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"No No, that’s not it" I’ht, butlouder and louder by the second And now, faintly, it’s as though I can hear screa me from across the span of a decade "I just gling, floundering, feeling like I’

Sacrifice I want to say so about sacrifice, but the word doesn’t come

"Let’s move on" Evaluator One, who sounded so shen she offered me the water, has lost all pretense of friendliness She is all business now "Tell us so simple Like your favorite color, for example"

Part of icalinside ofup with the rising noise "Gray," I blurt out

"Gray?" Evaluator Four splutters back

My heart is spiraling down to , can practically seebackward But it’s too late I’ louder and louder, a sta iray, exactly Right before the sun rises there’s acolor--not really gray but sort of, or sort of white, and I’ve always really liked it because it reood to happen"

But they’ve stopped listening All of the beyondto e And then suddenly the roaring and the screa the, and there’s a tu together There’s a third sound too, running under both of those: a wordless bellowing that doesn’t sound hu seems disconnected, the way it does in drea, "What the hell?"

At the sao see what’s wrong"

But at that second the blue door bursts open and a strea cows--co into the lab

Definitely a stampede , I think, and for one weird, detached second feel proud ofthe noise

Then I realize I’htened herd aniround

Instantly I launch ical table, where I’m completely protected from the panicked mass of animals I pokeon

The evaluators are hopping up onto the table now, as walls of brown and speckled cow flanks fold around thes, and Glasses is yelling, "Cal onto her like she’s a life raft and he’s in danger of sinking

So crazily froowns identical to the one I’ Maybe this whole day has been a dream, and I’ll wake up to discover that I’ ofon the cows’ flanks: NOT CURE DEATH The words are written in sloppy ink, just above the neatly branded nuhterhouse

A little chill dances upinto place Every couple of years the Invalids-- the people who live in the Wilds, the unregulated land that exists between recognized cities and towns--sneak into Portland and stage soht and painted red death skulls on every single one of the known scientists’ houses

Another year they ed to break into the central police station, which coordinates all the patrols and guard shifts for Portland, and move all the furniture onto the roof, even the coffee , since you’d think Central would be thein Portland

People in the Wilds don’t see love as a disease, and they don’t believe in the cure They think it’s a kind of cruelty Thus the slogan

Now I get it: The cows are dressed up as us, the people being evaluated Like we’re all a bunch of herd ani down soun to shuffle back and forth in the lab Evaluator One has a clipboard in her hand, and she’s swooping and swatting as the cows butt up against the table,at the papers scattered across its surface--the evaluators’ notes, I realize, as a cow snaps up a sheet of paper and begins to rip at it with its teeth Thank God Maybe the coill eat up all the notes, and the evaluators will lose track of the fact that I was co Half-concealed behind the table--and safe, now, fro hooves--I have to ad is kind of hilarious

That’s when I hear it So, I hear the laugh aboveout a few notes on a piano

The observation deck A boy is standing on the observation deck, watching the chaos below And he’s laughing