“I should sleep,” I tell her. I turn off the computer. She keeps kneading my back, then her lips are at my ear.
“You’re not just paying for the room, you know,” she says. She doesn’t care about me. I know it for a fact. This is her job. Her calm, professional indifference is like standing in front of an open refrigerator on a hot summer day.
I can’t help but think of Kelsey, who’s still in a hospital bed right now.
It doesn’t stop me.
CAMOUFLAGE.
After sixteen hours of sleep—with some exercise in between—I’m ready to hit the conference. Which means looking the part.
I unroll a pair of jeans and a T-shirt from my bag. They’re brand-new, but the kind of expensive that looks cheap from a distance. Frayed and faded. Wearing them, I’m indistinguishable from every other brogrammer here for his shot at greatness.
Katya’s seated at the breakfast nook in a robe, drinking a cup of black coffee so slowly that it seems she’s absorbing it by osmosis. She flares her nostrils in an elegant display of distaste when she sees me.
“I’m trying to fit in,” I say.
“You succeed,” she says, and shifts her attention away. I think I’ve disappointed her.
I leave the condo and catch a ride to the conference in a hired car. In this part of the city, it looks like the future showed up a century too soon. Everything shines like polished chrome. Even the cement looks vacuumed. There’s not a single person walking—just a steady stream of gleaming cars moving in clockwork precision.
When I get out of the car, the death-ray heat of the sun is cut by a strong wind. This is not a good sign. There was a warning earlier in the conference weather report about a shamal—a sandstorm with winds as high as fifty miles per hour.
I remember a shamal from Iraq. Air traffic was completely shut down. Being outside was like walking into a sandblaster. All you could do was sit tight and let it blow over. When it was gone, you discovered sand in crevices you didn’t know you had.
But the relentlessly optimistic conference website assured me the winds will probably blow right past the tip of Dubai, out into the Gulf, so no one will be inconvenienced by a high-speed sandstorm.
I don’t have any of the proper badges or cards to get me into FutureTech Dubai. Fortunately, the Burj Khalifa is also a tourist attraction—tallest building in the world, remember—and my prepaid ticket to the observation deck gets me past the red-scarfed security guards. Once I’m inside, it’s fairly easy to wander away from the tour group and join a group of tech nerds clustered together. The elevator takes me a half mile into the sky, and the doors open into the conference center.
This is where the illusion of the future breaks down. Despite the water of the Persian Gulf visible through the windows, this could be an insurance convention in Reno. The space is filled with row after row of stalls, fronted by booth babes—models for hire wearing company logos on tight T-shirts. They draw in the men wearing dishdasha. Then the nerds get up from behind the tables and do their best to convince the Arabs that Bazoomercom or TwitWit will completely revolutionize cloud-based social-media integration. Or something.
Ordinarily, I’d find clients in a place like this. Dollar signs are dancing in the eyes of everyone here, and anyone willing to drop a few million on a tech start-up is usually my target demographic.
Instead, I blend into the background again. No one sees me. One guy walks into me and bounces off. He looks a little confused and annoyed, as if he tripped over a power cord. But he never says a word, just keeps going, with barely a pause.
I cruise the exhibition hall for almost an hour before a buzz of excitement rises. I feel the shift in the mood as everyone turns and looks at a group that’s just arrived at the main entrance.
I head over to see for myself.
Preston and the other judges are at the center of a cluster of people. They cruise down the aisles, checking out the competitors. This isn’t the actual judging; according to the schedule, that’s not until tomorrow. I have no doubt this is a mandatory public appearance, a requirement made by the conference organizers for the judges to go out and see the sights.
The other judges at least pretend to enjoy it. Preston can’t even manage that.
He’s forgotten to bring one of his novelty toys with him, so there are no fart noises or funny catchphrases. He has aged half a decade since I last saw him. His face is tight with stress, and his grin looks like a dentist’s experimental treatment gone wrong. His clothes look slept in, and his hair doesn’t have the usual application of product. He flinches if someone comes in too close for a selfie or a handshake.
More important, he’s got three bodyguards with him.
This is considered tacky, if not actually rude. As I said, Dubai is supposed to be completely safe.
But Preston is scared. I made sure of that. He’s not going anywhere without protection.
The judges trail an entourage of reporters and cameramen and fans with phones held up high. I slip in and follow them all the way down to the lobby.
A QUICK SHUTTLE-BUS ride and then we’re all herded inside the Mall of the Emirates, the largest mall in the Middle East. We’re here for a photo op. The sponsors and organizers want the world to know that Dubai is the Next Big Thing in the tech world, and they’re going to get photographic proof. Specifically, they’re going to get shots of Preston and his fellow billionaires acting cool.
So they take the whole entourage to Ski Dubai. It’s the perfect symbol of what unlimited money can do: an indoor ski hill in the middle of the desert. Manufactured snow covers a giant ramp in a room the size of three football fields. A small chair lift takes skiers and boarders to the top of the room, where they have their choice of five runs. There’s even a penguin habitat and a sledding hill for the kids.
Outside, workers regularly collapse from heatstroke as they struggle to complete the latest new building in triple-degree heat. Inside, a kid in a snowsuit and mittens just ran past me with an idiot grin and pure joy radiating from his mind. It’s obscene and a miracle at the same time.
And in the middle of all this impossibility, Preston is finally starting to enjoy himself. He’s a pretty good boarder, at least in his own mind, and this fits his self-image. He’s still young enough to be extreme. He’s looking forward to showing off in front of the other rich guys.
The entourage is kept outside, on the other side of big glass windows that contain a view of the entire slope.
I walk inside with Preston, the judges, his bodyguards, and their escorts. Again, nobody really sees me. Their eyes skate over me in the crowd. It takes work to stay this hard in the background, and I’m starting to feel the strain.
Still, nobody notices when I take a suit from the rack, pick up a snowboard, and get on the ski lift with the others.
Preston goes down, bodyguard on each side, about three people ahead of me. It’s not a long slope—even with Dubai money, you can do only so much—so I’ve got to be quick if I want a chance at him. Fortunately, he’s hotdogging, pulling tricks, half-assed jumps, cutting wide swaths back and forth across the powdered ice.
Two of the bodyguards are on skis, and they grimace as they keep up, looking like impatient parents chasing a rebellious tween.
I push ahead in line, and by stepping out of the scenery, I give up my invisibility. I hear it several times—
By then, I’m cutting a straight line toward Preston. His bodyguard at the top of the run shouts something. It’s hard to hear over the blast-force air-conditioning.
The other bodyguards see me headed for Preston. He’s too far away from them.
I slice straight through the snow toward him. I’m not a great boarder, but this is a bunny slo
pe, and all I have to do is pick up speed.
“Preston!” one of the guards finally screams. “Look out!”
Preston turns, sees me barreling toward him, and just manages to skid to a halt.
I hit him as I race past, knocking him flat on his ass.
It only hurts a little. But it’s incredibly humiliating. Everyone starts laughing.
Everyone except Preston and his guards. Preston recognizes me. He thinks he just dodged an assassination attempt.
“Get that son of a bitch!” he screams.
And here they come.
I’m already at the bottom of the hill, kicking off the board and the boots, pulling off the ski suit, and running as fast as I can.
I burst through the doors and into the mall. I get a few strange looks, but no one stops me or says anything.
Preston’s bodyguards come out of Ski Dubai, two of them still in their stifling ski outfits.
I stay where they can see me for just long enough, then I turn into a service corridor, and effectively vanish.
I paint myself right out of their perceptions, covering their minds’ images of me with scenes from the background again.
Several times, they scan right over me, then continue searching, getting more and more agitated. Their faces are locked into the usual action-hero expression of grim certainty, but I sense their panic and confusion. They’ve lost me. They’re nervous. They’ve talked about me. They know the rumors. They’ve got to split up, and for a long moment, they’re afraid.
I can’t help grinning. That little jolt of fear is better than cocaine.
But they’re soldiers, so they get over it. I can feel the adrenaline surge. It tastes like metal at the back of their throats. I get a glimpse of the reward that Preston is offering to whoever brings in my scalp:
That’s when they find the nerve. They each take a different direction, and each one is determined to kill me, whatever it takes.
I don’t care about the other two in their snow gear. Sure, they’re far more dangerous than they appear right now, clomping around in their ski boots. But they’ve never gotten close enough to me to do any damage. I don’t owe them anything.
I let them stomp away.
Then I follow the other guy.
He jogs forward, looking for me.
He turns around.
I would know him by his stance, by the unique tang of his thoughts and the echo of his feelings. I’d recognize him anywhere, even if I couldn’t see the edge of the tattoo.
Snake Eater. The man who shot Kelsey.
I sprint for the doors of the shopping center. He follows.
I’ve gone from 105 degrees to climate-controlled 68 to below zero in the ski hill, all in less than an hour. So for a moment, when I hit the open air, I wonder if my sense of temperature has been completely screwed.
Then I look up, and I realize what’s happened.
Snake Eater exits the mall a few steps behind me, and he stops dead as well. For a moment, we both look at the sky.
A great gray wall appears, blotting out the sun, dwarfing even the sky-high tower of the Burj.
It looks like a biblical plague. It’s impossible not to feel a little awe.
The shamal will not miss us. It hits the center of Dubai, and it hits hard.
There’s rain at first, fat drops that evaporate as soon as they hit the parched cement.
Then the wind comes tearing down the concrete and glass canyons, howling like a motherless child.
Those people still dumb or unlucky enough to be outside rush for the nearest shelter. Their movement breaks me out of my daze, and I begin sprinting away again.
Snake Eater races after me.
I run around the corner and find a construction scaffolding that leads to the roof, temporarily abandoned by its crew in the storm.
Then I make what looks like a rookie mistake. I go up the ladder.
Snake Eater follows me. He’s thinking
I reach the top of the scaffolding, then pull myself onto the roof and wait. This section overlooks the plaza below, but I can’t see any of it from where I stand. The shamal is growing worse. It carries whole sand dunes from the desert and all the dust from Dubai’s never-ending construction along with it. Visibility is maybe a dozen yards at best. The rest of Dubai is huddled inside their homes and offices, waiting for the storm to pass. It’s possible to feel like the last man on earth up here.
But I don’t have to wait long.
Snake Eater lifts his head over the edge of the roof in achingly slow increments, waiting for an ambush or even a bullet.
But I let him make the climb. He gets on the roof safely. I let him stand up and get his balance.
He waits for a moment, alert, on guard, and then he sees me.
I want him to see this coming. I want him to know.
I knew Preston would bring Snake Eater with him. It’s not easy finding employees who are both willing to kill and halfway competent at the job. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or a bad one for the future of the human race. But when you find a guy who’s proven he can blow up three men and put a bullet into an unarmed woman, no questions asked, you tend to keep that guy around.
Especially if you think you’ve got a pissed-off black-ops veteran coming after you. You want some reliable backup, preferably someone who’s already got blood on his hands.
Preston thought he was my target. He was wrong.
Oh, I intend to get around to him. Eventually. But this is the main event.
Even in the sand and grit, I see Snake Eater smile. He’s actually stupid enough to be happy to find me. He thinks this is going to end well for him.
I’m going to enjoy proving him wrong.
THE WIND KICKS up again. The shamal fills the air with more sand and dust. It’s like walking into a fog made of ground glass. Snake Eater stands less than a dozen feet away from me, but he’s a just blurry outline now.
That works for me. I can use my talent like radar, zeroing in on his thoughts. He’ll stumble around with grit in his eyes, the wind howling in his ears, deaf and blind, while I cut him to pieces with elegant kicks and punches, then dance away before he can touch me. I’m not sure if I’ll beat him to death or only cripple him. I should win without raising too much of a sweat.
I’ve already got a little mind game planned for him—quadriplegic paralysis. I’m going to convince his brain that his body has lost its ability to move below the neck. He should be helpless. It means my own legs and arms will go numb for a while, but I figure it will be worth the cost.
At least, that’s the plan.
But just before the shamal kicks into high gear—just before the entire rooftop goes dark as the dust blots out all but the most feeble sunlight—Snake Eater stops thinking like a conscious human being and turns into a creature of pure rage.
He remembers being shot back in Pennsylvania, and remembers seeing me behind the gun. He remembers, with humiliation, how I froze him in a nightmare in the hotel lobby. And he remembers how I simply walked away from him both times, as if he was nothing, no threat at all.
He has not felt that helpless since he was a child, and every time he remembers it, his shame has only grown, until he has created a tank of pure hatred for me, down deep in the center of himself. It’s why he volunteered when Preston asked for someone willing to go after me. It’s why he had no hesitation about shooting Kelsey or triggering the explosion he thought would kill me.
I scared him. I stole the only thing he’s ever been able to rely on—himself—and he hates me for it.
It takes him on
ly a split second to tap into that fuel. He’s operating on instinct, so I don’t get an inkling of his plan before it happens.
He leaps forward and tackles me. I try to twist out of his path, but he still gets an arm around me. He takes me down on the roof. Before I can use my talent, he shifts position, punching me in the face with one fist while simultaneously pressing down on my throat with his forearm.
That’s when I realize: Snake Eater is a grappler.
I hate grapplers.
My talent is close to useless once they get a grip on me. They use Brazilian jujitsu and judo holds, and keep everything right in their hands, so I can’t fool their eyes. They’ve got lots of experience at handling pain, so I can light up their brains with all kinds of terrible memories and they just take it. I can see what they’ve got planned, but slipping out of a choke hold is a lot tougher than dodging a punch.
All of my advantages just vanished. It’s hard to focus and cast my thoughts when someone is pummeling my face over and over. At least I won’t have any trouble finding him. He’s right at the other end of the arm that he’s using to crush my windpipe.
I try to flip him off me, but he rolls with it and comes up on top. So I do it again. We end up tumbling along the roof, neither of us willing to slow down or give up an advantage.
Suddenly the roof ends. I open my eyes and get a good look down into the swirling wind and sand. I twist with everything I have, feel something pop in my back, and nearly shrug Snake Eater right over my head and over the edge.
But he doesn’t go. He must have figured out where I was headed when I slammed on the brakes, so he suddenly shifts his weight and hauls back. His grip loosens on my neck enough for me to break his hold and scramble sideways, palms shredding on the gravel. I choke on the dirt as it clots inside my nose and mouth. He’s slapping at me, trying to find a handhold, to keep me close.
I’m almost free, halfway to my feet, when one of his hands clamps on my ankle like a vise. I spin and kick, but he dodges it. Then he yanks my leg out from under me, and I hit the roof on my back.
He leaps into the air, ready to come down on me with his full weight.
But this time, some dimly remembered move comes back to me from my training, and I get my feet up to block him. He grunts, and I know I’ve just kicked him hard in the solar plexus.
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