The Cyclops Initiative by David Wellington Page B

of the place were standing by the plateglass windows, looking out at the street.
    â€œHey,” one of them called out to him as he headed for the back of the shop and the restroom.
    Chapel froze. “Yeah?”
    â€œYou see anything?” she asked. She was a young woman with freckles wearing a stained apron. She didn’t even give Chapel’s ruined clothes a glance. “There’s nothing on the news, and Twitter just says there was an explosion.”
    â€œOh, yeah?”
    â€œYeah. We’re gonna close up in a minute and go look for it.”
    This was New York City. A city still haunted by September eleventh, but also a city where ­people ran toward explosions and attacks and horror so they could get a good video of it on their phones.
    â€œJust need the bathroom,” Chapel said, and before the young woman could respond he pushed through the door of the men’s room and locked it behind him.
    The silence in there was enough to make his ears ring again. But he could breathe.
    He studied his face in the mirror, looking for any sign he’d been cut or bruised in the blast. He’d been lucky. As close as he’d been to the explosion he seemed to have escaped any serious injury. The main damage was to the silicone wrist of his artificial arm. It looked like someone had cut into it with a butcher knife. He prodded the wound with his good fingers, seeing how deep the gash went. It wouldn’t damage his prosthesis, but it did make him look like an android that had unsuccessfully tried to commit suicide by slashing its wrist.
    That made him think of the bomb squad robot, and the hijacked Predator. Robots turned into suicide bombers. There had to be a link there—­whoever hijacked the drone must be the same person who blew up Angel’s trailer. But why? What were they trying to cover up? They’d already framed her—­not that anyone would have listened to her if she did have secrets to share. She wasn’t even human.
    Damn it. He was wasting time. He could do the detective work later. Right now he had to get out of New York.
    He took off his tunic, carefully laying Angel’s hard drive on the edge of the sink. There he got a nasty surprise. The entire back of the tunic was shredded. Luckily the shirt underneath was intact.
    He took off his tie as well. Nothing he could do about his uniform trousers with their distinctive gold stripe. He washed up as best he could, getting the grime off his face and teasing most of the gravel dust out of his hair. Then he turned and looked at the hard drive. He needed a way to conceal it.
    He found a plastic bag in the trash. He wrapped the drive in what remained of his tunic and stuffed the resulting bundle inside the bag. He glanced at himself in the mirror. It looked like he was just some guy in an ugly shirt carrying a bag full of old rags. He wouldn’t stand out so much now. There were other ways to track him, though.
    He took out his smartphone and stared at it for a while.
    Anything he did with the device could be traced. The police were probably already getting a warrant to tap his phone. Maybe the hijacker would trace him as well—­anyone who could frame Angel like that definitely had the capability. The phone was a liability. But it was so damnably useful.
    Nothing for it. He started prying open the back of the case so he could get the SIM card out when it started to ring.
    Chapel was still jumpy from surviving the explosion. He nearly dropped the phone in the toilet. He shook his head. Come on, keep it together, he thought. He flipped the phone over, knowing that whoever it was, he didn’t dare answer it. He was just going to power the phone down and then—­
    It was Julia.
    Julia was calling him. Right now.
    â€œShit,” he said, under his breath. As if she might hear him.
    QUEENS, NY: MARCH 21, 17:09
    Julia.
    There had been a time, once, when he and Julia had spoken on the phone every