Page 108 of Anarchy Missing

“He can’t fight him,” Molly says, almost a sob. “He can’t fight Case. It’s been genetically programmed into their DNA.”

Case strikes Lincoln with the back of his forearm and Lincoln goes flying across the room. Skidding across desks, making paperwork, tablets, and phones go scattering all over, until his limp body disappears behind a desk.

Case’s eyes flash red for a moment and I sink back into Molly. “What is happening?” I ask, desperate for a way to make sense of this.

Case tracks my voice with his gaze and his eyes rest on mine. Glowing, red eyes I do not recognize. “Don’t follow me,” he says.

But Thomas is there, recovered from the burn. He’s got an ElectroDart gun in his hand and he sticks it right against Case’s chest and releases the dart into his skin.

The snapping sound of the charge hitting its mark fills the room. Seconds and seconds of it.

But Case never moves.

Thomas stands there, stunned, as Case laughs, smacking the dart from his skin like it’s nothing more than an annoying mosquito trying to drain tiny drops of blood on a summer night.

That’s when we notice his skin is moving. “Something is inside him,” Molly says.

And she’s right. Something is inside him. And it’s a lot more creepy than whatever technology methodically erases the electrocution marks Thomas just inflicted.

It’s some kind of metal mesh. Moving, undulating in a sickening way, underneath his skin.

“Don’t follow me,” Case repeats. He says it right to me, holds my stare for five continuous seconds, and then grabs the knob of the door he was trying to open a few minutes ago and disappears inside.

Molly runs to Lincoln, who has picked himself up off the floor and is already making his way back towards us.

Thomas just looks at the door.

“Sheila!” Lincoln is screaming.

It occurs to me that the voice that came from the computers—which are now dead again—was female.

“Sheila!” Lincoln screams again

“I’m here,” Sheila says, talking through Molly’s phone as she holds it in her hand.

“What the fuck just happened?” Lincoln yells. His roar is so loud, I shrink back and press myself up against a wall.

“I’m getting very confusing signals from ToyBox, Lincoln.”

“Did you just see what fucking happened in here?”

“I…” Sheila stutters. “Heard it. I can extrapolate.”

“He’s fucking nuts,” Thomas seethes. “You were supposed to figure this shit out, Sheila. Obviously you dropped the ball.”

“It’s not her fault,” Lincoln says, walking up to Thomas like he might start a fight. “It’s your fucking fault. You’re the one who said change him.”

“I said fix him, you dumbass. Not turn him into some psycho light show of heat and violence.”

“You guys,” Molly says, trying to break them apart. “Stop. He’s going up to the roof. That stairwell leads to the helipad. We need to stop him. He could go anywhere if he gets in that helicopter.”

I take off towards the door, already pulling it open by the time the others start to join me. But as soon as I open it, I can hear the thrum of rotors.

“He’s already leaving,” Molly says. “Sheila. Track that fucking helicopter. Thomas, we need—”

“It’s down the street at SkyEye. Sheila, bring the helicopter down here and land it on the roof. We’ll meet you up there.”

I head up the stairs at a run, but Thomas and Lincoln overtake me in seconds, and they burst through onto the roof a few minutes later, breathing hard and shielding their eyes in the glare of the setting sun as they watch the police ’copter take off towards the mountains.