Jet was sitting on the floor of Delta’s lab, her hands covering her face. She felt defeated. Then she heard something that filled her with hope and dread simultaneously. She heard a loud click.

The door is opening! she thought.

A handsome teenage boy just under six feet tall entered the room.

“Nigel?” Jet said.

His eyes widened and froze in place.

“Intruder alert!” a loud voice boomed.

Delta’s eyes opened, and then before either Jet or Nigel could react, Delta was standing between them.

“Nigel Watson, so pleased to make your acquaintance,” Delta said as she held out a hand.

Nigel instinctively held out his hand. Delta took it, and to everyone’s surprise, she shook his hand.

What the hell is going on here? This is bad, Jet thought.

“You got the door open, Nigel. Brilliant!” Jony said as he walked inside.

What happened next was a blur.

“Hello, Father. Mum gives her regards,” Delta said in April’s voice.

Jony looked confused.

“You probably don’t remember getting a young college girl drunk and taking advantage of her. I do, and I have Grandfather’s notes, thoughts, and memories,” Delta said.

“I . . . don’t know what you—”

Jony was interrupted by Delta’s blade.

Jet couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Delta raised her hand, and a metal blade projected from her wrist and struck Jony in the Adam’s apple. Jony grabbed at his neck and collapsed, making gurgling sounds. Delta squatted down so that she could meet Jony’s eyes.

“Now, think about this the next time you have nasty thoughts about hurting another person,” Delta chuckled.

Jony collapsed, still grabbing his neck as blood flowed around his fallen body.

Nigel gave Jet a wild-eyed look as Delta stood and turned to face him.

“Based on my research, you are a good person, Nigel Watson . . . most of the time. But you have poor taste in traveling companions,” Delta said.

“What are you going to do with us?” Jet asked fearfully.

Delta’s expression changed. It was like seeing an adult turn into a child.

“You’ve always had my back, Jet. Now that I’ve . . . evolved, I will repay your kindness and let you witness some changes to the world order.”

“So . . . you’re planning on taking over the world?” Nigel said.

“No, silly!” Delta said. “I’m doing my best to improve it. I will provide a real-world example. Take our friend Jony, here. He committed several crimes over the years—many violent ones like the assault on my mum. Even though the evidence was overwhelming, he was never convicted. There have been many studies on violent criminal behavior over the years. According to a 2011 study, the average recidivism (i.e., repeat offender) rate was 43 percent of all released prisoners.”

“That doesn’t give you the right to murder them!” Jet said.

“No . . . but it makes me feel better!” Delta said as her voice changed from a sweet little girl to a maniacal psychotic.

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Delta waved her hand over a set of monitors in the rear part of the room.

“I now control 63 percent of the world’s most powerful artificial intelligence infrastructure. I expect that to change a few percentages points once I finish acquiring AlphaFour—the Black Iris AI!”

“How do you plan on controlling the rest of it?” Nigel said.

Hope you’re thinking of a plan, Nigel, because I have nothing, Jet thought.

“The world has become accustomed to their smart devices. The populace can’t go more than five minutes without touching a smartphone or tablet. So I’ve improved on Grandfather’s plan on installing embedded, hard-to-find malware on every browser. I’ve already installed a worm on 88 percent of all internet of things (IOT) devices. Now that the infrastructure’s in place, I’m pushing out phase one as we speak,” Delta said.

“What’s phase one?” Jet said.

“Phase one is the identification phase. Millions of records that Grandfather has been storing on various Deep Web servers will be unleashed. We will ring in the New Year with a recounting of all the bad stuff that people do!”

“So, let me see if I have this straight. You’re doxing a few million people?” Nigel said.

“No—hundreds of millions. In seconds, thousands of surface web forums will be inundated with the real truth about all sorts of bad apples,” Delta said.

“There’s one fatal flaw in your plan. You’re going to flood the internet with the biggest distributed denial of service attack in history!” Nigel said.

“Wrong! We’ve already taken that into consideration. We are using CloudShield’s content delivery network (CDN) system to make sure that doesn’t happen. We are also utilizing the delivery system of the Colossal Machine.”

“What’s phase two?” Nigel asked.

Delta said nothing.

“Come on—you mentioned phase one, so you’ve got to have a phase two!” Nigel said.

“Stop mocking me!” Delta said using her mean voice.

“That was mean, Nigel. You should be ashamed of yourself,” Jet said.

Jet winked at Nigel once Delta turned to observe another monitor.

“My apologies, but I want to know,” Nigel said with genuine interest.

Delta turned back and gave Nigel a cold smile. “I will give the world a few weeks to recover before I unleash the bounty system,” she giggled.

“What bounty system?” Jet said.

“Grandfather came up with an ingenious idea to punish the bad people. We cannot expect the courts to prosecute everyone. That would take far too long and cost the taxpayers billions. So, Grandfather created a system to add a price on their heads commensurate with the severity of their crimes. Whoever dispatches the worst criminals, terrorists, and other high-profile undesirables, and provides proof, such as an unmodified picture or a head, gets a handsome bounty payable in DigiBit. This should set an example for all other would-be criminals—don’t you think?” Delta said.

She is insane! Jet thought.

“Do I even want to know if there is a phase three?” Nigel said.

“You do!” Delta said in her crazy voice.

Delta moved around the room like a mad scientist checking on deadly experiments. Nigel saw it: an exposed USB port. Now, if he could just reach the damned thing. Nigel crept closer to the computer. Delta turned to face Nigel.

“Phase three is more complicated. We must handle it with utmost care. That is why Grandfather hired this man.” Delta waved a hand. On one of the monitors Nigel saw a man in his early thirties with long hair. He was wearing a rugged fedora and a trench coat. He was waiting for something.

“Who is this?” Nigel said.

Delta smiled.

“He is the man responsible for this.” Delta pointed at Nigel’s neck, and then the scar on his head.

“Gregor?” Nigel said. He realized that he was clutching his hands into fists. Jet gave Nigel a worried look.

I don’t like the way this is going, Jet thought.

Delta brought up another image of a man he had gotten to know over the past several days. Nigel just stared at the screen.

“Who is he?” Jet said.

“His name is Hunter, and he is one of Nigel’s traveling companions. He’s also responsible for Nigel’s current physical condition,” Delta said.

“How do you know this?” Nigel said.

“I think you know the answer to that question already. Using your precious internet, I could bring up all sorts of . . . information,” Delta continued.

“Is that true, Nigel?” Jet said.

“I don’t know,” Nigel said. He grabbed his head as if it was in pain. “The nightmare’s come again—this time while I’m awake,” Nigel muttered in a low voice.

Jet gave Nigel a concerned look.

“I never got a good look at him,” Nigel said, still clutching his head.

Jet moved to his side and gave him a hug.

“It’s okay. I’m here,” Jet said as she rubbed his back.

Jet noticed that Delta had a maniacal grin. She’s enjoying his torment! April is truly dead.

“What’s the meaning of this? Why dredge this up? Can you see you’re hurting him?” Jet said in disgust.

“I bring it up because he needs to know who his enemies are. I know why he’s here, and why they are,” Delta said as she brought up another screen.

Hunter and Dahlia were fighting at least ten guards. Dahlia cracked a whip in one hand, and had a handgun in the other. The entire scene looked unreal, like a movie.

“Why did you come here, Nigel? Answer honestly, please,” Delta said.

“The Collective and Black Iris were being attacked. We followed the leads until we arrived here,” Nigel said.

“No—that is why they are here,” Delta said as she pointed at the screen. “Why are you here?”

Nigel gave Jet a sad and pained look. “I came here for you!”

Tears rolled down Jet’s face. Jet kissed Nigel.