The crowd’s babble quieted to a hiss of fear, the tension strummed. A grinding roar pummeled the air as the front side of the angular mass slid upward from the base, and two tall figures emerged from the horizontal opening.

“Overseers!” someone shouted. The word repeated, carried with relief and joy through the crowd.

Caiden’s eyes widened. Both overseers were human-shaped, one tall and bulky, the other short and slim, and as he remembered from his Appraisal, they were suited from head to toe with plates of metal and straps and a variety of things he couldn’t make out: spikes and ribbons, tools, wires, and blocks of white writing like inside the aerators. They wore blue metal plates over their faces, with long slits for eyes and nostrils, holes peppering the place where their mouths would be. Besides their build, they resembled each other exactly, and could be anything beneath their clothes.

“See, it’s fine.” Caiden forced himself to exhale. “Right, Ma?” His mother nodded slow, confused.

“People,” the shorter overseer said in a muffled yet amplified voice.

The crowd hushed, rapt, with stressed breaths filling the quiet. Caiden’s heart hammered, pulse noosing his neck.

“You will be transported to a clean place,” the other overseer said in a husky voice amplified the same way. The crowd rippled his words to the back ranks.

“With new livestock,” the first added with a funny lilt on the final word.

“Come aboard. Slow, orderly.” The overseers each moved to a side of the open door, framing the void. “Leave your belongings. Everyone will be provided for.”

Caiden glanced at Leta. “See? New animals.”

She didn’t seem to hear, shut down by the sights and sounds.

He let her cling to him as his father herded them both forward.

Caiden asked, “Where could we go that doesn’t have infected soil? Up, past the gray?”

“Stay close.” His father’s voice was tight. “Maybe they discovered clean land past the ocean.”

They approached the hollow interior—metallic, dank, and lightless—with a quiet throng pouring in, shoulder to shoulder like the bovines had when squeezed from one pasture to another. Caiden observed the closest overseer. Scratches and holes scarred their mismatched metal clothes, decorated in strange scripts. Their hand rested on a long tool at their hip, resembling the livestock prods but double-railed.

Caiden’s father guided him inside and against a wall, where his mother wrapped him and Leta in her strong arms and the mob crammed tight, drowning them in heat and odor.

“Try to keep still.” The overseer’s words resonated inside.

A roar thrummed to life, and the door descended, squeezing out the orange light. The two overseers remained outside.

Thunder cracked underfoot. Metal bellowed like a thousand animals crying at once. Human wails cut through and the floor shuddered in lurches, forcing Caiden to widen his stance to stay upright. His mother’s arms clamped around him.