“Apple-Moth,” I whisper.

“Yes, friend?” the drone replies in hushed tones.

“When did they build this?”

“Tier Two and Three soldiers were offered shelter from Phase Three if they took part in construction of the Arc. The first three floors were built between the first of June and the twenty-first of June. The rest was built over a four-week period from July the fourteenth to August the tenth of this year.”

I was in the Loop for the first part of construction, and the Block for the rest, I think.

“And what exactly is Phase Three?” I ask, already knowing that Phase One was the deletion of 98 percent of humankind, and yet sure that Phases Two and Three might somehow be worse.

Apple-Moth’s lights flicker. “I don’t know. I do not have access to that information.”

“What time is it now?”

“Ten forty-one a.m.”

“Fuck,” I whisper. Woods has twenty-six minutes left.

“Hey, come on now, friend, you don’t need to use that kind of language. Find a better word!”

“No, fuck is the appropriate word here, Apple-Moth.”

“Okay, friend. Fuck!”

I actually laugh as I speed up, moving quickly toward the dome. As I get closer, Apple-Moth returns to my pocket, now with enough charge to reapply the digital mask to my face.

“Apple-Moth, do me a favor and make the mask match my skin tone this time, okay?”

“No problem, friend!”

We begin passing armed soldiers milling around, sentry towers with snipers, tanks idling near the foot of the Arc.

I’m entirely in the shadow of the building now. I stop and survey the enormous Arc towers before me, matte-black blocks tapering upward to the apex of the dome, one large entrance guarded by four soldiers through which tanks periodically enter and exit.

There’s no time to come up with an intricate plan—the seconds of my friends’ lives are ticking away.

I walk up to a slow-moving tank and hold both hands up in a stop gesture. The tank halts and a soldier appears at the turret.

“Sir?” he asks, after saluting me.

“Make room inside, Officer Cadet,” I say, trying to fill my voice with the commanding confidence of a military leader.

“S-sir,” the soldier replies, uncertainty etched in his voice, “the tank is full. Lieutenant Bransky said—”

“Lieutenant Bransky is a grade-A piece of shit, son,” I say, and I think of Sam on the streets outside the pub, when she had tricked the lower-ranked soldiers into believing that I was a captain with just her self-assurance and confidence. “Now either step aside or tell someone else to get out. That’s an order,” I instruct as I climb to the summit of the tank.

The young soldier’s face becomes splotchy with red and he ducks inside, telling a soldier even more junior than him to get out.

I climb inside and we ride—in silence—into the Arc.