“My dad said you would explain. It was the last thing he said.”

The old man sucks on his beer and sits quiet for a moment, thinking. Finally, he swallows a last mouthful of beer and starts talking.

“I only built the amp hardware—the army programmed them and your pop installed them. All thirteen. That was the whole run, but I don’t have the whole picture. Before activation, it oughta be doing basic Neural Autofocus tasks. Pushing your mind in the right direction. But it also knows things. Military skill sets, probably. I don’t know—I didn’t program that part. All I do know is that when you turn it on, the amp takes over. You go faster. No time to think. If you’re a good man, you’ll do good things. If you’re not, you won’t.”

“It controls you?”

“It’s still you. Only the Zenith doesn’t listen to you up here,” says Jim, pointing at my forehead. “It listens to you down here.” He taps my chest, over my heart. “It’ll give you what you’re really wishing for.”

I consider that for a second. “How do I turn it on?” I ask.

“A trigger. Part of the programming. Could be some kind of action or series of words. Only Lyle could tell you for sure.”

Jim pulls down the last draft from his beer, drops it, and pops open the next in a well-practiced motion. Doesn’t say another thing.

Then something thuds into the boards under the deck. Jim pulls his mouth into a line and stomps his boot against the sagging wood. The blows reverberate like a marching drum.

“Get up here, Nicky!” he shouts. “You little prairie dog.”

Covered in leaves and dirt, Nick crawls out from under the deck. He’s grinning, stiff hair sticking up over his low ears. “I know’d it,” he says. “I knew he was here to do something.”

“Dammit, Nick,” says Jim. “Where’s your mother?”

“On her way. I’ll tell her you’re lookin’ for her. See you later … Zenith.”

Nick giggles and trots off into the darkness.

“Christ,” says Jim.

“I’ll talk to him about it,” I say, but Jim’s looking past me. Someone is coming. A woman walking slow and relaxed. She carries the kind of gravity that seems to pull light in around her.

At first, I can see only her pale lips as she emerges from the shadows. Then she pushes dirty blond hair from her face. Sets a pair of bright almond-shaped eyes on me. The glow of every dingy paper lantern hanging on the deck is reflected at me in her eyes, each reflection like a possibility.

Her temple is clean. She’s not even an amp.

I set my beer down quick and open my mouth. Ready to spring into action. Ready for something. It’s just that I can’t think of what I meant to do. Or say.

“Howdy, Luce,” says Jim. “Nick beat you here.”

“He usually does,” she says. “Brought you guys some supper.”

She hands over a couple TV dinners, paper curled and brittle from the oven. Jim takes them and nods. His gruff version of a thank-you.

“This is Owen,” he says. “Friend of mine’s kid. Usual story. Was a schoolteacher, like you. Math or something.”

“Hey,” she says, extending her hand. “I’m Lucy.”

I take Lucy’s hand in mine. Force myself to let it go.

She’s looking up the steps at me and I’m thinking about how pretty she is, and after a second I realize that I’m not saying anything. She grins, amused, I hope.

Her smile sticks with me for a long time. I guess I was memorizing it.

“Th-thanks,” I say. “You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s the least I can do. Somebody has to make sure the old goat eats every now and then.” She lowers her voice, leans in to Jim. “Are you making another run?”

“Leaving tomorrow morning,” he says. “Be gone a week or so. Visiting with folks at Locust Grove, Lost City, Tenkiller.”

“Where are you going?” I ask.

Lucy draws back and crosses her arms, eyebrows raised at Jim. “He doesn’t know what you do?”

Jim takes another swig of his beer. Watches the park.

“He’s our doctor,” says Lucy. “Has been for ten years. The only real implant specialist in Eastern Oklahoma. Goes out to the smaller communities. Without him, a lot of people would be out of luck. Especially now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.

“Not that important,” says Jim.

Lucy shakes her head. Her eyes settle on mine and I know. It’s important.

Jim is out here paying his dues. Paying these people back for some sin, real or imagined. He built the Zeniths from scratch and let the military decide what they should do. It makes me wonder what might be inside the Zenith that was evil enough to make him uproot his life and sniff out the original Uplift site way out here in Sequoyah County.

A band of light scans across Lucy’s face.

We all turn at once. See the car headlights. Hear distant sirens. And the flow of everyday life splinters and falls apart just like that. People start heading inside, movements shaky with hidden panic. There’s too much bad shit out in the darkness. It’s not safe.

The crunch from the parking lot is loud enough to cause an echo. Reminds me of a sled bouncing over ice-encrusted snow. Tires shriek. A car is crashing. A dark shape that bounces and grinds to a stop on the edge of Eden.

A door thunks open. I don’t hear it close.

Sirens scream in the distance, louder now.

“We oughta get inside,” says Jim. He’s already up, folded chair in one hand and the rest of the six-pack in the other, a few sweating cans of beer dangling from his fingers by the plastic rings.

I don’t move. I’m watching the crowd. Parents are hurrying children inside trailers. But some of the grown-ups are staying put. Stone-faced, the men and women of Eden are standing tall and grim.

The sirens have arrived. Now they cut off. Red and blue lights flash in the parking lot.

“Get inside, Owen,” says Jim. “Cops run your license and you’re finished.”

Lucy glances at me, puzzled.

Just then a kid bursts out between two trailers and stumbles into the central driveway. Huffing and puffing, he trips and falls in the dirt and catches himself with one outstretched palm. Keeps going. Head swiveling, he homes in on the nearest trailer.

Ours.

Jim moves to close the door. Too late.

“Thanks,” breathes the kid, as he pushes past me and storms into the trailer. I notice a burnt-yellow splotch on his temple. Like everyone around here, he has a government-issued Neural Auto-focus. The “government cheese,” as Nick called it. Makes an average kid a genius and a dumb kid average. Mostly, they gave them to the dumb kids.

“Dammit,” says Jim.

The kid leaves behind the smell of sweat and grass and gasoline. He slams the trailer door shut behind him. Leaves Jim and me by ourselves on the deck, dumbfounded.

“See you next time,” says Lucy. She’s striding away, legs straining the cloth of her dress. “Welcome to Eden!” she calls to me, flashing that grin over her shoulder.

The quiet lasts for one fuzzy second. Men stand gaunt outside their trailers, chests rising and falling, like actors waiting for a cue. The shirtless guy has put on his grease-smudged exoskeleton. He’s feeling it out, standing on one leg with his other foot pulled up behind him like a sprinter stretching.

I turn to Jim. “What do we do?”

“Nothing,” replies Jim.

“Nothing?”

Jim squints out at the trailer park. Porch lights are blinking off. Eden is going dark.

“I’ve got to hide,” I whisper.

“Sit tight,” Jim says as he grabs the back of my shirt. “Run now and they’ll give chase. You get caught with what’s in your head and in five minutes Joe Vaughn will have the country convinced that weaponized amps are infiltrating our trailer parks.”

I relax and Jim lets go of me.

A couple seconds later a cop claws his way between two trailers and into the clearing. He’s big. Twice the size of the kid who came through. Dressed in black. Some kind of light body armor. His radio earpiece sprouts a dime-sized, green-glowing ocular sight that’s mounted just below his left eye.