Stanton. Laramee is on his way here to look after you. Matt, get a bandage on her. Third drawer in the kitchen. Ko, I want you to hold onto the Iriguchi and stay off the console.” Her eyes flashed and she leaned back in. “Oh, and do me a favor?”

“Yeah Mom?”

“Stay the fuck inside!” she bellowed, whipping around to jog toward her van.

Matt eyed the scowl hardening on my face. When Mom vanished from view, he turned to me with a doleful look. “We’re not staying the fuck inside, are we?”

I felt so small. So useless. I wet my lips, the bloody towel still pressed to my forehead.

“I’m not going anywhere.”