The spell finally shatters and the Zenith deactivates.

I lay the soldier gently on the ground, pull his body into the shadows. He is unarmed. Just a billy club and a radio. The sickly colors around me finally recede and the patterns of death and destruction shrink back into the earth.

Leaning over, I check the soldier’s pulse. Sluggish, but he’s alive. He’ll likely wake up inside twenty minutes, confused. And then this place will be on lockdown.

Standing, I turn and stride away.

In half an hour they’ll be tearing the under-bridge apart looking for me. But as of right now, I am a prisoner. Just an amp like any other.

I walk quickly, trying not to draw attention to myself.

The warehouse roof soars overhead, hazy with distance and smoke from portable stoves. On the ground, people are crammed in together everywhere. Capsules of privacy grid the landscape. People crouch behind walls made of cardboard boxes and inside tents or hastily constructed shacks. They are resting and cooking and reading books in lawn chairs. The adults are marinated in boredom. The children are in constant motion.

Most occupants are amps, but not all. Plenty of reggie families are here with their amped relatives. Husbands following wives and vice versa. Mothers and fathers dragged into this situation by their littlest and most vulnerable family members.

I find a maze of hanging tarps and curtains suspended by drooping twine. I peek behind them, finding only strange faces. It’s been fifteen minutes already. My head is clouded by the urgency of this search. The closest thing I have to family is here. If I don’t find them before Vaughn does, I don’t want to know what may happen.

Then, I hear a familiar giggle.

Striding down a winding aisle between cots, I peek behind a government blanket hung up to form a partition. When I push it away I find my favorite people on opposite ends of a cot, sitting cross-legged and wearing pajamas, playing cards under the high rusting bones of the warehouse.

Nick and Lucy.

The instant Nick sets his piggish eyes on me, he leaps off the cot. Grabs me around the neck and hugs me for all he’s worth. Without a counterweight, the cot tips Lucy backward. Her cards fly into the air like confetti. Nick in one arm, I dive forward and catch Lucy around the back. We all land in a heap on a blanket, feeling the bite of the cement underneath, like a reminder.

I give Lucy small starving kisses.

Nick mimes the kisses, making fun, and I push his small face away with my free arm. Between kisses, I try to explain. Priders could rush the warehouse any minute. I’ve got maybe ten minutes to get us all out. Before the military police come looking for me, searching bed to bed for the intruder.

Lucy grabs my arms and sits me down on a plastic milk crate. Nick watches us expectantly.

“How’d you get in here?” he asks.

I hesitate, and they stare at me in the weak light, worried. The warehouse thrums with conversation like waves murmuring against a dock. I can still feel prickles of sensation on my face from the soldier’s flashlight.

“I used the Zenith. All of it.”

Lucy puts a hand over her mouth. Nick leans forward, eyes bright. “What’s it like?” he asks.

“Like … being a ghost. Watching somebody else’s life. Seeing events unfold precisely according to a plan that nobody told you.”

“Like destiny,” muses Nick.

Destiny. I think about how it feels to fall down inside my own head. The potential outcomes of my actions laid out in colored stripes on the ground. Dance steps painted in invisible ink. Could I choose to do something else? I realize I haven’t tried.

“I’ve got to get you both out of here. Right now.”

Nick and Lucy don’t move. I’m not getting through to them, so I continue.

“Vaughn won. He used Lyle to spark an atrocity so bad that it made places like this. Camps where amps are separated and regulated. The feds took me to Vaughn, but I escaped. Not before he threatened to kill all of us.”

Lucy frowns. “Lyle wouldn’t let anybody use him,” she says.

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “Vaughn wants us dead and I’ve got about three minutes to get you out of here.”

“And then what?” asks Lucy.

“Then we run. Stay alive.”

Lucy takes my face in her hands. She turns my head and I see. Dozens of amps stand around us. Peeking over the tops of blankets and towels and shower curtains. Standing tall and grim and stone-faced. Some have their children. Many have crude weapons fashioned from whatever can be scavenged: furniture, tools, lawn equipment.

“We’re all part of this, Owen,” Lucy says. “There is no other life right out there. No place to go. It’s not safe to be alone. In here, we can look after each other.”

“But it’s not safe—” I say.

“Jim died for these people.”

An electric current seems to sweep across the warehouse floor. People are chattering to each other in hushed voices. In quick furtive motions parents are corralling their children, folding their valuables into backpacks.

“The guards are coming,” says Lucy. She pushes a backpack into my hands. Inside, I see a few granola bars, some clothes, a few stray dollars.

“You’ve got to go,” Lucy says. “Nick and I can hide here. Nobody will let anything happen to us.”

“If someone asks you to go with them for questioning, you say no. Don’t go with anyone. Always stay with …” I stop. Looking into her face, I already know what she’s capable of. How strong she is. I grab my backpack and squeeze her in a quick half hug. I nod to Nick and touch his shoulder.

“I’ll fix this, okay?”

“Vaughn?” asks Nick.

“I’m going to stop him from hurting you. Once and for all.”

[HISTORICAL DOCUMENT]

Article XIV

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

[HISTORICAL DOCUMENT]

At level five, there is constant movement in stillness. Especially in stillness. There are so many potentials in the quiet moments before action.

I catch up with Vaughn outside his PHCC offices near the University of Pittsburgh. My old neighborhood. The buildings and telephone poles are plastered with signs about Vaughn’s Pure Pride speech later this afternoon. From a cab, I watch the front door of his building until the man himself finally emerges. Four gray suits shuffle him into a generic black SUV.

I dig money out of my backpack and hand it over to the cabbie. When he looks at me, I turn my head on instinct to keep my nub pointed away from him. We lurch into traffic, following Vaughn for a few miles. Finally, his car pulls off the road.

The gray suits let Vaughn out at the front gate of the Allegheny Cemetery. The facade of the place is centuries old, built to look like a castle with battlements of brown sandstone. Beyond the gate, rolling hills sprout tombstones that are linked by shady cement paths under ancient trees.

Senator Vaughn goes in alone.

I pay the rest of my fare and take a walk up the street. A block down, I jump the winding stone fence. Then, I track Vaughn through the woods.

I’ve been thinking. Lyle may be a weapon, but Vaughn is the person who pulled the trigger. Even if Lyle were out of the picture, Vaughn would keep going. He’d find another weapon and use it. There is only one way to stop him.