As school let out on Friday at noon, the campus became frenzied with students heading in every direction. Four chartered buses were waiting in the semicircle out front, as were several dozen cars driven by parents, and more than one town car. The trees were, for the most part, barren of leaves, the lawn covered in golds and browns and the red of maples, the wind stirring as students hurried past, lugging bags and backpacks.

Steel and Kaileigh boarded the bus marked for Boston along with thirty other students. As instructed, they did not sit together. Soon, Steel felt as if he were on the bus alone. He spent most of the ninety-minute ride staring out the window. He counted barns. He tried to see in the windows of people’s houses, and he looked down through car windshields, trying to imagine where each driver was going and what he or she was up to. But mostly he reviewed his instructions and the enormous volume of scientific data he had committed to memory. To him the evening assignment was simple enough, the burden of the job on Kaileigh. It was the job this afternoon that troubled him: finding, identifying, and following some woman. One thing was certain: nothing would be the same after this weekend.

The city loomed big in his mind, perhaps because of his weeks on a windblown campus far from anywhere, perhaps because of the assignment that was etched into his formidable memory, and his sense of being so small in a place so vast. He took a moment to glance back at Kaileigh, who, like him, was staring out the window. He caught sight of Penny staring at him from three rows back. The sight of Penny surprised him, though he tried not to show it. Penny lived in Boston—he and Kaileigh should have thought of that, should have prepared to have to deal with him.

The bus charged on, giving Steel views of outlying neighborhoods with their laundry lines, old cars, and muffler shops. Billboards streamed past, offering white-toothed smiles, sale items, and political candidates. With each mile, Steel felt his gut twist a little tighter, his skin prickle with perspiration.

Finally they were in the city proper, driving the city streets, and the walls closed in around him, the buildings blocking sunlight, the sidewalks suddenly alive with people. At the stoplights he saw the poor and the rich, the old and the young, the healthy and the not-so healthy, the cops, the shoppers, the smokers, the joggers, the bike riders, the happy, the sad, and a street musician playing a harmonica with a scruffy dog on a leash tied to his ankle. He saw himself trying to fit into the mix, trying to blend in, trying to look right. He studied and memorized things of importance: the way a street bum hunched his back like he was carrying an enormous weight, the way the less fortunate seemed to walk slower, the way hunger could show in a person’s face, and how bitterness and despair could be worn like a coat, or disguise a face like a veil.

He’d been warned by Randolph that taking on an alias was not simply a matter of “changing clothes.” He’d practiced things like speaking less properly—difficult at first but easier as he went along; eating without table manners—more fun than he could have imagined; frequently complaining and blaming others—something he found repugnant.

Since a very early age, he’d learned to control his uncanny memory, to hold it back, to stop the flood of thought that often threatened him. He lived with a database of images in his head that would have crashed a supercomputer. “Steel?”

He jumped.

Kaileigh had sneaked into the seat next to him.

“What do we do about you-know-who?” she said, screening her hand and pointing to the back, where Penny sat.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Steel said. “When in doubt, try the truth.”

“What?!”

“My mother says that all the time.”

“But we’re sworn to—”

“Our secret society,” Steel said, cutting her off, “is hazing us this weekend. We have to dress up and do weird things, and if we pass, then we’re in.”

“Ah…” she said, nodding. “That works for me.”

“And no one can know about it, or we’re out, so he’s got to promise to leave us alone. ’Cause you know, the way he spies on everyone, I don’t trust him.”

“Who’s going to tell him?” she whispered.

“Both of us. Right now.”

“Okay. We’re almost there. I agree.”

The explanation to Penny went smoothly enough. Kaileigh stepped on Steel’s attempt and took over and made Penny see how cool it was, and Penny nodded a lot and looked back and forth between the two of them.

“Well, I brought all my stuff along,” Penny said, holding up a bulging backpack. “GPS. Radio-tracking. Listening devices. Video. I never go anywhere without this stuff, so if you need a hand…?”

“Actually, I think that would disqualify us,” Steel said.

“We shouldn’t even be talking to you,” Kaileigh said, glancing around. “We weren’t supposed to talk to anyone on the ride.”

“My lips are sealed.” Penny pretended to zip his mouth shut.

“See you Sunday night, back on the bus,” Steel said.

“Roger, that,” Penny said. “I can’t wait to hear what’s up.”

Steel and Kaileigh split up and returned to their seats. He thought that had gone quite well.

The bus pulled into the terminal. Everyone stood at once, fighting to get off first. Steel hung back, knowing his and Kaileigh’s first stop was the public restrooms, where they would change their identities.

They wouldn’t want any classmates hanging around when they came out looking like homeless kids. He was in no hurry.

A few minutes later, Steel was in a stall of the men’s room, changing into the ratty clothes Randolph had provided for him. Kaileigh was doing the same thing on the other side of the cinder block wall. When he emerged from the washroom, his eyes drifted right past her on his first glance: she’d sprayed something into her red hair, making it look more brown and dirty; she wore a tight shirt—ripped at the shoulder—and another shirt beneath that, and still some other piece of clothing beneath the two. The shirts were soiled and torn, just like the tight blue jeans she wore with the knee torn out.

“Jeez!” he said, approaching her.

“You look like a cockroach,” she said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.” He’d smeared black and brown creams onto his face, arms, and hands, had mussed up his hair and parted it in the opposite direction. He’d smeared his eyebrows as well so they matched the soiled clothes he wore. The pants smelled sour, and the shirt was so foul that he winced as he caught a sniff of himself.

“I don’t know what roaches smell like, but I think I smell like one too,” he said.

They both carried backpacks that Randolph had warned might be searched. For this reason they divided fifty dollars between them, keeping it on their persons. Steel slipped thirty between his ankle and sock, and Kaileigh tucked the remaining twenty into the waistband of her pants.

“Your feet stink,” she said.

“Yeah? Well you’re no prize either. Let’s go,” he said. “That is, if you’re ready, Your Highness?”

“Loser,” she said.

He walked quickly, making sure she would follow him, not the other way around. He turned left out the door, able to visualize the map in his head. Kaileigh was about to challenge his sense of direction when she reconsidered. She hurried to catch up to him.

Some things were worth waiting for.