June. She had been there. Right there, right where the explosion happened.

A thousand images, each more horrible than the last, flash through my thoughts. I readjust the mike on my ear and keep calling into it, even as police dart around me in a chaotic scene.

“June! June? Can you hear me? What happened down there?”

No answer. I spit out a swear and reach the stairwell. I don’t even bother taking any of the steps—with one leap, I’m on the railing and hopping from one turn of the stairwell down to the next, grabbing hold with my hands and swinging down to each lower floor until I land lightly on my feet at the bottom floor of the building. I race out into the street.

Rubble and white dust obscure the air. I squint as I race through it. Already, a patrol of soldiers is down here and directing others from June’s squad back to the main building. None of them look injured yet, but their faces look bewildered and coated in ash.

“June!” I call out again as I stop before the pile of broken concrete that used to be the building where she was supposed to be staked out. It’s a twisted mess of broken stone and metal now. A wave of light-headedness sweeps through me, and I sway. She must be in there somewhere, trapped underneath all the debris, she must be injured, dead—

A hand suddenly materializes out of the white dust and seizes my wrist. My head jerks to one side.

It’s her.

June has a grim smile on her face. “You don’t think that could take me out, did you?” she says.

Every bone in my body turns weak at the sight of June. Her hair’s rumpled and dirty, and ash smears her cheeks, but otherwise, she looks unharmed.

“You’re the goddy worst,” I snap at her. “What the hell happened? I saw you there, and then I saw the explosion—”

She’s already pulling away and tugging me along with her back toward the tower where I came from. Her eyes are dark and serious. “You thought you saw me there,” she corrects me. “I had a decoy team stationed instead, fully aware of the risk of a potential attack from Hann.” She squeezes my hand in apology. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I wanted Hann to think that he’d succeeded, and he would if he noticed your shocked reaction.”

I’m so relieved to see her safe that I have no strength to be angry. “You play some dangerous games,” I say instead, shaking my head.

June holds out the device from earlier, then brings up a transmission that looks like it came from somewhere underground. “Obviously, he heard this transmission,” she says. “And with that display, he’s going to think he struck a blow against us. It should also make Eden look trustworthy enough to him, that he came to warn him about a plan that actually happened, that clearly you didn’t want to happen.”

We walk in silence for a moment before we return to the command center. There, the other transmissions are being analyzed. None of them had seen a similar explosion go off.

I point to an area underneath the eastern border of the city. It’s near the outskirts, where the biodome ends and the Antarctican tundra begins. “This general area,” I muse. “It’s likely all his people are stationed near there—otherwise we might have seen more reactions to the other transmissions.”

“And it looks like Eden’s successfully made contact with him,” June adds.

Eden. My heart seizes again at the thought of my brother back under Hann’s control. I look to where June points at the footage of the explosion looping on one of the screens in the room. “It was what Eden said he would suggest Hann do, as a reaction to our offer.”

“Any word from him yet?”

June shakes her head. “Nothing yet. But we should get something tonight.”

I nod, trying not to let my fear show through. I push away from the table, then go to stand in front of the window looking out over the city. Over the speakers in the center, I can hear Director Min talking with their officers, getting updates on what’s happening.

The sooner this is all over, the sooner things can return to normal. But as I look out at the city, at the chaos that has filled the Undercity’s streets, I wonder if that normalcy is even possible.

A revolution within a revolution.

June isn’t the only one working without telling everyone every detail. Change never happens unless you force it.

EDEN

The only way I can tell that night has fallen is by the blackness of the skylights in the building. Outside, beyond Ross City’s biodome, the open tundra must look like nothing more than a pitch-dark sea. Even from inside, I can hear the roar of the wind across the empty plains.

Pressa and I are alone with Hann now, in a room that looks like it’s operating as his office. Outside the doors stand his guards. Inside, it’s just him, seated wearily against a chair, and for the first time, he looks like a vulnerable man.

Pressa stands over him and holds out a single vial. “These may make you cough a little at first,” she warns as she presses one into the palm of his hand. “But they’ll start to kick in soon after you swallow it. You’re supposed to take one a day.”

Hann gives her a wary look, but doesn’t move to stop her. His guards outside aren’t looking out at the rest of the building, but inside at us. Their guns are hoisted. If they sniff even the slightest hint of us trying to poison or sabotage Hann, they’ll fill us with bullets faster than we’ll ever be able to explain ourselves. So Pressa moves slowly, emphasizing each of her words.

I find myself marveling yet again at how calm she can stay.

“How long has your family lived in the Undercity?” Dominic Hann asks her as she pours the contents of the vial into a cup and mixes it with hot water.

Pressa doesn’t say anything for a second. Her concentration stays on the mixture she’s preparing. “As long as I can remember,” she replies. “My grandparents came to Ross City when they were fleeing chaos in their own country. They ended up in the Undercity. My dad says the apothecary first belonged to them.”

“I see,” he says.

He’s testing her, I realize, with the way he watches her as she stirs the concoction. He’s looking for something unusual in her gaze, the secret of why we must really be here.

But he doesn’t stop her as she works. I realize that, maybe, he’s genuinely hopeful this will work.

As she works, I speak up. I clear my throat and lean forward from the desk I’m seated on. “Like you said,” I tell Hann, “the military’s not going to stay back forever. We don’t have much time. What do you need done on your system?”

Hann tilts his chin at me. “You’ll be in charge of installing a hack on the system that redirects all Leveling to be under my control,” he replies.

A chill courses through my veins, as cold as winter wind outside. Our assumptions had been right, after all. He’s going to make himself the sole dictator of what’s legal and illegal. I blink, feigning shock instead at the scope of the hack. “A program that can do that?” I ask. “It’ll take far too long.”

Hann observes me with his penetrating stare. “Not if you’re working on it,” he replies. “I’m told it’s a simple matter of installing a new chip on the system. You’ll take a look at it tomorrow night.”