The warehouse was hot. The mechanical computers churned below, radiating heat like cast-iron stoves.
Jason lay tangled in the steel mesh net on the catwalk. He tested the weight. Too heavy to lift.
Gates sat in his wheelchair a few feet away, admiring the dead iPhone like it was a religious relic.
"I have a call with Moscow in five minutes," Gates said, checking a pocket watch. "Trotsky wants to optimize his grain distribution. Or his executions. The algorithm doesn't care."
He looked at Jason.
"Don't go anywhere, Prentice. We have much to discuss. Specifically, the patent rights to that nuclear battery of yours."
Gates spun his wheelchair around. The electric motor on the axle whined—another anachronism. He rolled toward the office door.
Two guards with the bulky radio headsets stepped out of the shadows, Thompson guns leveled at the net.
The door clicked shut behind Gates.
"Okay," Jason whispered to Sarah, who was pinned next to him. "Plan B."
"We have a Plan B?"
"You have the magnesium flare?"
Sarah wiggled her hand. She managed to reach into her jacket pocket. She pulled out a small glass tube filled with silver powder.
"I rigged it from the lab supplies," she whispered. "It's bright."
"Those night-vision goggles they're wearing," Jason nodded at the guards. "They amplify light, right?"
"Primitive photocathodes. Yes."
"Blind them."
Sarah smashed the glass tube against the metal grating of the catwalk.
FZZZZT-FLASH!
It was brighter than a welding arc. A sphere of pure, blinding white light exploded in the dim warehouse.
"AAAAHHH!"
The guards screamed. They clawed at their faces, ripping the heavy goggles off. Their eyes were useless, burned by the sudden overload.
"Now!" Jason yelled.
Adrenaline surged. He heaved the net up with his back. It was heavy, but panic made him strong.
He slipped out from under the edge. He grabbed Sarah's arm and pulled her free.
"Stop them!" a guard shouted, firing blindly.
Rat-tat-tat!
Bullets sparked off the railing.
Jason didn't run away. He ran toward the office door.
"Jason! The exit is that way!" Sarah screamed.
"I'm not leaving without my phone!" Jason shouted. "And the client list!"
He kicked the office door open.
Gates was behind his desk, holding a telephone receiver. He looked up, startled.
"End call," Jason said.
He vaulted over the desk.
Gates tried to reach for a pistol. Jason was faster. He grabbed the mechanical leg and twisted.
Metal screeched. Gates howled.
"My leg! You broke the servo!"
"You should have used titanium," Jason snarled.
He grabbed the iPhone from the desk. He shoved it into his pocket.
Then he saw the ledger. A thick, leather-bound book open next to the phone.
Client List: 1920-1921.
Jason grabbed it.
"Security!" Gates screamed into his lapel microphone. "Sector 4! Kill them!"
The warehouse alarm blared. A deafening, rhythmic klaxon.
"Go!" Jason yelled.
He and Sarah burst out of the office, back onto the catwalk.
Below them, the factory floor was swarming. Guards were pouring in from every entrance. Armored cars—modified Fords with turret guns—were rolling through the main bay doors.
"We can't fight an army!" Sarah yelled.
"We don't have to," Jason said. "We just have to reach the orchard."
They sprinted along the catwalk. Bullets chewed up the floorplates behind them. They reached the fire escape and slid down the ladder.
They burst out into the cool night air. The smell of apricots hit them.
"Run!"
They sprinted through the rows of trees. Branches whipped their faces. The ground was soft mud.
Behind them, the armored cars roared out of the bunker. Their headlights swept the trees.
VROOOOM.
A machine gun opened up. Tracers tore through the canopy, shredding leaves and fruit.
"They're gaining!" Sarah gasped.
Suddenly, a new sound cut through the chaos.
A high-pitched whine. Like an angry hornet the size of a hawk.
"Duck!" Jason tackled Sarah.
Something streak over their heads.
It was a model airplane. A biplane, maybe four feet wide. But instead of a pilot, it had a bundle of dynamite strapped to the fuselage.
The drone dove.
It slammed directly into the windshield of the lead armored car.
BOOM!
The explosion flipped the car. Metal shrapnel flew everywhere. The car behind it swerved and crashed into an apple tree.
Jason looked up.
High above, circling in the moonlight, was Hughes's cargo plane.
The radio in Jason's pocket crackled. (He had stolen a headset from a downed guard).
"Did you see that?!" Hughes's voice screamed, sounding ecstatic. "I call it the Hummingbird! Nasty little bird!"
"Howard, get us out of here!" Jason yelled into the mic.
"Run to the south field! I'm coming in hot!"
Jason hauled Sarah up. "South! Go!"
They broke through the tree line onto the dirt airstrip.
The massive cargo plane was taxiing toward them, propellers spinning, kicking up a sandstorm. The rear cargo ramp was down.
"Jump!"
Jason threw the ledger onto the ramp. He grabbed Sarah's hand. They sprinted alongside the moving plane.
He boosted her up. She scrambled onto the metal deck.
She reached back. "Jason!"
He lunged. He caught her hand.
She pulled. He swung his legs up.
They tumbled into the cargo hold, gasping for air.
Bullets pinged off the tail fin as the plane lifted off.
The ground fell away. The lights of the bunker faded into the distance.
Jason rolled onto his back. He was covered in mud and sweat.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the ledger.
He opened it.
His breath caught in his throat.
"What is it?" Sarah asked, crawling over.
"Look at the names," Jason whispered.
Client: The Kremlin. Order: Ballistic Calculation Tables.
Client: British Admiralty. Order: Sonar Algorithms.
Client: J.D. Rockefeller Jr. Order: Surveillance Grid - New York.
"Junior is buying tech from Gates?" Sarah asked, horrified.
"He's building a surveillance state," Jason said. "And look at this one."
He pointed to the last entry.
Client: A. Hitler. Order: Automated Census Tabulators.
Jason closed the book.
"Census tabulators," Jason said, his voice hollow. "Adolf isn't buying guns. He's buying a way to count people. To categorize them. To make lists."
In real history, IBM sold punch card machines to the Nazis to organize the Holocaust. Gates was doing it twenty years early.
"We thought we were ahead," Jason said, looking out the window at the dark mountains. "We have the bomb. We have the energy."
He held up the dead iPhone.
"But Gates just flattened the earth. The next war won't be fought with tanks, Sarah. It will be fought with databases."
He stood up, swaying with the motion of the plane.
"We have to get back to the desert," Jason said. "We need to build something stronger than a bomb."
"What's stronger than a bomb?"
Jason looked at the iPhone's black screen.
"A virus," he said.