“Come on inside,” said Phan. “This is great. You’re going to love it. They’re doing a play today, all the third and fourth graders. Something about fairy tales or something; they do it every year.” He pulled Kira into the school, and she followed blankly, watching Samm and Calix disappear around the corner.

The city of Arvada looked different in the daytime—it seemed more desolate, somehow, with the sun beating down from a cloudless sky. Samm took deep breaths, vigilant for any sign of Heron on the link, but all he smelled was dirt and sulfur and bleach. The toxic scent of the wasteland.

Calix steered him around a wide, hazy intersection, pointing to faint wisps of smoke with an expert eye. “Toxic fumes,” she said. “The rain last night reacts with some of the dry chemicals that collect in the shallow pans like that, and it makes a poison gas. When the wind gets bad, it blows right into the Preserve, but on a still day like this you can just go around them.” She led him onward, sometimes speaking softly about the city—its hazards and its opportunities—and sometimes just walking in silence. Her knowledge of the wasteland and how it worked was impressive, and Samm thought about how helpful she would have been on their journey out here. They would have traveled much more easily, and perhaps even managed to save Afa’s life. I wonder if she’d want to come back with us, he thought. She talked about trying to leave, and she’d be an asset on the road, knowing what she does about surviving in the wasteland. Of course, she might not want to come at all if she knows what’s it like there, and it would be a change for her, going from the bliss of the Preserve to the horror of war back east. I’ll ask Kira what she thinks before I suggest it.

“That’s it up there, right?” she asked, pointing down a wide, ramshackle street. Samm recognized the shopping center at the end of the road and nodded.

“That’s right.” They walked easily, without fear of enemies or predators because there were none anywhere in the area. The same wasteland that imprisons them, thought Samm, also protects them from any other threats. It keeps them safe, and it keeps their lives easy, but if a real threat ever appears, they won’t be ready for it. He watched the way Calix walked, sure and confident but wary only of very specific dangers—she could spot the poison gas, for example, and yet walk right past a prime ambush point without even noticing. They wouldn’t last a day against a real enemy. They should pray that Dr. Morgan never finds them.