I have an affinity for paper that is as little understood in Wiley City as it was in Ashtown. When I make my lists, I like to write them physically, not type them into a coded file on my cuff. This is precisely what got me into trouble with Nik Nik back on my home Earth. The paper that’s been placed on my door is softer and smoother than Ashtown paper, because in Ashtown paper is made from blending root plants and dirt, and here the paper is made from other paper. Ashtown paper is brown to tan, depending on the quality. Wiley City paper is the gray of other people’s ink. Someone from Wiley has left me a note.

For a moment, I entertain the fantasy that it’s from Dell, but then the careless scrawl sets me straight. Dell practices calligraphy like other people practice meditation, and I imagine her handwriting carries the structured fluidity of anyone who is also fluent in a kanji-based language. Whoever wrote this is unused to writing physically. A tech head, for sure.

I know what happened on 175.

Beneath the declaration is a meeting place and time. I read the words again, trying not to react, forcing myself to fold the note back along its seam when I want to crumble it into nothing. I close the door and rewind my doorcam, but whoever left the note stayed tucked below its range. All I can see is the same dark bump on the edge of the feed where they didn’t hunch down quite low enough. It might be a shoulder, but it might also be the curve of a back, the top of a head, or the edge of a hood. All I know for sure is they were wearing black.

My cuff beeps an appointment reminder. It’s time to get ready.

* * *

JEAN IS WAITING for me just inside Eldridge’s doors. His eyebrows go up as he studies my face.

“They didn’t fade.”

I touch my cheeks. I’ve mostly forgotten about the stripes that begin at my cheekbones and continue all the way down my body, just slightly darker and more purple than my own skin. He’s wrong, they did fade a little from that first day. Just not much.

“They’re permanent,” I say. “Do you think it’s the price for surviving?”

He shakes his head quickly, severely. “You don’t pay with scars so you can survive. Scars are the badge of honor to prove you survived. This is your Purple Heart.”

I could tell him Wiley City has never actually given a Purple Heart, and I’m not sure anywhere else has in decades—not since war became so technological and killing became letting the wrong people starve—but I like his explanation too much to disagree.

“Are you ready for this?” he asks, leading me to the elevator.

“I have a choice?”

“Of course,” he says. “You could choose quitting. Failure.”

“Then I guess I’m ready.”

It’s the right answer, and he smiles as he sends our elevator up. We’re going all the way to the one hundredth floor, the highest artery in the city for now. They’ve already approved the next round of construction—soon there will be a 120th floor—but this one will still be high up enough to barely be shaded. I’ve never been on this floor. Adam Bosch’s office is here, and all the important meeting rooms, so I wouldn’t have clearance inside the building without Jean’s fob. I guess I could go to the hundredth floor outside the building, make use of the exterior elevators to get to their public-access parks, but there are fewer of those on the hundredth floor than any other, so why bother?

“You’re tense,” Jean says as we climb. “Are you concerned about the exam?”

    “No, I’m sure I’ll pass.”

The gut-churning nervousness that once came when I thought of the analyst test is gone. I’ve taken three practice tests during my leave and scored nearly perfect on every one.

“Then what is it?”

“Do you know if there was an Eldridge courier sent to my house?” I ask.

“There was,” Jean says, then, before I can get excited over the clue, continues, “I sent you study materials. Did you get them?”

“I got them. I meant today. Was anything sent to me this morning?”

Jean frowns down at his portable screen. “Nothing from me or Dell, and no one else but HR has your address. Why?”

“I got a weird note. I can’t tell if it’s a threat or not.”

“What did it say?”

The elevator doors glide open on a whisper, and suddenly there are too many eyes and ears around us.

“I’ll tell you after.”

“I meet with Mr. Bosch after. Monday?”

I nod, suddenly nervous as we walk to the meeting that I’ve been told many times is not actually an interrogation, no matter how much it feels like one.

The debriefing room is dominated by a large half-moon desk that can seat up to ten people. Today, it holds only six: two investigators in the center, my advocates on each side of them, a Human Resources representative on the end to ensure the questioning is fair and act as a mediator between the company’s representatives and mine if things get tense, and then there, on the far end, is my therapist.

Sasha isn’t like Dell or Jean, who have blood from somewhere else. Her people have been in Wiley City since its founding, and in a city just like it before that. Only someone whose family hasn’t had to deal with uncontrolled UV rays for a dozen generations would have skin or eyes as white as hers. She’s as much Wiley City as I am Ashtown, but she’s never looked at me like I was anything but a person. When we first met years ago, she told me I’d grown more confident. Of course she was comparing me to Caramenta—a sweet, sheltered girl a few weeks out of her mother’s house—but I liked the compliment and I liked her for giving it to me. She wanted me to succeed, to have a piece of something that used to be just hers.

    Sasha’s supposed to make sure I don’t get too agitated by the questioning, and I trust that’s what she’ll do. The company pretends it’s a protection for me, but it’s not. If I have a breakdown during their debriefing, they’d have to take care of me, citizen or no. Wiley City might pride itself on how well it takes care of its people, but when it comes to damage to employees directly from employers, their policy has always been You break it, you bought it. Within the city limits, anyway. Back when Wiley companies operated in Ash, they’d fire children clumsy enough to lose a limb at their factories, fine families for the cleanup if an overworked loved one committed suicide there. But when dealing with their own people they are models of compassionate responsibility.

My advocates are my watcher and my mentor, Dell and Jean. Jean takes his seat and begins sliding through the files on the briefing screens that have been provided. He’s trying to hide his nervousness, but he’s sweating just enough for his dark skin to pick up shine from the lights overhead. I don’t know how many children Jean has—not because it’s a secret, but because I’ve lost track—and between his children and grandchildren it’s as if he doesn’t know how to turn off caring for anyone more than twenty years younger than him.

Dell is too professional to ever look bored, but she does look indifferent. Her hands are folded, and I’m sure she already has the information for the meeting memorized.

I am seated at a table alone. There is a microphone floating above me and a pitcher of water on the desk. To my left on the far side of the wall is something I’m sure doesn’t happen for other hearings: a gallery of people—scientists, I’m guessing, because instead of the simple reading screens they’ve brought processors and they’re tapping away at them even though nothing has happened yet. They aren’t part of the committee; they’re just an audience waiting for the show.

    “Okay,” says the ranking investigator, “let’s begin.”

At first, the questions are broadly curious. They say they want to know what it felt like when I first landed, but they don’t. They don’t want details about the taste of blood or the unique, shifting agony of being unmade and dropped in a new world like a skinned cat. They want to know how many bones I broke, how many days I was out, how high my fever got. Nice, clinical numbers that are easy to process. I tell them I don’t remember much.

“And the DD-905?” asks the lead investigator.

“The what?”

Dell leans forward. “The Misery Syringe.”

The lead investigator tilts his head at that, but continues. “Protocol dictates that in the event of dop backlash you call for a pull after using the dose.”

This is the first lie I’ll have to tell. Heart rate scanners and other anti-lie tech are supposed to be illegal for employers to use against employees. Maybe Adam Bosch would care, but I doubt Adranik does. Just in case, I hedge my answer so it’s technically true.

“I’d left an away message on my cuff. When I was passing out, I couldn’t call for a pull.”

With some carefully moved pauses, I’ve told the whole truth. I can’t tell them I broke protocol and used the painkiller to get help rather than accepting the death sentence of having Dell pull me back. Pigeons aren’t supposed to value their lives more than the mission.

“I don’t know what happened to the syringe,” I say, also true. “I must have dropped it when I passed out, or when I was moved.”

The second investigator turns to the lead. “Ashtown has a severe drug problem. Someone probably just thought it was their lucky day.”