The guardians carry on flying their nightly sorties. Drones gather data from all the planet’s hotbeds. Recon units comb those last few holdout places that elude the grid. Virtuoso interpreters of chatter listen in on all frequencies. Everywhere, agents break up attacks before they’re even planned. In another few weeks, an airborne squad will drop into the compound of the supreme artist of panic—fugitive these last ten years—and slaughter him. That death will change nothing. Panic, like any art, can never be unmade.
Powers wields a silken whip
