And they’d gotten it completely wrong. These three girls seemed fine. Happy, even. Well, not Elise, but she seemed in good spirits despite the obvious lung problems. He wondered if she was going to get a new one. Surely it helped to be friends with Dr. Lopez’s niece and the daughter of Isaac Rojas.

He heard footsteps in the hall, and turned to see Dr. Lopez approaching the door. His expression was tight, annoyed.

“Mr. Pierce? Seems like we’re going to have more trouble getting you home than I expected.”

MAISIE

MAISIE WATCHED AS Lennon’s carefully arranged expression gave way to horror. He’d been doing a pretty good job of pretending not to be absolutely appalled at ending up in the Q, but his bravado faded at Lopez’s words.

He straightened and put the blank expression back on his face. Given how quickly he’d recovered, she guessed that he was used to pretending everything was fine when it actually wasn’t.

“Why?” Lennon asked. “What did they say?”

Lopez turned. “Come with me. Maisie, you too.”

She followed them across the hall. Lopez gestured for her to close the door. He leaned against one of the tables, crossing his arms over his chest.

“I’ve talked to my contact at the CDC,” he said. “They’re only giving us seventy-two hours to get you out. Said that the tests we did don’t prove that the vaccine will work any longer than that. And that’s seventy-two hours from when you were dropped, so technically…” He looked at his watch. “About seventy hours from now.”

“Is that…not enough time?” Lennon asked.

“It would be plenty of time, if they’d let us scale a wall. But they said it’s out of the question.”

“Why?”

“They think that if we do it, everyone else in the Q will get ideas and start trying to hop over. Absolutely no scaling walls. They’ll shoot us if we try.”

“Can they send a helicopter?” Lennon asked. “There was plenty of room for them to land out where I was before.”

“They definitely won’t do that,” Lopez said.

Lennon appeared confused.

“Last time they sent a helicopter in, people mobbed it,” Maisie explained. “Pilot was killed. Not to mention that people used to shoot down planes.”

“Mostly in the north,” Lopez added hastily. “They developed some impressive antiaircraft technology in order to make the gate the only option for supplies.”

“But that incident with the helicopter was, what? Fifteen years ago?” Lennon asked. “And we’re in the south. You’re not going to shoot down any planes, are you?”

“They’re not a forgiving bunch out there,” Lopez said. “They said no helicopter. They insisted that there is only one legal way in and out of the Q. Through the northern gate.”

Maisie laughed.

Lennon looked at her sharply. “What’s wrong with the northern gate?”

“It’s on the other side of Spencer territory.”

Lopez nodded grimly. “Northgate—the territory where the gate is—is at the northwest tip of the Q, deep in Spencer territory. Which we do not enter.”