When Miesha saw their train arrive, she gave me some hasty last instructions and told me she didn't know how long it would take them. Days or maybe even weeks. We stood there awkwardly. It was the point you would normally hug someone good-bye. Miesha and I had never hugged, and just a few hours earlier, I was ready to drop her off somewhere. Now I didn't want her to go. Dot saved us both the awkwardness by putting her hand out to shake mine.

"Remember," she told me, "your success..." She didn't finish her sentence. She didn't have to. Miesha swiveled Dot's chair around, and they left.

I look in the mirror, pulling at my shirt the way Miesha would have, smoothing out wrinkles that aren't there. Will Jenna recognize me? Will she even remember me after all these years? She's had lifetimes to push away memories like me. I reach up and pull a strand of hair forward, trying to re-create the cowlick that no longer exists. With Miesha, Dot, and Kara gone, I can't get Jenna out of my mind. After all this time, I'm going to see her. What will I say?

Why didn't you save us?

We would have saved you.

Couldn't she have pleaded with her father not to abandon us? I look at my body. It has human tissue. So what if it was made in a lab and isn't mine? Is that why I repulsed Greta and Cole? I lean closer to the mirror, rubbing my fingers against my forehead. Will I make Jenna's skin crawl?

I step back, tucking my shirt into my pants. My mind is still here. Who cares if I don't have ten measly percent of my brain? That was the difference between her life and our life sentence? We were condemned to a suffocating black prison just because we didn't have a handful of slimy white tissue. That qualifies her as human?

"Screw tissue."

I wash my hands in the sink, removing the residue of blue BioPerfect from beneath my fingernail. She of all people knew what the darkness was like. I heard her. I heard her scream, and I tried to reach her. We were there together, for God's sake. At least at first. Why didn't she try to reach out to me too? Kara did.

Was it the accident? Was Jenna punishing me for that? I was only sixteen. I didn't know. I didn't mean--

I shake the drips from my hands and swipe them through the dryer. Jenna was never the vengeful type. She understood about mistakes. She understood everything. At least I thought she did. That's what I loved about her. And her laugh. The way she would hiccup if we made her laugh too hard. And her eyes. The ones I could get lost in when she wasn't looking. She was caring and forgiving. But then ... so was Kara. She never used to be the vengeful type, either.

I take a last look at myself in the mirror. I see a different person from the one Jenna and Kara used to know. Bigger, stronger, and angrier--thanks to Gatsbro.

Maybe we've all changed.

I grab my pack from the floor and sling it over my shoulder. I have a train to catch.

PART III

JENNA

Chapter 38

The first thing that hits me is the moisture in the air. The second thing is my clenched stomach. I am human. I deserve to be here. I am still contemplating the heavy air, my twisted gut, and my tenuous hold on my right to live, when I hear alarms. Just as I'm ready to bolt, guards pounce on the man next to me and drag him away. He briefly pleads and then swears as the guards yell about his ID. They all disappear through a door that seamlessly vanishes like it was never there.

San Diego is not Topeka or Boston. I keep my head down, my pack gripped tight, trying to pretend that my heart isn't pounding in my ears. I stay with the departing crowds, moving quickly, making a straight shot to the exit to find the CabBots, hoping the guards weren't really after me and will soon discover their mistake.

As soon as I step through the doors of the tunnel that leads out of the station, I am struck with the deafening clatter of rain. A few travelers hesitate in the protection of the overhang, but then they move forward, stepping into cars that speed forward to get them, or they disappear into the dark sheets of rain with fist-sized umbrellas they have pulled from their pockets.

I step off to the side and rifle through my pack. At the last minute, Miesha threw in a small black cylindrical package she plucked from a bin. A Bot at a nearby kiosk wrinkled her nose and called to us, "No one takes those. We have real coats over here. Much nicer for citizens of your status--"

Miesha dismissed her and said to me, "Government issue. Free. Superficial stab at public display of charity. Most citizens won't touch them, but I'm not too proud, and you shouldn't be, either. They're designed to adapt to whatever the weather is, and that makes them better than any so-called fashionable protection."

"But those are for--"

Miesha cut Dot off. "They're for anyone. My husband wore one. I know they work." And plunk, it went into my pack. Miesha knows me. I don't need or even care about fashion--just protection. I may have a lot of CabBots to talk to before I find one who can help me.

I find the five-inch cylinder at the bottom of my pack and read the words on the outside of the package for the first time. Not for resale. Benevolent Protection Program. National Offices of Human Welfare. I pull the tab, wondering how much coat there could really be in such a small package, but anything is better than what I have right now.

Slick black fabric immediately unfolds. I shake it out, surprised to see that it really is a full-length coat with a hood that slips out of a hidden seam. I put it on and feel the warmth almost instantly. Miesha is right--fashion or not, they do work. I turn to pick up my pack and catch my reflection in the glass door behind me. I stop, frozen by my image--ghostly in the glass, but oddly familiar. I step closer to be sure, and see someone who is not quite me staring back. Her husband wore one. The wind catches the black fabric, whipping it around my legs, making it flap like it's alive. Like a bird. Like a raven. Like something with broken wings trying to fly.