I wheel into the guy’s driveway, spraying gravel chips. I have to bang on his door for five minutes before he shows up, wearing a ridiculous pair of pajamas complete with bunny slippers and a lopsided hat with 3 foot pink ears. He watches me nervously through the shatterproof glass—I must look like I just came out on the losing side of a war.

“Can I… help you?” he says into the speaker.

“I’m interested in a cure.”

His eyes go wide.

“How did you know about that?”

“Dead man told me.”

He blinks. “Well I’m afraid I only have one experimental dose. Also… it’s only fair, I think, to tell you that the new TRUScape chip cures the disease as well. Even I have one, now. But… you must have known that already?”

“Let’s just say I’ve got something against computers in my head. Look,” I pull out my credit chip, show him the bright green number designating the amount of my life savings. “You give me that cure, you can have every last G.”

He glances nervously over his shoulder, licks his lips.

“All right—all right. Come in.”

His house is cluttered with all kinds of tech-junkie equipment, from state-of-the-art to prewar antique. He sorts around for awhile before producing a small black syringe, no longer than my little finger, which he puts in my hand.

“Not too impressive to behold, eh?” he says. “It’s a chemical agent designed to destroy the nanostructures—they generate their own kinetic energy, so EMPs don’t work on them. This might make you sick for a couple of days, but it’ll get into your blood stream and keep you virus-free for at least a month. Finished development the night before CyberCorp unveiled their miracle cure. Swear the bastards must have stolen it.”

“Let’s do it,” I say, and hold out my arm. A cough racks my frame; blood dribbles between my teeth. “Now.”

He straightens my arm and taps the vein at my elbow. I take the syringe in my other hand and press it against the flesh.

“Wait.”

I look up. Standing in the doorway, silhouetted against the gray morning light, she’s standing.

“Tess?”

“The serum is flawed—the chemical agent will react with metals in your bloodstream and dissolve them, poisoning you. In every experiment upon animal agents, the results were fatal. Weren’t they, Mr. Fellsworth.”

Fellsworth’s eyes bulge. “That was over a year ago! Why do you think I spent so long perfecting it? It works!”

She ignores him. “Don’t do it, Jack. Come with me.”

I trust Fellsworth; I inject the cure.

I trust Tess. I go with her.