“No one controls my life,” I say. “No one controls any of us. We make our own choices—lots of them—every day.”

“Really?” he asks. “Is it really a choice if you aren’t able to see all the options? Think of a magician who tells you to pick a card. Is it really a surprise that you select the same one he’s thinking of if all of the cards he’s holding are the same?”

“I—I don’t know,” I admit. I’m unsettled, because I’ve never once given something like that a thought. And Geeze . . .

“What’s your name?” I ask again. “I can’t just keep calling you Geeze. It’s distracting.”

His left eyebrow arches. “Geeze? As in geezer?”

“You were the one who said I was too young.” I shift against the faded fabric of my chair and stare down at my hands. “I had to call you something.”

“Geeze.” He sounds baffled. Then he starts to laugh. “I think I actually like it better than Atlas.”

I look up. This is the Atlas the gray-haired woman from across the school said I would speak to?

Still grinning, Atlas answers, “As to how they control us? Well, what did you just do with the tablet and the book?”

“I searched for the words you mentioned.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted to know if you were telling the truth.”

“Have you ever done anything like that before?”

“I look up the meanings of words all the time for school.”

“Not that. Have you ever verified what someone told you before?”

Verify.

To prove to be true; to confirm; to establish the truth.

“I’ve never had to,” I say, feeling dumb and defensive even as I say it.

“Really?” Atlas mocks. “Are you just that smart that you miraculously know everything, or is it because it never occurred to you to question something that you’ve been told is true?”

Insult and uncertainty twist inside me as Atlas gets up and starts to pace the length of the room.

“You’ve never questioned whether what your instructors teach you in class is the truth or whether what you hear on the news might not be real?”

“Of course not. Why would I?”

“Why wouldn’t you?” He walks to the wall and places his hand next to a line that reads:

Truth will ultimately prevail where pains is taken to bring it to light. —GW

“I suppose you believe the midnight-to-daylight curfew is to prevent people from being inconvenienced by pesky roadwork and vice versa. That the City Pride Department’s work miraculously caused crime to disappear with a fresh coat of paint? ‘Verify’ isn’t just a word they’ve pulled out of use, Meri. They’ve taken away people’s ability to question what is real and what is something they want you to believe. And the sooner you admit that it’s the reason you don’t know anything, the sooner we can get out of this room. Your mother—”

“My mother did important work!” I leap out of my chair. The book on my lap falls to the scarred wooden floor with a loud thud. “And crime did disappear. Otherwise they would have never taken all the cameras off the streets.” We still have a day off from school to celebrate Civic Liberation—the day the country removed the last of the cameras.