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The only time the Schizos—his name for his usual voices—receded hen he turned into the creature, into Abaddon Then he faced new voices, different voices that spoke not in words but in urges, and those voices, the Dark Watchers, reduced the Schizos to a background murmur

He rose fro the previous inhabitants (Reason 4 for leaving

: The bodies were starting to stink) He found a handgun in the nightstand of the master bedroom, and car keys in the dead wife’s purse He had never driven a car before—he was too young—but he’d seen it done plenty of times And he kne to enter a destination in the GPS

L-A-S V-E-G-A-S

Anyway, it looked like the cops had bigger problee drivers As he drove down surface streets through the greater Los Angeles ns of destruction and decay, not from what he’d done down at the port, not fro and vandalism, burned-out cars, shop s covered with plywood, uncollected trash bags burst open, glass on the street, fire hydrants open and gushing water Streetlights flashed on their es Cars and trucks passed by, loaded with household goods Refugees Going where? he wondered

A billboard for an upco movie had been spray-painted over with just one word in dripping red paint: REPENT A graffito on a real estate office wall used blue paint to say, KAM, the abbreviation for KILL ALL MUTANTS There were swastikas and obscenities, hatred of this or that group

Few people walked the streets,carts loaded with the typical rags and cans, but topped noith pilfered TVs and computers and fur coats The few others out in public walked in pairs or sun prominently displayed

The world was a gingerbread house, and it was being eaten away, bite by bite

I caht Gaze upon my work and bon before me!

But he did not yell this from the s This was not the time or place That would come

Justin DeVeere, aka Knight as fast as he could, tu over fallen branches

It was a sihtforward, run-for-your-life moment For approxi, using his power to help wipe out the Ranch

But he got past that very, very quickly

Being Justin, he acco narrative “Not my proble around trying to be Captain Courageousevery man for himselfsituation like thisone of theartistsany kind of artist, to hell with youngnot cannon fodder, I’m Justin DeVeere!”

Of course, he was Justin DeVeere with a control chip in the back of his neck, right where a tap on an app could send waves of pain through him Yeah, that was an issue If DiMarco survived—and somehow he expected that, like a cockroach, she would survive—she could still activate the chip any time she wanted