“Hey, now, wait, you’re not heading to the Arc with the rest of us? Let me buy you a drink after the meeting.”

“Meeting?” I repeat, turning back to the soldier.

“The meeting, you know about the meeting? It’s mandatory, eleven hundred hours at the Arc? Galen Rye himself called it.”

“Yes, of course,” I say, trying not to show the panic that’s settling over me. “I’ve been asked by the higher-ups to gather some troops from certain tactical points around the city first.”

“All right, Yossarian, but I’m getting you that drink.”

“Understood,” I reply, and then turn back to the train’s doors. Once again my mask flickers. I notice one low-ranked soldier staring at me, squinting at my imperfect face.

Finally, the train stops and the doors open. I jump off and move quickly into the city. Getting off a stop early has left me about a mile from the pub where Sam and I hid, but there was no other choice—I couldn’t let the mask disappear in front of dozens of soldiers.

I move quickly, recalculating my odds of survival now that Galen Rye (controlled by Happy) has called a meeting of all Alt soldiers in the Arc at the very same time I’ll be trying to break my friends out. I don’t think I stand much of a chance.

I tell Apple-Moth to come out and get some solar charge now that we’re in a completely deserted part of the city, but the charge is slow in coming, as the big dark cloud is still hovering above us.

“Wow, wow, wow! Captain Yossarian, I almost died back there!”

“Yossarian is not my name,” I say, running through the streets now.

“Oh. Then why did you tell that nice soldier that your name was—”

“Because I was lying,” I interrupt.

“Lying is bad!”

“Apple-Moth,” I say, “I’ll explain later; for now you’ll just have to trust me that I did the right thing.”

The drone seems to think about this for a second, its lights turning dark green before brightening to yellow. “Okay!”

I move as quickly as I can, sprinting through the town, weaving my way through streets and alleyways toward the Arc. I’m aware, suddenly, of darkness falling over me, the sun dipping behind a cloud maybe, but when I steal a glance up, I realize that I’m in the shadow of the Arc. The steep dome structure rises up over the buildings of the city, the dark material it is constructed of sending a cold shade over this part of town.

Looking to the top of the building, I see that the enormous circular storm cloud is emanating from the Arc itself. A stream of mist pours out of the tip of the dome.

What the hell is going on? I wonder.

I’m still about a quarter mile away from the enormous building, but already the scale of it is staggering. It’s not nearly as high as the Verticals, but at its base it must be three miles wide.