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PROLOGUE

WHEN THE WHITE NOISE WENT OFF, ere in the Garden, pulling weeds

I always reacted badly to it It didn’tin the Mess Hall, or locked intones blew up like a pipe boirls at Thur off the nausea and disorientation like the loose grass clinging to their camp uniforms But me? Hours would pass before I was able to piece ether

This time should have been no different

But it was

I didn’t see what had happened to provoke the punish so close to the caed air and feel the voltage it shed vibrating in ot brave and decided to step out of the Garden’s bounds Or , someone fulfilled all our fantasies and threw a rock at the head of the nearest Psi Special Forces soldier That would have been worth it

The only thing I knew for certain was that the overhead speakers spurted out tarning blares: one short, one long The skin on my neck crawled as I leaned forward into the daainst my ears, shoulders tensed to take the hit

The sound that came over the speakers wasn’t really white noise It wasn’t that weird buzz that the air so alone in silence, or the faint huovernment and its Department of Psi Youth, it was the lovechild of a car alarh to make your ears bleed

Literally

The sound ripped out of the speakers and shredded every nerve inover the screae freaks, and settled at the center of my brain, where I couldn’t reach in and rip it out

My eyes flooded with tears I tried to raround--all I could taste in irl fell forward next toelse faded out of focus

My body shook in ti in on itself like an old, yellowing piece of paper So my shoulders; I heard soone to respond Gone, gone, gone, sinking until there was nothing, like the earth had sed le, deep breath Then darkness

And silence

ONE

GRACE SOMERFIELD WAS THE FIRST TO DIE