“As far as we know,” Marcus agreed, “but I was there. I watched Kira go through this, making all her decisions in very Kira-like ways. If Morgan wanted a specific girl, all she had to do was raid the island like she’s doing now, not set up some ridiculously elaborate con game to trick her into visiting the mainland of her own free will.”

“But what about that photo you told me about?” asked Ariel. “You saw Kira and Nandita together before the Break, which is weird enough already, but then to see them at the ParaGen building? That’s not like a huge red flag for you that something weird is going on here? There’s got to be more to that relationship.”

“Like what?” Marcus asked. “Of course it’s a red flag, but for what? I’ve been trying to figure it out for weeks now, that’s why we’ve torn your whole house apart, but what does it mean? Does seeing them at a ParaGen facility mean that Kira’s different somehow? Most of us have some kind of gene mods from when we were kids—does Kira have a special one? Is she important in some way? I’m with you on this, Ariel, but I honestly don’t know what any of it means.” They heard a rumble, and immediately recognized the sound as an engine, probably a pretty big one. The Partials had brought motor vehicles back to East Meadow, thanks to their wealth of resources and energy, and the humans had learned to listen for the sound of approaching Partial “police.” They dropped to the ground, trying to look as not-home as possible. It worked.

“That was the closest one yet,” said Ariel. “I think they know we’re here—that we use this house, I mean.”

“The papers you saw in Nandita’s hothouse,” said Marcus. “What else can you remember about them?”

“I told you,” said Ariel. “It said ‘Madison: Control.’ It had a lot of physical information, height and weight and blood pressure and all that, not just single readings but changes over time. Madison and I would have been ten, maybe getting on to eleven, just starting to go through puberty, so there were a lot of changes to track. At least half of it, though, probably more than half of it, was chemicals—herbs, I guess, but she’d scrawled in some notes about different properties of each herb, and different mixtures in her droppers from one time to the next. She was trying to find the right combination for . . . something. I don’t know. ‘Control,’ whatever that is.”

“Oh damn,” said Marcus, staring at the floor. He closed his eyes, slowly shaking his head as the realization washed over him. “Double dog damn it and around again for another damn.”

Ariel smiled. “You watch your filthy mouth, Mr. Valencio.”