Armand and Cassie had already dragged the raft out. Moonlight gleamed on frantic splashing as they pushed it to the open water. I knew it was them, because I could see their tags gleaming inside their skulls. Who else would it be, really?

I set foot in the water and hit the raft running, adding to their efforts. “Push push, go go go,” I said. “A kilometer away, we have to get far away!”

“From the zap? It won’t work?” Armand asked breathlessly. “How do you know that?”

“I…” I have a radio that told me that, I didn’t say. Where was the Radio? What would it have done, anyway? Played Benny Goodman with lethal force? Advertise to our foes with surreal commercials?

The water was cool, almost cold, and I didn’t care. I’d slapped my spare femur on the narrow, rather pathetic raft. The bone had a glowing dot, a tag deep inside. Owen Mateo Walsh, it helpfully told me.

Our feet dug into that white sand and soon we were floating, feet unable to reach the sea floor, clinging to the raft that bore my initials. Only our heads and hands were above the surface; the rest of us were paddling, pushing the raft. Heading out to sea.

“The current, gotta catch the current,” I muttered.

Cassie punched Armand’s shoulder. “I told you he was doing that!”

“With the tent stakes? I didn’t argue with you, don’t be like that–”

I looked back at the island. “Here they are,” I said.

Because I could see the path leading from the top of Harrigan’s island was filling with the Quantum Resonance Tags of people. They were coming down fast, not aware they were passing the mass graves filled with identical-but-dead versions of themselves. They ran down to the beach and fanned out into the forest splashing a little ways into the sea, shouting and laughing.

They called my name. Mockingly. Owww-eennn, where aaaare youuu? Just having fun on the beach at night. Hunting for someone.

I’d known it would come to this. If they caught me it would be bad. Not because they hated me or even knew me. But because they were afraid, and they weren’t in trouble themselves. Not at the moment.

People. Always such a treat.

Among the little stars of the Resonance Tags was a blazing sun. Doctor Jeff Harrigan himself, sounding a little out of breath. His voice echoed from the beach. “Owen, come back. We can work it out, I promise.” Then, lower, to someone near him: “Is it booting up? Oh, good job. Hurry.”

“Faster. Faster,” I said. The raft picked up speed. “I thought I’d broken his tablet.”

“How did you do that?” Armand demanded. “Nobody’s ever–”

“With the top of my—wait—SEAN!” I shouted, seized with inspiration. “YOU STILL HAVE TIME TO SAVE SEAN! HE’S IN THE CAGE, HARRIGAN!”

Voices drifted from the beach. “Sean?” “What cage?” Confused campers. “Sounds like a good place for him, wherever it is.” Shushing. Fearful laughter.

“HE’S IN THE DARK! HE’S SCARED AND ALONE AND YOU HAVE TO SAVE HIM!” My voice broke.

“Sean is fine,” Harrigan called. He sounded thoughtful. Calculating. “Sean will be just fine, Owen. Come back.” Then, to his underlings: “Go out there, some of you, bring them home.”

Reluctance from the campers; they didn’t want to go swimming at night in an alien ocean. Sounded reasonable to me. Someone said copycat eel.

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Cassie was panting. “How far is a kilometer, anyway? When’s the current going to pick up?”

“How would I know? I don’t even have a damn Radio!”

They looked lost and confused at my answer, which was fair. But we all kept paddling, kept pushing the raft out to sea.

Harrigan’s voice sounded weary again. The earlier glee had drained out of it, and now he was back to dealing with tedious young people. For the hundredth time, possibly; the same foolish young people, over and over. “It’s time to come back. Don’t make me use the Pulse. You could drown. Your friends could drown.”

The three of us responded simultaneously: “NO!” Armand added “Leave us ALONE, man!”

“Suit yourselves,” Harrigan called. The people surrounding him made giggling, ominous noises. Ooooooo, they said, and dun dun DUN. The blazing not-sun that was Dr. Jeff Harrigan did something.

Silence fell from the crowd. All the people on the beach fell over, flopped onto the sand or into the water. The sound of their impacts was comically loud. Thumpthump whump slap slappity slap. It sounded like a burst of polite applause.

“Dammit!” shouted Harrigan. “Wrong setting. Hang in there, everyone, this will be over in a moment.”

“Can you guys move?” I asked.

They nodded, grinned manically. Cassie whooped, leaned in and kissed Armand, who then whooped himself.

We’d made it out of range. Harrigan’s Pulse couldn’t get us.

The Doctor’s voice drifted over one kilometer’s worth of water. “Owen. I need you to come back. I don’t want to do this.” He began shouting. “I don’t want to, Owen! Come back and I’ll treat you well! I’ll put you in charge, I’ll give you whatever you want! Women! Her, you can have Cassie Nillson! You can have whoever you want, Owen, just come back!”

“I can have Cassie Nillson, guys.”

Armand and Cassie, in the water, in each other’s arms, laughed and kissed again.

“I’m giving you to the count of three, Owen! THE COUNT OF THREE I SWEAR TO GOD OWEN! I’LL HAVE TO START AGAIN WITH YOU BUT I’LL DO IT!” He sounded genuinely hurt, in actual agony. “I’LL DO IT! I HAVE TO! COME BACK!”

We said nothing.

“ONE!” He called.

“What he doing?” Cassie asked doubtfully.

“TWO!”

I remembered too late. I looked at my spare leg bone, the femur of Dead Owen. The range of the Pulse was a kilometer, the Radio had said. But what about–

–what about–

“THREE! OWEN! THREE!” A scream, raw in that fat middle-aged throat. “THREEEEEE!”

The current was carrying us away at a good clip. I felt it around my toes. I looked at nervous Cassie, at triumphant Armand. My comrades, my friends.

The water blazed green as the two of them burst into flame. The green flame, the fire Mandy had told me about. I don’t think they even knew it happened. The sea boiled around us and the raft rocked away from them. Ash burst into the air, embers swirled into the sky. Black clouds billowed in the water around us. Their bones, black and stony, began a slow, drifting path to the sea floor below.

The little stars the two had kept in their heads now burst into dozens of smaller ones, little, dimmer Tags. They swirled and danced around within clouds of each other. Mixing.

Cassie Erica Nillson. Armand Elizondo Fonesca. Over and over again. Cassie Erica Nillson. Armand Elizondo Fonesca. Cassie Erica Nillson. Armand Elizondo Fonesca. Drifting down, spiraling into the dark.

I grabbed at their remains. They were still hot enough to burn my hands. I fumbled with their bones and sucked in lungfuls of their ashes, coughed them out again. I shouted in horror. I pounded on the raft with impotent little fists.

Gone. The sea floor was littered with stars that held their names, but they themselves were gone. The raft was scorched where their hands had been. My hands were blistered where I’d grabbed for their bones. Embers drifted over the sea, winking out one by one.

I found myself standing on that raft, not swimming. I faced Harrigan. There he was, a distant torch on a beach, surrounded by helpless young people. And I knew he watched me as well.

“Owen!” he called. “It didn’t work on you like it doesn’t work on her! It’s because you have a soul now! Like me! Like her! A soul! Please, my son needs a soul, come back! I can bring your friends back if you just help me!”

I inspected him, he inspected me. At least I assume so; I still didn’t have glasses and he was a distant blur now, that smear of color for which I had no name. Eventually the current carried me far away, curved around another island, blocking my line of sight.

Gonna getcha, Doc.