JC felt the weight of his gaze, the man he could feel, on him, and looked up from Justin’s lap, forcing himself from his pained stupor.

“Chris?” he whispered, though he was sure it wasn’t. This man had Chris’s left eye, jaw line, mouth, nose, but he was thinner, harder, had a five inch scar down the right side of his face.

The man didn’t answer. He lifted a hand and cupped JC’s face, ran his hands through JC’s hair like Chris used to, because it was “long and fun.” He tore his gaze from JC’s and looked at them all, each in turn, and JC watched as his left eye welled and tears overflowed, cutting through the dirt on his cheek.

JC pushed himself up and onto Chris, wrapping his arms around his neck because he knew it really was Chris, that he’d been through more than they could even imagine and that he remembered them, loved them just the same.

He felt the weight of the others on his back and was enveloped by their warmth.

“Think we could move this off the street, you ignorant fucks?”

JC looked up at the woman standing over their tangle. He felt Chris gesture something against his back and the woman nodded, reached up to remove her helmet.

“Pink!” Justin said.

“Timberlake!” she mocked. “We need to go.”

JC felt a fresh wave of pain at her words, as if the voice knew that they wouldn’t be going to the right place. As if the voice could think independently. “I need help,” he whispered when he could speak again.

Justin reached down to help but Pink shouldered him away. “Move. I’ve got him.”

Her hands were like iron manacles over his wrists. She pulled him up quickly and held on when he overbalanced.

“What’s wrong with you?” she asked.

JC shook his head, sagging against her. She braced herself against him and he thought it was like leaning against the building. She was an immoveable force.

“He was activated,” Justin answered.

JC opened his eyes a crack and saw Chris gesturing something at Pink.

“Not here,” she said. “We need to move.”

She picked JC up, hanging him over her shoulder while she held his legs. JC had a moment to register that his head hung next to her ass before he passed out.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

Hands held him down, his face in someone’s lap and his legs sprawled on the ground. Someone straddled him; he could feel their hands on his shoulders and their weight on his back.

“It should be right here,” he heard someone say, and felt fingers probe the back of his neck.

They are going to KILL you! Move!

He had no control over his body but he could still feel it, beating against the ground, the person holding him down.

NONONONONONONONO

He felt something cut into his neck, probe beneath the skin, and heard the voice’s screams in his head growing fainter until they cut off entirely, leaving his head with one last, pain-filled wail.

Under his own control his body sagged, falling limply against the ground.

“JC, sit up,” he heard, and felt the weight on his back removed.

Chris’s face was white and pale above him, sweat lining his temples and upper lip and JC could see his fingers clenching on his legs, where JC’s head had been.

He lifted his fingers to the back of his neck, where he’d felt the cut. Blood dripped onto his coverall in the back and he looked to Pink, who still held the knife.

“Hold out your hand,” she said, and dropped something into his outstretched palm. “It’s a chip, controls your actions, talks to you, tells you where to go.”

It was small in his palm, about an inch long but he already felt its absence in his head.

“Fuckers,” he said, not taking his eyes off his hand.