The doctor introduced herself as Diadem, but said no more than that. Her hostility toward Marcus and the rest of the humans was palpable, and not, it seemed, simply because they took her place in line to see Trimble. Add in the constant watch of the armed Partial guards, and the mounting threat of the imminent Partial war, and the room was starting to feel more and more like a pressure cooker. Marcus worried that if they didn’t get in to talk to Trimble soon, the soldiers were going to explode.

Minutes turned into hours. Every time the clocked chimed they would roll their eyes or sigh as the time slowly trickled away; every time a door opened every head jerked up to see if it was finally their turn to see Trimble. The sun tracked a slow arc across the wide skylight overhead, and Partial soldiers would bustle in and out of the room, whispering anxious conversations that Marcus could only guess at. None of his guesses were happy. Commander Woolf was going stir-crazy, pacing up and down and trying, unsuccessfully, to ask their Partial guards what was going on. They wouldn’t even let him get close, waving him off first with their hands and, when he pressed the issue, with their rifles. The background activity increased, and Marcus felt the tension in the room like an angry spirit, hot and ranting. He decided to try talking to Diadem again, asking her what was going on, but all she did was stare at the soldiers in what Marcus was beginning to realize was a Partial scowl.

“They’re preparing for battle,” she said at last. “The war is coming to White Plains.”

“But Morgan’s forces are all on Long Island,” said Marcus. “Who are they fighting?”

Diadem refused to answer.

When night began to fall, Marcus despaired of ever seeing Trimble at all, and swore not to fall asleep and risk losing his chance in the middle of the night. He kept himself occupied by examining the various bits of technology scattered throughout the room—objects so arcane he could only barely recognize them, but that the Partials apparently used every day. On an end table he found a small plastic stick and picked it up, certain that he knew what it was but completely unable to remember—something out of his childhood, he knew, but what? It was covered with buttons, and he pressed a couple of them to see what happened, but nothing did. Diadem watched him with the calculating eyes of a hungry insect.

“Do you want to watch something?” she finally asked.

“No thanks,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out what this thing is.”

“That’s what I meant,” she said. “It’s a remote—it runs the holovid.”