“But I know another truth, and it’s that sooner or later, these fights find you. Fascism is the enemy of all Black aspirations, and Germany’s brand of fascism is one we can ill afford on our shores. If we can’t smother it in its cradle, then I don’t want to think what kind of monster it’ll become by the time it reaches home.”

Phillip had been gripping his pencil so hard his knuckles blanched. The enemy was already here. Maybe not true Nazis like Uncle Al was talking about, but men all too happy to take advantage of him, to smile and praise his work from their mouths while their hands used it to harm. And he hadn’t even known. He hadn’t known.

All his life, his folks had tried to teach him that their way was the only way. Money had been their instrument of choice—and it had done its good. But Phillip just wasn’t wired that way. He only knew how to act—to create. And right now, he needed to create something big. Something that put more good into the world than bad.

Now Phillip felt the pencil snap in his hands. “I’ll go.”

Darius whipped around in his chair, glaring. “Are you out of your damn mind? This joker’s just going to send you to your death.”

“Thought you didn’t care what happened to me.”

“What would Mr. Connolly have to say?” Darius laughed cruelly. “Don’t think he’s ready to give up the golden goose just yet.”

Phillip’s body tingled, the full realization of what he’d just signed up for rushing through him—some highly secretive mission for the US Army, one sure to call on his engineering skills. Was that why he was doing this? To prove he wasn’t who his classmates thought? That he wasn’t so swaddled up in the success of his inventions that he was blind to the rest of the world, its problems, even if he’d made problems of his own?

“Phillip,” Darius said. “Phillip, what in the hell? You need this least of any of us.”

No. Darius of anyone should know how desperately he wanted to prove he could do good deeds—that he didn’t just make things worse. He wanted to laugh. Electrical engineering he loved—he loved the binary nature of circuits and how easy it was to chart their course, no matter how complex the system. People, though? He was finding them way harder to handle. An electrical system couldn’t lie about its function.