It took Quaid a good many days to bring the kid along. After his year-long spree as Bad Boy Crusader of the Far Left, being essentially held captive in a boarded-up tanning salon was a rough comedown for Josiah.

He sulked and refused to speak even to his top lieutenants, ranting at no one in particular about jackals and bovines and reactionary forces and the clock at Lewd Brew, frothy incoherent babbles.

He refused to post to Twitter, so Quaid had to channel josiahTheAvenger for the occasional 280-character screed, keeping up appearances, drawing on his politician's knack for fakery.

Complicating the effort to rehab Josiah into a useful asset was withdrawal. The kid was hooked on amphetamines—at a minimum—and without them suffered dry heaves and insomnia. His face became gaunter than it'd started out. All he ate was Saltine crackers, refusing even Eunice's famous flank-steak-and-onion stew.

(Molly told her the stew request had come from Durwood; no way she'd have stood there caramelizing onions knowing they were for "that loudmouth, no-class criminal.")

Quaid visited Josiah each morning in the tanning chamber that served as his de-facto cell, bearing crackers and ginger ale.

"You can turn this around," he said, one typical day. "It's a crap situation from your perspective, tastes bad in your mouth. But hope endures. Believe in yourself."

Josiah glared back.

Quaid said, "I believe in you."

The kid cursed and said, "The microsecond you get you want, you're turning me over to the FBI."

"Wrong. Even if I did, everyone's getting amnesty in this thing. You can't prosecute half the world's population."

Josiah clammed up, seemingly out of comebacks.

They were sitting kneecap to kneecap. Quarters were cramped, which Quaid regretted. The tanning salon had been the best he could swing on short notice. An old flame, the Icelandic promoter-MMA trainer DJ Lilja, had run it pre-Anarchy and said he was welcome to it.

Quaid resumed, "All you need to do is rework the narrative in your brain. Rearrange those neurons. You're not capitulating—you're fighting back! Rivard used you. They co-opted the Anarchy, and now you're co-opting it back."

Josiah twitched violently—either from those uppers he was missing or at the thought of admitting he'd been played.

"Professional wrestlers do it all the time," Quaid said. "Switch sides, go from bad to good. If you're seen as stemming the tide, wresting the Anarchy from Rivard's clutches? Hey, you're back to Rock Star One-A status."

Josiah looked up with bleary eyes that barely resembled the pink whack-bursts they'd once been.

"What a swell dude you are, looking out for me."

"Absolutely not," Quaid said. "I think you booked your spot in hell months ago—somewhere between Ted Blackstone's throat and that ear you sliced off. But I work for American Dynamics, and they'd like to not fight World War III against Rivard. That goal just happens to dovetail nicely with the rehabilitation of your image."

Quaid wheedled and reasoned and brought tastier crackers, and finally convinced Josiah of the truth: cooperating was his only play.

The specifics of the plan were devised by Piper Jackson. She knew Fabienne Rivard was gunning for the data facility in Morganville. If Josiah agreed to forgo frivolous targets like Shop-All and finally hit it, but said the Mice needed the kernel sourcecode in order to tailor it against Morganville's security, Rivard might hand it over. Then Piper could reverse-engineer an antidote.

She hoped.

Durwood said, "I'm Rivard, why am I giving it over?"

"Because we did it before," Piper said, explaining she'd had to tweak the source in the early days to beat a particular variant of Norton's Security software.

All agreed the telephone call should come from Josiah, who'd so far initiated all communications with Rivard.

Now the whole group—Molly and the Third Chance guys, joined by the captive Mice—gathered round Josiah's cellphone.

Quaid said, "Don't act overeager. You're just tossing out ideas. You're spitballing. Keep it cool, nice and easy, relaxed."

Garrison—that boy toy of McGill's—burst out, "But if he's too relaxed, that's a giveaway too! Josiah was never relaxed before."

He swept bangs off his brow with a flourish as Molly watched her fingernails. Garrison was constantly scoring these gnatty points against Quaid, seeming to perceive a great rivalry between them.

"I figured that was implied," Quaid said, "but by all means, spell it out for us. Nobody ever died of redundancy."

He produced Josiah's phone, which lived in his sportcoat pocket for safekeeping, and laid it before the jittery Albino.

"Are you game?" Quaid said. "You're in, all the way?"

Josiah spun the phone between his pale palms. His eyes gleamed with...anticipation? Regret? Loathing?

For whom?

"Yeah," Josiah said. "All in."

Were his eyeteeth vibrating?

Quaid hadn't the first clue how the kid would perform. If he laid an egg—if their ruse was sniffed out—then the Mice were over, the guys' last tie to Rivard LCC and the kernel severed. A year of deep cover work down the drain.

Josiah found the number and tapped. The phone dialed, starting with the France country code.

Despite the mid-afternoon hour, the lobby of the tanning salon was dim. Boarded-over windows permitted only slivers of light where the plywood didn't join up. Molly was hunched over her knees, praying no doubt. Durwood stood at the door on lookout, Sue-Ann at his boot heel.

The rest of the Mice watched in various modes, Piper Jackson ready with her laptop, Garrison hovering near McGill, Hatch towering beside Quaid—the latter two having become friendly sparring partners on a range of public policy topics.

A voice answered, "Allo?"

Josiah said, "This is Narwhal-One."

Durwood turned from his post to catch Quaid's eye.

Narwhal?

"No," Josiah said. "No, I'm not gonna hold for Blake Leathersby. I need Fabienne Rivard."

He grinned tightly around the lobby, seeming confident. Not all shared the sentiment, Piper Jackson's face flat as a gravestone.

Josiah reiterated, "Yes, Fabienne Rivard. Now!"

Lividly, he chomped the air in front of the phone.

Next:

"Because we need to discuss a mission of vital importance." A fine film of spittle appeared on the phone. "Of vital importance!"

Quaid had a sinking feeling as the exchange progressed. (Regressed?) They weren't biting. They were going to tell Josiah to buzz off. Broad private militarization was already underway. They weren't going to risk exposing the kernel sourcecode, no matter how they coveted Morganville as a target.

"Only Fabienne!" Josiah roared. "Don't dare put somebody else on the line."

Then, fifteen seconds on:

"I TOLD YOU NOBODY BUT FABIENNE!" He held the phone two-handed up to his face, like a sheet of paper he wanted to break with sound waves. "I don't care—I have emails typed up to HuffPost, Drudge, and The New York Times confessing the whole gig! JUST TRY ME!"

The threat was pure improvisation, possibly overdone, but it fit the kid's style. Quaid thought of Monty Hammond, the old crank who used to deliver leaden, headache-inducing sermons before the statehouse in Springfield. Other legislators groaned when he took the floor, but his meanings came across. He'd been successful—until he tried running statewide and hired a consultant, who imposed brevity and put him on TV in jeans.

Monty lost by thirty percentage points. To the exit poll question, "What did the candidate stand for?", the top response to Monty was None of the above.

Josiah fidgeted as Team Rivard considered its response, slicking his thumb along a busted CitySun sign.

Thirty seconds later, his eyes danced.

"Yes! That's right, it's me, Narwhal-One," he said. "We're ready to take out Morganville, but first we need the kernel sourcecode so we can program in an adjustment."

Piper Jackson cringed—he must've used the wrong technical terms—but the conversation seemed to proceed well enough. Josiah mentioned various dates and times, and whoever was on the line for Rivard—Fabienne?—kept answering.

At one point, Josiah waved his right hand wildly in the air. "Mm-hm, for real," he said, mouthing, Get me a pen, I need a pen NOW! "We could plan it for then. If you can just send us the sourcecode, like a week ahead of time, that'd be solid."

Hatch hurried him a ballpoint pen. Josiah shook it to get ink flowing, scratched furiously on a piece of typing paper.

"Now I'm ready, all set," he said. "What's a good day?"

He poised the pen over the page...and kept it poised. For thirty seconds.

For a minute.

Piper chewed her lip. Quaid hitched his thumbs in the belt loops of his slacks. Durwood muttered "lousy Pomeroy, trust him as far as I can throw him..."

Josiah covered the phone's mic. "They aren't going for it—she says they never send the kernel electronically! It needs to stay on their servers."

Quaid looked to Piper.

"That's bull," she said. "I got it sent to me before, woman named Marie."

Josiah's eyes zipped between them. "What am I supposed to say?"

His knee bounced under the table, knocking its underside.

"It's fine, fine, you can handle this," Quaid said. "Tell her...hmm...look, tell her we still have the old kernel. From Marie. That makes sense." He turned to Piper. "Do we have it?"

Piper shook her head.

Shoot.

Quaid gripped Josiah's sleeve and bore into the kid's eyes—staring until they settled.

"Tell them if they don't wanna send the latest-greatest version of the kernel? Fine. We have an old clunker version, we'll try that. Maybe it'll take Morganville out, maybe it won't."

Josiah got back on the call and took Quaid's general tack. He stumbled tying in Morganville but with enough silent prods and scribbled reminders, finally communicated the threat.

As he listened to the answer, Josiah's lips fluttered along trance-like.

He whispered off mic, "Still negatory on giving it to us electronic, but she'll do a physical hand-off."

Durwood glanced over from the door.

Quaid made squishy sounds with his mouth. He didn't love the idea of a physical hand-off. But he also doubted the getting would get any better.

He flashed Josiah a thumbs up.