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More than once, a group of the, where his rifle was He told the below and was reporting back It was so he’d heard another claim Many of them seemed to know as little as he did, and so they would let hi People could know you at a glance

The activity grew thicker near IT A group of new recruits passed, and Mission watched over the railing as they kicked in the doors to the level below and stor like a heavy steel rod falling to the steel decking A dozen of these bangs, and then less screa Fear was in everyone’s eyes, no less those in white who see as Mission Just chaos like a switch had been thrown A steady pulse of light one day, and now the faltering of a dying flaht for a uards But not alone Tos were sore, a stitch in his side, as he approached the farht of Winters and a few others out on the landing with shovels and rakes So as he passed Mission quickened his pace, thinking of his father and brother, seeing the wisdoness to leave that patch of dirt

A bag of berries on the stairwell looked at first like a blood stain They had been stepped on and crushed, but Mission picked up the bag anyway He scooped the rateful for the find He left the e days when such plastic was filled with paint and dropped on others Those no longer see up with the s ash, he reached the quiet of the Nest The little chicks were gone Most people were probably holed up in their apart this madness would pass like others had Inside, several lockers stood open A child’s backpack lay in the s toward the sound of a fa awful

At the end of the hall, her door stood as welco was froer than usual Mission saw that he wasn’t the first to arrive, that his wire had gone out Frankie and Allie were there, both in the green and white of far The sheets had been thrown off the stacks of desks kept in storage along one wall Those desks now filled the classrooh the Croas expecting them to be filled at any time

Allie noticed him first She rushed over, her coveralls bunched up around her boots, the straps knotted to make them shorter They must’ve been Frankie’s coveralls As she threw herself into his arms, he wondered what the two of them had risked to meet hi, smiled, and waved hirip

Mission shook Frankie’s hand and thanked hi was different, that his hair had been cut short as well They both rubbed their scalps and laughed Humor came easy in humorless times

"What is this I hear about my Rodny?" the Crow asked hi the controls, her Thursday dress tucked under her narrow bones Mission drew a deep breath, san to tell them all he had seen on the stairwell, about the bombs and the fires and what he had heard of Mechanical, the Security forces with their barking rifles like the dogs of Supply--but the Crow dispelled his frenzied chatter with a wave of her frail ar I’ve seen I could paint a picture of the fighting and hang it froot them?" She made a small fist and held it aloft

"No," Mission said "He needs our help"

The Crow laughed, which took hiave hied for help They have hireat steel doors--"

"Not locked up," the Crow said

"--like he’d done so hi behind her old eyes, a sunrise on the day after a cleaning

"Rodny is in no danger," she said

Allie squeezed Mission’s ar’s going to be okay Come, help with the desks"

"But the note," Mission said, wishing he hadn’t turned it to confetti

"The note you gave hiin" There was a wildness in the Crow’s eyes, excite more combustible than either

"No," Mission said "Rodny was afraid I know "

The Crow’s face hardened She relaxed her fist and smoothed the front of her faded dress "If that be the case," she said, her voice trely"

•33•

The died desks and the Crow resu Allie told him a curfew had been announced, and so Mission lost hope that the others would show up that night They pulled out ive the others until daybreak There was much Mission wanted to ask the Crow, but she seehts elsewhere, a joyousness that et theh security and deeper into IT if only he could reach his father Mission told them hoell he’d been able to move about with the whites on Maybe he could reach Frankie’s dad in a pinch Allie produced fresh fruits harvested from her plot and passed thereen concoctions Mission grew restless

He wandered out to the landing, torn betaiting for the others and his anxiety to get going For all he knew, Rodny was being s tended to settle people down, to come after bouts of unrest, but this was unlike any of the spates of violence he had seen before This was the burning his father spoke of, the e trade that ju, but it had approached with the swiftness of a knife plu, he heard the sounds of arail, he could feel the hu boots He returned to the others and said nothing of it There was no reason to suspect those boots werewhen he got back Her eyes werethe a scene in the air Mission asked Allie if everything was all right

She shook her head like she’d rather not say

"What is it?" he asked He held her hand, heard the Crow speaking of Atlantis, another tale of the cruone day when those ruins shone like a wet dime

"Tell me," he said He wondered ifher the way they so why

"I didn’t want to say anything until after," she cried, fresh tears welling up She wiped the to her lap Frankie sat quietly Whatever it was, the two of them kneell

"Father," Mission said It had to do with his father Allie was close to his father in a way that Mission had never been And suddenly, he felt a powerful regret for ever having left home While she wiped her eyes, the words unable to forined hiiveness He thought of growing corn rather than hauling it Ofpaid a chit for ruht to be free

Allie bawled, and the Crow huht of his father, gone, all he longed to say, and wanted nothing more than to hurl himself at the posters on the walls, to tear theo and be free