“I think you’re scary,” said Xochi. She plugged in a music player—TO NISSYEN FROM LISA—and bubbly techno started playing in the background. “You’re the most elegant one of us,” Xochi continued, sitting next to Isolde, “and here you are flinging fried potatoes around like you’re an outlands street vendor.”

“I may be a little drunk,” said Isolde seriously, pointing at Xochi with her half-chewed fry. She raised her eyebrow. “Senator Hobb gave me some champagne.”

“Ooh la la,” said Xochi.

“Maybe beacuse the hearing went better than expected?” said Isolde. She shrugged. “I wasn’t going to say no.”

“But they didn’t get anything they wanted,” said Kira, sitting up straighter. “Four dumb kids forced them into…” She stopped. “Unless that’s what they wanted all along.”

“They wanted it alive?” asked Jayden. “They wanted you to study it?”

“I don’t know,” said Kira. “None of it makes sense.” She looked out the window. Still nothing.

“Doesn’t it make you a little suspicious, though?” asked Xochi. “If the Senate is running some kind of weird scheme here, how many other things are they doing that we don’t know about?”

“You’re being paranoid,” said Jayden. “What kind of horrible conspiracies do you think they’ve got going?”

“They’re hiding a Partial inside the city limits,” said Xochi. “If they’re capable of that, why not more?”

The room went quiet.

“Attacks against the farms,” said Xochi. “Accused Voices disappearing in the middle of the night. We accept these things because we think we know the reasons behind them, but what if we don’t? What if the reasons we’ve been told all along are just lies?”

“I’ve been Senator Hobb’s assistant for nearly a year,” said Isolde, “and I can guarantee you I’m not keeping any dangerous state secrets.”

“You’re defending the honesty of a group that you know, firsthand, is lying to the people of East Meadow,” said Xochi. “And they’re doing it too effectively to be first-timers. The only surprising thing about it is that any of you are surprised.”

“I think Xochi’s right,” said Kira. She felt a pit in her stomach, slowly growing deeper and darker as she thought through Xochi’s logic.

“Why are you so desperate to attack them?” asked Jayden. “Listen, Xochi, I’m sorry your mom is a bitch, but she’s not the entire Senate. And what about the Defense Grid? You’re talking about people who defend us and keep us safe—people who die in the outlands so that you can sit here with your monogrammed music players and your fancy foods and whine about how oppressed you are.”

“Not counting your own fiasco,” said Xochi hotly, “when’s the last time a soldier actually died in combat?”

“Last year, in the Voice raid on the Hampton farms.”

“And how do you know that was the Voice?” Xochi demanded.