I stepped outside the VirtuaNet studio, hoping I had returned to the surface, but being engulfed by artificial lights whose power rivaled that of the sun, but that would never equal it, and would never bring its calm, only the uneasiness of something always on. But that at least let you notice how puny he thought you and how dirtless the jade floors and tempered windows were.

The circular plazas and hallways that stretched hours wide into the mammoth abyss at the center of the structure leading to explosive-proof spire zielkithe windows veiled by plants said it all, as did the meat suppliers to the upper sections and those who kept the area clear of ticks and other critters. I was in Zielkkenhom’s home turf, in the Square of the Naturals of Section O, a special section where Naturals could go without breaking the law, and gaze at our lost things, at our missing comforts, and shoot ourselves with his poison. I’d have rather died. Besides, Section O was one of the lower Sections, the ones Zielkkenhom only deigned to enter during election season, but still his creation. It only housed a few statues, marble ones, which looked more alive than those in the studios. And yet, that had not stopped Mildred and Samuel from moving there.

I stood in the Zielkkenhom Towers, a mammoth complex of hanging gardens, greenhouses, domes, pyramids, and all sorts of futuristic Art Deco in the lower sections and Victorian architecture in the higher ones perched atop a flooded Turtle Bay. And the jeweled star of it all, right where I stood, was the Tower of Rebirth, the tallest in the world, a ringed cylindrical zielkithe-coated steel pillar as high as the Tower of Babel, just so Zielkkenhom could say he had reached the Heavens. And that his Towers glided on water. I guessed that was the point. But only One had walked on water. And it was not Zielkkenhom, as much as he fancied himself to be.

Narrow bridges rooted the Towers to the driveway. Like the branches of a tree. A tree that did not bring oxygen, but death. A revolting sulfur stench emanated from the artificial lake beneath the Towers, and its cerulean hue dyed its true verdant supernova color, the color of Impure Eugenex, its lowest grade, almost the same as raw Eugenex’s tint, so that if any Natural fell into the waters, he’d become an Enhanced, an addict.

I always kept my distance when I gazed at the fish that called Rebirth Lake home. Not the real thing of course, robotic fish, as real fish couldn’t survive in such poisonous water, but I could attach a magnet to a rod and pretend I was catching them, since Eugenex manufacturing facilities had contaminated the capital’s waters, and killed all the actual fish. And I didn’t want to leave my family alone to go vacation in the livable waters of the south. Fishing for robot fish always brought me peace when I got homesick about Wexford. Only thing in the Towers that did. So God always helped, even in the midst of new crooked worlds.

I had to remember that.

The Enhanceds embodied the new world’s vision of progress, equality, peace. They symbolized what everyone longed for. Yet, what they were capable of, what they had done to those who resist their vision, what they had done to us, to me—I heard some footsteps, and something jolted my peripheral vision.

A man skulked toward a girl wreathed with a vermillion shawl who texted on her smartwatch. I wanted to walk away, head to my home where my family awaited me. That man could have been her boyfriend, but she hadn’t noticed him. He could have meant to surprise her or something, their anniversary perhaps, he looked just like everyone else. I glanced at the girl again, ready to saunter, but a blaze avalanche sleeted through my nerves, and made me stop when I recognized her.

Almyra Bernhart.

Daughter of Bernhart Industries’ CEO, whose ties with Zielkkenhom had won his company the state’s automatically renewable a hundred-year concession to manufacture Eugenex, the now artificial poison whose natural origins from the mineral aratium gave birth to insane quasi-deities among us and almost annihilated the world before. And that thrust my girlfriend, my Ashley’s still warm corpse into my hands, the hands that could not save her.

And yet we cheered when Zielkkenhom reintroduced it.

I thought about letting the man catch Almyra, so her father Lloyd could suffer what he put me through, but my soul squirmed my heart when I thought that. I shouldn’t have cared. Almyra was a Bernhart. Her father paid pennies to the Naturals who worked at his factories. He and Zielkkenhom changed the laws that let Naturals live in the wards, and corralled them all into the Zielkkenhomvilles, except for those in our districts. I did not want to care. But Almyra looked like Ashley. And Ellie would have smacked me if I didn’t help her. So would have my parents. And so would have my soul. Pelted my mind until I drowned, drop by drop. I knew what I had to do.

But then it clouted me. The man must be her bodyguard. That was it. He surveyed the Section, as if hunting for threats. And then he stared at me. I did as well. Even flexed my knees and pretended I carried a gun. Hoped he didn’t see through my bluff. He slid his hand into his pocket. I was ready to sidestep. He even stepped toward me, but he just shook his head and turned back to Almyra. So then he was her bodyguard. No regular Enhanced was that aware, all hooked into VirtuaNet, all trapped by their smartwatches. Gravity slowed each of my steps. That had to be it. A girl like her in the lower Sections, in the Square of the Naturals, flooded with wannabe Enhanceds and Impures? Yellowstone would erupt again before her father let her descend without bodyguards.

I pretended to saunter as I skulked toward Almyra. And glanced at the man. He wasn’t texting. Because he was her bodyguard. That’s why he wasn’t texting with her. That’s why she hadn’t seen him. That must have been it. I turned but gravity tightened my chest with each step. And then I saw someone else glance at the man who prowled toward Almyra, still on her smartwatch. And nod.

“You forced me to do this,” the man told her. She finally glanced up. And then he slid his hand in his pocket.

I glanced back. The other man with a sneer, the one who had skulked past us to change, right next to Ivore, still back at the VirtuaNet studio. And then he slid his hand in his pocket as well. An ice blade speeded me. I knew what was coming. And it was not justice. I found myself sprinting to save my girlfriend’s murderer, even though I felt I was betraying Ashley.

“For freedom!” the man next to Ivore hollered. “For the Harmonists!”

“Ms. Bernhart! Take cover!” I leaped toward the man next to her, as if I was jumping from Rosslare to Fishguard, and forgetting about everyone else, I tackled him as if I wanted to shatter the walls of Jericho with my shoulders, and thrust him across the security railing into the abyss at the center of the Tower. And I thought he’d change his mind, now that he plummeted to his death, but he just sneered and placed his hand on his suicide vest. So without even thinking on the fact that I had just killed someone, I threw myself over Almyra and shielded her with my body. The sound ruptured my eardrums. Not of the blasts, but of the wails and cries from ruptured families and dismembered souls.

Wexford all over again, death all over again, as the lights hummed unfazed. Always on.

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