IT’S ILLEGAL FOR Wiley City to investigate a citizen without their knowledge, so I’m sure enforcement will be here soon to inform Adam Bosch of the case. If they come to interview traversers, I won’t hide who I am. Once Adam reads the complaint, he’ll know it’s me. I was mostly anonymous in the letter, but I made sure to mention that I was a high-volume traverser. It may condemn me, but it protects Dresden and the rest of the part-timers from being caught in the crossfire. Once I get the boot they’ll all get an increased rotation. Plus, I never have to hear Carrington talk ever again, so that’s another bright side.

But Maintenance makes their move first. I see them coming from a long ways off, leaving their offices on the far end of my floor. There are three, walking in a V formation in those awful black jumpsuits. They dress how a child imagines a bad guy would dress, and I still hadn’t known they were killers.

“Who do you think is on the chopping block?” Dresden asks, suddenly at my shoulder.

Me. They’re headed right for me. But he doesn’t know what they really do, so I shake my head. “What do you mean?”

“First Wiley City dispatches enforcement here, and then—”

“What? When?”

“While you were taking your test. You didn’t miss anything. They went straight to the top floor and came right back down and left. But now Maintenance is on the move, so they must be clearing out someone’s stuff, right? Changing the locks?”

    “You’re thinking of Building Maintenance. They’re Off-World Maintenance,” I say. “That’s not what these guys do.”

They’re only eight feet away now, so I stand and turn around. I want to face them. They won’t do anything to me in front of Dresden, he’s a citizen, so they must just be escorting me off the property.

Standing doesn’t make it easier to pretend I’m anything but prey, and my breath goes shallow as they approach. Why does it feel just like a runners parade, even after all these years? But they pass me without slowing down. The woman at the front offers a glare, but the man on the left greets me with a wide smile. They must know. They know I’ve killed one of the Adams. The one with the smile winks like I’m one of them, like we’re in on the same fun secret.

They march past me to the elevator. I watch the display, expecting them to go straight to 100, where Adam’s office is. But they stop at 80. The rock that’s been growing in my chest plummets into my stomach. I run to the elevator without thinking, remembering only when I’m there that I can’t make it take me where I want to go.

I pound at my cuff, trying to call Jean, but there’s no answer.

Finally, I dial Dell.

“You don’t have to talk to me, I just need you to send the elevator down so I can go to the eightieth floor. It’s an emergency.”

She closes the connection without saying a word.

I begin to pace, frustrated and helpless, but then I hear the ding of the elevator opening behind me. I get in and see it’s programmed to return to 80. Whatever else is between us, Dell came through.

I rush out as soon as the elevator arrives, hitting my shoulders on the sides of the doors. I run toward Jean, but I’ve been late to see him so many times no one even looks out of their offices. Or maybe up here they already know what I’ve just discovered, and they’re burying their heads because they saw Maintenance come this way.

I run into Jean’s office, but the only ones here are the three I followed in. They freeze in a tableau—one righting a knocked-over chair, another sliding glass from a shattered award into the trash can, and the third spraying what smells like bleach over what looks like blood on the back of Jean’s chair. I shake my head, letting denial hold me in place for just a second before I turn and run in the opposite direction.

    No one came down the company elevator, which means whoever took Jean must have exited the building on this floor. I run outside wondering if they went down the escalator, or used an exterior elevator, but then it hits me: we’re on the eightieth floor. I run in the direction of Adam Bosch’s garden. Once inside, I look for the paths with holograms that say CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE. The path leads me to a clearing so close to the back edge of the garden I can see the desert beyond.

At first, all I can see are leaves and a wall of black jumpsuits with their backs turned to me. I try to push past them, and in the struggle of them pulling me back and me raging forward, I land on my knees in the clearing, face-to-face with Jean. Adam is standing over us, his constant smile in place. There’s blood on the cuff of his customary wide-collared white shirt. It’s Jean’s blood. I couldn’t see it at first, but there are wet rivers crawling from his mouth and temple.

“You’re beating a man old enough to be your grandfather. What is wrong with you?”

I look around at the others, but their expressions are either gleeful or empty. Adam could be at a speaking engagement for all the change his face shows. Only his eyes are a little off—not unfamiliar, just different.

“Traitors have no age,” he says, his voice too light for his statement.

And then I understand why his eyes look familiar. They’re his father’s eyes, and that was his father’s line. Usually he said it about children executed for carrying messages of rebellion, but I learned from Adra on 175 that it applies on the other end of the age spectrum too. I’m only now realizing Adam didn’t so much inherit his father’s traits as he was possessed by them.

I push myself to my feet, even though I hate standing over Jean. I never wanted to be taller than him.

“Jean isn’t a traitor. He’s loyal to Eldridge. He’s grateful for everything you’ve done for him. He knows what kind of life his family would have had without you. He tells me all the time.”

    This seems to please Adam, but it doesn’t stop him from rearing back and kicking Jean in the spine, sending him forward onto his hands. I can’t contain my scream, so someone steps up from behind and does it for me. The gloved hand covering my mouth smells like crude oil. It tastes like it, too, when I bite their fingers.

“I can tell this upsets you,” Adam says. “But he sent a very incriminating package to enforcement. I don’t know what I’ll have to do to shake them. It’s…inconvenient.”

“It was me.” I can’t get the words out fast enough. “Everything you think he did, it was me.”

“We already know it was a traverser with access to information your clearance doesn’t provide, and his fob was used to access a restricted floor last week.”

“That was me! I used his login when I found the information. I stole his fob.”

“This fob?” he says, pulling it out of his pocket. “This fob that was sitting on his desk when we came in to question him?”

“Yes, I just…I gave it back after.”

Adam clucks his tongue. It sounds like I’m lying. I kneel down and pull Jean back up from the ground so we’re both on our knees.

“It’s all right, Cara,” Jean says. He’s calm, but his jaw isn’t connecting right.

“It’s not all right,” I say, then look up at Adam. “Let me take him to a pod.”

Adam tilts his head. “But we’re not half finished yet.”

“Do it to me. Whatever punishment you have planned, I’ll take it.”

“No,” Jean says, too clear for someone in as much pain as he must be in.

“You’re being irrational,” I say to Jean, then to Adam: “Don’t do this.”

“He’s already told us that no one else has his login, and that he’s never lost track of his fob,” Adam says. “You’re too late to lie for him.”

I reach out to Jean, because I want to touch him somewhere, but I can’t tell where he’s injured. He holds my wrist, and I hold his in return. His hand could be the hand of my grandfather, could be Pax’s hand, could be anyone I’d call family. In this land of strangers, he is the only thing that has ever looked or felt like home. He doesn’t need me like that, he brought his land and people with him in a dozen other family members, but I have always needed him.

    “Tell them it was me. You have to tell them,” I say. “You have, I don’t even know, sixty-four grandkids who need you.”

He smiles, small and painful. “Do you know how many lives I’ve taken?”

“I don’t care.”

“Of course you don’t, but I’ve started to, as I’ve gotten older.” He looks back to Adam and clears his throat. “And that is why I went to the authorities. I wanted to go out doing one good thing….”

He squeezes my wrist so hard my bones ache. He’s so strong, even after all these years.

“Let me.”

I refuse and keep refusing. I scream his innocence and my guilt until two Maintenance workers each take an arm and drag me away. It doesn’t stop my screaming. They let me go wild until we get near the entrance of the garden, then one threatens to drug me. He isn’t mean about it. He tells me he understands. He says the first colleague is always hard, but it’s time to pull myself together or he’ll do it for me.