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quiet for the duration.
    Nelson tells him they’re still not done.
    â€œWe’ll catch one more AWOL before we bring them to Divan,” he says. “If I’m not bringing him Lassiter, I want to show up with a full load.” Then Nelson glances at Argent again. “I need to know that you’ll make good on your promise once we arrive.”
    Argent swallows, suddenly feeling bound just as tightly as the kids in the back. “Of course,” he says. “I’m a man of my word. I’ll give you the tracking code the second we unload the ‘merchandise.’ ”
    Nelson nods, accepting it. “For your sake, you’d better hope that your sister’s tracking chip is still active—and that she’s still with Lassiter.”
    â€œShe is,” Argent tells him. “Grace is like a barnacle. Once she clings to a person, it takes an act of God to pull her off.”
    â€œOr a gun to the head,” says Nelson.
    It chills Argent to think about it. True, he’s furious at Grace for siding with Connor over him, but would Connor kill her to get rid of her? After everything, Argent still doesn’t see him as the type to do such a thing. Still, it’s something he’d rather not think about, so he lets his thoughts drift to something more pleasant.
    â€œSo does this Divan guy have any kids? Like maybe a daughter my age?”
    Nelson sighs, pulls out his tranq pistol, and fires a low-dose dart at Argent. The tranq dart hits him painfully in his Adam’s apple. He pinches the little flag and pulls the thing out of his neck, but not before it delivers its full dose.
    â€œThat’s coming out of your pay,” Nelson says, which is a joke because Argent receives no pay from Nelson. He had made it clear it’s an unpaid sort of internship. But that’s okay. Even getting tranq’d is okay. Because life is good for Argent Skinner.
    As he dives down toward tranq sleep, he takes comfort in the absolute knowledge that Connor Lassiter will soon be going down too—but unlike Argent, Connor will never be getting up.

3 • Connor
    In a dusty corner of a cluttered antique shop on a weedy side street of Akron, Ohio, Connor Lassiter waits for the world to change before his eyes.
    â€œI know it’s here somewhere,” Sonia says as she digsthrough a pile of obsolete electronics. Connor wonders if the old woman was alive to witness the birth and the death of all that technology.
    â€œCan I help?” Risa asks.
    â€œI’m not an invalid!” Sonia responds.
    It’s a dizzying prospect to think that they are about to lay eyes upon the object on which the entire future hinges. The future of unwinding. The future of the Juvenile Authority’s iron grip on kids like him. Then he looks over to Risa, who waits with the same electric anticipation. Our future , he thinks. It’s been hard to consider the concept of tomorrow, when life has been all about surviving today.
    Grace Skinner, sitting beside Risa, wrings her hands with friction-burn intensity. “Is it bigger than a bread box?” Grace asks.
    â€œYou’ll see soon enough,” Sonia says.
    Connor has no idea what a bread box is, yet just like anyone who’s ever played twenty questions, he knows its precise size. It’s all he can do to keep from wringing his own hands too, as he waits for the device to be revealed.
    When Sonia began to tell the tale of her husband, Connor thought he might, at best, get some information—clues as to why Proactive Citizenry was so afraid of not just the man, but the world’s memory of him. Janson and Sonia Rheinschild, winners of the Nobel Prize for medicine, were erased from history. Connor thought Sonia might give him information. He never expected this !
    â€œWhat if you invented a printer that could build living human organs?” Sonia said, after telling them of the disillusionment that ultimately took her