Virgil had been a guy at the Department who, early one morning, out of the blue, had posted a long, rambling message on the network. Nothing unusual about that—long, rambling messages appeared on the network often enough, usually as a preamble to the author throwing himself out of a window. But Virgil’s was different. It talked about how the authorities were controlling them all, using the tenets to keep them all isolated and the lawbots to keep them afraid. It was the duty of every Citizen, Virgil said, to unite, to reject the tenets and to take back the City that was rightfully theirs. And so, this very morning, he was going to give the Department a miss and march on to the Keeper’s residence instead, to demand that new tenets be written, and that anyone who agreed with him should join him in doing so.

Within minutes, scores of people had responded. Then scores more followed suit. The number swiftly rose into the hundreds and, for a few short hours, Virgil became the single most frequently used word in the City. Close to a dozen supporters even showed up for the march. They’d actually made it almost halfway to Elite Street before the lawbots showed up.

Albert had still been at the Academy when it had happened, so he never saw the messages or anything else. But he’d seen the consequences, all right. The Keeper had ordered the interrogations to be broadcast to the entire City, as an example of how the administration would leave no stone unturned to protect the people from dangerous dissidents who questioned the very values that had built everything they all cherished so dearly. Most of the interrogations—Virgil’s had never been shown, since the Keeper had no wish to make a martyr of him.

Despite his best efforts to prevent it, an image from one of the interrogations flashed across his mind, and he shuddered. Oh, he’d heard of Virgil, all right. In fact, more than anything else, it was the fact that he had heard of Virgil that had prevented him from trying to help Tweedledum, just as he suspected it had prevented everyone else on the floor. In that sense the Keeper had succeeded—a whole lot of people may have secretly admired what Virgil had done, but there wasn’t a person alive who wanted to be like him. Except apparently Tweedledum, who no doubt wouldn’t be alive much longer.