“No, not really.”

“Well, he likes you.”

She looks up at him, trying to figure where this is going. “He told you that?”

“He mentioned it. And he also mentioned that you told him off.”

Abigail shrugs, but in a strained, uncomfortable way—as if shaking off a chill. “Like I said, I don’t really like him.”

Starkey reaches over and dries a plate with a dish towel. Abigail takes this as a cue to start doing the same. “Garson is a good fighter. A loyal stork. He deserves some happiness. He doesn’t deserve to be rejected.”

Abigail looks down at the plate in her hands. “So you want me to lie to him?”

“No! I want you to like him,” Starkey says. “I certainly like him. He’s a likeable guy.”

She still won’t look at him. “I can’t feel things that I don’t feel.”

Starkey grabs her shoulder with his good hand—a gentle grasp with a squeeze just hard enough to tip the scale of persuasion. “Yes, you can.”

Later that day, Garson is all smiles. Starkey doesn’t have to ask why, for he knows that today Cupid was armed with a stainless steel crossbow.

•  •  •

While Garson now enjoys the fruits of Cupid’s steel arrow, Starkey finds in his own love life that multiple piercings can be unpleasant.

“I didn’t trip her, it was an accident!” Makayla yells.

“She’s lying—she wants me to lose the baby! Admit it!” Emmalee screams.

“Go ahead, tear each other apart, we’ll all be better off,” says Kate-lynn.

The three girls in Starkey’s personal harem, once friends, now do nothing but fight. He thought they would see each other as sisters, but the glow they all seemed to share when he first chose them has degraded into a clawing competition. Starkey doesn’t even want to consider how they’ll behave toward one another once all three of his children are born. It’s still so many months away, it doesn’t feel real yet—but the battles between the girls are.

Perhaps it’s the problem of three. Maybe adding a fourth to their number will settle the dynamic. On the other hand, maybe it’s just best to just keep away from Makayla, Emmalee, and Kate-lynn altogether.

He takes comfort in anticipating the end result. The girls are beautiful; his children will be beautiful. And, thanks to their father, they will be raised in a world better than the world that gave birth to him. And he will love them unconditionally . . . if he can just get past the girls he chose to be their mothers.

“She thinks she’s better than me because she was the first, but mine will be the firstborn, you’ll see.”

“And it’ll be a whining little turd like its mother.”

Definitely a fourth. That’s what Starkey decides is needed. After the next harvest camp attack he will choose. A redhead this time. He dyed his hair red for a time to evade the authorities. He liked the way it looked. It would be nice to have a child who comes by it naturally.

•  •  •

“The applause department”—as Hayden so blithely calls the organization behind the clapper movement—requests an audience with Starkey. Jeevan sets up an encrypted teleconference, although Starkey suspects that those in charge of clappers have massive layers of their own encryption. On-screen is the man with salt-and-pepper hair, more salt than pepper. The man in charge. It still seems odd to Starkey that the man at the heart of the clapper movement appears about as radical as the Wall Street Journal. Starkey has to remind himself that the man was once a teenager himself, although somehow Starkey can’t imagine he was ever an outsider in any sense of the word.

The fact that he’s contacting them directly, rather than through the usual series of intermediaries, concerns Starkey. The only other time Starkey saw the guy was when they sent in a team to abduct Starkey in his sleep. Starkey thought he had been captured by the Juvies, but their little helicopter trip was nothing more than a courtship ritual. That was when the force behind the clapper movement offered the Stork Brigade its full support. That’s when the game changed. The man had declined to give him his name at the time, but a few weeks ago one of his underlings let slip that his name is Dandrich. Starkey knows better than to let on that he knows the man’s name. Or at least not until it serves Starkey’s interests.

“Hello, Mason. It’s good to see you.”

“Hi, yourself.”

Like Starkey, the man is short in stature and wields power with professional proficiency. Even on a small computer screen there’s something intimidating about him.

“You’re well, I trust?” Dandrich says. Small talk. Why do people in suits always insist on small talk before going for the jugular? Starkey braces himself for bad news. Has their location been compromised? Or worse, are the clappers pulling their support? No—why would they do such a thing when the harvest camp liberations have been so successful? Thousands have been freed, unwinders have been punished, and fear has been struck into the hearts of millions. Surely they’re happy with all of that.

“Yeah, I’m good. But I’m sure this isn’t about my health. Why are we talking?”

Dandrich chuckles, amused, perhaps a little bit impressed by Starkey’s directness. “Word has come down that you’re considering an attack on Pensacola Shores Harvest Camp. Our analysts are advising against it.”

Starkey leans back and takes a moment to reign in his annoyance. After all he’s done, why can’t they simply trust his judgment? “That’s what you said about Horse Creek, but that place came down like a house of cards.”

Dandrich never loses his poise. “Yes, in spite of the risks, you prevailed. Pensacola Shores, however, is a different matter. It’s a maximum security camp for violent Unwinds and, as such, has many more layers of security. You simply don’t have the manpower to succeed. In addition, it’s on an isolated peninsula, and you could very easily be trapped, with no means of escape.”

“That’s why I requested boats.”

Now Dandrich becomes a little hot under his stiff collar. “Even if we could provide them, an armada attacking from the Gulf of Mexico would be hard to conceal.”

“Exactly,” says Starkey. “And what could be more dramatic than an old-fashioned siege? You know— like the conquistadors! Not only would it be newsworthy, it would be . . . it would be . . .”

Dandrich finds the word for him. “Iconic.”

“Yes! It would be iconic!”

“But at what cost? I assure you the battles of Waterloo and Little Bighorn were iconic, but only because of how completely Napoleon and Custer were defeated. The world remembers their failure.”

“I won’t fail.”

But Dandrich ignores him. “We have determined that the next harvest camp in your campaign should be Mousetail Divisional Academy, in central Tennessee.”

“Are you kidding me? Mousetail is all tithes!”

“Which is why they won’t be expecting it. You can continue your policy of executing the staff, and you won’t add any new mouths to feed, because there won’t be any storks. Let the tithes do whatever they want once you’ve liberated them. They can stay, they can run—either way it’s not your problem. This will give you time to continue training the kids you have before you’re saddled with more.”

“That’s not the way I do things! My instincts tell me to hit Pensacola, and I can’t go against my instincts.”

Dandrich leans closer. His face fills the screen. Starkey can practically feel the man’s hand reaching through the ether and grasping Starkey’s shoulder. A gentle grasp, but with enough pressure for Starkey to feel a subtle increase in the earth’s gravity.

“Yes, you can,” says Dandrich.

•  •  •

Starkey rages through the power plant, venting his indignation at anyone who crosses his path. He yells at Jeevan for not being aggressive enough during their last attack.

“You’re a soldier now, not a computer nerd, so start acting like one!”