“What is it?” I said, gritting my teeth against the urge to scream. I felt trapped. Tons of stone and metal on top of me and a thousand murderous cyborgs all around. Every muscle was tight, every pore open, desperation and terror leaking out. A mile above, London ground along unawares. I didn’t know what time it was, but I knew there were faded, thinned men and women standing on the Dole Line, while sleeker, sharper men and women moved through them, picking them off. While fat, expensive cops grabbed everyone by the ankles and shook vigorously to see what would fall out of everyone’s pockets.

Underneath, we had screams and gunshots and the echo of my ragged breathing.

“Mr. Cates, Ty doesn’t pretend to know everything, but Jesus, something’s going on right behind that door.”

The melting asphalt sound of Dawson’s laughter bubbled up again, and I closed my eyes and tried to grit my teeth harder in response, the sound slicing up my spine. My teeth, I imagined, would shatter at any moment.

“You made it, Cates,” Dawson gurgled. I stared at the door and imagined his voice as dark fog, spilling over the edges of the hover crate and pooling on the floor. “That’s the only entrance to the Inner Sanctum. The Holy of Holies where Brother Squalor contemplates his slice of forever and counts the heads as they roll in!”

I opened my eyes and stared at the door.

“I can’t open it,” Dawson continued, managing somehow to convey glee through his warped digital voice. “Only Squalor and his Cardinals can. Have you ever met a Cardinal, Cates? I’ll bet you haven’t. If you had, you wouldn’t be here.”

“You can’t open it?” I asked.

That dripping cackle again. “You can’t either. Right about now there are five hundred Monks homing in on you. You’re trapped like, dare I say it, like a rat!”

I turned around and looked at Dawson, who lay smiling in the portable coffin, a mess of wires and insulation and coolant fluid. I shifted my eyes to Kieth, who stared back with pop-eyed nervousness, clearly terrified of what I would ask him to do next. “Can you pry this fucking door open?”

He leaned sideways to run his eyes over the door. He shrugged. “Maybe. Ty’ll have to do some scans, trace some wiring. Might need some spare parts, which Ty did not bring. He might also just as easily fuse everything shut pretty solidly.”

I nodded. It was always some fucking thing. I couldn’t believe it hadn’t even been a month since Dick Marin had scooped me off the streets of Manhattan and ruined my fucking life. “Kev, make sure Captain Dawson is telling us the truth, okay?”

“Right,” Gatz whispered, turned, and leaned down over the Monk, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead. After a moment, he straightened up, putting a hand out to the wall to steady himself. “Go ahead, ask,” he gasped, breathing hard.

“Can you open that door?”

Dawson shook, his whole torso vibrating. “No,” he finally oozed. “Can’t.”

I nodded, reached out, and grabbed Kieth by the shoulder. I spun him around so that he faced the mutilated Monk. “Anything in that motherfucker you can use? Monks are just crammed full of interesting tech, aren’t they?”

Kieth nodded, his shaved head reflecting the dull white light. “Yes. Very possibly.”

I nodded. “Rip ’im up, Ty. Take whatever you need.”

“Hey, Avery,” Gatz said between loud breaths. “They’re getting’ closer, huh?”

I paused, listening. Kieth started to say something about the door, so I reached out and clamped his lips shut with one hand.

The shouts and gunshots were getting closer. Fast.

“What the-”

Before I could finish, Canny Orel suddenly appeared around the corner, guns shining in his hands, running full-tilt. Seconds later one of the twins followed. Orel actually looked disheveled: hair mussed, coat torn, a large dark stain spreading through his shirt on one side.

“Well, Mr. Cates, I hope you no longer need a distraction,” he said, skidding to a halt in front of me. “We did our best but there are a large number of the infernal machines hot on our trail.”

Despite his appearance, he wasn’t out of breath at all, and calmly flushed his used ammo clips and began reloading.

“Ms. Milton,” he added casually, “did not survive the onslaught.”

“Jesus fucked,” I swore. “How-”

“No time!”

As if they’d been drilling for years, Tanner dropped to her knees below Orel and they both opened fire on three Monks who raced around the corner. The Monks went down one, two, three, each a headshot, each from Canny, who moved his gun with surgical precision: Bam! A tic to the right bam! A tic to the left bam! I couldn’t help but admire it.

For a moment, it was quiet, except for the latex sound of Dawson’s melted laugh. Canny turned his head slightly to glance at me.

“Don’t relax,” he advised with a wink. “There are more coming. Mr. Kieth,” he added, louder, “I forgive you your debt.”

“Why the hell did you come here?” I demanded. I was ready to let it roll over me, the huge, incomprehensible wave-just close my eyes and let it smother me-but Canny Orel got on my last nerve and I was damned if I was going to let him just do what he liked. This was my job. “You’re supposed to be the goddamned distraction.”

“We didn’t have a choice, Mr. Cates!” Orel snapped back, eyes fixed on the intersection and the three felled Monks. “We were fucking herded here.”

“It’s true,” Tanner said, her voice cracking and shaking. I looked down at her sharply, noticing for the first time that her face was a rictus of emotion, her body stiff and shaking, as if she’d physically felt the death of her twin. “Everywhere we turned, they pushed us back-except one direction. They came and came at us, and we fucking took dozens of those fucking Tin Men out, Cates, but if we fell back in the right direction, they let us.”

Two Monks flitted through the intersection like insects. Orel and Tanner tracked them, pumping shells, but missed, the Monks disappearing on the other side.

Anger flooded me. My hands spasmed, trying to clench into fists; it took all my concentration for a moment to stop myself from firing a shell into the floor, to keep my hands under control. I wanted to throttle Orel where he stood, so calm, so capable-probably the only one of us with a chance to fight his way out of this. I hated his competence, hated the fact that he was better, tougher than me. If I was going to die inside this fucking tomb, it was going to be my decision. I’d been dancing for Marin and Moje and everyone else for too long. I didn’t give a fuck about the cash-which I doubted I’d ever see, anyway-I wanted to put a shell into Dennis Squalor’s head because I’d come this far and I wasn’t going to get stopped now.

I whirled on Ty Kieth. “Get that fucking door open!”

He swallowed and glanced down at his handheld, pointing it at the door and prodding its screen with his thumb, a practiced, smooth gesture. Licking his lips, he nodded.

“I can probably do it, but-”

“Do it,” I snapped. “Or we’re all dead, right here, in this fucking hallway.”

He nodded, prodding his screen madly.

“Cates!” Orel snapped without turning. “It doesn’t matter.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

More Monks appeared at the end of the hall. A volley of shells from Tanner and Orel, and two fell into a heap.

“Cates, we were herded here. On purpose. Did you encounter any resistance? No,” Orel said slowly, eyes fixed on the sights of his guns. “I think that door is going to open soon, all on its own. I think you’ve been played. I think that opening that door is the last thing we want.”

I stared at him for a moment, thinking. Then I turned and looked at the door, smooth, unmarked, implacable, just as another volley of shots announced more Monks. What it came down to was, you always had a choice. There was always something you could choose to do.