I don’t trust him. His name is Clive Ranganathan, and he’s tall, with dark hair slicked back with too much gel. He’s supposed to be a pretty good lawyer, but I can tell he doesn’t give a crap about me. He thinks I’m guilty, I can see it, so why would he break a sweat really trying to set me free? It’d be bad for his reputation if he did—every guilty fucker out there would beg for him to take their case before they were hanged by the system. Not that there are many, these days, in the Shining Example of San Francisco.

Not yet, at least.

It’s more fun to defend the innocents. Mr. Ranganathan is already slumming it more than he wants to, having to defend someone who might be wrapped up in the Ratel.

He went through his plan and I sort of half listened to him. He nodded his head as he talked, his big hands flipping over his tablet, showing the evidence against me. There’s more than last time.

After a bit, I stopped listening altogether. I started humming “A Hazy Shade of Winter.” He was offended and left. I don’t care. He can’t do anything for me. The only person who can save me is Taema. And I still don’t know if she’s trying to, or if I want her to.

I don’t want to write any more about the present. It’s depressing, though the past is getting depressing too.

Looking back is almost scarier than looking forward.

*   *   *

We felt better after a couple of days of rest and we were able to leave the Wellness Cabin and go home. Our parents were really relieved, to say the least. They cooked us our favorite food that first night: amaranth with vegetables and chicken, baked apples for dessert.

Yes, it was real chicken, not the vat-grown stuff everyone eats in the city. We raised them. Killed them. Ate them.

We were all quiet at the dinner table, not wanting to talk about what we all knew: that it was only going to get worse from here.

We’d known since we were pretty little that we might not live that long. But it was sobering to have to actually face that.