The man who had been standing in front of us surged forward, yelling, “FREEDOM!” Then his knees buckled and he collapsed, gripping the sides of his head in agony. Around the plaza, plivoi staggered, falling to their knees, crying out in pain, while still others hurried to flee the area. Isaak stood frozen until the force of my fingers digging into the skin of his upper arm made him yelp.

“Now,” I snapped, my heart pounding in my ears. Finally he moved, and we slammed the door to the building behind us. The shadows behind the glass were darker and sharper now, as the occupants stood close to the walls, listening. A face peered out at me from behind one sliding door. Ceilos pulled Isaak and me forward, not saying a word until we had made it through the building’s back door and safely onto another street. In the distance, I could hear wailing and the thundering clatter of feet. A platoon of Enforcers rushed past us, hurrying to finish putting down the riot.

My hands shook as I struggled to catch my breath. That was far too close. This was why I didn’t like to go aboveground. “Death to the geroi,” indeed.

“What the hell just happened?” Isaak snapped. “What did that cop do to all those people?”

“The adherence protocol. The Enforcer enabled it to keep the crowd under control,” said Ceilos.

“The System can do that?”

“Yes.”

Isaak made a face. “Wasn’t that a little bit, I don’t know, overkill?”

“They broke the law,” I said, my voice ragged. “Now they have to pay the consequences.”

“What law?”

“That woman was smuggling Ferre. It’s an illegal drug, it counteracts the mandatory birth control substances in the drinking water.”

Isaak stared at me in horror. “Wait a minute—you guys put birth control in your water? And everybody has to take it?” When I tugged my earlobe, he said, “How do people have kids, then?”

“They apply for a permit, and the eugenics council evaluates them. How fit they are genetically to reproduce, whether there’s a need for children in their caste at said time, and so on.”

Isaak said something I couldn’t understand. He walked a few paces away from us, running his hands through his hair compulsively.

Ceilos folded his arms. “Isaak, you don’t seem to understand how serious this is. Our planet is dying. We can’t sustain extra population. Do you understand what happens when someone has an illegal child? It puts a strain on the resources of everybody else. Sometimes you have to make sacrifices, for the good of the whole.”

“Yeah, but…” He looked back at the insula. The air was still now, the street quiet. The Enforcers must have succeeded in breaking up the riot. “I mean, there’s such a thing as balance—”