Park said nothing, though she and Glenn exchanged a look. The carbon pirates were a non-issue to her—were even a little romantic in a rogueish, urban-legend kind of way. But to her tax-paying uncle, they were like devils in human skin. After the worst of the Comeback had passed, the remaining world governments had signed a treaty agreeing to be taxed for their carbon emissions—a drastic measure intended to lessen the fuel the Comeback seemed to feed on. But as the new countries and governments attempted to recover, redrawing borders, holding onto tenuous regimes, recreating social structures . . . somehow the carbon pirates had sprung up. Saboteurs and freebooters, they were hired clandestinely by political groups to ground rival economies before they could take flight. The carbon pirates snuck into target countries and found ways to enlarge their carbon footprint, which in turn sharpened the steep taxes levied against them—limiting their growth. Citizens like Park’s uncle were convinced that carbon pirates were around them at all times, helping sedition and subversion fester in every corner of the nation.

Like snakes, Park thought, spearing a chickpea with her fork. In her mind, she knew both she and her uncle thought there were things lurking in the grass when there was nothing really there. But that still didn’t lessen her fear.

“Things in this place are taking a nosedive,” Park’s uncle grumbled, sitting back as he listened to his favorite political newstream. The teletooth receiver directed the sound waves up his jawbone and into his inner ear, meaning Park didn’t have to hear what he was tuned in to. A relief for her: she didn’t have the emotional energy or patience to absorb his latest streamer’s anger and vitriol. Their hissing paranoia. “I might as well start saving up to get us out of here.”

“Out of New Diego?” Park said, alarmed. She had never left the biodome before.

Park’s uncle flicked a glance at her. “Out of Earth,” he said. “We’ve got to join the colonies sometime.”

Even then, she’d known he wasn’t serious about joining the ISF: he was a devoted zoologist, and there were no native animals to study on Mars or Halla or Luxue. Plus, she was sure they could never afford it—not without being conscripted. But she still put down her fork and said rigidly, “I have no need to go to space.”

“You don’t know,” her uncle answered grimly. “Everyone will have to go, someday.”

She hadn’t believed him, not then. Whenever she cared to think about it, all young Park could imagine was space as dark water: lightless and suffocating and cold. A place filled with strange and weak-eyed creatures. The only people who went into space, she thought, were the ones who had nothing left for them on land.