We needed more geroi. And still she told me I wasn’t ready. Everything was so hideously unfair.

I shivered as the biting wind dragged over me, pulling wisps of colorless hair loose from the tight braid encircling my scalp. There was the briefest hint of the fragrance of flowers on the wind’s breath, but it was overpowered by the dry, metallic scent of the ever-reddening earth. What if this was the last time I’d ever smell Iamos? The last time I’d ever see the sun, or the sky, without something in between me and it?

No.

I took a final shuddering breath, and, tucking a flyaway hair behind my ear, I made my decision. I was not giving up. It was not over. No matter what it took, this would not be my last annual.

It was only as I turned to head inside that I saw him.

I might have missed him otherwise, but the light from the setting sun threw his form into relief. A boy was sprawled across the ground. He wore no breathing apparatus. He was completely unprotected. And he wasn’t moving.

Panicked, I raced to his side. I was out of breath by the time I reached him, even though he lay only a short distance away. “Are you all right?” I asked, wheezing. When he didn’t respond, I rolled him over onto his back.

He was young—probably close to my own age. I realized instantly he couldn’t be from my city; his traits were all wrong. He must have come from another citidome. But how? He couldn’t have walked. All that way, unprotected? He would never have made it…

I reached for my earpiece, then hesitated. I was invisible right now—the System couldn’t track me—but if I called for help, I’d be back online and the geroi would know I’d broken the edict. Not to mention that it could draw their attention to the fact that my earpiece had been altered. Ceilos would never forgive me.

But there was no way I could shift this boy’s dead weight on my own, not when I was already feeling the effects of the thin air.

Before I could give myself a chance to change my mind, I pressed the button. “Gerouin Melusin,” I called.

“Nadin?” Melusin’s voice was soft in my ears, like the drip of water in the caverns.

There was no time for explanations. “I need help outside the dome,” I said as calmly as possible.

“‘Outside’?” she repeated, her gentle voice faltering almost imperceptibly. “What are you doing—”

“Just hurry,” I interrupted her, breathless. “I found someone out here. He’s injured.”