Pander whistles a long descending note. “You two should be dead. I mean, I’m glad you’re not, but damn!”

“Yeah, you guys work well together,” Akimi says. “I mean, not to brag, but I did get a week’s supply of food on my own, but, shit, you two should have been erased three times over.”

“Holy shit, it worked!” Igby’s voice calls out, echoing through the library. “It worked, it worked!”

“What is it?” Pander asks.

“Everything,” Igby says. “Everything, I have it all, or I will have it all! All the information we’ll need.”

“Malachai?” I ask, getting to my feet and walking over to the computer. “Woods?”

“Not yet,” Igby replies, “but I should know within two or three hours.”

I look down at the time in the bottom right corner of the screen: 7:36 a.m. I must have slept for six hours!

“What do we do until then?” I ask.

“We need a plan,” Pod says. “It’s getting harder and harder to survive out in the city. Happy and the Alts are mobilizing; they’re getting more organized and they’re looking for us. If we’re going to beat them, we’ll need an army.”

“We need to find the Missing,” Pander says.

“Well, yeah,” Igby replies, “but if Happy can’t find them, how the fuck are we supposed to find them?”

“You know, you don’t have to say fuck every second word,” Pander replies, narrowing her eyes.

“I fucking know, I’m just fucking making a fucking point!” Igby replies, and then smiles brightly at Pander.

“All right,” Akimi says, “so how do we find them?”

I turn to Akimi, who looks to Igby. Igby shrugs and looks at Pod; Pod stares forward with a faint smile on his face, unaware that anyone is looking at him.

“Awfully quiet in here,” he says, shifting his weight.

“Malachai would have known what to do,” Akimi says, frowning.

A few months ago a comment like this would have made me jealous. I would have resented the fact that Malachai was always seen as the leader, as the one who everyone turned to for answers, but now I agree with Akimi—I wish he was here to tell us what we’re going to do next, how we’re going to succeed.

Lost in my thoughts, I didn’t notice that everyone is now looking at me.

“What?” I ask.

“What do we do?” Pod asks.