I didn’t spend much time in Cambridge when I used to live here. I remember going to some bookshops with Jenna and Kara, looking for old volumes of poetry, and then hanging out at some outdoor cafés, sipping lattes and trying to outquote one another, but we never really ventured past the main streets.

Percel walks me through a maze of alleys and streets. He has no information about 1407 Bridgemont. No visuals, no history, only directions, but with privacy laws he says there’s an opt-out provision so it’s not unusual for this information to be unavailable. I remember Jenna telling me about the privacy laws … the beginning of the personal privacy era … other than public space IDs, all personal tracking information and devices were outlawed.

That must have really put a damper on the Secretary’s extracurricular activities.

“Left at the next corner,” Percel tells me.

The street I’m on is like one from another time. My time. Quiet, lined with trees that are beginning to drop yellow leaves on streets that are cobbled. A market on the corner doesn’t look that much different from the one my mother used to work at, small, with specials handwritten on placards in the window and silver pails filled with bunches of flowers near the entrance. I pause before I turn left, looking at the various bunches. Mums. Roses. Lilies. Lots of others I don’t even know the names for. I wonder what kind Raine—

Roses maybe. But I’ll probably never know.

“Left here,” Percel reminds me.

I turn onto a long narrow street, one residence butted up to the next with an occasional business wedged between. There’s nothing remarkable about the street other than it’s quiet and pleasant. I begin to look at numbers from force of habit even though Percel has already informed me I have another twenty meters to go.

1401, 1403, 1405, and then nothing.

Between a two-story brownstone at 1405 and a one-story haberdashery at 1409 is an empty lot. Nothing more than gravel and a few weeds. I look down to the corner to make sure we’re on the right street but Percel assures me that the empty lot is 1407 Bridgemont.

I walk up the porch steps to the haberdashery next door and go inside, a bell on the door alerting them to my presence. They’ve really gone for the full quaint effect. A Bot who is cleverly made up as an old wicker dress form brings me back to the reality of where I am. I ask her about the lot next door.

“Not for sale as far as I know. It’s been empty for years now.”

“You mean it used to have something on it?”

She pulls back the black netting on her felt hat. “Yes. A home. It burned to the ground sixteen years ago during a raid. Two humans died.” She tries to interest me in fabrics that would complement my eyes, but I’m already walking out, the tinkling bell and slamming door echoing with all the other thoughts swirling through my head.

Miesha and Karden’s home. The Secretary had their address and has saved it all these years. It didn’t come through an intelligence report, or through other official avenues. He got their address by way of a small handwritten note. A note that had no other identifying information on it. An anonymous note.

* * *

I’m just turning down the street to the apartment when Xavier intercepts me. I can’t tell if he’s angry or relieved but his expression is wild. “Where have you been?”

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“It’s Livvy. She’s gone.”

“What do you mean gone?”

He steps closer, lowering his voice. “There was a Security sweep last night. Carver tried to call you but couldn’t get through. Security Forces went through Livvy’s neighborhood grabbing anyone on the street. They got her and six others.”

“But why? She wasn’t even in public space.”

Xavier’s voice shakes as he explains that sometimes it doesn’t matter. Sometimes they just want to send a warning message. Is it lawful? No. But who are Non-pacts going to complain to? Security?

I lean back against a gatepost, dazed, trying to make sense of it. “Is this because of me going down into the green tunnel?”

He says that may have triggered it, but that it’s not the first time it’s happened and it won’t be the last. They do it periodically just to demonstrate that they’re in charge. “And with the deadline drawing so near, the Secretary is probably breathing down the necks of every man on the Security Force. It’s all about pecking order, and we’re on the bottom.”

“How long will they keep her?”

Xavier shakes his head, looking down at his feet, a mountain of restraint heaving in his chest. “They might let her go. The scare of the raid might be warning enough. Or she might already be on her way to the desert.”

I can barely think, picturing Livvy and … “She’s got kids,” I whisper.

“You think I don’t know she’s got kids?” he hisses. “But she’s already been tagged twice, if they count this as the third…”

Three strikes and you’re out. Tagged like a dog. I search for the same restraint Xavier is able to dredge up on cue. “We’ll get her back,” I tell him. “Some way.”

Xavier pushes his face within inches of mine. “Stay the course,” he says in a slow growl. “Her kids are who Livvy is doing this for. Now’s not the time to do something impulsive.”

Like I did when I went down into the tunnel. He doesn’t have to say it. I still hear him loud and clear. But sometimes staying the course can mean maintaining the status quo too, and look where that’s gotten them. Nowhere.