The head man put his hands on her shoulders. He pushed her down to the slick surface of the granite tier and gave her a shove so that she sprawled onto her stomach. Her cheekbone grazed the rock and began to bleed. She closed her eyes in pain.

I had been in my share of fights. I wasn’t a particularly good fighter. But I couldn’t stand passively and watch. I lunged at the farmer. Before I could reach him his friends had their hands on me, holding me back. They forced me to my knees.

The boss farmer put his foot on Treya’s shoulder, holding her down. Then he raised his weapon and slowly lowered it.

The sharp end touched a knob of Treya’s spine just below the neck. Her body stiffened at the pressure of it.

Then the farmer drove the point down hard.

Chapter Four. Treya’s Story / Allison’s Story

CHAPTER THREE

SANDRA AND BOSE

Sandra went to bed convinced the document was a fake—a bad joke, though it was too late to call Bose and accuse him of it. Although, if it was a joke, it was a pointlessly elaborate one. She couldn’t believe that Orrin Mather, the shy and inarticulate young man she had interviewed at State, had written any of this. Her best guess was that he had copied the text from some science fiction novel and pretended it was his own work … though she couldn’t imagine why.

So she tried to shrug off the unanswerable questions and get a decent night’s rest.

Come dawn she had managed, she reckoned, at most three hours of useful sleep, which meant she would go through the day sandy-eyed and irritable. And the day would be another hot one, judging by the haze tinting the view from her living room window. The kind of smog only August in Houston could brew up.

She tried to call Bose from the dashboard phone in her car but the number bounced to voice mail. She left her name and work number and added, “Is it possible you sent me the wrong file? Or maybe I ought to be interviewing you for State Care. Please call as soon as you can and clear this up.”

*   *   *

Sandra had been employed at the Greater Houston Area State Care facility long enough to have a feeling for the place—the flow of its internal politics, the rhythm of daily business. She could tell, in other words, when something was up. This morning, something was up.