Leaving his neighborhood, Urie, in the Yellow Area, Adam entered the next neighborhood, Cole, now in the Red Area, a bustling area of the metropolis.

The streets became avenues, and the cars arrived by dozens through the different arteries. Here, human traffic officers riding motorcycles were no longer to be seen. Here, where traffic was packed, there were only robot traffic officers; androids similar to the Cyclops, but with a single wheel instead of legs, specially designed to move between very narrow spaces.

Traffic lights and vehicle taillights shone along with glittering skyscrapers and giant screens.

There, to his right, was the Las Estrellas shopping mall and in front, the huge sign of the Bunny store, showing the cartoon of that beautiful young lady in lingerie blowing a kiss to no one in particular. Up there was the ad with the athlete raising his gold medal, guaranteeing that J.M. was the best health insurance company, and passing under it, one of the many elevated parks that went above the avenues. A little further back was the cone-shaped tower where Morris & Co. operated, the much-hated competitor of Homam Enterprises—which, by the way, had its head offices just two blocks away if they turned right. Every day Adam walked by there; no building in that area was unfamiliar to him. Now, more than ever, he needed that familiarity to make him feel safe. Being surrounded by so many cars and so many people gave him some of that, though not enough.

Two robot traffic officers moved between the cars, not far from them. Perhaps further ahead, there had been an accident or a traffic jam. Better to stay away from there. He dodged a line of buses and veered into the fast lane.

To all this, Juzo, in complete silence. Complete and uncomfortable silence.

“As for those mutant proteins…” Adam said and cleared his throat. It was hard for him to take off his mind from that cloud of emotions to get his thoughts back together. “Well, I never felt anything out of place... I mean, if I had had something weird in my blood, I would have felt... I dunno. Something would have turned up in some medical tests, right?” He shrugged. “How about you?”

Juzo shook his head. “If I hadn’t been sure, I wouldn’t have risked crossing the imperial territory of the island,” he replied. “Trust me, those proteins are in our blood. Mine is type R and works like a reactor. Yours is type C.”

“C? So, what? Mine would be some kind of catalyst or something?”

Once again, Juzo nodded.

“And how supposedly would those proteins have come into contact?” Adam asked, dreading the answer.

Juzo gave him a grim look. “By removing them from one heart and putting them into the other,” he said.

Adam gulped. “Well, that sounds awful.”

Juzo reached into his jacket pocket. “One ignition spark and the proteins will unleash their power.”

Adam glanced at him out of the corner of his eye; Juzo was hiding something there—the lighter to cause that ignition spark, maybe? He didn’t dare to ask him, though. He was terrified the answer was what he imagined, and perhaps because he was bare-chested or because the edge of tragedy kissed his neck, but just like what happened a while ago when going down his building’s stairs, the chills made him gasp for air.

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“And if that…” He cleared his throat. “And if that were to happen, then what? Are we gonna explode into lights or something like those other twins before us?”

“I’m in no rush to know,” Juzo said. “That’s why we’re running away.”

Adam’s stomach did another flip of terror. Piranhas—he felt piranhas in his stomach. “What are you talking about?”

Another grim expression from Juzo. “When we left Pannotia, someone managed to follow us; someone looking to… end the project.”

Another throat clearing from Adam. “End as in...?”

“End as in concluding what had been stalled.”

“Shit!” Adam cursed. “They found the freaking missing supply, right? After five years it showed up, right?” And then he frowned. “Wait! The Eddanian woman from the club! If she’s the enemy, do you think she might have been involved in the project or something like that?”

“It’s someone else,” Juzo said.

“Who?”

Juzo bit his lip and kept silent.

“Oh, dude! Come on!” Adam raged, and as he gesticulated, out of the corner of his eye, he detected that his brother had put his hand back into his jacket pocket. ‘What are you hiding there?’ he was about to ask, but his nose bled again. Cursing, he wiped it clean with the back of his hand.

And then Juzo finally figured out what was going on. “They’re tracking us!” he exclaimed. “Quick! Stop the car!”

Frightened, with one hand holding the bleeding and the other on the steering wheel, Adam looked for the best way to avoid traffic and pull out of the middle of the avenue to park. He was hemmed in by cars and trucks, and it was impossible to turn a ninety-degree angle without running into one. He was slowing down, and at a traffic light, he took the lane to his right.

“Quick!” Juzo insisted.

“Can’t you see I’m doing what I can?!” Adam yelled. The feeling of the piranhas eating him alive had become so real that he wanted to scream. He stopped holding his nose and used both hands to maneuver. His blood trickled down his chin and onto his chest. Flashing his turn signals, he swerved, getting in front of a sedan that complained with a honk. He shrugged, apologizing to the driver; and by repeating the same maneuver, he changed lanes until he got out of the expressway. There was a lot of honking at them; he even thought that he heard the siren of the robot traffic officers. He turned a corner and took Fifteenth Avenue, a quiet artery that rose above the other avenues leading toward the suburbs.

“Your epistaxis is not a side effect of the radiation,” Juzo said, “is the effect. That woman must be using it as a tracking signal.” He threw a fist full of frustration against the dashboard. How did he not notice before?!

Adam pulled up to the curb, and not having a spot to park his vehicle among the others, watching carefully not to have anyone behind, slowed down and double-parked. Traffic passed him.

“So now the bleeding is a tracking signal?” he asked in a bad temper. Took a tissue from the box he kept by the door and wiped the blood from his nose and the blood that had dripped onto his chest. The bright side of not wearing a shirt was that it made it easier to remove the blood from the skin than it would have been to remove it from the fabric. “What happened to the erratic behavior then?” he said, but when he returned his gaze to the front, he froze.

On the avenue, right in front of them, was a person suspended in the air. A man in a purple raincoat had descended from the sky to stop just short of the light towers, several feet above the pavement. Two passing motorcyclists nearly lose control of their bikes, startled by the sudden arrival of the stranger. More horns were heard.

“It’s him,” Juzo said, “the one who wants to conclude the project.”

Holding the steering wheel with one hand as if it were a life preserver in a shipwreck, and the gearshift with the other, Adam put his foot down on the pedal and got ready to launch himself into the race again.

The situation gained a new dimension when, through the windshield, he saw the face of the man in a raincoat; the shine of that chrome head, that single red visor in the middle that functioned as an eye…

“Tell me this is a freaking joke.”

Who could very well end up being his executioner was none other than a Cyclops android.