The propaganda broadcast had worked. The people were placated, their wrath directed conveniently into fury against a convenient spectre. But Commissioner De Vries was not a man to be relied on in sweet nothings alone. While the city rumor-mongered about Ken Tanaka, De Vries was already moving to extinguish the last, dying physical embers of revolt.These old metro lines had been the city's unconscious—a damp, dark network of tunnels and vacant stations hidden beneath steel and permacrete. For years, they were the domain of scavengers, misfits, and those who sought to be outside the reach of the authorities. They were a symbol of resistance, but one that was broken, and a potential haven for those who might yet want to resist the new regime. They were loose thread, and De Vries was going to pull it.The operation began at dawn. The racket was the first that people heard—a new, louder, more pulsing noise under the city's usual din. It was the beating of coordinated, heavy footfalls. Cru

Ken saw her on the observation deck. She wasn't staring out over the city below; she was staring at her own reflection in the doubled-strength glass, her fingers automatically working a small, pointed sliver of glass she held in her hand—a shard of green lantern glass that had broken.The thunder beneath was a low-grade rumble here, a vibration in the teeth more than anything to be heard. He approached her slowly, as one would a frightened animal."Sophia."She would not turn. "They're coming, aren't they?" Her voice was flat, devoid of the fear that was paralyzing everyone else at the institute. It was full of weary, resigned certainty.'Valerius says it's just reinforcements,' Ken said, the lie ash on his tongue.And finally, she turned to face him. Her so-blue, so-close-to-her-mother's eyes were not the ones he expected to be full of fear. They were icy, sharp anger that caused him to step back. "Don't. Don't treat me like them. Like I am a child you must protect with a lie." She r

The thunder of the advancing troops was a constant, teeth-rattling distraction, but for Ken Tanaka, a much more pressing and appalling reality had forced its way into the laboratory. The Blight had not stood still while mankind played strength games.The kids arrived under GHD escort, and that in itself was a bureaucratic wonder. They were from the Loyalist neighborhoods, relatives of low-level GHD bureaucrats and Civil Patrolmen. Their privilege had given them better rations, safer homes, and an earlier introduction to the Blight. But it could not save them.There were three of them, thin and limp, their eyes too large in their hot fever faces. They were brought to the institute's infirmary not out of pity, but because it was the city's best-equipped medical facility, and Valerius, with a cynical touch, had approved it. GHD's own facilities were overcrowded.Ken, Elara, and some trusted medics toiled under the prying eyes of guards with guns. The children's parents remained huddled i