The space beneath the porch lit up like a topside morning. The box leapt into the air, slammed against the ceiling, and burst open, scattering bits of paper like leaves settling in the street outside Aunt Dita’s house. Frantically, she gathered them as they fell. The few pages that hadn’t been scorched from the shot were covered in Jiri’s messy scrawl. She salvaged the legible ones and crawled on her belly toward the edge of the porch nearest the street, where light seeped in. The unburned top half of the first page she held said:

2230. Final preparations in place. Operation to proceed.

2300. We are only four for this rescue—J, P, D, D. Topside in one hour. Reach hospital at 0200. Free subjects in lab at 0230. No shooting if surprise succeeds. If not maybe we die. No more preparing. Only doing. Carpe somnium.

Mistletoe thought: J = Jiri. D = Dita. And the rescue had to be her own. That meant these notes were fifteen years old, like her. But who were the others, P and the second D?

She flipped the page. Jiri’s writing became even shakier.

0530. Status report:

P killed. Single shot to nervous system.

Female subject freed. Bad intelligence for male subject. In different hospital. Different lab. No way to know.

Mistletoe thought of the dream she shared with Ambrose. It was the second part that was uniquely hers: clutched to Jiri’s heaving chest as he ran, shooting wildly, the wires snaking out of her head and falling about her shoulders.

Female subject freed.

So they’d really just burst in and grabbed her from some sterile UniCorp scan-tube. Her hands shook. Several pages crumbled into blackened flakes. She sifted through the remainder: detailed sales charts, inventory slips, yellowed receipts. Lists of Western English words written in Aunt Dita’s neat, careful hand. Cat. Bird. Dog. Fish. Next to each word was a simple line drawing of each animal. Dita’s old language lesson charts.

Bad intelligence for male subject.

She thought of Ambrose trapped inside the wire trunk, his bloodied hands plugged into Unison. Maybe it had been a mistake to leave him. She wished he were here. Crushing the charred scraps to dust beneath her boots, she wondered if she should head back down to the brothers’ lab. She dragged Nelson out from beneath the porch and was about to pop on her riding goggles when she saw it: a red pre-Unison wristwatch that had been blown clear of her hiding spot. She picked it up. Still warm. The band was twisted and burned. The square face was blank except for three black letters: SCU.

She turned it over in her hand. How did it tell time? Was it even supposed to tell time? Five tiny silver buttons lined the side. She pressed them all in turn. Nothing happened. The watch was her one solid clue, and she’d broken it before it could give up its secret. She tapped it against the panel that shielded her scoot’s expertly rebuilt transmission.