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  The rioters came in all shapes, sizes, and colors. There were more men than women, but the differential wasn’t much. I only noticed two consistent features. First, the rioters looked well-kept. And second, they were, by and large, rather young. Late teens and early twenties.

  In other words, they were exactly like all those other rioters that had plagued American cities these last three months. The media, always eager to put a name on things, had dubbed them the Berserkers. At least they didn’t refer to the riots as Berserker-mageddon or Berserker-pocalpyse.

  The Berserkers seemed, as their moniker implied, insane. But there was a motive behind the madness. Manhattan’s youth—hell, youth all over the country—had been sold a pack of lies. You’re special, they’d been told. You can do anything! And so an entire generation had grown up with the greatest of expectations, each Berserker believing he or she—and only he or she—was cut out for a monumental life.

  The Berserkers didn’t want steady, boring jobs. They wanted fulfilling work that would make them the envy of their peers. And they didn’t want to spend decades climbing the corporate ladder. They wanted immediate prosperity and respect.

  But the world didn’t work that way. For the vast majority of Berserkers, reality failed to live up to expectations. Even worse, they faced constant reminders of this on social media. Presented with a never-ending stream of self-indulgent posts, they couldn’t help but feel quietly inadequate. Like everyone was winning at life but them.

  As I eased myself into the thick of the riot, a tall man bumped into me. He wore a ski mask and smelled faintly of expensive vodka. His attire, ripped and ragged clothing, didn’t mesh at all with his bronzed skin and manicured nails.

  He cast me a nasty look. “You wore a tux to a riot? That’s an epic fail, rich boy.”

  “Yeah, just like your dad’s condom,” I retorted as I hiked past him and around an abandoned taxicab. A small group of dudes, outfitted in matching jackets, were dousing it with urine. The distant chant—“Eat the rich. Eat the rich. Eat the rich …”—gained volume.

  Of course, sky-high expectations weren’t the only problem. College costs had skyrocketed over the years and even those with well-paying jobs were bogged down in debt. At the same time, Berserkers were starting to question things like Social Security and Medicare. They were putting far more into those programs than they would ever get back. This was exacerbated by the fact that the elderly were in good financial shape. Bottom line, poor Berserkers were being forced to subsidize rich older folks. So, yeah.

  The Berserkers had reasons to riot.

  “Hey rich boy.” The voice was soft. Deadly. And right in my ear.

  I turned around. Saw the masked man, backed by a small group of followers. They wore masks as well and stank of the same expensive vodka. Graham, still tipsy, hung back, lurking behind them like some kind of alcoholic angel of vengeance.

  “Oh, I’m gonna enjoy this.” The masked man smacked his fist into his palm. “Ready to feel the pain, rich boy?”

  I didn’t have time for this. “Why? Are you going to make me look at your face?”

  Cackles and hoots of laughter rang out. The masked man whirled around, stared his followers down.

  “Forget him, Saul.” One of the followers clutched his side and managed to stop laughing. “We’ve got a job to do.”

  Saul sneered. Ignoring the advice, he stalked toward me, waving his hands, beckoning me to throw a punch.

  And so I did.

  My left fist crashed into his jaw. His head bounced up and down like a bobblehead doll and he twisted toward the taxicab. He struck the side and fell in a heap. The pissing dudes turned to look and in the process, sprayed him with streams of urine.

  Roaring, Saul leapt to his feet. He threw himself at the nearest dude. A fist to the stomach and another one to the face sent the dude into dreamland.

  Saul’s friends turned toward me. But a quick push from Graham sent them stumbling into each other and they went down like so many bowling pins.

  We were on the clock and anyway, there wasn’t much to gain by sticking around. So, Graham and I started forward again, sliding into open spaces and nudging people to the sides. It wasn’t hard to forge a path through the crowd.

  As it turned out, we weren’t the only ones using it.

  “Aww, that’s sweet,” Graham said after we’d traversed a short distance. “It looks like you’ve got yourself a fan club.”

  “Great.” I glanced over my shoulder. Saul and his gang trailed us by about twenty feet, slinking through the crowd, moving at an almost leisurely pace. “But why do they have to be so creepy?”

  We crossed E. 79th Street. The crowd thickened and grew increasingly boisterous as Graham and I approached E. 78th Street. A familiar chant rang out in unison from all sides.

  “Eat the rich. Eat the rich. Eat the rich …”

  But the chant was dying and soon gave way to a series of others.

  “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out! Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!”

  “Whose country? Our country! Whose country? Our country!”

  “We won’t move ‘til things improve! We won’t move ‘til things improve!”

  Those chants soon faded away. A new chant, rising from the ashes, erupted as Berserkers joined their voices together, shouting until they turned blue in the face.

  “You can’t run, the revolution has begun! You can’t run, the revolution has begun!”

  The chant turned deafening and the street felt like it was quaking under my shoes. I looked over my shoulder. Saul and his gang of masked men were still twenty feet away, slithering like snakes through the ever-thickening crowd.

  I tried to push my way forward. But the crowd was like a solid block of pulsing, unemployed life.

  Berserkers began to notice my tux. A few of them laughed, flashed me the thumbs-up. Like I was making some kind of political statement. Others stared knives at me. Like I was some insanely-stupid rich guy, so eager to flaunt my wealth I’d even dress up for a riot.

  I pulled off my bowtie, stuffed it in my pocket. I was tempted to ditch the jacket since it was so hot out. But I unbuttoned my dress shirt instead and checked my satphone. It was 8:35 p.m., which meant I’d already spent fifteen of my sixty minutes.

  Rising to my toes, I peered over rows of hooded and capped heads. I saw a wall of blue. NYPD officers were stretched across Madison Avenue, blocking access to E. 78th Street. They wore riot gear and carried batons.

  I’d dealt with my fair share of police officers over the years. I’d been hounded, chased, and even arrested on trumped-up charges all over the globe. So, as a rule I didn’t trust cops. And I didn’t want to be anywhere near them in a situation like this one. They weren’t there to help people like me, innocents caught up in a crazy situation. No, they were there to end the riot.

  By any means necessary.

  Again, I rose up on my toes. Behind the officers, I saw a line of mid-sized armored cars. Circular satellite-like devices, three feet in diameter, were mounted on the roof of each car.

  “You can’t run, the revolution has begun! You can’t run, the revolution has begun!”

  Off to the side, I saw Saul and his buddies. They were shoving their way through the Berserkers, but on the opposite side of the street.

  Saul must’ve felt my gaze because he stopped. Swiveled in my direction. Forming a gun with his fingers, he pantomimed shooting me.

  I caught his imaginary bullet in my hand and, with a big grin, crumbled it into imaginary dust.

  His face flushed and he ground his teeth together in fury. But as he started toward me, one of his followers whispered in his ear. Saul exhaled. Turning away, he continued his trek toward the police.

  One of the rioters broke ranks. Using a baton, an officer struck the man’s head. The man was unconscious before he hit the pavement. But the fuse had been lit and the Berserkers, fueled on stupidity or alcohol or maybe both, surged forward. Scuffles broke out all around
me.

  A loud whistle shrieked. The air morphed and I felt a wave of anxiety. My stomach quaked.

  The chant died off. Groans and screams, strangely dull, filled the air. My ears started to ring. As I covered them, I saw others holding their ears as well. Some of the Berserkers vomited. Others crumpled to the ground and went still.

  Fighting off the pain, I lifted my gaze. The police seemed immune to whatever had struck the crowd. Instead, they swung their batons, smashing heads with quiet menace.

  The ringing noise intensified, pounding away at the inside of my skull. My knees weakened. Graham fell to the street. As my balance faded, I caught a glimpse of the armored cars, of those circular satellites. They hummed and vibrated and a realization came over me.

  They weren’t satellites … they were sonic cannons.

  CHAPTER 8

  My consciousness ebbed. I sank to my knees. My torso toppled over and my hands hit pavement. I tried to get up, to move backward. But a dizzy spell stopped me cold.

  My brain went to work, recalling everything it knew about sonic cannons. Unfortunately, that wasn’t much. They worked by emitting high-power sound waves. At low levels, those waves caused nausea and irritation. At higher ones, they brought about extreme pain and loss of balance. They could even destroy a person’s eardrums.

  My saliva dried up, leaving me parched. Tiny vibrations shook my eyes, causing my vision to blur. I tried to lift my hands, to block my ears. But my muscles refused to respond.

  Abruptly, the infernal ringing noise morphed. It was still in my skull, just less intense. Strength flooded back into my body. Shifting my heavy head, I looked up. Through somewhat-hazy vision, I saw Berserkers—including Saul and his gang—engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the NYPD. The NYPD was better–trained, but they were fighting a much larger force. Meanwhile, other Berserkers scaled the various armored cars. Using a variety of tools, they systematically disabled the sonic cannons.

  “Wow.” Graham stirred, sat up. “What was that?”

  “Sonic cannons.” I rubbed my stinging ears. “A whole bunch of them.”

  “Well, that’s one way to kill a street party.”

  “Could’ve been worse. At least they didn’t hit us with techno music.”

  Rising to my feet, I watched a group of Berserkers working together, coordinating efforts, fighting to overcome the technologically superior police force. How had they managed to stay on their feet? How had they withstood the sound waves? Were their senses dulled by giggle juice and goofballs?

  More sonic cannons fell under the onslaught. The ringing noise faded away. Gradually, the other Berserkers recovered. I half-expected them to flee the area. Instead, they stumbled forward, crashing into the blue wall. The officers, now devoid of their sonic artillery, fell back. Within moments, the rioters swarmed them, throwing them to the streets.

  Cracking noises and screams rang out as frenzied Berserkers attacked the fallen cops with their own batons. More officers appeared out of nowhere. Armed with electroshock weapons, they went after the Berserkers. Rioters began to topple over, writhing uncontrollably.

  I wiped my sleeve across my forehead, relieving it of sweat. Then I marched into the urban battlefield. Fights raged all around us. I heard screams and metal smacking against exposed flesh. Blood sprayed on the pavement, on the vehicles, and all over my jacket.

  I looked around for Saul. I didn’t see him, but I did see one of his followers. The guy lay on the ground, partially unmasked. His eyes were closed and he was curled up in the fetal position. I found myself wondering all over again how he and the others had managed to fight through the sound waves.

  I ran to his side. Ignoring the stench of vodka, I peeled off his ski mask and studied his ears. Tiny bell-shaped plugs were buried within them. Gently, I pulled them out. They were made from a spongy material and looked expensive.

  The earplugs explained how Saul and the others had fought through the sound waves. But how did they get them? Did they just happen to own matching pairs of high-tech earplugs? Or had they somehow known the riot was coming and purchased them in advance?

  Graham darted to another fallen Berserker. Digging under the guy’s ski mask, he unearthed a similar set of earplugs. He studied them, then stuffed them into a pocket. I did the same.

  “Ready?” Graham said.

  “Hang on.” I reached into the guy’s pockets and extracted a smartphone.

  “What are you doing?” he whispered.

  I pressed my finger against the screen. “Hmm, password protected. Hey, get that guy’s phone for me.”

  “What for?”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  Quickly, he dug into the other guy’s pockets and came up with a smartphone. He tossed it to me and I touched the screen.

  Graham arched an eyebrow. “You’d better not be looking for dirty pics.”

  “If I was, I’d be on your phone.” Opening the texting program, I saw a message, forwarded along to about a dozen people. They can’t run, the revolution has begun, I read quietly. Tonight. Madison in the 70s. Eight. Don’t be late.

  All the clues were there. So, the message’s two final words shouldn’t have surprised me. But they still did.

  Malware approved.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Malware planned this little party?” Twisting his neck, Graham watched as a Berserker relieved himself in the middle of the street. “Boy, I sure hope she’s got a clean-up crew ready to go.”

  “Yeah, it’s called the Sanitation Department.” I scrolled through a series of texts. “There are other messages from her, all forwarded along by different people. It’s like one of those old fashioned phone trees, only with texts. And about a million more curse words.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  “Plenty. Looks like she started to spread the news of a riot last week. But the date, time, and location remained a secret until she sent this last message.”

  “When was that?”

  “It’s hard to say. It looks like it was forwarded along by someone else who probably got it from a third person and so on.” I checked the time stamp. “But this phone received it earlier tonight, at 7:26 p.m. That’s why all the stores are closed and most of the cars are gone. People knew this was coming.”

  “A pre-planned riot.” He shook his head. “How disappointing. Where’s the spontaneity? Where’s the raw passion?”

  I watched a masked guy chase some annoyed broads down the sidewalk, jeans around his ankles and waving the world’s tiniest sword for all to see. “Oh, the passion is raw alright. Raw and chock-full of disease.”

  So, Malware, at the very least, had helped plan the riot. Was she behind the ones in other cities as well? If so, why? And what did it have to do with Beverly, with 1199 Madison Avenue?

  Graham and I passed through the line of armored cars. We crossed E. 78th Street and snuck past more armored vehicles, equipped with now-disabled sonic cannons. Dozens of Berserkers were in the process of overwhelming a rapidly diminishing group of police officers.

  Sticking to the sidewalk, we eased past the battle. A great mass of Berserkers lay before us. They fought the police and themselves. They tore down mailboxes, ravaged newspaper stands, and destroyed stores. Extending my gaze, I saw more Berserkers, far into the distance.

  “It’s like a parade,” Graham said. “With degenerates instead of clowns.”

  “Which is actually kind of an improvement when you think about it.”

  The crowd thickened, growing denser by the second. A familiar chant rang out into the night.

  “You can’t run, the revolution has begun! You can’t run, the revolution has begun!”

  Graham and I, working together, pushed our way through the Berserkers. We passed E. 77th Street. As we approached E. 76th Street, I checked my satphone. 8:46 p.m. One and a half blocks to go and thirty-four minutes to cover the distance. Plenty of time. That is, assuming nothing else went wrong.

  We crossed E. 76th Street, ready to keep
moving forward. But the crowd hardened in front of us. People began to shove, to shout.

  “No luck here.” Graham tried to squeeze through two Berserkers without success. “Looks like we’re stuck again.”

  It was warm out and my tuxedo-laden armpits were drenched with sweat. Then, without warning, the temperature turned boiling hot. Sweat oozed down my face, sizzling against my skin like bacon in a pan.

  The temperature rose another few notches and I nearly swooned. Berserkers shed their shirts, doused themselves with beer, anything to cool down.

  “Why’s it so hot?” someone screamed.

  “They’re using a directed-energy weapon,” another voice yelled back.

  “A what?”

  “A heat ray!”

  CHAPTER 10

  The heat intensified until I could barely breathe. A small part of me longed for sweet unconsciousness. But it didn’t come and instead, my nerves went into a frenzy and my senses grew razor sharp. I could feel every bit of the blazing heat as it engulfed me and wafted down my lungs. The sonic cannons had been torturous.

  But this heat … this was the inner circle of hell.

  Panic swept through the crowd. Berserkers started to run in all directions. People fell over. The lucky ones managed to get back to their feet with mere scrapes and bruises. The unlucky ones got trampled into dazed, bloody pulp.

  People smacked into Graham. Elbows struck my sides, my back, my stomach. Heavy boots and shoes slammed into my feet, crunching my toes. We turned this way and that, prisoners to the animalistic whims of the crowd.

  Graham pushed away one of the fleeing rioters, gaining us a bit of space. Then we ran toward the sidewalk. But by that time, it was oven-hot and we were gasping for air.

  A stumbling Berserker bumped into us. Graham fell, landing hard on the pavement. I lumbered toward him and draped myself over his body, protecting it as best as I could. Fortunately, the rioters had run out of steam at that point. No longer capable of flight, they’d resorted to crawling around on their hands and knees. Unfortunately, I was no better off. The air was scalding hot. I couldn’t breathe and my eyeballs felt dry as bones. Dully, I felt my memories slip away, deep into the recesses of my mind. I forgot where I was, why I was there, and what I’d been doing.