I shudder, hurrying my steps. This place is creepy, but at least it’s easy to navigate. It shouldn’t take us long to get to the storage facility—but when we’re a few streets away, the chimes of a bell sound up and down the streets, emanating from the speakers mounted on every street corner.

“Shit,” I say, hurrying my steps. “Are we running that late?”

“It appears so,” Lyre says with a sigh. She doesn’t bother to speed up, already knowing we won’t beat the rush. And of course, she’s right.

First Bell marks 7:00 a.m. and the beginning of the Gaian workday. Gaians are nothing if not punctual, so the streets are already filling with people by the time the last chime fades into echoes. I groan, slowing for Lyre to catch up to me, and try to fall into the flow of street traffic. Everyone travels one way on the right side of the street, and the opposite on the left. Between that, the grid of the streets, and the tightly wound Gaian manners, it’s the most organized crowd you can find anywhere in the system. Eerily so, like watching a hive mind at work.

Except, like usual, I can’t seem to fit in. As we’re pulled into the tide, I step on the foot of the man behind me, apologize to his disapproving frown, and immediately plow right into the person ahead when they stop. They glare at me over the top of a medical mask.

I start to offer my hands, palms up, in a quick Gaian apology, but freeze halfway through the motion as I realize why traffic has stopped. Five uniformed law-enforcers have formed a loose barricade at the crossroads ahead and are using glowing handheld devices to scan everyone’s hands and eyes before allowing them through. I hang back as much as I can without disrupting the line, craning my neck in an attempt to figure out what they’re looking for.

As the enforcers pull a startled-looking man aside, the crowd stirs uneasily around us, though they don’t abandon their lines. When the man attempts to pull away from the enforcers, one of them jabs him in the stomach with a baton. He goes limp and they drag him away. I grimace, though no one in the crowd reacts other than to pull white filtration masks out of their bags and put them on.

Lyre and I pull our scarves up to cover our faces.

“What is this?” she asks, her eyes wide. “Should we try to find another way through?”

“If we step out of line, it’ll call more attention to us.” I chew the inside of my lip, noting that nobody else in the crowd seems particularly confused about what’s happening, and turn to the woman beside me.

“I can’t believe this,” I say with a sigh. “I mean… really? Again? Is this necessary?”