22
JOON STRUGGLED OFF the ground. The stench of sizzling skin and code filled his nostrils. He looked back to Ada—a charred corpse, shattered into pieces. The violence of it rocked him.
He turned to the lift but it was already closed, gone, up or down he didn’t know. That ghost would be hopeless to follow now.
Joon stumbled back to Ada. Checked her avatar. He’d never seen anything like it. People had been shot in front of him, stabbed, hung, drawn and quartered. He’d melted people’s virtual bodies himself with the weapon Sabi built into his hands. But this? This was something else. His mind was a jumble. Did he rush back to unjack and check on Ada? Or go back to Corpus’s office and stay on the case?
People were already crowding around, taking snaps and video of the scene. This was goin
