She clears her throat. I hear her breaths, deep and heavy, like she is pushing at a barrier that's heavier than she can bear, and finally her voice, slow and deliberate.

"Karden Sanders was a leader in the underground Non-pact Resistance. Not just a leader. The leader. He became a symbol of hope for those who were forced to live on the fringes with no rights and no future. He gave them hope for a future. His methods were forceful and clever and all illegal. Money would disappear from corporate accounts and appear on money cards that were distributed to Non-pacts. Strategic bridges were exploded as messages that the Fancy Pants could be isolated too. They could be forced to live on the margins of society, scrabbling for every morsel that came to them." Her voice is flat, rehearsed, like she is repeating a long-forgotten mission statement. "The human race has always found a group to marginalize--every culture, every time, every race. Karden Sanders took up the cause of the disenfranchised who were shunted off to the side like garbage and labeled as Non-pacts."

"And he was your husband. So you're Miesha Sanders?"

"No. Miesha Derring. I kept my surname. Most women do, not to mention that citizens aren't allowed to take the names of Non-pacts. But I wanted to take his name. I wanted to take in everything about him."

Her eyes narrow like she is focusing on an image of him. "I was only eighteen when I met him. He was dark and dangerous and committed. My parents were people of position, and when I ran off with him, they disowned me. Marrying a Non-pact was unthinkable, especially one with a price on his head. I learned about the Resistance and helped with organizing efforts, but it wasn't long before I was pregnant. Our little girl was born just a year after we married. We had to move often, assuming new identities and always trying to stay ahead of authorities."

"But they caught up with you."

"It was summer. We had been in Cambridge for two months, almost living a normal life. Karden was busy planning his next maneuver but staying close to home. Our little girl had just turned one. It was so hot." She looks at me and explains like it just happened, "It was summer, you know? August. The baby was sleeping, and Karden was working on plans, and I said, 'Wouldn't a dish of ice cream be nice?' He nodded and said he'd keep an eye on Rebecca if I wanted to go get some. I was walking back from the market when I heard the shots and explosions. The front door was open and bursting with flames. The windows were glowing with orange light and smoke. I ran, screaming, breaking a window with my bare arms, reaching, trying to get in to save them, but something pulled me back."

She looks down at her arms and lightly traces one scar. "I thrashed, desperate to get to them, and then I felt a tazegun at my neck, and I knew they had found us. When I woke, I was in prison, and they told me my husband and daughter were both dead--all for a cause that in an instant didn't matter to me anymore. They wouldn't even let me make any kind of arrangements for their funerals. I never saw them again. As far as I know, their remains were shoveled up along with the burned rubble of the house. I spent the next eleven years in prison. They let me out early when my father died and my mother was breathing her last breaths--it was called an act of clemency. For the next few years, I tried to figure out if there was any life left for me, if there was anyone or anything worth living for."

She pauses, her fingers nervously weaving together. "I did some searching, looking for leads to family--anyone I might be connected to--but my parents were only children, and so was I. It appeared we came from a long line of dead-ends. The searching became an obsession, and I kept going back farther and farther, learning a lot about my ancestors. I stumbled on a few things that surprised me, especially one ancestor who left an educational trust for our family. He appeared to be a dead-end too, but there was one unusual entry of his name in the search records that--" She looks sideways at me. "I'm rambling. The long and short of it is, in the meantime, I had to get a job, which wasn't easy for someone with my past. I finally got a tip from a small research facility in Boston about the position with Gatsbro. I thought that maybe..." Her brows pull together and she momentarily shuts her eyes.

She turns abruptly and looks at me. "Those are plenty of straight answers. Now, will you give me one?"

She's earned it. I nod.

"You've never talked about your family."

My family. She's going for the jugular. But then, so did I.

"Your brother, for instance, tell me about him."

My brother?

It's as if she can read my thoughts, and she adds, "I was just wondering if he was anything like you."

I shake my head. "No, nothing like me. He was wild. He had a mind of his own and hated anyone telling him what to do with it. He moved out when I was just twelve, so we never got to be close."

"You didn't like him?"

I think about it. I resented him in so many ways. The way he ignored me. The way pressure was put on me because of him. The way he just left us and only came back when he needed something. But I never stopped hoping he would care. I heard him when I was in the hospital. I couldn't talk or see, but I could hear him. I heard him hovering near my bed, shoes scuffling, feet kicking the wall in his trademark angry way. He called me stupid, but he said it through tears and in the way I had always hoped he would, like a brother who cared. And even though it was what I had always wanted to hear, I thought, Too little, too late. You're too late, brother--

Miesha touches my arm. "Locke?"