“Ah, this is gorgeous,” gushes a Resident with bright copper hair, wearing a green dress with pointed shoulders and sheer fabric up and down her arms. I can’t see what she’s looking at, but it seems to be drawing the attention of a few other Residents.

“Oh, that’s divine,” one remarks.

“Such craftsmanship,” says another.

The human behind the stall smiles graciously. His armlet’s stone is bright green. “It is an honor to serve,” he replies, and the sound sends a wave of sickness through me.

His cadence. It reminds me of…

My fingers press against my wrist where my O-Tech watch used to sit. A flash of onyx eyes appears in my thoughts.

Even though it makes no sense, part of me still feels like she’s there. Listening.

I’m unable to stop the tremble in my fingers. I may have severed our brief mental link, but she’s still here, in Infinity. She’s sitting on a throne somewhere in the Capital, ruling the afterlife like she’s getting revenge on humans for all the work we made her do.

She’s trapping us in a computer the way we trapped her.

“Yes, this will do perfectly,” the copper-haired Resident says, taking a step forward like she’s scanning the dress in its entirety.

And then her dress begins to shift. It’s like watching a trillion tiny pixels break apart and re-form, all moving so quickly they look like a blur of rainbow hues washing over her clothes. The green vanishes, replaced by a deep cerulean with accentuated hips and fabric cutouts that give the illusion of vines climbing up the woman’s torso. When she’s finished, she’s wearing a dress identical to the one still hanging from the man’s stall.

“I really must find a necklace to match,” she announces to the small crowd of Residents beside her. And then she sashays down the cobbled path without so much as a thank-you.

The man at the stall continues to smile, so peacefully unbothered by the fact that a Resident copied his design without paying a cent.

I bite down on the inside of my cheek to keep from scoffing. This is what they do with their power? Force humans to hold market days to enact some bizarre love of shopping?

I don’t understand this world. Gil talked about humans being flayed and heads being stuffed onto pikes. He made the Residents sound bloodthirsty and gruesome—something to truly fear. But Victory isn’t like that at all.

If anything, it almost feels human.

I wonder if that’s the point.