Then I slam hard into the man and knock the knife from his hand. The weapon goes spinning to the floor as he and I both fall. Above me, Pressa grabs her father as he clutches his stomach, his watery eyes wide with shock.

The young man struggles with me. He’s surprisingly strong for his size, as if he were fighting for his life. Finally, I kick him off me hard enough to send him skidding against the wall. He hits his head and shakes it, dazed for a moment.

Daniel sees the commotion and rushes over, but it’s already too late. Pressa’s father drops to his knees in the middle of his floor as people stream all around him, running to grab everything from his shelves. Mr. Yu’s face has gone paper white, and he’s shaking uncontrollably. Between his fingers clutching his stomach seeps dark blood.

“Dad!” Pressa’s shouting at him as she helps him lean against the wall of his shop. She presses her hand against his leaking wounds too. Blood runs across her skin. “Dad!” She looks helplessly up at me. “Call an ambulance! Now!”

But without the Level system, there’s no way to make a proper call to anyone. I dash out into the street in an attempt to grab the nearest police officer I can see—but there are so many people in the streets, some shoving their way into other shops, others trying in vain to stop them. I run back in, bend down beside Mr. Yu, and strip off my thin jacket.

Mr. Yu’s eyes flutter weakly at me before they go to Pressa. His breaths come in irregular beats. He whispers something to her that sounds like he’s telling her to get out of here. She ignores him and keeps trying to stop the flow of blood.

I take Mr. Yu’s hand and hold it tight. Before either of us can do any more, his eyes fade, the light in them dimming to nothing. His trembling stops. One of his hands clutches the bandages that he’d been ready to use to help his killer. They’re stained red now.

Pressa’s hands are still pressed against her father’s wounds. Around us, people stumble forward to the shelves to grab handfuls of herbs and powders, stepping over his body as if he were nothing more than an obstacle.

I realize I’m tugging on Pressa’s arm, telling her we have to leave. She tries to shake me off and go back to what she’s doing. Only when June and Daniel join me do we finally manage to snap Pressa out of her reverie and start pulling her away from the store. Marren flees into the street and turns to watch helplessly as people overrun the store. Only then does Pressa break down in tears against me.

I force my eyes away from the scene around us. No matter how strong the country, no matter how invincible one might seem … there is always a tipping point. Always something that can pull the entire house down.

DANIEL

I know what it feels like to be forced to leave your home behind. I know what it’s like to lose your parent. To feel helpless as the world around you burns.

The girl named Pressa is quiet as we leave the hospital the following morning, where they’ve already covered her father’s body. She doesn’t look at me. She barely speaks to Eden, who has his arm around her in a protective grip.

I feel sorry for her. In her eyes, I can see a mirror of my own grief from the past. I can hear the echo of my screams and the blood on the ground.

“The Elector’s plane takes off in half an hour,” June says in a low voice to me as we walk toward the elevators. “We need to hurry. Your President is heading out soon too.”

I nod at June, then look back again at my brother and his friend. In this moment, it’s as if we’re back on the streets of the Republic, evacuating as the Colonies closed in. But this is no battle from an outside force. This is the consequence of a flawed system, something that had been rotting underneath a glistening exterior.

From the screens in the AIS lobby, we can see the police pushing the Undercity crowds back, clubs out, guns sparking. People falling.

I tear my gaze away from the sight and keep going. My job is to keep Eden safe. And right now, the only path to safety is to get out of this country.

We enter the elevator, now functioning only on emergency backup power.

As we rise toward the top floor, the Elector’s private jet comes into view. I stare at it, the red and black paint streaking the sides of the plane, the angled nose, the lights dotting the platform around it. The entire scene feels surreal.

I fall into step behind June, my brother and Pressa silent at my side. What thoughts must be running through his head? What were his last moments with Dominic Hann like? But I don’t have time to dwell on him before we are inside the jet and seated across from Anden.

As the engines start and the jet lifts into the air, I look out my window and down at the city below us. Smoke rises from the lowest streets, hazing the still-glittering lights on the higher floors. Without the colorful overlays on the city, the place looks more vulnerable than I ever imagined—the buildings stark white, empty of substance. Tiny dots of people run back and forth on the pathways that connect each of the buildings like a web.

It looks like war. It looks like something I’ve seen all too much of in my life. As we rise higher and the scene below fades behind the clouds, I find myself wondering if there is ever a time in history of peace, if we can ever find a way to escape the cycle of destruction we bring upon ourselves.

If there is, I sure as hell haven’t seen it.

LOS ANGELES

REPUBLIC OF AMERICA

EDEN

I spend the entire twelve hours on the plane sketching one schematic after another.

It’s the same habit that emerges every time I’m trying to distract myself from my anxieties. My drawings are of what I remember from working on Dominic Hann’s device, but they’re not enough—I hadn’t gotten access to everything, and as a result all I end up with is an unfinished idea of how he managed to take down the entire Antarctican system in Ross City in one fell swoop.

“Eden.”

It takes me a while to realize that Pressa is saying my name. I startle out of my sketching to see her staring pointedly at me, a cup of steaming tea in her hands. She puts it on the table before me.

“Thanks,” I mutter, forcing myself to sit back in my seat and wrap my hands around the cup. The heat of it scalds my skin, but the sudden shock feels nice too.

Pressa turns her dark eyes toward the window. She tucks her hair behind her ears. “Thanks for taking me with you,” she says in a low voice.

She’s been quiet for most of the trip, her eyes hollow and red with grief. Now she glances uncomfortably around the Elector’s jet. It’s a luxurious space, its rounded ceiling high and its sides lined with smooth couches and chairs. Behind us, two full-length beds with thick curtains draped over them bookend the back of the plane, along with a bathroom that rivals the one in our apartment.

Her gaze settles again and again on the Elector, who sits at the other end near the front of the plane and talks in low voices with June. Daniel lounges beside her, his face trained idly on the scene outside the windows. Despite his attempts to look like he’s not paying attention to what they’re saying, I can tell he’s taking in every bit of it. Just like how he’s noticing where I am right now and what I’m doing, even though he’d never show it.

Pressa’s eyes dart briefly to my schematics, then up to me. “You’re gonna need to rest if you want to make any more progress, you know,” she finally murmurs. “You’ve been at it nonstop for the entire flight.”