Storm

CONNOR GOODMAN SAT CROSS-LEGGED ON his chair at the fold-up card table in his parents’ basement, contemplating his next turn and thinking about how this used to be more fun.

“Your move,” he said. But Sally wasn’t paying attention.

“Hey, you all right, Sally?” Steve asked. “You seem pretty bummed.”

In an era of virtual reality and nanotech, the three of them had always loved playing tablescreen games, and Mark-opoly in particular had long been Sally’s favorite. But right now her heart just wasn’t in it. She touched the random number generator and slid her avatar four spaces across the glass, but it was clear to the boys that she was only going through the motions.

“Come on, you’ve been quiet all afternoon,” Connor said, taking his turn. And that was true. She’d even turned down the snacks Connor’s mother had brought in for them. “And you never turn down peanut butter.”

But Sally only frowned. She looked at him scoldingly. “You could’ve hit me hard with that move just now, Connor. I thought for sure I’d set you up.”

“Yeah, why didn’t you take it?” Steve asked.

“There were other good moves,” Connor said.

But Sally wasn’t having it. “You’re throwing the game. You can’t just let me win because you think you should be feeling sorry for me. It’s condescending.”

Connor shrugged. “I’m just trying to be nice.”

“Sure.” Sally laughed meanly. “Right. For a second there, I forgot I was playing Connor Goody Two-Shoes.”

Connor winced when she said it. Wow, he thought. Something must really be bothering her. His name, of course, was Connor Goodman, and though many of the kids in Lahoma had taken to calling him Connor Goody Two-Shoes ever since he’d won the General’s Award, Sally Summers never had. She knew how much he hated it. She was mindful of that. And anyway, she and Steve were barely any less stand-out themselves.

In school, Connor, Steve, and Sally were at the top of the heap. No one in the ninth grade—or in any grade, for that matter—had a better average, with Connor at a 100 percent, and Steve and Sally tied at 98.

But it wasn’t just that the three of them were the smartest kids at Lahoma High. It was that their teachers loved them.

Why, just a couple of months ago, the day before winter break and the start of the Inclusion Day festivities, it was Connor who flailed his hand wildly in his seat at the front of the class. And it was Connor who reminded his teacher that so far, she had forgotten to give her class any homework assignments over break.

Steve and Sally were relieved when he said it. They’d been thinking the same thing all afternoon, and Steve had started to fidget with guilt. That was just the kind of students they were.

“Well, anyway, the boardwalk is now Marked territory,” Steve said, dragging his own avatar across the tablescreen and trying feebly to lighten the mood. “Better pay up if either o’ you land on it.”

This was the closest thing to trash talk that ever went down in the Goodmans’ gray-carpeted basement. But Sally still wasn’t having it.

“So what’s your big General’s trophy doing hidden away down here?” she said, pointing to the corner and stubbornly pressing forward with her Connor Goody Two-Shoes line of attack. “I mean, what gives? If I had that thing, I’d sleep with it under my pillow.”

Connor laughed sheepishly. “Well, it’s really not that big a deal,” he said.

But the truth, of course, was that it was a big deal. The truth was that Connor’s General’s Award was a very big deal, indeed.

It should be no surprise, perhaps, that a kid nicknamed Connor Goody Two-Shoes would be a model citizen, famous all across his modest Lahoma town. President of the Lahoma student body, captain of the baseball team, first chair tablet in the Lahoma Electronic Orchestra, and in both of the last two years since he’d become eligible, recipient of the Town Hall Award for Most Distinguished Marked Community Service. Connor was even known for his volunteer work over at the Markless huddles just outside of town, back before all those misers for some reason decided to forfeit any leniency and started causing trouble this past fall.

It didn’t matter that Lahoma itself was a small, sleepy stretch of streets, too far out in the middle of the American State to be considered even a suburb of any of the three urban centers. It didn’t matter that it was only just slightly too big to be considered a ghost town. And it didn’t matter that in the last few months, everything in this measly place had begun to fall apart. The fact was, within his small pond, Connor Goody Two-Shoes was growing up to be a very big fish.

But still none of that had prepared Lahoma for the honor bestowed upon it last September, when the general-in-chief of the then-American Union (now American State, one half of the great G.U.) arrived himself to recognize how truly superlative Connor was by awarding him the first-ever General’s Award for Marked Excellence, Promise, and the American Dream.

“That award was supposed to make you a hero,” Sally said sarcastically. “And you think it’s ‘not that big a deal’? There are kids in this town who’d give anything just to hold it.”

Connor didn’t turn away from the game board. There was something very much the matter with Sally, that was clear, but it was no excuse for her to take whatever it was out on him. “You know what, Sally? You want it? Go ahead—it’s yours. Take it home with you, if you’d like. I’d just as soon never see the cheap thing again.” Just talking about it—even in the privacy of his own basement and in the company of his closest friends—made Connor blush with a horrible guilt.

“Well, it’s anything but cheap,” Sally piled on. She was mad. And she loved the sudden sense that she was making Connor madder. “The whole thing’s made of platinum. Marked money can’t even buy something as nice as that trophy.”

“Your move,” Connor said forcefully.

But Sally wouldn’t let it go.

“Hey, man, what’s your problem? Is Connor Goody Two-Shoes really so wonderfully modest that he’d sooner disrespect a General’s Award than admit he’s a rising star? I mean, I’m just so sorry for you and your inconveniently perfect life . . .”

Connor shook his head. He was hot with shame. But what could he say? He couldn’t say anything about his life. He couldn’t say that the whole General’s Award honor was just a big sham, no more than an elaborate excuse for Lamson to travel to Lahoma and talk with Connor’s parents without raising suspicion. He couldn’t say that he himself wasn’t even worthy of knowing that much; that he’d found it all out only after being held at gunpoint just for looking into it. And he certainly couldn’t say what Lamson’s big meeting with the Goodmans was actually all about.

So instead he just said, “You’re right, Sally. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. I was being self-centered. And it was belittling of me to try to help you win our stupid, miserly game of Mark-opoly, just to cheer you up from this horrible, disgusting, foul mood you so clearly seem to have fallen into.” He walked over to the trophy and picked it up. “You happy now? I’ll put this in my room the second we’re done down here. A moment that I’d welcome, by the way—anytime now.”

Sally folded her arms across her chest. “Leave me alone, Connor.”

“Just tell us what’s wrong!”

There was a long pause. Sally sighed. “My dad was laid off today,” she said flatly. “We’re gonna have to sell the house.”

“Oh Cylis,” Steve cursed.

“Yeah.”

Connor put down the trophy. He turned off the tablescreen. Mark-opoly could wait.

“It just keeps getting worse and worse,” she continued. “Without the mill, there just isn’t enough work in this town.”

“We still have the mill,” Connor reassured.

“In what way? Connor, Lahoma hasn’t made it rain in months! There’s nothing to do over there. My dad was in charge of handling shipments. What kind of shipments are there to handle when we haven’t launched all winter? Those silver iodide canisters are piling up in a warehouse! They don’t need him there for that. How long can they possibly pay a guy for twiddling his thumbs?”

Connor was silent. The fact was, Sally’s family wasn’t the first to be hurt by the technical problems at Lahoma’s weather mill this past winter. The whole town’s economy had been built around that complex, and without it functioning properly, Lahoma’s families were falling out of work right and left. The town had shrunk to three-quarters its former size in just the last six months alone. Everyone was hurting.

Steve cleared his throat. “Actually,” he said. “I don’t know if this’ll make you feel better or worse, Sally, but . . . I think I might actually know something about why the mill’s been on the fritz so often these last six months.”

“Because it’s made from cheap, European Union technology?” Sally asked scornfully. Clearly she’d been listening to her father’s nightly rants.

“’Fraid not,” Steve said. He frowned. “You know how my dad’s the head of security over there?”

“Sure—he’s one of the lucky few still working. Along with Connor’s charmed parents, of course.”

Steve sighed. “Well, anyway. Recently, Dad’s actually been saying . . .” He bit his lip. “He’s been saying it’s starting to look like sabotage.”

“What?” Sally’s jaw nearly dropped to the floor. “Cylis! Who in the world would do something like that?”

“I don’t know. I’m—hey, look, I probably didn’t even hear him right. It’s pretty crazy to think about. But if it is true . . . and if my dad can find the person responsible for it . . . well . . . well, then maybe he can bring the mill back online.” Steve shrugged. “I mean, now that he’s looking into it—who knows? If the whole thing’s over soon, your dad might even be able to get his job back before you have to move.”

For a moment, Sally was speechless. “Thank you,” she said finally. “Thank you for telling me.”

She turned the tablescreen back on and swiped at the random number generator, eagerly taking her turn. Steve smiled.

But Connor didn’t very much feel like playing anymore.

In Appalachia, half a continent away, the night had already fallen, crisp but pleasant. Its edge had worn from those sharpest points back in January, and Dane Harold walked now along the familiar mountain trail without so much as a shiver. “Spring is coming,” he said to Hans, and Hans nodded slowly in the starlight.

“Means it’s time to start worrying about crops,” Hans said. “Our food stores are low. We’ll need a good harvest this year if we plan to survive through another winter.”

Dane watched his shoes shuffle against the roots and dirt, and he walked quietly for a moment. “I know I’m a burden to you and Tabitha,” he said finally. “I know you hadn’t planned on another mouth to feed.”

“You’re no burden,” Hans said. He stopped and put his hand on Dane’s shoulder. “You’re a good kid. And we like having you.”

In December, nearly two months ago now, Dane Harold, Logan Langly, and Hailey Phoenix had passed through the Village of the Valley on their way between New Chicago and Beacon. The village was an anchor point along the Unmarked River—that secret, nationwide network devoted to helping Markless travel and survive outside the parameters of Union society—and it was village-dwellers Hans and Tabitha who had taken the Dust in and pointed them the rest of the way to Beacon.

For Logan and Hailey, the stay was short-lived. But for Dane, the Village of the Valley had become a new and welcoming home. The Markless radio tower they maintained—and, specifically, Dane’s manning of it—had proven to be a key link in the network that made December’s Markless uprisings possible. Dane alone bridged the gap between Beacon and New Chicago, and it had been his own broadcasts, in concert with Logan’s grandma’s and Hailey’s mom’s out west, that had sparked the Markless protests that continued to this day. Dane was proud of that. To be needed like that. And anyway, after so many years spent cooped up in his parents’ mansion back in Spokie’s posh Old District, the simple life of the valley suited him.

“I’ll pull my weight around here come time for the harvest,” Dane said to Hans now. “I’ll work more than I’ll take—you’ll see.”

But Hans just smiled. He walked on. And the two of them rounded the bend of the wooded trail.

“This is the first of our farming valleys,” he said as the trees opened up into a wide field. “I know you’ve seen it from above, many times, on your walk to the radio tower. But I need you to see it now as a farmer sees it. I need you to get your hands dirty. I need you to understand how it works.

“Most Markless across the countryside are subsistence farmers. We here in the Village of the Valley are no different. We grow what we need in order to feed ourselves; no more and no less. It’s how we survive outside of the Union, without the conveniences of the Mark. It’s our entire way of life.

“And it’s good work,” Hans continued. “It’s satisfying to taste for yourself the fruits of your labors. But it’s tenuous too. We live year to year. And one bad harvest would kill us.”

Dane looked around, noticing the way the land across the valley had been partitioned—this acre for sweet potatoes, that one for corn, a third beyond it for squash . . .

And all up along the ridge too, terraces had been built straight into the steep hillside, maximizing space for planting. In the parts too steep or rugged even for that, the villagers had scattered apple trees for treats.

“Dane,” Hans said. “I’m afraid.”

Dane swallowed hard. What did that mean? “Afraid of what?”

Hans found a rock resting in the dirt, and he sat on it now, breathing out a long sigh as he did. “You’ve heard of the Tipping Point, I assume.”

“Sure,” Dane said. Everyone had. It was the period, pre-Unity, when the weather turned. When it simply got too hot for life to continue as it always had. When the oceans died and the habitable lands dried up. When the food went scarce. When the water stopped flowing. When hurricanes, blizzards, heat waves, and locusts were all that was left, ruining houses and land alike. Historians were quick to note that it was the Tipping Point, in large part, that had led to the Total War. Hard to keep peace, the saying went, when your home is in pieces.

“Then you know,” Hans said, “that the Tipping Point ended agriculture as we once knew it.”

“Yeah, but they fixed that,” Dane said. Humanity had proven resilient.

It was the chancellor’s own scientists who first found a way around the permadrought. One of the things that made him so popular over in Europe, in fact. Just as the Total War was dying down, Cylis used his newfound political capital to build the world’s first weather mill smack in the center of what was soon to become the new European Union. At this mill, sophisticated, long-range missile launchers shot canisters of benign chemicals—mostly silver iodide—all over the continent, precisely and strategically, as a way of “seeding” European clouds. Natural rain had become nearly unheard-of throughout the hot spring and summer months, but suddenly, with the introduction of the weather mill’s new chemical cocktail, clouds across the sky were able to form rain again. It was a breakthrough that saved millions of lives. And it wasn’t long before Lamson adopted Cylis’s methods in America too, commissioning from the European Union the world’s second great weather mill just ten years ago.

“We control the weather now,” Dane said. “We make it rain. People have been handling it for years.” He had learned about this in school, had studied it several times, in history classes and science classes alike, though this was the first time Dane had ever really given it any serious thought. Back in the Old District, rain was little more than an inconvenience.

“That’s correct,” Hans said. “But with a caveat. Because it isn’t really people who control the weather, you see. It’s DOME. Theirs is the technology that makes it rain. And right now, between the Markless protests and the Global merger and the rise of the IMPS and everything else, that department is in the midst of tremendous turmoil. They face discord and unrest from all sides. They will react accordingly. And I fear we Markless farmers may be the first to get caught in the crossfire.”

Dane stared at him, his eyes widening slowly. “They wouldn’t,” Dane said. “Inciting a permadrought? It’s just too crazy . . .”

“Is it?” Hans asked. “You’re talking about a general who spent the last ten years swiping kids to build a secret army whose only possible purpose could be to fight a civil war. You yourself are the one who unveiled this truth to America. It is precisely this truth that incited the protests in Beacon and New Chicago. And now, privately, you’ve been telling me that the Department of Marked Emergencies has created a deadly nanovirus just in case we Markless ever get out of hand.

“So are you really, now, going to bank on the mercy of the Department’s environmental branch?”

“But this is different!” Dane said. “You’re talking about the water cycle. That’s not a Markless need—that’s a human need. Without it, everyone starves!”

Hans smiled, bemused. “Ten years ago Lamson ruptured the dam at the first chance he got. Destroyed the entire east coast in one afternoon.”

“Yeah, in order to end a civil war!”

“And where are we now, Dane—if not at the brink of another?”

“He simply wouldn’t do it,” Dane insisted. “No one would.”

“But, Dane,” Hans said, lifting his arms to the clear blue sky. “You don’t understand. The clouds haven’t been seeded since September. By all evidence . . . General Lamson already has.”

It was dinnertime back in Lahoma, and when he entered the dining room, Connor did his best to be polite, as ever. The very first thing he did was comment on how delicious everything smelled. The corn, the mashed potatoes, the soyloaf with ketchup . . . he thanked his parents for their cooking, set the table, and sat down to wait patiently with his napkin on his lap, hands folded, elbows off the table.

Before his family began their meal, Connor even gave a toast to Lamson and to Cylis—to the great Global Union and to his family’s fortune for living in it—as he almost always did.

The fact was, Connor wanted to be a gentleman. Even when he was very upset.

“So how’d the ’screen game go?” Father asked. “Any big upsets?”

“Sally won, as usual,” Connor said. “Mark-opoly. We didn’t get around to playing anything else.”

“No G.U. Risk?” Mother teased. “I’m surprised you even let them leave without at least a go of it.”

“We got distracted,” Connor said. And he waited for them to take the bait.

“Distracted by what?” his father asked.

“Well, first of all, by talking about that stupid General’s Award.”

Father stopped eating midchew. He swallowed the lump of food whole and put his fork and knife down onto his plate. “I’m going to assume,” he said, “that it was Sally and Steve doing the talking.”

“I didn’t say anything about the visit, Father, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

“It is.”

On Connor’s other side, Mother sniffed in that short, curt way of hers; a tic that came out when she was upset. “Then what exactly was there to talk about, Connor?”

“Why—what a great, astonishing, unbelievable honor it is, of course,” Connor said caustically.

“It is those things, Connor.”

“It isn’t and you know it. It was a political diversion with me as a prop—and it’s left me hated by every kid in Lahoma.”

“Jealousy is flattery—” Father began, but Connor wouldn’t let him go on.

“Father, stop. I get it. And I don’t care. Lamson’s entitled to use me any way he wants. That’s his choice as general-in-chief, and that’s fine.

“But what I do care about is that this request of his is ruining our town. Do you not see that? It’s tearing Lahoma apart!”

“Uh-oh,” Mother said sincerely. “Who was it this time?”

“Sally’s dad. Fired. They’re moving. Who knows where.”

“Cylis,” Mother cursed.

And for a moment, Father held his tongue. When he did speak, he did so quietly, sympathetically. “Connor. What Lamson asked of us . . . it’s bigger than this family. It’s bigger than this town. It’s for the good of our entire American State.”

“It’s killing our American State!”

“Not yet, it’s not.”

“It will! When spring rolls around!”

Father sighed. “It’s possible . . . ,” he said. “It’s possible that this will all be over by then.”

“Yeah, you got that right,” Connor said. “Because guess what—that other distraction this afternoon? It was news from Steve’s dad.”

Father’s eyes went wide.

“Yeah, you guessed it. He’s onto you.”

Mother dropped her fork. “Us specifically?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so. But he knows it’s not just some technical malfunction over there anymore. He knows someone’s sabotaging America’s weather mill. And I’ve gotta believe it’s only a matter of time before he figures out who.”

Father leaned in closely. “Connor,” he said. “You know we can’t stop.”

Connor wiped his face with his hands. “Why not? Because Lamson says so?”

“Because it’s what the country needs.”

“Why? You’ve never told me why! And it sure isn’t making sense all on its own! Tell me how a permadrought, on balance, is the best thing for the American State. Tell me that, and I’ll let this whole thing go. But until then, what you’re doing is keeping me up at night! I can’t live with it! I just can’t!”

“Sometimes we do things that are hard to live with, Connor. Sometimes that’s life.”

“Because Lamson wants it to be?”

“Because we’re at war,” Father said. “All right? Because the American State is at war.”

Silence fell over the dinner table.

Connor leaned forward. “We’re a Global Union, Father. There’s only one country left. How are we at war?”

“Civil war,” Mother said, speaking up.

But Connor still didn’t understand. “Civil war? Civil war is exactly the thing that this Mark was designed to prevent!”

“Yes,” Father said. “And yet here we are. Fighting for our side.”

“Then how come no one’s talking about it?”

Father shrugged. “Some are.”

“Well . . . ,” Connor said, the wheels turning quickly in his brain. “If that’s the case, then why not just tell everybody about what you’re doing? Why not lay it all out for people, so they can at least understand what’s happening, in the context of what you just told me?”

“Because, first of all,” Mother said, “what we’re doing is still technically treason. Lahoma’s weather mill is America’s only, and DOME’s environmental division, as a matter of national security, runs it. Any attack or conspiracy against it is an act of terrorism.”

Connor’s head spun just thinking about it.

“What Lamson has asked of us . . . it wasn’t an order,” Father said. “It was a request—far outside the bounds of DOME. And as far as anyone is supposed to know, it is a request that was never made.

“Lamson was here last September to honor you, Connor. That is the only story that anyone besides us can ever know. Even you weren’t supposed to know the truth. The general has given us no official authority to do what we’re doing, and he’s made no promise that he will pardon us should we ever be caught.”

“Well then, watch out,” Connor said. “Because whatever computer virus it is that you’re feeding that place, whatever wire it is that you’ve been pulling out here and there over these last six months . . . the jig is very nearly up.”

“Okay,” Father said. “Duly noted. Thanks.” He seemed to mean it.

And Mother cleared the table.

No one was hungry enough to finish the meal.

Back at the Sierra Science Center, Logan, Erin, Hailey, and Peck all sat around a sterile aluminum table, with its sterile aluminum floor and the sterile blue tarp wall panels surrounding it. In strange contrast to this was Dr. Arianna Rhyne herself, head scientist of the SSC, balanced on a high stool off to the side, her tie-dye shirt aswirl and her long, thick dreadlocks falling heavy against her fidgeting hands.

“So what’s the plan?” Hailey asked aggressively. “You gonna turn us in? Tell DOME you have us?” She looked ready for a fight.

Dr. Rhyne only smiled. “Hailey, dear, you underestimate me! I told DOME I had you hours ago, the moment Sam left to pick you kids up.”

A wave of shock washed through the room. Everyone but Erin looked ready to run, and even she tried to look ready, fever shakes aside.

But now the doctor laughed, a chuckle at first, and more heartily as everyone else grew increasingly nervous. “Oh, calm down already. You eastern types—always so on edge! It’s not healthy at such a young age.”

“So you haven’t alerted DOME?” Logan asked.

“No, I most certainly have!”

Logan and Peck stood defensively at the table, readying themselves for a showdown.

“How else could I have saved you from that corner you backed yourselves into? Do you think DOME’s stupid? Do you think they’re disorganized? Because they are neither of those things. I assure you, the moment they traced that Markscan of yours, someone over there would have figured you were coming to see me.” She shrugged. “The public may not know that you’ve found out about Project Trumpet—but DOME’s head agents sure do.”

“Just let us go,” Hailey pleaded, adapting rapidly to this new development. “Just let us go. Say we put up a fight. Say . . . say we outnumbered you. We’ll just leave and never come back. We can forget this whole thing!”

But Dr. Rhyne just laughed again. Harder this time. “Listen. Children. How else can I put this? I’m buying us time. The only reason DOME isn’t swarming this place already is because they think you’re in my custody.”

Logan threw up his arms. “We are in your custody!”

“Yes! I know! Terrific! And as long as DOME doesn’t forget that, they’ll take their sweet time getting here. Amazingly good at prioritizing, that department is. The more certain they are that I won’t let you get away, the farther you kids fall on their priority list. You do realize,” she added, a bit condescendingly, “that you four are not, at all times, their number one concern.”

“So you will let us go, then?” Hailey asked.

“Not a chance.”

Logan looked around the room, confirming that his friends looked every bit as exasperated as he felt.

“Arianna. Maybe, if you could just fill us in on your thinking here . . .”

Arianna tugged at her shirt, its colors shifting and flowing and squishing inside the fabric. “Look. Here’s the deal. You’re in Sierra now. Just because DOME pays my bills does not mean that I agree with everything they do.” She grew more serious now, an abrupt change in tone. “In fact, right now, I’m not sure I’m on board with much of any of it.” She eyed them. “Why else would I be helping you? Why else would I have brought you out west?”

“You didn’t bring us out west,” Erin objected wearily. “We came ourselves. I’ve been gunning for you for weeks.”

Dr. Rhyne raised an eyebrow. “Yes, and why is that, hmm? Is it because your little hacker escapades turned up documents with my name attached? Is it because you—oh, I don’t know—caught me red-handed? My dear Erin,” she said gently, “if I’d not wanted you to find me—believe me on this—you’d not have found me.”

“Well then, how’d you find us?” Peck asked, still very much on edge. “Out in the Rockies. Middle of nowhere. That’s quite a lucky guess.”

Arianna laughed again.

Arianna was full of laughter.

“Ah, Daniel, the Dust’s fearless leader. I welcome you humbly to the Sierra Science Center, home to the greatest scientists in the world, of every field. My husband traces SSC hacks like Erin’s before breakfast. He had her flagged the moment she poked her nose into my personal files last month, and we haven’t lost track of her since.” Arianna turned to Erin now, pleasantly. “We knew it was you in that car not because DOME’s drone alerted us—though they would have had I asked, I assure you—but rather, because here in the SSC, we scientists hack drones just for the fun of it.”

“You work for a department intent on capturing us,” Peck said. “You’re the engineer of a deadly biological superweapon. You’ve already told DOME we’re here. And now you’re asking us to just trust that it’s all part of some elaborate plan to help us?”

Arianna eyed him. “How old are you, Daniel? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

“I’m eighteen,” Peck said indignantly.

“Eighteen. That’s lovely. In that case I’ve been working for Cylis since the year you were potty trained.”

Peck blushed a little but didn’t respond.

“Back then, the Mark, the Global Union, the very concept of the citizen’s Pledge itself was just a gleam in young Cylis’s eye. My work on Project Trumpet was purely theoretical. A challenge posed to me by the world’s greatest minds. I didn’t do it in order to kill Markless—Markless didn’t even exist yet. I did it because it was a new frontier of biomedical engineering, and because it was waiting to be done.”

“Oh yeah?” Peck asked. “Is that how you justify it to yourself? Is that how you sleep at night?”

“I don’t have to justify it,” Arianna said, suddenly as cold and hard as the stool she sat on. “Least of all to you.”

A silence fell over the room.

“But I am happy to talk with you,” Arianna said. “You came all the way here. Everyone knows it. And they were always going to, with or without my help. But not one of us—not me, not DOME, not the IMPS—not one of us has any clear idea why. So tell me. Tell me what it is you need from me. And I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“Why would you do that?” Peck asked suspiciously.

Arianna sneered at him. “Because I feel like it, ya piker.”

And Peck narrowed his eyes right back. “Don’t do it,” he told the others. “She’s tricking us. Somehow it’s a trap.”

“I’ve already told you it’s a trap! But that doesn’t mean I can’t help you with enough time left over to get you to safety—if we move fast.”

Suddenly Erin sat up, waving her arms exhaustedly. “Peck, let it go. I trust her. She’s trying to help.”

“Thank Cylis,” Arianna said. “The redhead’s talking sense. All right then, Erin—how much do you know so far?”

“What makes you think I’m the brains of this thing?” Erin asked.

The doctor laughed. “Please.”

“Okay,” Erin said, clearing her throat. “Well. I know about Project Trumpet.”

“Clearly,” Arianna agreed.

“I know about it because I hacked into a memo. It revealed that New Chicago’s DOME director Michael Cheswick used a group called the Trumpet Task Force to cover up an outbreak six months ago. This task force, I later found out, was part of a larger organization called the International Moderators of Peace. Far as I can tell, the Trumpet cover-up was the first official use of their troops.”

The doctor frowned. “First I’m hearing about an outbreak,” she said.

“How is that possible?” Peck pressed.

Arianna shrugged. “DOME’s always been choosy about who it keeps in the know on these types of things.”

“Yeah? And what happened to your expert hacking skills?”

“I didn’t say I couldn’t have found out about it—I said I hadn’t. Surely you don’t expect me to hack memos that I’ve no reason to think would exist.” She turned back to Erin. “I apologize, Erin. Please, go on.”

Erin cleared her throat. “Anyway. Eventually I realized these IMPS were the same people who guarded Acheron. So, with the Dust’s help, and with the influence of the A.U.’s Unmarked radio network, I incited the Markless in Beacon and New Chicago to riot. It was my guess that if our protests pulled enough of these IMPS away from their duties in Acheron, then we might be able to drain the prison of its security, leaving the Dust with an opening to sneak in and save Logan.” Erin shrugged, a little shy. “Clearly, the plan worked.”

“And quite impressively, I might add.” Arianna smiled. “That part, I did know. DOME’s been feeding its employees updates on the protests for weeks. They aren’t—what’s the word . . . ah, yes—happy with you. No. They aren’t too happy at all.” Arianna patted down the front of her shirt, and its colors morphed and spread again around her fingertips. “But all I care about is your knowledge of Trumpet. I need to find out where that knowledge ends in order to know what you’re expecting from me. So will you indulge me?”

Erin took a deep breath. “I know that Project Trumpet is a nanovirus, dreamed up by Cylis to wipe out the Markless if he ever saw a need. I know you were the engineer he asked to create it all those years ago—I’ve found the documents that point to you. I know Cylis released the dormant virus as soon as you gave it to him, and I know that DOME’s been vaccinating the Marked ever since, during the Pledge process.

“I also know that somehow, this vaccine of yours has back-fired, since last August it was a group of Marked who started getting sick, not Markless—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Arianna said suddenly. “Hold up. Backfired? How in Cylis’s name did my vaccine backfire?”

Erin frowned. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “But it’s only the vaccinated who have gotten sick. All I can guess is that, somehow, there was a mistake in your design.”

“I don’t make mistakes,” Dr. Rhyne said with a wave of her hand. “Mistakes are ugly, and beneath me, and I don’t make them. Period.”

Erin shrugged. “Well, Marked have died. So clearly you did—”

“That’s impossible—” the doctor interrupted.

“And I’m betting,” Erin continued, “that you just might be prideful enough to help fix it.”

In a sudden burst of anger, Dr. Rhyne bucked her leg back, kicking the stool behind her and sending it skidding across the room. It ricocheted off a distant table, clanging horribly. “Are you certain, now, about this? Are you absolutely sure that my vaccine has given Marked citizens Trumpet Fever? Do you have proof?”

“Show her the Task Force memos,” Hailey said, pointing to Erin’s tablet.

“I don’t need to,” Erin said. She turned to the doctor. “I’m your proof—Marked and sick.”

“You could be sick with anything,” Arianna said. “It’s flu season. What makes you think this is Trumpet?” But she leaned in and touched Erin’s forehead as she spoke. She jumped visibly upon feeling the temperature of it.

“Apparently I’m one of the early victims,” Erin said. “And now that my vaccine is active, I’m here because I’m hoping you might have some way to turn it off.”

Arianna looked suddenly as though she knew the tables had turned. No longer was she the one in control. No longer was she the one holding the upper hand of knowledge. She laid a single dreadlock across her mouth and chewed on it for a moment, thinking, perhaps, of her next steps. “You’re a good sleuth and a better hacker, Ms. Erin Arbitor. But it appears you have a blind spot for the science behind nanotech. I’m sorry—one cannot simply ‘turn it off.’ It doesn’t work that way.”

“Why not?” Erin asked.

“Because a nanomachine is not a tiny assembly of metal and gears, and fairy tales, and microchips that flip on like in toasters and tablets. It’s not a circuit board at all. It is a molecule, plain and simple, modified ever so slightly to do our bidding. In this case, it is a virus designed to stay dormant without the presence of an activation protein. Tough as it might be for a computer hacker to understand, this isn’t simple electronics we’re dealing with here. This is chemistry. It’s biophysics. It’s messy. And there is no off switch.”

“Well, can’t you just remove your activation protein from the environment? Wouldn’t that do the trick?”

Arianna shook her head. “It’s a binding process. Once my virus comes across its activation protein, it’s active for good.

“But here’s the thing,” Arianna continued. “My virus hasn’t come across its activation protein. My activation protein hasn’t been released at all. If it had been, Markless would be dying, not Marked. There’s no doubt about that.”

Logan stepped forward. “How do you know?”

“I see you’re a little slower than your friend,” Arianna said. “I’ve told you already, and I’ll tell you once more. But don’t make me say it again: I know because I don’t make mistakes.”

“Then how do you explain the outbreaks?” Peck asked.

“Outbreak,” Arianna corrected. “By the sound of it, there’s only been one. And whoever’s fault that was, my team had nothing to do with it.”

“Are you saying this is someone else’s mistake?” Hailey asked Dr. Rhyne.

“That’s precisely what I’m saying,” Arianna told her. “From what I’m hearing, last summer someone decided to take a test drive with Project Trumpet. But clearly they did so with a second activation protein—not the one that I designed. They must have used something else altogether. Something that activated the vaccine instead of the nanovirus.”

“But . . . why?” Hailey asked. “And who? And how?”

“Well, that’s the 98.6-degree question, now isn’t it?” Arianna turned to Erin. “So what do those memos of yours say, huh? Any mention of the activation? How it was released? Or who released it?”

“No,” Erin said. “Nothing. I found plenty of documents pointing to Trumpet’s creation all those years ago. That’s what led me to you. And I found several memos between Michael Cheswick and the Trumpet Task Force concerning the effort to contain the outbreak. But nothing ever talked about the activation process itself.”

“Well, it sure didn’t come out of my Science Center. Nothing so shoddy ever would. This trial run came from somewhere else.” Arianna shook her head, devastated. “Someone is butchering my beautiful work.”

Erin stared at Dr. Rhyne, confused. “Wait, what do you mean, ‘trial run’? Are you’re saying this new activation protein isn’t present nationwide? That the vaccine isn’t yet active among the wider Marked population?”

“Oh, quite certainly not. The data you’ve found suggests a very limited area of activation so far.”

“But then how did I get sick?”

“I don’t know,” Arianna said simply.

Hailey frowned. “Well, hold on. If the activation protein hasn’t yet been released across the country, then we still have time to prevent a national outbreak.”

“That’s correct.” The doctor nodded. “Though by the sound of it, our time is running out. Doesn’t take a scientist to know that a trial run is usually the first stage of a wider release. And this trial run happened six full months ago. If someone is preparing to release that second activation protein more widely . . . well, just remember—there’s no off switch.”

Erin cleared her throat, her elbows resting mournfully on the sterile table before her. “In that case,” she said, “what about me?”

Arianna looked at her sadly.

“What about a cure?” Erin specified.

The doctor sighed deeply. For the first time, all the laughter within her went dead.

“I never developed a cure,” Arianna said. “Those nanomeds you risked everything for have bought you a little bit of time. The medical equipment I have here at the SSC will buy you a little bit more. But none of that changes the bottom line: your fever will grow steadily worse . . . and then you will die.”

It was hard for Connor to focus the next day at school. The morning had passed, and so far he’d missed every last lesson point in meteorology, statistics, chemistry, political relations, and post-Unity history. This was a first for Connor Goody Two-Shoes, and yet he was powerless to snap out of it.

Lahoma High was a small place—a converted house, in fact—no more than sixty students total across all four grades. Ninth and tenth grades were downstairs, each in its own room of about fifteen students, and eleventh and twelfth were up on the second floor, which Connor rarely saw.

Connor’s year was a “boom year” with sixteen students, so his classroom had always been crowded, according to his teachers. He’d been attending class with these same fifteen students for his entire academic life. Each year was taught by a new teacher, and he or she covered all possible topics, which varied widely from grade to grade. Now that Connor was getting older, the curriculum was much more practical, and oriented toward a variety of possible careers at the weather mill. Currently, Connor was learning the general stuff, but beginning in eleventh grade, he’d have the opportunity to choose his area of greatest interest and focus personally on that for homework and independent studies. None of it much interested Connor, actually—he’d always been more eager to leave town for one of the great universities in New Chicago or Beacon as soon as he was old enough—but this had never stopped him from paying attention before.

At the moment, he was sitting in the front of the class, center aisle, as always, staring straight ahead at the wallscreen, eyes wide and seeing his teacher’s every move. And yet somehow he still hadn’t managed to hear a single thing she’d said.

“Isn’t that right, Connor?” Mrs. Stokewood asked.

“Uh, yes, ma’am,” Connor said, having no idea what he was agreeing to.

“Well then, why don’t you tell us about it, if you would.”

“Um . . .”

This was a nightmare. Legitimately. For Connor the student, this was a worst-case scenario.

Connor cleared his throat. Good. Okay. That bought him about two seconds.

He cleared it again, harder. Maybe this time he could buy himself another three or even four.

Stop thinking about the stalling part! Connor thought. Think about the plan for after the stalling part! But this time the clearing of his throat actually managed to bring something up. So now he had to cough. Good! Yes, good! He coughed again. He hit his chest with his fist, eyes watering, his face a little red. That had bought him another six or seven seconds. Okay. Maybe she’d move on to someone else. Maybe, given the pause, she’d even repeat the question. Wishful thinking, perhaps—but possible!

No. Instead, Mrs. Stokewood just waited. Politely.

And Connor could practically see it, the crack forming along the armor of his perfect school record.

Except! What was this? Could it be? Could today be Connor’s lucky day?

Suddenly Lahoma’s all-school principal poked his head into the ninth-grade classroom. “Connor?” he asked.

It was a miracle. Saved by the bell! Unless . . .

Wait a minute, Connor thought. Could it be? Was he already in trouble for zoning out all morning? Had they realized? Did they know? Was that possible?

No, Connor. That’s delusional. You’re not in trouble with Lahoma’s all-school principal just for daydreaming this morning. You’re not. That’s ridiculous.

And yet, that look on the principal’s face . . .

It sure seemed like he was in trouble . . . for something . . .

“Connor, would you mind gathering your belongings and coming with me, please?”

“Oh.” Connor coughed again. “But I was, uh, I was just about to answer Mrs. Stokewood’s question,” he said reflexively.

Idiot! That was your one, perfect out! “Just about to answer this question I didn’t hear”? Is that really what you just said? Who does that?

“It’s okay, Connor,” Mrs. Stokewood said mercifully. “You can get the lesson notes from Sally at the end of class.”

Good. Good old Mrs. Stokewood. Always looking out for her favorite student. Today, Connor’s reputation preceded him.

“I’m afraid he won’t be coming back, Mrs. Stokewood,” the principal said softly.

And a murmur rushed through the class like electricity.

Wow, Connor thought. Then . . . what if I really am in trouble? Like . . . for something . . . big.

Connor thought of his permanent record, attached digitally to his Mark and carried on him at all times. He thought of what colleges would think during their admission processes. He thought of job interviews down the line . . .

But out in the hall, the principal’s concerned tone quickly broke him from any coherent train of thought. All that was left was the present tense.

“Connor, would you mind taking a walk with me?” the principal asked.

“Not at all,” Connor said.

“It will be a rather long walk, I’m afraid.”

“May I ask where we’re going, sir?” Now Connor was confused. The principal’s office was in Lahoma Elementary, sure, but that was hardly a long walk away. Weirder still, the principal didn’t seem angry. At all. But he didn’t seem happy either. In fact, he seemed . . . nervous.

And that was an odd thing for Lahoma’s all-school principal to seem.

“Uh,” he said. A pause. Now it was the principal who stood there, clearing his throat, stalling, avoiding the question . . .

Six seconds. Connor counted.

And then it was over. And the principal took a deep breath. And the principal said, “Actually, Connor, we’re going to visit the weather mill.”

It had taken some time for Charles Arbitor to work up the nerve to do it. But finally he sat, fidgeting on the plush white couch of the Arbitors’ apartment next to his wife Olivia, holding the tablet in his sweaty hands, all fired up and ready to go.

“Charles, for Cylis’s sake, this is one little tablet call we’re talking about. If you won’t do it, I will—” She went to grab the tablet from him, but he pulled it away quickly and held the screen out of reach.

“I’ll do it,” he said. “I just wish I didn’t have to go behind DOME’s back about it. If they’d just agreed to put me on her assignment . . . I mean, was that really so much to ask?”

“What—putting Erin Arbitor’s legal fate into the hands of her disgruntled, dysfunctional, beaten-down father?” Olivia laughed. “Yeah, Charles. It was. Now, are we gonna keep moping about it all morning like we did yesterday, or are we gonna do this thing before DOME beats us to it?”

“We’re doing it, yes—Cylis—sheesh. We’re doing it,” Mr. Arbitor said. And he placed the tablet call.

“Sierra Science Center, this is Arianna,” the doctor said from across the video connection.

Mr. Arbitor squirmed on his sofa. His heart beat fast. “Dr. Rhyne, this is Charles Arbitor calling. I’m . . . I’m hoping you might be able to help me in a personal matter—”

Arianna stopped him right there. “Let me guess,” she said, deadpan. “You’re looking for Erin.”

Mr. Arbitor cleared his throat. He nodded.

“Well, you’re out of luck,” Arianna said. “’Fraid she escaped this morning, while I was distracted, uh . . . calculating statistics . . .”

Mr. Arbitor narrowed his eyes. Out of the video’s field of view, Olivia had her hands up in a “Who does she think she’s kidding?” sort of way.

“Dr. Rhyne, you can’t actually expect me to believe, with the dozens of employees you have on hand over there at all hours, that you actually managed to lose—”

“You listen here, Charles,” Dr. Rhyne interrupted. Her face was close and larger than life in the screen of Mr. Arbitor’s tablet. “I don’t care what you believe. I’m telling you Erin’s not here anymore, and that’s as far as this conversation goes.”

It was hard for Mr. Arbitor to hide his frustration over the cross-country connection. But he did his best to smile.

“Doctor. Please. Try to understand. I’m not calling on behalf of DOME right now. This is personal for me. This is my daughter we’re talking about, and I—” Olivia kicked him. He coughed. “My wife and I . . . we just need to know that Erin is safe.”

In the video, Dr. Rhyne raised an eyebrow. She had clearly rested her tablet down on one of the SSC’s tables because she was looming over the camera now, using both hands to fiddle with her dreadlocks as she let Mr. Arbitor stare up her nose. “You,” she said, “are a DOME agent. Doesn’t matter what else you are—father, husband, friend—to me, you’re just the face of DOME.” She shrugged. “This is my official report, Agent Arbitor. If you don’t like it, you’re welcome to file a complaint.”

“But I can help!” Mr. Arbitor pleaded. “I’m trying to help my daughter!”

“Sorry,” Arianna said sarcastically. “Connection must be bad. You keep talking, but all I hear is the crackle of DOME’s endless red tape.”

“I’m not calling on behalf of DOME—” Mr. Arbitor insisted.

But Arianna had already ended the call.

For a moment, Charles and Olivia just sat, speechless, on the couch.

And so it was that the Arbitors finally realized—if they really were serious about seeing their daughter Erin again, there was only one place left for them to turn.

The walk to the weather mill took nearly twenty minutes. Lahoma’s all-school principal led the way as quickly as he could, stopping just shy of breaking into an actual jog. He didn’t make chitchat. He didn’t talk at all. He kept his eyes down, and he stretched his strides far with each step.

But it wasn’t until about halfway to the mill, as Connor and the principal passed the sheriff’s office at the edge of town, that things really started getting strange. Beside them the screen door opened and slammed shut against the quiet building’s front, and in between, the sheriff himself walked out and onto the dirt of the road.

He didn’t say anything. He didn’t smile at Connor.

He kept his eyes down, and he stretched his strides far with each step.

At this point, Connor thought, it might be appropriate to worry.

Outside, Lahoma’s weather mill was surrounded by thirty acres of well-guarded ground-to-air missile launchers. By the time Connor came upon them, no less than a dozen Lahoma officials were flanking him. The principal and sheriff, of course, but also the deputy, the judge, the head of the mill, even the mayor himself. What was going on? Connor was beginning to have some ideas, but as the men and women all around him solemnly led the way through the mill’s entrance and onto the main factory floor, one single phrase began running through his head:

The sky is falling.

The world as Connor knew it had left him behind.

Inside, Connor and his chaperones were greeted by the weather mill’s head of security, Mr. Larkin. Connor knew him well as the happy father of Steve Larkin, his good friend of many years. But nothing about Mr. Larkin seemed happy today. Behind him, the wide-open, industrial weather mill was silent and dead, filled with the haze of an ominous black smoke. Its ceiling stretched fifty feet into the air, and a crosshatched series of steel I beams and corrugated sheet metal lined its surface without any movement underneath. The concrete floor was vacant. The grated metal walkway that lined it twenty feet up, that made a path to the cubical office spaces jutting out from the high walls . . . there was no one on it. The office lights were off. Each one had a little frosted window looking out onto the mill’s floor below, but today those frosted windows shed no light. The floor itself had chemical vats and processors of all types, many of them with vents leading up into the ceiling and out into the air through long, aluminum tubes. But none of them churned, none of them whirred . . .

At the floor’s edge, looking out onto the missile-launcher field and sectioned off by high walls and even more frosted glass, was the weather mill’s control center—a tablescreen that stretched nearly twenty feet across and curved in a giant “C” semicircle around whomever it was who might have stood at its helm. For the last six years, that whomever-it-was had been Connor’s parents, the Goodmans.

But right now that control center was empty. And its tablescreen was dark.

Mr. Larkin led Connor past it, through the cavernous space, and over to the mill’s supercomputer off in the corner. It was a series of computer racks—tall, refrigerator-sized stacks of hard drives on shelves—and they were laid out all over a wide area across the floor like a high-tech hedge maze.

“All right, Connor,” Mr. Larkin said. “Follow me, please.”

So Connor wove with him through the mazelike walkways between the computer racks, left, right, straight, left . . . toward the source of the smoke and into the thickening haze.

“These hard drives are all off-line,” Connor said to Mr. Larkin. Their lights were off. Nothing blinked; nothing hummed. By now the air was black and heavy with the smell of cordite.

“What . . . what happened here?” Connor asked, though some screaming, terrified part of him already knew the answer.

At the center of the supercomputer’s maze was a crater. The floor was damaged and charred black. The computer racks surrounding it were blown out and knocked down, lying against the denatured concrete like dominos.

“Bomb blast,” Mr. Larkin said simply. “Crude. Homemade. Hasty. That’s what you’re looking at, Connor, in literal terms.

“And yet that doesn’t really describe it, does it, Connor?”

Connor shook his head.

“No. I’d have to agree. Because I’m afraid that what you’re actually seeing, Connor—what this really is—is the aftermath of a successful conspiracy against our weather mill. Against the very stability of our American State.” Mr. Larkin frowned. “A full-fledged terrorist attack. A suicide bombing. This weather mill is now permanently off-line.” He led Connor through the dense, dusty air and across the crater of the bomb blast. “I arrived too late to stop them, Connor. I tried . . . I tried to negotiate. I’m sorry. I failed.”

And that’s when Connor made it to the other side of the smoke.

His parents were there, his father’s thumb still pressed against the trigger of the detonator. They rested slumped against the farthest of the blown-out computer racks, together, determined, bloody, and dead.