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  The tarp drew back and the green-spiked head of Stitch popped through the opening. “You guys are gonna want to see this,” he said before disappearing back behind the plastic. He sounded excited by something.

  Magdela’s eyes met mine, mirroring the concern suddenly weighing on me. We ran out to a central space the gang used as a gathering and recreation area. It was littered with old sofas, chairs, billiards tables, card tables, and other makeshift or ramshackle furniture. In the center of one wall was a holovid projector, and floating before this was a massive image of the city streets being broadcast by a local news network. The chyron below the image read, Riots break out in response to fires in The Glen.

  Masses gathered in the streets. Some marched in unison down main avenues, holding signs decrying police brutality, government corruption, Talbot Industries, the firebots, and even the mayor herself. Others smashed windows of storefronts and apartment buildings. Some even set fires; an irony that struck me, considering what they were protesting.

  The holovid nearly hypnotized me as I watched the chaos unfold. So much so that I almost missed the chaos unfolding around me. Men and women ran in every direction, many snatching up weapons ranging from baseball bats to assault rifles. I spun around to find Razor standing behind me. “What’s going on?”

  “We’re headed out. This is a perfect chance to slip under the radar and snatch some loot.”

  “You’re going looting in the middle of a riot?” I asked.

  “We’re a gang, little piggy. That’s what we do.”

  I winced at the nickname he hadn’t used in months. It had been a sign of mistrust—of my past as a cop—and its sudden return reminded me exactly who it was I was talking to. It also reminded me I wasn’t a cop anymore.

  “You coming?” Razor asked.

  “Yes.” “No.” Magdela and I spoke in unison.

  “No,” I said again. “Absolutely not. We are not going out there in that... riot.”

  “Suit yourself. More for us,” Razor quipped as he ran out of the hideout behind his fellows.

  Magdela laid a hand on my shoulder and turned me back around. “People are going to get hurt. They might need help.”

  “So?” I shrugged.

  “So?” Magdela took a step back, fire in her eyes. “You’re so self-righteous when it comes to condemning Razor for looting, but you’re too good to go out and try to help people who might be hurt?”

  The words stung worse than any bullet I’d taken.

  Magdela shrugged a bag of medical supplies over her shoulder. “Well, I’m going. You can stay here and watch the ‘vids. Have fun.” With that, she turned and strode toward the exit.

  I rubbed a hand over my face and groaned. “Hang on, I’m coming.”

  We climbed into the back of a truck as Razor hit the start button and the electronic engine hummed to life. “Change your mind?”

  I shook my head. “We’re going in case anybody needs help.”

  “Whatever,” Razor said as he hit the accelerator and pulled out of the alleyway, forming up at the tail end of a small convoy. “Just don’t get in our way.”

  The scene on the streets in Sanrita matched the broadcast from The Glen, but to a lesser degree. Some protesters milled about on corners and looters smashed in the occasional window, but it wasn’t nearly as chaotic as what the holovid showed. But as the surrounding towers grew tighter and taller, the throngs of humanity grew thicker and more enraged.

  Eventually, the crowds were so dense we had to leave the vehicles behind and proceed on foot. The Chimeras formed a pack of nearly two dozen armed men and women, an intimidating presence allowing them to cut a swath through the protesters, who parted to let them through without confrontation. Magdela and I followed behind the vanguard, keeping an eye out for trouble on our tail.

  The makeshift, hastily scrawled signs held aloft by the crowd bore several slogans, but all followed a similar theme. Essentially, the people wanted the city to stop treating them like the trash that was piled up on the streets; an inconvenience to be disposed of at a whim. Freely available debauchery had distracted the citizens from decades of economic depression, but none had any illusions that they led charmed lives. A fire had smoldered in the hearts of every New Angeleno, waiting for a spark to set it alight.

  And that spark marched down the street toward them.

  Steel scraped on pavement as a dozen firebots formed a line before the crowd, blocking off the intersection in front of the still-smoking remains of The Quad. Smoke filled the sky behind them as reflections of neon in every color glinted off their armored plating like a rainbow prism. Behind the robots was an army of SWAT officers, too many to count, all armored up and bearing stun batons and glassteel riot shields. Looming over them were half a dozen enbots, their machine gun arms panning over the crowd.

  Razor stopped in his tracks and all the color drained from his face. “This is about to get bad.”

  “You think?” I asked. “Looting right now is probably a bad idea.”

  Stitch glanced around, scratching between the green spikes of hair covering his head. “Yeah, I think Harold’s right. We should get out of here.”

  Magdela stepped in front of them and turned to address the gang. “Or we can do some good while we are here. People are going to get hurt if they don’t disperse. We can prevent that.”

  “Or at worst,” I added, “help the injured.”

  Razor shook his head. “We ain’t a charity. You guys know that.”

  I waved a hand at the crowd. “But you said you wanted to do something about the city, and these are your neighbors.” I raised my voice so all the assembled gang members could hear me. “As much as you try to act like you don’t care, you all have friends and relatives in this crowd. Or friends of friends. How will you feel if you do nothing, then find out your cousin knows somebody who died here tonight? Or your grandmother? Or your brother, or sister? Or your barber’s kid? Or the nephew of your favorite bartender? You can pretend you don’t care about anything but money, booze, and drugs, but each of you cares about somebody. And that somebody might be here tonight.”

  Razor rubbed a hand over his face and stamped a foot as he seemed to struggle against the better nature I knew he was hiding. “Dammit. Alright. What’s the plan?”

  “Well,” Magdela said, “we need to convince people to go home.”

  Suddenly, there was a loud crash and the scream of steel scraping on steel.

  “Yeah,” Stitch said, “I think it’s too late for that.”

  I turned as a van twisted itself around one of the enbots, apparently driven through an unguarded alley and used to ram the massive robot. The behemoth toppled and fell, knocking over another one beside it. Before the second enbot hit the ground, the other four opened fire on the vehicle, riddling it with bullets until the engine exploded.

  And that was only the beginning of the chaos.

  The simmering rage of the crowd exploded along with the van, and they surged as a single body toward the line of robots and cops. They hurled everything from bottles to broken chunks of concrete in a hail of improvised projectiles. The roar of a thousand people yelling was punctuated by the clatter of the debris as it struck robots and clanged off the glassteel shields of the SWAT officers behind them. As the crowd reached the line of firebots—intent on tearing the targets of their ire apart—they were met with a response I had not anticipated, but should have seen coming.

  The flame throwers on the robots hissed as fuel pumped through lines. Clicks echoed in a moment of shocked silence as ignitions sparked. The whoosh of burning fuel filled the street as two dozen gouts of flame plunged into the crowd.

  The smell of charred flesh stung my nostrils a moment before the screaming registered in my mind. Dozens of protesters fell where they stood, charred beyond recognition. Twice as many turned to run, only to be engulfed by flames from behind. The mass of humanity hesitated as the front ranks broke, like a wave breaking against a seawall. The enbots that remained standing turned their attention on the mob and opened fire again. Bullets ripped through the crowd, the rounds intended to destroy light vehicles blasted limbs from torsos, decapitated, and disemboweled.

  The entire crowd ducked as one, desperate to seek some shelter from the storm of lead. We crouched near the ground among them, trapped in the middle of the huddling mass with no hope of escape.

  “New plan,” Razor said. “Get the fuck out of here.”

  Stitch nodded, his piercings wobbling from the frantic motion.

  “What about the wounded?” Magdela asked.

  I peered through the press of bodies. Those still moving seemed unhurt; most of them already trying to escape. Everyone else was either locked in the stillness of death or writhing in agony during their final moments on Earth.

  I grabbed Magdela by the arm and locked my eyes on hers. “There are no wounded.”

  She looked out over the crowd, desperation to help the victims of the slaughter writ clear on her face. The crowd was already dissolving around us as people ran for their lives. Beyond them, firebots stepped over smoldering husks to advance down the street. Their steel feet splashed in pools of blood from those that were gunned down. A small army of riot cops and the towering enbots followed them. After a moment, Magdela seemed to realize there was nothing we could do. She turned back and nodded, then we ran.

  I, Magdela, Razor, Stitch, and the other Chimeras ran down the street and disappeared into the alleys. We abandoned the vehicles and fled on foot. Even as the screams of the dying rose behind us, even as their numbers grew, we ran.

  Escape or death were our only options.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Whiskey spilled over the side of the glass, ran in rivulets down the vessel, and dripped to the threadbare rug on the floor. I tried to steady my hand, but the shaking wouldn’t stop. I gave up and raised the glass to my lips, drained the entire thing in one gulp, and sent it flying across the room. It bounced off a makeshift plywood wall and crashed to the concrete floor, shattering into a thousand shards.

  “Hey,” Razor said. “Those aren’t free.”

  I shot him a glare that should have made it clear I wouldn’t hesitate the visit the same sort of violence on him if he continued to complain. I wasn’t in the mood to hear it after what we’d been through. In fact, I couldn’t believe he had the care to spare for something so trivial.

  “It’s fine,” he muttered. “It’s just a glass.”

  Magdela walked over from tending to some minor wounds on the other side of the gang’s hideout and laid a hand on my shoulder. “You need to calm down.”

  “Calm down?” I shot to my feet and kicked an empty crate over, sending assorted packs of cigarettes, ashtrays, and bottles skittering across the floor. “You seriously want me to calm down?”

  She shrank back from me, fear in her eyes the likes of which I’d only seen a few times since meeting her. She knew I had a temper. That I’d lost it in a bad way with my ex-wife back in the day. She looked like she expected that old Harold to resurface—the monster she’d heard of, but never seen.

  I wondered for a moment, under the scorn of those fearful eyes, how close I was to unleashing that beast. But as I explored the thought, a thunderous voice interrupted it.

  “What in the hell happened out there?”

  All eyes in the hideout turned to the entrance. A figure emerged from the shadows, but even in the light, he seemed cloaked in darkness. Clad from head to toe in black leather, the seven-foot behemoth of a man barely fit under the basement’s ceiling without ducking. His skin was almost as dark as the leathers, broken only by the white of one eye and the chrome plating and glowing red light of an implant where another should have been.

  I only met The Chimeras’ leader once before. Malachi gave his blessing for them to work with me when I first came to them, and after that had been a silent partner in our endeavors. But his reputation was a thing of legend, and it only took one meeting to know you didn’t want to cross the man.

  The burning gaze of his cybernetic eye scanned the small crowd. “Who took my people into the middle of a goddamn riot?”

  All eyes in the basement turned on Razor, who stood shaking beside the couch I’d just vacated.

  Malachi stormed over to the smaller man, grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him off the ground. He strode over the shattered glass with the gangbanger in tow. His boots grinding the broken shards was the only sound in the basement other than Razor’s whimpers. Malachi slammed the smaller man into the plywood wall. It cracked under the impact and Razor flew into the space beyond to collapse on a pile of old mattresses.

  “What the fuck were you thinking?” Malachi roared.

  Razor struggled to right himself, but didn’t seem to even think about rising. He rubbed his neck as bruises already formed before answering. “Listen, boss. I didn’t mean for anybody to get hurt. It wasn’t our fault. It was the—”

  “Why?” Malachi cut him off.

  Razor’s mouth hung open like a landed fish gasping for air.

  “Hey, take it easy on him.”

  The shock on my face must have mirrored that on every other one in the basement as we all turned to Magdela. The thin, five-and-a-half-foot woman stood next to Malachi with one hand on a hip and the other holding a cigarette, glaring up at him as one might a petulant child.

  “He was just trying to take advantage of the situation. He had no way of knowing a protest would become a massacre. None of us did.”

  Malachi glared down at her, anger smoldering in his good eye as his brows knit together. Hands that could have crushed her skull balled into fists. Every breath in the room was held in that moment, then his face relaxed and he let escape a slight chuckle. “You’ve got some balls, you know that?”

  “Yeah,” Magdela said, taking a drag. She finished with a cloud of smoke, “I know.”

  Something about the moment shook me out of my stunned silence, and I stepped up beside her. It might have been an instinct to protect the woman I loved from the imposing gang leader, but I knew better than to think she needed protecting. Maybe I recognized that he was as caught off guard by her as anybody, so that was the perfect time to approach him with an idea as crazy as the one I was mulling over.

  “The real question is, what are we going to do about it?”

  Malachi’s gaze turned to me, and I had to squint as the glow of his cybernetic eye filled my vision. “Do about what?”

  I waved a hand toward the door, indicating what lay beyond it. “About the cops. About the city. They can’t go around slaughtering protesters. Somebody has to do something.”

  It was Magdela’s turn to look on in shocked silence, though there was a glimmer of hope sparkling in her eyes. She tried to shake me from my melancholy with just those ideas for weeks now. But it took witnessing a street filled with charred and bleeding corpses to accomplish what words alone could not.

  Malachi likewise seemed surprised by the sudden turn, but there was no glimmer beyond the glow of his implant. “One: It’s not my problem. Two: What do you expect The Chimeras to do about it?”

  I pushed the toppled crate out of the way with my foot and found my crumpled pack of cigarettes on the ground. After retrieving one and lighting it, I took a seat on the couch and threw one leg over the other. I needed to exude confidence if this was going to work, and there was no way I could do that while craning my neck to meet the eyes of the giant.

  “First of all: It is your problem. If the city is going to slaughter protesters, what’s stopping them from turning on petty criminals and gangbangers next? And second: I don’t expect only The Chimeras to do something. I expect all the gangs to do something.”

  Malachi waved a dismissive hand and turned toward the door. “That kind of alliance has never happened. You’re dreaming a fool’s dream, Howard.”

  “Harold,” Stitch said from behind me.

  “What?” Malachi turned; his brows once again knitted in rage.

  Stitch sucked in a breath and stuttered out, “His... His name is Harold. Or Jasper. Depending on who you ask.”

  I looked over my shoulder to find Stitch standing behind me, and Razor next to him, still rubbing his neck. All around them, The Chimeras stood behind the couch, glaring at their leader over my shoulders.

  Magdela walked over and stood at my elbow, then flicked her cigarette butt on the floor at Malachi’s feet.

  “Don’t worry,” Razor said as he cleared his throat. “I told you The Chimeras have your back.”

  Malachi wasn’t any help over the next few days, but he didn’t get in the way, either. I reached out to some old contacts and pulled in a few favors. Razor did the same, beating the streets where even I had yet to venture. Soon, the cramped basement hideout was filled with all sorts of miscreants and misfits.

  Delegations from three other gangs shuffled about under the watchful gaze of the Chimeras. Malachi sat shrouded in darkness off to one side, his cybernetic eye’s red glow an unavoidable reminder of his watchful gaze.

  Most intently, the red glow followed the rag-shrouded, disheveled forms of the Vandals. The delegation of six members rooted around in the gang’s pantry, pocketing what they could before the Chimeras guards shoved them back out into the common space. The Vandals started as little more than a coalition of the homeless, united for the sake of security and community. Over time, the gang grew to one of the most prolific in the city. You couldn’t go into any neighborhood without some of them being nearby. They didn’t claim turf like the other gangs, and their sort of criminal enterprise wasn’t at all sophisticated. They were known for muggings, shoplifting, and of course vandalism. They would be perfect for causing chaos throughout the city.

  At the opposite end of the spectrum from them, and the opposite side of the room, were five members of the Neon Snakes. Angular cut suits in dark metallic colors, trimmed with bright neon stripes, made them appear more like business executives than gangsters of New Angeles. If it weren’t for the shiny fabrics and garish trim, they might even pass as Mafia. They gazed out at the assembly through mirrored sunglasses, silent within the surrounding chaos. The Neon Snakes operations were not unlike those of the Chimeras. They ran a protection racket, except in the swankier parts of town—Berdino, Monterey Park, and Catawba Village. While they didn’t look like much in the way of muscle, their resources and connections gave them access to an arsenal of the most sophisticated weaponry money could buy. Underneath those jackets, they were each likely packing the kind of heat we’d only dreamed about in my days in the NAPD. If I could convince them to act as bodyguards for the protests, the police would think twice about roughing anybody up.