In the end, when the dark came, she did not take the little white pill. She hid it instead. Lying in the darkness, buried under heaps of blankets, Claire closed her eyes and the same movie played on repeat in her mind. Silver eyes, an outreached hand, villains and smoke... only that night, each time she woke there was no snoring anchor in the corner of the room for her to pace her heartbeats to. Curled up and delirious from days without rest, she felt she was going mad, hearing things, confused. As the hours stretched by, Claire realized with a creeping apprehension that it was Shepherd's raspy breath she kept imagining in the corner, not the Beta's snores, Shepherd's hand she almost believed was stroking her hair.

She felt in her bones that if she could only hear a few moments of that purr, untroubled sleep would come at last.

5

"Shepherd's genetic markers do not match any prisoner on record. I am telling you." Brigadier Dane was adamant. "He was not incarcerated in the Undercroft."

Corday had heard a thousand explanations. Not one of them was possible. Outside the Dome spread one hundred kilometers of frozen tundra in every direction, the location of Thólos chosen specifically so any potential diseased wanderers could never survive approach. Everything inside was self-sustaining, and only twice in his lifetime had shuttles been permitted to land. All on board had been female, citizens from other biospheres invited to Thólos Dome to keep the gene pool fresh.

Those who came never left, just as those who had left to serve the same duty on foreign soil would never return.

Scans for all new arrivals were vigorous. There was no way any unexpected life-form could have passed the gates. Even so, the last exchange had been nearly a decade ago.

Voicing his opinion to the few Enforcer stragglers gathered in secret, Corday disagreed. "The man is covered in Da'rin markings. He was branded by the gangs in the Undercroft and labored down there long enough to organize outcasts into an army, to have constructed numerous tunnels that had gone unnoticed all throughout Thólos."

Brigadier Dane was not exactly a fan of Recruit Corday. Her patience with the young man was slender. "Then explain why he doesn't exist on record."

Corruption was a disease even the Dome could not filter out. Jaw rigid, Corday said, "Because someone threw him down there off record."

"If that was the case, others would have known. You can't just march down those tunnels dragging a man behind you. The security protocols alone would have been logged. If a soul had gone missing, people would have noticed. What you suggest would require a conspiracy of epic proportions."

There was one man in the room who had the power and the clearance to know. Several sets of eyes turned to Senator Kantor, all of them demanding he confirm that no such atrocity was possible.