Elise was getting a new set of lungs, even if Maisie had to go get the shipment herself. Elise, Maisie, and Hadley were First Five—babies born in the first five years after the Q was established. Most of the First Five died as infants. Many more as children.

Only eight First Five babies remained in Lopez territory. Maisie wasn’t about to see it become seven.

“What the—” Hadley sat up in her chair, dropping her boots off the table. Her eyes were on the window. “Is that a plane?”

Maisie moved forward to look. It couldn’t be. Airspace over the Q was restricted. She’d only ever seen a plane in pictures.

But there it was, flying north over the Q.

Something—a large object, maybe—fell out of the plane, and Maisie squinted as she moved closer to the window.

“Is that…?”

An orange parachute opened.

“Holy shit, that’s a person,” Hadley breathed.

Maisie turned around and bolted out of the studio and across the hall, to the security room. Elise was already there, sitting down in front of the computers. The rest were blinking to life, showing camera footage from around the Q.

“Lopez is going to want to know exactly where they land,” Maisie said.

Elise didn’t look up. “I know. Give me a minute.”

Hadley rushed in, leaning down behind Elise to peer at her screen.

“Do you see them?” Maisie asked.

“Camera eight,” Elise said. The image on the computers all changed to the view from camera eight.

The skydiver was still in the air but getting closer to the ground. Elise zoomed in.

“It’s a man,” Hadley said.

“You know you have dead air right now,” Elise said.

“Shit.” Hadley darted out of the room. Her voice filtered through the speakers a moment later.

“Well, folks, don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’ve got some weird shit happening right now. A dude just jumped out of a plane over the Q. It is literally raining men out there this morning. Hallelujah.”

LENNON

LENNON FELL FOR several seconds before his brain clicked into place.

He opened his chute. He had no idea if it was the right time—he didn’t know how far up they’d been—but earlier seemed better than too late.

He grabbed his toggles. Maybe, if he steered east or west, he could land outside the quarantine zone. It was fifty miles north to south, but only about fifteen east to west.

Which way was west? Fuck.

The sun. Right. It was rising in the east.

Problem was, the wind was pushing him south.

And he was pretty sure the kidnappers dropped him directly in the middle of the quarantine zone, which meant that his odds of moving several miles east or west were very slim.

He looked down at the ground below him.

It was coming at him too quickly. He needed a plan. He needed time to think. He was desperately trying to remember what those CDC people had said to him about vaccines and a cure for the virus. Vaccines had been impossible so far because of how the virus kept mutating, but they had said some hopeful shit about possible cures and progress with short-term vaccines.