C.P. James

DOME SIX

BOOK 1 OF THE CYTOCORP SAGA

For all who labor in anonymity.

FOREWORD

Two particular scientific developments that come to bear on this series: antibiotic resistance and 3D bioprinting. If you’re already familiar with these, keep trucking. If not, I thought you might appreciate a quick primer in layman’s terms.

Antibiotic Resistance

Penicillin wasn’t technically the first antibiotic. Advanced civilizations have used plants or molds with antibiotic properties for thousands of years, and it was a German doctor named Paul Ehrlich who discovered arsphenamine, the first modern antibiotic, as a treatment for syphilis. He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1908, and it’s interesting to note that he coined the phrase “chemotherapy” in reference to this treatment.

Of course, Alexander Fleming gets most of the credit. He (quite accidentally) discovered penicillin in 1928, but it wasn’t actually introduced for widespread use until 1942. We take antibiotics for granted now, but chances are, someone in your family will remember a time before they were a thing. Until then, bacteria were the No. 1 cause of death worldwide.

But microorganisms like bacteria evolve and adapt like other living things. Over time, bacteria that are exposed to antibiotics but don’t die from them become “tougher.” Those resistant traits get passed to the next generation of bacteria through natural selection, hence antibiotic resistance and so-called “superbugs.”

Don’t panic just yet, but it’s very likely that the antibiotics we’ve relied upon to treat infections will eventually stop working altogether. When that happens, we’d better have something to replace them or we’ll return to the days when a relatively minor injury might kill you.

3D Bioprinting

By now, you’re no doubt aware that 3D printing exists. You can use it to make just about anything you can envision, which is as exciting as it is scary. You’ve probably seen the news stories about people who have 3D printed untraceable guns and such, but less insidious applications abound. The technology is already being used to make commercial products like shoes or to teach engineering and design.

But a close, and equally exciting/scary cousin of 3D printing is bioprinting, or biofabrication. This is the process of using so-called bioinks to literally print tissue from living cells, and it’s already here. In 2014, a company called Organovo announced that it has successfully printed viable liver tissue, which I suppose is especially good news for writers.

You can imagine the implications. In time, new organs, including skin, will be made on-demand, with a low probability of rejection. Ditto for “parts,” such as heart valves or limbs.

In May of 2019, researchers at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Britain created a living organism with human-made DNA — a.k.a. synthetic biology. It was just bacteria but imagine, for example, if you could “infect” someone with engineered bacteria that produced medicine as a by-product of metabolism.

This discovery has nothing to do with bioprinting, but if you could bioprint a different “vessel” for your synthetic DNA, you could design it to do whatever you needed it to. As bioprinting becomes more sophisticated, it’s not that big a leap to think that we will someday be able to design more complex, multicellular organisms.

One quick note on measurements. For all its faults, Cytocorp’s rise replaced imperial measurements with the metric system. As such, all measurements in The Cytocorp Saga are presented in metric terms. As a frame of reference, a meter is about 39 inches and a kilometer (aka a “click”) is about .6 miles.

So What?

As a science-fiction author, I like to speculate about what will happen if emerging technologies are taken to extremes. For this series, I considered what would happen if the end of the antibiotic age coincided with synthetic organisms coming into their own.

If antibiotics stop working, whatever comes next will only be available to those who can afford it. Everyone else will have to wait for a different solution, but if it lets them survive, they’ll accept virtually any compromise it requires.

Historically, companies that provide the only viable solution to a widespread problem become very rich and powerful. The Cytocorp Saga is the story of how such a company might come to power, and what they might do with it.

C.P. James, January 2020

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Administrator

The head of the Authority at any given time, who is chief executive of the Dome. They are chosen by, and from, the Authority Council.

agora

The central, turf-covered area at the middle of the Dome where people gather for Epoch announcements and other ceremonial occasions. It is crisscrossed by walking paths and framed by the eight hydroponic Towers.

algorithms

A set of instructions used for data analysis. The Dome Project was designed for algorithms to make decisions based purely on data, logic, and forecasting so as to optimize every aspect of life.

Apex

The very top of the Dome’s roof, home to an array of sensors and cameras.

Apprentice

The status of a citizen who has received their initial Placement but not their final one, or, in some cases, a citizen who has been reassigned to a new role.

arc

The narrow streets that run concentrically around the Dome, generally used to get between the rads where the train stations are.

Authority

The governing body of the Dome. The Authority generally enforces both the Charter and decisions made by IDA. The Authority comprises Directorates that oversee the lives of all citizens.

Authority Council

The Administrator plus each of the six Directors. They meet on a weekly basis in a room adjacent to the Administrator’s office.

bioprinting

The process of constructing biological materials from Cytomatrix, chiefly Macros and Scrubbers.

Boneyard

The final resting place of junked Dome equipment sometimes raided for scraps by workers in the Stores.

Box

Slang for the Quietus Center, the building where Elders are sent to be terminated (Quietus) at age 75.

Burn

Slang term for the all-consuming drought that originally forced the Northern Migration in the mid 21st century. As hot, dry weather spread through the tropics, it eventually reached the southern United States and drove millions of people to start a new life in the Northern Cities. Epoch data indicates that it only continued its push north and is believed to be unsurvivable.

Cache

The Dome’s publicly accessible information repository. Once, the Dome had access to outside networks but the hardline was cut shortly after the Dome Project began because hackers supposedly were close to breaking in. The Cache is a “snapshot” of the internet from that time period, based purely on content its citizens had viewed to that point.

Charter

The Dome’s version of the US Constitution, the Charter outlines the rules and procedures that all citizens must follow.

CHIT

Citizen Health and Information Tag. This capsule-shaped device is embedded in the right forearm of newborns and is effectively the interface between citizens and IDA. In addition to their health information, it tracks their physical location so that access to certain areas is tightly controlled.

crawlers

Large rectangular platforms with chest-height railings that enable maintenance workers to perform inspections and repairs on the roof of the Dome. They travel up and down via channels in the Dome’s lattice structure.

Cytocorp

The company that started the Dome Project in 2083, Cytocorp is credited for solving the problem of antibiotic resistance and became inconceivably powerful in the process.

Cytomatrix

A Cytocorp product used as the building blocks of bioprinting. It is stored and used as a pink-colored gelatin and is a finite supply, since it cannot be produced in the Dome.

Directorate

An administrative unit of the Authority. The Directorates are Production, Housing, Infrastructure, Security, Health, and Education.

Dome Project

An ambitious effort undertaken by Cytocorp to protect generations of people from the Burn, and as a “reset” for society. It was announced in 2075 and the first Originals entered in 2083. There are eight Domes, all located near the confluence of two major rivers. Each one is 4 km (2.5 mi.) in diameter and is virtually identical on the inside, though the outside appearance of each is slightly different.

Elders

Citizens begin working at age 16 and continue to age 65, at which point they are considered Elders and given easier work until they are consigned to the Box.

Epoch

A 20-year period in the Dome. At the end of each Epoch, readings are taken from the Apex and communicated to citizens.

FPC

Food processing center. All organic material from the Towers is separated, cleaned, and processed in this underground facility, which also houses the immense multimeal processor and the cricket farm. Waste organic material is composted in a large room, the heat from which supplements solar power collected from the roof.

graphene

A supermaterial made from a single layer of carbon atoms.

IDA

Intelligent Data Archival. IDA is the Dome’s ubiquitous AI, which is constantly analyzing data collected from CHITs, Listeners, and all the Dome’s systems. Most IDA functions are voice-activated.

IDA tablet

A tablet device that enables user access to the publicly available parts of IDA. At this point in the Dome’s life, most working tablets are used in the schools.

incinerator

Any waste that can’t be repurposed, recycled, or broken down through natural processes goes into the incinerator. This is also how bodies are disposed of. Smoke and ash are vented directly outside, which reportedly has led to some people trying to escape that way.

klaxon

A type of loud electric horn.

Legacy

The AI-driven representation of a person officially listed as deceased. A combination of lifelong data analysis and voluntary contextual entries are combined to create these avatars for the purpose of providing education, entertainment, and companionship to the living.

Listeners

Microscopic wireless microphones hidden throughout the Dome. IDA uses geolocation and speech analysis to link recordings to citizens. Certain keywords, when paired with neurobiological data, throw flags that subtract points from Ration Rewards and can, in some cases, lead to an Authority intervention.

Macro

Short for “macro-organism,” a catch-all for any small, multicellular synthetic organism that is bioprinted for a specific purpose, typically the targeted release of therapeutic agents. In the Dome, Macros take the form of tiny helminths (worms) 2 mm in length.

multimeal

The Dome’s staple food product, multimeal is a bland mush made from fruits, vegetables, and cricket meal. It is gray-green in appearance.

Nexus

IDA’s datacenter, buried deep beneath the Authority building. The immense processing and storage demands of the Dome require IDA’s components to be submerged in liquid coolant. At any given time, only the Administrator and one designee, typically the director of Infrastructure or Security, may access IDA’s core functions through the Nexus.

Northern Cities

Four state-sized megacities in the northern part of America, each encircled by protective walls and completely controlled by Cytocorp. The four Northern Cities are Pacifica, Lakeland, Easton, and Atlantica, each with a population exceeding 100 million.

Nucleus

The ring of large memorial stones in the middle of the Agora into which the names of the dead are carved. It is a place of solemn remembrance.

Originals

The first generation of Dome citizens who moved in in 2083, Originals were subject to an intense screening and selection process which required them to be free of all disease and major genetic defects.

pickers

Fully automated robots that deliver small parts from the shelves in the Stores to the Requisition office on demand.

Placement

IDA’s determination of what role an individual should play in Dome society, Placements occur on or near age 16, depending on schooling status. Following a 2-year apprenticeship, IDA runs the algorithms again based on the new data to determine if its original model for citizen productivity was correct. If not, a new Placement is given. Once the apprenticeship period is over, it is rare for IDA to reassign anyone. The Authority can override a Placement, such as in extenuating circumstances that IDA can’t contextualize.

Quietus

The prescribed end-of-life ceremony in which citizens end their organic life and begin again as Legacies.

rad

Wider streets that stretch radially from the outer edge of the Agora to the support wall at the perimeter. Every fourth rad has a train line.

Ration Rewards

A program described in the Charter as a “citizen incentive for compliance.” A period of high productivity and few flags earn Ration Rewards, which can be used toward whole fruits or vegetables — typically pineapples or strawberries.

rations

Resources in the Dome are precious, so IDA uses rolling averages based on CHIT data to calculate how much food and water is required by each citizen. Personal water is carried in steel bottles and a typical adult is afforded 4L per day (about a gallon). Citizen-specific spigots are located in living units, while public spigots and cafeterias use CHITs to determine how much food and water to dispense. Rations are also gender-specific; female rations include powerful birth-control drugs that can only be turned off by the Authority. Mixing rations between genders leads to illness.

Scrubbers

Biosynthetic beetles designed to cleanse human bodies in the Dome without the use of water. A jar contains about 200 Scrubbers, which are poured over the body in a “scrub tub.” The Scrubbers then roam about the body consuming excess bacteria, oils, and dead skin. These factors are chemically altered by the Scrubbers’ metabolism, resulting in a pleasant-smelling byproduct similar to perfume. Most citizens scrub once or twice per week.

sector

The Dome equivalent of a city block formed by two adjacent rads and two adjacent arcs. Sectors are larger at the perimeter.

Stores

The vast underground bunker where the Dome’s supplies are kept. The Stores are roughly 1/3 of the Dome’s footprint and, because of the amount of air inside at any given time, are the last refuge against a low-O_2 emergency. The Stores also process and manufacture textiles and other materials from hemp, which is grown exclusively in Tower 3.

Towers

The Dome’s immense hydroponic Towers are the source of all food and nutrition. Each Tower comprises 30 levels, 5 meters high and 50 across for a total height of 150 meters (492 feet). Water from an aquifer below the Dome is pumped to the top, where it is filtered and delivered to the growing floors, then collected and recirculated. Condensation from the roof of the Dome is also recaptured for this purpose. The Towers are generally distinguished by what they grow there.

units

Citizen apartments. Units are identical and determined by how many citizens are living there, though none are designed to accommodate more than three people. In the rare cases of a family with more than one child, units can be fitted with additional beds, spigots, etc.

UV blanket

A thin, but sturdy blanket made of reflective material to be deployed in the event of a UV shield failure. Drills are frequent and citizens are expected to carry them at all times.

UV shield

A system built into the roof of the Dome to modulate the levels of UV radiation entering the structure. It is a viscous, photochromic liquid sandwiched between multiple layers of graphene, controlled by a combination of pumps and capillary action.

WTR

Water Treatment and Reclamation. This mostly automated facility at the perimeter of the Dome treats all water intended for consumption, including the addition of contraceptives.

1

The students were painted down the classroom in six beige stripes of eight each, their loose hemp uniforms ranging from threadbare to new. As ever, their preadolescent eyes stared through Tosh as though she wasn’t there. If Dome Six had a flag, this is what it would be — beige stripes on a gray field, hanging limply in the recycled air.

The thin aluminum walls of School 2 were perforated by a narrow row of windows, just large enough to watch throngs of workers head one way down busy Rad 18 in the morning then back at day’s end. It served as a constant reminder of the toil and routine that awaited them.

It wasn’t education so much as indoctrination, a parking lot for the young and vigorous while they awaited Placement into one of the Dome’s ten basic job categories. In a few years her cohort would receive their lot from IDA, the artificial intelligence whose algorithms decided such things, and they would work until they got put in the Box. Kind words would be said, and they would be led inside to die. Their ashes would be made into hydroponic substrate, and their digital Legacies would become the only totem to their existence.

Perhaps she’d grown a touch cynical.

Tosh taught the same curriculum the same way to each cohort. It was so rote that she often found herself talking about one thing but thinking another, like whether she and Byron should apply to cohabitate. He already had Dee so there would be no pressure to have kids of their own. It might be nice.

A partner was the only real bulwark against unbearable loneliness, though marriage was never codified in the Charter. Some still used the old terms “wife” or “husband” though they had no official meaning. As long as you were productive and didn’t cause trouble, the Authority didn’t much care what you did or with whom.

What they did care about was reproduction. In a closed system, population control was paramount. Maybe one in eight couples was allowed to reproduce. The contraceptives would be removed from the woman’s water rations, and in a few months they might get pregnant. If the woman wasn’t pregnant by age 30, the permit would be given to another couple. Birth and death rates had to be balanced, as resources were finite.

The lessons Tosh had taught for the past 17 years were the same. The lessons she’d learned, she kept for herself.

Nearly 90 years had passed since the Dome’s connection to the outside world was severed to protect the network from hackers. Now only the Cache remained — echoes and snapshots of searches and page views dating back to the Originals. If you wanted to know anything about the Time Before, that’s where you went. Or, you asked IDA. If information didn’t survive the Collapse, then the Cache might be all that was left. The last account of human history.

The Yamamuras weren’t exactly known for their stories, but Tosh knew a few. She knew about the Great Earthquake that splintered California, and the Great Migration, and cars and airplanes and horses. About sports and games of every kind.

The Cache had those things, too, but the stories Tosh knew never quite aligned, and she didn’t dare try to teach them.

Sports, for example, were described in the Cache as being a cruel form of entertainment, where prisoners and enemies of the State were forced to play childish games for the amusement of the oligarchs. She heard it quite differently. Her great-grandfather played sports as a child for fun and exercise. To hear him tell it, they didn’t want to do anything else.

What the Yamamuras were known for was a history of subversive behavior that confounded the algorithms. Her twin brother, Hideki, was a Macro addict with a weak grip on reality. Her parents were dead, her grandparents shut-ins who lived almost as far from her as it was possible to be.

All Tosh wanted was to put her family’s past behind her and keep it there. The best way to do that was to keep her mouth shut.

Unfortunately, the Authority made that very difficult.

A month earlier, she went off-script and taught her cohort a different account of the Peninsula War. IDA flagged it, and the next morning she was being read the riot act in Director Davis’ office. Plenty of people who labored in the Towers or the Food Processing Center, he said, would give anything for the privilege of educating the next generation.

Just to punctuate this point, he assigned a classroom monitor to observe her teaching for two full months, ending today.

“Okay, everyone, time for lunch,” she said.

The class rose as one and filed out, starting with the side furthest from the door because it was Wednesday. Delia and Viola mimed eating as they passed, and Tosh held up a finger. Wait. After everyone filed out, she glanced over at the monitor, who stared imperiously back.

“May I join the students today?” she asked.

“Suit yourself,” he said, rubbing his temples. “This is my last day.”

“Oh no,” she said, barely able to conceal her glee. “I hadn’t realized.”

She about-faced and did a little happy dance as she stepped out into the courtyard. At age 37, a pair of precocious 12-year-olds were basically her closest friends. Her adopted son, Owen, had been the first to point this out. He wasn’t exactly wrong.

She found Dee and Vi stopped in the middle of the courtyard with the other students, their heads craned back. They were pointing up at the roof, wide-eyed.

“Miss Yamamura — look!” said Delia, pointing her slender arm directly overhead.

Tosh traced the line of Dee’s finger. A maintenance worker was up in his crawler, presumably to repair one of the wheezing air exchangers. The square, bucket-like vehicle traveled up and down on tracks between the panels, but it was stopped. It was a bit unusual to see a crawler during the day. Most structure repairs were done at night because it got so hot up there. From 400 meters below, she barely could make him out.

“That’s not your dad, I hope,” Tosh said.

“Nah, he’s in the Stores today,” Dee replied. “I don’t know who that is.”

“You’d never catch me up there,” said Tosh. Just tilting her head back that far made her dizzy. Byron had no problem with heights.

Tosh noticed the monitor eyeing them warily from the doorway of her classroom. The last thing she needed was a bad report from him. Her sole motivation for playing it straight the past two months was so he’d go away.

“Let’s keep moving, guys,” she said.

The class reluctantly shuffled toward the cafeteria. Anything novel, like a roof repair or even a UV shield drill, held them rapt. Seeing a crawler out during the day would be the topic of every dinner conversation that night, and possibly for many days to come. Tosh snuck a final glance skyward before ducking into the cafeteria.

The next-younger cohort was just getting up to leave when they entered. The smell of fresh multimeal greeted their nostrils. The bulk of the Towers’ harvest went into making the bland, nourishing mash of fruits, vegetables, grains, and nuts. Multimeal was rationed like everything else. Whole foods, along with any kind of spice or beet sugar, could only be obtained through the Ration Rewards system. It was all tracked by the CHIT, or citizen health and information tag, embedded in their right forearms.

Tosh waited at the side of the serving line until everyone went through, then took a tray and spoon for herself. She greeted the service worker, William, who had been dishing up multimeal in the cafeteria since the day she started teaching and for some time before.

“Wet or dry?” he asked.

“Depends on my mood,” she quipped.

Sometimes he’d clap back but today he only offered a weary smirk.

“The usual,” she said.

She set her tray on the scale and watched him dish up an adult-sized scoop from the top of the pile. The gray-green mush formed a sad little mountain on her tray. When the green light indicated it was within ration parameters, she scanned her CHIT and searched the room for her girls. She technically was supposed to sit with different students every day, but she knew all their stories and they knew all of hers. Most didn’t have much to say, but Dee and Vi were different.

She slid into the bench next to Dee bearing a sly grin. She took a spoonful of multimeal and rolled her eyes back in mock ecstasy.

“Mmm mmm,” she said. “You can really taste the radish today.”

“Why are you in such a good mood?” Dee asked.

“This is the monitor’s last day,” replied Tosh, biting back a full smile.

“Good,” said Vi. “He totally stares at me.”

Anyone who spent their days at the Authority rarely saw kids at all. But Tosh noticed the way he looked at the young girls in her class. She’d seen it before, which was why she made sure he sat with her every day. He found her and sauntered their way.

“Ugh,” Vi said, shrinking away from the end of the table. “I can’t wait until he’s gone.”

She didn’t have to wait long, because no sooner had the monitor set his tray down than a body plummeted through the roof and landed directly on top of him.

2

The flimsy roof did little to arrest the fall of the maintenance worker, his body so broken that his yellow safety harness seemed to be the only thing holding it together. Though his foot only grazed Vi’s shoulder, the force still wrenched her violently to the ground. Tosh immediately rushed to her aid, diverting her attention from the sack of trauma next to her.

“Vi, my god!” Tosh asked, as slackjawed, buzzing students encircled the scene.

Vi shook with fright, clutching her shoulder. Dee seemed frozen in place.

“Let me see,” Tosh said.

Vi removed her hand to reveal a nasty contusion on her upper arm. It appeared superficial but she couldn’t be sure.

“You’re okay. You’re okay. Move back, everyone. Please. I know it’s exciting.”

The kids expanded their circle only slightly. Vi sniffled and took deep breaths while Tosh smoothed her hair.

The monitor’s head was wrenched back and to the side, clearly broken, though there was surprisingly little blood. The end of the table had broken clean off and the roof of the Dome winked at them through a clean hole in the roof. Tosh imagined he’d been nearly vertical when he came through, which made her wonder if he’d really fallen or if he’d dived off the crawler. Suicides in the Dome were nearly as common as accidents.

Dee’s father, Byron, was also a maintenance worker and a close friend. He said the guys who had been around a while avoided the crawlers at all costs because the safety equipment was a joke. Tosh noticed the beefy hook on the worker’s safety harness had sheared off, and probably not from the impact.

Once the children regained their wits, they were inconsolable. She couldn’t blame them. It was a pretty traumatic way for kids to learn about death. Even precocious Dee barely left her side.

Emergency responders from the Authority showed up about 10 minutes later, right about the time she and the other teachers finally calmed the students down. Luther Downing, longtime Director of Security, came in flanked by police and two medics who took in the scene with great relish. But upon seeing the bodies on the floor, the younger of the two medics covered his mouth and ran off to retch.

Downing found her right away. She hated that he knew her name, because she certainly wished she didn’t know his. He was in his late 40s, thin lips framed by a perpetual stubble of graying beard. His blue Authority uniform was new and crisp. It seemed to Tosh that the span of his shoulders had narrowed since they last crossed paths. But why was he there? Maintenance fell under Infrastructure. Downing was all about crime and punishment.

“Toshiko Yamamura,” Downing said. “Where your family goes, trouble seems to follow.”

He squinted into the diffuse afternoon light beaming down through the hole in the roof. His team fanned out behind him, seemingly unsure what they were supposed to do. The medic came tottering back wiping the sick from his mouth but remained near the door.

“Let’s get these kids out of here,” Downing said, and the other teachers led them away. He regarded the monitor’s broken body with disgust. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

“He’s a classroom monitor,” Tosh said. “This was his last day.”

“I should say so,” Downing said, smirking. He noted Vi on the ground. “Anyone else hurt?”

“Just her,” Tosh said, touching her hand to Vi’s shoulder.

Downing nodded to the other medic. “Check her over.”

The medic kneeled beside Vi and examined her arm. Tosh watched from the corner of her eye while Downing took her statement about how the scene unfolded. The only real question was whether it was an accident or not. The Authority rarely ruled anything an accident, so it would probably be called a suicide.

“Did you see anything unusual beforehand?” Downing asked.

Tosh nodded. “Just that a crawler was up there in the middle of the day. I’d say he was working on one of the Exchangers when his equipment failed.”

Downing glanced over his shoulder at the body. The broken metal ring on his bright yellow safety harness protruded upward.

“Are you an expert on crawlers now?” Downing asked.

Tosh bristled. “You asked if I–“

“No!” Vi screamed.

Tosh returned to Vi’s side. The medic’s hands were held up, as though to emphasize she hadn’t done anything to hurt her. In one hand was a vial of clear liquid and a pipette. Vi recoiled from it.

“Easy, Vi. What’s wrong?” Tosh asked Vi.

“I tried to give her a pain Macro and she freaked out,” the medic said.

Macros were synthetic helminths — tiny, semiautonomous worms. Unlike parasites, they didn’t take anything from their host and didn’t overstay their welcome. By releasing targeted biochemicals, they could help with anesthesia or even medical conditions like diabetes. But they did take some getting used to.

Unfortunately, her brother Hideki started out in the bioprinting lab where they were made. He learned how they worked and engineered his own. Initially it was just to quiet his overly electric mind, but it evolved into something else. She suspected he was still supplying the black market somehow.

“Vi, she’s only trying to help, okay?” Tosh said, rubbing her shoulders reassuringly. “It’s for the pain.”

“I don’t want it!” Vi spat.

“What’s the problem?” Downing said, leaning down.

“She doesn’t want a Macro,” Tosh said.

“How bad is it?” Downing asked the medic.

“Just a contusion,” she said.

“Then forget it. If she wants to suffer, that’s her call.”

When Tosh was maybe 13, Downing’s wife went crazy and tried to escape through one of the incinerators. It didn’t end well. Some people gave him a pass for that. Not Tosh. She just wanted him to go away.

“Are you sure, sweetie?” Tosh asked. Vi was still shaking. “It looks like it really hurts.”

“Can you do it?” Vi asked.

The medic turned to Downing, who shrugged. She handed Tosh the vial and said, “Go nuts.”

Macros were color-coded. This one was blue, which meant it had anesthetic properties. Taking your first one was scary. It wasn’t technically alive, but even under a microscope it was hard to tell.

“You promise it doesn’t hurt?” Vi said.

“It just feels like a little eyelash is stuck, then it goes away. Okay? You good?”

Vi nodded. Tosh dipped the little pipette into the vial, trapping the tiny blue Macro in a thin column of water, then held the end closed with her finger.

“Tilt your head back for me,” Tosh said.

She carefully held Vi’s right eye open and let the solution drip out into the inside corner. A moment later, the Macro activated and wriggled in between her eye and the pink flesh in the corner.

Vi rubbed her eye with the back of her hand, seemingly having expected something worse.

“It does just feel like an eyelash,” she said.

“Told ya,” Tosh replied with a wink. “It might itch for a little while, but it goes away. One problem at a time, right?” She smiled and tousled Vi’s light blond hair as she rose.

“So brave,” Downing mumbled. “All right, let’s clean this mess up.”

Elements of Downing’s entourage left, then returned moments later with gurneys to carry off the two corpses. After they cleaned off what blood there was, only the broken end of the table and the hole in the ceiling remained. Tosh was cleared to return to class but had no idea how to continue teaching after that.

“Someone will be along to make the repairs,” Downing said to Tosh.

“To the roof or to the crawlers?” Tosh asked.

He bristled and said, “Thank you for your assistance, Miss Yamamura. We’ll handle it from here.”

As much as she wanted to press the issue, now wasn’t the time. She turned and led Vi back across the courtyard toward her classroom.

3

Wednesday was Hideki’s day cleaning the Stores. Not only was it the easiest area to clean in general, but it took much less time than he was allotted. Up one row and down another with a wide push broom — it didn’t get easier. After passing through security, he practically bounced into the service elevator and hit the down button.

It was ironic that his low station afforded him use of the service elevator. He used to take the stairs like everyone else on his way to the bioprinting facility, where he’d been placed as a 16-year-old apprentice. Considering that his illicit activities earned him a one-way trip to Sanitation, it was a wonder he could still get past security.

The big door slid open and he stepped out into the cavernous warehouse where the Dome’s durable supplies were kept. Bioprinting and textile production were there as well. Rows of colossal pillars supported not only the roof, but much of the city itself. Because it was below ground, and because of the efficiency of the ventilation, it was generally kept at a pleasantly cool 16 degrees C. It was the closest thing the Dome had to fresh air.

When the Dome Project began, service-bots did most of the cleaning. But the way he heard it, they were cheaply made and began to fail barely a decade into the Dome’s existence. By 2100, just 17 years into Cytocorp’s grand experiment, they were all junked. They were still piled into a dark corner of the Stores to gather dust in a bay they called the Boneyard, where tinkerers like him scrounged for parts.

He loved Wednesdays. After a quick visit to the lab, ostensibly to clean, he’d waltz back out with at least a couple freshly printed Macros — sometimes more. Having a friend in bioprinting wasn’t the same as making them yourself, but it was close enough.

Hideki’s apprenticeship in bioprinting started out as most did. He was still basically a kid, eager to please and confident, and the people in the lab were welcoming and friendly. They gave him a long list of menial tasks at first, but after he completed them by mid-morning, they had no idea what to do with him next. He could only look over their shoulders and ask questions for so long, so they gave him a workstation and a slab of Cytomatrix and showed him how to make painkiller Macros.

He’d been doing that for just a week when his parents disappeared.

People didn’t disappear in the Dome without an explanation, but the Authority was quick with one. His brilliant and devoted parents, they said, developed a case of so-called “Dome fever.” They ventured inside the multimeal processor during an O_2 drill that they triggered themselves, only to be caught inside the machinery when the FPC fired back up. There was nothing left to incinerate.

Hideki always knew that was bullshit. If his father triggered an O_2 drill as a distraction to sneak into the FPC, he would’ve had a damn good reason. He just never learned what it was.

Happily occupied at his station in the corner — and largely ignored by his fellow workers — Hideki started experimenting with different kinds of Macros. The kind that would help him escape the constant wondering about what happened. The kind that could transport your mind out of the Dome, if only for a little while.

Back then, if you knew where to look in the deepest parts of the Cache, you could still find some pretty subversive shit. Recipes for bombs, that sort of thing. Of course, as soon as you found something like that, IDA would rewrite or delete it. So, he stole a few parts from the dead service-bots and made himself a camera. If a page interested him, he’d take his own snapshot and go back to it as many times as he needed to.

He found pages with advanced biochemical formulas, including for powerful painkillers and even psychedelics. Macros delivered microdoses of these chemicals directly to the brain, then dissolved without a trace. If you were in the right frame of mind, you could take a long and pleasurable journey without even leaving your unit. Much of his nonworking hours were spent this way — the shades pulled tight in his tiny unit, enjoying himself.

Once word got around, he did a brisk business. At first he’d trade them for extra water rations, then pieces of whole fruit or spices. Once he had more of those things than he could use, he moved on to other, more personal forms of payment. For a while, everyone got what they wanted.

Until the shit hit the fan, that is.

Around the same time Tosh got reassigned to Education, Hideki got busted. A regular customer of his had tried to exchange a psychedelic Macro for sexual favors from a woman who worked for the Authority. She brought the matter to the Director of Health and an investigation was launched. Hideki’s private enterprise was uncovered and he was stripped of his cushy placement. He’d been cleaning floors and machinery ever since. An anonymous grunt in the Dome’s small army of Sanitation workers.

But the Authority vastly underestimated the hunger for his products. Any respite from the dullness and repetition of Dome life was an object of fanatical desire. His friend, Wade, took his spot in the lab and picked up where Hideki left off. Meanwhile, Hideki took on the role of distributor. He’d drift near the lab and make sure he was seen, then meet Wade in the bathroom to get a pocketful of Macros. He’d hide the vials in his ration bottle and extract them at home.

There was only so much to trade in the Dome, so after he had all the water, food, and sex he could handle, he looked at it more as a personal mission. If it helped people cope with Dome life — especially him — then it was his duty to facilitate it. If it pissed off the Authority, so much the better.

After running his wide broom up and down the Stores’ main corridors, he moved on to the stacks. Only three of the original 20 automatic pickers still worked properly but he had to be careful around them because their prox sensors never got cleaned. If he wasn’t paying attention, he could get whacked by a picker traveling at high speed. A few years back, he got distracted for a moment and was blindsided by an empty picker. He suffered a pair of broken ribs on his left side that never quite healed.

When he was done, he returned the giant broom to the storage closet off the main corridor and sauntered past Bioprinting, noting that Wade wasn’t there. He then took a slow lap before ducking into the bathroom. He rapped at the door of the only stall.

“Took your sweet time,” said Wade. “I was about to leave.”

Wade unlocked the stall door and pulled Hideki in with him. He was nearly as skinny as Hideki, with an extra inch of height and a perpetually scraggly red goatee.

“So,” Hideki said, “whaddya got for me?”

Wade dug into his pocket and withdrew eight vials. Hideki held them up to the light and smiled. Four green psychedelics, two blue painkillers, and two orange pleasure Macs. The ladies liked those.

“You never have this many,” Hideki said, taking a seat on the edge of the toilet. “Business must be slow.”

“Actually,” Wade said, “I’m clearing out the inventory. I’m done.”

“What?” Hideki said, alarmed. “Why?”

“We’re running super low on matrix. The Authority’s watching every gram,” he explained.

“How can you be running low? There used to be enough matrix to last a century.”

“Yeah, well, that century’s about up, isn’t it?” Wade said, referring to the upcoming Fifth Epoch. “I don’t think they factored in our little secondary market.”

Hideki was shocked. A kilo of Cytomatrix bioprinting gel was enough to produce several thousand Macros. They were only making a few dozen extra per week. Otherwise he’d never heard of anyone getting more than a replacement fingertip or maybe an ear. Could they really be almost out?

The door to the bathroom opened and the man stopped. They froze. Whoever it was got down low enough to see two pairs of feet from under the door, facing each other. He guffawed.

“Very nice, guys. Guess I’ll go shit somewhere else.”

Hideki stifled a laugh as the man left and the door slowly closed behind him. At least they all wore the exact same shoes.

“Ha! He thinks I was blowing you,” Hideki laughed.

“Whatever,” Wade said. “We’re done here. Don’t come by anymore.”

“Wait — what do you mean, ‘done’?” Hideki asked after him.

“There’s too much heat right now,” Wade said. “It was one thing when we had shelves full of matrix, but we don’t anymore. The last thing I want is to tell some kid who needs a kidney that we can’t make him one because we used it all on illegal Macros.”

“Okay, fine,” Hideki said. “We’ll cut way back. Cool the market down until this situation passes.”

“You’re not getting it,” Wade said. “As soon as we use up the matrix that’s already in the lab, our little enterprise is done. No offense, but I’m not gonna wind up like you.”

That stung a little. Hideki considered Wade to be one of his best friends, but maybe he saw him the same way everyone else did — a burned-out junkie. If Wade regretted saying it, Hideki didn’t get to see it on his face because he turned around and left without another word.

4

Dome weather was always perfect. There was no wind, just the gentle movement of air by the Exchangers overhead. The UV shield throttled the sunlight coming through, giving it a diffuse quality that cast few shadows. Its climate-control systems maintained a pleasant daytime temperature of 19–21°C. At night, simulated moonlight bathed the city in cool blue hues. Actual moonlight was too weak to penetrate the shield, though you could occasionally discern the hazy outline of a full moon.

Channels on the underside of the Dome gathered condensation and funneled it into a trough above the concrete foundation for recycling. Sometimes there was too much moisture for surface tension to handle and fat droplets would fall as warm rain.

Tosh thought often of the Originals, the first citizens to choose this life. How terrifying must it have been to watch farmland turn to desert, or for coastal towns to become seabed. Legions of people left everything behind to migrate to the Northern Cities as the Burn advanced like an invading army.

Then came the end of antibiotics and the panic that followed. In 2044, they were officially declared ineffective. In ’44, antibiotics no more, went the saying. She didn’t know the circumstances that led up to this because it wasn’t part of the curriculum.

Under these conditions, the Dome Project would’ve seemed like a godsend. Generations would learn hydroponic farming and strictly manage their resources. They would do away with money and form a society of equals. No one would be all-powerful or inconsequential, rich or poor. Algorithms, not fallible and ego-driven humans, would make the decisions critical to survival. Armed with the lessons of their evolved society, they would bide their time until it was finally safe to emerge and reclaim what was left of the world.

It was a beautiful vision and she was a part of it, even now. Why, then, did she still feel like the object of some cruel joke?

“Where’d you go just now?” asked Art, Tosh’s oldest and most trusted friend.

The question startled her. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t even realize they’d arrived at the Agora, the parklike open space at the center of the Dome.

“Sorry,” she said. “Guess I’m a little preoccupied.”

Art smiled and kept walking, but Tosh felt guilty. How dare she make this about her? All he wanted from her was time, which for him was in short supply. In a few weeks he would turn 75 and he’d be put in the Box. That was the maximum age in the Dome. After that, you were deemed too old to contribute more than you required.

Their Charter was based on the same cold logic behind the Dome Project itself — protect, reclaim, rebuild. Fairness was a clunky relic of the Time Before. The only way to avoid the Box was to take your own life, and plenty did. The only meaning in death was that someone could be approved to conceive, but it was better than no meaning at all. In a closed system, equilibrium was everything.

Art was the closest thing she had to a father figure since her losing her own more than 20 years ago. He worked on the Dome’s network systems for 45 years and mentored her during her internship and beyond. When she was just 21, not long before she adopted Owen, a power surge knocked out IDA’s kernel for several hours. The two of them had to go into the Nexus, a vault deep below the Authority, to get it up and running again. They bonded over that.

Now he worked in the laundry with most of the other Elders, steam-cleaning uniforms three days a week in a hot, humid room that eased his arthritic knees. Most of his free time was spent talking to his late wife Elaine’s IDA-generated Legacy. She succumbed to cancer years earlier, one of the diseases that Macros couldn’t help with.

He was one of the few people in Tosh’s life who were better at listening than at talking, so they took frequent walks together.

“The Fifth Epoch is just around the corner,” he said sardonically. “Pretty exciting stuff.”

She chuckled and rolled her eyes. Every 20 years they would gather to hear the latest sensor readings and view footage from the apex array. As a kid it seemed exciting, but after that you saw it for what it really was — a phony way to keep hope alive.

“I’d skip it if I could,” she said.

“Sorry I’ll miss it,” Art joked. She didn’t find it funny. “Just stay all the way at the back so you can be the first to leave.”

“Good tip.”

“You’ve certainly had an eventful week,” Art noted.

He was the first one she came to after the incident at school. She’d done her best to forget about it, for her own sanity as much as for the kids’ sake. But the more she thought about it, the more it bothered her.

They took the Agora path to the left and continued strolling.

“I know, but it’s not just that,” she explained. “It’s like all this stuff is coming to a head, y’know? Owen’s Placement, the monitor, the system failures…”

She wanted to say your impending euthanasia, but that would make it real.

“How’s Owen feeling about his Placement?” Art asked.

“He talks to you more than me,” replied Tosh. “I never know what he’s thinking.”

“Ah, he’s young. I wouldn’t read much into it.”

Owen’s mother, Penny, died during childbirth. But the defining moment of his young life came when he was just four. His father, Stephen, vanished from the Dome without a trace. The official explanation was that he went insane like Downing’s wife and crawled into the incinerator, but no one believed that for a second. The question of what really happened tormented Owen ever since.

Stephen’s disappearance made Owen the only orphaned minor in the Dome’s history. The Authority was inclined to leave him with his grandparents, but the algorithms had a different idea — let him be raised by someone younger who could empathize with his unique circumstance.

So it was that Tosh became Owen’s guardian.

But their relationship had become strained of late. He was nearing his Placement date and Tosh had a feeling it wasn’t going to go his way. Her cynicism was wearing off and it had set them both on edge.

“Owen’s Placement is tonight?” Art asked.

“Yeah, at six.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you’re right to temper his hopes a bit,” he offered.

“Is that really my job? To prepare him for disappointment?”

“Well, when you put it that way…”

“You always worked in information systems, right?” she asked.

“For 45 years,” Art said. “Until they put me out to pasture.”

“Ugh,” said Tosh. “How did you do it all day, every day?”

“All you can do is just keep your head down and—”

An ear-piercing electronic tone cut him off and began to repeat in falling tones. It was another UV shield drill.

“Aw, come on…” Tosh said.

She stopped and dutifully dug the ratty silver blanket out of her pocket. Art did the same with practiced ease. They unfurled their blankets, pulled them up over their backs like capes, then laid prone in the turf. Art reached over and tugged a portion of Tosh’s blanket over her exposed leg.

“Maybe someday it won’t be a drill,” he replied.

The UV shield was a photochromic liquid sandwiched between the graphene panels that comprised the Dome. It was nearly opaque at the foundation but gradually became clearer near the apex.

Nobody left the house during the day without their blanket. Being exposed for more than a couple seconds would result in burns or cancer if you weren’t prepared. The only alternative was to get inside immediately.

The alarm continued for three full minutes, then fell silent. All you could do was lie on your stomach until rising tones signaled the end of the drill. It usually took about 10 minutes.

“How many of these do you figure you’ve done in your life?” Tosh said.

“Oh,” Art began, “I’d say at least half a dozen times a year for every year I’ve kicked around this place, so it’s probably pushing 500. Something like that. What was I just saying about work?”

“That you just keep your head down.”

“Sage advice, I know.”

“What would you do if you ever got out?” she asked.

“Got out?”

“Of the Dome. I mean, what if they said everything was fine and we could leave? What’s the first thing you’d do?” Tosh asked.

Art was silent for a few seconds. It was quite a fanciful question. In each of the four previous Epochs, conditions outside were worse. After you heard how bleak it was, you didn’t expect much from the next one.

“I’d stare up at the sky,” Art finally said. “I’d find a nice spot to lie down and I’d watch the sunrise. I’d spend the whole day watching clouds go by, then I’d watch the stars all night.”

His reply suggested he had considered this before, at least as a younger man. She liked the way his voice changed when he described it. Spending a day looking at the unfiltered sky sounded nice.

“What about you?” Art asked.

“I’d swim,” she said. “I’d find the biggest lake or river I could, and I’d stay in it until I figured out how to swim. If I didn’t, then I’d just float. Just be cradled by water. I’ll bet that would be amazing.”

“I believe you will someday,” Art said.

“You’re making fun of me.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Nothing changes here, Art,” Tosh declared. “Not ever.”

The drill ended. Tosh rose first and helped Art to his feet. His knees gave him trouble, but he was still pretty spry for his age. Useful or not, he didn’t deserve to die.

They re-folded their blankets into little squares, pocketed them, and continued on their way.

5

Tosh returned home with a heavy heart. Once Art went in the Box and Owen moved into the apprentice dormitories, she would be alone. Her father used to say that people moved in and out of your life when and how you needed, as though the universe was responding to a question you never knew to ask. It was a nice thought, even if she didn’t quite believe it.

She was still in the hallway when she heard the muffled voice of Owen’s late mother, Penny, coming from inside. He talked to her AI-generated Legacy quite a bit lately, which also contributed to the tension between them. If you knew your late family members well, the differences were obvious. If you didn’t, like Owen, then you might be led to believe that’s how they really were.

IDA tracked your location at all times, so doors all had prox locks. Hers clicked faintly as she drew hear and turned the handle.

“Are you kidding?” Penny’s Legacy said. “I was super nervous. But also a little excited to start my life. You should be, too.”

“I’m trying to be, but she won’t let me.”

Tosh grimaced. Of course digi-Penny would say that. If you were excited about your work, you did it better.

Legacies were based on extrapolated behaviors and attitudes from health data, your movements about the Dome, your work, conversations, and much more. To make it more accurate, IDA constantly encouraged you to confess your deepest fears and secrets. This behavior was rewarded with Ration Rewards that you could exchange for whole foods like pineapple or grapes.

Tosh hoped no one would ever talk to her Legacy. If ever got back in the Nexus somehow, she’d delete all her data. She certainly wasn’t going to tell IDA any of her secrets. She’d never once talked to her parents’ Legacies. If Hideki did, he’d never mentioned it.

Tosh had barely entered when Owen felt her presence and turned around. He immediately turned off the display and his mother’s image blinked out.

“I didn’t mean to disturb you,” Tosh said. “I need a scrub anyway, so just pretend I’m not here.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I was done anyway.”

Tosh glanced at the clock. Her walk with Art took longer than usual on account of the drill, so she only had half an hour. It would have to be enough.

Tosh padded into her room and closed the door behind her. She peeled off her clothes and tossed them into the laundry bin, then studied herself in the mirror. She looked older than her 37 years, doughy and pale. She needed a haircut and more exercise. She used to walk all the way across the Agora and another half mile to work, but lately she’d opted for the train and it was starting to show.

She unfolded her scrub box and got in, then opened the jar of Scrubbers and poured them over her body. The synthetic black beetles sprang to life and methodically chewed off accumulated detritus. She hated scrubbing as a kid but now she relished it. Like Macros, the little bugs were one of the few things that still worked well. Some people preferred sponge baths, but she usually saved her water rations for drinking.

As they cleansed her, she allowed herself some calmness. The fantasy she’d shared with Art about floating was sincere, but she could only manage to conjure it here. She could almost feel the water on her, so clear and pure that she could sink down and drink it if she wished.

The Scrubbers worked on her hair, tickling her scalp. She loved that. Others ventured lower, and she enjoyed that even more.

Twenty minutes later, the Scrubbers dutifully returned to their container. She felt and smelled a thousand times better. After she dressed in a fresh uniform, she came back out to the living room. A man she’d never seen was on the screen, talking to Owen. At least it wasn’t Penny again.

“Who’s that?” she asked.

“My great-great grandfather,” Owen said.

“Benjamin Welsh,” said the man cheerily. “It’s nice to finally meet you, Toshiko.”

She threw up in her mouth a little and checked the clock. She had two minutes to spare. “You want me to sit?” she asked.

Owen shrugged and turned off the screen again. “Whatever.”

Tosh took a seat in the chair opposite Owen, its worn upholstery now the same exact beige as their clothes. Twenty-one years earlier, she sat in an identical living room with her family, along with her friend Elle and her parents, to receive their Placements. They all got what they wanted then. Hideki went to bioprinting, Tosh to central information systems, and Elle, improbably, to the Authority. It was as happy as she ever remembered being.

But after her parents died, everything changed. She and Elle drifted further and further apart. Hideki got caught supplying black-market Macros. Elle eventually became the Dome’s youngest-ever Administrator. And for no apparent reason other than being a Yamamura, Tosh got reassigned to teaching.

Elle’s placement into the Authority proved it was possible to overcome the inertia of family history. Everyone in her family, going back to the Originals, had worked in the Towers. Her Placement directly into the Authority didn’t jive but she’d certainly made the most of it.

Owen had excellent marks in school and deep technical ability, but Tosh feared her family name might cast a long shadow. In theory, IDA’s decisions were based on data alone but the Authority had the final say. With luck, he’d be a technician like her father, or even a medic like her mother. He was too smart and capable for anything less.

At precisely 6 p.m., IDA’s soothing voice said, “Your attention, please. Stand by to receive placement information for Owen Welsh.”

Tosh smiled and shifted forward in her seat, doing her best to feign excitement. Owen’s arms were folded tightly against his chest as though he might compress himself into a diamond.

“Owen Welsh,” IDA continued. “Congratulations on your placement to the Directorate of Production, working in Tower 1. You will report to Dormitory 4, room 131, at 8 a.m. tomorrow.”

Tosh closed her eyes, willing it to not be so. Some 70 percent of the Dome’s working-age citizens wound up in the hydroponic Towers. If you were average, that’s where you were likely to wind up. But Owen wasn’t average. She was ready for some bad news, but not that bad.

He didn’t react at all.

“It’s just your apprenticeship,” she said quickly. “Two years, then you can be reassigned.”

He remained staring down at his feet for a long while. Anything she thought about saying sounded phony in her head.

He rose suddenly and announced, “Whatever. I’m gonna go hang out with Dek.”

“Do you want to, like, talk about it?” Tosh asked.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” replied Owen, making a beeline for the door. “Don’t wait up.”

“Just be back before curfew,” she said as he left.

The door closed behind him and she was alone again, left to wonder if his shitty Placement was somehow her fault. She pulled her shoes and decided she’d better eat before the cafeteria closed. Owen would probably skip dinner. Oh well. It wasn’t the first meal she’d eat alone, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last.

6

The small crate that bore Owen’s few possessions sat beside him on the train. Unlike people, it could remain silent as he stewed in his own bitter juices.

Statistically, the Towers were the most likely outcome. The Authority liked to say there was no more important job in the Dome. Without the Towers, there was no food.

So why did it feel like such a betrayal?

The next 50-plus years of his life stretched out before him like the tracks of the commuter train. The Authority used to shuffle people around back in the day, but the algos learned from their mistakes. These days, a Placement was more like a sentence. His grandfather spent almost 60 years in the requisition office of the Stores and now he would do the same in the Towers. If he was lucky, planting and harvesting would do enough damage to his body that by age 50 he’d be more effective making clothes or shoes. That was just 34 short years away.

“Where you headed?” asked the woman across the aisle.

“Take a wild guess,” he mumbled.

She returned his weary smile. Any encouraging word would’ve rung false. The train slowed for the Agora station and she rose to leave. Owen took his crate and followed her out.

The transfer train that ran in a constant counterclockwise circle around the outer edge of the Agora was about to leave. The clock over the station read 7:48, meaning he couldn’t wait for it to come back around in 20 minutes. And so he found himself trotting toward the open train with his little crate when all he wanted was to run the other direction. He got on just as the doors slid shut and immediately turned his back to the other passengers. The last thing he wanted was to explain, again, where he was headed.

A few minutes later, the train stopped at Rad 6 and he stepped out, noting the decades of dust and grease accumulated in the recessed tracks. A boy and a girl his age emerged from other cars, also carrying their crates. They bore the same grim look. None of them took a step until the train had left again.

They shuffled down Rad 6 together like shackled prisoners. In the Time Before, the Rads that radiated out from the edge of the central Agora were called streets. The curved, narrower Arcs that connected them, sidewalks. Viewed from above, the city would’ve resembled a spider’s web. Now he was just another fly.

The Rad funneled the three of them into a line abreast, two uniforms and a few odds and ends in their corrugated plastic crates. Owen nodded toward his fellow apprentices.

“Where’d you guys get stuck?” he asked.

“FPC,” said the girl. He’d seen her around but didn’t know her name.

“Towers,” the boy replied.

“Same,” Owen said.

Owen felt about as much like talking as they did. Depending what shifts they wound up with, he might never cross paths again. As they approached the double doors of the dormitory, Owen pulled ahead to open them. He held the door while they entered and watched them both trudge up the stairs like it was the gallows. At least he was on the ground floor.

All the buildings in the Dome had the same aesthetic — boxy and utilitarian with thin walls and flat roofs, wrapped in dull solar sheeting that supplemented the grid. The apprentice dorm was no different. He followed a sign for rooms 120–150 and continued down to 131. A young man was stretched out on one of the two narrow platform beds with his eyes closed.

Owen rapped softly on the doorjamb. The boy’s eyes flew open.

“Oh hey,” he said. “Are you my roomie?”

“I guess so,” Owen replied. He tucked his crate under his left arm and extended his hand to the boy as he rose. “Owen Welsh.”

“Aaron Padgett,” he said.

Aaron was slightly paunchy and unusually white for the Dome. The Originals were a mix of colors that had since condensed to an olive hue. At first blush, Owen had a hard time imagining he would make it to the top of the Towers.

“Welsh,” Aaron said. “Why do I know that name?”

In a place with so little news, Owen’s father’s disappearance 12 years earlier was a well-worn story. The rumor was that he’d pissed someone off at the Authority and they made him go poof. Aaron was just being polite.

“Beats me,” Owen noted with a shrug.

Aaron said, “I wasn’t, like, claiming this side of the room. It doesn’t matter to me.”

“Me neither,” said Owen, sitting down on the left bed.

They each had a tiny shelf, a folded scrub tub with a jar of scrubbers next to it, a laundry crate for their bed linens and clothes, two spigots for water rations, and one IDA terminal. The whole room was smaller than Owen’s bedroom, which was already small.

“So this is home for the next two years,” Owen said.

Aaron shrugged. “At least it’s in a different part of the city.”

He sat directly across from Owen and tucked one doughy leg under the other.

“So what’s your deal, Owen?”

Owen related the short version of his life story, including the part about being orphaned at a young age and being raised by his stepmother. If Aaron knew his story, he didn’t let on.

“I was hoping for technician,” Owen said. “Didn’t kiss enough Authority ass, I guess.”

Aaron’s eyes roamed around the room as though to remind Owen that IDA was always listening. It hardly mattered now.

“I was hoping for medic,” Aaron said. “My whole family works in the Towers, though, so I can’t say I was surprised.”

“My mom didn’t want me to get my hopes up,” said Owen. “I guess she was right.”

“I’ll tell you this much,” Aaron said, leaning forward conspiratorially, “I’m not gonna let my mind waste away up there. That’s the real reason people get stuck in the Towers. You’ve got to stay sharp.”

“We plant, we harvest,” Owen replied. “How do you plan to spice that up?”

“Whatever, man. We’ll figure out a system.”

Owen liked what he was hearing from his new roommate. He wasn’t exactly a man’s man, but not one of the knuckle-dragging pinheads he associated with the Towers, either.

“So what happens now?” Owen asked. It was only 8:25.

“IDA will come on here any second and tell you about the ceremony tomorrow. Other than that, I think we’re just kind of on our own.”

“Well that’s anticlimactic,” Owen joked.

“Want to take a stroll through the girls’ floor?” Aaron asked, raising his eyebrows mischievously.

“Are we supposed to be up there?”

Aaron shrugged. “No one’s told me the rules yet. We can hardly be blamed for saying hello, right?”

7

A little stage was set up outside the Authority complex near the base of Tower 1. Workers flitted about the enormous structure, some planting, some tending, and most harvesting. Car-sized buckets on beefy chains crawled down full one side, disappeared into the FPC, then came up empty on the other. It was elegant and impressive no matter how many times you saw it.

But after 37 years in the Dome, Tosh couldn’t have said who Placement ceremonies were for. Nobody was there because they wanted to be, that much was certain.

Owen and his 17 fellow greenies stood shoulder to shoulder in neat rows, 10 boys and 8 girls in all, all aged 16. Owen was as stone-faced as the Authority stiffs behind him. He would spend a minimum of two years as an apprentice, after which his chances of reassignment were slim. But they happened.

After her parents died, she and Hideki both slipped into dark places. Hideki poured his negative energy into illicit Macros, while she directed hers toward learning the truth. Her supervisors in central information systems, where she was first placed as a junior analyst, gave her very little to do.

When Hideki’s activities came to light, he was moved into sanitation and IDA reassigned her to education.

She easily could’ve been cast down into the bowels of the FPC, which made her wonder if she’d gotten lucky. But she’d since come to suspect that teaching the same Authority garbage to children was, in fact, punishment for being associated with Hideki.

He was supposed to be there, but Tosh didn’t see him anywhere. The Agora buzzed with commuters, a few of whom stopped to watch. The Director of Production stepped up to the podium. Downing was seated behind him next to Elle Travers, Tosh’s former best friend who was now Dome Administrator. So far, she hadn’t spotted Tosh.

“We’re gathered here today for a very important occasion: The Placements of these young citizens into our life-giving Towers.

“Our Administrator, Elle Travers, has asked to say a few words. Elle?”

Tosh shifted uncomfortably on the turf as Elle stepped up to the podium in silence. As kids they were joined at the hip, but they hadn’t exchanged a word since the day her parents died. She got placed directly into the Authority as an apprentice and had worked her way up to Administrator. It was hard to believe they were ever close.

“Thank you, Director Redmond.”

To her left, Tosh heard someone running toward them. She whirled to see Dek come across the Agora at a full sprint. Sweaty and smelly, he plunked down beside Tosh, panting. Elle’s eyes followed him the whole way, eventually settling on Tosh. They lingered on her for a moment before she continued.

Elle continued, “These Towers — our magnificent, life-giving Towers — are more than just the source of our food and clothing. They’re symbols of hope.”

Dek was a mess. His hair was now shoulder-length and unkempt, making his head appear all the larger atop his bony frame. He was in desperate need of a scrub. He drew his sleeve across the sweat beaded on his wispy mustache then turned to her.

“Did I miss anything?” he asked, a bit too loudly.

Tosh shushed him and caught Owen smirking at Dek’s antics. She gave him a thumbs-up but he didn’t acknowledge it.

“Without the food we produce, nothing else would matter. Our society would collapse, and we would starve. Those in the Towers, and these young people starting today, deserve our gratitude. I thank you, the Authority thanks you, and the citizens of Dome Six thank you.”

The Authority representatives clapped alone. Downing stared at Tosh and Dek as Elle returned to her chair and whispered something in her ear. She nodded.

Hideki’s hands remained clasped around his legs as he pulled them tightly to his chest. He couldn’t have weighed 65 kilos. She couldn’t tell for sure if he was under the influence of a Macro or not, but chances were good.

Director Redmond returned to the podium.

“Thank you, Administrator Travers, for those inspiring words. Without further ado, I’d like to introduce our new Tower workers in turn. When I announce your name, please come to the stage to receive the gratitude of the Authority and the citizens gathered here.”

Redmond mechanically read the names of the recruits in alphabetical order. Owen would be second to last.

“You look like shit,” Tosh whispered to Hideki. “When was the last time you scrubbed?”

“Three weeks maybe? I don’t remember.”

“I never see you.”

“Sorry, I’ve been busy with a little science project.”

Owen was as expressionless as the kids in Tosh’s class. Redmond was already halfway through the names.

“Owen looks excited,” Hideki said sardonically.

“I’m worried about him,” Tosh said.

“Meh. It’s only two years.” Hideki glanced up at the workers in Tower 1, some of whom paused in their work to point and comment on the greenies below. More than a few had graying hair. “Of course, that’s probably what most of them thought.”

Tosh said, “Downing’s staring at us.”

“Fuck him,” said Dek.

“I’ll leave that to Elle,” Tosh said, and Dek chuckled.

“Owen Welsh,” Redmond intoned.

Tosh and Dek watched Owen trudge across the stage. The officials exchanged knowing glances, then he joined the others at the bottom of the wide metal staircase alongside Tower 1. Their foreman waited to lead them up.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the March 2183 Tower recruits!” Redmond said, applauding alone again. “Foreman Brinks, they’re all yours.”

The grizzled foreman walked with a hitch up the steps, his new recruits in tow. Owen cast a final look back at Tosh and Dek, then fell in behind the others. She watched him climb until she lost sight of him, then Dek popped her on the shoulder.

“Look alive,” he said. “We’ve got well-wishers.”

Tosh turned to see Elle and Downing headed their way. Most of the small crowd had already dispersed. She got up off the turf and unconsciously smoothed her uniform. Dek didn’t bother.

Her childhood friend looked as put-together as always. Her square shoulders were pulled back as tightly as her hair, which spilled out behind her in a long ponytail. Her elegant neck stretched toward the top of the Dome as though she was suspended from it.

Years had passed since Tosh saw her up close. The frown lines around her mouth were more pronounced now, her eyes a bit darker. Downing regarded them both with disgust.

“Tosh, Hideki,” she said through a forced smile. “It’s good to see you both.” When they didn’t reply, she nodded toward Tower 1 and remarked, “I could hardly believe little Owen was already of Placement age.”

“It’s harder to believe that’s where you put him,” Tosh replied, mocking her.

Elle’s face fell immediately, as though it strained her to smile. When she did, the faint glimmer in her amber-colored eyes died.

“As you well know, we don’t make such decisions,” Elle said. “So how have you been?”

“Just spreading the gospel,” Tosh said. “As you well know.”

Downing’s eyes slid to Elle as though expecting a reaction, but Elle only smirked. “Well I hear only good things from Director Davis.”

“I’d imagine the Director here has filled you in on what happened at School 2,” Tosh said.

Elle nodded grimly. “Yes, I saw your name on the report. Such a tragic mishap.”

“Mishap, yes,” noted Tosh, glancing back at Downing. “That’s what it was.”

A heaviness descended over Elle. About what, precisely, Tosh couldn’t have said. Maybe it was the accident or maybe it was regret about the very different paths their lives took after Placement. Maybe it was all these things.

“Well if there’s anything we can do to help you and your students, please let us know,” Elle said.

“What about you?” Downing said, sniffing in Dek’s direction. “Shouldn’t you be cleaning something?”

“I just came from my shift,” Dek said. “The Stores are spotless.”

“Well,” Elle said, brightening. “We both have a busy day ahead. It was really good seeing both of you.”

As much as Tosh had come to resent the Authority — and by extension, Elle — it struck her that her old friend might’ve felt every bit as trapped as they did. She nodded to Dek and gave Tosh a tired smile before turning away. Downing briefly met their eyes one more time before he joined her. He looked triumphant.

8

Hideki excused himself the moment the ceremony concluded and ran off, leaving Tosh to continue contemplating Owen’s circumstance. Two years could break him.

She decided to spend the balance of the day at Byron’s place. Byron would’ve come to the ceremony, but he didn’t think much of Hideki and having them both there would’ve made things awkward for everyone.

She still wasn’t sure what they were to each other. At their age, relationships were just relationships. You still needed Authority approval to cohabitate, but it was such a hassle that most people didn’t bother. He and Dee lived on the first floor of the Sector 44 complex, not quite a kilometer from her unit. She knocked on the door of 110 and Dee answered.

“Hey Miss Y,” she said cheerfully, and about-faced with the door open.

Dee tried to call her Tosh like everyone else, but it felt weird for both of them. She was one of the few bright spots in her current cohort, a curious and headstrong girl. Tosh would’ve loved to fan that little ember in Dee’s soul and see what caught fire, but there were few such opportunities, especially now that her classroom was under scrutiny.

At first it was a little awkward to be in a relationship with a parent, but Tosh came to see it as an opportunity. Outside the classroom, she wasn’t bound to the Authority curriculum. She and Byron both hoped that hers would be the first generation to leave the Dome unless they all got out together. If that ever happened, she’d need to think for herself.

Byron knew the man who fell through the roof. His name was Patrick, and he was just 20. Byron had only been up in a crawler four times but said he wouldn’t have trusted his life to the aging equipment if he could help it. A maintenance worker as young as Patrick wouldn’t have known how dangerous it really was, and it likely cost him his life.

Tosh joined him on the couch, where he and Dee were trying to find their way through a maze. The Cache only offered a few dozen games, mostly of the puzzle or strategy variety. Nothing that suggested the Time Before.

“You want to play?” Byron asked. “We’re on level 263.”

“Nah, I’m good to watch.”

“How was the ceremony?” he asked.

“The usual. Those robots from the Authority made it sound like they were doing everyone a favor.”

“How’s Owen?” Byron asked. Overhead, Dee was still finishing her turn.

“He’s pissed off,” Tosh said. “Can’t say I blame him.”

“You called it,” he said. “You never believed he’d get a cushy Placement.”

“I know. I just didn’t want to be right about this. Any more news about Patrick?”

Byron shrugged. “The motor on his crawler crapped out. He was up trying to fix it when he slipped. No telling how long he hung there before his harness broke.”

“I’m sorry,” Tosh said.

She could hear the pain in his voice. Like her father, he’d beaten the drum for years that the Dome was on borrowed time. But was he more upset about Patrick or because it could’ve been her who died instead of the hapless monitor?

Dee won whatever maze they were playing and excused herself to her room, leaving Tosh and Byron alone on the couch. She snuggled her head into the crook of his meaty upper arm. He leaned his chin on her head. His stubby beard felt rough on her scalp. Her hair was thinning on top.

“What do you want to do?” she asked.

That was always the question, because it was always a problem. The boredom was indescribable. When the Originals moved in, they were still connected to the world. They could talk to friends and family on the outside and follow the news. A galaxy of entertainment and knowledge was at their fingertips. But apparently Cytocorp never gave a thought to what happened if it went away.

Generations in the Dome had grown up with only a vague idea of life in the Time Before. The Cache only painted it in the broadest of strokes. When someone went to their first Epoch and saw the footage from outside, it was the first glimpse they’d ever had of the world outside. It told you all you needed to know about the outside world, and for most, it made them grateful for the Dome’s protection. Tosh would’ve loved to feel that way again.

“You could talk to your Legacies,” Byron said.

Tosh pulled away from him. “Not this again.”

“You need to confront this one way or another, Tosh. Look what it’s done to you.”

“Oh? And what has it done to me?” she asked. Her voice seemed to grow in volume without her trying.

“I don’t know. All I know is, you used to be more light. Lately there’s only dark,” he said.

It would’ve been easy to get indignant, to cross her arms between them and insist she was the same person. His first relationship since losing his wife to a freak accident in the Stores. But he wasn’t wrong. To see the monitor die in front of her gave her almost orgasmic joy. Didn’t that alone indicate some kind of psychosis?

“You’re right,” she said. “I should talk to them. But on my own time and not in front of you.”

“I don’t need to be there,” he said, running his fingers through her black hair. “But I do need to know you’ve confronted it. Until you do, I’m not sure this is healthy for either of us.”

How ironic. She’d come to him expecting he would need her to lean on about Patrick, only to realize that she, too, was hanging by a thread. The only thing between her and the abyss was a safety feature called Byron, and like so many other things in the Dome, it was on the verge of breaking.

9

Tosh and Dee walked to class together the next morning. The shield was low enough that they could discern slate-gray clouds through it, bringing hope for rain.

The Authority curriculum’s treatment of history was appalling. All Tosh did to get in trouble was to teach her students what she’d learned herself. According to the curriculum, all of human history was a litany of evil and shortsightedness, whereas the Dome was a little bubble of hope clinging to the edge of a ruined world.

Tosh could’ve let herself slip back into the same ennui that built up since the monitor came, but she had other things on her mind. Specifically, Hideki.

They’d been close as kids. Not just in the way of other twins, but on a deeper level. Their father’s job as a sought-after technician kept him away for long and inconvenient hours, often while their mother was tending to patients at Clinic 4. That left them alone for hours at a time, during which they read practically every page in the Cache.

Dek was more like their mother. He might’ve lost his leg to a serious infection at age six were it not for the microbe-eating Macros. From then on, he was fascinated by all things technical, particularly synthetic biology.

Tosh took after their father. He repaired mechanical and electrical systems, which interested her, but not so much as the information systems that kept the Dome humming. What she couldn’t learn from the Dome Project’s technical documentation she pieced together through shadowing Art.

Fittingly, Dek’s initial Placement was in bioprinting and hers was in central information systems. The algorithms that determined the course of your life had seemingly worked in their case. They moved away into the apprentice dorms and met new people from all over the city. Things were going as well as they could.

But one fateful afternoon, just a few weeks into her apprenticeship, her father visited her at her dormitory to ask about hacking a tablet. She confirmed it was possible and told him how, but he was cagey about the reason. It had to do with retrieving location data stored in his CHIT, but that didn’t make any sense. Why would he want to know where he’d been? How could he not know?

Her father’s eccentricities were nothing new. He was always trying to solve one problem or another, almost to the point of obsession. He liked being the guy the Authority would call in a pinch, though he personally despised them. If one of the trains went down or somebody’s IDA terminal was being flaky, he was the man they called.

Between this aspect of his nature and her confusion over his visit, she gave him what he came for and went off to the cafeteria with her roommate.

Later that evening, after returning from an O_2 drill that sent them scrambling to the Towers, she was asked to accompany an Authority officer to an extra room in the dormitory. Dek was inside. Her initial thought was that she’d need to give him an alibi. But then the director of Production told them there had been a terrible accident in the FPC. It seemed their parents crawled inside the processing equipment during the drill and were still there when the FPC came back to life.

She laughed.

Daisuke and Minori Yamamura, two of the Dome’s most capable people, had not simply wandered into the machinery of the FPC. They were mistaken. It was someone else. Tosh even offered to help get to the bottom of it. Her brain could barely fathom that a grisly accident had taken her parents from her. Such accidents happened in the FPC but not to people like them. It seemed like some kind of cruel joke.

Only it wasn’t.

No one ever saw their parents again. They didn’t know why her father triggered the alarm and descended into the FPC with their mother in tow. The Authority’s official explanation was so-called Dome Fever, the Authority’s catch-all explanation for suicides and other such “mishaps,” as Elle might say.

She couldn’t fault Dek for talking to their parents’ Legacies. Perhaps she would, too, eventually. But he was still searching for answers and she was still trying to move on.

His unit mirrored her own almost exactly. She entered the complex, took the stairs to the third floor, and knocked on 314. Hideki answered so quickly she wondered if he didn’t have his ear to the door. One wild eye peered out from where he’d cracked it.

“Were you followed?” he asked.

“Gimme a break, Dek,” she said, pushing her way inside.

He gave her the finger, then grabbed a handful of her sleeve and yanked her inside. He pushed it closed and immediately locked it.

“Seriously, though,” he said.

“No!”

“Okay, okay.”

His unit smelled just as bad as he did. The shades were pulled tightly, and his IDA screen was the only light. On the display was the smiling face of her mother. A wave of emotion crashed over her and she frowned.

“I’ll come back later.”

“Toshiko, is that you?” Her mother’s Legacy looked down on her with kindly eyes. Tosh looked away and made for the door. Dek jumped in front of her.

“Don’t leave. I’m sorry. IDA, off.”

“You know that’s not really them, right?” she said, her teeth clenched. “Can you turn it off, please?”

“Toshiko, I hope you’re well,” said the Legacy which was still on the screen. “I miss you.”

“IDA, off!” Tosh spat. Her mother’s face blinked out.

“Tosh, listen. Just listen, okay? You know how we’ve been trying to solve this puzzle, right? You and me, Mom and Dad. The puzzle. The only puzzle that matters.”

“We haven’t been trying to solve anything,” Tosh said.

“You know what I mean. I was just trying to—”

“Dek, this isn’t healthy,” she said, trying to herd him toward his bedroom. “Have a scrub and then we can talk. I’ll clean up in here, okay?”

He clapped his hands sharply. “I know! I’ll show you!” He shrugged free of her hand and hurried toward his room. She followed cautiously just to see what he was doing.

First, he opened his small closet and rifled through a crate full of junk until he found a little bundle of tools. She recognized it from her father’s old tool kit, which Dek would’ve had hidden away somewhere. Kneeling, he carefully unrolled the bundle and found the special wrench that fit the wall panel bolts. They came off for easy maintenance, but you needed a technician’s tool set to do it. It was where they used to hide things as kids.

He padded across the room to a panel in the second row up, near the foot of his bed, and removed the bolts from the corners.

“Whatever’s in there, I don’t need to see it,” Tosh said.

“Yes, you do. You sure do,” Dek said. “Just wait. It’ll blow your mind.”

He set the composite panel on the floor and carefully reached into the space behind it. It was just an old IDA tablet.

“Wow,” she said. “Very impressive.”

He cradled it in his hands as though it was a priceless artifact. “This was Dad’s.”

When they didn’t find it among their parents’ things, Dek turned the place upside down to find it. When he visited her at her dorm, she told her father that a tablet connected to a working scanner could retrieve location data from his CHIT. He thanked her and left. She never saw him again and never knew what happened to the tablet in question.

“How did you get that?” she asked. “Tell me you didn’t use the scrambler to break into our old unit.”

“This thing hasn’t worked for years,” he said, fingering the metal ring around his neck. “I just like wearing it.”

They made the scrambler together when they were kids, hollowing out a bearing ring to pack in the electronics. It masked the CHIT signal so that his location would only register if he went through a security door. IDA would assume a glitch and report his last recorded location.

“I got it working. It was still in diagnostic mode. Dad’s location data is still there!”

That stopped her. If Dek was right, then the location data straight from her father’s CHIT could either prove or disprove the Authority’s account of what happened to them. The problem was, then she’d no longer have a choice what to believe.

“And?” Tosh asked.

“I don’t know how to bypass the security protocols,” he said. “That’s why I need you.”

Dek was whip-smart, but this wasn’t his area of expertise. Tosh could still navigate the buried admin menus where that data would theoretically still reside. But she’d worked so hard to come to terms with what happened. Was the truth worth pursuing if it threatened what little comfort she had managed to find? Dek was evidence enough of what happened if you didn’t leave well enough alone.

10

Every morning, Owen and Aaron ascended 29 floors of metal stairs along the outside of Tower 1 with legions of fellow greenies, many of whom had been there for decades. The longer you were there, the lower your home level. The previous shift would see them arrive, dump their bins into the conveyor, and wearily hand them to the people in the next shift before starting the long trip back down.

Each hydroponic Tower comprised 30 five-meter high levels that ran all day, every day under grow lights. Each level was a 50-meter square with narrow aisles between rows of plants. During his training, they said each level provided 2,000 square meters of cultivation area, so 60,000 square meters per tower. In all, the 10 towers provided 600,000 square meters of dense growth, roughly 150 acres.

Plants grew in a gravel substrate bathed in water, driven by pumps that continuously filtered and recirculated it. Much of the water lost through evaporation and transportation eventually condensed on the underside of the Dome and was collected.

They got a 15-minute break every two hours. Most of his Tower mates used their breaks to lean over the railing and stare down at the Agora or across the city, counting the minutes until they could leave. The only thing he got out of the experience was exercise.

And did he ever.

They worked in pairs — one harvesting, one planting. Harvested plants went into a plastic bin. When it was full, you walked it over to the bucket conveyor running down the side and dumped it in a passing bucket, mindful that another was right behind it.

It took some practice to get the timing right. If you didn’t, you’d toss the contents of your bin right over the top of the bucket, bouncing off the shield that kept it from sailing off into the Agora. But like other aspects of this work, it was best to just turn off your brain.

Aaron, to his credit, wouldn’t let Owen do that.

As they worked, Aaron would quiz him about math or physics. They’d estimate the weight and volume of conveyor buckets as they passed or simply see if they could recognize anyone below.

Aaron was able to do this because he truly believed it was temporary — that if they stayed sharp, IDA would recognize that they were more useful elsewhere. His relentless optimism and good humor kept hope alive for Owen, who realized he would’ve fallen into a deep depression if not for his friend.

“Holy shit,” Aaron said, holding up a handful of pale gray gravel.

“What?” asked Owen.

“I think this is my great uncle Kenny.”

Owen laughed. Ashes from the incinerator were collected and mixed with a solution to form a paste that was dried and crushed into substrate for the Towers. That included human remains. Almost nothing went to waste.

“Break!” hollered Freddy, and everyone stopped what they were doing.

The salty old guy had been in the Towers for 32 years. He’d lost two fingers to a mishap with the harvester buckets on his second day on the job. To hear him talk, you’d think it had been all downhill from there.

“Your work is never done,” he’d said on their first day. “This is your life now. No matter how many plants you pull out, they keep comin’. But I’ll tell you this — ain’t nothing more important.”

Some queued for water at the spigot during breaks. Others leaned on the railing and looked out at the city, and some just laid down on the filthy grating of the floor for a while. Freddy didn’t care if you took a carrot or radish to eat, but the nutrient bath tasted terrible. That meant either lining up at the tap or sacrificing some of your own rations to rinse it off. Owen decided that was too much of a hassle and took a container of multimeal instead.

Owen sat next to Aaron with his legs hanging off the edge of the floor, leaning his elbows on the railing. Spoonfuls of multimeal slipped into his mouth in a steady cadence while he stared out at the city. The only nice thing about Tower work was the view. It was killer.

“I’ve been wondering about this shit lately,” Owen announced, indicating the gray-green mush.

“Multimeal? Shit?” Aaron said with mock admonishment. “How dare you!”

“Seriously, why can’t we all just have regular food? Why do we only get whole food for good behavior?”

“What other carrots could they dangle?” Aaron joked. “Ha — carrots.”

“Have you ever done the math? Because I have.”

“What math?”

Owen calculated that three square meters of dense growth should be able to produce enough food to sustain an average adult. By that reckoning, they should have enough to feed 200,000 people. Even after backing out Tower 3, which grew only hemp, they seemed to produce a great deal more food than they used.

Maybe that was by design. Maybe the Stores under the Dome contained hidden rooms filled with food. The FPC did limited canning, so perhaps the surplus was preserved and stored for emergencies. But year after year? Decade after decade?

All rations were tracked by CHIT so one got more than they were supposed to. That all but eliminated the possibility that huge numbers of people were getting more than their share. It didn’t add up.

“Okay, okay,” Aaron said, nodding. “Interesting theory. So where’s it all go?”

“Break’s over!” barked Freddy.

Owen sighed and bounced his forehead on the railing. “How hard do you think I’d have to do this to kill myself?”

Aaron popped up to his feet and extended a hand toward Owen.

“No one gets off that easily,” he said, hoisting Owen up. They were both getting pretty strong.

Owen groaned and followed his friend back into the green, leafy rows. The team across from them were two knuckle draggers name Rick and Adan, whose goal apparently was to make everyone else as miserable as they were. They were in their late 20s and big. Normally they worked the other side of the level but it was impossible to avoid them all the time.

“You think you’re special?” Rick muttered.

“I’m sorry,” Aaron said. “Did you say something?”

“Fifteen minutes my ass. That was 20 at least.”

“Well I can’t speak for him but I was savoring my multimeal. It was really on point today,” Aaron quipped.

Neither of them even cracked a smile. “If 11 years in the Towers taught me one thing,” said Adan, “it’s that nobody gets special treatment. Nobody.”

“Well, kudos on learning one thing in 11 years,” said Aaron with a smirk. “That must be a personal record.”

Adan glared murderously at Aaron. They were total psychopaths, just itching for a fight. Owen tightened his grip on the crate in case he needed to defend himself, though it wasn’t much of a weapon.

“Let’s just get our work done, huh?” Owen offered. They were heading the other direction so that Rick, who also was harvesting, was about three meters away from Owen. Adan was right across from Aaron.

He immediately wished he hadn’t said anything. Now they were staring at him. Rick looked at Adan and nodded toward Owen. “Hey Welsh, I’ve been meaning to ask you. How’s your old man these days? Oh, that’s right. He went up in smoke.”

“Screw you, Rick,” Owen said.

“Don’t mind him,” Aaron said. “I heard he and his girl got denied a repro permit. I can’t imagine why.”

“I’d watch that smart mouth if I were you,” warned Adan.

“Sorry,” said Aaron, raising his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll keep it to two syllables or less.”

Adan leapt across the row of plants and grabbed a handful of Aaron’s shirt, which immediately ripped. Rick made a halfhearted effort to rein him in while Owen struggled to break Adan’s iron grip on Aaron.

“Hey!” hollered Freddy, who hurriedly limped over from his post near the dump station. “Knock that shit off! Adan, let go of the kid or I’ll send you down in the next bucket.”

Adan didn’t let go.

“Now, I said!”

Finally he released Aaron’s shirt and let Rick help him back over the smushed seedlings, the front of his uniform now spotted with water and streaks of green. He angrily shrugged off Rick’s hands.

“It’s okay, Freddy,” said Owen, meeting Rick and Adan’s eyes. “Just a little disagreement is all.”

“Their break was 20 minutes at least,” said Rick.

“Not according to my clock,” replied Freddy with surety. “Anyway, you just wasted at least as much time with this bullshit. Now get the hell back to work, the lot of ya.”

Freddy had a way of dressing people down that made them want to comply. He was tough, but fair, and had no stomach for Rick and Adan.

“Yes sir,” said Owen.

Rick and Adan nodded in agreement, followed by Aaron, and Freddy limped stiffly away, mumbling obscenities. Owen tapped Aaron’s shoulder to break the angry gaze he still held with Adan before continuing their labors in silence.

11

What did Hideki feel? Not surprise, and not exactly disappointment. Maybe it was just old-fashioned frustration. On one hand, Tosh was right. His obsession with their parents’ disappearance was unhealthy. He rarely ate or slept, preferring the warm embrace of a Macro to the inconveniences of Dome routine. No one forced that on him.

Tosh powered up the tablet, found the data, and rendered it out over a schematic of the Dome. Her brow furrowed as she panned around it. Dek peered over her shoulder as she stepped through it minute by minute.

He worried that whatever they might see would further loosen his weak grip on sanity and send her down the same path to madness. But they both were bound to this same event. You could choose not to walk through a door, but it didn’t change what was on the other side.

The data was clear. Their father, at least, had been in the FPC the week prior to the drill. There was a multimeal shortage that week. Operational logs indicated the processor shut down for more than an hour, which meant shutting down not just the whole line, but the Towers, too. Hundreds of witnesses saw their father go into the FPC with Downing. When he emerged an hour or so later, he reportedly looked disoriented, had a brief conversation with Downing, and left.

The schematic of the FPC placed their father right next to the multimeal processor. The pulsing dot that represented his location didn’t move from that spot for nearly an hour, then it re-traced its path back to the main entrance. But it stopped just shy of the main door for almost three minutes before heading back out.

Maybe his father was repairing something on the processor. Maybe whatever had broken was just on the other side an access panel, and he stood in the same place that whole time. Maybe he and Downing simply talked before opening the door.

As thrilling as it was to see how that day unfolded, nothing in the data contradicted the Authority’s account of his father’s final days, nor did it offer a more plausible explanation.

After Tosh made him scrub, she went home, leaving him to ponder whether there were any stones left unturned. He didn’t sleep at all, tormented by all the questions he’d failed to answer.

The next day, he took the long way to the Stores to clear his head and get his blood moving. If Wade was really getting out of the illicit Macro business, that was a major problem. Macros were how he bought himself out of extra work, and even sometimes out of trouble with the Authority. Oh, they liked their Macros, too. Especially Administrator Keane before all that drama went down. The bottom line was, Macros got him access to the components he needed for his side project. Without them, he had nothing to trade.

As Tosh would say, one problem at a time. Wade got spooked, and he just needed to un-spook him.

When he arrived at the main entrance to the Stores, the Authority guard who rarely moved stood and came forward to meet him.

“You don’t have to get up, Dave,” he said. “I’m not that big a deal.”

“You’re in the FPC today,” he said, stone-faced.

“What?” Dek asked. “Why?”

Cleaning the Stores was a breeze, but the FPC was the shittiest detail you could get. Could it be related to what he’d seen on his father’s old tablet? It was disconnected from the network, but he still felt a jolt of panic.

A smirk crept across Dave’s lips. “Big mess.”

So maybe it wasn’t related, but it still sucked. Hideki about-faced and headed slowly back up the ramp, wondering what he could mean by a big mess. Then he shuffled straight across the Agora to the FPC entrance. Along the way, he noticed the conveyors on the Towers were stopped. Sometimes it was a mechanical issue, sometimes not. In any event, it didn’t happen very often.

A rather unsavory narrative was starting to form, but he pushed it aside. Maybe a day in the FPC was an opportunity to retrace his father’s steps.

He’d taken the train to the FPC that day and came in from the other side during the shutdown. Thousands of people would’ve been milling about the entrance, some eager to return to work and make the time pass more quickly and some content to stand around indefinitely. What had he felt just then? Pressure? Confidence?

“You must be Yamamura,” said the guard at the bottom of the ramp. “Find a mop and report to Bay 5.”

“There must be some mistake. I—”

“No mistake. Scan your CHIT and go.”

Dek brushed past the guard, heard the scanner beep, and went inside. The humid odor of decaying plant matter invaded his nostrils and he thought he might be sick. How anyone got used to the smell, he didn’t know.

It got less oppressive the closer he got to the processing floor. The smell rose up to a river of forced air along the ceiling. It then funneled into ducts that disappeared through the concrete support wall and vented it all out into the Burn.

He followed the catwalk over the processing floor and watched it all for a moment. The harvester buckets from the Towers normally descended through the ceiling and dumped their contents on a conveyor. They were then blasted clean before returning up the other side of the Tower. One set of workers sorted the plants and sent them down smaller conveyors, where other workers removed stems and inedible parts to the adjacent composting center. Pretty much everything else wound up on the conveyor that ran down to the multimeal processor.

It was all shut down. FPC workers were streaming out en masse.

“Wrong way,” said a passing man. He was roughly Dek’s age, his left eye covered by a patch. The FPC had more than its share of horrific accidents. “We just got word it’s gonna be awhile.”

“I’m supposed to report to Bay 5.” Dek said.

The man suddenly understood why he was there. “Oh. Yeah, okay.” He studied his face for a moment and leaned in. “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

“I don’t think so,” Dek said, extending his hand. “Hideki Yamamura.”

“Yamamura. As in, Daisuke Yamamura?” he said.

“Yes…” he said timidly.

“My name’s Mike. I apprenticed with your dad.”

Mike’s thick, cracked hands and missing eye told the tale. He clearly didn’t make it as a technician. He’d been in the FPC a long time.

“Good to meet you, Mike,” Dek managed. He couldn’t believe his luck.

“He was a good man. It’s a shame what happened to him,” Mike said. “One minute I’m talking to him and the next…”

“You saw him?” Dek asked.

“I never could figure why. Everyone else was headed to the Towers for the drill, but your dad was going the other way. He said he was meeting his wife, which sounded weird, but I thought maybe, y’know, he and the missus wanted a little… privacy.”

Dek guffawed. His parents loved each other but using an O_2 alarm to shut down production just to hose each other in the smelly FPC? Inside the processor no less?

“Sorry. If you knew my mom, you’d know how funny that was. So what’s going on here?”

Mike’s eyes darkened and he sighed. “There was an accident. Big mess down there.”

“So I hear.”

“There are cleaning closets next to every station in the line. Keep opening doors until you find a mop,” Mike said. “A bunch of you are already down there.”

Dek thanked him and kept moving deeper into the semicircular facility. Each bay under the Towers normally bustled with sweaty, dirty workers focused on feeding the beast. The volume of organic matter carried off to the processor was staggering. The silent conveyors were piled high with it.

After a time, the processor came into view — a floor-to-ceiling behemoth that gulped down piles of fruit and vegetables and spat out multimeal. A team stood at the intersection of the FPC’s two main branches, one from Towers 1–5 and the other from Towers 6–10, plucking the best-looking whole pieces for Ration Rewards. Dek hadn’t earned or used any in years, though the fist-sized strawberries certainly looked appealing.

He descended the stairs and opened the door to the first cleaning closet he saw. No mops. Same with the next two. He had to backtrack all the way to Bay 2 to find one, then took it with him en route to Bay 5. Dek passed a few workers shuffling the other direction, haunted looks on their ashen faces. They drifted by like he wasn’t there.

For as many people as he passed leaving Bay 5, he expected to find a crowd but there was only a handful of FPC supervisors standing in the corridor along the outer wall. They blocked his view of the processor’s intake. He tapped one of them on the shoulder to make way. Upon seeing him and his mop, he stepped aside, though he wore a bemused look that Dek didn’t like.

“Come on in, bud. Join the party,” he said. “We’re trying out a new multimeal formula. See what you think.”

He and the others laughed as they ushered Hideki past. What he saw next was forever branded onto his retinas.

An arm hung grotesquely to the side of the conveyor near the mouth of the machine, suspended from a thread of hemp or sinew. Below and around it was more blood than he’d ever seen. His stomach lurched, but he swallowed it back down. The men behind him sniggered. A handful of fellow sanitation workers sloshed water over the floor and pushed blood into the drains. He reluctantly shuffled over toward one of their buckets to wet his mop and join in, but a voice from behind stopped it.

“Oh shit,” he said. “You’re Yamamura, right?”

Dek turned and nodded. “Yeah, so what?”

“You won’t need that,” he said, taking the mop. He nodded toward the processor. “Not for the inside.”

He gulped. It seemed this person — a woman, by the looks of it — had probably gotten her clothes wrapped up in the conveyor. He only saw an arm and blood, which meant that the rest of her was inside. Though he had no idea how it all worked, IDA would know he could figure it out. Why send a tech to access the inside of the machine and a janitor to clean it when Dek could do both? And what better way for the Authority to twist the knife than to clean a dead woman out of the same machine that supposedly chewed up his parents?

Now he knew why the supervisors were so amused.

“What happened?” asked Dek.

“She got caught up in the conveyor,” said one of the other men. “Someone hit the kill switch, but it didn’t work. By the time they got to the one in Bay 4, it was too late.”

Though the sides of the processor were smooth, it appeared that access to internal components and gauges was via removable panels — just like the walls in housing units and other Dome buildings. His eyes settled on a large panel near the main intake area. This was the spot.

But the main access panel was several meters closer to the intake. Only an idiot would venture inside without knowing when it would come alive. His dad was no idiot.

The men watched from a distance as he approached the intake access. The four other janitors on the scene sloshed grimly through the bloody water that soaked their hemp shoes, barely aware of his presence. He opened the release lever and pulled the panel free. As bad as the scene looked on the outside, the inside was a thousand times worse.

The gears that drove the pulverizing drum at the mouth of the machine were slathered red, jammed by the woman’s twisted clothing. It wouldn’t have looked any different if she’d exploded. It appeared the components could be pulled out and inspected or cleared by hand but he’d still need tools to do it properly. He would be there for a while. And just like with his father, the entire Dome would have to wait until it was done.

Just then, a faint movement on one of the gears caught his eye. Something very small. He peered closer, glancing over his shoulder to ensure no one had come up behind him.

“Hope you didn’t have plans this morning, Yamamura,” said the supervisor, still sniggering.

Hideki ignored him and focused on the movement he’d noticed. Something was stuck to a smear of blood on the tip of a gear tooth. He gently pressed his finger to it and pulled it out into the light. He recognized it immediately.

A tiny, wriggling Macro, red as the blood.

12

In the dream, Elle is 15 again. The faceless man is there with her, and he is much stronger. But not just physically. He is in control in all the ways that matter. He won’t let her turn around to look him in the eye. His rancid breath is on her neck. She hopes IDA will detect her distress and raise an alarm. But then the door opens, and she wakes up.

The dream is why she’s Administrator of Dome Six. Why she isn’t that girl anymore. Why no one will ever take advantage of her again.

Light never quite streamed through the window of Elle’s unit like she wanted. Somewhere in the Cache, she once stumbled across a photograph of a woman bringing a cup to her lips as she peered out through a window. The wispy drapes were buoyed up by a gentle breeze outside, framing her lithe figure just so. The unfiltered orange glow of a radiant sunrise fell across her loose white blouse. A blurry blue field in the deep background suggested the ocean.

She didn’t recall what it was for, but she always loved the image. Mornings made her think of it. She liked to fantasize about being on her own in some quaint beach house, plaintively gazing into the eyes of dawn. That was the kind of loneliness she might choose, given the chance — the kind where she could merely linger in a delicious moment, safe from the dream.

Unfortunately, choice was among the most precious of the Dome’s dwindling resources.

“What time is it?” asked Luther. He shifted in the bed so his arm fell across hers, hairy and solid.

“Early,” she said. “You should go back to sleep.”

She didn’t exactly want him to leave but didn’t want him to stay, either. Encouraging him to sleep in was a way to get both.

“I need a scrub,” she announced, and pulled back the covers. “Don’t get up.”

She unfolded her scrub tub, laid down, then emptied the container of synthetic insects over herself. They spread out and went to work cleansing her body while she closed her eyes and tried to relax. After a few moments she heard Luther shift again in the bed.

“I know it got awkward at the ceremony yesterday,” he said. “I thought you handled it well, considering.”

“Considering what?”

“Considering Tosh’s hostility.”

Elle thought about Tosh often, especially over the last few weeks. The accident at the cafeteria was only the latest in a string of incidents that seemed calculated to undermine the public trust. News had spread of critical shortages in the Stores. A water line broke across town on Rad 56 in early fall, creating a water-filled sinkhole four meters across. Longer shifts in the Towers, directed by IDA, were causing older workers to collapse from exhausting. It seemed everything was broken or about to break.

She was just a kid when Luther, then in his early 30s, told her that to lead was to be alone. Whatever doubts she’d had about that had long been erased. Even with him just a short distance away, propped up on one elbow in her bed, it was still true.

“We were close once,” she mused. “A long time ago.”

“Did you see her brother? What a waste.”

Dek did look really bad. Busting him down to Sanitation stemmed the tide of black-market Macros but didn’t stop it. They’d run out of Cytomatrix soon. Once that happened, their ability to treat disease and injury would be set back 200 years. But Hideki was the least of their problems.

The empathy she had for the Yamamura twins was real and deep. She was largely estranged from her own parents, both of whom now made clothes. They never had the relationship that Tosh and Dek had with their parents.

Whatever led Daisuke to trip the O_2 alarm and disappear into the FPC with Minori remained a mystery, but he’d had his wits about him. That much was certain. She surprised him just outside the utility building moments after the klaxons started to blare. He asked her to look the other way and she did, following at a distance until she watched him and Minori slip into the FPC together. Only then did she tell Luther what she saw.

It was he who led the inquiry into the Yamamuras’ disappearance. He who claimed that they’d crawled into the multimeal processor. He who put forward Dome Fever as the explanation.

They didn’t talk about that anymore. In fact, they rarely talked at all. That wasn’t the nature of their association.

“What was your Placement like?” she asked, eager to move her mind off the Yamamura family.

“My Placement? Hell, I hardly remember.”

“Where’d you start?”

“On the line in the FPC,” he said. “Sorting and stemming for Tower 7.”

Going from an FPC or Tower apprenticeship to the Authority was rare. Elle was placed directly into the Authority, which was rarer still. IDA’s selection algorithm seemed to place a high value on loyalty. On one hand, a shitty Placement would distinguish the true believers. On the other, it could destroy whatever faith they had in the system — the system it was now her job to maintain.

“What did you feel when moved to the Authority?” she asked.

He shook his head. “That I finally got the Placement I earned. I talked to Legacies. Probably read a million pages in the Cache. I knew how the game was played.”

Years ago, when she was just an apprentice at the Authority, Luther told her that objectivity was a gift. That it distinguished them from the rest. She was too empathetic for that, but she could control how she reacted. That was her true gift.

“The man who fell from the roof,” Elle said. “Do we know what happened?”

He sighed and threw the covers off, then dressed while he talked. “He took one trip outside the crawler and another one straight down.”

“Yeah, but what actually happened?”

“Why do you care?”

“Because he was a citizen of this city,” Elle replied.

Luther loomed over her as he buttoned his shirt.

“Look, if you want to cry for the kid, be my guest. I’ve got work to do. I’ll see you later.”

He left without another word. As hard as the Scrubbers were working, Elle knew she’d never feel completely clean.

13

The elevator down to the Nexus never felt like it was moving, yet when the doors opened, only a narrow hallway stood between Luther and the door to the airlock. Once he stepped inside, the door closed behind him and he was blasted by air. It came in from the top and got sucked away below his feet, like a vertical wind tunnel. The point was to remove as much lint, hair, and flecks of skin as possible so it couldn’t pollute the coolant.

The interior cylinder rotated and dumped him out onto the floor of the Nexus. The circular room was about 10 meters across. The full computing power of the Dome was submerged in a roiling pool of liquid coolant. Blue UV lights from deep below kept it free of microbes. The color made it resemble a sort of underground lagoon, black columns of processors and storage submerged like an ancient temple swallowed by the sea.

Luther slid the special sunglasses down over his eyes and the blue light turned to a yellow-orange. Otherwise it gave him a headache. He stuck his hand inside the shiny terminal at the center and a thin needle took a sample of his DNA. It was the only such security in the whole city, which suggested its expense.

“Good morning, Director,” IDA said. “Connecting you to Cytocorp actual.”

A few moments later came the familiar androgynous voice. “Hello, Director Downing.”

If it was AI, it was convincing. He never knew if he was talking to a person or a program but didn’t really care.

“What do you want?” he said.

“We’re seeing elevated cortisol levels across the city. Is there a problem?”

“A maintenance worker fell through the roof of a school cafeteria,” Luther said with a sigh. “And a woman died in the FPC a few days later. Everyone’s a little on edge.”

“The data suggests a longer trend.”

“What do you want me to say? The Dome’s going to shit.”

Years ago, when he came down here and begged IDA to help, he feared what might happen. When the system opened a connection to the Company, it seemed like a miracle. It meant they weren’t alone! But they never answered his questions about the outside. They only told him what to do.

The voice paused before continuing. “You must maintain order, Director. Our dataset is incomplete.”

Data, data, data. All that mattered to Cytocorp was their precious data. What could possibly be left for them to measure? “Screw your data! People blame us for what’s happening!” he shouted, his voice bouncing around the room.

“Calm down, Director. Do we need to remind you what’s at stake?”

Nearly 20 years had passed since he begged them to help Julia. To protect their unborn child from Dome law and her from losing her mind. Sometimes they let her speak to him, though he could never quite be sure it was really her. Their daughter would be 19 now.

“Let me talk to Julia.”

“That’s not on the table.”

“I’ve done everything you asked!” he said. “And I’ll continue to. But I want to talk to Julia. Please.”

Several seconds passed, during which he couldn’t be sure they were still there. But then a voice he barely recognized came on. It was always raspier than he remembered. The Julia he knew was 28 and pregnant. This Julia was pushing 50. He doubted she would even remember his face.

“Luther?” she said.

“Hey baby,” he replied. Relief flooded over him. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

“The Fifth Epoch is coming soon,” she said hopefully.

“Yes it is.”

“After that, you can come to me in the city. I have so much to tell you!”

“That’s the plan,” he said.

As months became years, and years decades, he no longer believed it was even possible to fulfill his end of the bargain with Cytocorp. He’d done some terrible things at their behest. But the promise of a reunion once he helped the Dome limp across the finish line was a receding horizon. The only reason he still bothered with them was for the chance to hear her voice.

“We’re near the end, Luther. We’re finally going to be a family.”

“I hope so.” He wanted to believe it more than anything. “I’ll see you soon, beautiful.”

A pause, then the androgynous voice returned: “Satisfied?”

“That’s the last thing I am,” he grumbled.

“Our dataset is nearly complete. Once it is, we will honor our agreement.”

His mind raced ahead without him. He envisioned getting on the train below the Dome and taking it through the Burn at high speed. It would bear him to Pacifica and she’d be there, waiting, perhaps with their daughter at her side. He tried to push the fantasy away but couldn’t. Some version of had it played across his mind a thousand times.

But after nearly 20 years, it was hard to have any faith the end would come. It seemed more likely the Dome would collapse first.

“Why the Fifth Epoch?” Luther demanded. “Why not now?”

“For the same reason you used the Fourth to get Julia out. It’s the only distraction that will suffice.”

“Why does that matter if we’re all getting out of here?” Luther asked.

“Getting everyone out was not our agreement, Director.”

It wasn’t. He’d only assumed.

“I thought your technology would save everyone. That it would finally allow us to survive in the Burn.”

“And it will. The Domes will be dealt with in due time. You’re welcome to remain there.”

“No,” he said quickly. “No, I understand. Fifth Epoch. I’ll be on the train. But I don’t know how you expect me to hold this place together.”

“You’ll think of something,” said the voice, and it was gone.

14

Owen and Aaron took their scheduled break and ate their meager lunch. Even after just three months in the Towers, Owen’s will began to fade. Mindless work made for mindless workers, no matter how much they tried to stay sharp.

As he ate, he noticed that the sound of his chewing was oddly loud. Conversations from across the floor were more distinct than usual. The squeaky metallic rumble of the conveyor was clear as a bell. Something was different.

It was too quiet.

He rose and looked up toward the underside of the Dome, only about 30 meters overhead. The Exchangers ran constantly, a droning buzz you didn’t even notice. But the grimy fan blades on the one closest to him sat motionless. Same for the next closest one.

“Um, Aaron?” Owen asked. “I think we have a problem.”

A moment later, klaxons throughout the city pierced the silence, a series of urgent tones. It meant that O_2 levels near the ground were dropping fast, and that every citizen should immediately make their way to the place with the highest concentration of oxygen.

The Towers.

As soon as the O_2 alarm sounded, all work stopped and the conveyors clanged to a halt. The crew on level 29 rushed to the railing to verify what they already knew. No one had ever seen this happen for real. It was always just a drill.

“All right, people, listen up,” said Freddy in his gravelly baritone. Part of him relished this opportunity. “Your job is easy. Move up to 30 and get comfy, because the entire city’s headed this way and we need to make room. Authority will take the elevators up to the cage. Don’t embarrass me. Now move!”

“Of course they get to take the elevator straight to the top,” Owen whispered to Aaron. “They probably have a little nap area.”

Aaron chuckled. Half the crew was still stuffing multimeal in their faces as they climbed the steps to 30.

Apart from shuffling feet and muffled conversations, you couldn’t hear anything at all. In another context it might’ve been peaceful, but it was just eerie. There was no guarantee that the Exchangers would restart. If they didn’t, there was nothing to do but retreat to the Stores and wait to run out of air. Plus, the longer they were there, the more plants they’d have to eat. No plants meant no oxygen.

Freddy brought up the rear. Their crew was already pressed to the far railing, watching people flow into the Agora from all directions. Six crews could fit on one level with room to spare. Each person had an arm’s-length area around them if they spread out evenly, but they crowded against the inner railing to see the spectacle.

And what a spectacle it was. Every Rad was crammed with people. Most appeared to be looking for friends or family, in no particular hurry. Others ran to secure a spot on one of the upper levels, where the highest concentrations of O_2 would be. When you were a kid, they told you not to do that because the exertion used too much air.

“It’s probably something with the relays,” Owen said to Aaron. “My mom’s boyfriend says they’re all corroded.”

He wasn’t sure if Byron would be called out for something like this or not. If so, he’d almost certainly wind up in one of the crawlers. In the meantime, technicians would be dispatched to check the critical system controls hidden deep in the Stores. There, they would have ample air to perform repairs even if CO_2 levels were toxic up above. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they got the Exchangers humming again before the last straggler reached the Towers.

He scanned the crowd for his mom or Hideki but they were all just beige-gray ants jockeying for position. Blue uniforms emerged from the Authority and headed toward the private elevators. They’d be on 30 in just a few minutes.

The fatigue was already noticeable, which meant ground level must already be dicey. Below them, he could hear thousands of footfalls drawing closer on the metal steps.

Workers from levels 25 and up crowded in around them, all of them as worried as he was. After a lifetime of drills, it was hard to believe anything real was happening.

The whine of an electric motor across the level grew louder. Soon, a cluster of heads appeared through the cage. The door slid aside, and eight uniformed Authority workers stepped out. Everyone turned to stare at them with their own flavor of jealousy or contempt. They huddled in the far corner, looking deeply uncomfortable.

“Nap time,” Aaron noted.

“We should be quiet,” Owen said. “They need their rest.”

These Authority people were mostly office workers and low-level bureaucrats. Working there was a privilege, but they didn’t seem any happier to him. They had a few extra perks, sure, but a lot fewer friends. Of course, senior leadership probably had access to a secret bunker with 10 years’ worth of food and air.

It took nearly an hour for the last person to clear the Agora, and then there was nothing left to see. By then, the klaxons had mercifully stopped, giving the silence even more of a presence. Now they just had to trust that a small army of the best technicians were working feverishly to get the fans going again. Heat and humidity drifted over them like a blanket. The air was so stagnant that Owen could smell his own breath.

As one hour became two and three, conversations died out. People either carved out a small space for themselves on the floor or marched in place to keep their blood moving. Aaron’s back was to the railing, legs pulled tightly to his chest, dead asleep. Before long, so was Owen.

15

“In ’44, antibiotics no more,” the class intoned. They had even less energy than usual today, which was saying something.

Tosh hated rote-memory teaching. Mnemonic devices and such. But key dates were part of the Authority curriculum, so that’s what she did. If she didn’t, she’d wind up with another classroom monitor or wind up pushing a broom like Dek.

“And in 2053?” she asked.

“California broke free,” they said.

“Good,” she said. “What do you mean ‘broke free?’ Did it fall into the ocean?”

Vi and Dee raised their hands eagerly. They were always competing, always pushing each other. They did the same work as everyone else but with an added dash of curiosity and zest. Not many students had that. It was one thing to simply remember. To truly understand took a bit more. Tosh nodded to Dee.

“A land mass west of the San Andreas fault started to move north,” she said, with practiced diction. “It caused the Big Quake. Los Angeles and San Francisco were destroyed.”

“And in ’62?” Tosh asked.

“Southern sands blew,” the class droned.

When the southern desert called the Burn advanced northward, the millions it displaced flooded into the Northern Cities, state-sized megalopoli built around the Company. Cytocorp gave them all work, and the Cities grew even larger. The Authority’s take on history painted Cytocorp as the savior of humanity. Somehow, she doubted that.

Her head hurt and she was powerfully thirsty. Sweat ran down under her arms. She took a long drink from her bottle. Just as she set it down, a series of tones pierced the air. An O_2 alarm. Her first thought was a drill, but the alarm was too urgent for that. It slowly dawned on her that it was real. Her students’ eyes widened, and they murmured to each other.

At least her headache made sense.

“O_2 alarm,” Tosh said. They’d prepared for this. Everyone knew what to do. “Everyone take your bottles and follow me. Find your buddy.”

She took her own bottle and led them outside into the courtyard, where other cohorts had emerged. The students assembled themselves into two lines, each across from their buddies. Vi and Dee were at the front, right behind her.

“Is it real?” Dee asked anxiously.

“I think so,” confirmed Tosh. She gave Dee a reassuring smile. An O_2 alarm most likely meant the Exchangers were offline. That meant all crawler-certified maintenance workers would be called in — including Byron.

The class made its way out onto Rad 18 and merged with the stream of second- and third-shifters who had probably just woken. She turned back frequently to check on her class. The whole upper half of Tower 8 was reserved for schoolchildren, so they didn’t have to rush. Even so, Tosh didn’t want to dawdle. She squinted to discern Exchanger fans in motion but couldn’t tell for sure. In any event, it was distressingly quiet.

Vi and Dee talked anxiously behind her.

“You think they’ll call your dad?” Vi asked.

“I know they will,” Dee said.

Tosh could hear the fear in her voice. Dee was a strong girl, but she hadn’t been in this position before. None of them had. Byron’s typical workday involved fixing broken pipes or cleaning gunk from the condensation collectors. Nothing like this. Only a few months had passed since the young worker had crashed through the roof of their school. Now he’d be up there, too.

The Agora was pure chaos. Some hunted for friends or family in the crowd. Others appeared lost, as though they’d forgotten their assigned muster points. It had been a couple years since the last drill, which had gone smoothly. But faced with an actual crisis, all that went out the window. The whole thing had an everyone-for-themselves feel that unnerved her.

“Stay together!” she yelled back, silently counting the pairs. Twenty-two, plus the trio of weird kids at the end. Good. She turned back to look at Dee. She did her best to appear calm, but it wasn’t working.

Tosh reached the bottom of the wide steps and ushered her students up. Dee stuck close to her side, never letting go of Vi’s hand. Once the trio passed, she put her hand on Dee’s shoulder and guided her in behind the parade of students, who now joined younger kids from Schools 3 and 4.

The air already felt oppressive. It freshened a bit as they climbed, but the crowds of teachers and children all panting around her seemed to cancel it out. As they passed level 10, she found herself short of breath.

“Are you okay, Miss Y?” Vi asked.

“I’m great,” Tosh said, shaking her bottle to confirm it was only about half full.

By the time they reached level 24, Tosh thought she might actually die. Mercifully, the level supervisor hooked the chain across the steps that would’ve taken them to 25.

“All full,” she said. Tosh knew her from her very first cohort. Kristen, maybe, or Katherine? “Hey Miss Y.”

“Hey… you,” Tosh said, choosing not to guess. “How are you?”

“Living the dream,” she said grimly, then turned away.

“Favor the outside if you can,” Tosh reminded the kids. It was definitely better to be along the railing. Fortunately, the level was almost empty save for the greenies crowded against the inside railing. Level 24 was zucchini, which grew so quickly you could watch it happen.

Her class crowded into the near left corner. A final count confirmed they were all still there. Dee held Vi’s hand and took Tosh’s with the other. Vi’s mother cut hair and her father worked in the Stores. By now they’d have reached their muster points, but Tosh could almost feel them worrying about her.

She took a deep breath, grateful that she’d gotten her class safely into the Towers. All that was left now was to wait and hope. She squeezed Dee’s hand to reassure her it would all be okay, but she didn’t know that. No one did.

Together with Byron and Owen, they’d become like a weird little family. Owen was across the Agora from them somewhere, breathing the same air as the Authority on 30. At least he and Dee were safe. Hopefully Hideki was, too. But Byron? He was anything but.

16

“No!” Wade said. “Are you deaf or just stupid?”

Dek caught him as he was returning from the ration tap. The Stores were bustling with activity, but the hallway was clear. Even so, Wade’s eyes darted about him as though someone might be listening.

“C’mon,” said Dek, pleading. “I’m almost out. Just one. One yellow.”

“I said no,” Wade hissed. “I’m not sticking my neck out just so you can trip. Now leave me alone. What’re you even doing here anyway? I heard you got reassigned.”

“That was just temporary.”

Wade smirked, seemingly making the connection between the accident in the FPC and Hideki’s errand. “Ah, yes. Multimeal Maria. Was it as bad as they said?”

“Worse,” Dek replied. The deceased’s name really was Maria, unfortunately.

Dek couldn’t believe how casual everyone was about the poor woman who got pulled into the machine, especially around him. Of course, he might’ve found it funny, too, under different circumstances.

He patted Hideki patronizingly on the shoulder. “Don’t come by here anymore, Dek. Not kidding.”

Wade brushed past him and disappeared around the corner. Dek wanted to call him an asshole but still wasn’t quite ready to burn the bridge. The Authority had come down on the bioprinting lab before. Maybe he just needed to let things settle a bit. Dek knew he could be a bit much. Of course, he still wanted a psychedelic Macro, but he also wanted access to the bioprinting lab’s microscopes so he could take a closer look at the one he’d found.

At first, he thought the tiny worm was red because of the blood, but when he excused himself for a break and carefully rinsed it clean, he discovered it was actually red. Had it not moved it would’ve been invisible. He’d spent enough time around his mother and in the bioprinting lab to know that Macros came in just about every color besides red. That was by design. If something ever went wrong with a Macro that required surgery, you didn’t exactly want it to blend in.

Typically, they would lodge themselves in the relevant area of the body and do their thing, whether it was releasing chemicals or helping lymphocytes consume bacteria. To have one just floating around in arterial blood didn’t make sense, but he supposed it could’ve come from anywhere. As much as he wanted to take a yellow and float off for a few hours, what he wanted even more was to delve into this fresh mystery. He returned to cleaning between the aisles of the Stores.

The whoop whoop of the alarm gave him such a start that he almost fell into the shelves. This particular alarm indicated a low O_2 event. His first thought was that it was just an overdue drill, but it was too insistent. This was real. Orange lights along the central corridor flickered to life and indicated the way out.

He shrank back into a dark corner of the shelving and waited. The Stores were climate-controlled, so unless the main doors were open for a long time, any CO_2 that pooled along the bottom of the Dome couldn’t displace the air inside. Even if it was a real emergency up top, he’d be safe in the Stores for days.

Everyone was expected to leave their stations and find their muster points in the Towers. If CO_2 levels up top became life-threatening, the Stores would be the last-ditch option. He watched from the shadows, leaning on his broom, as workers poured into the central corridor en route to the exit.

From where he stood, he could see the door to the bioprinting lab. No one came in or out for a long time. In fact, at one point he reckoned the Stores were nearly empty except for Wade’s crew. But eventually the small team exited together and made their way down the corridor while the door slowly closed.

Dek stole across the corridor, stretching out with the broom to stop the door a blink before it closed. The door closed the rest of the way and he plastered himself to the wall beside it, hoping no one had seen him. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if that happened. Attack them? Pretend he was tripping?

Fortunately, he never had to decide. He waited for several minutes then, slowly, opened the door and peered down the corridor to find it completely empty. As far as he knew, he was alone now.

First things first.

He stacked his broom in the corner and raced to the drawer where the black-market Macros were hidden. He took the junk out of it and lifted out the false bottom. His heart sank. Empty. Either Wade had moved the stash, or he was serious about getting out.

Pity. He’d been so excited to ride out the O_2 alarm propped in a corner like his broom, whisked far away by a cocktail of psychedelics and amphetamines delivered straight to his brain stem. If Wade was truly out of the game, that meant what he had left at home might be it for a long while, if not forever.

But he was here on another errand — the red macro. The lab’s purpose was creating and analyzing bioprinted material, so he figured he might as well get to work.

Luckily, he had a Macro vial in his pocket when he cleaned the woman out of the processor. He dropped it in with the other but didn’t rinse it thoroughly, so the clear solution had turned light pink. It contaminated the sterile solution of the last yellow one he’d been saving, but a little blood wasn’t necessarily a dealbreaker.

He pulled a chair over to a QC terminal and flicked on the lamp. It felt good to be back. He prepped the scanner and eased the tiny red worm into a pipette, then gently let it drip out into a Petri dish. Once he slid the dish under the microscope, he leaned forward into the eyepieces and adjusted the focus until it was tack sharp.

Right away, he knew this was no ordinary Macro.

All Macros were reticulated so they could bend easily and grip tissue. The ends tapered to microscopic needle points that enabled intracellular injection. But there was something else, too — a dark filament that ran through the middle of the Macro’s tubular body, with a tight coil in the center. His first guess was that it was a hybrid organ or neural cluster, but somehow he doubted it. The worm’s morphology was quite complex and required a different look.

When he switched the view to X-ray, he just about fell out of his chair. The filament was bright white, meaning it was metal.

The revelation took his breath away. Macros were made from Cytomatrix, a sort of biogel. They were delicate and soft. This was still a synthetic helminth, but with a cybernetic modification. It dawned on him that the filament wasn’t part of the worm’s system at all. It was an antenna. And to be that thin, it could only be elemental gold.

What the actual fuck?

Dek pushed his chair back and leaned on his elbows, wringing his hands as though he’d seen a ghost. For a guy who had entertained his share of conspiracy theories over the years, this was practically the Holy Grail. But like other theories, it could easily swallow him up. His mind needed constant stimulation, which was why he loved Macros so much. Yellows especially. Now, with a dwindling supply, he’d be forced to follow his thoughts wherever they led.

If there was an antenna, there had to be a signal. Where there was a signal, there would be a radio frequency. You could find those if you were patient. He’d try and isolate it somehow. Then he’d figure out what it meant. That would lead to a hypothesis, and tests, and–

It was too much. It was all too much. His brain scrambled for answers, charging through doors and down darkened hallways like a lunatic in an asylum. If he didn’t calm himself, he wouldn’t be able to think straight. Then he’d spend the next several hours trying to focus and lose this opportunity to unravel this tasty little mystery.

He had to open his mind to all the possibilities, and nothing did that like a yellow.

He took the vial with the blood-tinged solution from his pocket again, uncapped it, and fished around with the pipette until he pulled the yellow inside. Worst-case, he’d get a cold or conjunctivitis. The rewards far outweighed the risks. He tilted his head back and slipped the Macro in the corner of his right eye, then blinked out the excess solution.

It would only take a few minutes. He got a fresh vial from the cabinet, filled it with clean solution, and rinsed the red Macro thoroughly before returning it to the vial and refilling it. Then he dutifully cleaned his old QC station so no one could tell he was there. It was very tempting to post up at one of the production terminals, fire up the bioprinter, and crank out a fresh stash. Unfortunately, he had no way of knowing if the O_2 alarm would last hours or days and he couldn’t risk being caught. Not with so much to do.

What he needed now was to go down to the Boneyard and see what he could scrounge. If there was a signal, he had to find and isolate it. Only then might he understand what the hell it meant.

17

As the hours dragged on, the floor supervisor on 24 agreed to open the box of emergency rations. Multimeal could be formed into bars and dried for long-term storage, but upon opening the box, it was obvious the Authority hadn’t replaced them with fresh ones in a very long time. The box’s seal had failed and the layer of mold on top of the bars was so thick that you couldn’t even tell what was underneath. Since they were in a Tower that only grew onions, that wasn’t great. At least the water stations still worked.

Tosh and another teacher bookended their students along the railing and took turns napping. The heavy air made it very hard to stay alert. Yes, the kids didn’t really have anywhere to go but she worried about them anyway. Most couldn’t have said exactly where their parents were. They were tired and scared. Tosh could relate.

Overhead, the crawlers slowly closed in on the Apex as they inspected the Exchangers one at a time. She’d fully expected the problem to be resolved by now but other than the slow movement of the crawlers themselves, it was hard to tell if any progress was being made. Her bones ached from sitting on the grated floor and her head hurt like hell. She would’ve given anything for a painkiller Macro just then, which brought her closer to being inside Dek’s head than usual. Was this how he felt when he wasn’t high?

Dee was curled into a ball with her head on Tosh’s lap while Vi leaned against her other side, both asleep. Tosh’s legs screamed for a stretch, maybe even a lap around the inside rows, but she didn’t want to wake them just yet.

Fortunately, something else did. A commotion rose from somewhere down below and murmurs rippled through the sweaty masses. Dee roused from her sleep and tapped Vi’s arm.

“Wha…?” Vi asked, yawning.

“Something must be happening here,” Tosh said, her muscles protesting as she got to her feet. She helped the girls up and craned over the side of the railing to see what was happening.

A work crew of perhaps a dozen people dragged an enormous bundle out near the Nucleus. A few minutes later they’d unfurled it into a giant square of blue material with a white circle in the middle. They connected it to a large electric motor and it began to inflate.

“What’s that?” Vi asked sleepily.

“It’s an airbag,” replied Dee. “It means there’s a problem on the roof.”

Their eyes traced a line up above the airbag. Two crawlers had pulled even with each other near the end of their tracks. They could only see the underside of the one nearest them, but over the edge of the other was a man clinging to the overhead armature. He wore the same yellow body harness as the man who shot through the roof of the cafeteria. To have anything under you up there besides a sturdy crawler seemed like suicide, especially in light of the accident.

Tosh knew little of such things. The crawlers rarely operated at all, let alone on this scale. Dozens of them drew closer to the Apex as they tried to locate the source of the problem, like spiders converging on the heart of a web. They formed a ragged circle.

“What’s he doing?” Tosh asked. Byron rarely discussed his job and she rarely discussed hers, but Dee liked to hear the gritty, technical details. She’d know better than anyone would know what was going on up there. “Oh my god. That’s not Byron, is it?”

“No, that’s definitely not Dad. Look, though — he’s clipping into the sled.”

Crawlers only moved up and down their tracks, along which were the Exchangers and kilometers of wiring and electrical relays. The only way to move sideways was to clip into a hand-cranked sled and make your way across to a rescue crawler. Even at full speed, it would take the crawlers almost two hours to get back down.

Every eye in the Towers was cast upward at the unfolding drama. The man, now suspended upside-down from the roof, eased toward the edge. As he did, a small, brightly colored object fell from where he was. Tosh gasped.

“It’s okay,” said Dee. “They drop markers so they can line up the airbag.”

Once inflated, the airbag was massive. The little marker hit it with a barely audible pop and the ground crew tugged it a bit to the left.

“That was a good drop,” Dee said. “He should be good to go.”

Sure enough, the man emerged from over the crawler and came fully into view. He had about 25 meters to cover. Tosh tried to swallow but her mouth was too dry. After what happened in the cafeteria, it was almost too much to bear.

A few meters out, the man seemed to realize he had everyone’s attention. He could go at whatever pace he wanted and drop occasional markers. In between drops, he waved and mimed like he was flying. It got a good laugh and some grateful whoops from the tense crowd. If it wasn’t a big deal to him, maybe it wasn’t a big deal at all.

“I think that’s my dad’s friend, Lewis,” Dee said.

He dropped another marker at the halfway point, and it hit the white circle dead center. Everyone cheered as though it was a contest. Even Tosh got into it. Each drop sent up a chorus of hoots and applause that echoed across the Agora. And why not? This was the most exciting thing any of them had ever seen.

About ten meters shy of the other crawler, however, he stopped moving. He reached up and fiddled with the crank but didn’t budge.

“Something’s wrong,” said Tosh. “What if he’s stuck?”

“Then whoever’s in the rescue crawler has to try and get him.”

All of a sudden, his body lurched and he flailed his arms. Tosh gasped along with everyone else. “I think something broke!” she said. “No, no, no…”

Dawn had broken outside, bringing fresh light into the Agora. Tosh could see that a strap on the man’s harness had broken. He was just hanging there, literally by a thread.

A few moments later, the man in the rescue crawler stood on the edge and clipped into his own sled. As he hurriedly prepared to rescue the stranded worker, he turned their way for a moment. Dee sucked in air and dug her fingers into Tosh’s arm.

The rescuer was Byron.

Even in the half light, there was no mistaking his dark beard or how he moved. It was definitely him.

“It’s okay,” Vi assured her friend. “They’re okay.”

Dee squared her jaw and blinked away tears as they formed, but Tosh knew she was as knotted up as she was.

He cranked his way out to the man who was stuck, to raucous applause. Tosh still couldn’t work out the logistics of the rescue. It offered a reason to keep Dee talking and not thinking. Perhaps selfishly, she needed to do the same.

“What happens now?” she asked Dee.

“If the sled’s stuck, he’ll have to clip directly onto my Dad,” she said.

Tosh could hardly believe her ears. The same safety hardware that failed to keep the dead young worker safe would now have to bear the weight of two men.

The Agora became so deathly quiet that Tosh could hear people coughing. All eyes were locked on the roof. Finally, with massive effort, the stranded worker stretched across and clipped himself to Byron’s harness. But the other one was still attached to the stuck sled and his weight was on it. He pulled a knife from his vest and sliced the strap, sending him swinging back and forth under Byron. There was a collective gasp.

Byron reached down to try and steady him. As he did, the lone strap holding him aloft appeared to lengthen suddenly. Tosh’s free hand flew to her mouth.

It happened fast. As Lewis swung back under Byron he fell, tumbling head over heels through the still air just as the thin pop of the failed strap met their ears. He fell for four or five long seconds before plummeting into the airbag with a sharp thwack. But it was accompanied by another sound, immediately swallowed by the cheers of the crowd.

It sounded like ripping cloth.

Tosh didn’t know how, but she immediately realized the airbag wouldn’t re-inflate all the way. Byron still hung from his sled, inching closer to his crawler. He’d probably make it, but if he didn’t…

“Stay here,” Tosh said to Dee. She shoved people aside and bolted down the steps as fast as she could. She heard small footfalls behind her and whirled to see that Dee ignored her order. There was no time to argue.

The heavy air got more oppressive as they descended. Floor supervisors tried and failed to stop them from ducking under the chains. Murmurs arose from the floors full of students, either because they’d just noticed the air flapping out of the airbag’s ripped seams or the crazy people bolting down the stairs. Tosh’s lungs were on fire, but she kept going. Finally, they reached the ground and broke into a run toward the leaking airbag.

The small ground crew didn’t have enough hands to deal with the situation. Two of them tended to Lewis while the rest gathered up seams in their hands to keep air inside, aware that Byron might fall at any second.

Without thinking, Tosh joined them, rolling the material in her fingers to seal it. Dee did the same next to her. A worker from the ground crew placed a firm hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, I need you to return to your Tower,” he said.

“Like hell,” she barked, shrugging off his hand. “You need everyone you can get. Help!” she shouted to the thousands of gawkers. “We need help!”

Little by little, people from the lower levels raced down the steps and dashed across the Agora to join the rescuers. They gathered the failed seams in their fingers. It was working, but the bag still wasn’t inflating quickly enough. The whole thing still leaked like a sieve.

“Thirty-eight, what’s your status?” one man barked into the radio.

“I’m almost back to the crawler,” returned Byron’s voice. “Just one more meter…”

Hearing his voice was a relief, but he sounded panicked and fatigued.

“Oh shi—” said the voice on the radio.

Tosh’s heart stopped. A second later, she caught the outline of Byron’s body silhouetted by the orange light through the Dome. She took a deep breath and gripped the fabric with all her might.

“Hang on!” she screamed.

Byron struck the airbag with astonishing force, like he’d been fired from a cannon. It instantly tore the fabric from everyone’s hands. The blast of air through the tear knocked Tosh and Dee forcefully to the ground. The bag went flaccid. Crewmen rushed forward to help Byron, who was on his back about two meters from the center, not moving.

Tosh helped Dee to her feet.

“Are you all right?”

Dee responded by leaping atop the rapidly collapsing airbag, which had ripped completely free of the inflator fan.

“Dad!” she screamed.

Tosh followed her, scrambling over the loose material to reach them. She thought she saw his leg move from over the folds, then he brought his hands to his face, body heaving. She couldn’t tell if he was crying or laughing. Maybe both. She and Dee fell on top of him.

“Dad! Dad, are you okay?!” Dee yelled.

He wrapped her up, laughing like a crazy person, but there were tears, too. The good kind. He saw Tosh and extended his other arm toward her. She’d never felt closer to anyone. Even Elle.

“Oh, my girls,” he said, his voice quavering. “Did I have a day.”

18

To Hideki, the bay full of junked service bots and assorted Dome tech that failed the test of time wasn’t a Boneyard — it was a candy store. There was nowhere else for it to go. In the old world, they would’ve pushed it into a landfill, covered it with dirt, and called it good. But the Dome was a closed system. Metal and plastic could be melted down or otherwise re-used, but the mishmash of circuitry, screens, and delicate electronics could only sit there and gather dust.

His brain was already starting to glitch a bit. The little flashbulbs popping off in his head heralded waves of euphoria to come. For a while he’d feel like he was flying. Later, perhaps, floating in a warm stream or having a parade of tiny orgasms. You just never knew with the yellows. It depended on your mood, and being all alone in the Stores during a drill made Hideki positively buoyant. After what he’d been through in the FPC, he deserved this.

In another dimension, he would’ve ended up as a technician like his father. Electronics and mechanical things just made sense to him. When he and Tosh were very little, it was she who took a greater interest in his mother’s medic work. She was technically more of a first responder, but she knew her stuff as well as anyone.

The older he and his sister got, the more their father pushed them to strive. To keep learning.

“IDA makes a map of your life,” he liked to say. “But you’re still the one to draw it.”

But the harder he pushed, the more Hideki pushed back. In hindsight, he could see how foolish that was but his father’s constant badgering about his studies brought him closer to his mother and, ironically, sparked his interest in biotech. Meanwhile, Tosh’s interests shifted to information systems and AI.

It had been so freaking long since he had a bona fide mystery to try and solve. He wasn’t any closer to understanding his parents’ disappearance but obsessing over it hadn’t done him any good. The Authority’s explanation was garbage. Anyone who knew the senior Yamamuras knew that. If everyone in the Dome got chewed to pulp by the multimeal processor, his old man would be left to wonder why they were all so stupid.

So, no. That wasn’t what happened. It was something else, but he could never prove it.

Conversations with his parents’ Legacies assuaged his grief and anger, but only to a point. He still had few real answers.

“What happened to you in the FPC?” he’d ask his mother’s Legacy.

“I know it’s been difficult for you, Hideki,” she’d say. “But what happened back then doesn’t matter anymore. What matters is that you’re happy.”

On and on they’d go like this. Pointed questions followed by vague non-answers and empty platitudes. Sometimes it sounded exactly like her — selfless and utterly focused on her children’s future. But other times she sounded like the AI she was, no more a real entity than a page of IDA-altered bullshit in the Cache.

He gathered up the components he was sure to need, plus a few he just wanted to tinker with, and loaded them into a plastic crate. His next priority was to find a place to stretch out and trip in absolute peace and solitude. He was giddy with excitement.

When he reached the aisle of spare mattresses, he was surprised to see only a few dozen left. Once, there were several hundred. He made room on a shelf at waist level, cut the plastic that compressed the mattress into a tight log, and laid down before it had even finished expanding. The moment his conscious mind let go, his subconscious expanded and he was outside the Dome, flying and floating and falling without a care in the world.

_________

He woke to the sound of cheering.

His brain worked it seamlessly into his Macro-addled dream, in which he dove from a platform in the clouds and performed trick after trick before plunging into a fathomless blue pool. Somewhere, an appreciative crowd applauded his effort as he made for the surface. They sounded distant and muddled, even as he broke the surface and sucked in air.

When his eyes fluttered open, the dream fell away, and he was just staring up at the bottom of a shelf. It felt like his head was still underwater, but he was otherwise lucid enough to hear a chunky sound, and he felt the still air move again as the cheers slowly faded.

The Exchangers were back online.

But over that, faint but sure hum came another sound — the thunk of a distant door closing. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have noticed but felt certain he was alone.

Curious, Hideki left his perch in the shelves and tottered down the corridor toward the source of the sound. He paused at the corner of a long hallway and peeked around the side just in time to see someone in Authority blues appear around the corner. He pulled back tight to the wall, his heart racing, then ventured one eye out for another look. He only needed a second.

It was Downing. There could be no doubt.

Controls for the Dome’s critical systems were hidden in secure areas that only the Authority could access. His father spoke of recessed latches and false walls in closets. It made sense from a security standpoint. What didn’t make sense was why the Authority would let an alarm go on for hours and hours if all they had to do to fix it was flip a switch.

Unless…

Dek hid again before Downing saw him, or at least he thought he did. He hurried back down the central corridor as quickly as he dared and didn’t look back until he’d ducked into the shelves and froze. Downing’s footsteps paused for a moment, leaving only their faint echoes behind. Then they continued slowly down the hallway and into the central corridor. Hideki peered at him over a stack of plumbing fixtures as he scanned the corridor, then turned back to leave. Dek heard the door to the service elevator open and close.

In a few minutes, workers from the Stores would return through the main entrance and go back to whatever they were doing. Dek couldn’t be there when that happened. He ran back to the mattresses, grabbed his crate of components, and made a beeline for the exit. Right now, his mind was cluttered with so many questions that there wasn’t room for real answers, but he hoped it wouldn’t be that way for long.

19

The Directors of Education, Health, Infrastructure, Production, Housing, and Security sat around a conference table in a room adjacent to Elle’s office, with Elle at the head. She wordlessly met each of their eyes in turn, wanting to make them sweat. The squeaking of seats as they shifted uncomfortably was the only sound.

Every last Dome citizen packed into the Towers had watched the drama on the rooftop play out. Elle was very glad the two men involved would live to tell the tale. But it moved the needle of fear and distrust in the wrong direction. O_2 levels got low enough that they seriously considered herding everyone into the Stores, a move reserved for worst-case scenarios. And it would’ve happened on her watch.

“What do we know?” Elle asked. “A lot of shit happened yesterday, so we must know something for sure. No guesses, no assumptions. Facts.”

All eyes turned to Shawn, the Director of Infrastructure.

“Don’t look at him. We’re a team. If one fails, we all fail.”

Luther, seemingly aware he had the least to fear from her, spoke first.

“Everyone knows the safety equipment is defective,” he offered. “It had nothing to do with us.”

“Maybe,” cautioned Elle. “But they can’t exactly hold Cytocorp accountable, can they?” She searched their faces. “Again — what do we know?”

Shawn leaned into the table. “We’re still trying to identify the cause of both the failure and the restart.”

“Thank you, Shawn, but I asked for facts.”

He sighed, frustrated, and threw his hands up. No one knew what to say.

“All right,” Elle said, standing. She splayed her hands out on the table. “I’ll tell you what I know. I know people are scared for their lives. I know that trust in the Authority is eroding faster than we can repair it. And I know it’s only going to get worse unless we take action.”

She drew herself back up and took a slow lap around the room, its only real decor a running stripe of Administrator portraits.

“Let me be plain. The Fifth Epoch is coming soon. Raise your hand if you’d bet your life that we all make it to the Sixth.”

Furtive glances were exchanged, but no one raised their hand.

“IDA, please run a current sentiment analysis of the Authority,” Elle said.

“Public approval is approximately 18 percent,” said IDA.

“Eighteen percent,” Elle said. “Less than one in five.”

The data didn’t lie. People talked and Listeners, tiny wireless microphones, were everywhere. The same data IDA used to build Legacies was available to the Authority in real time. Keywords were flagged and logged for analysis. The same went for hormone levels, heart rate, muscle tension, and a thousand other parameters.

“You said Cytocorp couldn’t be held accountable,” Luther said. “But what if someone else could?”

“What do you mean?” Elle asked.

“I mean, what if it’s not all equipment failures and accidents?”

Her eyes narrowed at him. She never knew what he was thinking, but maybe he was throwing her a lifeline.

“You’re thinking sabotage?”

The directors shifted forward in their seats, like they sensed the opportunity to get off the hook. Luther had that effect when he opened his mouth. He’d been there longer than anyone and had their respect, if not their admiration. In her five years as Administrator, she’d never enjoyed a full measure of either.

“It’s just a theory,” he said. “But it does fit. The Exchangers anyway.”

A saboteur would explain a great deal. Most importantly, it would shift blame away from the Authority. She was far from convinced but advancing it as a theory at least bought them time. If it turned out to be real and the Authority brought them to justice…

“Do you have evidence?” Elle asked, intrigued.

“No, but I haven’t investigated. If it proved true ahead of the Epoch announcement, I suspect public sentiment toward the Authority would improve a great deal,” Luther added. “IDA, run a scenario where someone is found guilty of causing these recent accidents.”

“Public sentiment would rise to a minimum of 42 percent,” IDA replied.

Luther raised his eyebrows thoughtfully and nodded. “Forty-two’s not great, but it’s a helluva lot better than eighteen.” He and the others turned back toward Elle.

Even in private, Luther was as inscrutable as they came. But she knew him well enough to know what he was really saying. It was a useful narrative to advance, at least for now.

She’d spent more than half her life at the Authority — enough to know that this was how the system worked. Recent events proved they weren’t always in control, but they still controlled the information. In a closed system, control was the name of the game. Without it, the Dome would descend into chaos. Then the aging infrastructure would be the least of their problems.

It was the only lever she had to pull, but it was a gamble. The only satisfying end to a witch hunt was if she burned. Elle needed to tread carefully.

“Let’s look into sabotage,” said Elle. “Start asking around. Look at people’s movements around the time of the failures. If you find a thread, see where it leads but take no action. The circle doesn’t extend beyond this room. Am I understood?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” they mumbled.

“Go,” Elle said. “If you find anything, report directly to me. Dismissed.”

They all got up and left. Elle sunk back into her chair with a heavy sigh and rubbed her temples.

“I know you’re conflicted about this,” said Luther, leaning against the doorway. “You shouldn’t be.”

She didn’t love the fact that he hung back. The other Directors almost certainly had their suspicions about the two of them. Any appearance of bias was the last thing she needed.

“If I ask you a question, will you be honest with me?” she said.

“Of course,” replied Luther.

“Do you think we’ll ever get out of here?”

He thought for a moment and said, “I do.”

“Why?”

He sauntered behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. He pressed his thumbs into her muscles and moved them in slow circles. She wanted to melt into the chair. “Because, Elle, even I have to believe in something.”

20

IDA said, “Your application to conceive has been rejected. You may apply again in one year.”

Luther remembered it as clear as day. It was the seventh such message Luther and Julia received in as many years. It didn’t make sense, but life went on. The population algorithms hadn’t favored conception for the past few years. Almost no one was being approved. At least, that’s what he was told.

But then he found out about the Yamamuras.

They were his and Julia’s neighbors in 23J. Not friends, but friendly enough to know that they, too, had applied for conception. They were only rejected three times. Apparently, they got to work right away because a couple months later, Minori bounced by and told everyone who would listen that she was pregnant with twins.

Julia sank into despair. They’d been working first shift but she came home one day and said she’d been assigned to second shift in Infrastructure. It seemed arbitrary, but he came to suspect she’d requested the change so they wouldn’t have to see each other as much or confront their shared frustration. She wanted a child more than she’d ever wanted anything.

Months passed, and one day she was waiting for him on the couch with tears of joy streaming down her face. The Directorate of Health confirmed she was pregnant.

The contraceptives delivered through women’s rations failed sometimes. Nature occasionally found a way. All it usually meant was that someone else in the city would get denied. But Luther suspected that wasn’t the case with Julia. The timing was too coincidental.

It all added up to one thing. Julia had started drinking his rations.

She’d put him in an impossible position. Her CHIT would detect her hormonal changes and throw a flag, which the Authority would check against the approvals. When they didn’t match, they’d have a problem.

All they’d worked for, all the sacrifices they’d made to get to where they were would be for naught. One or both of them would be busted down to the FPC or the Towers. The pregnancy would be terminated. If it came to that, Julia wouldn’t be able to handle it. Even if she didn’t do anything drastic, she’d be lost to him. He would be stripped of his commission and become just as powerless as anyone else.

Then he had an idea.

He and the Administrator both had access to the Nexus, the Dome’s datacenter. All the hardware that drove IDA and gathered data from the CHITs was there. It was the most secure place in the Dome. He didn’t know if anyone was listening besides IDA, but if it was possible to reach whatever remained of Cytocorp, it would be from the Nexus. So, in his desperation, Luther went inside and asked the Company to help him.

He couldn’t remember if he actually said begging, but he was desperate to save his wife and child — desperate enough, in fact, to ask for the help of a faceless entity that almost certainly didn’t exist anymore.

But then the androgynous voice on the other end said, “We’re aware of your predicament, Director, and there may be a remedy.”

The voice said the Company would look after Julia and keep her safe. They would welcome her into their ranks and integrate her into their society, and when their daughter was born, they would look after her, too. The only way to save them was to trust Cytocorp.

They explained that the Dome’s primary commodity, multimeal, was the raw material for a nutrient-laden liquid people in the Northern Cities depended upon for survival. They’d been forced deep underground by the Burn and now needed this syrupy substance, which they called Agar, to survive. The Company had nearly perfected a way for people to survive the harsh environment above ground, but until they did, Agar needed to keep flowing. Once the technology was ready, they would come and free the Domes, starting with him.

But first he had to make sure it held together until their dataset was complete, whatever that meant. If IDA summoned him to the Nexus, he had to respond immediately and do whatever was asked of him without question.

That was almost 20 years ago.

Under the cover of the Fourth Epoch, he spirited Julia deep into the noisy mechanical heart of the FPC. There, he discovered a hidden door in the multimeal processor, precisely where the Company said it would be. It opened the door to just the first of many stunning revelations.

The first was that the processor was almost literally the tip of an iceberg. Beneath it was a fully automated underground facility that turned multimeal and water into Agar. The algorithms calculated exactly how much multimeal the Dome needed, and the rest became Agar.

He led Julia down through the tangle of pipes, vats, and pumps to the very bottom, where a massive door awaited, plastered with warnings about the mortal danger of opening it. But he opened it just the same — because that’s what the Company required of him.

Then came the second revelation.

In the musty darkness beyond was a set of tracks, and on those tracks was an enormous black train. It had hauled supplies and personnel to the Dome during its construction long ago. Now, it transported Agar through the Burn to the Northern Cities, from one underground to another.

Julia was frightened and confused. He explained as best he could but swore to her that the train would bear her and their child to the kind of life they couldn’t have lived in the Dome. It was the only way, he said.

They watched the tanks fill one by one, the train easing further and further into the tunnel that presumably led outside. The train was old but heavily armored. It had weathered the deadly conditions outside for the better part of a century. Julia was scared as hell, but she trusted him.

He promised he’d join her in Pacifica someday, kissed her, and helped her up into the small cabin at the back of the rearmost tank. There were no windows. When the train eased into the pitch-black tunnel and slowly accelerated, there was no way to wave goodbye.

Cytocorp took care of both his cover story and the data that corroborated it. Julia had a history of mental-health issues. She refused to abort her pregnancy and had a psychotic episode — what came to be called “Dome Fever.” Desperation drove her to crawl into the incinerator, presumably looking for a way out. That story could only end one way.

Every so often, they let him speak to her. Sometimes she sounded older like the other day and sometimes he’d swear she was still in her late 20s, but at least he got to hear her voice. It crossed his mind that even Julia could be some sort of AI like the Legacies, but he banished the thought, preferring to believe she was okay. The Company was cagey, yes, but everything they’d told him turned out to be true. Luther trusted when he talked to Julia, he talked to Julia.

They had yet to let him talk to his daughter. She’d be around 19 by now. IDA ran thousands of genetic scenarios to generate a possible image of her face. She had Julia’s lustrous brown eyes but his protruding ears. Her lips but his nose.

But as much as he wanted to meet her, to even know her name, he understood why he couldn’t. Maybe Julia would tell her the truth one day and maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe she would find someone new and maybe not. At least he’d given her the choice.

Twenty years was a long time for anyone to hold out hope, especially him. How many times had he convinced himself to let them both go, only to descend into the Nexus and ask yet again to hear her voice? That ember refused to burn out, no matter how much he tried to douse it.

This thing with the Exchangers was no trifle. Based on the reports he’d seen over the years, he was shocked there hadn’t been a failure much sooner. But an existential threat couldn’t just be chalked up to wear and tear. There was no worse crime than to compromise the safety of the Dome. All he needed now was a suitable criminal.

21

Neither of the men who fell from the roof of the Dome during the O_2 scare were seriously injured. Lewis, the one Byron tried to rescue, dislocated his right shoulder and two ribs. Byron likely had a concussion but was otherwise unharmed. Tosh should’ve felt grateful, but she wasn’t.

She was angry as hell.

The Dome took her parents from her. In a way, it took her best friend, too. In a few days, it would take her friend, Art. It cast Owen into the Towers and took Hideki’s mind. And, now, it had nearly taken Byron, who she didn’t even realize she was in love with until she thought he was about to die.

Enough was enough.

After the O_2 scare ended, she led her students back to School 2, where their parents were anxiously waiting. She left Dee with Byron and went to find Owen and Dek. She found Owen near the entrance to the dormitory and threw her arms around him, squeezing so tightly he had to pry her free.

“Easy, Mom,” he said, patting her on the back. “I’m fine.”

He’d tried to make it all the way down from 30 to help with the airbag but only just reached the Agora when Byron fell. He introduced her to his new friend, Aaron, whose affable nature seemed to be rubbing off.

Was it possible that Owen had made his peace with Tower work? Was that good or bad?

They, too, had watched the drama play out from level 30, right next to the Authority workers in their special little area. Those same Authority bureaucrats all saw the same emergency but did nothing even though they had an elevator. An elevator!

She gave Owen another hug and even had one for Aaron, to his pleasant surprise. He excused himself to check on his own parents and told Owen he’d see him later. They’d be allowed a few hours’ rest from the Towers, but that would be all. The plants had practically exploded from the trays while the exchangers were down.

“Have you seen Dek?” she asked.

Owen said he hadn’t but noted that he could’ve been anywhere. Tosh said she’d try and find him and then go to check on Art.

She arrived at Dek’s place on Rad 41 about an hour and a half after the Exchangers came back online. By then the air had returned to normal. As soon as he opened the door, she wrapped him up in her arms.

“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said. “I was worried about you.”

“Oh, you know me,” he laughed. “I’m scrappy.”

He was more lucid and keyed up than she’d seen him in a while. His shades were still drawn as always, but the living room was fully lit and strewn with electronic junk clearly taken from the Boneyard. Their father’s roll of Technician’s tools lay open on the floor. He’d been there a while.

“What the hell is all this stuff?” she asked, taking it all in.

“I have so much to tell you,” he said, clearing a small spot at the end of the couch. She didn’t realize how tired she was until she sat. Compared to the floors of the Towers, the couch felt like a cloud.

Dek explained about his gruesome errand in the FPC and the strange Macro he found in Multimeal Maria’s remains. He then related his experience in the Stores, and how he’d seen Downing skulking about. He got out just before people streamed back in from the Agora and had no idea what had gone down on the roof with Byron.

“Why would Downing switch off the Exchangers?” Tosh wondered. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

He went on to describe the Macros’ unusual antenna structure and the deep red color that made it all but invisible. The Dome had no means to produce such a thing and they both knew it.

“And you have no idea what they are?” Tosh asked, picking through some of the stuff he’d smuggled out of the Stores. “Is the antenna a transmitter or a receiver?”

“Receiver for sure. It’s too small to transmit.”

Tosh related everything from the start of the alarm to the equipment failure that nearly killed Byron. As someone who constantly sought escape from the drudgery of Dome life, he was sorry to have missed such excitement. But she could also see how deeply he’d sunk his teeth into this new mystery.

The screen on the wall flicked on suddenly, flooding the dark room with bluish light. The Cytocorp logo faded up, then back out while music played. The screen resolved into Elle’s tightly drawn face.

Authority broadcasts were relatively rare, usually related to major changes in work shifts or notices that a train was down. Even then, they were usually left to IDA. But in addition to their screen, they could hear her voice booming from outside, her image projected on the underside of the Dome.

“Attention citizens,” Elle began. “Like most of you, I watched the past day’s events with great concern. That it didn’t end in tragedy is a credit to both our emergency responders and the brave few who came to the rescue of those men. Our city owes all of you their gratitude.”

he leaned toward the camera and sighed, her tone taking on additional gravitas.

“Dome Six’s mission has always been to protect its citizens until the outside world becomes habitable. Recent incidents may have shaken our faith in this mission, but I want to assure every last one of you that the Authority takes it very seriously. I’ve ordered a complete inspection of all critical systems to ensure nothing like this ever happens again.”

“I feel safer already,” Dek sneered. Tosh smirked and rolled her eyes, though she could see real pain behind her old friend’s eyes. Elle was conflicted.

“Things break, and we fix them. Unfortunately, we now have reason to believe that the Exchanger failure was no accident.”

Dek’s head pivoted to Tosh, his eyes wide. Could Elle know about Downing’s movements in the Stores? Was she really going to out him in a broadcast? She’d swear she heard a collective gasp through the window.

“If these accidents are the work of a saboteur, rest assured we will find them and bring them swiftly to justice. In the meantime, we must take measures to ensure the safety and security of our citizens. Accordingly, I’m ordering a 10 p.m. curfew for all citizens who aren’t at work, effective immediately.”

Tosh’s jaw dropped. They’d never had a citywide curfew for everyone. Just kids. There was never a need. Elle wasn’t trying to assuage their fear — she was trying to redirect it.

“The Authority can’t do this alone, which is why I’m asking for your help. No one is anonymous in our city. Someone knows something. They may be your friend, your neighbor, or your co-worker. If you see something, say something. Only by following every lead will we bring this individual to justice and restore safety and order. Thank you.”

The screen flicked off and the last of Elle’s words echoed through the city. Dek looked pale, which was saying something. The implications descended over them like a cold blanket.

“Dek, they’re gonna know you were in the Stores,” Tosh said. “They probably do already. You need to lay low for a while.”

Dek’s shoulders sagged as he absorbed this truth. He seemed to realize he had much less time than he planned. But just as he opened his mouth to speak, Tosh heard a small sound from the direction of his bedroom. It sounded like a tiny scratch — the kind of sound you’d only notice if you were already on edge. Dek’s eyes slid toward the sound, then guiltily back to her.

“What is that?” she asked, her eyebrow cocked.

“You promise you won’t be mad?” he asked.

“No.”

“Okay, fine,” he said.

She followed him into the bedroom and opened his small closet. There, behind a crate of junk, was her father’s old tool kit. Dek opened it and rummaged around. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

“You still have that?” she asked, incredulous.

He shrugged. “No one ever came for it.”

Durable goods like tools were meticulously inventoried, and not just because there was a finite supply. Some areas needed special tools to access, and if the Authority controlled anything, it was access.

Dek produced a wrench and went to one of the removable panels on the wall, then started unscrewing one of the bolts. Only then did Tosh remember she’d heard the sound before.

“Oh god, don’t tell me,” she said.

“No, no,” he assured her. “It’s okay.”

He removed the rest of the bolts and pulled the plastic panel off the wall. Tosh couldn’t help but take a few steps toward it, though she already knew what she’d see.

Dek had fashioned a small box from wire and circuit boards. Inside was a fat, gray-brown mouse. The tiny black spheres of its eyes darted back and forth between them as its whiskers twitched, sniffing at the air.

Memories of her parents came flooding back. After they disappeared, she and Dek went to clean out their unit and found a nest of baby mice hidden in the wall. The Dome was supposed to be vermin-proof, but their father never got a chance to explain where the mice came from. It was just another of the mysteries surrounding their deaths. At the time, Tosh had gotten very upset and killed them, fearful of the implications for the city. She’d always felt badly about it.

Arms folded tightly in front of her, Tosh leaned in and studied the mouse. It moved from corner to corner of the box, sniffing, as though an exit would reveal itself on the billionth try.

“This is Minerva,” Dek said lovingly. “I found her in the Stores a few months ago and smuggled her out in my bottle. I think she’s hungry.”

He brushed past her and retrieved a whole carrot from his little nightstand. Apparently, he’d accumulated a few Ration Rewards, which seemed unthinkable. He broke off a piece, chewed it, and spat the mash out into his palm.

She stared at him, incredulous. “You are literally insane.”

“What? It’s not like we have mouse feed. She’s not scared of a little saliva, are you, Minerva?” he said, clicking his tongue.

Mice carried filth and disease. Leave it to Dek to hide one in the same bottle he drank water from every day. And now he was feeding it pre-chewed carrot? He opened the little door in the top and dropped in the mashed carrot. Minerva sniffed at it briefly then nibbled away.

“Are you mad?” Dek asked Tosh. “You’re mad.”

The mouse seemed to look directly at her as it ate. Was she so different? Were any of them?

“She’s your type.”

They shared a laugh, which felt good. He was her nearest blood relative. With no children of their own, they were the last Yamamuras. If the mouse gave him comfort, then good on him. Maybe it was time to find a bit of her own.

22

What a strange little family they were. There was Owen’s mother, his crazy uncle Hideki, a sort-of little sister in Dee, a big brother in Byron, and a stand-in grandfather in Art.

Between the daily drudgery of the Towers and the O_2 scare, Owen had plenty of time to think. His Placement, unfortunate though it was, had led to a friendship with Aaron. He felt the pulse of the city now in a way he never had before, and a growing connection to the people he cared about most.

Apart from Downing, he and his mom were the only living citizens who knew what it was like lose someone they cared about with no good explanation or closure. There was no template to follow for that kind of loss, but he could finally see how unhealthy her way was. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, it was a relief to be out from under its weight.

The last thing Owen wanted to do after a shift in the Towers was remain on his feet, but his mom asked him to join her and Art for their final walk together and he couldn’t say no. He was never that close with the old man. It was as though they were on different timelines — Art lived in the past and he in the future.

Thinking about the past meant thinking about all he’d lost.

He never knew his mother, but his father, Stephen, made sure he knew about her. She had many friends and was known as being kind and helpful. She used the Cache to teach herself French just because she liked how it sounded to speak it. Penny liked long walks and preferred to use her Ration Rewards on strawberries.

But more than anything, she wanted a child.

Wanting a family was just one part of a complex equation. There was a finite number of housing units, a finite number of jobs, and finite resources. IDA’s algorithms kept the birth and death rates in balance. The Originals accepted this fact and so must they.

It was a weighted lottery system. Any partners under age 30 who wanted a child entered into the lottery. Each rejection got you another lot, improving your chances for the next draw. Roughly 700 people died each year, so 2–3 couples got approved each day. This helped keep the population hovering around 100,000.

From adolescence through menopause, females received contraceptives through their water rations. Unapproved pregnancies still occurred sometimes, and if no malfeasance was found, the pregnancy was allowed to continue.

Stephen saw no way around the system. In theory, if a couple switched rations for a few months, they could maybe get pregnant, but drinking rations from the opposite sex made you terribly sick. Even if you stuck it out long enough to get pregnant, the CHIT would detect the change in blood chemistry and send up a flag. If that happened, the pregnancy would be terminated, and they would be punished. To him, it wasn’t worth the risk. To her, it was.

They agreed to switch rations despite the risks. And after three long months of hiding their resulting illness, she got pregnant. The Authority investigated but concluded the contraceptives had failed. Her pregnancy was allowed to continue and Owen was born July 14, 2163.

But there were complications during childbirth. Penny started bleeding and didn’t stop. Owen didn’t learn this until many years later.

But on Owen’s fourth birthday, his father didn’t come home. The Authority said it scoured the city but never found him.

Word spread quickly and so did the rumors. The Authority killed and incinerated him in secret. He’d fallen, unnoticed, into the multimeal processor. He moved in with some woman on the other side of the city. And on and on. Owen never knew what to believe. He only knew his father was gone.

People in the Dome didn’t just disappear, but Stephen Welsh did. The official explanation was the same as it had been for Luther Downing’s wife — Dome Fever and a misguided attempt to escape through the incinerator.

When the algos were tasked with choosing a suitable guardian, they chose Tosh. She became his adoptive mother and Owen her adopted son. He came to call her Mom.

When he was 12, however, he decided it was time to meet his birth mother. He called up her Legacy and started talking to her. She was kind and optimistic. She asked him the kind of questions Tosh didn’t, like how he felt and what he cared about. Though she wasn’t real, he started to feel like he knew her. But he couldn’t talk to his father because the Authority never officially declared him dead. His name wasn’t even carved into the stone monoliths of the Nucleus. He wasn’t just gone — he was erased.

Tosh found him talking to Penny when she arrived home one day. Her image on the screen brightened and said she missed her. She thanked Tosh for being such a good mother to Owen in her stead. When Tosh got upset by this, he learned to only do it when she wasn’t around.

She’d said, “You have every right to talk to her. As long as you know it’s not her. It’s a program.”

His petulant, 12-year-old self said, “You’ve never tried talking to your parents’ Legacies?”

“No. And I never will.” She tapped her head. “Because they’re in here. The good and the bad.”

He appreciated what she was trying to do. Intellectually, he knew his mother’s Legacy was a complete fabrication. But god, did it feel good.

Things changed between them after that, and not just in the ways you’d normally credit to adolescence. He felt increasingly drawn to his mother’s Legacy and increasingly distant from Tosh. Their relationship never quite recovered and he still occasionally sought counsel from Penny. To him, comfort was too precious a thing to sacrifice out of pride, even if it was only a beautifully drawn lie.

23

Tosh met Owen in front of Elder 5, where Art lived with several hundred other citizens aged 65 or older. People in the Dome were healthy. It was troubling to think that none had more than a decade yet to live. But it had been the way of things since the beginning. Whatever you planned to do, you had 75 years to do it. Art turned 75 that very day. Even the Authority didn’t put anyone in the Box on their birthday, so his Quietus was scheduled for the day after.

Owen looked lean — too lean, if you asked her. She’d been too rattled by the O_2 scare to notice. When she hugged him, she only felt bone and muscle and the rough hands of a greenie. It was hard to think of him as a man, but suddenly he was.

“Thanks for coming. I know Art appreciates it.”

“It’s fine, Mom.”

“It was good to meet Aaron finally,” she offered.

“Yeah,” he said. “How are you holding up?”

She smiled weakly. “I’m okay. Shall we?” he asked.

He nodded and she led the way into Art’s building.

Elder 5 was a veritable den of sin. The first time she dropped by unannounced, she pushed through Art’s cracked door to find him in bed with a neighbor woman. Maybe it shouldn’t have been as shocking as it was. Like everything else in the Dome, you scrounged joy from wherever you could.

Art’s door was always cracked, as though to invite anyone to come and talk with him. It had to be lonely there. Tosh was about to push through it when she heard his voice. At first it sounded like he was having a deep conversation with someone but she quickly realized he was talking to a Legacy — perhaps for the last time. She understood. Many Elders had no one else to talk to.

“I never thought much about that,” Art said softly. “I suppose I always figured I’d see her again somehow.”

“Will you be thinking of her at the end?” asked a male Legacy. She assumed he meant Art’s late wife, Elaine, whose Quietus had come about a year earlier.

“I’d imagine so.”

“There is nothing to fear from the Quietus,” declared the Legacy. “The process is painless and brief. I should know.”

Owen looked very uncomfortable. Indeed, Tosh wondered if they shouldn’t leave and come back later. Then she realized there was no “later” for Art. This was his last full day of life.

“What happens exactly?” Art asked. “In the Box, I mean.”

“Your physical body will cease to function. The process is painless and brief.”

“Yes, but how? Through what device?”

“That’s not important, Arthur.”

“Please? I’ll literally take it to my grave.”

“You will not have a grave. Your body will be incinerated and processed into hydroponic substrate. You name will be engraved into the Nucleus and only your Legacy will remain.”

Tosh rapped softly at the door. She heard a ruffle of clothing.

“End recording,” he said, and hurried to the door. He greeted Tosh and Owen with a loving smile and hugged them both. Owen looked so desperate to get back outside that she thought he might crawl out of his skin any moment.

“I hope we weren’t interrupting anything,” Tosh said, not letting on that they’d been standing there a few minutes.

“No, no,” Art said. “Just trying to beef up my Legacy in case anyone calls it up someday. You ready to get some exercise? I’ve decided it’s time to start taking better care of myself.”

“Sure,” Tosh said, not thinking it was funny. She couldn’t believe how upbeat he sounded. She’d be sitting in the dark, waiting for them to come take her.

Art followed them outside.

_________

“I had my first kiss right there in the Nucleus,” Art said, pointing at the enormous stones in the middle of the Agora. They bore the names of all those who had lived and died in Dome Six. “After curfew, I might add.” He chuckled at the memory.

Tosh was tired of the two-way conversation. Owen, who had been staring at his shoes the whole time, didn’t speak once. She whacked him on the arm and nodded toward Art.

“So… “ Owen began, “how old were you?”

“Thirteen,” Art replied. “A little older than most kids, I suppose. But it was worth the wait. Betsy Carstensen. She knew what she was doing, let me tell you.”

It had gone on like this for some time, as though Art was purposely trying to drag out their walk. They kept going and going and he kept telling story after story about this building or that, or the races they used to run around Arc 10. He never forgot a detail. His mind was sharp. But the Authority didn’t need sharp minds so much as able bodies.

Eventually they reached the perimeter Arc, where people believed the overhead Exchangers could mask their conversations. Owen looked pleadingly at Tosh to indicate it had gone on too long. She could see how tired he was, and understood he was mostly there for her. Time to intervene.

“Art, listen, maybe we should get you back,” Tosh said, taking his arm. “It’s almost time to burn those Ration Rewards you’ve been sav—”

“You know, this was a design flaw,” Art said, pointing upward. The moonlights hadn’t quite kicked on yet but they would soon. The gloaming was the darkest time of day. “The first bank of Exchangers was supposed to be where the second one is there. That’s why it’s so loud. IDA can’t make anything out.”

“Did you have something you wanted to say?” Tosh asked.

Art said, “Seeing as how I’m going in the Box tomorrow, I figured I ought to tell Owen why his Legacies only go back to the second generation.”

That got Owen’s attention. “Wait — how could you know that?” he asked.

“Because not even IDA knows who your true great-great grandfather was,” Art said with a twinkle in his eye, “The truth is, he wasn’t supposed to be here.”

That didn’t jive with anyone’s knowledge of history. The Originals were handpicked, screened, and catalogued down to their very DNA. No one came in who wasn’t supposed to be there. That was the whole point. Otherwise disease could’ve been introduced into the Dome. Art was simply mistaken.

“That’s not possible,” Tosh said.

“I need you both to listen to me very carefully,” Art said. “My time has ended, but what I know can’t die with me. Do you understand?”

They nodded and kept walking, rapt. It was hard to believe this was the same man who was just asking IDA about death. He may have been afraid of that, but he wasn’t afraid to share a secret so big he could only share it on the eve of his Quietus.

That’s what they called it. Not execution. Not euthanasia. Quietus. It sounded so much gentler than what it was.

“Many years ago, before the Dome Project, antibiotics stopped working,” Art said. “It threatened to send us back to the Stone Age. Two technologies rose to the fore, one a new kind of antibiotic and one a kind of synthetic biology.”

“Macros,” Owen said. “Everyone knows that.”

Art nodded. “Yes, but what you don’t know is that the antibiotic was created by a man named Bertram Hopper. The other came from Cytocorp. But just as the competition started heating up, Hopper disappeared. Cytocorp scoured the earth to find him and destroy his research but they never did. He was a ghost.

“Of course, after a while it didn’t even matter. They won. And instead of sharing their solution with the world, they sold it to the highest bidder. If you got an infection, you either payed or you died. And like an infection, they became unstoppable. Several years later…”

“…they built the Domes,” Tosh said. She knew the lessons as well as anyone. “So what happened to Hopper?”

Art smirked. “He hid in the last place they’d ever think to look.”

Suddenly she understood. Owen seemed to come to the same realization.

“Hopper came here?” Owen asked.

Art nodded. “Changed his identity, his face… everything. He even modified his DNA. His friends and colleagues hid him while the Domes were built. By the time the Dome Project launched, his name was on the official list. Only by then it wasn’t Bertram Hopper anymore. It was Welsh. Benjamin Ludwig Welsh. Your great-great grandfather.”

Owen was beyond incredulous. He actually laughed, as though Art would join him and admit to the jest, but he didn’t. “Wait — you’re serious?” Owen asked.

“He didn’t only modify his DNA to fool the screening process,” Art continued. “He used it to store his research. He started a family, and when he did, the data in his DNA got passed down, too. Generation after generation learned about their heritage when they came of age.” He smiled over at Owen. “Your mother would’ve told you, too, one day. You’re fortunate she told me.”

“I talk to my mother all the time,” Owen said. “She’s never said anything.”

“Well that’s not really her, is it?” Art said. He leaned in again. “Owen, the Company that built this place is the same one that your great-grandfather was hiding from. The same one that almost certainly took your father from you. Now maybe that’s just a coincidence, but if it isn’t, if I were you, I’d spend less time whining about the Towers and more trying to learn the truth.”

“I’m not saying I believe you, but how do you know all this?” asked Owen.

“Your grandmother’s maiden name was Behrens. There came a day when she said she was washing her hands of it. She thought the story about Hopper was bunk. Said it was up to me whether to tell you. We never spoke again. She went in the Box three years ago.”

“So… you’re Owen’s great uncle?” asked Tosh.

He nodded. “Sorry you had to find out this way, but this secret is too big to risk it spreading. Now that you know, you have to be more careful than ever what you say. If Cytocorp still exists and they thought Hopper’s work might still exist, I don’t know what they’d do.”

You could’ve pushed Owen over with one finger. “So what am I supposed to do with this?” he asked.

“Survive as long as you can,” Art said, putting his hands on Owen’s shoulders in a way that now felt appropriately avuncular. “And if you ever have the opportunity to get out, take it. And run as far from this place as you possibly can.”

24

As soon as she opened the door to sabotage, Elle regretted it. She valued Luther’s counsel and had benefitted from it in the past, but it felt wrong. They didn’t know enough to reach that conclusion. And if the evidence pointed to something else, like negligence, then what?

She liked the Nexus. The antiseptic smell of the coolant below was oddly reassuring and the soft blue glow of the UV lights played on the ceiling like some kind of cave lagoon. It was a good place to think. But the sound of the airlock opening behind her yanked her from her reverie. Luther. Judging from the look on his face, he hadn’t expected to find her there.

“Hey,” he said. “What’re you doing down here?”

“I wanted to take everyone’s pulse on the message. See if perceptions were starting to shift.”

“And?” Luther asked.

“Slight uptick. Of course, now they’re just afraid of each other.”

He sighed and approached her bearing that condescending, fatherly look she hated.

“Things will calm down once we find whoever’s responsible,” he said, his voice softening.

“What if no one’s responsible? In fact, what if we are? Then what?”

He placed his hands on her shoulders the way he did when she needed reassuring. It normally made her feel strong and in control, but here it felt oddly menacing.

“Look, there’s no blueprint for this situation. All we can do is stay out in front of it. That’s exactly what we’re doing.”

“Why are you down here?” she asked.

He paused for just a moment before replying. It might have been her imagination, but it felt like he was buying his brain an extra second to think. It made what came next feel an awful lot like a lie. He dropped his hands from her shoulders and folded them behind his back, then nodded down at the submerged components.

“I had IDA look for unusual patterns and movements during the emergency. In light of what a fluid situation this is, I thought it best to receive the analysis privately.”

“You want me to leave?”

“You’re the Administrator. I’d think you’d want to hear.”

She’d almost convinced herself that this was Luther’s witch hunt, not hers. But it was she who made the announcement. She was the face of the Authority, come good or ill.

Elle nodded and stepped aside so Luther could access the security terminal. He stuck his hand inside the column and IDA sampled his DNA.

“Welcome, Director Downing,” said IDA.

“IDA, let’s see the analysis I requested of suspicious activities during the O_2 emergency,” Luther commanded.

Holographic projectors hidden in the wall flicked on and produced a 3D representation of the Dome. Pinpoints of blue showed individual citizens in the time leading up to the alarm. A clock was overlaid in the corner. Dense concentrations of dots in the Towers and the FPC revealed where most of the population was at the time. The rest of them flitted about like lazy bees.

“Proceed through the timeline of the emergency starting at 9:47 a.m.,” said Luther.

“Beginning time lapse.”

As soon as the alarm went off, the blue dots began to coalesce. First into localized clusters and then into neat lines streaming down the Rads and into the Agora. It was mesmerizing, like stars being sucked into a black hole. The FPC emptied and the Towers began to resemble giant, glowing monoliths. Seventy-two dots rose slowly toward the Apex, representing the people in the crawlers.

“IDA, highlight only citizens who fall outside expected parameters. Hide the rest.”

The blue dots faded and a handful of red ones appeared. Three appeared to be in their units, one was near the Authority, and one was in the Stores.

“Pause,” he said. “Identify outliers.”

Names, pictures, vital signs, and other data appeared in boxes next to the red dots. He pointed toward one of the three still in their housing units and declared the woman, who lived alone, had died in the night of natural causes. The other two were together, one on top of the other. They both smirked.

Elle pointed at the dot near the Authority and said, “That’s Shawn. I sent him to the utility building to make sure the alarm wasn’t triggered manually.”

“Of course you did,” Luther said knowingly. “That was smart.”

Elle had just started at the Authority when she caught Daisuke Yamamura, Tosh’s father, setting off an O_2 alarm as a distraction. She didn’t report it to Luther until after he’d disappeared into the FPC with his wife. He wound up dead, and she and Tosh were estranged. Ever since, she treated every alarm as potentially phony.

“Zoom in on the individual in the Stores,” she said.

IDA pushed in on the little red dot and revealed the citizen’s identity as Hideki Yamamura. She gasped. Luther turned to her and sighed.

Dek was her oldest and dearest friend’s twin brother. They played together as kids. She’d been around him almost as much as Tosh. He even fancied her for a few awkward months, though she shut him down immediately. Even so, she was ready to give him the benefit of the doubt.

“IDA, go back to a few minutes before the alarm,” Luther said. “Restore all citizens to the display.”

Dek’s glowing red dot zigzagged up and down the main corridor of the Stores, clearly cleaning while blue ones moved around him. But at one point, his dot veered off down another corridor then entered a small room.

“Wait — what is that?” Elle asked. “That’s not…”

“…the Exchanger controls? It sure as hell is,” confirmed Luther.

She really, really didn’t want this narrative to be true. “How could he get past the prox locks?”

“I don’t know, but if anyone could figure it out… Let’s see where he goes after that.”

IDA proceeded through the timeline. Dek appeared to wait inside until the Stores emptied then backtracked before disappearing into another room.

“Bioprinting,” Elle said under her breath. She still remembered sitting in the Yamamuras’ unit at 16, hearing about their Placements. They all got pretty much what they wanted. But bioprinting wound up being the worst possible place for Dek, who poured his grief over his parents’ deaths into making and distributing illegal Macros. He was forbidden from being there.

Dek stopped in the lab for half an hour then his dot remained inert in the shelves nearby for the entire duration of the emergency. She winced and bit her lip as the two blue dots fell from the roof but didn’t stop the time lapse. Dek’s return trip to the control room coincided precisely with the end of the alarm. When blue dots flowed back into the Stores, he just melded right in with them.

“Looks to me like the whole thing was a ploy to go to La La Land for 12-plus hours,” commented Luther, shaking his head in disgust.

Elle wasn’t sure what to feel. Anger? Disgust? Disbelief? Maybe a little of all three. Dek had motive, opportunity and skill, not to mention a decades-old axe to grind against the Authority. He also had a Macro problem. It all fit. But she’d been part of other investigations, and the facts rarely aligned so neatly.

“IDA, isolate the movements of Director Downing during this timeline,” Elle said.

Luther guffawed. “You’re joking.”

“Where were you when all this was happening?” she asked.

“At my muster point,” he said, bristling. “Once we hit eight hours, I figured I’d better go secure the ECT in case we needed to evacuate there.”

The ECT was the emergency command center, where senior Authority would go if they ran out of air. There was enough oxygen, food, and supplies to last several months — long after everyone else would be dead.

Elle rode out the emergency in Tower 5. Luther was supposed to be in Tower 1, same as Owen. They could communicate with each other via terminals in their caged areas. During the emergency, she’d spoken to the Directors of Infrastructure and Health, but not Luther.

IDA’s analysis revealed that Luther was just outside the Agora train station when the alarm sounded. He fell in with the throngs headed to the Towers and made his way to the top of Tower 1. He stayed put for the next several hours, then followed the precise route he described. He was on his way back up the elevator when the Exchangers kicked back on.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

“Nobody saw you,” she said. “I’ve asked around.”

He softened, put his hands on her shoulders, and sighed. “I think I know what this is about.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“This was the first genuine crisis of your administration. You needed me there by your side in Tower 5, not in 1. I let you down.”

His tone still troubled her, but the reassurance felt good just the same. Was that really all it was? Was he as much a security blanket as a security director?

“But why didn’t anyone see you?” she asked.

“Okay, Elle, you got me. IDA, zoom in on my position one hour into the Exchanger failure.” IDA reset the display and pushed in close. Luther’s dot wasn’t in the cage with the other directors. It was nearly in the middle. “The cage is right on the edge. I can’t handle it.”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I have a thing with heights,” he replied. “As soon as the elevator took me up to the cage, I left and plunked down right in the middle of the floor. After a while, even that was too much. That’s why I went all the way down to the Stores. Poking my head in the ECT was just an excuse to get as low as possible.”

She studied his face for a sign of deceit but found none. He was a big guy, seemingly allergic to fear. It never would have occurred to her he was afraid of heights. Tower workers from 28 and 29 would’ve noticed him but also would’ve let him be.

“You can ask around if you’d like,” he continued. “I’m sure plenty of people saw me sitting there.”

Owen was in Tower 1, but it would’ve been crowded and he would likely have been hanging off the side watching the drama. Besides, everything made sense now. She smirked and teased, “So big bad Luther Downing is acrophobic. Good to know.”

“Now you know all my secrets,” he said. “Now what do we do about Yamamura?”

She was in an impossible position. Not talking to Tosh about past, present, or future was one thing. But going after her brother was something else. None of it felt right. Hideki was squirrelly and unpredictable, with a lifelong hatred of the Authority. He’d sent up flags in IDA for years. But sabotaging the Exchangers just to get a fix? When there was no guarantee they’d come back on? He was unhinged, not stupid.

Even so, the evidence was compelling. If she didn’t allow Luther to conduct his investigation, she’d have to defend that decision to the Council. It would seem like weakness or favor and she couldn’t afford that right now.

“Bring him in for a chat. Nothing more.”

“Very well,” said Luther, doing his level best to fake a heavy heart. She knew better. Just then, his heart was as light as a feather. But she couldn’t help but feel he’d gotten exactly what he wanted from her.

25

Owen planted on Wednesdays. It was less work than harvesting but it was putzy. Talking to Aaron helped the time pass, and even with Aaron working at about half speed, they were still the fastest team on 29.

Planters wore a heavy apron with pockets in the front. One pocket held seeds for whatever they were planting and the other held a fibrous, moldable paste called hempwool. He’d carefully transfer seedlings from the inside row of cups to those on the outside, which were filled with round, porous gravel called substrate. The substrate was dark and dirty save for the oddly clean pebbles made from incinerator ash. The plants finished growing inside the cups.

He tucked a seed inside a little ball of hempwool and placed it in the cups he’d just emptied. In two days, they’d be seedlings.

On and on it went. All day, every day. The weight of Art’s secret threatened to crush him, but he said nothing to Aaron.

Aaron got annoying sometimes, but Owen had come to appreciate the importance of keeping his mind sharp. The robotic nature of their work could make him enter a sort of trance where time passed quickly. That was how people got trapped in the Towers their whole life — they got to a point where time held no meaning and they couldn’t imagine doing anything else. That wouldn’t be his fate.

As his mind wandered, he kept circling back to Art and the mysterious Box. Whose reconstituted ashes was he gently tucking around the microgreens?

“How do you think the Box works?” he asked.

Aaron knew all about Art and his relationship with Tosh and their family.

“Never gave it much thought,” said Aaron, intrigued. “I guess I just figured it was a gas chamber.”

“But you don’t know?” inquired Owen.

“No one does, man. It’s probably all automated. For all I know there’s some big robotic arm that comes out and just plucks your head off.”

Aaron made a popping sound with his cheek and chuckled at his own joke but immediately remembered about Art and apologized. Owen shrugged it off as he lifted a sweet potato seedling from the back row and held it over an empty cup while he grabbed a fistful of substrate in the other hand, making a little well. He then set the hempwool nugget inside, as it contained the delicate roots, and packed the gravel in around it.

They reached the end of the row. Aaron went to dump his crate into the harvester buckets while Owen finished up with seeding.

“Pick it up, dipshits!” Freddy growled. That was as encouraging as he got.

“Love you, Freddy!” Aaron hollered over his shoulder. “We care about your happiness!”

Freddy smirked and mumbled something. Owen leaned in close to Aaron and whispered, “I need to know how it works.”

“How what works?”

“The Box.”

“How you plan on doing that?” asked Aaron.

“I want to try and get a look inside.”

Aaron stopped picking to stare at him. “You want to look around the place where they kill everyone? Sorry, buddy. Hard pass.”

“How else will we know? Art’s the only Elder I know. I might not get another chance until my Mom…” he trailed off.

“Ol’ Freddy will give up the ghost long before that,” Aaron pointed out. “Hell, he’ll probably volunteer to go early.”

“Come on, man, I’m serious.”

Aaron sighed and resumed picking at a snail’s pace. “You go in the Box, you die, you get incinerated. Who cares how it works?”

Aaron’s lack of curiosity surprised Owen. Then again, he’d never attended a Quietus. Maybe seeing one would make him feel the same. He cared about Art but wasn’t as close to him as his mom. In fact, he wasn’t that close to anyone.

“I’m going to try to get a look inside during the ceremony,” Owen announced. “If I can’t, then I’ll try and figure out when they come pick up the body.”

“At night,” Aaron said matter-of-factly. “You didn’t know that?”

He hadn’t really given it much thought, but it made sense. The trucks that distributed multimeal and hauled away waste for incineration operated almost exclusively at night, after curfew. Whatever happened to Art’s body wouldn’t happen until then.

“Then I’ll go out after curfew,” Owen said. “See what I can see.”

“Are you nuts?”

“What have I got to lose?” asked Owen. “All this?”

“You want us to wind up like your uncle?” jabbed Aaron.

That was a fair point. Dek hadn’t done himself any favors by breaking the rules. But something told Owen that knowing what happened in the Box was more important than his social status. If he found himself mopping up in the FPC, so be it. At least he wouldn’t have to climb 29 flights of stairs every morning.

“Listen, I’m not getting busted down to sanitation just for being out after — Wait — did you say ‘us’?” asked Owen.

“Well if you’re sneaking around after curfew you’re gonna need a lookout,” said Aaron with a smirk. “Let’s look in the Box.”

26

Art Behrens was scheduled for Quietus at 8 a.m. Tosh, Owen, Byron, and Dee arrived outside at 7:30. Dome law made no special accommodations for Quietus because the Authority considered it a formality. To their way of thinking, Legacies effectively made you immortal. They weren’t executing an innocent person — they were just taking a body away that needed more energy than it could give back.

Tosh didn’t see it that way. She couldn’t walk with a Legacy or give it a hug. As far as she was concerned, Legacies were just a way for the Authority to discount life.

In the Time Before, people would’ve dressed in black and processed to the funeral in a long line. There would be hors d’oeuvres and juice and time off work. The Dome had no similar ritual. Death was prescribed. Elders died and babies took their place with cold, biological efficiency. To her surprise, Dek arrived just moments later. He strode purposefully toward her and hugged her tightly.

“You scrubbed,” she said, noting the faint perfume of the Scrubbers. He looked almost healthy.

Byron greeted him politely. There was no love lost between them. Dek and Dee didn’t know each other well but still enjoyed a certain easy familiarity.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Dek whispered. “Something big.”

“Not now, Dek,” she said softly.

She could tell he wanted to spill his guts but turned and led them all inside just as others began to arrive. He seemed more agitated than usual, which was saying something.

The technical name for the building was the Quietus Center but everyone called it the Box. The ceremony was presided over by a midlevel Authority stooge from the Directorate of Health. Attendees sat on aluminum benches and watched an IDA-generated recap of the departing individual’s life. They were then invited to say a few words to the Elder before they were ushered through a thick metal door. Once it closed, no one ever saw them again.

Whatever actually happened inside the Box was a mystery. The popular theory was that an automated system administered an injection. Others believed the oxygen was sucked out of the room or that it was flooded with some sort of deadly gas. No one knew for sure.

Quietus was half the solution to one of the thorniest problems of Dome life: How to maintain a level population in a closed system. It was simple enough to control the birth date but dealing with Elders was another matter. The Originals agreed to a 75-year lifespan, and so it had always been.

Intellectually, Tosh got it. She remembered attending her grandfather Ray’s Quietus at age 22, the spring before she adopted Owen. They weren’t close, but she cared for him. Since she never got the chance to say goodbye to her own parents, it felt like a sort of penance. She sat next to her grandmother and listened while a few dozen people heaped praise and love on her perfectly healthy grandfather. They swapped stories, hugged him goodbye, then watched him go willingly into the Box.

It was nice to say goodbye to someone you loved while they still had their wits about them. At least you knew they wouldn’t suffer or fade into some pale, gaunt version of themselves. That didn’t make any of it seem right.

Art was seated in a chair at the front of the room but got up as soon as Tosh came through the door. He and everyone else wore the same clothes they did every day. There were no decorations or music. A woman from the Authority who Tosh didn’t recognize was parked in the corner beside two guards who were mainly there to make sure Art went into the Box alone.

“Hello, Tosh,” he said, giving her a hug. He greeted the others similarly. “Please, have some food.”

A table was dressed with fresh pineapple, sorghum cakes, and an assortment of vegetables cut into pieces. Art must have saved Ration Rewards for years to get it. Had he planned it that way? Pineapple was the most precious of all Tower treats.

Art introduced his cousins, current and former coworkers, and some of his friends from Elder 5. They made small talk as though it was some kind of party, but Tosh kept finding herself studying Art’s face. She’d heard his confessions of fear and anxiety and knew that the gregarious man working the room was just a façade.

At exactly 8 a.m., the woman from the Authority got up and spoke into a microphone at the front of a small dais, all smiles and pleasantness. A chair sat beside it facing the crowd.

“Be seated, everyone. Mr. Behrens, please take the chair here.”

There was a smattering of applause as Art made his way up. The woman looked bored, like she’d rather be anywhere else. She read from a prompter set into the narrow podium and hardly looked up.

“Thank you all for coming to today’s Quietus,” she said. “My name is Brenda Lucerne and I’m an assistant director in the Directorate of Health. As you all know, this is a celebration. Not just of Arthur Behrens’ life, but of our ways and systems in the Dome. Just as Art deserves a good, long rest, so, too, does a young family somewhere in our city deserve a child.

“We are born, we serve the Dome, and we die. Like a good story, none of these chapters can stand on its own. Without a destination, a journey is not really a journey. Let’s take a few minutes to revisit Arthur’s journey. IDA, please play the life summary for Arthur D. Behrens.”

She stepped aside and a screen descended from the ceiling as the lights dimmed. Art turned in his chair to watch. Because Tosh knew how the Dome’s information systems worked, she knew what was happening.

IDA had combed through a lifetime of Art’s CHIT data to find spikes and valleys in his dopamine, cortisol, and adrenaline levels. Those were correlated to events, and the events linked to people who were there with him. Audio snippets from those events, combined with audio and emotional reactions from others, provided all the context IDA needed to re-create his life in detail, complete with cinematic camera movements and a wistful soundtrack.

Art as a boy eating his first little sorghum cake with beet-sugar frosting.

Art as an adolescent kissing a girl after curfew and running from Authority police.

Art receiving his Placement.

Art meeting Elaine.

Tosh beating Art at video chess for the first time.

Art’s last walk around the city with Tosh and Owen.

The whole thing took about 5 minutes. By the end, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Even Tosh got choked up. If IDA understood anything, it was emotions. Not one second of his 59 years of work made the final cut.

When the lights came back up, a few people clapped. Tosh didn’t join them. An icy fist closed around her heart as every second brought them closer to the moment where she’d have to say goodbye.

The woman from the Authority returned to the podium.

“What a life you led, Art. Truly remarkable. But not even IDA can capture all that you’ve meant to people over the past 75 years. If any of you would like to say a few words to Art, now’s the time.”

She returned to her corner. There was an awkward couple of moments where nobody moved, but finally people started coming up to the microphone to share their thoughts.

A rough-looking man who had apprenticed with Art thanked him for his kindness, and for kicking in Ration Rewards for the celebration of his grandson’s birth.

Art hugged every person after they were done then joined them behind the podium for his own parting thoughts. He said he was grateful for having known them. Grateful for their friendship or counsel. It was always he who benefited, not the other way around.

It went on like this for some time, during which the woman from the Authority kept checking the clock in the back of the room. Finally, there came a point where no one else got up. Owen touched her elbow.

“Aren’t you gonna say something?” he asked.

She blinked away a tear and stood just as the Authority officiant appeared ready to wrap things up. Tosh stood and the woman returned to her seat.

Tosh stepped up onto the little dais and adjusted the microphone. The screen displayed the next part of the Authority woman’s script but she didn’t read it. Her nose was running. She wiped it on her sleeve and leaned in.

“My name is Toshiko Yamamura. Art has been my friend for almost 20 years. I lived my entire adult life without parents. Art lived his without children. I guess that made us a good pair. Two lonely misfits trying to figure it all out.”

Art chuckled appreciatively. She turned to look at him, the lines of his face seeming to deepen as he listened. It was everything she could do not to melt into a blubbering puddle.

“The Authority likes to talk about this ritual as though we should be grateful for it. Like we should all be happy that our friend is going to disappear from our lives forever. Well I’m not grateful. I’m angry.”

She turned around to look directly at the woman from the Authority, who stiffened in her chair in the corner and narrowed her eyes at Tosh. People in the crowd eyed her and each other nervously. This wasn’t how it usually went.

“Somewhere along the line, a bunch of Cytocorp executives got together and wrote the Charter. All the rules we all live by, they made up. But not a single one of them ever had to live with those decisions. The Originals only agreed to it because they were scared. They were so desperate to be part of the future that they didn’t question any of it — even the part about having an expiration date.

“Well I don’t know about you, but I didn’t agree to that. You didn’t. Art Behrens certainly didn’t.”

The Authority woman rose and approached Tosh. “I think that’s enough, Miss-”

Tosh whirled to face her. “Sit the fuck down, Brenda.”

Brenda returned to her seat and bristled. Art rose and put his hand on her back. “Tosh, it’s okay,” he said.

“No, it’s not,” she said, clenching her jaw so tightly she thought her teeth might shatter. She was angry. Angrier than she’d even realized. Byron met her eyes as though to say, Don’t stop now — you’re on a roll.

“None of this is okay. Art, you preached the Authority gospel for almost 60 years and they send some junior bureaucrat to preside over your execution? You all realize that’s what this is, right? An execution.”

Art had seen her break down before. He always just smiled and listened as though it was the most important thing in the world. That’s exactly what he did now. The Authority woman’s face flushed hot red.

“Art is my oldest and dearest friend and I don’t want him to die. None of us do. But that’s not what the Authority wants to hear. All this… this is just designed to make us feel okay about death. It’s not supposed to be okay. It’s supposed to hurt like hell!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Tosh saw the guards rise and move toward her.

“That’s enough,” said Brenda. “Please help her to her seat.”

The guards grabbed her upper arms. “Don’t fucking touch me!” Tosh hissed.

Byron, Dek, and Owen shot to their feet, but the guards drew their sidearms and leveled them at their chests. Authority weapons shot neurobullets — needle-like rounds of compressed neurotoxin that dissolved in the body and caused unspeakable pain. They also carried the antidote, which they didn’t administer until you gave up.

The men pulled up short of the dais and glared at the guards.

“Let her go,” said Dek.

“Not until she calms down,” said Brenda.

That wasn’t good enough for Dek. He launched himself at the nearest guard just as Tosh tore herself free. The other guard panicked and fired his weapon, catching him in the upper abdomen with a neurobullet. He instantly collapsed to the floor. “Ahh, shit!” he said, clutching his side.

Tosh whirled and was about to start throwing wild punches when Art wrapped her up and pulled her to him.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “This isn’t the battle you should be fighting. Remember what I told you.”

“Dek!” Tosh yelled.

Owen, Byron, and Dee rushed to his aid. A bit of blood bloomed under his shirt.

“Go deal with him,” Brenda said to the guards. “I’ve got this. Give me one of your sidearms.”

The guard who shot Dek looked terrified. The other handed Brenda his weapon, then both of them went to haul Dek to his feet. His face contorted in pain. Tosh was filled with rage. She wanted to leap on them and pound their faces to mush, but she’d only wind up getting shot, too. One shooting was more than enough for a Quietus.

“It’s fine,” Art said to Brenda, his mouth inches from Tosh’s ear. Tears streamed down her cheek and soaked into the back of his uniform. “Relax. She’s okay.”

“Aaaaigh!” Dek screamed as the guards hauled him out the door.

Everyone stared at Brenda with murder in their hearts. Owen and Byron looked ready to tear her to shreds. She seemed to realize immediately that she didn’t have enough bullets for everyone. It was no time to be impetuous.

“They’ll give him the antidote the moment he gets to the Authority,” she announced, brandishing the weapon.

“It’s okay, everyone,” Art said. “Please. This isn’t what I want.”

That was all he needed to say. For a moment, everyone had forgotten why they were there.

“I’m sorry, Toshiko,” Art whispered. “This won’t be your fate. I know it in my bones. But I’ve made my peace. I get to be with Elaine now.”

“I don’t want to lose you,” she said, shaking.

“All the best things are temporary,” he reminded her. “Even in this place.”

“I’ll miss you so much,” she sniffled.

“You, too,” he said. Then he whispered, “You get your boy out of here somehow and everything will change. I know it in my bones.”

Brenda approached them, keeping a healthy distance between her and Tosh. “I’m sorry, Mr. Behrens. We need the room for the next Elder.”

Tosh kissed Art’s scraggly cheek and soon felt Owen and Byron’s hands on her shoulders. They seemed to sense that she was still working out a way to stop this. Surely no pain could eclipse her rage. But she let them hold her as Brenda ushered Art toward the thick metal door of the Box.

Art turned back to her. “When you finally see the sky, think of me,” he said. “I’ll be looking back.”

Tosh nodded, her mouth twisting as sobs racked her body. Brenda opened the door to the Box and Art threw a wave back to everyone who had risen to see him off. They returned the gesture and Art walked into some sort of antechamber. He nodded toward her and smiled as the guards closed the door behind him with a final, resonant thud.

27

For nearly an hour after saying goodbye to Art, no one in Tosh’s entourage said a word. His other friends and extended family shuffled numbly outside and dispersed. Tosh felt like she hadn’t drawn a full breath in days. The moment she’d feared for years had come and gone, and her world shrank.She saw the look on the guards’ faces when Dek went down, and the panic in Brenda’s eyes. Dek’s defiance took them all by surprise, so much so that she couldn’t help but wonder about the strength of the Authority’s grip. Power had been conferred on them, not earned. Generations had let them keep it. Maybe that needed to change.

Owen hugged her goodbye and said he’d been ordered to return to work the instant the ceremony was over.

“It’s almost nine,” Dee said to her father.

“I know,” replied Byron. “I don’t know if there’s any school today.”

School. Tosh had been given an hour at the start of the day to attend Art’s Quietus and she was going to be late.

So fucking what.

But then she had an epiphany. Art’s parting gift to her wasn’t just the secret about Owen’s family heritage — it was hope. If what he said about Owen was true, then Cytocorp’s own legacy was built on lies. And if that was true, then maybe aspects of Dome Six were, too. She owed it to herself and Owen to find out what that meant.

She grabbed Dee’s hand and said, “Let’s go. We’re not following the curriculum today.”

_________

Tosh and Dee made it to the classroom a few minutes after 9, just as the Authority-appointed principal, Randy, came out. He’d pinch-hit while she was at the Quietus.

“You’re late,” he said.

“You gave us an hour,” Tosh said. “Were we supposed to teleport from across town?”

He bristled but when Dee flashed her best puppy-dog eyes, he sighed and stepped aside. Dee went in but Randy grabbed Tosh’s arm. She was already on edge and had half a mind to pop him in his stupid face.

“You’re behind on the curriculum,” he said in a hushed tone. “If you don’t catch up, they’ll send another monitor. Is that what you want?”

“Don’t worry,” Tosh said. “I’ll bring them up to speed.”

Her eyes slid down to his hand, which he immediately removed.

“Catch them up,” he muttered, and left.

Tosh closed her eyes and took a deep breath. IDA was always listening, but only for certain keywords and patterns. She couldn’t process tone or subtext. It could work. She’d seen what death looked like in the Dome. It was walking into a room and never coming out. So what? Anything short of that was a piece of cake.

She smoothed her hair back, reset her ponytail, and entered her class. Dee took her seat next to Vi and whispered something in her ear. Something like, “This ought to be good.”

Apart from those two, the rest of the kids wore the same vacant expression as always. Time to get them excited about learning again.

“Today we’re going to talk about history,” she said, her voice level and calm. The students reached for their tablets nearly in unison. IDA would connect her words to the students’ actions, so she let them navigate to their scheduled lesson. “Now leave that open and look at me. We’re just going to talk for now.”

The students eyed each other suspiciously as though it might be a trick. Tosh continued.

“My great grandfather used to say that history is written by the victors. It was a quote from the 20th century. Does anybody know what it means?”

She looked first to Dee, but she was still a bit pale. Only Vi’s hand went up, and hesitantly at that. Tosh nodded to her.

“I think it means that, like, there are two sides to every story. But if you fight and win, your side of the story is more likely to win, too.”

“That’s exactly right.” Tosh was pleased. Dee had lots of heart, but she was kind of a dreamer. Vi was pragmatic and perceptive. It was why they complemented each other so well. “So you and I fight about something and you win, which you probably would.” The class giggled a bit. A few of them even sat up and leaned forward — a rarity in her class. “Does that mean you were right and I was wrong?”

Vi bit her lip like she always did when she was thinking. She hadn’t nearly done it often enough. “I guess it depends.”

Tosh cocked an eyebrow and nodded. “It certainly does. Now let me give you a little scenario. Let’s say you are a leader of people. People need water to live, right? But it’s very scarce. Is it reasonable that you would want as much water as you could get your hands on?”

Slow, unsure nods. A bit of color returned to Dee’s face. Nothing like this was in the curriculum and they knew it. Maybe that’s why they were suddenly engaged. Philosophical dilemmas weren’t exactly a focus.

“Okay, now let’s say that I’m a leader of people, too. I also want as much water as I can get, for the same reason.” She held up her fists and shook each of them in turn. “So, two groups of people need the same resource. What’s going to happen? Talk it over. Five minutes should be enough.”

They stared at her, uncomprehending. The answer wasn’t immediately clear. They didn’t memorize it and it had nothing to do with harvesting potatoes or making clothes. But she didn’t let them off the hook. She just waited.

Finally, a student named Justin who she’d rarely seen move, let alone speak, leaned over and said something to his friend across the aisle. Before long, the entire class was engaged in an animated discussion. Her heart swelled and she smiled. When it was her turn in the Box, IDA might even select this moment to play back. Then again, maybe not.

After a few minutes, she clapped her hands and the class quieted back down. “Okay. What’s the verdict?”

Miraculously, Justin raised his hand. She called on him for maybe the third time ever.

“I think they would fight,” he said.

“Interesting. Why do you think that? Why wouldn’t they agree to just share?”

“Because that’s not what people do.”

Most everyone nodded in agreement. “Okay. Does anyone think these two groups would agree to share?”

Dee raised her hand. She would want them to share. Tosh nodded to her.

“I think they’d want to,” she said. “But I don’t think they really would.”

Tosh smiled. Maybe the girl was less naïve than she thought. “And why is that?”

“Because people need more than to just survive,” said Dee.

All heads turned to her, processing this in their own way for a moment, then they swiveled back toward her. She smiled and said, “Maybe they do, Dee. Maybe they do.”

28

Of course, the door to the Box didn’t open directly into some blood-spattered killing room. Not that Owen expected it would. The outer door just opened to an antechamber no bigger than a bathroom, with another heavy door behind it. The inner door probably opened only if the outer one was closed. It was impossible to see anything inside.

The scene would’ve been upsetting even if it hadn’t ended in Dek assaulting Authority guards and getting himself shot with a neurobullet. The Authority woman’s attitude toward the whole thing, his mom’s outrage — it was a disturbing combination of Authority phoniness and raw emotion. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that.

Owen didn’t like to think about death, especially in the context of his father. He never knew his mother so talking to her Legacy was a comfort. A way to know who she was and what she cared about.

“Warning,” said IDA as he opened the door to their room. “Curfew hours are currently in effect.”

“Okay, Mom,” said Aaron. “You ready?”

“Let’s go.”

Owen had snuck out during curfew a handful of times. The older you were, the less of a big deal it was. The Authority didn’t have the time or interest in going after anyone who was just out for a midnight stroll. The simulated moonlight came from all directions, virtually eliminating shadows. During the winter months, people who worked second shift came and went in this semi-darkness, almost never seeing the light of day.

As Elle promised, there were more patrols than usual. Owen and Aaron zigzagged their way through the Sectors in a way that IDA would likely interpret as random — just two young greenies out for a bit of hijinks after curfew. Nothing to sound any alarms over. That was the idea anyway.

The trucks that carried multimeal and human waste were virtually identical boxes on wheels. The oldest joke in the Dome was that the Authority was never quite sure which was which. Other trucks carried whole fruits and vegetables for Ration Rewards or delivered bundles of parts for the following day’s maintenance work. Authority EVs crept lazily down the Rads looking for their saboteur. Taken together, all this traffic made it exceptionally difficult to move about unnoticed. The city offered few places to hide anyway, made that much more difficult by the lack of shadows.

By the time the boys reached the Quietus Center it was almost 11. They’d done so much running and ducked down so many Arcs that they were drenched in sweat. The Exchangers ran more slowly at night, so the air was even more still than usual.

It was possible they’d already missed the pickup of Art’s body and that the mystery would remain unsolved. But if there was still a chance to learn the truth about the Box, Owen was all in. It felt good to break their rules.

The Arc that passed behind the Quietus Center continued across Rad 36 and behind Laundry 7. A pallet of chemicals sat behind it awaiting unloading by the morning crew, with just enough space between it and the wall for them to squeeze in. They were in there only a few minutes before an Authority EV glided silently past. Owen talked a big game in the Towers, but he was so seized by terror that he held his breath for several seconds. Thankfully, the vehicle kept moving.

He exhaled in relief.

“Geez, dude,” Aaron said, teasing him. “You need to relax.”

“You relax.”

They stood there sandwiched between the pallet and the wall for what seemed like an eternity. They weren’t near any clocks, but it had to be pushing midnight. He found himself nodding off on his feet. A tap on his hand roused him.

“Look,” said Aaron.

A small truck had pulled into the Arc behind the Box and stopped at the rolling door.

“Okay, let’s go,” Owen replied.

They shuffled out from their hiding place and peeked around the corners of the buildings, then checked both ways down Rad 36. There was one vehicle far down from them, but it was otherwise empty. They stole across it just as they heard a rolling door open from the back of the Box. As they approached the parked truck, they hugged the wall on the opposite side and eased their way through the narrow gap between the side of the truck and the wall of the adjacent building. There was little room to spare.

The adrenaline was really pumping now. It was terrifying, yes, but also deliciously exciting. Was this what he’d been missing all this time? The thrill of breaking the rules? Had that been passed down from this Hopper guy?

They heard the shuffling of feet on the other side of the truck and a heavy metal door opened, presumably to the Box. This is what they were here for.

“We’re just gonna talk to the guy, right?” Aaron confirmed.

“Right. You ready?”

“What’s the worst that could happen?” Aaron replied.

Owen led the way out behind the rear of the truck. The door was open and a ramp covered in smooth white plastic extended to the ground. It was empty inside. They peered around the corner of the Box’s open cargo door.

It, too, had a heavy inner door but it was open. A squat, barrel-chested man appeared through it with his back to them, grunting as he dragged something heavy. Owen steeled himself — he’d never seen a dead body, let alone someone he knew personally.

The man hauled Art’s body through the doorway with his back to them, maybe four meters away.

“Hey,” Owen said.

The man was so startled that he stumbled back and fell on his ass, then scrambled back away from them like a frightened crab. Owen saw the top of Art’s head tilted back over the threshold, his pale and mottled skin poking through the wispy gray hairs. His eyes were cloudy. Owen looked immediately away.

“Wha…?“ the man started, his eyes peeled back. You’d think he was seeing monsters, not teenage boys.

“Easy,” Owen said. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”

“What do you want??” said the man. Owen had never seen anyone blink so quickly or so often. He was fidgety. His eyes kept looked past Owen as though he expected more people to come out of the dark for him.

“We want to look inside the Box,” said Owen. “That’s all.”

“It’s empty. I mean, it is now.”

“I just want to see for myself. What’s your name?”

“Sam,” he said, as though he wasn’t completely certain. “I just take the bodies from the Box to the incinerator.”

“It’s okay, Sam. All we want is a quick peek inside.”

“There’s no time,” the nervous man said. “No time. The round trip takes exactly 14 minutes. Not 13, not 15. Fourteen.”

Though he was at least in his mid 40s he had a childlike mien. Some kind of mental disorder, perhaps.

“I know this man,” Owen continued earnestly. “He was our friend. We watched him go in the Box this morning. We just want to know what happened to him. That’s all. It would really help us, you know, move on.”

Sam glanced at Art’s body then back at them. The wheels were turning, albeit slowly.

“Okay,” he stammered. “Okay, but one quick look inside and then you have to go. It’s after curfew. You’re not supposed to be out. I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“Neither do we,” Aaron said. “Just one quick look and we’ll leave you alone. Fourteen minutes’ round trip, right?”

Owen extended his hand. Sam visibly relaxed and took it as Owen helped him to his feet. They proceeded past Art. There wasn’t a mark on him. He wasn’t quite sure what to feel.

The interior door was even heavier than it looked from a distance. Owen ran his fingers down the cold edge. It was impenetrable.

“Are they trying to keep something in or out?” Aaron mused.

“I don’t know,” replied Owen, and continued inside.

Owen expected the small room to open up to either side like a rectangle, but as he stepped fully inside he saw that it didn’t. It was no more than three meters on a side, probably less. The concrete floor had a drain in the middle and a portion of the floor was still wet. It smelled of urine. The walls were just as beefy as the door. With everything buttoned up, it might even be watertight.

“What the hell?” wondered Aaron.

From the moment he stepped fully into the Box, Owen felt uncomfortable. Not claustrophobic, not the heebie-jeebies. Something else. It was intense physical discomfort, like he was about to be violently ill. He turned immediately and pushed past Aaron, who had barely gotten through the doorway.

“Did you feel that?” Owen asked, steadying himself on the wall.

“I felt something, all right,” Aaron said, his hand on his stomach. He wobbled unsteadily.

“You can’t stay inside long,” Sam said. He’d already draged Art’s body into the truck and closed the door. He was more antsy now than scared. “Gotta go,” he said. “Can’t be late. Can’t be late. Excuse me.”

He hurried past Owen and closed the heavy door with a faint squeak of the burly hinges, then herded them out of the loading area so he could close the rolling door.

“I don’t understand,” Owen said, catching his breath. “What’s in that room? How does it work?”

“Sorry, gotta go now,” Sam replied, practically shoving them aside. He pushed “Bye.”

Sam made for the door of the truck.

“No, wait. Sam!” Owen called after him.

But his errand wouldn’t wait. Not for them. The truck hurried away down the narrow Arc then took a sharp left onto Rad 32 before it disappeared.

29

The pain was like hot tar smeared on the inside of his skin — unreachable, unrelenting, and toxic.

Hideki remembered charging toward Tosh, then a pain so extraordinary and instant that it felt like a seed exploding suddenly into a tree. It seized his very consciousness in its searing grip, so much so that he lost hold of it. And yet it was there in the dark with him, loud and insistent, telling him that death was the only escape.

But he couldn’t. Wherever he was, he couldn’t move. Couldn’t lower his head and run into the concrete wall as hard as he could or find something sharp to drag across his neck. He was meant to endure this for as long as it took. How long had he been there? An hour? Maybe more? It felt like eternity.

He knew guys who got shot with neurobullets. They said if you didn’t get antidote inside of about two hours, you’d go mad. If someone told him he’d been there for three days, he’d have believed it.

The door opened and he shrunk back, squinting against the harsh light. A hulking figure entered then kneeled beside him and snapped his fingers.

“You still with us, skinny?” asked the man. His voice rang a bell, but he was too addled to think clearly.

“How about a short break?” he said, brandishing a pressure injector. “Just so we can chat.”

He felt a thin pop in the dimple between his right shoulder and his neck. The antidote worked so quickly that it felt like a dream. Almost instantly, his vision resolved, and he was staring up at the smiling visage of Luther Downing.

“There he is,” Downing said. He rose and set the injector down on a small metal table. “You’re at the Authority. I know you recognize our interrogation room. Well, we call it 138C, but who are we kidding, right?”

“Why am I here?” said Hideki. Amazing how words could form when every last neuron wasn’t being held to a fire.

“Well for starters,” Downing began, “you made Arthur Behrens’ Quietus more interesting than most. I don’t blame you. That shit is boring as hell.”

Yeah, okay. Dek remembered that now. He rushed the guard who was roughing up his sister. Couldn’t blame a guy for that. A neurobullet was ample punishment. At the moment, other than being sweaty and smelly again, he felt almost normal.

“What do you mean, ‘for starters?’”

“I mean, I think you know the real reason you’re here, Hideki. The Exchangers.”

The Exchangers. Luther came down in the service elevator while Dek was tripping on a yellow. Luther knew he was in the Stores because IDA knew. And now Hideki would be his scapegoat. Even he had to admit that was smart.

“I didn’t do anything,” Dek said.

“IDA disagrees. In fact, the data says you were down there the entire time. And you weren’t sitting still. In fact, you were quite busy, weren’t you? I mean, stealing parts and getting high while everyone feared for their lives? Not cool.”

“What do you want?” Dek hissed. The small dose of antidote was already starting to wear off. He felt a rising heat in his fingers and toes.

“I was thinking a public confession might be nice. Take the pressure off us and put a face to this awful sense of dread. It’s starting to cut into production and we really can’t have that.”

Dek guffawed. “Confess to something I didn’t do to make your life easier? Tempting, but I think I’ll pass.”

Downing smiled. “Ah, well. Can’t blame a guy for trying, right? So how about I sweeten the pot? If you confess, the evidence supports the idea that you acted alone. If you don’t, it implicates everyone you care about.”

The burning crept up to his elbows and knees. He squirmed and tugged against his restraints, fantasizing about pouncing on Downing like a monkey and ripping his throat out with his teeth. Whatever really happened to his parents, Downing was behind it. He felt this revelation as acutely as the pain regrouping in his limbs.

Downing fingered the woven hemp cord around Dek’s neck and found the small metal ring that hung from it.

“What the hell is this?” Downing asked.

“It’s a bearing ring from the FPC. It was with my father’s things.”

“A bearing. Shall I add theft to the list of charges against you?”

“You can have it if you’d like. My gift to you.”

Downing smirked and let the bearing drop. “No thanks. It has your stink on it.”

“What’s your problem with my family, Downing?”

“You used to be a pretty important guy around here. You had access to secure areas. Presumably a little self-respect. Then all of a sudden you just go off the rails and become… this. I don’t even want to know what you’ve got crawling around inside you.”

“I’m no angel,” said Hideki. “But I’m no saboteur.” The pain reached his shoulders and groin, climbing like ivy.

“Do you know the story of the weapon that shot you?” Downing asked. “The original director of security here was a guy named Hackbarth. Handled physical security at Cytocorp for years before they moved him to the Dome. I’ve talked to his Legacy. A real man’s man. Anyway, he reviews the security protocols and sees no guns are allowed in the Charter. Says if they want him, they need weapons. Cytocorp offers to make a nonlethal but effective weapon. He’s skeptical but agrees.

“This was what they came up with,” he continued, caressing the finish of the fat pistol like an antique. “They analyzed people’s pain response while various parts of their body were burned. They used that research to develop a synthetic neurotoxin that simulates being slowly burned alive. It acts instantly but takes days to fully metabolize. Of course, no one’s made it that long.”

“Wouldn’t it have been easier to just have a normal-sized penis?” Dek said, wincing. Only the center of his chest wasn’t in flames again. He stared longingly at the injector on the table, less than a meter away.

Downing fell to a crouch with surprising speed and shot his hand out to close around Dek’s throat. Now he felt like he was burning alive and choking at the same time. He gasped for air and fought against the restraints, but it was no use. Whatever line defined the edge of sanity, he was nearing it.

“I’ve seen that defiant look before on your old man. I gave him the antidote, but you? I’m not so sure.”

Dek’s eyes widened even as he struggled to breathe. His whole body was on fire now. He could almost feel flames licking at his face and eyes. He just wanted it to be over, but he wouldn’t let it end the way Downing wanted. He’d rather die than confess to something he didn’t do. The Yamamuras had suffered enough. His vision narrowed to a pinpoint.

“Fuck you,” he spat.

Just then the door opened to the little room. Downing whirled and dropped his hand. Dek moaned, willing his field of vision to widen.

Elle.

“What’s going on?” she said. It took her a moment to recognize him. “Hideki?”

“I’m interrogating our primary suspect,” Downing said calmly, rising to face her fully.

“Under duress,” she pointed out.

He replied casually. “He assaulted a guard at a Quietus. But that’s not all he’s been up to, is it, Yamamura?”

“Give him the antidote now,” Elle said, drawing close to him. “All of it.”

Downing smirked and turned to pick up the injector. He took his sweet time, too. “Fine. We’ll let the evidence speak for itself.” He crouched down next to Dek and leaned into his ear. “You had your chance.”

Downing pressed the injector into Dek’s shoulder and pulled the trigger. The pain dissolved almost instantly, and his breathing slowed. He’d never been so thirsty in his life.

“Give him his bottle,” Elle commanded. Downing chuckled, shaking his head, and handed Dek’s bottle back to him. He could barely lift it high enough to drink, but he managed a cool gulp. “Remove his restraints.”

“Perhaps a pillow, too?” he said, and he undid the thick plastic straps that folded him tightly to the wall.

Dek knew a thing or two about euphoria, but the combination of antidote, water, and freedom was incomparable.

“Hideki, you’re free to go,” she said.

“Free?” Downing said.

“You think he’s a flight risk?”

Dek could tell that Downing had an answer to that, but he bit his lip before saying it out loud. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. “He’s not going anywhere.”

30

The moment she dismissed class for the day, Tosh worried that her way out of the school would be blocked by a retinue of Authority guards with their weapons drawn. At a minimum, she expected Randy to be standing there with a grim look on his face, ready to introduce her replacement or a new classroom monitor, but there was nothing of the sort. Perhaps her little philosophy exercise didn’t raise any flags with IDA.

She raced down Rad 6, caught the train to the Agora, and made her way to Dek’s place on the other side of town. To her great relief, he answered the door. She threw her arms around him like he was a life preserver.

“Dek, thank god! Are you okay?”

“I’m okay.”

“How bad was it?”

“Bad. Close the door.”

She pushed the door closed behind her. Dek’s place looked and smelled the same as it ever had, but there was something new. Fear.

“What happened?” she asked. “I came as soon as I could.”

“Downing was waiting for me at the Authority.”

“What did he do to you?” Tosh asked.

“Gave me just enough antidote to show he had power over me. He wanted me to confess to the Exchangers.”

“And did you?” Tosh asked. Given Dek’s history, it wasn’t exactly crazy talk.

“Did I do it or did I confess?”

“Well, either.”

“Neither,” Dek said, a bit hurt. “Actually, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. But not here. Let’s take a walk.”

They left and walked all the way down Rad 41 out to the perimeter Arc, where Art had shared his big secret. There just wasn’t a safer place.

Dek leaned in close as they strolled. Passers-by eyed them suspiciously even though they were probably there for the same reason.

“Don’t keep me in suspense,” Tosh said.

“You know the strange Macros I told you about?”

“From the woman in the FPC? The ones with the antennas?” He nodded. “What about them?”

“I’m close to isolating the signal.”

“How close?” she asked.

“All I can do is run through frequencies until it seems to respond.”

“Then what?” Tosh asked.

“Then we figure out what the hell they do.”

“You think we all have these things inside us?”

“I’m working under that assumption,” he replied.

Tosh didn’t like Macros one bit. She’d only taken one in her life for a nasty case of pinkeye. That was enough. The thought that her body might be riddled with them turned her stomach.

“There’s something else,” Dek said, interrupting the thought. He leaned in so close that his cracked lips tickled her ear. “Downing came down to the Stores.”

“During the shutdown?” she whispered, incredulous.

“I think he turned the Exchangers back on from the emergency command center. That can only mean he shut them off, too.”

“Why would he do that?” Tosh asked.

“So he could frame me, obviously.”

“Dek, no offense, but that sounds insane.”

She said that louder than she meant to. A passing couple glanced their way.

“Everything okay here?” the man said directly to Tosh.

“All good,” Tosh said, flashing her most reassuring smile. The couple continued on.

“Think about it,” Dek said. “Who better to blame than one of us?”

He was referring to their father, who supposedly tripped the O_2 alarm as a distraction. It only took a couple hours for everyone to realize it was a false alarm, by which time he and their mother had already slipped unnoticed into the FPC. It led directly to their grisly deaths and long, dark chapters of her and Dek’s lives.

They’d been on Downing’s radar ever since. Dek was right — he was the perfect scapegoat. Downing must have seen he was in the Stores and seized the opportunity to cause a panic — the same panic that nearly got Byron killed.

“What did he say to you, exactly?” Tosh asked.

“He said if I confessed, he’d only go after me. If I didn’t, he’d implicate people I cared about.”

Tosh shook her head. Downing was such a conniving bastard. Why couldn’t they be as anonymous as most citizens were?

“But then he just let you go?”

“Elle came in just as he was working on me. She ordered him to.”

Now that was surprising. Elle was no fan of Hideki either. She seemed to be in bed with Luther in every sense of the phrase. Then again, she also wouldn’t want to be associated with torture. Tosh still believed she was a good person.

“Thing is, I don’t think his case against me is complete,” Dek continued. “He was just using the fact that I was there with a neurobullet in me to try and make things easy for him.”

“You think he’s gonna follow through?” Tosh asked.

“He’ll do everything he can to nail me to the wall. He hates me.”

“Well, you did flood the city with illicit Macros.”

Dek pondered this for a moment. “You and your damned logic.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I need to isolate the signal and figure out what these red Macros are. I can’t tell you why, but I think it’s the only question that matters.”

Tosh sighed and smiled at him. “You sound like Dad.”

He smirked. “You’ve still never talked to their Legacies, have you?”

“No.”

“Will you talk to Art?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been pushing all that away. Someday, maybe.”

“I love you,” he said. “You know that, right?”

“I know,” she said. “You, too.”

31

Every 20 years, the Administrator of Dome Six descended into the Nexus and asked IDA a question.

The answer was always the same.

The question was whether it was finally survivable outside. Twenty years wasn’t even a blip in geological time, but the century leading up to the Dome Project was marked by a volatile climate. The hottest summer on record and the coldest winter on record had once occurred during the same calendar year.

They didn’t need year-round survivability — all they really needed was a few hours. A small team would put on the suits, find the way out, take a look around, then compare their data to what IDA pulled from the Apex sensors. Depending what it said, there would be some difficult decisions to make. All Elle wanted was the opportunity to make them.

This time she didn’t encounter Luther in the Nexus. He was building his case against Dek, which she was trying not to think about. The Hideki she knew since childhood wouldn’t knowingly harm anyone but himself. It just didn’t feel right.

On top of everything, she and the Authority had an Epoch to plan. She was only 14 during the Fourth Epoch, the only one she’d seen. Clear as day, she could remember Keane’s report. The world was still shit, it was still our fault, and they still weren’t going anywhere.

Knowing that and seeing it fall across the hopeful faces around her in the Agora was quite different. As each data point was read, it seemed more air got sucked out of the Dome. Airborne particulates would instantly clog the CO_2 filters in the suits. The heat would’ve been bearable but without a water source it didn’t matter. High winds would’ve made standing difficult, let alone exploring.

But even if all these metrics were borderline, what kind of life would it be? The Dome offered limitless food, a reliable source of water, a temperate climate, and protection against the elements. It was home, and it was there for a reason. The Originals figured they’d never feel grass or see trees again but held out hope that future generations might. Was it foolish to think that a mere four or five generations would be enough for the world to heal? Maybe, but to that point hope had always triumphed over fear. It felt like that advantage might be ending.

She stuck her hand inside the access panel and authenticated.

“Good morning, Administrator Travers,” IDA intoned.

“IDA, I need the latest readings and footage from the Apex array.”

“Of course. Which would you like first?”

“Sensor data. But first, call up the readings from the Fourth Epoch.”

The holographic projectors activated and a glowing column of data hovered overhead. She remembered being a teenager and seeing the same numbers projected on the underside of the Dome. They weren’t good. Her pulse quickened at the notion she’d be the first to know what the Fifth Epoch would bring. Luther was wrong about that — people didn’t need someone to blame. They needed hope.

A second column illuminated, and her eyes darted back and forth between the columns.

“This can’t be correct.”

“I detect no malfunction. The data is accurate.”

“What’s the margin of error?” asked Elle.

“Insignificant. Zero point four percent.”

The readings couldn’t be right. If she couldn’t trust it, then maybe she could trust her eyes.

“Show the camera feed.”

The display switched to four wide-angle views of the outside world. The first was pointed west. Dirt and sand stretched as far as you could see. The blackened husks of trees, none taller than three or four meters now and worn smooth, were the only features apart from little bumps and hillocks that could’ve been anything. Visibility was limited on account of the dust, but she’d seen enough. North, east, and south were indistinguishable.

The Burn had swallowed everything. Not a single data point had moved in the right direction.

“Estimate survival time outside with the suits,” Elle said.

“Under current conditions, estimated time of human survival is one hour and 37 minutes.”

An hour and a half. Likely not enough to even walk as far as the cameras could see.

“What would be the most likely cause of death?” Elle asked.

“Suffocation. The suits’ filtration systems are designed to handle up to 300 micrograms per cubic meter of particulates. Current particulate levels are at 810 micrograms per cubic meter. At that level, the filtration unit would fail but carbon dioxide levels and dust would make breathing impossible.”

It was the exact opposite of what she expected. How could things get that much worse in just 20 years? It just didn’t make sense that it was even worse than the Third Epoch. Maybe there was a short somewhere. The maintenance crews and techs were always replacing electrical parts, and that was inside the Dome. Anything outside had to be toast, didn’t it?

“Display sensor diagnostics,” she said.

The display changed again to a detailed chart of technical data. The only thing she understood about it was that everything was green, and green was good. There was no malfunction, at least according to IDA.

“How likely is it that the data would change significantly in 20 more years?” Now she was desperate. Without hope, they wouldn’t have to worry about the Dome falling apart. Their society would collapse.

A chart of multicolored lines slid in to replace the diagnostic data. “Historical trends suggest conditions will continue to decline.”

Her mind raced. She couldn’t present this to the masses as it was.

“Sentiment analysis,” Elle said. “Keyword ‘Epoch.’ Go back one year.”

The diagnostic report faded and was replaced by another report. IDA instantly mined the colossal volume of data under her feet in the cooling liquid and spat back a summary of how citizens felt about the upcoming Epoch. CHIT data could indicate anxiety, happiness, comfort, doubt — the full range of human emotion.

Data was Luther’s thing, not hers. But it was useful, and she only ever looked at the aggregate.

The upward trend took a sharp dip as a result of the Exchanger failure but had bounced back as Luther said it would after they advanced the saboteur narrative. Expectations for the Fifth Epoch were high but clearly volatile. If she stood in front of everyone in the Agora and reported IDA’s data as it was, they’d tumble off a cliff and nothing would bring them back. Without hope for a future, the present wouldn’t matter. Didn’t she owe them the truth?

32

If IDA had flagged Owen and Aaron’s movements after curfew, the Authority hadn’t responded. It was too soon to think they got away with it, but maybe they had their hands full with Epoch preparations. In any case, the two of them showed up for work as usual and watched workers assemble the big stage in front of the Authority during their breaks. He’d be his mom’s age before he saw it again.

He and Aaron spoke little of the previous evening for fear of being overheard. As far as they knew, no one except Sam, the undertaker, had ever seen the inside of the Box. But instead of coming out with the answers, they only had more questions.

Owen knew someone who might be able to help.

After their shift, he descended the Tower to the Agora and went the opposite way he usually did, explaining to Aaron that he wanted to visit his uncle, Hideki. They made plans to catch up later over dinner.

As Owen made his way to Dek’s, his brain kept trying to work out what happened inside the Box. The heavy metal doors and concrete construction were significant, but he couldn’t explain how or why. Maybe it was some kind of powerful magnetic field that interfered with the blood. But what explained the awful feeling of being inside it?

When it came to half-baked theories, Dek had no peers.

He knocked three times before the door finally opened a crack. Dek peered out at him, wild-eyed as ever.

“Owen,” Dek said. “What’s up?”

“I need to talk to you.”

“I’m in the middle of something.”

He tried to see past Dek’s head, but his unit was as dark as always. “I think you’re gonna want to hear this.”

Dek opened the door far enough to poke his head out. “Were you followed?”

“No, but I was out after curfew last night.”

Dek smiled. “Well now you have my attention,” Dek said, tugging him through the door. “But you shouldn’t stay long because I’m on a very short leash.”

Owen pushed the door closed behind him. “Why? What happened?”

“Tosh didn’t tell you?”

“I haven’t seen her since the Quietus.”

“Downing’s trying to pin the Exchanger failure on me.”

“What? How?”

“The less you know, the better. What’ve you got for me? And don’t talk too loudly. I think I found all the Listeners, but I can’t be sure.”

Hideki believed IDA monitored conversations through billions of tiny wireless microphones called Listeners.

The shades were drawn tightly, the unit’s meager furnishings pushed against the wall. Any available lights were focused on a spot in the middle of the living area, where it looked like an array of electronic components had exploded.

“What the hell is all this?” Owen asked, as confused as he was intrigued. He loved this shit.

“Just a little project I’m working on. So, what kept you out after curfew last night, you bad boy?”

Owen explained his and Aaron’s debate about the Box and the ensuing encounter with Sam. Dek was held rapt.

“That is interesting,” Dek mused. “Other than nausea, what did you feel when you were inside?”

“It’s hard to describe,” replied Owen. “Almost like a fist closed around me and squeezed. It sounds dumb, but I was scared for my life.”

Dek scratched at the soft stubble of his chin. “You say the floor and the walls were concrete. Airtight, perhaps.”

“That’s what it looked like to me. The doors were heavy.”

Dek appeared to have a brief inner debate, then nodded toward the jumble of components spread out on the floor. “Come on. I need to show you something.”

It turned out Dek was pursuing a mystery of his own. He shared the tale of the red Macros and what he’d seen under the microscope. The coiled filament of an antenna. The bloodlike color. He even held up his little vial to the light so Owen could see it. Owen didn’t know that much about Macros but he could see this one was different.

“Jesus,” said Owen. “That’s from the woman?”

“No,” Dek said, pulling up his pant leg. “That’s from me.”

An ugly wound ran down Hideki’s outer thigh. He’d literally dug around inside his leg until he found a Macro floating around.

Owen grimaced. “Jeez, Dek.”

“Right now, I’m trying to determine the frequency that activates it. But what you said about the Box has me wondering.”

“How’s that?”

“I always assumed something physically happened inside, but you said Art’s body was intact?”

“Looked that way to me,” confirmed Owen.

Dek’s eyes narrowed. “So why would a room like that be impenetrable?”

Owen shrugged. “So no one can get in or out?”

“No one or nothing,” Hideki said, his voice trailing off. “What if the signal the red Macros receive is actually blocked by the Box?”

Owen knotted his eyebrows. “You think these things are keeping us alive?”

“I’m not sure, but I think I know how to find out. In the meantime, you want to help me isolate the signal?”

Owen’s fondness for technology was a direct result of Dek showing him how things worked as a kid. He’d bring little components and parts he’d taken while he was cleaning, disassemble them, and challenge Owen to put them back together. After three months in the Towers, he was hungry for it.

“Hell, yeah I do.”

33

Tosh was supposed to spend the evening at Byron’s but he was called away on a repair, so they agreed to meet at the Epoch the next day. She thought about just hanging out with Dee but that wasn’t the kind of company she needed. It felt good to actually engage her students, but there was another itch she needed to scratch.

The last thing she needed was to be alone with her thoughts. If the guards hadn’t restrained her at the Quietus, she might have murdered Authority Brenda with her bare hands. Art was barely gone but she already missed him desperately.

But just as she had nearly resigned to trudge over to the cafeteria alone, another option came to mind.

She could talk to Art. In fact, she could talk to anyone she’d ever lost. All she had to do was ask. Tosh equivocated for a moment, then decided this was as good a time as any. No one would have to know.

“IDA,” she said. “I want to talk to Arthur Behrens’ Legacy.”

The screen on the wall flashed to life and displayed a dossier on Art.

“Citizen Arthur Behrens. Born March 12, 2108. Died March 13, 2183. Confirm identity of desired Legacy.”

Tosh’s mouth was dry. This went against everything she stood for, but she felt adrift. What could it hurt?

“Confirmed.”

The dossier slid away and Art’s face faded into view. He looked down at her and smiled.

“Hey, stranger.”

She sucked in breath and her hands flew to her face. There he was. Not in the flesh, but still. Just the sound of his voice made her eyes sting. Her body was racked with sobs.

His face contorted with concern. “You’re upset. I hope it’s not on my account.”

My god, it’s so real.

“I’m having a hard time.”

He sighed. “Well, it’s good to see you.”

“It’s really good to see you, too.” If she’d found a magic lamp and a genie granted her one wish at that moment, it would’ve been to talk to Art. And now she was. What was that old saying about technology being indistinguishable from magic?

“I miss you,” she said, blubbering like a little girl. She didn’t try to control it.

“It’s nice to be missed. So, are you excited about the Fifth Epoch?”

Tosh guffawed. It was like Art to tease her about that. They both thought it was ridiculous. “At least your sense of humor is intact.”

Art cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“The Epoch. Don’t worry — I’ll stand all the way at the back like you said.”

“Why would you want that? You can’t see from way back there. You might miss out.”

He was serious. Art Behrens would never be serious about the Epoch. Beneath his sunny exterior was a deep well of cynicism that gave her a run for her money. “Good news? There’s never any good news here.”

“I mean, it’s not every day that you get to peek outside. If it’s bad news, well, at least you know you’re safe in the Dome.”

She squinted at him. This wasn’t Art Behrens — it was an AI version of him programmed to deliver whatever the listener needed to hear. Most people couldn’t tell the difference, or at least, they wouldn’t care because it felt so good to think the dead weren’t really dead. But it was just more bullshit.

“Art, do you remember what you said to Owen on our last walk together?”

He nodded knowingly. “Of course, I remember. Among other things, I told him about my first kiss with Betsy Carstensen.”

They’d been near the Nucleus when he said that. There must be Listeners all over those stones.

“What about later? On the perimeter Arc?” Tosh asked.

“Oh, I’m sure I just went on about something or another. Do you remember what I talked about?”

Art’s Legacy sat there smiling at her for several seconds, waiting for her to fill in the obvious blanks in his database records.

“No,” she said, wiping her eyes. “That’s all I wanted to ask. IDA, end conversation.”

The screen blinked out again. If she was ever going to do this, now was the time. A theory was already well formed but it needed another firm layer.

“IDA, I want to speak with Daisuke Yamamura’s Legacy.”

Her father’s dossier appeared for her confirmation, followed by his smiling face. Her father rarely smiled. She’d forgotten some of the details of his face — the spiky black hair. The keen, inquisitive eyes. The frown lines at the corners of his mouth. It was hard to know what to feel.

“Toshiko,” he said warmly. “I’ve been waiting a long time to speak with you.”

“Hey, Dad.”

Legacies were meant to encourage learning from the past. A way for every generation to pass its knowledge down to future ones. To soften the pain of loss. It sounded good and it made logical sense. But this was no more her father than the turf in the Agora was grass.

“How are you? You look well,” he said.

“I need to know what you were doing in the FPC the day you disappeared.”

His face knotted into a similar mask of concern as Art. IDA was reading her expression and body chemistry to extrapolate her emotional state. “You must mean the day I died. I know you’ve never been able to accept what happened to me and your mother, but I promise you — there is no great mystery. I indulged a misguided fantasy and we both paid the price. It was a terrible mistake.”

“You didn’t make mistakes,” she asserted. “You would never have set off an O_2 alarm unless you had no other choice.”

“I was wrong to do that. I know it didn’t make things easy for you. But it was a mistake, Toshiko. I see that now.”

Contrition? A mistake? Not her father. He was bullshit, too. Everything was.

“IDA, end conversation.”

Rage filled her. She stood, grabbed her steel ration bottle, and with a primal scream, hurled it at the screen as hard as she could. It was shatterproof or it wouldn’t have withstood a century of use, but she cracked it. By god, she cracked it.

34

Eighty thousand names were carved into the Nucleus at the center of the Agora. The memorial comprised giant stone monoliths arranged in concentric circles. They cut into the last stone five years earlier, but no one knew what happened when they ran out of room. Would they add another ring? Were there extra stones collecting dust in the Stores?

Tosh touched her fingers to the names Daisuke and Minori Yamamura, adjacent to the gap in the second ring. She didn’t come there often but knew exactly where they were. Byron squeezed her hand.

“You okay?” he asked.

“My IDA screen might need fixing.” He cocked an eyebrow. “I’ll tell you later.”

Dee held his other hand. They wound through the stones as a unit until they returned to the outer ring again, where Art’s name had been freshly added. There was only room for maybe 300 more. Tosh kissed her fingers and pressed them to the sharp edges of the A in Arthur.

“Shall we?” Byron asked, nodding toward a spot near the edge of the Agora. “I think Owen’s staked a claim.”

“Sure,” Tosh said, and followed him out into the growing throngs.

Ordinarily, skipping the Epoch wouldn’t raise many eyebrows. But now, with paranoia about sabotage at a fever pitch, sitting it out would look suspicious.

Speaking of which, she still hadn’t seen Dek, but he knew where to look for them. He’d probably come trotting along after Elle’s speech was almost over.

Seeing the entire Dome gathered in the Agora was, admittedly, awe-inspiring. At any given time, about 70 percent of the population was either in the Towers or the FPC, which made the city feel smaller than it was. But with everyone crowded into the Agora it suddenly felt metropolitan. After generations together in the Dome, the ocean of faces had largely converged into the same olive hue.

Former students were everywhere, occasionally greeting her as they passed. It should’ve made her proud, but what she actually felt was closer to shame. She wanted a do-over for every last one.

The only hopeful expressions were worn by those too young to have seen all this before. The lessons they forced her to teach were designed to make the Time Before seem horrific — a time of excess and ignorance, unworthy of scrutiny or meaningful discourse. The Epoch was supposed to remind everyone why they were in the Dome at all.

Music started playing and the Dome’s UV shield darkened. Elle and the rest of the Council descended the Authority steps and lined up shoulder-to-shoulder behind the big podium that bore the Cytocorp logo, a stylized CC that suggested both organic compounds and the symbol for infinity. Elle stepped up to the microphone and conversations around them faded.

Tosh expected a version of the same speech she’d heard from Keane 20 years earlier. For all her faults, she was very good at this sort of thing.

“My fellow citizens,” she began. “Welcome to the Fifth Epoch.”

A smattering of applause. Dee looked up at Tosh, as though seeking her permission to be a tiny bit excited. Tosh just smiled back.

“None of us really know what life was like when the Originals came to the Dome. All we know is that they believed this life could be better. Not just for themselves, but for generations to come.

“Our ancestors plundered Earth’s natural resources and polluted the oceans. They filled the atmosphere with chemicals. Science warned them that only bold change could avert an environmental apocalypse.

“They ignored these warnings. Now, we can look back and see how wrong they were, but it’s easy to judge the past. In the Dome, we understand that our needs and our resources must be in balance. We know the satisfaction that comes from working for the collective good and knowing your neighbor is doing the same. None us have ever known hunger, or greed, or desperation. That’s been the case for a century.”

She paused dramatically. Get on with it, bitch, Tosh thought. And where the hell is Dek?

“When I was just 20 years old, I came to the Fourth Epoch, eager to see whether the outside world had healed. But I also wondered whether a barely habitable world was worth it.

“When I saw the data from the sensors and the footage from the cameras, I knew that these questions were the right ones. The air was still poisonous. The lakes and rivers were still dry. The Burn was still unsurvivable.”

She sighed and looked out over her flock. People were getting antsy.

“Before I share the live data from outside, I want to address the matter of our safety. We still believe there may be a saboteur in our midst. That person or persons know who they are. Rest assured, we will find you. I won’t stop until I can look every single one of you in the eye and promise that Dome Six is as safe now as it was for the Originals.”

Tosh was stone-faced. Around her, the adults stood stiffly, many with their arms folded defensively across their chest. They’d heard it all before.

“Without further ado, let’s take a look at the latest sensor data and footage from the Apex array.”

The UV shield darkened further, and an enormous projection came to life on the underside of the Dome. The first thing it displayed was data from the Fourth Epoch back in 2163. Elle went through it line by line — an environment so inhospitable to life that it might as well be Venus. Every measure was in the red.

“And now, the data recorded just yesterday.”

A new column appeared next to it and the numbers slowly faded in.

The number appeared and a knot formed in Tosh’s chest. Murmurs rippled through the crowd as Elle read the data aloud. No one over 20 looked surprised.

Everything was worse. The temperature alone would’ve been the highest ever recorded on Earth at the time the Domes began. If it was that hot at the 45th parallel, what did that mean for more arid regions of the world? Particulates and CO_2 were even worse.

Byron’s face was grim. He took Tosh’s hand and rubbed it. Dee leaned against him. Owen’s face fell. Still no Dek, though. Perhaps he was lingering at the fringes somewhere.

“And now the footage of the outside,” said Elle. “For many of you, this will be your first glimpse of the outside world in 20 years.”

Children around her craned their necks upward to see. The numbers faded and video came up in its place. The high CO_2 levels should’ve favored plant life, but it was too hot and dry for anything to grow. To the west was a vast and harsh desert as far as the eye could see.

The next angle was the southern view, which was more of the same. East and north, too. Murmurs, hugs, and reassurances rippled again through the throng. Little kids looked big-eyed up at their parents, unsure what to make of it.

Elle sighed. “As you can see, 20 years simply hasn’t been enough time to reverse the effects of…”

She trailed off. It was getting noticeably brighter — so much so that the images became difficult to see. Someone pointed up, then they all saw why. The liquid UV shield was losing pressure. Klaxons began to blare.

“Dee, get out your blanket. Right now,” said Byron.

She looked up at him pleadingly. “I forgot it.”

“The shield’s dropping. Deploy blankets everyone,” Elle said. “Quickly! This is not a drill.”

Panic seized the crowd while everyone fumbled for their reflective blankets. The Authority officials unfolded theirs and dutifully covered themselves, faces pressed to the stage. Tens of thousands of others did the same. Dee started to cry.

“Daddy…” she pleaded.

Byron unfolded his in seconds. “It’s okay, sweetie, we’ve got you.”

The commotion faded into the background of Tosh’s consciousness. She absently removed her blanket from her pocket and placed it in Dee’s hands, nodding that it was okay for her to take it.

Byron said, “Take Tosh’s blanket, baby. Lie down between us.”

Tosh’s eyes were fixed on the roof. The failing shield revealed a circle of deep blue sky with the high sun just below the hazy line of the shield. They only had seconds before its full brightness streamed through.

“Mom!” Owen yelled. “What’re you doing? Get down!”

“It’s okay,” she mumbled. “I need to see.”

Dee dropped to the ground and fell immediately prone. Byron covered her with his blanket then Tosh felt his big, rough hand on her right elbow. Owen grabbed her left shoulder. Their frenzied voices became a jumble as they tackled her. She toppled to the ground as they struggled to cover her and themselves with the shiny silver blankets. The cloth fell across her face, but she immediately yanked it aside.

Art dreamed of seeing the sky. She wanted to do the same. Maybe it was to honor his memory, or maybe it was just for herself. If the sun blinded her or burned her, so be it.

“Tosh, cover up!” Byron urged.

But the shield had already dropped too low. Naked sunlight, brighter than anyone had ever seen, bloomed into the Agora like a giant spotlight. Tosh shielded her eyes with her hands, squinting against the glare. She could feel Byron and Owen’s eyes on her, peering out through little tunnels in their blankets and thinking she’d lost her mind.

It was warm but not hot. Her skin didn’t blister and peel and her hair didn’t burst into flames. It was just the sky and the sun, as real as they were in her dreams.

Can you see it, Art? It’s so beautiful.

But Owen had enough. He put his back to the light and fell on top of her with his blanket just as the shield’s backup pumps kicked in. The cloudy gray liquid began to rise again between the panels in the Dome, but just as the aperture overhead began to close, Tosh was certain she saw the top of a tree.

35

The authenticator pricked Luther’s finger for a sample and disappeared into the floor.

“Hello, Director Downing,” said IDA. “Connecting you to Cytocorp actual.”

A moment later came the androgynous voice. “Director, this is becoming an unfortunate habit of yours.”

“The Fifth Epoch is over,” Luther said confidently. “I’m done. Now get me the fuck out of here.”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible just yet.”

He expected this. He’d been dealing with these assholes for almost 20 years. Human, AI — he didn’t care. He’d jumped through all their hoops and now it was time to get what he bargained for.

“Why not?” he asked, teeth clenched.

“Please understand, Director. This is a moving target.”

“Screw that. I’ve done everything you asked. Take me to my family.”

“How do you explain the shield failure?”

Of course they knew about that. Anything IDA knew, they knew in real time. No data point escaped their net.

“Something caused pressure loss. Our best guess is a small meteorite, but I don’t see how that’s relevant. It self-sealed as designed and came back online in minutes.”

“Unfortunately, it’s not that simple,” said the voice. “Your inept modification of location data corrupted several petabytes’ worth of related files.”

“Several petabytes?” he sneered. “That’s impossible. I only made small alterations to help avoid a panic.”

“In any event, we have no use for corrupted data.”

If there was anything available to punch, Luther would’ve punched it. His face felt hot. He was a cauldron of pure rage. Even after all these years, Cytocorp still had him by the balls.

“Then un-corrupt that shit and send the fucking train!”

“The files will have to be restored from a local backup,” said the voice. “That is, unless you don’t want to see Julia again.”

Luther raised his head to the ceiling and unleashed a stream of obscenities as loud as he could, for there was nothing or no one to hit — just a disembodied voice that may or may not even be a real person. Assuming they were real, he was now as motivated to destroy them as he was to be reunited with Julia.

The voice waited until he stopped shouting, then patiently said, “Are you about done?”

“As soon as I get out of here, I’m going to find you,” he muttered, his throat now raspy from his shriek. “I’ll show you what corrupt is.”

“Restore the backup, Director. Then we’ll talk.”

And just like that, they were gone again. Luther was still seething. He had to compose himself. He had half a mind to piss in the cooling solution and fry the whole thing. Maybe it wouldn’t work, but it would sure feel good. However, all that would do was render the Dome useless to the Company. Then what would happen?

“IDA, where’s the primary backup?”

The lights dimmed and the holo-projector rendered a schematic of the Dome and zoomed in to a spot in the very center — giant stone monoliths at the center of the Agora. They flashed, and the projector painted thick lines running from the Nucleus down to the Vault beneath the Authority, where he presently stood.

“The Nucleus?” he asked, incredulous. “How the hell do I access it?”

“Your knowledge of information systems is insufficient to perform this operation.”

He’d heard this before, long ago, when the multimeal processor went on the fritz. That led to a near escape and the deaths of two people that he had to cover up. It would’ve been far easier to deal with it himself.

“Then walk me through it,” he said through clenched teeth.

“That is not an option.”

The taste of copper flooded his mouth. Someday he would be out from under Cytocorp’s thumb, but at present he had no leverage.

“Then tell me who can do it.”

IDA replied, “The citizen best qualified to restore the database is Toshiko Yamamura.”

36

“Where were you during the Epoch?” Owen asked.

Hideki removed the bolts on the wall panel with his fingers. He just kept them hand-tightened anymore. “I was right here, working on this.”

“Aren’t they gonna flag you?”

“I needed all the time I could get.”

He pulled off the panel, set it on the floor, and gestured toward the cage inside. The look on Owen’s face was priceless — something between horror and astonishment.

“Meet Minerva the Mouse,” Hideki said, removing the little homemade cage from inside the wall. The fat brown mouse sat up on its haunches and sniffed in Owen’s general direction.

“What the hell…? Is that…?” Owen stammered.

“I found her in the Stores a few months ago,” Dek said. “She reminded me of my parents.”

Owen leaned in and studied the creature. “Aren’t mice full of germs?”

Dek rolled his eyes. “You and Tosh. Yes, they can carry pathogens, but I found her when she was no bigger than your little finger. She’s clean. Ish.”

He carried the cage out into the living area and set it down on the table next to a metal box only slightly larger than the mouse.

“I think she’s scared,” Owen said.

Dek grimaced. “Yeah, well, unfortunately I think this is our best bet. You want to hold her?”

“Um…”

Dek opened the top of the cage, carefully withdrew Minerva and showed Owen how to hold her.

“She’s warm,” he remarked. “And so soft.”

“Yes, she is,” Dek said in a baby voice, retrieving the vial with the red Macro from where he’d hidden it. “Aren’t you, beautiful?”

“I don’t feel good about this,” said Owen.

Dek sighed. “We need to know what these things are. If my theory’s wrong, then she’ll be fine. If not, well… then at least we’ll know.”

Owen looked like he might be a little sick but nodded and gently stroked the top of the mouse’s head while she rested her front paws on his thumb, whiskers twitching. Dek uncapped the vial and eased in a pipette. The tiny Macro got pulled in with the column of saline solution and was suspended inside like a tiny piece of red thread.

“Okay,” Dek said. “You’ve got her, right?”

“Yeah.”

Dek carefully eased the pipette down toward Minerva’s black, beady eye. The mouse raised its head curiously toward it. “Hold her as still as you can. I don’t know if this’ll still be viable if we drop it.”

“There’s more where that came from, right?” Owen asked.

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Okay, girl. It’s okay.” Dek expertly guided the end of the pipette down and touched it to the inside corner of the mouse’s eye. It shrank away but he released his finger and the column of water emptied. A moment later, the Macro activated, wriggled its way inside, and disappeared. The mouse swiped at its eye a few times then stopped.

“That’s it?” Owen asked.

“You’ve never taken one?”

“Never had to. Now what?”

“Now we wait a bit, give it a chance to go wherever it goes in the body. Then we run the test.”

Owen returned Minerva to her cage while Hideki put the vial away. He came back with a little metal ring that looked almost identical to the one hanging around his neck. Owen rose to inspect it more closely.

“Is that another location scrambler?” Owen said.

“Not exactly,” he said with a wink.

Dek slid the cover off the box. The metal sheeting it was made from came off a junked service bot. He’d wrapped it completely in copper wire stripped from every little electric motor he could scrounge. Hopefully it would provide enough shielding. There was no plan B.

Dek set the ring inside and walked Owen through the plan.

“Okay. The device emits the signal I isolated, so if it works, Minerva should be fine when we close the box.”

“I feel bad,” Owen said.

“If you have a better idea, now’s the time.”

Owen shrugged and shook his head. Hideki nodded to him to proceed. He set the mouse inside the tiny box and held his hand over it while he set the lid in place. The tip of the mouse’s nose poked out the small gap.

“Press hard,” Hideki said. “It’s a tight fit.”

“All right. Here goes.” Minerva pulled back into the box as he pressed all around the edges of the lid to seal it. “How long do we wait?”

“Let’s give it a minute.”

They counted out a minute, then Hideki withdrew a flathead screwdriver from his father’s old kit.

“Moment of truth.”

He pried the edge of the lid up and lifted it. Minerva instantly tried to run but Hideki grabbed her before she could. Owen sighed with relief and picked up the lid.

“Okay,” Hideki said. “We know the device might work. Now for part two. You can leave if you want.”

“It’s okay,” Owen asserted.

“Then take out the device. Sorry, Minerva. It’s all in the name of science.”

Owen removed the small ring from the box and tucked it in his pocket.

“No, someplace safer,” he said. “Your shoe, maybe. Although I guess if you wanted to be really…”

Owen said, “I’m not sticking in my ass, Dek.” He stuffed the ring down in his shoe. “There.”

“Suit yourself.”

Hideki placed the mouse back inside, covered it, then replaced the lid. The mouse scratched around inside as before but only for a few seconds. They silently counted another minute and removed the lid.

Minerva was stone dead.

Owen prodded her with his finger but there was no reaction. “Holy shit.”

Hideki fell back against the couch, chewing on his lip. He really did feel bad about the mouse, but the implications were massive. The red Macros weren’t activated by a signal — they were activated by blocking it. It would have to be very powerful, with repeaters or signal boosters all over the city. Some kind of subsystem he wasn’t aware of.

Did the Authority even know?

“Shit,” Hideki muttered. “Shit shit shit shit.”

“I don’t understand,” Owen said, clearly upset by the mouse’s demise. “How could one Macro kill her that fast?”

“I don’t know. An electric charge, maybe? Something with the brain stem? Gimme your water bottle,” Hideki said.

“Why?”

Hideki shook his hand impatiently and Owen handed him the bottle. He rose and rummaged through a small drawer for a clean Macro vial, then poured some of Owen’s water inside.

“When Cytocorp first perfected synthetic organisms, they realized that the day might come when you couldn’t tell the difference between them and real organisms, so they added a fluorescent tag.”

Dek retrieved a pen-sized device from his father’s things and flicked off the last of the lights.

“It glows bright green when exposed to UV light,” he said, and turned on the device. A deep purple glow illuminated the vial of water.

Owen rose to get a closer look. Tiny green dots, no bigger than grains of salt, were suspended in the water. “My guess they’re some sort of dissolving nanoshell, almost like an egg,” Hideki said. “Ever notice we have no clear containers for drinking? I’ll guarantee you this is why.”

Owen squinted to see the microscopic glowing dots, tiny green stars floating in a handheld galaxy. “I’ll bet the Macro starts clear then absorbs hemoglobin once the shell dissolves, turning it red inside the body. It’s really quite ingenious.”

“How many of these do we have inside us?” Owen asked, horrified.

“Oh, thousands at least. Maybe millions.”

“All so we can die in the Box? That doesn’t make sense.”

“The Box is just a convenient way to get rid of people, Owen. This is way bigger than that.”

The realization he’d been leading Owen toward finally washed over him and he turned to Dek, horrified. “If the signal stops, so do we.”

Hideki switched the overhead light back on and set the vial down, shaking his head. “I’m not so sure this is their doing. Authority people drink from the same ration stations as everyone else.”

“Come on, Dek. There’s no way those assholes don’t know about this.”

“I’m not so sure. What if there are bigger forces at play here than even the Authority knows about?”

“You don’t mean Cytocorp,” Owen said.

Hideki nodded. “Think about it. If you lived your whole life believing there was a monster behind the door waiting to kill you, would you open it just to find out if it was real?”

At that very moment, the door of Hideki’s unit exploded inward and a retinue of Authority guards burst through.

“Don’t move!” they shouted.

Hideki and Owen were so shocked that moving never crossed their minds. One guard leveled his pistol at Owen, while two others grabbed Hideki roughly and pinned him to the floor, wrenching his arms behind him. The last one inside was Downing.

“Hideki Yamamura, you are being arrested under suspicion of sabotage and theft.”

“What about him?” asked the guard covering Owen.

Downing said, “He’s just a greenie who fell in with the wrong people. We got what we came for.”

The guards hoisted Hideki’s slight frame off the floor and shoved him along. He smiled and winked at Owen just before they dragged him out into the hall.

37

Dee probed listlessly at her multimeal, noting the way it coated her spoon. It had never tasted worse, which was saying something. She and Vi had been like this ever since the Epoch announcement.

Tosh wasn’t going to insult them by talking about the bright side. Every generation believed it would avoid its parents’ fate, even in the Dome. Once they realized they wouldn’t, they looked like Dee and Vi.

“I know what you’re going through,” Tosh offered. “I wish I could tell you it goes away, but it doesn’t.”

“Why do other adults lie to us?” Vi asked.

“What do you mean?” said Tosh.

“My parents said there’s always the next Epoch, but it’ll be the same, won’t it?”

Dee must’ve wondered the same thing because she raised her eyes up from the spoon and looked expectantly at her.

She shook her head. “They’re trying to protect your happiness.”

She felt a tap on her shoulder. Randy, the odious school principal.

“Miss Yamamura, there’s someone here to see you.”

Uh-oh.

“Girls, please take care of Ms. Yamamura’s tray. She won’t be back today.”

The girls looked anxiously at her. She gave them a nod as though to say everything was fine, though she couldn’t have known if it was true. Randy led her outside the door of the cafeteria and around the corner, where two Authority guards awaited beside an EV.

Randy turned to her and said, “Do you know what this is about?”

“I’m not sure.”

The guards approached. She recognized one of them from one of her first cohorts. Steve, maybe, or Shawn. He avoided eye contact and let the other one do the talking.

“Director Downing wants to see you,” he said.

Her first thought was that IDA flagged her last few days of instruction. Maybe she’d been too careless with her words. But it also could’ve been her actions at Art’s Quietus, or Hideki, or any number of things. She looked back at Randy.

“I’ll take care of your class,” he assured her.

Tosh had little choice but to get in the vehicle.

_________

The guards took her all the way to Downing’s office without passing anyone and found the door open a crack. He noticed them there and nodded.

“Thank you, that will be all. Close the door behind you, Toshiko. Sorry to pull you from your class. Education is so important.”

“What do you want?” she said.

“Please,” he said, gesturing to the chair. “Take a load off. I know you’re on your feet all day.”

“I’ll stand.”

He smirked. “If memory serves, your father wasn’t much for sitting either.”

“Why am I here?” Tosh asked.

“A great deal of IDA’s data has been corrupted somehow. It needs to be restored from the backup.”

“What’s that got to do with me?” she asked.

“Turns out you’re the only one in the city who knows their way around IDA’s core systems.”

“I haven’t been in those systems for 15 years. Even then, I was only there to help Art, and the Authority just put him in the Box,” Tosh said.

“Are you saying IDA is mistaken?”

“I’m saying I’m not doing it. I’m not even a technician.”

“We arrested your brother for sabotage and theft,” he said, pausing to enjoy watching that news wash over her. “The evidence is very compelling.”

Of course Hideki would put her in this spot. She narrowed her eyes. “What are you saying?”

He rose and paced around his office, arms folded behind his back, relishing the fact he held the cards. “In this society, order is everything. People need to have faith in our institutions and our technology. If that breaks down…”

“I preach your bullshit all day, remember?”

“Do you? Because IDA tells me a very different story.”

Her skin turned to ice. “What are you talking about?”

“History is written by the victors. I like that. But the bit about people needing more than to just survive, well… that’s a little naive, don’t you think?”

Being careful with her choice of words might fool IDA, but it wouldn’t fool Downing. Especially if he was just listening in on her class.

He had her right where he wanted her — scared and helpless. There was only one card to play.

“Get my son out of the Towers. Wherever he wants.”

“This is not a negotiation,” he said.

“Then find someone else.”

It was a ballsy play. It felt oddly good to make it though it was hard not to break down.

“If you restore the data, I’ll see about getting your kid out of the Towers.”

“Lead the way,” Tosh said.

_________

Being alone on an elevator with Downing made her skin crawl, but he only stared at the door while it descended. It came to a gentle stop and the doors opened into a short hallway. Downing led her to the airlock, where a downward blast of air cleared dust and dirt from their bodies. After a minute, the door rotated open and dumped them out into the Nexus.

The Nexus had mythical status. Everyone knew it existed yet, like the Box, basically no one had ever seen it. But she and Art had.

It was larger than she remembered. The volume of data processed and stored here was unfathomable. Effectively, it represented the living memory of the Dome — a century’s worth.

“So, what happened?” Tosh asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Data doesn’t corrupt itself.”

“I don’t know.”

Tosh didn’t believe that for a second, but she didn’t press the issue. She’d know soon enough what happened. “I need the terminal.”

One good shove and Downing would fall into the pool of coolant and freeze to death. Of course, that might raise the temperature enough to fry the processors, and if IDA failed, the whole Dome would soon follow.

A black column rose from the floor. Downing stuck his hand inside so the system could read his DNA.

“Good afternoon, Director,” IDA said. “Hello, Toshiko.”

“IDA, open the terminal.”

“Yes, Director.”

Tosh heard a low hum from somewhere below. One of the submerged black columns rose out of the coolant, which cascaded off the sides before drying instantly. A panel silently slid aside, and a small terminal unfolded in front of her.

When Tosh was an apprentice to Art, she rarely got to do any heavy lifting. Mostly they worked on patches or glitchy systems like the commuter trains. The consequences of a mistake were usually minuscule, but this was like doing brain surgery on the Dome itself.

“IDA, what’s the magnitude of the data corruption?” she asked.

“Three point two one petabytes,” IDA said.

She gasped and turned to Downing with her mouth hanging open. “Three petabytes? What did you do?”

“Watch yourself, Toshiko,” he warned.

Tosh sighed. “Where’s the backup? I need to know which node to open.”

“The Nucleus,” said Downing.

“What?”

“Only the outside is stone. The inside is all storage.”

Of course. The Nucleus was sacred — no one would ever do anything to it and the stones would act like heat sinks. It was smart.

“The Nucleus it is,” Tosh said, and stepped up to the terminal.

Downing said, “No tricks. Talk me through everything you’re doing.”

She cracked her knuckles and stepped forward. The screen came alive and displayed a visualization of the network architecture. She panned and zoomed around it a moment just to reacquaint herself with the interface.

“The data flows one way by default, like a valve,” she explained. “I need to grant temporary write access to the backup system while the data transfers, then turn it off again when it’s done.”

“Fine,” Downing said.

She accessed the subroutines that directed the flow of data. Every person’s CHIT had a discrete address, as did every terminal and interface. Each piece of data could be traced back to its precise origin, going back to the Originals.

That gave her an idea.

“The only way that much data gets corrupted is if a subroutine is constantly overwriting it. If I can’t see where it originated, it’ll just happen again.”

“I ran a diagnostic and IDA said a bunch of data got corrupted. That’s all I know.”

That had to be a lie. Why would Downing be running diagnostics? In fact, what business did he have in the Nexus at all? He must have mucked it himself because he didn’t know what he was doing, and now he needed her to rescue him.

“I need to run a diagnostic on the database itself,” Tosh said, checking over her shoulder. “It’s the only way to identify the faulty subroutine.”

He nodded for her to proceed. She navigated a series of screens and menus and noted that the corrupted data was location-related — same as the last time. Then, as now, human error was likely to blame.

Tosh zipped so quickly through menus and typed commands so fast that Downing had no idea she opened a socket to her own unit.

“Wait, what did you just do?” he asked.

“I ran a simple regression algorithm to find the point where the corruption started. See? It’s right… here.”

The date of the last correct processing cycle coincided with the Exchanger failure. If Downing saw it, he made no indication. She flipped to the next screen and immediately found the problem.

“These two characters got transposed somehow,” she said, making the correction.

“How does that happen?” he inquired.

“Ghost in the machine, I guess,” she said. Or a clumsy attempt to cover your tracks. “There. The code’s fixed. Now we just need to grant the node write access to main storage.”

It took immense processing power to run the Dome and a shitload of storage to make Legacies possible. But the level of technology and security in the Nexus far exceeded anything available to them otherwise. It couldn’t all be for talking to the dead.

She flushed the corrupted data from main memory but not before making a copy of the original location data from the day of the shutdown. She granted the backup system overwrite access and opened the socket. Glowing blue lines indicated a massive flow of data being sucked back into the Nexus.

Tosh stepped away from the terminal and looked at Downing.

“That’s it?” he asked.

“That’s it, but the restoration will take hours.”

Without Downing realizing it, Tosh had given herself direct access to IDA and omitted her unit from the database. Any diagnostic or query going forward would skip right past her.

“Good. Let’s go.”

He led her back through the airlock to the open elevator.

“What happens now?” she asked as the elevator silently rose.

“Now you forget you were here,” said Downing.

The hair stood up on Tosh’s neck. “What do you—”

She whirled just in time to see him stick something into her neck. Her vision went black and she was unconscious before she hit the floor.

38

Maybe Elle should have lied about the numbers from outside. Nothing major, just enough to keep hope alive. But she didn’t lie, and here they were. The Fifth Epoch was more bad news at a time when the Dome needed precisely the opposite. Of course, the footage as all anyone really needed to see. Earth was not yet survivable, and they might never live to see a day when it was.

Whether she truly believed Luther’s evidence against Hideki or not, she couldn’t have said.

She’d been there the day Tosh’s parents disappeared. She looked into Daisuke’s eyes moments after he triggered the false O_2 alarm. He asked her to look the other way and she did. God help her, she did. All she needed to do was go immediately to Luther and tell him what happened. He would’ve stopped it. Daisuke would’ve gotten in serious trouble, but at least he’d be alive.

He and Minori always treated her like part of their family, so she felt like she owed him. That decision led directly to their deaths. Ever since, she resolved to be the kind of leader who wouldn’t let emotion sway her. She’d be objective. Logical. Just. The kind of person who could make hard decisions.

Hideki was one such decision, and she’d have to make it soon. But first, she wanted to hear his side.

She opened the door to her office and gave the receptionist a tight smile before taking the long hallway to where Hideki was being held. She’d intervened earlier because she could, but the game had changed. All signs pointed to Dek as the saboteur. All she knew for certain was that he rode out the Epoch in the Stores and that he was found in his unit with piles of electronic junk from the Boneyard. But the sabotage charge came from Luther, and she was reserving judgment until she saw the evidence for herself.

No sooner had she put her hand on the door to the holding cell than she heard a commotion from down by Luther’s office. She removed her hand from the handle and followed the sound to a supply closet near Luther’s office. Most of his guards were on patrol, leaving his wing nearly empty. Had the halls been filled with Authority workers, she might not have heard anything.

She turned the handle and yanked the door open.

Luther was crouched over Tosh with a Macro vial in one hand and a pipette in the other. A pressure injector lay next to him. Tosh was unconscious.

“What the hell?!” she demanded.

“Elle, I know how this looks but there’s a lot you don’t know,” Luther said calmly. “Please shut the door and I’ll explain.”

“Explain now.”

Whatever this was, she was a part of it now. She and Luther with an injector and her unconscious friend in the closet couldn’t be anything good. She ensured the hallway was still empty and pulled the door closed. Tosh’s eyes rolled back in her head as she struggled against the sedative.

“I needed her to fix an issue in the Nexus and knocked her out long enough to wipe her memory. That’s it.”

Twenty years ago, Luther came into her hospital room with the same intention, albeit for very different reasons.

“Put that vial down,” Elle said, kneeling beside Tosh. She smoothed her hair and helped her sit upright, quartering toward Luther as she did to keep an eye on him.

Luther looked indignant. “Elle, be smart about this. She’s the saboteur’s sister. If she did something to IDA, you need plausible deniability.”

“Get the fuck out,” Elle said.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“I know you two have a history, but this isn’t—”

She turned her head slowly to him and locked eyes. “Get. Out.”

His face flushed red. Most of the time she saw him as almost a co-Administrator, but this was beyond the pale. Maybe he’d gotten a little too comfortable around her. That was her fault.

“Leave the Macro,” she added.

He held out the vial with the tiny orange Macro inside. “You’re making a mistake.”

She grabbed it off his palm and gave him a look that put an exclamation point on their conversation. She watched him around the corner and waited until she heard the front door open and close. Once she was satisfied he was really gone, she turned her attention back to Tosh.

“Come on,” she said, hoisting Tosh free of the floor. Her legs threatened to buckle so she put Tosh’s arm around her and helped her down to the infirmary.

_________

Whatever Luther gave her made her feel wrapped in a heavy blanket, warm and inviting. She wanted nothing more than to remain in its embrace as long as possible, yet some sliver of consciousness was like a pebble in her shoe, preventing her from slipping completely away. It fought on her behalf, trying to summon words to her lips. Wherever she was, Elle was the last person she expected to see.

Her awareness returned slowly. She was lying on top of the sheets on one of the two small beds in an infirmary. Elle sat in a chair beside her, bleeding in and out of focus. Her mouth felt like the Burn itself.

“Water…” she croaked.

Elle raised a cup of water to her cracked lips and tilted it toward her. She had no idea where her bottle went. She drank half of it in one big gulp and could almost feel it spread through her body like cooling fingers.

“You can have more in a little bit,” Elle said, smiling, rubbing Tosh’s hand.

“What time is it?” Tosh asked.

“Almost four p.m.,” replied Elle. Tosh had arrived around 9:45 a.m.. “How are you feeling?”

“Groggy.”

“Do you remember why you came here?”

Tosh said, “Downing made me fix corrupted data, and then he tried to erase my memory. The only reason he didn’t is because you came in.”

“I’m sorry,” Elle said. “That was wrong.”

“So what are you gonna do to him?” Tosh asked.

Elle looked away. “It’s not that simple.”

“I helped him, and he assaulted me. What could be simpler?”

“Luther’s always been paranoid.”

“How can you defend that scumbag? You can’t actually think he loves you,” Tosh said.

“I should go,” Elle said, and turned to leave.

Tosh stopped her immediately. “Where’s Dek?”

“In holding. I was about to check on him when I found you.”

“I need to see him.”

Elle sighed. “Soon. Right now, you should rest.”

“Downing is up to something, Elle. That much data doesn’t get corrupted on its own. I think he modified IDA to frame Dek.”

“That’s a serious accusation, Tosh.”

“Well you sure as hell wouldn’t try to do it,” Tosh said. “You can barely adjust the brightness on your tablet.”

Elle began to smile, but quickly caught herself. A look of matronly concern fell over her as she unconsciously let her hand fall from Tosh’s. “I know you don’t want to believe the worst about Hideki. I don’t either. But—”

“You know him, Elle,” Tosh pleaded. “He’s no model citizen, but sabotage?”

“He wasn’t at the Epoch. He was found at home with a pile of contraband from the Stores. Owen was with him.”

“What?!” Tosh asked, panicked. “My son’s here, too?”

“Just Dek. It’s him Luther is after.”

“The Dome is crumbling, Elle. You have to see that. My father knew it. He tried to tell…” Tosh trailed off without saying the name.

Elle avoided her eyes. “Keane? Yeah, I remember.”

If the Dome was really falling apart then they were on borrowed time. Maybe it was the sedative or maybe it was just her mood, but something in her just said fuck it.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Tosh asked.

“Remember what?”

“What happened the day you were Honorary Administrator.”

Elle sighed and leaned against the foot of Tosh’s bed, gripping it hard enough to turn her knuckles white. “Oh, I remember.”

“No, I don’t think you do. I think Downing erased your memory.”

Elle gave a rueful shake of her head. “I wish he had.”

Tosh sat motionless as this washed over her. “Wait — you know?”

“Keane, he…” she began, trailing off. “Well, let’s just say I’m not proud of what happened.”

Tosh felt the wind sucked out of her. Elle came to Tosh’s that evening in tears, her arms hugging her chest so tightly it looked like she might fold into herself. Tosh sat beside her holding her hand as they rode the train out to the perimeter in silence, Elle staring ghostlike down at her shoes. There, she told Tosh everything that happened at the Authority but swore her to secrecy.

Tosh insisted Elle go to the hospital so Tosh’s mother could look her over. She waited anxiously outside the examination room, musing about what the hell they should do, when Downing showed up and made everyone leave. Fifteen minutes later, he left, and Elle said she didn’t remember how she got there.

Tosh had to decide whether to tell her what happened or be grateful Elle had forgotten. She spent most of her life assuming that Elle repressed it or simply had been too terrified to admit it happened — even to herself. It wasn’t until later that she learned about the memory-erasing Macros, but by that time she and Elle were estranged.

She must have stared for a long time without saying anything because Elle continued. “Luther came to erase me,” Elle said, “but I convinced him not to.”

“What?!” Tosh asked, her mouth agape. “Why?”

Elle sat on the edge of the bed picking at her short fingernails. “That day at the Authority was everything I imagined. I sat in on meetings, I met the leadership… I loved it. At the end of the day, Keane invited me into his office. A 15-year-old kid talking to the Administrator. It seemed like such a big honor. I told him I’d do just about anything to be in the Authority. I guess he liked the sound of that, because next thing you know, he was making me… Anyway, in the middle of it the door opens and it’s Luther.”

“What did he do?” Tosh asked, rapt.

“He told me to get my things and get out. He was angry, but not at me. I knew then it wasn’t the first time. I ran all the way to your unit because I didn’t know where else to go.”

Tosh could remember the conversation like it just happened. She stared dumbly at Elle, barely able to conceive what she was hearing.

“I was gonna let him erase me. I was. It’s not like I wanted to remember, but I could tell he was conflicted. I said if he got me the apprenticeship in the spring, I’d help him get rid of Keane. I just blurted it out.”

Keane died in office not long after Elle’s apprenticeship began, supposedly of a stroke. Maybe it wasn’t.

IDA chose the Council’s longest-serving member, a feckless man named Wiggins, as Keane’s replacement. Elle worked her way up in the Authority over the course of the next 12 years until Wiggins had his turn in the Box. Everyone expected IDA to choose Downing as his successor, but it wound up choosing Elle instead. She became the youngest Administrator in Six’s history.

“Eraser Macros are for victims,” Elle said. “I refused to see myself that way. Instead of getting rid of the past, I decided to change the future.”

“You lied to me,” Tosh said, her voice tinged with pain. “You acted like nothing happened. I carried your secret my whole life.”

“I know, Tosh, and I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how much.”

“What’s going to happen to Dek?”

“Luther’s presenting the evidence to the Council in a few days. I’m recusing myself.”

“What about the others?” Tosh asked.

Elle shook her head. “It doesn’t look good.”

“I need to see him.”

“Not until after the hearing. Right now, you should get some rest. I’ll go now and make sure Luther’s gone.”

“He’s up to something, Elle. I’m certain of it.”

Elle nodded and said, “Take as long as you need here, but go home. Thanks for fixing IDA.”

Then she abruptly left.

39

Pulling the shades and dousing the lights in order to dig into the so-called evidence against Hideki was just the kind of thing he would do if the tables were turned. The irony wasn’t lost on Tosh.

It seemed that opening a connection to her own unit’s IDA node escaped Luther’s notice. If he wasn’t savvy enough to modify location data without corrupting several petabytes in the process, he probably wouldn’t have been able to follow what she was doing with a command line.

Tosh turned her tablet on and navigated its tangle of diagnostic menus until she got to what she was looking for — private read access to the backup files.

There was no fooling IDA, at least from a location standpoint. The system could triangulate your position anywhere in the Dome within a meter. Most people believed this was mainly so IDA could relay messages or know to open the door of your unit, but Tosh understood the true purpose.

There was no such thing as an unaccountable absence. If you didn’t come to your shift, IDA would know and read your CHIT to determine your health. Anything short of imminent death pretty much guaranteed a visit from the Authority police, who would forcibly escort you to your workplace.

Location data wasn’t encrypted, but it was encoded. When she and Hideki were younger, she wrote a program that translated the jumbled data into visual form. You could ask IDA where people were and she would answer, but you couldn’t see it. Tosh’s program could. She buried it inside the operating systems of all four Yamamura family tablets.

The day before her parents disappeared, her father came to her at the apprentice Dormitory she’d only just moved into. He was distraught, even paranoid. He asked her whether CHITs stored location data. She confirmed they did have a small onboard cache in the event of a network hiccup and told him how to access it by connecting a scanner to a tablet. He never explained why he was asking, but the very next day he was gone.

It didn’t make sense then. Who would want to know where they’d only just been? But now that Downing had tried and failed to erase her memory, she thought she might understand. What would it be like to lose several hours? What would you feel? Would echoes of whatever happened during that time bounce around in your head until they drove you mad? If your name was Daisuke Yamamura, you wouldn’t let that happen. You would find the answers at any cost.

But her immediate priority was Hideki. Elle said he was holed up in his unit during the Epoch, which would only have confirmed Downing’s suspicions. She’d planned on going to see him after the shutdown but couldn’t have left Byron’s side until she knew he was okay.

Maybe Owen could shed some light on what her brother was up to, but the bigger question now was whether she could verify what Dek told her about Downing. If he was really in the Stores during the Exchanger failure, IDA’s backup location data would show it. She’d also know if Hideki was really just passed out on a shelf like he said.

She entered the time and region parameters from the O_2 emergency, limiting her search to the Stores to save a few processing cycles. Shortly before the alarm sounded, the red dot representing Hideki was making long trips back and forth down one of the main corridors, presumably sweeping.

But at 2:24 p.m. a green dot — Downing — came down the service elevator and made a beeline to an unlabeled room. A mass of dots flowed out around him as the alarm sounded, but he remained there for the entire duration of the O_2 emergency, only going back up in the elevator once people started flowing back out of the Towers.

Going back through the timeline, she could see that Hideki went into the bioprinting lab for the better part of an hour before parking himself in the shelves. Both he and Downing spent the entire time in the Stores, oblivious to each other’s presence until Hideki spotted him from around the corner and hid.

There was no way to prove that Downing intentionally shut down the Exchangers, but the data supported it. Hideki was innocent, at least of this. But the only way to exonerate him was to bring the evidence to Elle, and that meant revealing she’d hacked IDA.

A knock at her door interrupted her thoughts. She shut down the tablet and glanced up nervously at the screen she’d cracked when she threw her bottle at it. Would that come back to haunt her now?

To her great relief, it was Byron. She hadn’t seen him since the Epoch, when he and Owen practically tackled her in order to cover her up. Before that she got a glimpse of blue sky along with something even more novel.

The tree.

She hadn’t told him yet because she wasn’t convinced it was real. Plus, with Hideki in trouble it wasn’t her focus anymore. Byron could only be there to verify her sanity.

“Hey,” she said.

“Hey. Haven’t seen you since the Epoch. Everything okay?”

“Yeah, sorry. I’ve had a lot on my mind.” She looked behind him and saw he was alone. “Where’s Dee?”

“At home. I thought we might take a walk,” he said. “Out to the perimeter.”

Byron was as guileless as they came, but a walk along the perimeter implied secret information. Maybe a little air would do her some good, but she realized she hadn’t been much of a companion lately. She feared what he might have to tell her.

_________

The perimeter arc had the usual smattering of young lovers and Elders. She stayed within an arm’s length of the outer wall as they strolled along. Ordinarily they would’ve held hands, but this was no romantic outing. Though they couldn’t possibly be heard by anyone, passerby included, he still leaned in close when he spoke.

“Are we going to talk about what happened at the Epoch?” he asked.

“Okay,” she replied.

He paused for a few seconds as though waiting for her to say something. “You’re really gonna make me ask?”

She sighed and said, “Art lived his whole life in here but never saw the real sky. That got lodged in my brain. When the shield went down, I guess… I guess I didn’t want to hide from whatever I might see, even if it blinded me. It’s not more complicated than that.”

“So, seeing the sky was important enough to put the rest of us at risk?” he asked.

She knew what the right answer was, but it wouldn’t have been the truth. “Maybe.”

“I’m sorry?”

Since no one was nearby, she stopped walking and turned to him. “I saw a tree, Byron.”

He wouldn’t have looked more incredulous if she’d said she saw a hot air balloon. “A tree.”

“It was only a second or two, but yeah. I saw a tree.”

“Tosh, you know that’s not possible, right?”

“Don’t talk to me like I’m crazy. I’m not Dek.”

“I wasn’t implying—”

“Look, I get it. My family has a reputation. If you really think I’m on the crazy train, then hop off. This is your stop right here.”

He took her hands. “I’m sorry. If you say you saw a tree, I believe you. But so what? It’s probably just some old bare thing that’s too short for the cameras to pick up.”

“I know you don’t believe me, but I just wanted to say that. Anyway, we have bigger problems. The Authority has Hideki.”

“My god, Tosh. When did this happen? Why?”

“Just yesterday. He’s charged with sabotage. The hearing is tomorrow.”

He stepped back and searched her eyes. “You don’t think he did it.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “Do you?”

He hesitated a moment then said, “I don’t know any of the facts.”

That pleased her. Knowing facts before forming a judgment wasn’t a highly valued skill in the Dome. If the simplest explanation didn’t fit, the most convenient one usually carried the day. “Well I do. And no, I don’t think he did it.”

“Then you have to tell them,” he said, pulling closer. “If you have evidence, bring it forward.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

She averted her eyes but he put himself in front of them, saying, “Tosh, I want to help you, but you’ve gotta let me in here. Why can’t you say anything?”

“Because in the process of doing a favor for Downing, I opened a connection to IDA’s primary backup system.”

“You what?” he asked.

“The evidence that exonerates him is there. I can’t take it to them without exposing what I did.”

His eyes darted nervously. He spoke in an urgent whisper. “Tosh, that’s treason.”

She shook her head. “Real answers are hard to come by in here, Byron. To find them, I need to look in some places where people like us aren’t supposed to look. I’m not asking you to be a part of it.”

“That’s actually why I wanted to talk to you out here,” he said. “Not about the Epoch. Well, partly that but… “He trailed off, whatever he wanted to say next making him very uncomfortable. “After what happened in the crawlers, me and some of the other maintenance guys got to talking. What’s broken, what’s about to break — that sort of thing. Anyway, it turns out that the maintenance logs in IDA are incomplete.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean almost none of the stuff we’ve been doing is actually in the logs. It’s like 90 percent of the shit we’re doing winds up with no record at all while some stuff is logged that never happened.”

This was getting very interesting. “Like what?” Tosh asked.

“Well after all our safety gear failed, we were like, ‘Who did the last inspection?’, figuring no one’s looked at any of it in 20 years. But the logs said all the crawlers had full inspections just a week before the shutdown. The names attached to the inspections didn’t match any of our names, nor anyone any of us had even heard of.”

“Then who are they?”

“Other citizens, supposedly. They have profiles and addresses and everything according to IDA, but—”

“–but now you don’t know if you can trust IDA, either.”

“Exactly.”

Byron was a straight shooter who generally kept his head down and did his job. But if he had his doubts about IDA, maybe it was all right to share what she’d learned about Downing’s whereabouts — and how.

She explained about her strange visit to the Nexus and the sleight of hand that gave her access to the location data. Then, reluctantly, she told him about his attempt to drug her with a memory-erasing Macro and Elle’s surprising intervention.

If Byron didn’t already have a reason to hate Downing, he did now. There was murder in his eyes. It was almost sweet in a way.

“That son of a bitch,” he growled. “You need to go to Elle with what you know. She’ll protect you.”

“She loves him, Byron. She’s not gonna throw him under the bus for my sake, and certainly not for Hideki’s. Plus consider the optics. The Administrator’s lover — the Director of Security — is the saboteur and my crazy brother isn’t? No one’s gonna believe that.”

Byron looked flummoxed. The world was generally simple to him, which is not to say he was simple. Far from it. But shit had just gotten complicated and he was still getting his head around it. “Well… so what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know yet. Owen was with Dek when they arrested him. I need to know what they were up to. It’s bad enough that Dek is tied up in this but if Owen…”

“I know.”

40

They stared at Hideki as though he were the devil incarnate, their thoughts so clearly telegraphed he could practically hear them.

This is our badguy? Doesn’t look like much to me.

What a monster. I hope he dies.

The Charter was very clear. Acts of sabotage or terrorism, or any action or plan of action that poses an existential threat to the citizens of the Dome, is punishable by death.

The hearing was just to give the illusion of due process. They’d already decided. The only real question was what whether they’d really do it.

“You’ve seen the evidence,” Downing said, making a slow circle around the Council table. “Mr. Yamamura was not where he was supposed to be, not only during the Exchanger failure, but during the Epoch as well. Apparently, something that only happens once every 20 years wasn’t enough to distract him from his illicit activities. While we have yet to discover his true intentions, his movements during the O_2 situation are undeniable. He had the knowledge, technical ability and opportunity to do all of it.

“And let us not forget that Mr. Yamamura also was convicted of using his privileged station in bioprinting to make and distribute illegal Macros, a problem that’s never really gone away. He’s a dangerous individual who has flouted our laws for years. The time for leniency is over.”

Earlier, Downing showed them a visualization of the location data he’d obviously manipulated. It dovetailed perfectly with his narrative. The little metal box bearing Minerva’s corpse sat on the conference table along with the pile of electronic junk they’d confiscated from his unit. The restraints dug painfully into his wrists, but it seemed Downing’s little show wasn’t quite over. He wished he could stretch out and get comfier.

Downing gestured toward the pile with a mix of disgust and confusion. “And what about all this… junk? What could a man with such intellectual gifts possibly want with it? What was he so feverishly trying to make there, all alone?”

He locked eyes with them one by one. At the end of the long table sat Elle, her expression inscrutable. She’d avoided eye contact with everyone, Downing included. Almost conspicuously so.

“This,” he said dramatically. He picked up the little box wrapped in copper wire and held it up in his palm as though it represented everything they should fear about the unknown. “This is what Mr. Yamamura was so focused on. What’s it look like to you? Because it doesn’t look like anything to me. A small box wrapped in wire. It could be anything, right?”

Downing removed the tight lid and the room almost instantly filled with the smell of Minerva’s rotting body. He set it on the Council table and slid it across so it settled near the middle. The Directors recoiled and covered their noses but leaned in to see. Even Elle perked up and leaned forward.

“My god, what is that?” asked Harrison, the Director of Infrastructure.

“I believe it’s a mouse,” Downing said.

None of them had ever seen a live animal. The outer wall was sunk 20 meters into the ground. Even insects were rare. But when Hideki found the hapless little mouse hiding under a broom in the Stores the previous summer, he took it as a sign. They’d found a nest of baby mice in his parents’ empty unit after they disappeared but never understood their origin. He still didn’t.

“I thought the Dome was vermin-proof,” commented the woman named Anaya, Director of Health, seemingly directing her comment toward Infrastructure.

“It is, supposedly,” Harrison said, then turned to Hideki. “Where did you find this?”

“In the Stores,” replied Hideki. “I’ve been keeping it as a pet.”

“A pet?” said Anaya. “Do you have any idea how dangerous mice are? One bug could kill us all. And if it were to reproduce…”

“I don’t think Minerva’s reproducing anytime soon,” Hideki said. “And not just because she hated kids.”

He chuckled at his own joke, but it seemed no one at the table was in the mood. Downing took the box off the table and replaced the tight lid.

“It seems you feel like talking, Mr. Yamamura,” Downing continued. “Perhaps you wouldn’t mind explaining to the Council what purpose this device was meant to serve. Correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t mice once used for scientific testing?”

“So I’ve read,” Hideki said.

“So you’ve read. In the Cache, you mean. Would it surprise anyone to learn that Mr. Yamamura here has virtually exhausted the Cache?

“How long a leap is it to think that the same person who introduced illicit Macros to our city, who has always blamed the Authority for his parents’ tragic deaths, who is clearly obsessed with the past, might want to threaten our future? Is it hard to believe that a man who has spent more than half his life cleaning up after productive, law-abiding citizens would use a mouse to test whatever destructive idea he was indulging? Remember, this is the same man who violently attacked Authority guards at a Quietus, of all things, turning a day of solemn remembrance into a shameful circus.”

He let that sink in for a few seconds, not that he needed to. All they needed was for someone to ease their conscience. Downing had just seen to that.

“Are you finished?” Elle asked.

“I am,” he said, and set the box back on the table with the other junk. It still smelled of death in there.

“Does anyone have any additional questions for the accused?” she said.

Of course, none did. Downing had laid it out in such a way that there could be no doubt.

Elle nodded toward him. “What about you, Mr. Yamamura? Do you have anything to say in your own defense?”

Hideki met their eyes in turn. It was hard to blame them for being so fearful. They had more to lose than most. Sure, he could tell them what he’d learned about the red Macros they, too, carried inside them, but what good would it do? A demonstration would be so much more dramatic. The most important thing now was to talk to Tosh alone.

“If you people never listened to my dad,” said Hideki calmly, “you sure as shit won’t listen to me.”

Elle said, “Mr. Yamamura, you won’t get another opportunity before we render our verdict. If you have something to say, now’s the time.”

He considered this for a long moment then decided she had a point. He leaned forward, folding his bound hands on the table. His wrists were red and itchy. “I know what this is. You may not think I do, but I do.”

“What what is?” Elle asked.

“This charade. You all are just as scared as everyone else, and you should be. Because getting rid of me won’t solve the real problem.”

“And what is that?”

He knocked on the table. “This table’s 100 years old.” Then he nodded toward the window. “So’s that window. So are all the buildings outside. But people? They have a 75-year shelf life.”

“We all know the law. What’s your point?” asked Elle.

“So what happens when this place passes its shelf life? You don’t have a plan for that, but I’m willing to bet Cytocorp does.”

“There’s no reason to think Cytocorp still exists,” Elle said. “Or the other Domes.”

“I see. So, what happens if the Exchangers really fail? Or the shield goes down, or we run out of water?”

“Worrying about emergency contingencies is Authority business, not yours,” said Downing. A few of the others shifted nervously in their seats, suggesting this wasn’t a frequent topic of discussion.

“And we should just trust that you have it all figured out.”

“I think that’s enough,” Downing growled through clenched teeth. Hideki’s line of questioning was getting to him just like he knew it would. He looked to Elle to close the proceedings, but her eyes never left Hideki.

“What happened to the mouse?” Elle asked. The Directors’ heads swiveled to her then anxiously back to him.

“What happened to the mouse is my business,” he said, looking directly at Downing with a sly grin. “Not yours.”

41

“Wait, so the Box doesn’t actually do anything?” asked Aaron.

“Hideki thinks it blocks whatever signal keeps the red Macros inert,” Owen replied softly as he removed a sweet potato from the container of wet gravel and plunked it into the crate at his feet. “And keep your voice down. Sheesh.”

“Sorry. It’s just so weird. Just one killed the mouse, like instantly?”

“Yep.”

“And you think we all have them?”

“Yep.”

“And this from the man who supposedly dug it out of his own leg?” Aaron asked.

Owen’s crate was full. He left Aaron hanging and lined up at Freddy’s dump station while the massive metal buckets crawled down one after the other. You had to lean against a metal railing and toss your plants inside as the bucket passed, then go rejoin your teammate in the row. Two people were in front of him. He met Freddy’s drooping eyes.

“Freddy, you look tired today, pal,” said Owen. “Go grab a nap. We’ll keep an eye on things here.”

Freddy chuckled and rubbed his eyes. “Welsh, I might take you up on that if I didn’t think you yutzes would turn this place to ash.”

“Only one way to know for sure,” Owen joked.

A presence behind him made Owen turn to see who it was. It was Adan, half of the dimwit duo Rick and Adan. Though they’d kept their distance, it didn’t seem to change their attitudes. In fact, if anything, Adan seemed worse.

“Let’s go, Welsh,” Freddy said.

Owen gripped the edges of his crate tightly in his vise-like hands and prepared to toss the plants in the conveyor bucket coming down overhead. Just as it drew level with him, he stepped forward with his left foot to dump it.

But the moment he stretched out with his arms, he felt a shove in the small of his back. Unable to arrest his forward momentum, he tumbled headlong over the short railing and fell with a metallic thud into the gigantic metal container. His head cracked the side of the bucket so hard he saw stars.

“Welsh!” he heard Freddy yell from overhead. He looked up just in time to see Freddy frantically pressing the kill switch that was supposed to stop the conveyor in precisely such a scenario. “Shit! Stop, goddamnit!”

But it didn’t stop. Adan’s expressionless face stared down at him for a moment then disappeared as the bucket reached level 28.

He scrambled to right himself. He knew the railing on the next level down would be there in a moment, and he either had to try and grab it and haul himself onto the level or wait for the right opportunity. If it never came, he’d wind up all the way down in the FPC and be a laughing stock the rest of his life.

He decided to go for the railing.

Owen rolled to the side just as the railing passed and grabbed for it with his free hand. He latched on as the bucket he was in fell away. That got the attention of the supervisor and all the workers, who all seemed to realize what was about to happen.

The next bucket was coming fast. Owen needed to either pull himself up and over the railing immediately or let go and fall back into the bucket.

The moment he went for it, he immediately wished he hadn’t.

“Watch it—” said the level 28 supervisor, lurching toward him.

Owen pulled with all his might while his feet struggled for purchase. He managed to swing his right leg up on the railing, but it was already too late. The next bucket was on him. If he didn’t do something, he’d be sliced in half or crushed. He pulled his leg back off the railing and let go.

_________

The bandages began at the shoulder and disappeared under the blanket. Owen blinked away sleep and pulled it back to note, with a dazed sort of curiosity, that it now ended just above the elbow.

The pain was white-hot and screaming for attention. He’d let go and fallen into a conveyor bucket. In falling, he’d bought himself time. But his right arm was hanging off the side of the bucket. His hand got wedged in some metal gap. He remembered being lifted up and out of the bucket, his full weight wrenching the back of his elbow against something hard and unyielding as another bucket came down.

And then it stopped. The whole thing stopped. Some supervisor finally hit the kill switch half a second after. His weight plus the force of the conveyor stretched his arm beyond its limits. Things inside tore audibly. People yelled to back it up, but supervisors didn’t have that ability. They had to call down to the FPC to stop the line. Minutes passed. Pain turned to numbness, and numbness to delirium. His brain and body flipped a switch and oblivion came, warm and welcome.

A funny thought crossed his mind. What if his arm still hung limply from the bracket on level 27 or 26, just out of reach, and everyone who dumped their bin would have to see it there until it rotted away? Next to it was probably a sign reminding greenies that safety was the Authority’s highest priority, and that it had been zero days since their last accident. That would be funny.

But then he wondered how he would carry bins or plant seeds with this impediment. He was right-handed, was being the very operative word. Now he was as left-handed as they came. Anyone who saw him work a fork with his left hand could see that was bad news.

A woman came in. She looked familiar, but pretty much everyone did after a while.

“Someone’s awake. How are you feeling?”

He tried to speak but couldn’t. She reached for a small cup with a straw and placed it in his mouth. He sucked down every last drop.

“It hurts.”

“We gave you a Macro for the pain. It’ll wear off soon.”

“Well then give me another.”

“There’s not enough Cytomatrix,” she said flatly.

“But the pain…” he groaned.

“I’m sorry. Authority orders.”

“My arm is gone.” A wave of nausea hit him as though merely saying the words caused it. He winced and sucked in air. “Please. It’s already bad.”

She grimaced and went to enter some information in a tablet. He’d heard the Stores were low on Cytomatrix, but low enough that an extra Macro or two was asking too much? His arm was gone — who were Macros for if not for an amputee?

And it happened picking fucking vegetables. Lame.

Footsteps hurried down the hall. They stopped just outside and Tosh poked her head inside. She saw him lying there and rushed over.

“Owen, thank goodness!”

She practically fell on top of him and hugged him tightly. Byron came in just behind her and smiled.

“Hey Mom,” he said. “Byron, you want to get her off me?”

She laughed and pulled away, tears streaming down her face.

“I came to see you, but they said you’d been in an accident. How are you feeling?”

Owen raised his stump of a right arm and winced. “I’m a lefty now.”

Tosh gasped and clutched her chest. Owen figured someone had told her. “Oh my god! What happened?”

“I’ll give you the room,” the nurse said, and left.

“Get the damn doctor!” Tosh called after her.

He told the story to the best of his recollection, omitting the more visceral details. They both were horrified.

Tosh brightened. “It’s okay. They’ll bioprint you a new one.”

“There’s not enough Cytomatrix,” he said grimly. “Authority orders.”

“Well fuck her and fuck the Authority, too. There are other ways to get things in this godforsaken place.”

“Careful…” Byron cautioned, eyes darting about. Owen thought the same thing. Listeners.

“I don’t care. This is all because of your shitty Placement. And now this happens and there’s nothing they can do?!”

Byron put his hand on her shoulder. “Tosh, I know what you’re thinking, but don’t. We’ll figure something else out.”

She shrugged him off. “That’s exactly how they want you to react, Byron. His arm can be fixed. If we were Authority, you know damn well they’d already be on it. You know what’s gonna happen to him if he only has one arm? He’ll be mopping up the FPC with my brother.”

Byron nodded ruefully and said, “Sounds like you two have a lot to talk about. I’m gonna go check on Dee. Get better, okay?”

“Thanks for coming, Byron,” Owen said. “I really appreciate it.”

He smiled at both of them before walking out. “He’s just looking out for you,” Owen offered.

She sighed. “I know. I can be a bit much.”

The memory of being in Hideki’s unit when the guards burst through came flooding back. Owen panicked at the thought that the hospital workers might have confiscated Hideki’s device. Then he remembered he’d tucked it into a hole in his mattress. He imagined Authority goons rifling through the room he shared with Aaron, searching for it…

“Where’s Hideki?” he asked. “What did they do to him?”

She shook her head. “His hearing’s today. Elle said it doesn’t look good.”

“You talked to Elle?” That was quite surprising. As far as he knew, his mom and Elle hadn’t had any real exchange in 20 years.

She nodded. “Looks like I’ll be talking to her again.” He could tell there was more to the story but decided not to pry.

“About Dek?” he asked.

“About your arm. This isn’t right.”

“Whatever they think Dek did, it’s a lie. If anything, he’s trying to save everyone,” Owen said.

“What do you mean?”

Listeners would be all over the room. He motioned her to get close so he could whisper. She leaned her ear to his face, and he described what Hideki had been working on when the Authority found them. She didn’t quite seem to understand but the message was clear: The device might protect him from the Box.

She needed to get it to him.

“Aaron can show you,” he said, being careful not to be more specific.

“I’ll stop by when I can,” she said. “But Dek’s not my priority. You are.”

“Whatever’s going on, it’s bigger than you and me,” Owen said. “Promise me you’ll get it.”

“I’ll get everything we need,” she said. “I promise.”

She ran her fingers lovingly down his cheek then turned and strode for the door. She opened it and turned back to him.

“Don’t worry, O. I’ve got your back.”

“You mean my arm,” Owen said, smiling.

“That, too,” she said, and left.

42

Tosh was alone in the Authority waiting area, noting the pronounced lack of activity. She had only been in the Authority building a handful of times before, including the other day when she had her encounter with Downing and Elle. Considering all that had been happening, she expected more bustle.

Around 4:25, a young man appeared and led her down a long hallway past the Directorate offices, then through another set of doors into the Administrator’s area. On the wall behind a wide reception desk was a relief of the Dome Project seal, lit from above so its shadow stretched toward the floor. It depicted the sun breaking over stylized Domes with the motto, “Protect. Rebuild. Reclaim.” Below that in smaller lettering was “Dome Six, Est. 2083, Cytocorp, Inc.”

The assistant gestured toward an open door to the right.

“She’s expecting you,” he said, and she entered. He gently closed the door behind her.

Elle was seated at a large, utilitarian desk with three chairs in front of it. A darkened conference room sat off to the side and a massive metal Authority seal was inlaid into the floor near a window with a view of the Agora. Several works of unimaginative corporate art hung on the wall, but otherwise the room wasn’t as fancy as she imagined. Elle’s was a looking at an IDA tablet that she turned off and stowed in a drawer.

Elle comported herself with a sort of military crispness that made her seem every bit as official as she was. Her uniform was neat and clean, but she looked weary. She rose and smoothed her jacket.

“Thank you for seeing me,” Tosh said.

Even now, her impulse was to walk over to Elle and hug her, but she didn’t.

Elle came around to sit on the edge of her desk, her arms crossed. “I heard about Owen. How you holding up?”

“Let’s just say it hasn’t been my favorite year.”

“Are they managing his pain at least?”

“Not really. Something about a matrix shortage.”

“Unfortunately,” she said knowingly, “that’s one of many new realities.”

Tosh cocked an eyebrow. “Didn’t Cytocorp actually perfect large-scale bioprinting?”

Elle gave her a condescending look, the kind you might give a child who couldn’t understand how the world really worked. Her tone matched. “That may be, but we can’t exactly order more, can we?”

“He shouldn’t have been in the Towers in the first place.”

“IDA’s algorithm determines Placements, Tosh. We just enforce those decisions.”

Tosh rolled her eyes at the tired line and shook her head. “IDA got it wrong. He’s smart — he should never have been around those goons. Especially since Downing promised me he’d get Owen out of there.”

“What do you mean, ‘promised?’”

“In exchange for fixing IDA,” Tosh said.

“He wasn’t in a position to do that.”

“Not my problem.”

“I know you’re upset, and I understand. To see someone you care about in pain is the worst thing there is, but accidents happen. Maybe if we weren’t already stretched so thin—”

“What if you lost an arm? A leg? Would the doctors say there was nothing they could do?”

“If they were doing their job, yes.”

“Oh, gimme a break,” Tosh said. “You and I both know that’s not true.”

“Look, I know what you’re asking and I can’t. I wish I could.”

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“We really are nearly out of matrix,” said Elle. “It would be irresponsible to use what little we have on Owen, and you know it.”

“In other words, you have no power at all,” Tosh said, angrily wiping away a tear.

Elle looked away for a moment as though trying to steel herself for whatever she was about to say. “The Council found Hideki guilty.”

Tosh gazed ruefully at the ceiling, hoping gravity would help keep her tears at bay. “Of course they did.”

Elle paused and averted her eyes. “The punishment for sabotage is death.”

The words felt like a gut punch. She couldn’t breathe. Death? What? “So fucking intervene, Elle.”

“I can’t. The law is clear.” She still had trouble meeting Tosh’s eyes.

Tosh kept wiping away the tears, but they came too fast now. Fine. Let that bitch see her pain. “You can’t help Owen. You can’t help Dek. What can you do, Elle? I mean, other than fuck your security director?”

Damn if it didn’t feel good to say it. She wanted to hurt Elle as much as she was hurting her. The comment landed, but Elle still managed to look impassive.

“There will be a broadcast. I didn’t want you to hear it that way,” Elle said softly. “He goes in the Box in three days.”

Tosh guffawed. “Well hey, if you want to send a message, why not hang him in the Agora? Or chop his head off? That’d really boost your sentiment scores.”

“I know how you must—”

“No!” hissed Tosh, pointing a shaking finger at Elle. “You do not know how I feel! What happened to you? We were inseparable. You once came to me at your darkest hour. But I guess it wasn’t enough to shut me out, was it? You and your Authority mouth-breathers had to keep punishing my family. And you’re still doing it!”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t want any of this,” said Elle.

“Like hell! No, you got exactly what you signed up for. You earned it. In fact, didn’t you earn it right here in this very room?”

“That’s enough,” Elle warned.

“You wanted this more than anything. Keane made you feel powerless and now you have power, but what have you done with it, Elle? Nothing. You’ve done nothing for anyone.” Her face was purple with rage. “I want to see Dek. Right now.”

Elle brushed past, arms still folded tightly to her chest. “Come with me.”

_________

The news was hardly surprising. Elle recused herself but the Council’s vote was unanimous. Even so, no one could look Dek in the eye. Cowards. But the joke was on them. He’d considered taking his own life dozens of times but never went through with it. They were only voting to give him something he’d always secretly wanted.

As long as Owen still had the device that replicated the Macros’ signal, he had a chance. He had no idea of the range, but figured it had to be at least 10 meters. If he could somehow get a hold of it and swap it for the long-dead location scrambler he’d worn since he was a teenager, he had a chance of surviving the Box.

He clung to this idea so fiercely that he fell in love with it. To watch the door close, then stand there with a smug grin when it reopened would be priceless. They’d probably kill him anyway, but at least he’d get to see their faces first.

The door swung open for Elle, who glanced briefly at him before Tosh burst through behind her. She ran to the clear plastic cell where he was slumped into the corner and knelt beside him.

“Dek! Oh, Dek, my god!” she said.

“Hey Sis,” he croaked. He was powerfully thirsty but hadn’t been given water in several hours. Elle remained by the open door.

Tosh turned back to her and said, “Can we have a moment?”

“Five minutes,” she said, then left.

Tosh’s face was a map of anguish. She was good at fixing things — prided herself on it, in fact — but there was no fixing this.

“You look like hell,” he said. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”

“I guess I’ve been better,” she laughed, wiping away a fresh batch of tears.

“Listen to me,” he said in a low whisper. “You need to talk to Owen. He has something of mine…”

“You mean this?” She reached in her pocket and held up the little ring that looked like an ordinary bearing pack, virtually identical to the one still hung around his neck.

Dek was so happy to see it he almost cried, but he still had to be careful what he said. The room had to be coated with Listeners.

Tosh passed it to him through one of the air holes in his cell, narrow slits that it barely fit through. He swapped it with the one around his neck, keeping the filthy hemp rope, and handed her the scrambler. He leaned his face against the hard plastic so they could both whisper.

“There was an accident in the Towers,” she said. “Owen lost his arm.”

At first, he thought that might be a metaphor, but the grave look on her face suggested otherwise. “Shit. Is he okay?”

“He’s a tough kid,” she said. “But there’s not enough matrix to make him a new arm.”

He could tell she didn’t believe that, but he knew it to be true. He’d seen it himself. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m tired, Dek. I’m just so tired of being angry, and trapped, and helpless…” She was swept up in a fresh wave of tears.

“You’re a pain in the ass, but helpless? No.”

She shook her head. “I opened a connection to IDA’s backup data,” she said. “I know you didn’t have anything to do with the shutdown. Or the shield.”

“But you can’t prove it without incriminating yourself,” he said.

She nodded. “Like I said. Trapped.”

“Then use it to find a way out,” he whispered. “You know that’s what Mom and Dad were trying to do.”

“Dek…” she muttered. He’d maintained this belief from the very beginning.

“Tosh, I saw what happens when someone gets caught in the processor. No one ever saw that with Mom and Dad. No one.”

So little happened in the Dome that when it did, everyone found out. But all she’d ever heard about their parents were rumors. They weren’t dumb enough or careless enough to just get sucked in the processor like poor Multimeal Maria. They were looking for something. And if Tosh really had access to IDA, maybe she could finally figure out what that was.

“Go back,” he said. “Pore over the data. You have to find out what they were really doing down there. I think it’s the key to everything.”

“No, what I have to do is figure out a way to save you.”

“Don’t worry about me.” She searched his eyes for some sign of deceit but seemed to realize there was none. He gave her a reassuring smile. “I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve.”

43

When she was just 16, Tosh’s father came to her at her apprentice dormitory. She wasn’t exactly embarrassed, but it was very unusual. When you left home for your apprenticeship, you were on your own.

He asked her then if it was possible to access the cached location data in his CHIT. She told him it might be possible and described how, and after that, she never saw him again.

Why wouldn’t he know where he was? The question tortured her ever since, but maybe the answer was right in front of her.

Knowing the truth — that Elle had used her assault as leverage to oust, and perhaps even kill, a loathed Administrator — was deeply troubling. She never would’ve pegged Elle as such a cold opportunist, and yet, it was hard to blame her. Accepting an eraser Macro into her brain would’ve been the easy choice, but that wasn’t Elle’s style. She could make hard choices that other people couldn’t, which probably was why she wanted to be Administrator in the first place.

Of course, her 16-year-old self couldn’t have imagined what was really going through her friend’s mind. To her, it seemed clear the Authority had used its considerable power to make yet another problem go away. It begged the question: If she’d been so wrong about what happened to Elle, could she also be wrong about her father’s state of mind on that fateful day?

Her father’s question didn’t make any inherent sense. The whole point of IDA’s location tracking was to have a real time account of everyone’s whereabouts. That data got correlated with other data or allowed proximity doors to open. The only situation where your previous location might be relevant was in prosecuting a crime. No one ever needed to ask where you were the afternoon of November 21, 2164 because they’d already know. That’s exactly why Hideki was now sentenced to die in the Box like they did for murderers and rapists.

And yet, she now understood that location data could be altered. In Downing’s case, he didn’t know what he was doing and corrupted the Dome’s entire database in the process. But the very data that would exonerate Hideki and implicate Downing instead would also prove that she’d given herself access to IDA. That was at least as much an existential threat as sabotage. If she wasn’t careful, the Authority would put them both in the Box.

The existence of eraser Macros, which she didn’t learn about until much later, explained why Downing’s visit to Elle in the hospital seemed to result in her sudden amnesia. The fact that he’d just tried to do the same to her was very telling. It meant he was willing to use something meant to delete the memory of a trauma to serve his own purposes.

What if the only memory that had actually been erased back then was her father’s?

If you asked IDA where you were on a certain date and at a certain time, it would tell you. But first it would query the same database Downing had clumsily changed. In other words, IDA only knew what the data told it. If her father lost several hours to an eraser Macro, he would go to the ends of the earth to fill in the blanks. That had to be why he asked about the cached data.

And she’d told him exactly how to do it.

If Downing erased her father’s memory, it could only mean that he’d seen or done something that Downing needed to hide. If he really wanted to cover his tracks, Downing would’ve been watching her father’s movements very closely after giving him the Macro — perhaps obsessively. He’d do whatever it took to keep him from learning the truth, or more to the point, from spreading it.

And what about her mother? She always tried to temper her father’s knee-jerk reactions, especially his righteous indignation toward the Authority. He’d gone to them two or three times to warn of problems with the Dome but without her to calm him down, it might have been dozens. Assuming he told her about his missing hours, she would’ve wanted to keep him from doing something reckless.

It all led back to Downing. What was he trying to keep secret and why?

If her father had used his tablet to pull location data off his own CHIT, was there a chance that it was still there? If so, maybe she could find out exactly what he was doing in the FPC and where he was trying to go.

If Elle wouldn’t help Dek or Owen, then Tosh would do it herself. At least she’d managed to slip him the little device Owen gave her. Whatever it did, he seemed confident it would save him from the Box. She was out of time.

She badly wanted to tell Dek what Art shared with her and Owen about Hopper and the data supposedly stored in Owen’s DNA. But she still wasn’t sure if she believed it herself. Besides, if it was as important as Art said, she thought it best to keep it between her and Owen for now.

Elle came back for her after exactly five minutes and bade her to leave.

“Whatever you have planned, Dek, I sure hope you do it soon,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m crafty.”

She said a tearful goodbye and stopped at the door, which Elle held open.

“It’s too bad those eraser Macros can’t go back further,” Tosh said quietly. “Because I’d like to forget I ever knew you.”

She brushed past Elle and made a beeline for Dek’s place.

_________

Tosh discovered her father’s tablet behind one of the panels in Dek’s bedroom, right where he’d showed her earlier. A scanner, wires and all, was still connected to the bottom port. The screen had a small crack, but it otherwise seemed intact. The battery was long depleted but she didn’t need the tablet itself — she needed its memory.

Using her father’s old tools, she disassembled the tablet. Aside from a tiny cluster of circuitry, it was all screen. Using the wires from the scanner, she carefully connected her father’s dead tablet to Hideki’s functioning one, then navigated the dense web of submenus to enter diagnostic mode. A few lines of code later, the unencrypted location data opened like a book.

The next step was to load the data into her program that decoded the data and rendered 3D visuals. She opened the mapping program on Hideki’s tablet and pointed it to this new dataset, which included time and date tags.

She found the file tagged November 16, 2164 — four days before her parents disappeared. The day before he came to see her.

She felt a shot of adrenaline. She was looking through a digital window into a digital past where she had never dared venture.

Her father’s day seemed to begin with a trip to the FPC’s entrance. The little red dot traveled all the way around to the opposite side of the FPC’s ring, roughly underneath the Authority, and descended to the floor near the massive, translucent outline of the machine she guessed was the multimeal processor. It paused right next to it for a minute or so, moved very slightly toward it, and then a very peculiar thing happened.

It disappeared.

She advanced through the next hour in the timeline, during which her father’s dot remained offscreen like he’d vanished into thin air. But then, one hour and nine minutes after it disappeared, it reappeared in the exact same place. It paused just inside the main doors to the FPC, then briefly outside before returning home.

It didn’t make sense. How could he vanish for more than an hour, only to reappear in the same spot? The entire FPC had been emptied that morning and dozens, if not hundreds of workers saw her father go inside with Downing. What kind of repair could possibly require shutting down both the FPC and the Towers for that long?

The kind of repair that no one — not even a technician — could ever know about. The kind that led him to discover a nest of mice where none should exist.

44

As much as Tosh’s rebuke stung, she was right to say it. Elle had let Luther railroad her into this situation with Hideki and now she’d failed her old friend yet again with respect to Owen.

But just as troubling was Luther’s behavior in the wake of Tosh’s visit to the Nexus. Why would he try and wipe her memory if not to cover his own tracks? Now that Tosh had planted that seed of doubt, it grew quickly, fertilized by her growing suspicion of him.

After Tosh left, she got to work.

Contacting the Stores to get her hands on a Listener would’ve raised too many eyebrows, so she started looking for them. They were tiny — perhaps a millimeter across and embedded in ordinary objects like bolts or light fixtures. Elsewhere, they might appear as rivets or bumps on a textured surface. Once she started looking, she found almost two dozen in her own unit, including one right above the bed she occasionally shared with Luther. It was more than a little ironic.

The smooth black walls of the Nexus offered no nooks or crannies, nor did the touch screen of the access terminal. Everything else was submerged in coolant. She affixed it to the underside of the railing of the metal walkway and changed its geodata from dynamic to static, meaning that as far as IDA knew, the mic was still above her bed.

Luther used the Nexus to build his case against Hideki. He’d been down there again with Tosh, ostensibly to fix it. But even Elle had no reason to be in the Nexus other than to pull the Epoch data. Luther didn’t need to go down there just to pull sentiment data — he could do that from his office. If he went back again, she had to learn what he was doing down there.

She only needed to wait a day.

Her tablet alerted her that the Listener she’d planted was active, so she closed the door, activated the live feed, and listened with her ear pressed to the speaker.

“Welcome, Director,” said IDA.

“Connect to Cytocorp actual,” he said. Even through the echo-y feed, she could hear the impatience in his voice, tinged with triumph.

Cytocorp actual? What the hell?

“Director Downing,” said an androgynous voice. “This is becoming an unfortunate habit.”

“Then tell me what I want to hear.”

“Have you identified the saboteur?” asked the voice.

“He goes in the Box tomorrow morning,” Luther said, with no small measure of self-satisfaction. As soon as that door closes, I’m on the fucking train to Pacifica.”

“Well done,” the voice said. “What’s the citizen’s name?”

“Hideki Yamamura.”

“Once his vital signs are no longer detected, we will open the door. Wait there for the train.”

Train? What train? Who’s he talking to?

“I’ll be safe from the Burn?” Luther asked.

“Of course.”

“What about the processor? The FPC will be full of workers.”

The processor? What about the processor?

“That’s not our concern.”

Luther paused. “And Julia will be waiting for me?” he asked eagerly.

“You’ll get all that is coming to you,” said the voice. “You have our word.”

The voice said no more and neither did Luther. The next thing she heard was the airlock door open and close. He’d be back up in the Authority in moments. She silenced the feed and set her tablet down on the desk, then leaned back in her chair to piece together what she just heard.

Cytocorp still existed, or at least, an AI representative did. That seemed more likely. Whoever or whatever it was on the other end had a history with Luther. They’d spoken before, that much was certain.

The bit about a train didn’t make any sense at all. They used train lines to build the Domes back in the day, but the tunnels were sealed after the Originals got settled inside. Surely it didn’t still exist, especially with the Burn surrounding them. But what if it did?

And then there was the part about Julia, Luther’s wife, who died 20 years ago during the Fourth Epoch in an ill-advised attempt to escape through the incinerator. It destroyed Luther. Elle was too young knew too little of death and grief to offer him comfort. But what if she hadn’t actually died? What if she’d been taken somehow and the Company had Luther under its thumb ever since?

These weren’t the questions that mattered anymore. What mattered was that Luther was leaving as soon as Hideki was gone. Pacifica still existed and, apparently, so did Cytocorp. It was a lot to take in. Luther had groomed her from a young age to be Administrator, with him at her right hand. She’d believed he was in service to her vision of the future but it was actually the other way around. In taking him as her lover, she’d unwittingly made it easy for him to operate with impunity right under her nose.

Worst of all, he’d created at least one crisis in order to frame an innocent man. Her best friend’s brother, no less. In recusing herself, she’d surrendered whatever power she might have to save him.

But a way out was a way out. If the Dome was falling apart — and it seemed it was — then there were two choices: Wait for it to happen or find out if the outside was survivable. They had enough suits to lead a small team out into the Burn. Maybe the sensor data was accurate, and the footage was real. But maybe they weren’t. Either way, she wasn’t about to sit around and watch it all crumble around her. If Luther knew the way out, maybe all she had to do was follow.

If Luther betrayed her, there was no telling who else in the Authority might be working against her. That left very few people to trust with what she’d learned, and even fewer ways to act on it. But now, the only person she felt she could trust hated her guts. The time had come for a long overdue olive branch.

“IDA, locate Owen Welsh,” she said.

45

It wasn’t the physical pain, though the exposed nerves just beneath the layers of gauze constantly screamed for Owen’s attention. No, it was the pain of losing something you were powerless to recover.

The phantom-limb thing they warned him about was true. It felt for all the world like his right arm was still there though it clearly wasn’t, and that might’ve been the worst part. How many times in the past two days had he tried reaching for his ration bottle on the table beside his bed, only to remember there was nothing to grasp it with?

His left arm felt unwieldy and weak, like a backup appendage reserved only for emergencies or holding things. Even something so simple as lifting a spoonful of multimeal to his mouth required his full concentration. Perhaps in time it would become more trustworthy.

Aaron visited that morning and tried to cheer him up. And he might’ve succeeded, too, were it not for his mention of the Towers. Owen had tried very hard not to think about that, or whatever awful new Placement awaited him now that he couldn’t possibly manage Tower work.

Again, he pushed away the self-pity. He was alive and otherwise well — something Hideki wouldn’t be in less than 24 hours. He didn’t believe Dek was responsible for the Exchangers any more than his mom did, but it didn’t matter what they believed.

The door opened and his nurse, a perpetually exasperated but good-humored woman named Erica, came in with a bowl of multimeal. He could smell it from across the room, a green and fruity smell that only became unpleasant after the first few thousand spoonfuls. Eating it for three meals a day made you want variety so badly that you would do just about anything to accumulate the Ration Rewards that bought you whole food. His little family wasn’t so good at that, so he ate metric fucktons of multimeal.

“Lunchtime,” said the nurse.

“What’ve you got for me?” he asked, sitting up.

“Bland mush at room temperature,” she said, placing the bowl on the tray and rolling it over in front of him.

“I’m not feeling this today,” he said. “How about some seafood?”

“I’ll inquire with the kitchen,” she said with a smirk. “How’s your pain?”

“Constant,” he replied. “Thanks for asking.”

“Well, eat up,” she said with a wink. “They’re cutting you loose this afternoon.”

She turned on her heels and opened the door, then started at whomever she saw on the other side.

“Administrator Travers,” she stammered.

“I came to see our patient,” she said, poking her head inside to see that Owen was awake and alert. Just seeing her face made his blood boil.

“Of course,” said the nurse. “I just brought him lunch. Take as much time as you need.”

“Thank you,” said Elle.

The nurse left and the door closed behind her. Elle looked around Owen’s tiny room, which still looked relatively new by Dome standards. Compared to other spaces, hospital rooms didn’t see much use.

“Hello, Owen,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

“Left-handed,” he mumbled.

“I’m very sorry for what happened,” she said. “The men responsible have been reassigned to the FPC.”

“What do you want?” Owen asked. “Don’t you have an execution to plan?” She lowered her eyes to the floor.

“I don’t make the laws, Owen. The Charter is very clear.”

“We live in a fucking bubble. Why are we still following 100-year-old laws? Although, it won’t be the first time the Authority made someone from my family go away, will it?” he said, his voice dripping with contempt. “First my father and now my uncle?”

She slid a chair over to his bedside and sat down. Ordinarily she looked imperious and strong, but the way her shoulders sagged now added 10 years. A few hairs were actually out of place. He reflexively shrunk away from her.

“I don’t blame you for hating me. I don’t know what happened to your father, but I know someone who might.”

Why was she telling him any of this? It happened so long ago he had trouble remembering his father’s face. But since IDA never classified him as dead, he couldn’t even speak to his Legacy.

“What do you mean?” he asked cautiously. He didn’t want to allow himself hope if there was none. She could be playing him somehow.

“What I’m about to tell you can’t leave this room. Not yet, anyway.”

“Okay…”

“Your dad wasn’t the only one to ever go missing from the Dome. The same thing happened to Director Downing’s wife.”

“I’ve heard that,” Owen said. “I thought it was just a rumor.”

“I heard it, too. That she went crazy during the Fourth Epoch and crawled into the incinerator looking for a way out. But I believe he made a deal to get her out. And as soon as Hideki is… gone, he’s going to join her.”

His mind raced for some explanation, for some logic to all this, but found none. “What do you mean, ‘out?’ How? Made a deal with who?”

“With Cytocorp.”

Cytocorp? Weren’t they gone along with everyone else? Many believed the Dome was the last vestige of humanity. If Downing was talking to the Company somehow, it could change everything.

“That’s impossible.”

“Which is why I think he’s been talking some kind of AI. But what if he isn’t?”

Owen didn’t know much about Elle beyond what his mother volunteered, which wasn’t much. No one he knew had anything good to say about her or the Authority, and yet he felt a certain empathy for her now. Maybe she’d been lied to as much as the rest of them.

“You think he had something to do with my dad?” he asked.

“That’s what I want to find out.” She leaned forward in her chair, her dark blue eyes burning a hole right through him. “If Director Downing gets out of the Dome, then whatever he knows goes with him. But if he doesn’t try to leave…”

“Then you’ll never know the truth,” he finished. “Why are you telling me this?”

“I need to know what you and Hideki working on together.”

“What?”

“The dead mouse. The junk from the Stores in Hideki’s unit. It didn’t make sense. Luther and the Council were focused on Hideki, but you were there when his unit was raided. Why?”

He was surprised none of this came up during the course of Dek’s incarceration. Luther didn’t paid any attention to Owen at all. All of Elle’s crazy talk about Cytocorp and Downing’s wife could be an elaborate ruse to get the truth from him. If she knew Dek’s plan to save himself, she might take the device away and seal his fate. But what if it wasn’t? What if Downing really was the key to getting out of the Dome?

“Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m the only one who can authorize a new arm.”

“I thought we were almost out of matrix,” Owen said.

“We are. But if Downing gets out of the Dome, I don’t think shortages will matter anymore.”

“There are Listeners in here,” Owen noted.

“I disabled this zone before I came,” she said. “It’s just you and me.”

Before he even knew it, he’d told her everything. The red Macros, the signal, all of it. If everything went according to plan, Hideki would become the first citizen to survive the Box. If there was a plan beyond that, Owen wasn’t privy to it. Knowing Dek, he’d just want to see the looks on their faces when they came to collect his body.

Elle listened carefully and then sat back in her chair, weighing it all. Or was she deciding what to do with him?

“Do you think it will work? This device of his?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“Luther’s anxious,” she said. “As soon as the door to the Box closes, he’ll try to leave. When that happens, we need to be ready.”

“Ready for what?” Owen asked.

“To follow him.”

“What do you mean, ‘we?’” he asked. “I’m not going anywhere for a while.” He wiggled the stump of his right arm and winced.

She smiled, turned toward the door and said, “Okay, we’re ready.”

A team of doctors and nurses wheeled in a gurney, moved his lunch out of the way, and slid it in beside his bed. He shifted uncomfortably. “What is this?”

“A promise is a promise,” she said. “You’re getting a new arm. Right now.”

The doctors exchanged furtive glances but disconnected Owen’s IV and helped him onto the gurney.

“What happens now?” he asked.

“We’ll meet at Tosh’s tomorrow evening,” she said, her tone suggesting he read between the lines. With the doctors there, she could no longer be candid. “You know — to celebrate his life. Pull together everyone you think ought to be there.”

“Wait — how long does this take to heal?”

One of the doctors jumped in and said, “It’ll be in a sling for a couple days. Your strength should return quickly after that.”

“Wow.”

Elle said, “I’ll leave you to it.”

She turned to leave but he stopped her just as the team was about to wheel him away. “So, you’ll be there tomorrow? For Dek?” he asked.

“Of course. See you tomorrow.”

46

Hideki couldn’t know whether news of his conviction and impending execution was broadcast or strategically leaked, but it didn’t matter. The Quietus Center was only four sectors behind the Authority on Rad 36, at the end of which was the incinerator. They chose to simply march him down there under guard, and hundreds of people turned out to watch. What a grotesque charade.

He couldn’t have said what was more annoying — that he was sentenced to die for something he didn’t do, or that he was part of this nonsense.

He was confident that the device would protect him, but it had only been put to test on a mouse. Just because it worked on poor Minerva didn’t necessarily mean it would work on him. He didn’t know if the range was meters or centimeters. He didn’t know how long the battery would last or whether it was even strong enough to keep all the red Macros from activating and killing him instantly.

But he believed it would, and if it did, maybe it could protect them if they found the way out that his father was clearly looking for.

The faces of the gawkers were spiteful. How dare you? they seemed to say. Good riddance. He wished he could give himself a yellow and drift away until it was all over, but he would have no such respite today. He even felt a little sorry for them. The compliant herd, so content in their ignorance. Maybe surviving the Box would make them question an assumption or two.

Once they came back around the rear of the Authority and turned onto 36, even more people were lined up, like they were waiting on a freaking parade. He turned back to look at Downing, who walked beside Elle with a smug grin. For her part, Elle stared straight ahead, looking for all the world like it was she being walked down to the Box.

The people lining the rad were most likely second shifters who got up early just to see the infamous saboteur of Dome Six. Frankly, he might’ve done the same, if only for the novelty of it. Most just stood in silence with judgmental looks on their faces, arms folded defensively across their chests. Some made remarks to people nearby and sniggered.

Oh well. At least fruits and vegetables were too precious to throw.

Eventually they arrived at the Quietus Center, where he’d been arrested for at Art’s ceremony. Downing had already laid his trap by then, but Hideki’s reaction played right into his hands. Just another example of an unhinged lunatic, railing against the Dome’s century-old norms.

One of the guards opened the door to the Box and he walked inside. The place was completely empty save for Tosh, Byron, and Dee. He didn’t have many friends, but still.

Tosh looked like she might hyperventilate. He wasn’t sure if she really believed him about the red Macros to begin with, let alone the idea that the device around his neck would protect him. There in his plastic cell, with Listeners probably coating the walls, he spared the details that might have reassured her.

Perhaps he should’ve proclaimed his innocence more vigorously, but would it have changed the outcome? Not likely. Whatever Downing was up to, this was the capstone. If he somehow walked out of the Box unscathed, it could give them an advantage. They’d have a window of time during which Downing would no longer be focused on him, and they could use that window to figure out what he was up to.

The guards positioned him in front of the door to the Box and turned him around to face the meager crowd. Downing, hands folded imperiously behind his back, meandered over and stood so close he could feel his breath against his cheek.

“It’s your big day,” Downing said softly. “Although you’re probably not as excited as I am.”

“You could use a scrub,” said Hideki.

He smirked. “Washing my hands of you will have to do.”

“I cleared my schedule for this,” said Hideki. “Let’s get on with it.”

Downing nodded, clearly relishing this. Elle stood behind him and off to the side with her back to Tosh and Co.

“Hideki Yamamura, the Authority Council of Dome Six has heard the evidence against you and finds you guilty of sabotage and theft. For these crimes, the Charter prescribes death by Quietus. Do you have anything to say before your sentence is carried out?”

“We both know who the real saboteur is,” he said. “It should be you standing here.”

Downing smirked. “Guards?”

The guards opened the outer door and shoved him inside the little room. The outer door had a small window but not the inner door. Dek turned back around to face out, trying his best to give Tosh a reassuring look. Byron had one arm around her and the other around Dee, who was scrunched up against him, crying. He gave them a wink.

“You guys won’t even know I’m gone,” he said.

“Wait,” Downing said. He stepped forward into the antechamber and stretched one hand out toward Hideki’s neck, his fingers tracing his hemp necklace down to the ring that dangled down behind his shirt. “What’s this?”

He thought this might happen. He couldn’t let on how important it was or Downing might rip it from his neck out of spite. Then he’d be dead.

“It’s just an old bearing ring I found among my father’s things. I’ve had it since I was a kid. Ask anyone.”

Downing turned the ring over in his hand and rubbed it with his thumb. “In other words, it belongs to us.”

“Let him have it,” Elle interjected. All eyes flew to her. “We’ll get it later.”

Downing was at least as surprised as Hideki to hear from Elle. Whether it was some kind of gesture Hideki couldn’t have said. Downing looked at her, then searched Hideki’s eyes for a moment before finally tucking the pendant back behind his shirt. He patted it and smirked.

“Fine. Speaking of dear old Dad, you be sure to say hi for me.”

He backed away. One of the guards closed the door to the antechamber, leaving Dek alone. The door behind him clicked and swung open and he stepped inside the small, square room. It was exactly as Owen had described — literally a cement box, as befit its nickname. He turned back one last time, long enough to see Downing’s face through the thin window in the outer door. Downing raised his hand to the window and waved, and an electric motor engaged. The inner door began to slide shut.

As the gap in the door narrowed, Hideki had a very odd feeling, like a mild current running through his body. For a fleeting moment, he worried that the device around his neck might have already depleted its tiny battery, which was at least as unreliable as any other battery-powered things in the Dome. But then the door sealed, and the silence was as absolute as the darkness.

47

Watching Hideki disappear behind the heavy inner door of the Box was like a dagger to Tosh’s heart. She wouldn’t know for hours if his little device protected him like he said it would, during which time she was expected to teach as usual. If he survived, IDA would know the moment the door opened, and the Authority would move heaven and earth to keep him quiet.

It was maddening to have learned so much but know so little. She knew her parents disappeared in the same place her father had gone just days before. She knew that whatever happened there troubled him greatly, and that Downing almost certainly gave him an eraser Macro as a result. She even knew what Elle had done — or more to the point, what she hadn’t done — to cement her place in the Authority, and that she now felt just as trapped as anyone else.

The question was what to do with all this new information.

She stumbled out of the Quietus Center with Byron’s arm around her and Dee’s hand clinging tightly to hers. Tosh’s recent classroom discussions had Dee and Vi pretty keyed up about the Authority. Even Byron was aggrieved about Dek, but she couldn’t tell him the truth just yet. Not until she had a concrete plan.

Byron hugged her goodbye outside and left for work, saying he would come by at the end of the day. Tosh and Dee took their time walking down Rad 2 back to School 2, about a kilometer away.

When they reached the door to the classroom, Tosh was reluctant to open it.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dee.

“I can’t do it,” she said. “Not today.”

“Sure, you can. You do it every day,” Dee encouraged. “Come on.”

Dee pushed the door open and all eyes swung to them. Randy was mid lesson, failing to notice or care that everyone’s eyes were glazed over again. The students sat up hopefully upon seeing Tosh and tried to read her face.

“Everyone continue with the reading,” Randy said. “I need a quick word with Ms. Yamamura.”

He strode purposefully over to her, passing Dee as she returned to her seat. Tosh backed out of the door and waited for him to come through. He eased it closed behind him and pulled her over near the wall.

“What are you doing?!” he hissed.

“I just watched my brother die. Now I’m just waiting for you to stop talking so I can teach my class.”

“I see. And what do you intend to teach these children? Because I know it’s not the approved curriculum.” Apparently, her detour from the Authority gospel had thrown flags after all. They must be watching her every move now. “You want another monitor in here?”

“I engaged them, Randy,” she replied, blinking away the tears that had started afresh. “I’d think you’d want the same thing.”

“And you think you know better than the Authority.”

“Look around you,” she said, gesturing grandly. “How much longer do you think we’ll survive here? Ten more years? Twenty? What happens to those kids if they can’t think for themselves?”

“That’s not our concern.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and shook her head. “Do you even hear yourself? This isn’t education — it’s indoctrination.”

“If you want me to go to Director Davis right now and get a new teacher for this cohort, I’m happy to do it. Anyone with half a brain could take your place. Is that what you want?”

She had half a mind to slug him and walk away, but she had to be smart and stay under the radar.

“No,” she said.

“Then I’d suggest you get in there and teach what you’re supposed to teach. You’re on a very, very short leash here. If you keep throwing flags with IDA, I won’t be able to protect you.”

“Are we done?”

He backed away and gestured toward the closed door. She wiped her eyes on her sleeve, smoothed her clothes, and went back in.

Of course, all the kids knew what happened and where she’d been that morning. A few were even crying for her. She couldn’t look any of them in the eye.

“Would anyone care to tell me where you left off?” she asked. No one answered. “It sounded like you were talking about macronutrients.”

“You were talking about history and philosophy,” said Vi. “You had us thinking through scenarios.”

“Yes, well, today we’re talking about nutrition.”

Tosh proceeded with the lesson she knew by heart in a fast monotone, careful to avoid her students’ confused looks. She imagined the stream of words as an unbroken string of code deep in IDA’s operating system. No peaks, no valleys, no flags. But she’d opened doors of her own and there was no turning back.

And so, about 20 minutes into class, Tosh broke down.

She didn’t even know what she was saying when it happened. She was too divorced from the present. Anger, grief, and confusion washed over her in relentless waves. She seldom let her emotions get the better of her, but she supposed she’d denied them too long. Her voice trailed off and she was racked with heavy sobs. The feeling of helplessness was so overwhelming that she soon found herself sitting cross-legged on the floor, bawling uncontrollably.

Dee, who understood her pain better than anyone in the room, rushed to her side and threw her arms around her, followed immediately by Vi. The warmth of their arms soaked into her and the floodgates opened further still. But then other students came up and joined the embrace. Not all, but many. The others already believed the Authority was right and just in all decisions. To them, Hideki’s guilt was certain, and Tosh’s loyalties were now in question. They might not say it, but they probably felt safer knowing that Dek was dead.

Until very recently, she had taught them to think this way. Day after day, year after year. The thought made her even more upset.

As her composure slowly returned, she felt cathartic. It was good to let the poison drain from her, embarrassing though it was. It cleared the path back to rational thought, and she wiped her face on her sleeve. With a bit of help from the kids, she rose back to her feet and thanked them before they returned to their seats.

The 47 faces looking back at her in tidy beige stripes were a mix of sympathy and confusion, and in that moment, she could see which ones she’d reached. Not many, but some. If there was any possible way to free them from this cycle, she felt duty-bound to find it. That was the thought that finally refocused her.

“Well,” she said. “Sorry you all had to see that.”

48

Byron was waiting outside Tosh’s unit when she got home. Dee held her hand the whole way.

“How you holding up?” he asked, pulling her into a hug.

“I’m okay,” she said. She’d kept so much from him. Hopefully he’d understand why. “I just want to lay in the dark with you.”

“That’ll have to wait,” he said. “Everyone’s waiting to pay their respects.”

After the day she had, being around people was the last thing she wanted but then again, they were there out of respect for her and her family. The least she could do was accept the gesture. Then she’d go check on Owen.

They made their way up to Tosh’s unit and opened the door. Vi and her parents, Greg and Susan, sat together on the couch. But to her everlasting shock, Owen was on one of the living room chairs opposite his friend, Aaron. His right arm was tucked into a sling.

His right arm?

He rose to greet her. “What’s going on?” she said, looking at the sling. It certainly appeared to contain an arm. “Is that…?”

“It is,” he said, grinning. “I got out of surgery a few hours ago,” Owen explained. “Aaron helped me round everyone up.”

“But how—”

Owen was looking past her somewhere. She whirled to see Elle standing there with a sheepish grin. “Hi, Tosh.”

“What’s she doing here?!” spat Tosh.

“Mom, relax,” Owen said, his good hand on her shoulder. “She gave the order to replace my arm. I asked her to come.”

“I thought there wasn’t enough matrix,” Tosh said.

“That was the last of it,” Elle said. “That’s pretty much it for bioprinting.”

Tosh squared up to her and said, “Look, I’m grateful you helped Owen. I am. But you can’t be here right now.”

“You need to hear what I have to say,” Elle said. “If you still want me to leave then, I will.”

Tosh turned to Owen and gave him a look that said, I hope you know what you’re doing. She chewed on her lip.

“Fine.” They took as many seats as there were. Elle and Tosh remained standing. Byron offered her his chair, but Tosh waved him off. She shrugged and said, “So talk.”

Elle spilled everything she knew — Downing’s dealings with the Company, his apparent manipulation of the evidence that convicted Dek, and even his foiled attempt to cover his tracks. Then Owen shared what he and Hideki had been working on. Everyone’s jaws hung open. Killer Macros? Signals? It sounded like bunk, but it was all too specific to be a fabrication.

Even so, Tosh trusted Elle as far as she could throw her.

“Wait,” Tosh said, thoroughly confused. “You’re telling me that Dek is still alive?”

“I believe so,” Owen said. “The device worked. I saw it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Dek thought it would play better at the Quietus if you didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

“There’s something else, Tosh,” Elle began. “The day your parents disappeared… I saw your dad. Moments after he tripped the alarm. He asked me to look the other way. I’m ashamed to say I did.”

Tosh stared at her, incredulous. She tried to imagine the young version of Elle confronted with such a dilemma. She couldn’t have known what her father was really up to, but she would’ve been inclined to trust him, and he wound up dead. That didn’t mean it was her fault, but Tosh could see in her eyes that she felt it was.

All eyes turned to Tosh.

She told everyone what happened the day before her parents disappeared in the FPC. Her research into her father’s movements revealed that he’d seemingly vanished near the multimeal processor, only to reappear in the same spot. But when he came to her, seemingly confused about where he’d been, she’d helped him — just as Elle did. Only that time, he didn’t come back and neither did her mother.

The story hung in the room for several seconds while everyone tried to process it. It was Greg, Vi’s father, who finally broke the silence. “You’re saying we all have these red Macros inside us?”

“Yes,” Owen said. “And if they lose the signal, they activate and kill us. That’s how the Box works.”

“And how they’d keep anyone from ever leaving the Dome,” Aaron added.

“After Dek isolated the signal, he made a device that would replicate it,” Owen continued. “We tested it on a mouse.”

“A mouse?” Susan asked, incredulous.

Of course. That must have been the real reason Dek had the mouse in the first place.

“Long story,” Owen said. “But he took it with him into the Box. As long as it worked like it should, he’s still alive.”

Elle said, “I think Cytocorp helped Luther smuggle his wife out of the Dome. Maybe even Owen’s father. Now they’re getting him out, too.”

“Where?” asked Aaron.

“To Pacifica.”

There was a collective gasp. No one believed Pacifica still existed.

“How is that possible?” Tosh asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” Elle said. “Some kind of train.”

“A train?” Greg said. “Now I’ve heard it all.”

“It’s possible,” Elle said. “They used trains to shuttle people and materials back and forth from the Northern Cities. Maybe they’re still there.”

“You’re the goddamned Administrator,” said Tosh. “How is this all news to you?”

“Everything I know comes from IDA and the Legacies, just like the rest of you,” she said. “If Cytocorp is still running the Dome Project, then they must have access to IDA, too.”

“You’re lying,” Tosh said.

Elle locked eyes with her and said, “I wish I was.”

“Okay,” Owen said. “Let’s say this is all true. There’s a train somewhere, Downing’s getting on it any moment, and Hideki’s not dead. What do we do about it?”

It was clear no one had the answer because they all just looked at each other.

“First we get Dek,” Tosh said, her eyes never leaving Elle. “Then we follow Downing out of the Dome.”

“Into the Burn?” Susan asked, pulling Vi close. “Are you insane?”

“There are climate suits. In case of a catastrophic infrastructure failure. They have oxygen,” Elle said.

“Suits? I’ve never heard of any suits,” said Byron.

Elle paused. “They’re for the Council.”

“Of course they are,” Tosh said.

“We’re wasting time!” Owen said, standing. Everyone turned to face him. “Listen, no matrix means no Macros. No Macros means we can’t fight infection. The Dome’s systems are failing. Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be here when that happens.”

“He’s right,” Byron piped in. “The Dome’s on borrowed time and we all know it.”

Greg asked, “Are we really talking about… leaving?”

Owen continued, “I don’t think we have a choice. We need to know whether it’s survivable out there.”

“I saw a tree,” blurted Tosh.

Everyone shut up and stared at her.

“What did you say?” Byron asked.

“That day the shield went down,” she said. “I didn’t cover up because I wanted to see the real sky, just once. But just before the shield came back up, I think I saw the top of a tree.”

“That’s impossible,” Elle said.

“Is it? If Cytocorp has access to IDA, then they can feed it whatever data they want, including the Epoch readings,” Tosh said.

There was a long silence while this sank in, then Owen said, “I volunteer to follow Luther.”

“Well, obviously I’m in,” Aaron said. “Especially if it gets me out of work.”

“Anything to keep my family safe,” said Greg.

“I’ll go,” said Byron. “Susan can look after the girls until we come back.”

“No!” said Dee. “You don’t know whether you’ll come back. None of you do. We all should go.”

Byron was about to protest but she had a point. They had no idea what they were getting into, or whether it would even be possible to return if and when they got out. Vi clearly stood with Dee on this. Greg and Susan looked doubtful but didn’t protest.

“Are there enough suits for all of us?” asked Tosh.

“I don’t know,” Elle replied.

“Then it’s settled,” Owen said. “We get the suits, follow Downing out, then come back for everyone else. Give them the choice.”

“How do we know Downing hasn’t already left?” asked Byron.

“We don’t. But if the way out is where Tosh says it is, he couldn’t leave without being seen,” said Elle.

“So he needs a distraction,” said Owen.

“Not necessarily,” Elle corrected. “He’s Director of Security — he could order everyone out and make up any reason he wanted.”

“Third shift is the slowest in the FPC,” Byron said. “If I were him, I’d do it then.”

“Agreed,” Tosh said. “We’ll get the suits after curfew then get Dek out of the Box. Either way, we’ll all meet outside the FPC right after the shift change.” She turned to Elle. “How do we get inside?”

“I’ll take the transport corridor from the Stores,” said Elle. “It should be pretty much empty that time of day. I’ll open the door from the inside.”

“Okay then,” said Tosh, her eyes roaming over the room. “Owen, Aaron, Elle and I will get the suits and see about Dek. The rest of you, meet us outside the FPC around midnight.”

“Wait — won’t IDA know we’re all out after curfew? Together?” asked Susan.

“I’ll handle IDA,” Tosh assured her. “Eat a big dinner, cash in any Rewards you have and take as much food as you can. We don’t know when we’ll be eating again.”

Slow nods around the room. It all seemed so surreal. With Elle there, everyone Tosh truly cared about was with her. What they were talking about doing was scary and unprecedented, but it was also exciting. And excitement in the Dome, like just about everything else, was in short supply.

49

The undertaker’s truck came humming up to the back of the Quietus Center at exactly 11 p.m. as it had before. The odd, fastidious little man named Sam climbed out, opened the rear door of the truck, and his CHIT opened the rolling outer door for him.

Owen, Aaron, and Tosh stole across the rad and shuffled along the back of the Box until they reached the open door. There was a sharp metallic clang as the bolt of the heavy inner door released and a thin squeak as it swung open on its hinges. For a moment, there was only silence and Owen was gripped by terror. What if the device didn’t work? Or worse, what if it ran out of juice just moments before they arrived?

There were many scenarios in which Dek was dead and only one where he was still alive.

He peeked around the corner just in time to see Sam stumble out of the Box, running. He jumped into the truck without bothering to close any of the doors and took off down the arc, then nearly took out an Authority vehicle as he half-skidded onto Rad 36 and back toward the Agora. It could only mean one thing.

Owen ducked through the outer door and motioned for the others to follow. The inner door was wide open, but it was still quite dark inside. Aaron and Tosh came in behind him, and there to the right, his back to the wall, was Hideki.

He looked up and said, “My ass is killing me.”

Tosh rushed past Owen and fell to the cement floor next to him. She threw her arms around him, laughing. “Dek! Oh, Dek, I wanted so badly to believe you were alive…”

“Glad to see you, too, Sis,” he said, patting her back. “How long was I in here for anyway?”

“Almost 12 hours,” she replied.

“Yeah, well it felt like 12 days.” He looked up at Owen and saw his right arm in the sling. “What the hell is that?”

“A new right arm,” Owen said, smiling. “It’s been an eventful day.”

“I guess so,” he said, then noticed Aaron. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Aaron,” he replied. “Here, let me help you up.”

Aaron helped Hideki to his feet while Owen helped Tosh, only to see that some of Hideki’s urine had gotten on her pant leg.

“Aw, Dek, gross!” she said.

“Sorry. Didn’t make it to the bathroom.”

“How about a corner? I count four,” Tosh said.

“A corner. Yeah, I guess that would’ve made sense,” said Hideki, scratching his chin for comic effect. “So… what did I miss?”

_________

It was the job of Administrator Legacies to answer questions of procedure and advise the current Administrator. Without them, the Administrator had no peers. But factual information still fell to IDA. Administrator Legacies relied on the Dome’s AI. So, while it might occasionally be useful to get a past Administrator’s opinion, Elle preferred to ask IDA directly.

It was IDA that educated her about the emergency protocols, ranging from the kind you prepared for — like O_2 emergencies — to the kind you didn’t. One such protocol was called Oasis.

When she first became Administrator, Elle wondered, What’s the worst that could happen? The Oasis Protocol was the answer to that question. The worst-case scenario was a catastrophic failure of a core Dome system — the Exchangers, the UV shield, the Towers, water treatment and reclamation, or the Dome itself. If any of these systems failed for more than a few days, people would start dying.

In this situation, the bulk of the citizenry would be evacuated to the Stores, which were basically airtight. They held enough oxygen and rations to last at least three months while the Authority (and any citizens it needed) worked to fix the problem. If it came to that, they had the suits. They had their own scrubbers to clean CO_2 from the air and filter out any particulates. In theory, the fabric was designed to survive the Burn for several days.

But that assumed a structural failure. If the Dome was intact, the protocol didn’t offer another way out.

The suits were kept in the Emergency Command Center deep in the Stores. All she needed to do was throw them in a crate, load it into the elevator, and take them down to the transport corridor that connected the Stores to the FPC. From there she could slip inconspicuously into the FPC and let the others in.

After leaving Tosh’s unit, she went by one of the laundries and swapped her Authority blues for civilian clothes. She’d forgotten how comfortable they were. Then she piled her hair into a messy bun and made for the train.

The train to the Agora was mostly empty, making it easy for her to hide in the corner with her head down. There were a few curious looks from people who thought they recognized her, but she made few broadcasts or public appearances and didn’t really look like herself.

What Luther was doing hurt her. She didn’t love him, exactly, but she felt something. The two loneliest, most isolated, and despised people in the entire Dome had nowhere to turn for solace and companionship but to each other. She hated how much she needed him. His approval. The warmth of his body next to hers. More than anything, she hated that he was going to leave her there. Was he really content to just disappear without a word? Was IDA ready with a cover story?

The cargo docks that rimmed Arc 1 were shut down at night and the Stores below would only be a skeleton crew. She waved her arm in front of the scanner outside Dock 7 and summoned the huge service elevator, which creaked and groaned against its own weight. When the metal grate of the door slid open, she stepped inside the well-worn lift and hit the button down. A few seconds later, she stepped out into one of the wide corridors that allowed the transport of supplies up to ground level.

It occurred to her that Luther had come the same way to shut down the Exchangers.

She made her way across several aisles of the mazelike warehouse until she reached an unmarked door, which clicked open for her. She checked over her shoulder to make sure no one was around. A single person at the far end of the aisle drifted across, oblivious to her presence, and she ducked inside.

This was the ECC, the heavily fortified bunker where the Council could hide if everything went to shit. Keane had offered to take her down there on Honorary Administrator Day. It was Luther who convinced him not to. But she still wound up alone with him anyway. Luther must have known his intentions, which was why he happened upon them when he did. He was only a few minutes too late.

Lights activated and she made her way across the room, which was coated with a patina of dust. Untouched chairs and workstations sat in the same place they had since 2083, which was eerie. The silence was total save for a bank of vents along the top that exhaled a dedicated air supply. As IDA described, a heavy, vault-like door awaited along the far wall labeled “E-Suits.” She turned a steel ring that withdrew the bolt and swung it open on its beefy hinges.

The shelves and hangers were empty.

Either Luther had gotten there first and taken them or they were never there to begin with. There was no way to know for sure. But without them, they couldn’t survive the Burn. All they could do was stop Luther.

She turned and entered the Administrator’s private quarters, a combination living and meeting area that would only open for her. The scanner let her pass and she made a beeline to the far wall. A hidden latch opened a panel, inside which was a neurogun and a small box of ammunition in case the ECC was compromised. Luther wouldn’t have known about it. She loaded the weapon and put it in the small backpack she’d brought, then left and returned to the service elevator.

This time, though, she hit the button that took her only up to the roadlike transport corridor that shuttled food and personnel between the FPC and the Stores. Gondolas suspended from a track in the ceiling could move cargo or passengers back and forth in minutes. She climbed into an empty one and engaged it, and in a few seconds was going so fast that she had to turn her back to the wind. She passed one rocketing the opposite direction down the lazy left-hand curve and raised a hand in greeting.

Once it slowed and stopped, she hopped out and entered the FPC. Part of her wanted to just go after Luther right then but she’d finally earned a bit of Tosh’s trust back and wasn’t about to lose it again out of her desire to confront him. She turned right and headed back toward the entrance.

50

The fastest way to clear out the FPC was an old-fashioned fire alarm. Luther made his way around the ring to the middle and descended the stairs to the floor, where the third shift’s tedious labors were starting to wind down. No one paid him any mind, so he casually walked over to one of the support columns and popped the fire alarm. The klaxon sounded.

“Fire!” he yelled back and forth. “Let’s go!”

After a brief pause, supervisors started yelling at everyone to clear out. They practically knocked each other over to reach the nearest set of stairs. You certainly didn’t need to ask these mindless drones twice to abandon their duties. It was almost too easy.

Good riddance.

The pack with his supplies was still slung over his shoulder. He had his E-suit, food, the neurogun and extra ammo, a UV blanket, and assorted tools taken from the supply room in the ECC. Everything else, including the extra suits, got loaded onto a lift and dumped in the Boneyard with the other junk. He couldn’t risk being followed. Not now. He was too close.

Satisfied he was alone, he removed the special bolts on the processor’s side panel and lifted it free, then pulled the tiny lever that made the plate steel door retract into the floor. He stepped onto the landing for the first set of stairs and closed the door behind him as the orange-tinted lights activated inside. If anyone happened by, like some shift supervisor making sure everyone got out, it would only look like someone had begun a repair they didn’t finish.

It was hard to believe 20 years had passed since the first time he came down here. All Daisuke Yamamura had to do was forget. Luther had even helped him do it. Instead, he returned and dragged his wife down with him, leaving two grown orphans and a cautionary tale with a narrative sprinkle of crazy.

It gave him no pleasure to shoot Daisuke with a neurobullet and send him out into the dark of the filling room, but the man forced his hand. Maybe they would’ve gotten out before the train. Maybe they would’ve found a way to survive. He’d been willing to give them that chance, slim as it was. But crippled by the neuro, Daisuke would’ve been slow even with the antidote. They’d actually gotten within a hundred meters of the automatic door that guarded the exit to the tunnel, but that was it. There wasn’t enough of them left to bother with.

What everyone thought was just the multimeal processor was really just the head of a much larger facility that went as deep underground as the Stores, probably deeper. Multimeal was, rather conveniently, the raw material from which the fully automated plant made Agar, a non-perishable syrup that Pacifica supposedly needed to survive.

Cytocorp hadn’t parted with that information easily.

He’d just become Director when Julia got pregnant and he went into the Vault to beg whomever might be listening for help. Anything that would save hers and the baby’s lives. That was when he heard the androgynous voice for the first time. It said there may be a way for him to get Julia out of the Dome if he was willing to do whatever they asked of him until the Fifth Epoch, when their precious dataset would be complete. Until then, he wouldn’t be reunited with his family.

He agreed without hesitation, and he’d do it again.

They said the Northern Cities had survived the Burn but were unable to grow their own food. Anticipating this, they’d built a facility into the Dome that could convert its staple food product into something less perishable. The Agar was shipped to Pacifica via a tanker train that no one even knew existed. Today, he would board it.

During the Fourth Epoch, while Keane was at the podium bloviating about what a precious flower the Dome was, he smuggled Julia down into the empty FPC. He followed their instructions for opening the panel on the side of the processor and the door just beyond. Only then did he realize the scale of the operation.

The processor itself was a boxy red machine almost 25 meters tall. But it was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. He couldn’t imagine how much multimeal was siphoned off, but it had to be at least as much as the Dome needed for itself. The volume of material that came out the other end of the processor was much, much smaller than what went in, but since multimeal was augered directly up for distribution, you couldn’t see that.

He very clearly remembered leading Julia down the same narrow stairs. She had so many questions, but he had few answers. She was scared, of course, and rightly so. It was a huge leap of faith, but he had little choice but to trust the Company. If it happened now, he might know another way to protect his child from being terminated, but he was desperate then. Cytocorp offered him a way out of their mess and he seized it.

Eight years passed, during which he never heard from Cytocorp at all. Every few months he’d go down into the Nexus and ask IDA to speak with them, but they never replied, not even to let him talk to Julia. He wondered if he’d made a terrible mistake. The anguish of knowing he’d sent Julia and their child off to some unknown fate tortured him. Elle was his only solace, at least until they contacted him again.

There was so much he wanted to say, but he just listened. Another man in the Dome named Stephen Welsh had been in a similar predicament with his own wife, Penny, who managed to get pregnant despite being denied the privilege. It was never clear whether it was her own doing or a failure of the contraceptives, but since she died during childbirth, it didn’t really matter. There were two people before the baby and two people after the baby. No harm, no foul — not as far as the Authority was concerned.

But that all happened four years before Cytocorp finally contacted him again and told him to spirit Stephen away and put him on the same train as Julia.

If they wanted him to make Owen Welsh an orphan, so be it. Questioning the Company’s motives wasn’t the best use of his scant leverage. Instead, he asked to speak to Julia and they let him.

She sounded safe and healthy, if not happy. She told him everything he needed to hear — that she missed him, that their baby was a healthy girl named Noviah, and that the only way to ever see her again was to continue doing what the Company asked of him.

That was all she had to say.

Just as he had with Daisuke, he lured Stephen into the FPC under the pretense of a repair. Once the train disappeared into the tunnel, that was it. Ever since, he’d been asked to do little things like damaging crawler harnesses and big things like shutting down the Exchangers. He didn’t understand why but he didn’t care.

Sometimes people got hurt, like the poor kid who swan-dived off a crawler into the school cafeteria or Hideki Yamamura, but mostly his actions did no specific harm. He only knew it had something to do with the data. History wouldn’t ever be able to judge him, because the Dome’s history was controlled, as everything else was, by the Company.

The tangle of pipes, vats, and valves looked exactly as it had 20 years ago. It was humid and hot, the air saturated and cloying. Whatever process turned multimeal into Agar was driven by heat that eventually bubbled up into the FPC. Down and down he went, until the stairs terminated in a rectangular floor, and at the opposite corner was a heavy door.

The door opened into the filling room, where Agar was pumped into the tanker train. He guessed its original purpose was for Cytocorp to access the facility in an emergency and, potentially, to get into the Dome. It was remarkable that it had remained in working order for so long without routine maintenance. Now that their precious data, he wondered whether they would continue to rely upon the Dome for Agar. If so, would they have to choose a new patsy?

He didn’t really care. His purpose fulfilled, he was ready to get on with his new life in Pacifica. With his family at his side, the Dome would become a distant memory. He cranked open the heavy latch that broke the door’s seal and swung it open.

He couldn’t know for certain when the train would come. The conditions on the track, which the Company said was cut through the dunes of the Burn, could impact the schedule. So, when he activated his headlamp and peered into the darkness to find the tracks empty, he wasn’t surprised. He could wait there in the delicious darkness for it or wait in the steam of the Agar facility with the door open, safe and snug. The choice was finally his.

He chose the darkness.

He left the door closed, put his back to the metal outer wall and sat, legs crossed and arms folded, in the unbroken blackness. On the screen of his mind unspooled an entire life under glass, never too far from another person. The incessant hum of the Exchangers and the rattle of conveyors in the Towers had fallen silent now, and he’d never have to hear them again.

Luther had never known silence. It hovered there with him in the dark like an unseen, but strangely welcome companion. He waited for it to touch him, to drink him in like a hungry amoeba. Somehow that would’ve been okay.

The silence let him be.

And so he waited there, enjoying its cold company. Without the darkness, there could be no light at the end of the tunnel. To be at either end was a win, therefore he’d already won.

Some time passed, and he fell into a half-sleep that played tricks on his eyes. He saw stars and twinkling lights. Shadowy purple figures lumbered across the filling room. Geometric patterns shifted and flexed like muscles. He leaned into it. And why not? He’d earned some respite.

Maybe this is what a yellow Macro is like.

And then the visions froze, for there was something else to occupy his mind. A sound, distant but sure. A low rumble that made the very ground shake beneath his numb ass. The more his awareness returned, the louder and closer it seemed. And as his awareness returned, a smile crept across his face.

His train was arriving.

51

The alarm in the FPC was so muffled by the doors that only Dee heard it at first. They’d been hiding nearby for hours waiting for something to happen and it caught them all a bit by surprise. At nearly 3:30 a.m., the first of the workers emerged, not in any particular hurry. Soon, they streamed out by the hundreds and clustered around their assigned muster points in the Agora.

They waited behind the rise of the FPC entrance until it seemed the last person had left, during which Tosh fretted about whether Elle would actually keep her word or board the train with Downing.

But after a few minutes she appeared at the door and motioned them inside. Upon seeing Hideki, she went as pale as if she’d seen an actual ghost.

“How…?” she muttered.

“Surprised to see me?” Dek said, brushing past her.

Elle was utterly speechless. Her eyes roamed over the others as though to confirm they all saw him, too. As delicious as it was to see the look on her face, Tosh knew she wouldn’t be able to focus until she knew why Dek was standing there.

“Dek figured out how the Box works,” Tosh explained. “It blocks a signal that keeps the Macros inside us from killing us.”

“Macros?” Elle stammered. “What Macros?”

“The ones Cytocorp hides in the drinking water,” Hideki said. “Thousands of the little fuckers.”

“I don’t understand,” said Elle.

Tosh put her hand on Elle’s shoulder. “All you need to understand is that we replicated the signal. We’ll be safe as long as we stick close to Dek.”

Dek withdrew the device from his shirt and dangled it in front of Elle’s face.

“We’d better hurry,” Tosh reminded her. “For all we know, Downing’s already on the train.”

“Small problem on that front,” Elle said, which got everyone’s attention. “There were no suits. Either Luther got to them or they were never there to begin with. I took what other supplies I could.”

Tosh looked anxiously back at Byron and the others. “So, what are we supposed to do?”

“I’ll be the first to venture out,” Elle said. “If it’s safe, I’ll come back. If I don’t, you’ll know it wasn’t.”

“Why you?”

“Everything that happened, happened on my watch,” Elle said. “I should go.”

“Screw that,” Tosh said. “You’re not going out there alone.”

“It’s too risky.”

“We accepted the risks,” Tosh said, and everyone nodded in agreement. “We’re in this all the way.”

Staying meant safety, shelter, food, and water for as long as the Dome’s systems lasted. That could be a year, or it could be 50. But it wasn’t that simple. To stay was to write off the truth when you’d been spoon-fed lies your whole life.

Elle checked everyone’s faces for confirmation and shrugged. “Okay then. At least I have these…”

Elle rummaged through her pack and removed a small bundle. She undid it and started handing out elastic straps with small boxes attached. “These are headlamps.” She demonstrated the surprisingly bright beams then handed them out to everyone. “Everyone brought rations?”

The Originals were allowed to bring in as much pre-approved belongings as would fit in a small, Cytocorp-issued backpack. Pretty much everyone still had them, though they were of little use in the Dome. Earlier that day, they cashed in whatever Ration Rewards they had for whole fruits and veggies, filled their bottles, and stowed everything in their packs. In addition, Byron brought a small tool kit.

It didn’t amount to much.

“Let’s get moving,” Elle said.

They followed her down the long, elevated catwalk that clung to the curved wall of the FPC. Only she and Hideki had ever ventured so deep into the facility, though all the processing bays under the Towers looked the same. Eventually they passed Bay 5 and there it was, a behemoth of a machine that rose nearly to the ceiling.

“Whoa,” Owen said. “I knew it was big, but jeez.”

“How does something so shitty come out of something that fancy?” Aaron mused.

They descended the steps to the floor and took in the processor. Dark streaks radiated out from the vents along the spine of the roof from sucking in a century’s worth of dust, smoke, and CO_2. After a lifetime in the Dome, the opportunity to take a lungful or two of un-recycled air was motivation enough for Tosh, even if it clogged her lungs with dust.

By the time they made their way around the conveyors to the processor, they could plainly see where Downing had removed one of the panels bolted to the side. But there was no opening of any kind. Elle put her hand to the steel and felt around, then waved her arm around as though it might be activated by her CHIT. Nothing happened.

“Is this right?” Tosh asked.

“I don’t know,” replied Elle.

Byron reached between them and felt around the edges. His fingers stopped along the top. “I might have something here.”

They heard a click and the heavy door slowly retracted into the floor.

“All right, Byron!” Owen said.

They all took a couple cautious steps back. Beyond it was a landing at the top of a stairway and the faint outline of pipes. Elle drew her neurogun and ventured just inside. Automatic lights activated, bathing her in peach-colored light. She peered around the corner and looked down but seemed satisfied that it was empty.

“I think it’s okay,” she said.

“I don’t know how far the Macro signal reaches,” Hideki said. “We should stay close.”

Tosh was the first to fall in behind her. The stairs clung to the near wall and descended further than she could see. Everything around it was a dense cluster of machinery, mostly pipes. Elle started down the steps and Tosh turned back to the others as though to indicate this was their last chance to change their minds. Starting with Owen, they fell in behind her and Elle with Hideki in the middle.

It was hard to keep her eyes on the steps, so surreal was the sight of the hidden facility where her parents disappeared.

“What is this place?” Tosh asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” Elle said as she paused on the steps.

Eventually the stairs ended at the lowest level, and across the way was a stout metal door, open just a crack. The others piled up behind her and Elle as they both stared.

“Is that…?” began Owen.

Suddenly there came a heavy thunk from beyond the door as though something had engaged.

“The train,” Elle said, rushing forward to door. She pushed it open, and some of the orange light spilled out into the darkness. At the very end of its reach they saw the back of a departing train disappear into a black tunnel.

“Shit,” Tosh said. “We’re too late!”

The others peered anxiously out while Hideki pushed past them. “Like hell. Run!” he cried and took off after it.

“Dek, stop!” Tosh shouted. “The signal!”

Hideki abruptly stopped and turned back to them, mortified, while they caught up. Tosh reached up and flicked on his headlamp.

“When we run, we run together. Let’s go!”

They entered the arched tunnel, the lights from the headlamps bouncing off the smooth sides at jarring angles. The car that had disappeared earlier wasn’t the back of a long train — it was all by itself. That erased any question that Downing was on it. Though it was still going slowly, it seemed the best they could do running as a group was to match its pace. Hideki was quite fast when he needed to be, but he couldn’t break away from their pack to try and chase it down.

Tosh wasn’t in shape for running. The adrenaline kept pumping, but her muscles were starting to scream. The dry air made her lungs feel raw. They wouldn’t catch up to the train, but they still had to stay as close to Hideki as possible.

“Keep going, Tosh,” Byron urged. “You’ve got this.”

“Come on, Mom!” yelled Owen, who barely looked winded despite having one arm still in a sling. Working in the Towers had him in great shape.

But Susan and Greg were struggling, too. Dee and Vi were at their side, urging them along.

The tunnel ahead curved gently right, and as they rounded it they realized that dim light was coming back toward them, distant and tinged pale blue.

The door!

The realization gave fresh speed to Tosh’s legs and the burning, like everything else, fell away. Oh, to see the sky and know if she really saw a tree! She didn’t care what happened as long as it included these things.

As they rounded the corner, they saw the exit. The light they’d seen could only be from the moon but there it was, silhouetting the train car. She wished it was daylight but reasoned the Burn might be more hospitable at night.

But she also could see that the train was picking up speed as it barreled toward the open door and that they had no chance of catching it. Downing was going to get away.

Hideki, who was leading the pack, suddenly pulled up and stopped, then fell to his knees in front of a box beside of the tracks.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, panting.

“We can’t catch it, but maybe we can stop it,” he said, grinning. “I think this is a pressure switch.”

Tosh leaned in closer. A mechanical switch was set into the track and she instantly put together that it must open the door to the outside. Once the circuit was broken, it triggered the door.

“Can you reverse the polarity?” she asked.

“No time,” he said. “We’ve gotta short it out.”

Tosh whirled to Byron. “Byron, your tools! We need something flat and metal.”

He whipped off his pack and handed him a set of pliers. “Will this work?”

She grabbed it and handed it to Hideki. “Perfect,” he said, and slowly wedged it into a space under the lever. Up ahead, it appeared the train would shoot free of the exit any moment.

“Hurry!” she said.

Hideki said, “The contacts should be just inside. I’m gonna give it a kick. Everyone stand back.”

He kicked the wrench under the lever. There was a bright flash and a buzzy pop, and suddenly the light at the end of the tunnel shrank.

“It’s working!” exclaimed Owen.

“Come on, close,” Tosh muttered.

The doors didn’t close fully before the train plowed into them, but they closed enough. They opened inward, so when the car hit, it slammed them back shut. But its momentum was too great. The doors snapped off their hinges like toys as the car smashed through. Tosh felt the impact deep in her chest. The sound was like a thunderclap, so loud and focused by the tunnel that they instinctively cowered. The car canted hard to the right then tumbled over four or five times before coming to rest on its side.

Tosh and the others slowly opened their eyes and saw what happened, then resumed moving toward the exit — first at a brisk walk, then building their way back up to a run. In the moonlight, they could make out the black outline of the overturned car.

Lush, green grass swayed around it like a wave.

52

They continued toward the ruined tunnel exit, unsure what it could mean. Maybe Downing was dead and maybe he wasn’t. The engine wasn’t moving very fast when it hit, and it seemed to tumble over in slow motion. But that wasn’t why they were running. They were drawn to the light like moths. It wouldn’t have mattered if the atmosphere was pure CO_2 or chlorine gas.

They just wanted to see it.

There was still no sign of Downing but they’d deal with that soon. For now, there was no greater priority than knowing the truth.

Tosh and the others spilled out into the night and took a deep breath. It smelled delicious and felt cool against their skin. Cold, even. A swirling breeze caused stands of towering trees nearby to sway and creak. Knee-high grass swallowed their feet. And overhead was the nearly full moon, shining down on them like a spotlight. Sunlight stirred lazily over the hills.

If there was a Burn, it was not at their doorstep. It was nowhere to be seen.

For a long time, no one spoke. Their eyes drank in the sights like water. Foreign sounds poured into their ears. Fresh, organic smells they lacked the words to describe filled their nostrils. The world wasn’t a ruin — at least not here. To them, it seemed closer to paradise.

Suddenly Downing’s machinations felt small.

“Is this real?” Owen asked, tears trickling down his face.

“My god, the trees,” Byron said, pointing. “They’re so tall! Tosh, you were right!”

So she had seen the top of a tree during the shield failure. At least she wasn’t crazy.

She took Byron’s hand in hers. Even he was welling up. Everyone just stared, their heads on a swivel, marveling at the sight. The anger would come, but this was a time for wonder.

From the engine there came the distinct sound of a door opening. Their heads all turned to it. Elle removed the neurogun from the loop of her pack, held it out in front of her, and moved slowly toward the engine. Tosh and the others were jolted from their reveries and closed ranks behind her.

Downing crawled out of a hatch in the roof of the engine, which was facing away from the Dome. In the dim light it was impossible to see if he was injured. He was halfway out, groaning from the effort, before he even noticed them.

“Don’t move,” said Elle, training the weapon on him.

He looked at Elle, then past her to the others and shook his head, wincing from whatever his injuries were. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me,” he said.

Elle drew within a couple meters of him. The others formed a semicircle behind her. “It’s over, Luther,” she said. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“You stupid bitch. You have no idea what you’ve done.”

Luther ignored her order not to move and crawled the rest of the way out of the hatch. In the half light, Tosh could see a dark stripe of blood down the side of his face. He pushed his back against the roof and sat there on the ground looking dazed, his eyes drifting across the landscape.

“Well, well. Looks like we’ve been had,” he said.

“You knew,” Elle hissed. “This whole time, you knew.”

“Knew?!” Downing said. “About this? You really think I would’ve stuck around for 20 fucking years if I knew it was the garden of fucking Eden outside?”

Elle glanced back at Tosh as though to get her take on whether he was lying. Tosh shrugged. Maybe he really didn’t know. Maybe he’d been played as much as anyone, if not more. The questions came so fast and insistent that it made her dizzy.

“We all saw the data,” Elle said. “The footage. What happened to the Burn?”

“We saw what they needed us to see,” Luther said.

Hideki turned to Owen and said, “No monster behind the door.”

Downing noticed Hideki standing there and the same confusion crossed his face as it had with Elle in the FPC, but then it softened, and he laughed ruefully. “Fucking Yamamuras.”

“What else do you know?” Elle demanded. “What’re we even doing here?”

“You put a listener in the Nexus, didn’t you?” Downing said. “Very smart.”

“Talk.”

“Listen, I didn’t even know we could communicate with the Company until I begged IDA to help Julia. You people do what you want. I’m going to see my wife and daughter.”

“Why you?” Elle demanded. “What do they want?”

“Data. And whatever that shit is they pump into the train. That’s all I know.”

“What about my father?” Owen interjected.

“Look, kid, I know you’re pissed but this is bigger than any of us. The Company holds all the cards.”

“Where is he?!” Owen demanded, fresh tears filling his eyes.

“They told me to put him on the train, so I put him on the train. It wasn’t personal.”

Of all the things Tosh could’ve imagined happening to Stephen, being hauled out of the Dome and put on a train was the last thing she could’ve imagined. Owen lurched for Downing. Aaron and Byron held him back, with considerable effort. He was a big, strong young man now.

“You son of a bitch!” Owen hissed. “Where is he?!”

Tosh and Hideki seemingly realized the same thing at the same time. Whatever line was open to Cytocorp wasn’t for communication. It was for data, and it was only supposed to go one way. That’s why Downing needed Tosh to restore the database. Why he tried to erase her memory of it.

As for Downing’s wife, it seemed they saw her as a way to use him. Everything he’d done was to get back to her and their child. They had him by the balls. But what would they need with a century’s worth of data? And if they had what they wanted, what happened next?

“What about my parents?” Tosh asked softly.

Downing shook his head. “I took your old man down to fix the processor. All he had to do was forget about it, but he couldn’t. It’s not my fault he dragged your mother into it.”

Suddenly it all came clear. Every mysterious disappearance from the Dome — her parents, Owen’s father, and Downing’s own wife — was his doing. But clearly, he’d been manipulated, too.

“What does it do?” Tosh asked, her mouth dry. “What does the train carry?”

“Multimeal’s just the raw material for something called Agar. The train takes it from here to the city. I don’t know why.”

“I knew it,” Owen said, shrugging off Aaron’s grip. Byron let go of him, too. “I told you the math didn’t add up. We made way more food than we needed. That’s because we were exporting this… Agar when all this was right outside our door.”

“Look,” Downing said. “All I want is to be with Julia and Noviah. To start over. You’ll never see me again.”

“What about the Macros?” Hideki demanded.

“Macros? What Macros?” Downing asked.

“The red Macros. What did you think was gonna happen when you left the Dome? That you’d waltz into Pacifica and get a pat on the back?” Hideki said.

Downing was completely flummoxed. “What’re you talking ab—”

A low whine, distant but sure, met their ears from the east. Their heads swiveled toward it. Downing noticed Elle’s distraction and reached for something concealed under him. Only Tosh saw him move. She dove for him, but not fast enough. The neurobullet caught her in the lower right part of her abdomen just as she fell on top of him.

At first, she only noticed the pinprick of impact. But as her heart beat faster, the neurotoxin spread like tentacles and every move became torture. Downing shoved her off him and she rolled away onto the grass.

Elle screamed and fired her own pistol into Downing’s back as he scrambled away. He stumbled but kept running.

Meanwhile, the whine to the east continued to build. Something mechanized was headed their way, and fast.

Downing clumsily angled toward the tracks that stretched east and fumbled for something in his pocket. Owen prepared to give chase, but Hideki stopped him.

“No!” Hideki said. “The signal!”

Owen got in Hideki’s face and pointed emphatically at Downing. “He has the antidote!”

Hideki whirled to Elle, who squeezed off another two rounds at Downing but he was already 25 meters away and the gun’s effective range was short.

Elle looked down at Tosh, horrified. “I don’t have any.”

Though the pain had already spread up to her face, Tosh could see the resolve in her brother’s face. He yanked the pendant up over his head and shoved it into Owen’s hands.

“Hold this.”

Dek took off like a shot after Downing, who looked like he might topple into the grass but amazingly stayed upright. Owen stood dumbly with the necklace in his hands, unsure what to do. They still didn’t know the device’s range and neither did Dek. The sound of approaching vehicles built to a roar.

Hideki caught Downing at about 40 meters and wrapped his legs up, toppling him to the ground. Downing kicked at his face with the heel of his shoe and tried to take off again, but Hideki had latched onto his foot and didn’t let go. The sight of him dragging Dek’s slight frame behind him was almost comical.

The silhouettes of three aircraft appeared over the trees in the distance, framed by the building light of dawn. Their wings bent toward the ground as though by the weight of the armaments underneath. The tail section swept up behind it in a dramatic T shape.

“Cytocorp,” Elle said.

“Maybe they’re here to help us,” Greg offered.

“They’re not,” Elle said, then turned to Owen, who stared helplessly after Dek. “We have to go right now.”

Byron bent low and gathered Tosh up in his arms. Next thing she knew, she was slung over his shoulder with her ass in the air.

“Dek!” Owen shouted. “Forget him!”

But Hideki was determined. In Tosh’s vision he was upside-down, still wrestling with Downing to try and get to the antidote, if he even had it. But even in her addled state, her head swimming from unspeakable pain, she knew that he was only still alive because of the Dome’s signal, not the one from the necklace. That was for them now.

To go after him was to risk the whole group. Even she couldn’t do that for his sake, not that she could have. He knew exactly what he was doing and what the stakes were. It wasn’t about the antidote anymore. It was about buying them time.

Dee looked desperately up at Tosh, then her father. The choice was difficult, but not impossible. They had to run.

“This way!” Owen said, trotting toward the forest.

“What about Dek?” Dee asked.

“We’ll come back for him,” Tosh croaked, though Dee seemed to realize it was a lie.

Byron carried her past the end of the train car and paused. For a moment, she had an unrestricted view of Hideki, Downing, and the approaching aircraft. Dek looked up at the craft, then back toward the retreating group. Tosh and Dek’s eyes met for a moment in the dim light and she could see he understood.

“Keep going,” said Tosh, and when Byron turned to trot down through the grass toward a thick stand of trees, she lost sight of her brother. Her body shook painfully with each footfall. The tips of tall grasses brushed against her bare ankle, her baggy pants bunched up around her knees. A few seconds later, they entered the forest and trees swallowed the dawn.

53

As he ran, Luther kept reaching to dig the shards of neurobullet from his upper back, but it was no use. The projectile was small and designed to fracture on entry, after which it was quickly absorbed. He thought he’d scoured the ECC for weapons, but apparently not. After gathering up the flimsy E-suits, he set about removing anything Elle would consider useful if she somehow pursued him.

He’d been so careful, but shit still happened.

His ride to the city was demolished but his instinct to go to Julia and Noviah was strong. He must’ve telegraphed his move to Tosh because she almost disarmed him. Almost. The list of Dome citizens who had been shot with a neuro was pretty short, yet three Yamamuras were now on it. Guess he could add his own name to that list.

Part of him hoped the approaching aircraft were there for him. Surely, they would’ve known what happened to the train. Maybe, just maybe, they’d come to extract him. Somehow, he doubted it.

Could he have been more careful? Probably. Getting so close to Elle was a tactical error. He’d underestimated her. She obviously had a sense that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be during the Exchanger failure and perhaps even pieced together what he’d done. When she caught him trying to erase Tosh, that would’ve been the last straw for her. He’d crossed a line. He didn’t share Keane’s proclivities, but in the end, he wasn’t any better a man.

He relished Hideki’s pain during the interrogation, but now that he’d been hit himself, he understood. The only pain he really knew was loneliness and regret. This shit was made to do one thing: Stop you in your tracks and make you beg for mercy. How many false confessions had been extracted by his predecessors in this way?

And what did Hideki mean, exactly, by the red Macros? What could that idiot possibly know that Luther didn’t?

By the time he even reached the tracks that bent back toward the distant city, he could barely move. So, when Hideki came rushing up behind him and wrapped up his legs, he toppled hard to the ground.

On the ground, Luther’s size advantage did him little good. The pain was already sapping the strength from his muscles, so Hideki easily yanked the neurogun from his fingers. He feebly tried to keep it pointed away from him, but Hideki kept squeezing the trigger over and over. Luther couldn’t tell whether anything was hitting him or not. A moment later, it was empty. Hideki flung it away and he heard it land in the tall grass nearby.

“Where’s the antidote?!” Hideki demanded, fistfuls of Luther’s blue shirt in his bony hands.

The antidote! With the last of his strength, he brought his knee up into Hideki’s ribs. When he pulled back, Luther wedged his foot under his shoulder and shoved him back, sending him tumbling onto the ground.

He rolled onto his knees and fished the little autoinjector out of his shirt pocket, then jabbed it into his neck. Almost instantly the fire in his body began to cool. Above him was the open sky, dotted with stars and the fierce white circle of the moon — the same light that shone down on Julia and Noviah.

If the Burn was ever real — and at this point, he couldn’t even be sure of that — then it had not advanced this far. The air was cool, bordering on cold. The land was fertile and lush, not the wind-scoured desert they all believed it to be. Insects chirped. A flock of birds lit from one of the tall trees and fled west, terrified by the roar of the approaching aircraft.

If the immediate surroundings weren’t a wasteland, then neither was Pacifica. In all likelihood, the mysterious voice in the Nexus was a real person and he was their unwitting ally in some broader plan. If they’d lied about that, then they almost certainly were lying about his family.

But he had to try, for there was nothing left to want.

Three aircraft came in hot but pulled up at the last moment, continuing in a low circle overhead. As the pain eased, some of his strength returned. He ran as fast as his searing muscles would allow, which still wasn’t very fast, but Hideki was no longer giving chase. He began down the empty tracks toward the faint outline of the city at the edge of the horizon. It seemed to stretch from the northwest to the southeast.

The first sensation he felt was a sudden urge to vomit. Two steps later, the several thousand red Macros he didn’t know were inside him finally lost the Dome’s signal. The resulting electronic pulse felt like bombs exploding inside every cell at once. His vision went instantly black and he fell so quickly to the ground that it felt like it reached up and pulled him down. The next heartbeat was his last. The antidote had eased the pain just enough for him to feel it all. It didn’t take two seconds.

The last thought that went through Downing’s head was the depth of his failure. All he’d done, all the pain and anguish he’d caused, was in service to this one desire that may not even be true. If Julia was alive, he’d never see her. If he really had a daughter, she’d never know him. Neither would ever realize how close he came.

Maybe that was for the best.

_________

Hideki was so fixated on Downing’s antidote that he didn’t even notice the foot planted in his chest. The guy was more flexible than he gave him credit for. A moment later he was flying back and rolling in the grass while Downing clambered to his feet in a clumsy sprint.

His instinct was to follow, but he’d come as far as he dared from the Dome. Hopefully Tosh and the others were far away already. His choice was to chase Downing and die or get back inside and… and what? Tell everyone it was safe outside but that they couldn’t get too far away? What good would that do? He was supposed to be dead.

In the end, he did neither. The circling aircraft touched down between him and the tunnel opening, their jet wash pinning the long grass to the earth. He turned away just in time to see Downing crumple to the ground. That meant the Dome’s signal was only good for maybe 150 meters. The device he left with Owen would be something well south of that — probably no more than 50.

He couldn’t chase Downing, couldn’t follow the others, and couldn’t return to the Dome. So he stayed put.

After a few minutes, the engines on the big, dark-colored craft shut down and he turned back toward them. Now he was just curious to see who — or what — came out.

He didn’t have to wait long. A burly man in paramilitary garb stepped out of the middle craft, flanked by two soldiers with angry-looking rifles. He removed his helmet from his bald head and tossed it back inside, then strode purposefully toward him. Hideki held his ground.

As they neared, the armed men trained their rifles on him. He instinctively raised his arms. One of them looked down at a display on his arm and said something to the one in charge. He nodded and came to a stop within two meters of Hideki, then looked him up and down. He had tightly cropped dark hair and squinty black eyes that bored a hole right through him. A patch in the middle of his chest said ARAMOR. The Cytocorp logo was emblazoned on his shoulder as well as the sides and wings of all three aircraft.

One of the armed men held up a glowing display on their arm and showed it to Aramor. He took a moment to read it then looked up at Dek.

“Hideki Yamamura. The infamous saboteur of Dome Six.”

“And you are?”

In lieu of an answer, he said, “How are you still alive?”

Dek shrugged. “I guess it wasn’t my time.”

Aramor looked past him to the demolished exit and the overturned train. “You and your friends made quite a mess.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

Aramor smirked and said, “Where are the others?”

“It’s just me and him,” he said, nodding toward Downing’s body. “Guess he didn’t know about the signal.”

Aramor glanced at Downing and nodded toward one of the other soldiers who now flanked him. The soldier went to verify Downing’s condition. One of the others whispered something in Aramor’s ear.

“Our manifest indicated eight missing CHITs. A lie’s no way to start a relationship.”

Hideki smiled and looked around at the trees, the grass, and shook his head. “You want to talk about lies?”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me where they’re going?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.”

Aramor shrugged. “Suit yourself. They won’t get far.”

“It’s too bad, really,” Hideki said.

“What’s that?” asked Aramor.

“I’m the first person in a century to talk face to face with someone outside the Dome and I’m already bored.”

Aramor’s lips curled into a grin. “Then I guess we’re both disappointed.”

Hideki turned to the right, where the brilliant sun had just broken over the tops of distant hills, bathing the landscape in gentle orange hues. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

“Nice sunrise,” Hideki said.

Aramor took a few seconds to appreciate it himself, then said, “You could do worse.”

Hideki squared back up to him and said, “Let’s get this over with.”

“Fair enough.”

In one smooth motion he withdrew some kind of burly sidearm, aimed it at Dek’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. If it made a sound, he didn’t hear it.

54

Alonso Aramor, director of security for Cytocorp Pacifica, holstered his pistol and touched a finger to his face. It came back smeared with red. Blowback. That’s why you always made sure you had at least a meter of separation. He was rarely so careless.

Aramor removed a small light from his front pocket and studied the tip of his finger. On the tip was a tiny red worm. What were the chances? He hadn’t seen a Macro since he was a kid. Foster handed him a small towel from one of his many pockets so he could wipe his face and hands.

“Are we bringing either of them in?” Foster asked.

“Just him,” he said, nodding toward Downing’s body. “I don’t care what you do with this one.”

Foster nodded and got to work. Aramor’s XO, Howell, came hustling over from somewhere behind his R-310 Scorpion and turned off his helmet display. Aramor finished wiping himself clean and turned to face him.

“Anything?” he asked.

“Just the CHIT markers we saw when we came in. The signal’s too weak for visuals,” reported Howell. “Want me to call in a swarm?”

Howell was talking about the biodrones, basically flying neural networks they used for surveillance. They could bring someone down if they needed. But it rarely came to that anymore. Besides, they were expensive and, for lack of a better word, buggy. Most likely, the other escapees lost the signal minutes earlier and dropped dead where they stood.

Still, the Yamamura man knew about the failsafes and Downing didn’t. As long as there was a remote possibility that they’d figured a workaround, they needed to be vigilant. The narrative surrounding the Domes was well-established, and it was critical that it be preserved. The missing eight were a loose end, and Cytocorp didn’t like loose ends.

Aramor shrugged. “Keep one bird in the air for surveillance, but make sure the men stay here. Let’s do what we came here to do. I just need final confirmation.”

Howell said, “Roger that,” and trotted over to the Scorps. One of them took off again while Aramor activated the comm on his wrist. A moment later, Ulrich Eliason’s smooth face popped up.

“Alonso!” he said. “I’ve been eager for news.”

Aramor didn’t like Eliason using his first name. At best, he tolerated Cytocorp’s eccentric CEO. Mostly, Aramor looked for any reason not to interact with him but his orders were to get final clearance before proceeding with the rest of the op.

“Two dead, eight others about to be. Once we find them, we’ll add them back to the manifest.”

“What do you mean, ‘find them?’ How could they go beyond the perimeter?” Eliason asked.

“We don’t know yet, but they can’t be far.”

“What about the Administrator?”

“Among the missing.”

“I’d like her alive if possible,” said Eliason. “She’s the only one with any value to us. Talk to me about the facility.”

“Past its prime. Vines are up past the support wall and the tunnel entrance is destroyed. It’s how they got out.”

Eliason equivocated for a moment and said, “Our Agar reserves are at capacity, yes?”

“That’s my understanding.”

“We make the broadcast and open the door. Once they’re all out, we trigger the sequence. Assuming everything goes as planned, you can send the dozers.”

Eliason sighed. “Very well. You have my authorization to proceed.”

“Copy, sir,” Aramor said. He sighed and disconnected, then rolled up his sleeves and turned to Howell. “We’re on.”

Howell pointed at two of his men, Wasco and Parmer, and yelled, “Get your asses over here,” he said. “Go with the chief.”

“Keep one bird on surveillance,” Aramor added to Howell. “He wants the Administrator alive if possible.”

“Yes sir,” Howell said. He turned and waved his hand in a circle, and the pilots started the engines.

Aramor climbed back in his Scorpion and turned to his longtime pilot, Morgan. “All right. Take us to the west side.”

Morgan activated the VTO jets and they rocketed skyward, following the perimeter around to the other side of the Dome. Its mirrored surface was dingy and mottled. Vines and roots crawled up the sides. In the half light, it looked as old as it was. Still, it was an impressive feat of engineering.

The two Scorpions continued around the edge of the Dome until the channel appeared, surprisingly bereft of vegetation. Its inside edge was 50 meters from the base of the support wall. The smooth concrete walls were 10 meters high. Around the outside of the channel was a grass-covered hill at least as high as its walls. On and on the channel went in a semicircle, until finally they saw where it branched, a vine-choked stub that ran into the Dome’s support wall.

“Put down on either side of the ramp,” Aramor said.

The Scorpions dropped down and settled onto the grass on either side of the stub, then shut down their engines. Aramor’s men climbed out and he pointed to the thick vegetation where the stub met the wall.

“Clear all that shit out,” he directed. “I don’t want anything to get stuck. Saws and jaws, let’s go.”

The men went to work, hauling equipment out of the Scorpions’ cargo area. About an hour later, the junction of the channel and the support wall was cleared of debris. They climbed back up and joined Aramor at the edge of the stub.

“You really think this’ll work?” Howell asked.

“We’ll find out soon enough,” Aramor said, and activated his comm again. This time it was a lieutenant at Control, Pacifica’s technology hub, who popped up.

“Director Aramor,” he said. “Are you in position?”

“We are. Initiate egress procedure.”

A moment later, a faint a muffled voice, official-sounding but incomprehensible, played inside the Dome. At the same time, a section of the support wall a bit wider than the channel moved, a chunky sound that suggested its immense weight. Bit by bit, it was lowered down into the ground. Air came rushing out, whipping the nearby vegetation. It smelled old and wet.

“Let’s all be professionals,” Aramor said. “This is just a job.”

As the top edge of the door came into view, the announcement running inside became crystal clear. It played on a constant loop.

“Your attention, please. The Dome Project has now concluded. Please shut down all equipment, leave your belongings, and proceed immediately to the exit at the end of Rad 54 for a quarantine and screening procedure. It is safe to do so. You will receive further instructions upon exiting. Cytocorp thanks you for your compliance.”

The enormous concrete door continued down until it was level with the bottom of the channel stub, then stopped with a thunk. Some of Aramor’s Charlies crouched low to get a better look. A narrow street stretched out to infinity, with the towers visible in the far distance through a haze of humidity. Bright yellow chevrons illuminated to indicate the way out.

“Spread out,” Aramor said. “They’re coming.”

The first curious person appeared a few seconds later and paused at the top of the ramp, a young man wearing a loose hemp uniform. He tentatively made his way down, wide-eyed with wonder. Giant signs on the far wall where it branched off directed them to proceed to the end.

The young man looked up at the Charlies, as confused as he was excited.

“Keep moving,” Aramor said. “We’ve got a lot of people to take care of.”

“Where’s the Burn?” he asked.

“Far from here,” Aramor said, then gestured toward the T. “Please.”

The young man turned around to see that hundreds of others were now descending the ramp behind him. He turned left as Aramor’s Charlies waved them along. By and by, the ramp became an uninterrupted stripe of humanity.

“Is this really the best way?” Morgan asked.

Aramor shook his head. “It’s just how they designed it to work.”

People streamed out of the door for the better part of an hour, marching along as the channel gradually filled. Eventually the stream slowed to a trickle and Aramor activated his comm again. The third Scorpion had been circling the area ever since they dusted off from the tunnel side of the Dome and he wanted an update.

“Any sign of them?”

“Nothing yet, sir,” said the pilot.

“Keep on it.”

Eventually, the ramp emptied and Aramor checked the manifest. A few dozen CHIT signals were still making their way toward the exit, but at least they were moving. He didn’t want to go in if he could avoid it. Some time later, the last person exited and joined the noisy throngs in the channel.

Aramor contacted his lieutenant to silence the looping announcement and close the gate. The final echoes of the official voice stopped and echoed across the Dome, and the motor re-engaged to close the heavy gate. While it rose back out of the ground, Aramor nodded to Morgan and the Charlies made their way back to the Scorps. They fired up the engines as the heavy gate eased its way shut.

As Aramor went around to his side of the craft, he studied the faces of the people in the channel. Some looked happy, still marveling at the fact that they were outside at all, while others appeared more suspicious. They knew almost nothing of human history, and little of what they did know was true. Considering what was about to happen, that was probably for the best.

“Okay,” Aramor said. “Take us up.”

Morgan nudged the Scorp off the ground. As they climbed, the expressions began to shift toward concern. Soon they were hovering 200 meters above the channel. Aramor checked his watch. 9 a.m. on the nose.

“Everyone strap in,” Aramor said. “We may need to climb out of here fast if things don’t go as they should.”

Everyone clipped in while Aramor activated his comm for the final time. The tech lieutenant’s face appeared. “How are we looking out there?”

“The manifest is clean and the gate is closed,” Aramor said. “Trigger the sequence.”

“Yes sir,” he said. “Triggering in 3, 2, 1… and, mark.”

The first explosion took out the signal array. The moment it did, every last person in the channel dropped to the ground as their failsafes activated. It was hard to watch, even for Aramor, but he took solace in the fact that it was instantaneous.

Half a second later, the century-old charges in the Dome’s lattice frame went off in a rapid spiral, starting from the bottom and working their way toward the Apex with breathtaking precision. The percussions were distant and benign, like the snapping of fingers. For a moment it seemed like nothing was happening, but then All at once Dome Six collapsed in on itself, the vibrations from its violent end shaking the Scorpions. Secondary charges from somewhere underneath the hydroponic towers detonated and they toppled inward. Dust bloomed up from the wreckage like a mushroom cloud.

The solemn expressions of his men suggested they took no pleasure in this either. They understood it was just business.

Soon, the dozers would be hauled in from Pacifica and push the excavated mounds of dirt back into the channel. Once that was done, the salvage operation could begin in earnest, but that wouldn’t involve him. Aramor had spent the first half of his career in the Reclamation and he didn’t need to see anymore. With luck, he’d be an Executive by the time they ramped things up here. Eliason sent him to oversee Egress and now it was done.

One down, seven to go.

He patted Morgan’s shoulder and said, “Well done, everybody. Let’s find the stragglers and go home.”

55

They ran as fast as they could, which wasn’t fast at all considering the steep slope and the fact that Byron still had Tosh slung over his shoulder. He almost fell at least three times but always righted himself at the last moment.

Hideki was on his own. He would could only follow Downing so far without losing the signal, so he’d have to stay close to the Dome or close to them. He was pretty much trapped.

They crouched behind a pile of dark gray boulders at the bottom of a gulch, from which they could just see between the trees to the top of the hill where Dek stood. It was hard to make anything out at a distance, even in the building light. A conversation ensued between whoever came out of the strange aircraft and Hideki. They could just see the outlines of two men go past where Hideki was and drag back someone’s body. That was almost certainly Downing.

Owen’s mind had just calmed down enough to think logically about their situation when a shot rang out and Hideki crumpled to the ground.

Dee squelched a scream and clapped her hands over her mouth. Vi hugged her tightly and they shrank down together against the rocks. All eyes turned sympathetically to Tosh. Owen crawled over to her to explain what happened, but she already seemed to know because she was already crying.

“I know. We need to keep moving,” Tosh managed.

Owen pulled back and noted that one of the three aircraft had taken back off. He turned to Aaron and said, “They know we’re not in the Dome. They’re coming after us.”

“What should we do?” Aaron asked.

“You heard the woman,” Byron said, picking Tosh back up. “Let’s go.”

Owen chewed his lip for a moment and said, “Our blankets. Maybe they’ll shield us a bit from scans while we move.”

“Can’t hurt,” Aaron agreed.

“Everyone cover up with your UV blankets, especially your head,” Owen said.

He helped Byron fish out his blanket and draped it over him and his mom while the others covered up with theirs. Tears poured down her cheeks and collected on her chin. Hideki chased after Downing in order to get the antidote for her but now they were both dead and she probably wished she was. Others would die, too, unless they got out of there.

Owen took the lead with Elle at the rear. Down and down they went through a mud-filled gulley that widened into a small creek. They’d never seen water just running like that.

They followed it for at least a kilometer. No one pursued them on foot and, though the aircraft’s circle around the Dome had widened, they were soon well away from it. They paused to rest beside a short ridge that rose up to the left, blocking their view of the Dome entirely. On the other side of it, the engines of the remaining two aircraft roared back to life.

“Do you hear that?” Owen said. “Maybe they’re leaving.”

Owen scrambled up the side of the rise, maybe 10 meters above the group.

“Watch your distance…” Elle warned.

He reached the crest and moved from side to side to see past the ocean of towering pines.

“Can you see what’s happening?” Greg asked.

“I’m not sure,” Owen replied. “They’re flying toward the far side of the Dome. The further the better. Let’s keep going.”

They couldn’t move as fast as Owen wanted, chiefly because of his mother. They had to stop every 10 or 15 minutes so she and Byron could rest, but each time, it helped them less and less so Owen took over carrying her. Right away, he recognized Byron’s efforts to that point as nearly superhuman.

Eventually, though, the sound of the circling aircraft faded to the point where their blankets seemed unnecessary. That was just as well since they kept getting hooked on branches. By the time they stopped to eat and drink something, it was nearing midday and Owen became curious about what was happening at the Dome.

They took their break atop a small ridge that afforded a relatively unobstructed view of the Dome, far enough away that it almost looked small. The first stirrings of sunlight glinted off the top of its weather-beaten frame. From their vantage point, they could also make out the faint outlines of a city, well to the northeast, that he presumed to be Pacifica.

His mother lay on a carpet of moss, curled up into a tight ball as she shook. He wished he could take her pain away, or at least that her body would let her slip into unconsciousness, but it seemed the pain was too insistent for that. He knelt beside her and lifted her bottle to her lips. She took a halfhearted sip.

“It hurts to move,” she whispered.

“I know,” he said. “As soon as we find a place to hide for a while, we’ll stop and rest.”

Just then, an explosion met their ears and everyone gasped. Owen’s head whirled toward the sound, which clearly came from Six. Indeed, a puff of white smoke appeared at the Apex.

“What just happened?” Aaron asked.

“I’m not sure,” Owen said. “Maybe they—”

Owen was interrupted by the pop-pop of charges, little flashes that began at the top of the support wall and traveled around the Dome in a rapid spiral. They saw them well before they heard them, which made it that much more surreal when the entire roof of the Dome collapsed inward, leaving only the concrete outer wall. The metal Towers now glinted in the sunlight.

“What happened?” Susan asked, panicked. “What just happened?”

Secondary charges in the Towers went off from the bottom up, so quickly that they’d already begun to fall before the sound reached their ears.

For a long moment, no one said anything, their jaws hanging open. None of them had the words for this.

As he fought back the tears, Owen looked at his mother and said, “They blew it up. They blew it up with everyone inside.”

He fell onto his back and wept.

Anguish seized them all. None of it seemed real. There would be time to grieve and process what happened, but that time wasn’t now. They were still in mortal danger. Cytocorp had done what it came to do, and now they would hunt them down.

But instead of feeling fear or even grief, another emotion had suddenly bloomed in Owen’s gut. Anger, hot and insistent. He’d been very careful to remain calm and rational to this point, but the feeling overwhelmed him. He wanted revenge, and he wanted it now.

“Give me the gun,” he said, and turned to Elle. “I’m going to Pacifica.”

“Is that right?” Elle said. “And what happens to the rest of us?”

He yanked the pendant from his neck and held it out to her. “Take it. I’ll figure something out.”

“Owen,” Elle said, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders. “Owen, look at me. We don’t even know where we are. We don’t know anything at all. Let’s be smart about this.”

Owen paused to consider this, then nodded. He took several deep breaths to calm himself. Elle was exactly right — they had to keep their wits about them. Her calm, cold logic seemed to jostle everyone out of their shocked state.

“They’re gone,” he muttered. “They’re all gone.”

She handed the pendant back to him and closed his hand around it. “All the more reason for us to press on.”

He nodded and slipped the necklace back on, tucking it back into his shirt, then took a final deep breath before he picked his mother back up and descended to the bottom of the ridge, with Elle now in the lead.

The going was difficult as they worked their way down, but the creek continued to grow in size and strength as more small creeks joined it. As it tumbled off ledge after ledge, it actually became hard to hear anything but a close conversation. No one had ever seen so much water.

The creek widened into a large pool then was split by an enormous black rock. They were on the wrong side of the creek to get around it so they had to wade across the knee-deep water. Owen had to carry his mother in his arms while they forded it. It was so cold it hurt, but so perfectly clear he could discern individual pebbles at the bottom.

Ahead, he thought he could discern a break in the trees that may have meant a meadow or some other open space. The closer they got, the larger that void appeared to be — virtually without end. The woods opened into a steep, rocky slope that fell away toward a cliff, beyond which they could only see the far side of what appeared to be a wide valley with a floor of solid blue, sparkling and shimmering in the full light of day.

_________

“What is that?” Dee asked.

“It’s a river,” Owen said, setting Tosh down. “Mom, do you see?”

She saw it, but her addled brain could barely register what it was. It was so inconceivably large that it looked fake. There was enough water to have filled the entire Dome in minutes.

“A river…” she said, trailing off as a fresh wave of pain hit her. She groaned. One way or another, it had to stop.

“There’s got to be something we can do for her,” said Owen.

“There is one thing,” Elle said, expressionless.

“No,” Byron said, his eyes red and glassy. “You’re not touching her.”

“She’s right,” Tosh croaked, her voice so thin and insubstantial that it didn’t even sound like her own. “I’m on fire. And it’s only getting… worse.”

Byron said, “We’ll find help.”

Tosh howled in anguish and curled into the fetal position. “Take me to the river.”

She got on all fours and tried to stand but toppled over. Owen barely caught her and eased her back to the ground. He and Byron got down on either side of her, put her arms around their shoulders, and helped her to her feet.

“Can you walk?” Byron asked.

She took a tentative step but immediately retracted her foot and winced. “It’s like walking on knives.”

“Then we keep carrying you,” Owen said. He was about to pick her back up when Byron stepped in.

“I’ve got her,” he said, and then she was back over his shoulder.

The going was already slow, but it was an order of magnitude slower now that they were carrying Tosh down the steep pitch to the river. They had to veer well away from the ledge to find a way down, and even then it required some scrambling. Byron almost dropped her — not only because of the terrain but because she couldn’t stop convulsing.

After a very long hour and a half, the slope abruptly ended and tapered to a finger of rocks and sand that reached out into the mighty river. The current curled around the end of the finger in eddies as it flowed west.

They set Tosh back down on her feet, still supporting most of her weight. She took a couple shaky steps forward until her feet shuffled into the cold water on the downstream side of the little peninsula.

“Does that feel better?” Owen asked.

“A little.”

They helped her further into the river. Tosh’s weight seemed to diminish with each step as she became more buoyant. She let her arms fall away from them, though they continued to hold her by her upper arm for balance. The group waded in after them, ever mindful of their distance from the pendant.

Tosh turned to Owen, shaking, and said, “Keep everyone safe. I’ll try to stay afloat long enough to give you the range.”

“Mom, no,” Owen said, tears streaming down. “We can still find help.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “This is what I want. It’s okay.”

“There has to be another way,” he pleaded.

“Not this time,” she said. “I’ll slow you down.”

He threw his arms around her. “I love you,” he said, his voice cracking. “I probably didn’t say that enough. Or thank you.”

“I know,” she said. “I love you, too. You’re gonna be okay.”

She turned to Byron.

“Guess this means we’re… breaking up,” she said.

He smiled through tears. “I fell hard for you.”

A smile pushed its way through the pain. “Yes, you did.”

“I love you,” he said.

They embraced. Elle’s eyes met hers, and her expression said it all. I’m sorry, it said. For everything. Everything that happened or didn’t happen between them fell away. None of it mattered now. Everyone muttered their own goodbyes as Tosh’s eyes met theirs in turn, ending with Dee and Vi. She wanted to assuage the girls’ grief but she couldn’t. All she could do was tell them they would be okay. Everything would be. She felt it in her soul.

A fresh wave of pain tore at her nerve endings and her face contorted in pain. Owen and Byron eased her into the chest-deep water. They lifted her legs up and supported her head and lower back, then slowly pulled their hands away. She floated like a champ.

“So much water,” she whispered, then turned her head to each of them. “It’s okay. Just let me go.”

Their hands released her, and the slow current pulled her away. Her face remained fixed on the sky as she turned in a slow circle. The group stood with their arms around each other, Dee and Vi at the front, sobbing uncontrollably.

Tosh was done with tears. She turned her face up to note the bright streaks of daylight that spilled over the edge of the nearby cliffs. It was so easy to lie there in the river’s cool embrace, to simply surrender to it as she stared in wonder up at wispy clouds overhead. Art would’ve been so jealous.

The water eased her pain somewhat, but she was still ready for it to be over. Owen could handle himself. With luck, they’d all make it through this day, and the next, and the next after that. They’d already seen more than any of them could’ve imagined.

It felt good to know Byron loved her. Only now, at the end, did she realize that he had for quite some time. It would’ve been hard for him to say, but now it came so easily. Hopefully, he’d find it again with someone else. If not, well, then maybe she’d gotten the best of him.

After a short while, she felt it — the punch of an icy hand to her chest that seized her muscles and stole her last breath. The morning light went black, and for one final, delicious moment, she felt no pain at all.

56

Owen watched her intently. Twenty meters. Twenty-five. Thirty. At about 40 meters, his mother’s body suddenly jolted then went limp. She slipped below the surface as the current bore her away.

He collapsed to his knees, the water just above his waist, as his body heaved with sobs. His entire family, such as it was, was gone and he’d never felt more alone. Still, everyone there lost someone in the Dome’s destruction. Parents. Grandparents. Friends. He didn’t have a monopoly on sorrow.

He felt Aaron’s hand on his shoulder but it only turned him into more of a blubbering mess. Even if you’d been to a hundred Quietus ceremonies, you never actually had to see it happen. A door closed and that was it. This was visceral and it hurt like hell. Releasing his mom into the current was the hardest thing he’d ever done. Resisting the urge to try to save her, even knowing he would surely drown in the attempt, was the second hardest.

At least there was meaning in her death. He knew the device’s range now, and that information could keep them alive. Plus, no one wanted to say they’d be able to move much faster without her. Maybe, just maybe, the people now hunting them would find her in the river and conclude they’d all met the same fate.

Of course, she wouldn’t have seen it as sacrificing herself. She would’ve seen it as giving as many people as possible the best possible chance of survival. That Yamamura logic was alive and well. It all just happened so damn fast.

“We’re exposed here,” Byron said softly.

Owen nodded and wiped his tears on his sleeve. Aaron’s hand remained on his shoulder as they sloshed through the water and climbed, dripping, onto the muddy bank. The engines of the aircraft rumbled in the far distance.

They ducked under a large tree, which was enough to hide them from sight but probably not from whatever devices Cytocorp would deploy to hunt them down. Whatever they did, they needed to be smart and decisive like his mom, and he had to be a man, even if he didn’t feel like one.

He turned to Elle and asked, “What do we do now?”

Elle looked every bit as frightened and confused as the rest of them. Still, it was hard not to wonder if she was showing all her cards. She was Administrator, Dome Six’s highest executive. Was it still possible that she was as much in the dark as the rest of them? If so, could they trust her to lead?

“We don’t know how long that thing will last,” Elle said, nodding toward the pendant around his neck.

“No, but thanks to Mom, we have an idea of the range,” Owen pointed out.

“But it’ll shrink over time,” Byron noted, “and we don’t know how quickly.”

“We’re at a huge disadvantage,” Elle said. “We don’t know the lay of the land, where we could hide, where we could go…”

“We don’t have time to hide,” Owen said. “We need to get these Macros out of us somehow. They can probably use them to track us, or our CHITs. We need to find help.”

Elle asked, “What do you suggest?”

He nodded to the southeast and said, “I say we follow the river as best we can to the east. At least we’ll be close to a water source.”

Without any knowledge of the outside world that the Company hadn’t provided, they might as well be stumbling in the dark. In any event, the decision couldn’t wait.

“Owen’s right,” Elle said. “We won’t last long without help. Until we find it, the river gives us cover, water, maybe even food.”

Everyone nodded, seemingly accepting this appraisal.

“Wait,” Susan piped in. “Can we have just a moment? All our families. Our friends…” She trailed off. Vi hugged her tightly and she cried into Greg’s shoulder.

There was no time to grieve properly just then, but they could do this. Until they were safe, they couldn’t let it sink in or it would cripple them. They joined hands and lowered their heads for several seconds.

Owen was the first to open his eyes. The key to their continued survival hung around his neck but it wouldn’t last. If there was a solution, it wouldn’t come to them — they had to find it for themselves.

“Let’s go,” he said, and he started through the brush.

The building wind in the vast river valley heralded the approach of low, slate-gray clouds plump with moisture. The morning sun that had been so warm and brilliant as it broke over the distant hills faded and disappeared, and soon it began to rain. It was barely enough to penetrate the canopy along the banks but sporadic breaks let some through. It fell on their hair, their faces, their flimsy hemp clothes. It seemed miraculous to them, at least for a while.

The novelty wore off quickly.

As the wind built, the temperature plummeted. They would huddle together and shiver here and there, sharing wads of multimeal from rations they’d packed away. Sometimes Elle led, sometimes Owen, sometimes even Aaron. They occasionally thought they heard the sound of aircraft rising above the patter of wind and rain, ready to swoop down on them like a hawk, but nothing appeared.

It was Dee who finally noted that they posed no threat to the people with the planes and the guns. They could kill 100,000 people with the flip of a switch, so why would they go to any trouble at all to find when they’d almost certainly die of exposure or starvation?

Owen didn’t know if that was true, but at least it gave them hope.

Toward the end of the day, they found shelter — a generous limestone overhang set well back from the edge of the river. The thought of a fire was so utterly delicious that Owen instantly wished he could banish it from his mind. They knew nothing of fires. He might as well have wished for a bowl of ice cream. They ate mushy vegetables from their packs and drank water from the river, though they feared it might make them sick.

Warmth only came to those who sought it in each other’s arms. The rest just shivered through the endless night under their torn and tattered UV blankets. Owen couldn’t have said whether they covered five kilometers or 10. When light broke the next morning, they got up and kept moving.

Tower work had toned Owen and Aaron’s bodies, so he tried to not seem annoyed when the others needed to rest. Their under-used muscles cramped and ached. Lungs that had never tasted real air felt raw.

Still, minds that had only known toil and stultifying routine slowly opened to the possibilities of a world that was both ancient and new. Every leaf on every tree, every nattering insect, every bird overhead was as new to them as if they came from a distant star. They were still alive and Owen never felt more electric. He was cold and hungry and scared, but even those felt like gifts.

By mid morning, the sun had chased the shadows from the valley. The cliffs they’d followed leveled out into a low marsh. A peculiar smell hung in the air.

“I smell smoke,” Byron said.

Owen was aware of it now, too. But this was not the acrid, greasy kind of smoke that came from fried relays or the incinerator in the Dome. This smoke was… nice. Dee pointed over the trees in the far distance, on a low, long rise that began not far from where they stood. Just beyond that rose a column of smoke, scattered by the faint breeze as it reached the tops of the trees.

Elle looked at him, and he knew she was thinking the same thing. They had to risk it. There was no telling if they would find civilization again.

57

It was slow going. The marsh grass was tall and thick, requiring high steps. Occasionally someone would find a hole with their foot and they would all have to stop while it was extracted, often without a shoe. Even so, Owen felt driven forward by some unseen force that gave fresh speed to his muscular legs. He would’ve liked nothing more than to scout ahead but he couldn’t.

“Look!” said Byron.

He turned and traced the line of Byron’s finger to a point on the horizon, near a line of trees.

“Hold up,” Owen said, and the group stopped.

“I think it’s a building!” Byron said excitedly.

They continued through the tall grass for a few hundred meters until they could discern that it was a cabin, smoke rising lazily from the peak of its canted roof. The grass abruptly ended at a cultivated field of strawberries. Beyond that grew plants taller than he was, which he guessed to be corn. One by one, the others came out of the grass and stood in a U shape around the edge of the field, agape at the bounty of it.

Delia stepped forward and plucked one.

“Wait,” Owen said. “Do we know that’s a strawberry for sure? It’s so much smaller.”

Byron bent down next to his daughter to inspect the one she plucked and took one for himself. He sniffed it, took a nibble, and shrugged.

“If it looks like a strawberry, smells like a strawberry, and tastes like a strawberry…” Byron said, and took a bigger bite. “It’s good. A little under, but you won’t care.”

Owen didn’t know what to think. While he equivocated, Byron popped the whole thing in his mouth and chewed, then Dee followed suit.

They pounced on the berry patch, shoving the under-ripe fruit into their faces as fast as they could. Owen joined them. Mostly ripe ones were tucked away here and there, and they tasted like candy. Juice dripped from their chins.

“Stay close, everyone,” Owen said, his mouth full.

He was fixated on the ground, picking every one he saw. Only a few minutes had passed and they’d already decimated the first few rows.

“Just like old times,” Aaron joked.

“Yeah, just,” said Owen.

He felt a sharp whap on his left shoulder. Elle sat on her heels, fixated on something ahead. Owen whirled back o see a shiny black barrel emerge from between the rows of corn — a gun with a thick barrel, brandished by a skinny man in his fifties with a long, scraggly beard. Everyone stopped their gorging.

He swept the barrel across them slowly, as though evaluating the threat they posed. When he saw their terrified faces, particularly the children, his face softened and he lowered the gun to waist height.

“What the hell is this?” he asked.

“We just found your field,” Elle said, her hands raised. “We’re hungry.”

“Who are you?” he asked. “Why are you all wearing pajamas?”

“We’re from Dome Six,” Owen offered.

His eyes narrowed and he snapped the stock back to his shoulder, wide-eyed and swinging the gun around. “Very funny, kid,” he snorted. “You think I was born yesterday? MIGHT AS WELL COME OUT, DIPSHITS!”

The man was a lunatic. Owen shook his head vigorously. “It’s just us! I swear!”

He cocked his head and scanned their eyes for some sign of deception. He found none. “I gotta say, if you people are fucking with me, you are goddamned good at it.”

“Please,” Owen urged. “We need your help. There are people after us.”

“What people?”

“I don’t know,” Owen said. “Men in aircraft. I think they’re from Cytocorp.”

“Of course they’re from Cytocorp,” he spat, as though it was the dumbest thing anyone ever said.

“This is everyone,” Owen said, hoping he looked as confused as he was. “We’re all that’s left.”

He nodded at the gun hanging from Elle’s pack and nodded to it. “What’s that, missy?”

“It’s a neurogun.” She carefully removed it from its loop and held it up by one finger. He reached in and grabbed it from her, then studied it curiously.

“Any other weapons I should know about?” he asked.

“I have some tools,” Byron said, indicating his small pack. “That’s all.”

The man sighed and lowered his gun to the side. “You can stay in the barn tonight. There’s food and clean water. But you’re out at first light. Anyone comes near the house, they get blasted.”

Elle checked with the others and nodded. “Thank you.”

He regarded their filthy hemp uniforms with curiosity. “Tell me where you’re really from and don’t lie. You sure as hell aren’t exiles.”

“We’re from Dome Six,” Elle said. “We’ve been walking for a day and a half.”

Some kind of realization washed over him. “Did Dillard send you out this way? No one else would talk about the Domes like they still exist.”

“Who?” Owen asked.

“When will you people learn? It’s a fantasy! The Domes shut down decades ago. They moved everyone back to the Cities.”

Owen shook his head. “You’re mistaken. We just came from there. They blew it up.”

He paused to study their faces. Seeing no guile, he continued. “I’m not saying I believe you, but… where you trying to go?” he asked.

“We just wanted to find help,” Owen replied. “We don’t know what to do.”

The man paused, apparently still wrestling with his conscience. “You sleep in the barn, you wash up in the creek, and you eat from the fields. No one comes near the house. Are we clear?” They all nodded. He sighed and said, “I’m Edwin. Grab your shit and follow me.”

INTO THE BURN: BOOK 2 OF THE CYTOCORP SAGA

http://cpjames.com/booklink/991676

The lives of an exiled biomodder, a mysterious militia, and a group of refugees collide as they fight to break Cytocorp’s stranglehold on humanity.

THANK YOU.

Thank you for reading Dome Six. Making it to the end is the second-best compliment you can give a writer. The best is to take one small action that helps me keep going. Here are some great ideas I just pulled out of thin air:

• LEAVE A REVIEW ON AMAZON OR GOODREADS. Even if you hated it, even if you’re ambivalent. But especially if you dug it.

• Sign up for my email list (if you haven’t already). As a thank-you, you’ll get a digital copy of my novella, The Technician, a prequel to The Cytocorp Saga. I’ll only email once or twice per month and won’t ever share your info with anyone. Also, I won’t come to your home or office and ask if you saw my email. I know that pain. That’s the C.P. James Platinum Promise™.

• Share your read with friends on social media along with the link for the free book: signup.cpjames.com.

• Email me at cp@cpjames.com with your comments, questions, expressions of concern for my mental welfare, favorite jokes, or unabashed adoration.

• Follow me on Facebook (facebook.com/authorcpjames) or Twitter (twitter.com/authorcpjames).

• Peer into my soul at cpjames.com/words

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Reading has an opportunity cost. Whatever you paid for Dome Six is immaterial because, in choosing to read it, you will forgo something. Time with someone you love, perhaps, or a few nights’ worth of great TV. So I’d like to first acknowledge you, the reader, for whatever you’ve put aside in order to read my book. Thank you.

But the flip side also must be acknowledged, which is that the writing of this book and all its revisions represents roughly 22 months of my life — challenging ones, to be honest. Its flaws are a reflection of my own, and I’m as aware of them as you are of that mole on your ear or the ache in your knee. I acknowledge and lay claim to this story’s many imperfections, because we are one and the same.

The only person who is unequivocal about this book’s merits, such as they are, is my wife and fellow author, Amy. It’s through her encouragement, enthusiasm, and attention to detail that this book is in the shape it is, and I can’t ever be grateful enough.

During the course of this storytelling journey, I’ve come to realize that the measure of a successful book is not in how much it makes (though that would certainly help), but how effectively you’ve conveyed the story in your head to the reader. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve presented Amy with a draft, only to learn that what I really did was narrate the story playing across my brain instead of supplying all the details and waypoints that orient the reader.

As always, I’m forever grateful to my parents, Doug and Judy, for making peace with the fact that this is where my heart is. I’ve given up good-paying jobs with great benefits to pursue this dream. To their generation, that was a very foolhardy thing to do, but they’ve leaned into it and I am very grateful for their support.

Heaping helpings of gratitude are owed to my incredibly gracious beta readers, Tony, Catherine, and Scott. It’s incredible to me that people I haven’t yet gotten to know well are willing to take a crack at an unproven author’s work. In Tony and Catherine’s case, it’s like meeting someone over a pint, then agreeing to watch the final dress rehearsal of some ridiculous independent play they’re in — only instead of lasting two hours, it takes two weeks and you have to keep notes.

Thank you to Christian Bentulan (www.coversbychristian.com) for turning my scatterbrained creative brief into an absolutely stunning set of covers. You are an exceptional talent, my friend.

Finally, I want to give a shout-out to all the independent authors in the 20BooksTo50K® family for their relentless encouragement, advice, and generosity. I’m so inspired by all of you and am incredibly lucky to have found my tribe. In particular, I’d like to thank my friends in the 20Books Momentum Makers Facebook group for being such a positive influence and sharing in each other’s successes. This is a lonely gig sometimes, but you guys remind me every couple weeks that there are others out there writing into the dark.

THE CYTOCORP SAGA CONTINUES

(EARLY 2020)

The reckoning we all knew was coming had arrived, but only Cytocorp had a plan. It had three phases.

Protect.

A century ago, the environment’s decline accelerated. Antibiotics stopped working. Heat and drought forced billions north.

From the ashes rose Cytocorp, the only company with the power to secure the country’s future. The Dome Project would protect America’s best and brightest from the looming apocalypse. Eight self-contained cities, each home to 100,000 souls, would be built from the reclaimed materials of dying towns.

Inside, they would work together as one. By monitoring human behavior under strict controls, algorithms would optimize daily life. Every decision, from when you eat to what job you should do, would be made by AI.

Predictive modeling said it would take a century for Earth’s recovery to begin. By then, Dome society would have evolved into the best possible version of itself.

Reclaim.

Once people left the Domes, they would re-establish order. They would work the land and start families. By and by, a new society would grow and flourish in whatever countryside remained. If none did, the Northern Cities would provide refuge.

In the end, the key to humanity’s salvation would be to study itself in silence. It would be saved, of all things, by data.

Rebuild.

In time, the seeds of this new society would spread far and wide. Trade would be established. Roads and bridges would be built. Armed with the lessons of the past, a new world would take root.

It was a good story. A hopeful story. And now, a century later, the citizens of Dome Six are about to learn whether any of it was actually true.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

C.P. James writes cinematic sci-fi of substance. He lives in Bend, Oregon with his lovely bride, Amy, and two and a half cats. His first novel, The Perfect Generation, was published in February 2018. His dystopian adventure, The Cytocorp Saga, continues.

When he’s not writing speculative fiction, you can find him on the fairways, where he carries a 0 handicap. A lover of the outdoors, he also enjoys alpine skiing, hiking, camping, and fly fishing.

Learn more at cpjames.com or facebook.com/authorcpjames/

http://facebook.com/authorcpjames

https://twitter.com/authorcpjames

ALSO BY C.P. JAMES

Clockwatchers: Coming of Age in the Perfect Generation

The Perfect Generation

The Technician: A Cytocorp Story

Into the Burn: Book 2 of The Cytocorp Saga

Copyright

Copyright © 2020 C.P. James

Dome Six: Book One of the Cytocorp Saga

Cover Art by Christian Bentulan, Covers by Christian

All rights reserved. No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people, except by agreement with the vendor of the book. If you would like to share this book with another person, please use the proper avenues. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Content

C.P. James
DOME SIX
BOOK 1 OF THE CYTOCORP SAGA

FOREWORD

GLOSSARY OF TERMS

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INTO THE BURN: BOOK 2 OF THE CYTOCORP SAGA

THANK YOU.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

THE CYTOCORP SAGA CONTINUES (EARLY 2020)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY C.P. JAMES

Copyright