“Where are you going with this?” My anger is starting to triumph over my fear. “Are you going to tell me what you want or not? Where’s my brother?”

Hann leans back in ease and ignores my questions. “I looked up your files. Seems like you’re a star student at Ross University. And yet, here you are, coming down to the Undercity week after week. That’s not the typical behavior of a Sky Floor kid with their entire future ahead of them.”

“You didn’t bring me here to be my therapist.”

At that, Hann laughs. His guards join in. “No, I didn’t. I brought you here because I think you are the kind of talent that I see only once in a generation.”

“Show me my brother,” I demand. “Then we can talk.”

“Rest assured, he is safe, and I will do you the favor of keeping him that way.” He leans forward to rest his elbows on his knees, then regards me with a piercing gaze. “But this is not about him. I’m not interested in your brother. This is about you.”

His words are hitting some part of me that yearns to hear it. This is not about him. If Hann is trying to manipulate me, he’s going to be smart about it, I warn myself. He understands exactly what my weak points are.

Where is Daniel? What has Hann done to him?

The man frowns at my expression. “You’re not used to hearing that, are you? That you’re the focus?” He rises from the couch. His hoarse voice is oddly gentle, with that same warmth that had drawn me in when I first met him. “Come with me, please.”

As he steps out of the room, he snaps his fingers once without looking back at me. At first, I think his guards will drag me up and force me forward—but instead they bow as they approach me, then nod for me to follow Hann out of the room. I hesitate, afraid, but then start walking.

We head out of the room and down a narrow hallway. As we make several turns, the clean walls and elegant corridors vanish, making way for a smooth concrete floor and steel walls and ceilings. Here, they usher me into what looks like a train inside a tunnel.

This must have all been salvaged and renovated from an old, abandoned part of the Undercity.

We ride in silence for a few minutes before the train comes to a gentle halt. Then we step out into a hall that opens up into a vast, cavernous space.

I balk at the sheer size of it. It looks like a factory filled with halls of identical machines, each of them blinking blue in unison. There must be millions and millions of them, and when they’re all stacked together like this, they look dizzying. Overhead, sheets of cold white lights shine down on the building.

Giant vents run along the ceiling, and tall steel beams tower up in rows. In the center of the room, though, is a large, circular structure that looks like some strange combination of steel and glass and … twisted, fractal mesh. Like something halfway between machinelike and organic. It has a soft blue glow about it. Surrounding it are metal supports, and in the center is a large, circular platform where several workers now stand. The platform’s floor changes to a smooth, dark metal, and my boots clank against the new surface as I step onto it. A couple of the workers look up to see us enter.

“You are getting exclusive access here, Eden,” Hann says to me as he strides toward the structure. “This is a world-class engine I’m building, so I suppose you could say we have similar interests.”

“What does it do?” I find myself asking, momentarily overwhelmed by it and resenting my own curiosity.

“You answer none of my questions, and you expect me to tell you anything?” He smiles at me. “The drone you built for that race, it had a perpetual engine?”

I look at him. “Close, yes,” I reply, surprised that he knows. “It’s powered by a combination of tech and biology.”

“The microorganisms in it feed off the heat that the initial engine blasts generates, and create more energy of their own.” Hann nods. “I recognized the glow that your engine was giving off. Now, I know you are planning to head back to the Republic of America and begin an internship there.” He shakes his head. “But I think it’s a waste of your talent. Stay here, and you’ll find yourself designing much more interesting things than hospitals and museums.”

I bristle at his backhanded compliment. “I don’t consider it a waste of time.”

Hann gives me a crooked smile. “I had to fight my way to where I am today. I knew my worth, that I was destined for more than just staying on the lowest rungs, running errands for someone else. You’re destined for more too. How about you apply that skill of yours to working for me?”

I stare at him incredulously. His machine looms beside us, its light casting a faint glow against my skin but not against his hologram. “You’re offering me a job?”

“I never shaft my talent, Eden. You’ll be paid handsomely. More than anyone in the Republic would offer you, I can guarantee it. Anyone you love and care for will be taken care of.”

“Like how you’re taking care of my brother right now? Like how you had your guys show me a video of someone following him home?”

He shakes his head. “My methods are unconventional. It’s a result of the world I operate in. But I’m not interested in hurting your brother, Eden. What good would that do me, when I’m trying to earn your trust? Cooperate with me, and your brother will be released unharmed, with no knowledge of where he was held, and he and the AIS can go back to hunting me like they always do.”

If you lure Hann out into a space where our agents are ready for him, we can take him down before he can escape.

The AIS director’s words come back to me now, haunting in their premonition. I’d refused to do it, but now the choice has been taken out of my hands. Now I’m down here, and my brother is in real danger, with no promise that AIS will be able to find him in time should I refuse or displease Hann.

I turn my head back to the towering machine, to its soft glow. On a small scale, my engine was able to turn the drone into one of the fastest racers I’ve ever seen. What is this engine for? What is Hann planning to do with it?

At this very moment, Daniel is somewhere down here, wondering whether I’m still alive.

Hann sighs when he sees my hesitation. “When I was younger,” he says, “I lived in the Undercity with my family. My mother once sent me on an errand to buy groceries in a part of the Undercity far from our home. That’s what happens to single-Level folks who don’t qualify for the good stores, you see? We have only a few shops to choose from, and the only one with what we needed was on the other side of the city. I got lost on the way there, and ended up in an alley where I witnessed an attack.

“I hid behind a trash bin and watched several people holding down a man. His attackers all had knives. The man they held down was sobbing, apologizing for stealing a crate of canned food.” Hann glances at me. My heartbeat quickens. “Do you know what they did to him?”

Is he telling me a story from his past, or is he threatening me? All I can see is the blurred edges of my vision, the sharpened focus on this criminal. All I can think about is the way I’d crouched beside my brother on the floor of our kitchen years ago, holding his hand as he fought through the pain in his head.

The way he’d screamed and collapsed. The way I’d shouted for an ambulance. The bright lights of the hospital.