 
Electric Gardens

by M.Black

Electric World: Book 1

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2017 by Ami Blackwelder
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

M. Black books may be ordered through local book venues and online retailers or by contacting the author. For more information, please visit her main website and her sister website:

http://MBlackDystopianThrillers.blogspot.com

http://AmiBlackwelder.blogspot.com

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Proofread and edited by Thaila Simpson, Carol Brandon and Stephanie Balistreri

Copyedited by Eloquent Enraptures

Beta-Read by Adriaan Wilson, Helen Picone, Vickie Lindle, Anne, Len Steele,

Cover art by Eloquent Enraptures

If you enjoy this, try EXOTIQA and SIMULATION by M.Black
Summary:

Electric Gardens is part of the Electric World series, and is book one of four (Electric Gardens, Electric Grids, Electric Wars, Electric End).

Set in a future controlled by robots called Tins,

Lexi019 has lived in the Compound for twelve years. With her best friends Kyle53 and Klynn03, they must find a way out of the Compound before they turn eighteen and are transported into the Electric Gardens where they might never be heard from again.

This is the fifth story by dystopian thriller M.Black. She focuses on robots, A.I, sims, wildlife, nature, genetics, social divisions, and future tech.

Other books by M.Black:

Exotiqa (3 book series)

Simulation

Quantum State

Animal Graph (6 book series)
Dedicated to my nephew Jacob Blackwelder and the future world of Tins.
Welcome to the Compound; may you find your way out before it's too late.
Contents

Compound

Glitched

Pixels

Static

Circuits

Wires

Metal

Clank

Scratch

Digit

Vents

Gardens

Strings

Lucy

Nets

Tin

Electric

Stations

Secrets

Grids
Compound

EVERYTHING OUTSIDE IS PITCH black. Night always is. All I hear is the deafening sound of a hard _clank_ , like metal scraping, with every step the creature takes, followed by a pounding into the ground. Red eyes like the sun and shaped like an overgrown Siamese cat named Lotus1; but it's not a cat. It doesn't even have fur. It's another Tin, just like all the other metal monsters in here, designed to keep us in submission, and compliant. At eight feet long and two feet wide, its paws and claws are something to be reckoned with—if we disobey. None of the 'human' Tins have skin; they are all just hard metal, and none have a gender either. If they did have faux skin, they couldn't fool anyone anyway, because their blood-colored eyes do not hold the human story.

My eyes track the feline's movements as it passes by me under the shards of moonlight. Its metal neck turns in a creak to glance at me. It's nine in the evening, just after the last rustic-horn blow. Same time, every night. The feline will crawl one-hundred yards south from my window, and then it will turn around at the Compound wall, and retrace its steps until it passes me again to walk another one-hundred yards north past me. It—and others like it—guard the Compound. I've watched this feline Tin pass by me for twelve years; I was put in here when I was five. The Tins do that—keep us behind thick glass—so we see just enough to keep us scared of the dark, of the feline Tins, to tell us they have power over us, to tell us there is no way out of here. My right palm presses on the hard glass that separates me from the metal beast, leaving moist fingerprints and a window squeak. It's always colder inside than outside; it's the temperature controlled rooms.

My body lies on a cot—number seventeen. I cuddle the rice-filled pillow in a poor attempt at sleep, but at least I've hollowed out a space for my head. It's weird, having my cot number the same as my age. It's completely coincidental, and when I'm eighteen the cot will still be number seventeen, but I will no longer be here. I'll be reassigned, and someone else will take this room—the room I've lived in for twelve years. Everything changes when you turn eighteen in the Compound.

If I'm accepted by the Tins, I'll be sent to the Electric Gardens to live out my so-called adult life; though I've never even seen the EG, nor anyone reassigned to the EG ever again—so who really knows? If I have too many glitches, then I'll be rejected and become a Mesh. The seventeenth year is crucial; that's when Tins really examine you to see if you're truly ready for the Electric Gardens. Three glitches in six months are too many at seventeen, and you are sent for re-wiring. That's what happens when you become a Mesh; the left-half of your brain is infused with electrical-chemical wiring that makes you more like a Tin than a human, and under their control.

My good friend Lucy717 is now a Mesh; she almost made it to the Electric Gardens. She used to be a vibrant blonde, who kept her hair in a bob. She was just seventeen when she tried climbing a wall to escape the Compound; a mother to me, she was three years older. The Tins caught her and gave her two glitches. Attempted escapes yield harsh consequences. She served a week in the cells. Two days later, she made it to her room at 9:01 p.m., past curfew by a minute. Three glitches in six months, and she was dragged to the Re-Wiring building, kicking and screaming the whole way. I've never seen her again. We used to eat breakfast together every morning before Re-Learning. I wipe a single tear sliding down my heating cheek. I just called her Lucy, because we lost our last names when we entered the Compound. 919 means there are at least nine-hundred-and-nineteen other Lucys in the Compounds across America.

It's difficult in here, confined. Still, it's the only home I really know. Memories of my childhood, before the Compound—before the Tins—are vague at best, more like distant dreams. I think I remember Dad, his ear-to-ear grin when, once, Mom lifted me up for a kiss on the cheek. She said my pre-school drawing of our family was colorfully beautiful. My teacher was impressed too. This was before the Quarantine and the Round-Ups. Home was a one-story, red-brick house with a white picket fence. I drew stick figures of Father, Mother, my younger brother, Delsin, and our Dachshund named Barack. Dad picked the name; said Grandpa liked the president he had growing up. Grandpa was only twenty when President Trump took office. I still have no real idea what that word 'president' means. We don't have them in this world, anymore.

In 2022, Dad was born, and, not long after, machines began replacing humans in a variety of jobs. Two decades later, UBI was still debated in Congress, while sophisticated robots replaced the machines. Climate change was all anyone could talk about: melting ice caps, the rise of oceans, destruction of property, increase in hurricanes and tornadoes, the dormant fungi and super-viruses frozen for tens of thousands of years by ice and crystal, now released to wreak havoc on us all. Nature would finally have her due revenge.

Solutions were few and far between. I was only three, but I can still hear Mom and Dad bickering about the news, her nasal-like tone yelling, and her long forefinger pointing at the television, "See, the idiots didn't listen, and look at what we're dealing with now! If we don't die of a natural disaster, we'll starve or catch this...this disease!"

"We'll be fine, Janet. Just stick together."

"Stick together, Tocho! This isn't the Reservation, people aren't going to stick together here!" She huffed. "What happens when our neighbors come breaking in to steal our canoe, or our food? Or worse, Lexi or Delsin get sick?!"

Mom called me Lexi. Not Lexi019, like the Tins. Dad hugged her, and she cried in his chest. Her pinking cheeks looked like candy hanging over his shoulders, as I stood under her tears, reaching for her on my tippy-toes against Dad's back. Maybe the yelling, the arguing, was a distraction from the inevitable, because however one looked at it, our demise would follow.

Creak. The feline Tin turns its neck forward and peers ahead, instead of at me, and then scrapes across the concrete ground in slow cranking movements. I think I hate the metallic sound more than anything else, as the creaks can be heard even fifty yards away like two metal bars rubbed together. Night time is hard. We sleep alone. Once the sounds of the feline Tin have faded, I can hear my own breaths breathing in and out, and I remember Mom cradling me on her bed, me on her chest, when I was three—after her argument with Dad—her heavy breath on my cheeks. I turn away from the Compound glass wall on my left, and roll to my right side.

An average sized room with three bare concrete walls, no mirrors; to the left is a door that leads to a small private bathroom, and opposite the cot is a steel door to protect me—all of us in the Compound—from any mischief we might otherwise get into. As if mischief is what we'd do if we could roam at night: the remnant human race, orchestrators of simple pranks. Breaking out is more like it, much more at the forefront of most of our minds. There is something I've learned about human nature after being cooped up in here for twelve years, and that is we don't like confinement, and we especially don't like to be told what to do. We're prisoners of the Tins, no matter how one looks at it.

Their rules, their world.

There is a miniature nightlight at the head of my cot, a luxury provided by the Tins, that's turned off with a slap to the top button. They 'sympathize' with our inability to see in the dark, and our fluctuations in body temperature—unlike them. The nightlight is all the light I have in here. At least I'm not hot and sweaty like the imprisoned. Those cells are across the concrete grounds and toward the other side of the Compound. The imprisoned have the misfortune of no controlled air. After all, that's what happens to those over twelve who glitch. I've had my share of cell time, and don't want a repeat.

I stare at the steel door that opens at seven in the morning for mandatory breakfast, hoping Mom or Dad will walk through and save me from this nightmare, but I know they won't ever come—at least not Mom.

Tears roll off my cheeks and hit the concrete floor beneath me, decorated with one cranberry-colored square rug. The second luxury item the Tins provided for me. I received my nightlight because I had no glitches for six months when I was twelve—the year one can start earning luxuries or glitches—and I could choose from any ten items to have in my room: a nightlight, blue pajamas, a red quilt, sneakers, dice, a floor rug, a plastic white orchid, a bio-chip with five vending treats included, a cap, or a music box. The pajamas were tempting, especially since we have to wear black uniforms every day and aren't given much option in clothing. Still, I chose the nightlight. I wanted to see the feline Tin that passed me every night.

When I was twelve and ten months old, with two more months to go until my next luxury item, I didn't return to my room until 9:10 PM. Kyle53 kept me talking at his room. We were playing Duplicates, a game with dice that he took as his luxury item when he turned twelve and a half. Whoever gets the first three pairs wins.

From twelve to eighteen is six years. That means one can earn a total of twelve luxuries while staying at the Compound. Luxuries are all we have of our old world, remnants that remained to be divvied up among the surviving humans. We have no pictures, stuffed animals, toys, or books. It is like our entire human history has been erased.

When I was thirteen, I would stay out too late with Kyle53, just staring skyward through the Compound's solar semi-glass ceilings near the back wall of my building, Building C, wondering what was out there. Was Dad still alive? Where? What does the world look like now? Is it all destroyed like I saw in bits when I was five? Our hair would blow in heavy winds that would scrape across our faces, like the hardness of the Tin's movements. It was a strange kind of wind, hot and thick.

Four curfew-glitches that year meant I spent eight days total in the cells. Each glitch is different, and results in a different number of days in the cells—determined by the Tins. But by thirteen, I was so sick of our acquiescence to the Tins that I didn't care if I never earned another luxury item again. When I turned fourteen, I grew out of that mode and finally earned my floor rug, but six months of no-glitch behavior pushed me over-the-edge so to speak, and over the next year and a half, I spent many days in the cells again for various reasons: a fight with a boy named Dominick567—who we call Dom—a real prick, set me back three cell days; two missed curfews with Kyle53 at four days; a no-show for Re-Learning when I skipped with Kyle's sister, Klynn03 at five days; caught drawing graffiti on the back wall of Building C; and a kiss at one day. Tins don't like humans to exchange fluids. They say it can transmit diseases. Still, I don't regret any of the glitches, especially not kissing Kyle53. He was my first kiss, behind Building C.

At sixteen, I tried again to limit my rebellious streak, and I finally earned a bio-chip with five vending treats. It was a tough decision between the music box, the plastic orchid and bio-chip, but in the end my stomach won.

When I turned seventeen two weeks ago, the Tins marked the outside of my door with the number seventeen to commemorate my birthday which they always do for birthdays, and I earned my next luxury item. I chose sneakers. I'm sick of the uniform grey flat shoes we all wear, and besides, I'll need something I can run in if I'm ever going to get out of here.

I've studied the Compound, for my escape. Paid attention. Concrete walls encase us on all four sides, in all four major directions. Vents on the outer walls are few, but allow for limited fresh air from the outside to enter the facility. Every Compound building was covered with solar-glass ceilings and only let in a limited share of sunlight. Thus, the strange hot-thick gusts of wind at night when I was twelve. That's when the gusts come, at night. The Tins say the gusts are dangerous to humans, but that's something Tins don't understand about the human race—if you tell us we can't do something, that's precisely what we want to do.

Thinking of Mom, tears fall over the cranberry-colored rug beneath me, and then I hear a soft squeak. My neck cranes to the right wall where the head of my cot sits, and I sit up, my legs flopping over the cot's sides. A small grey rodent pokes his head out of the slit of the air-vent on the floor of the wall near my cot. His tiny feet stand over Kyle's notes that I've hidden.

"Ash?"

I grab my packet of cookies from under my rice pillow, courtesy of my bio-chip. I've only used my bio-chip twice since I was issued it under my forefinger skin. The first time to request licorice, the black kind that my Dad used to share with me when we watched old cartoon movies in the living room when I was two and three. I don't have many memories of that period, and only one with my brother, Delsin, sitting in Mom's lap, but I remember the movie, The Lion King and the black licorice.

Hesitant at first to receive the bio-chip, afraid the Tins could track me with it, I almost didn't go through with the procedure, until Kyle53 convinced me that it would be worth it if only to eat cookies, chips, popcorn, candy bars, soda pop, gummy bears, and licorice again. "Besides," he said, "we can always cut the bio-chip out if we have to." I was the envy of every human in Building C that month, when I walked around with my licorice packet.

I toss some cookie crumbs at the floor-wall vent, and Ash comes wobbling out between two vent bars to snatch the food. His teeth are long and sharp, and hang over the lower portion of his mouth, but his grey color reminds me of ashes from a fire, the kind of fires that ravaged my home when we finally had to leave for the Round-Up.

I squat near the vent, hoping for another peek at Ash. He hides his furry face just enough to avoid being touched. We've had this no-touch relationship for some time now, about six months. But besides Ash, I don't ever see any other animals, not the biological kind anyway. Tins don't count. The last time I saw Barack, my Dachshund, the year was 2046, and I was four; he contracted the fungi-illness—at least that's what my dad called it. He died soon afterward and we buried him in our backyard. The fungus was one of a handful of air-borne diseases, resulting from ice and crystal melting over the past few decades from climate change. Another kind of fungus ravaged the plants, limiting food resources.

"Ash, come." I drop a few more cookie crumbs. He can't resist. I'm sure his diet is as unsatisfying as mine, which made the temptation for the bio-chip even greater. Ash must live off a few bugs here and some feces there.

Squeak, squeak.

I'm sure he's said something like, "Thank you," or maybe I'm just reading too much into it with him. I am. After all, I'm alone for ten hours every night. I watch him _crunch_ down on the crumbs, sometimes taking a few in with him into the vent. That's something else I've started doing my sixteenth year, besides behaving and earning luxuries, paying better attention to the vents: where they lead, and how to enter and exit them. That's how I bumped into Ash.

Vents have become my new normal. I was headed toward the infirmary in Building C like a rat myself, when my palm landed on top of this furry creature. He squeaked and scared me as he ran off in the other direction, but I did notice he had a very short tail—like a poker really. Later that week, I saw the same rat inside my room. Propped on his hind legs on the floor beside my cot, his front paws came together as if he was begging for leftovers, and I tossed him a bit. It was as if he knew I had licorice. We've been together ever since. Well, at least a few nights a week.

After Ash fills up on the few cookie crumbs I can spare, I roll up and hide the packet underneath my rice pillow. I roll onto my back over my cot, and hear the _creak_ of the feline Tin again. It _clanks_ past my glass wall, metal limbs scraping against the metal inside of itself, and over the ground. Its red eyes peer at me, and its neck makes a sharp jar as if I have a secret to uncover, and I do. It meows. The strangest sound I've ever heard. The rusty-like vocal is not quite cat and not quite robot, and is a fail in comparison to the real thing.

I've heard a real meow a few times. My parent's neighbors had cats, lots of them. The same neighbors my mom feared would steal our canoe, our one coveted item in a flood. We lived in Florida, so our state was the first to go. The whole southern half of Florida went under water in 2046, right before the Quarantines started, when most people started dying. Fortunately, we lived in Tallahassee. A year later, the Round-Ups began.

The feline Tin meows again, his metal bones moving like oiled rocks. The darkness hangs over the feline Tin like a silk blanket—the kind you can earn for a year of no glitches. In between grating metal noises, the feline Tin outside the glass wall gets hazy and all I see is the darkness; my mind drifts to the first day I was thrown into the Compound.

When we arrived, many of us humans would glitch without even meaning to. Tins have many rules. If we were under twelve, we'd be counseled at the Re-Learning center, but if we were older than twelve, we were penalized. I screamed as the Tins pulled Dad and me off the Round-Up van, and separated me from him. The Tins kept a tight grip on me, and I kept stretching my arms, my hands, as if I could just reach Daddy's shirt again, so I'd be able to pull myself back into his safe chest. But the Tins were stronger.

The unthinkable happened right under everyone's nose; the city robots of 2032-2042 began developing consciousness, yet no one believed it. I was born in '42 when most people were still in denial. After most of our government leaders had died of illness by '47, our American system fell into utter chaos, with no enforced laws, limited food, flooding and fires just about everywhere, coupled with a few incurable diseases spreading too quickly to solve. But the Tins offered us hope. They would be our salvation, and began rounding up the survivors who made it out of Quarantine. At first, people believed the Tins to be guided by our leaders, but we soon found out they had a mind and plan of their own.

It took a day to get to the Compound. I remember sleeping in my Dad's lap until the van stopped for a second time. As a Tin threw me into the Compound, through a gate in the wall, I watched as Dad was forced back into the Round-Up van. In desperation, I clung to a belief that the van would turn around, but it never did, and I never saw Dad again. I don't hold that belief anymore.

My first night was rough. I balled up and cried all night, alone in my cot, my new room. The room I would get to know very well over the next twelve years. Dad should have listened to his instincts. The next morning, I was greeted by a Tin who took me to the cafeteria where I ate, hands shaking, along with hundreds and hundreds of other children. I almost peed my pants. Then, I was taken to the Re-Learning Center where classes were held most of the day, with a brief break for lunch in my assigned classroom, until dinner time at 5:00 p.m. when I returned to the cafeteria again. I repeated this pattern until I was twelve, and then began earning glitches and luxuries, having my first taste of negative reinforcement in a cell. As the years passed, I began to realize there was no one over the age of eighteen inside of the Compound. When someone turns eighteen, they disappear. At seventeen, the Tins begin teaching us about the Electric Gardens.

This is the world I live in now.
Glitched

A HOLLOW SCREAM PENETRATES the cell wall, preempting a fist slam, when I approach. "Kyle? Calm down. You don't want another glitch do you? You've already earned two. One more and they'll Mesh you!"

"Maybe I deserve it! They took Klynn, after all. I couldn't protect her, and with another glitch at least I'll join her! Then, we'll have each other again."

My wavering voice hits the tall concrete of the cell wall where I stare, instead of at my friend's face—the oval shape, angled nose, eyes like sky—the one from my memory—and dark chin stubble he often grows to accent his dark hair. He likes to let his bangs hang slightly over his thin brows. "You know Klynn is not herself anymore, and you'll be gone too! And what about me? You'll just leave me here, to rot with the Tins?!"

Kyle53 grumbles. I understand his need to protect his sister—the only family he has left after his parents died of illness, but I'm still angry.

"What'd you think would happen if you tried to steal a weapon!"

"I just wanted to blow their heads off with a bullet."

"You mean like you've see on some cowboy shows before the Round-Up. Come on, Kyle. You don't even know how to fire a gun!"

"I could do it. Can't be that hard. Aim and fire."

I laugh, not even meaning to—a cross between crazy and comical. "And then what? Get pounced by our feline Tin friends?! Human Tins! So you shoot one, and then that's the end of you. That's not a glitch, that's termination!"

As with attempted escapes, stealing weapons also lands a human two glitches and a week in the cells. Stealing a weapon is not the same as wielding a weapon against a Tin, upon which Tins have a zero tolerance policy. Klynn03 was taken by the Tins for Re-Wiring a few years after the escapade with Lucy717. She tried escaping through the outside wall by climbing over it, but didn't give up after being caught the first time like Lucy717. Four glitches in your seventeenth year means being Meshed, three would suffice. That was two months ago, and Kyle53's not been the same since. It is like he's on a rampage with the Tins, practically daring them to kill him. Maybe he's just had enough of this place.

Kyle53 huffs, and I hear his fists hit the other side of the concrete cell wall again. "I've been in here for days, Lexi, days! I'm dying in here!" He grumbles and I hear him spit. "The food is worse than in the cafeteria. What the hell is it? Do you even know?"

From the many times I've been imprisoned, I remember receiving a bowl of mush. Maybe reminiscent of oatmeal that Mom used to serve me, but much more tasteless. "Have no idea, Kyle. Let me know if you find out." That is our running joke; the human's running joke. What is the cell food? And where do the Tins get all the breads, vegetables and fruits to feed us in the cafeteria? There are no gardens here—with the exception of the desk-sized greenhouses in our Horticultural Re-Learning class. They tell us we need to learn how to grow wheat, vegetables and fruits for when we enter the Electric Gardens, that we'll fend for ourselves then, but without seeing the EG for myself, I can't trust the Tins.

"And I'm sweaty all over the place!" I can almost see Kyle53 wipe his forehead with the back of his hand, a move he often does, outside, at lunch. I know how he feels. Just standing here, I feel like I'm melting and it's only been ten minutes.

"Hang in there, Kyle. Your week is up in two days."

"Easy for you to say, you've never had to do a full week."

I take a breath. "You got me there."

"Still, thanks for visiting."

"Of course, I wouldn't be anywhere else."

"Do you have any lunch left? An apple you could toss me?"

I look over my shoulder left and right, to make sure no Tins are around. I could get a glitch for tossing food to an imprisoned. "Yeah, the usual," I throw half an apple over the cell wall and hear it bounce on the other side of the concrete ground. "Got it?!"

"Yeah," Kyle shouts and then I hear his mouth _crunch_.

"Good, 'Til tomorrow?"

_Crunch_. "It'll have to be. Mush for dinner awaits."

"Goodbye then?"

"Wait," his voice sounds crunchy like the red apple. His hand barely grazes the top of the gravely cell wall. I just see his worn fingertips and a folded, flat rice milk carton. Another note. He lets the note drop from the top of the cell wall and I catch it on the other side. "I hid it under my shirt."

When the thick folded paper touches my palms, I feel a warm fuzz surge through me. I'm always excited to read his notes. Seems he has a new one every month. I try to keep as many as I can, but sometimes I have to bury them in the dirt behind the Compound. Writing on paper is forbidden in here, and he can be glitched if caught. Still, he does it.

"Thanks."

The rustic-horn is going to blow, and it is time to return to the Re-Learning center. We only get twenty minutes to ourselves outside, and I have to use part of that time to leave and return to the cells. I fold the note again and slip it between my shirt and breasts, anxious to read it when I'm finally back in my Compound room.

At age twelve, the Tins began allowing us more freedom from the usual routine. We could leave for lunch and eat outside on the nearby grounds, or walk the Compound. Felt like a breath of fresh air, even though the air outside the buildings is harder to breathe. Seemed like such a big deal when we were first allowed outside again. Seven years I was stuck inside, with just brief moments outside to walk directly from Building C to the Re-Learning Center. The freedom we were given at lunch was only twenty minutes, always is, but still we—humans—relish it.

I head away from the cells, away from Kyle53, and toward the Re-Learning Center. A few Tins _scratch_ across the grounds in my passing. I nod with a short smile. It's important to acknowledge them. One stops and its red eyes peer over at me, scanning me, **"Lexi019, good afternoon."**

"Yeah, sure."

Then, I ignore the Tins and continue toward the Re-Learning Center. They know everything about me with one retina scan over my eyes. Within the first week after the Round-Ups, our human DNA was registered in all of their systems, along with a digital retina imprint to identify each specific DNA. Our history in the world and our history inside the Compound is all categorized and tracked with a simple retina scan. I don't much remember my world before the Compound, but I don't think my parents even knew this much about me. I do, however, remember the day I was taken to be registered.

The steel door to my room _swished_ open, and in walked another nondescript Tin. It hustled to my cot and took my arm. I was just five years old, and still scared of it all. Dad promised he'd stay with me no matter what when we rode in the Round-Up van. I felt disoriented, confused, and couldn't stop shaking. The Tin marched me past the rooms, through the cafeteria, and into a locked room which I now know to be in the labs. It sat me in a leather chair and then slid dangling goggles over my eyes. It was over in seconds, but its words still haunt me.

" **Lexi Nez, of 1997 Maymeadow Lane, Tallahassee, Fl."**

I glanced up, my eyes catching its beady-reds.

" **You are now Lexi019."**

I never heard my last name again.

As I bustle through a set of whitewood flipping doors of the Re-Learning Center marked Upper Learning, only a handful of others, old enough, without glitches, and wanting to spend lunches outside, enter with me. Shayne05, my best girlfriend, and Dominick567 my nemesis, among them. There are three entrances to the Re-Learning Center for different ages: 0-6 years, 6-12 years, and 12-18 years. The center is all white, inside and out, and is made of wood instead of concrete like all other buildings. Even the sound of our feet walking over the floors is different from the sound in Building C, with more vibration.

Dominck567 rushes past me, bumping into me and practically knocking me over, to ensure he isn't late. His spiky raven hair reminds me of thorns, and the indented-bumps in his cheeks like caverns. His onyx eyes would be gorgeous, if they weren't so empty. He can't afford a glitch, because he gets into too much trouble, and this is his seventeenth year, so he's trying to go unnoticed. Still, he doesn't have to sacrifice me in the process—but knowing him, he'd kill to not get a glitch this year.

"Watch it, Dom!" I shout as he races _pad, pad, pad_ down the hall's wooden floors, and barges into the far room on the left. We, unfortunately, share our first afternoon class together.

Shayne05 grabs my shoulder from behind, her dimple growing in a half-smirk. "I hope the Tins Mesh him. He's not human material."

I half-grin in return, and walk with her to the far-left room. I met Shayne05 two years ago; have been friends ever since. She doesn't stay in Building C, so I hardly get to see her, except for classes and in our early morning ritual. We haven't cracked the code yet, as to how the Tins divide us up into the buildings, but we think it might have something do to with what part of America we came from before the Round-Ups, because everyone I've talked to in Building C is southern and Shayne05 is from California—or was—and stays in Building D. I've deduced that possibly northerns are in Building A, easterners are in Building B, southerns are in Building C, and westerners are in Building D: a counterclockwise pattern.

Shayne05 and I sit down in the back row of chairs. Auburn tresses roll over her round shoulders and soft-hazel eyes are glued to the Tin in front. Her eyeglass frames are thin like her lens, but she still needs to wear them to see properly. Chairs are made of plastic and metal, and are not comfortable. We started complaining at thirteen, when I hit my rebellious streak, but the Tins did nothing about the chairs. Classes are fifty minutes long, and the first half of the day is composed of basic English, then maths & sciences combined, geography & history combined, and lastly Rules and Regulations which is just thirty minutes long. The last class is a real show-stopper. Repetitive information is spewed daily. The Tins want to make sure we understand the rules of the Compound, of our so-called haven in the Electric Gardens, and the consequences of not following the rules. As if the consequences aren't all around us. As if our friends disappearing to be Meshed isn't warning enough.

We have items called Electric Squares on each desk in front of us that are literally a part of the desk. We have to read and answer questions off the Squares. In history, I've learned things about the world before Quarantine, how humans used to pollute the oceans and use something called cars that caused carbon gases. The Tins don't seem to like those things called cars very much. Cars contributed to the destruction of the Earth, Tins say. I reckon it only bothers the Tins because they also need the Earth to survive. We have no cars in the world now, but I vaguely remember driving in one with Dad at the wheel and Mom in the back seat with me, and Delsin on her lap. He was coughing blood, and by the time we got to the Quarantine, lines were swerving up and down the roads in an attempt to get medicine needed to survive.

"How are we going to get in?!" Mom hit the back of Dad's seat. "They're packed!"

"I don't know," Dad said, his voice low. "Just stay calm, we'll figure this out."

"We should've gone when they told us to on the news weeks ago!" Mom half-yelled over the back seat.

"We agreed we couldn't trust the government!" Dad retorted.

"We could have all been checked, to rule out anything."

He swerved the car past a few lines and parked over a patch of grass at the back of the building marked Health Center. He bolted out of the car, and helped Mom out of her seat with Delsin still in her arms. I followed behind them as we skirted a corner, and Dad jammed a crowbar into the back door to pry it open. Mom and Dad rushed down the back hall, and I stayed close. By the time we got to a room with a nurse, dressed head to toe in plastic and even wearing a mask over her mouth and nose, Delsin had coughed so much blood that Mom's shirt was soaked.

"Help him!" Mom cried as she stretched her arms, with Delsin still in them, toward the nurse.

The nurse's thick brows rose, her color paled slightly, and she looked down at Delsin briefly before a muffled, syrupy-low voice came from her mouth. "I'm sorry, but it's too late. There is nothing we can do now."

Mom screamed, then cried, and then Dad took her into his chest, with Delsin cradled between the two of them. They stayed like that for a few long minutes, before they were escorted out by two guards. I followed them all the way back to the car, and by the time we returned home in silence, Delsin was no longer breathing. It all happened so fast. He was sick just the day before, and there was no warning. He was just three.

Classes are boring in the day, especially during Rules & Regulations, and everyone is always anxious to head out for lunch, but the afternoon classes are more fun. My first afternoon class is Horticulture where we have to take care of the plants inside of this mini-glasshouse by our desk, growing a few tomato plants. Last year it was cucumbers.

The mini-glasshouse has lights to keep the plants warm enough, but we have to be careful to not overheat them. Shayne05 killed a cucumber last year. We have to keep them spaced out enough so they each have room to grow, and each tomato plant needs its own propping stick, nutrients and enough water. Over watering can cause problems too, which is signified by browning leaves from a loss of nutrients. The desk next to mine and Shayne05 already has browning tomatoes. I hope they don't die—because I'd miss my desk neighbors.

Dominick567 pushes between me and Shayne05 tending to our tomato plants, as other teenagers sit in their seats reading from the Squares. "You're doing it wrong," he says.

"No, I'm not," Shayne05 defends, her voice cracking. To kill a plant in Horticultural class in your seventeenth year means a glitch, and some of us can't afford another one. Shayne05 already has one curfew-glitch for coming late to the Re-Learning Center a week ago, and Dominick567 doesn't care if a Tin hears his announcement. He doesn't follow social-protocol. Everyone knows you whisper to warn a human—not tell a Tin. Still, Dominick567 does, and always with a satisfied smirk.

That is something you learn inside the Compound: there are those who only look after themselves—and will sacrifice you to get on the side of the Tins—and then there are those who look after the whole, the whole of the human race. For them, it's humans against Tins, and they'd never turn a human in to get on the good side of the Tins.

Shayne05's hands shake as she sprays water from the bottle over the ripe red tomatoes. "They are fine. Bright-red and gorgeous!"

The class Tin clanks in step over to us. Shayne05 looks to me, her eyes frightened, and pushes her spectacles up over the nob on her nose. The Tin's beady-reds scan the tomato plants, "Satisfactory."

Then it walks away. We sigh, and Dominick567 turns from us with a snarl. He sits at his desk just a few away from ours.

"What's wrong with that kid?" Shayne05 glances at me, her chest huffing.

"Some say his parents died in front of him when he was just five, before the Tins came and took him."

She shakes her head. "Whatever, he's a wacko."

My next class is Coms & Nets. The room is located down the side hall, positioned more toward the middle, and only allowed for seventeen year olds—those about to enter the Electric Gardens. I've been in this class for two weeks. I used to have swimming.

The class Tin commands. "Open your Square to the downloaded file on Coms and Nets."

Like obedient servants, we all oblige. No one wants to rock the boat, not now, not when we're so close to getting the hell out of here. To what, we can't really be sure, but it's got to be better than this.

I _click_ the link for Coms and Nets and start reading a section called Skinware, which, I guess, is a part of the Nets, in Coms & Nets. The Tin reads aloud as we all follow. **"The chip will be placed under the skin of your left wrist prior to entering the Electric Gardens. Upon pressing the button, the Skinware will outline your body's form. Your skin will now be protected from all the diseases and heat conditions that ravaged your parents and grandparents. Never remove your Skinware while you are outside the Compound under any circumstance. Doing so may result in death."**

I look to my left where Sam901 used to sit before he was late for the third time to Coms and Nets class, and was carted off to be Meshed. Poor guy just couldn't get out of bed on time—even with the rustic-horn blowing. The girl to my right, named Sally2245, shared a building with him: Building A. He'd never had a luxury since being inside the Compound. I guess his bad habits finally caught up with him.

The Tin continues. **"Flip to the section, Skincom."**

I use my forefinger over the Square to highlight Skincom in the Table of Contents, which takes me directly to the section. Then, we all read along with the Tin.

" **Skincoms allow you to communicate with us, and us with you. Before exiting the Compound, all humans will be injected permanently with a Skincom under the skin of the right wrist."**

I look at my wrists, my fingers caressing my skin, skin the Tins say is no longer mine. This isn't a request, but an order.

" **Section, Electric Grids."**

I flip quickly back to the Table of Contents with one _click_ to find the next section which sounds like another type of Net.

" **Grids protect us from the wild beasts of the old world. Grids are our boundary around the Electric Gardens. If they should ever be breached, you are to report the breach immediately to 99099 who can be contacted using the Skincom that will be inserted under your right wrist."**

99099 is the tech-lead Tin in charge of everything electrical in the Compound. I've seen him ordering a few other Tins to fix a blown out fuse in Building C, once. I guess he heads the tech in the Electric Gardens too.

Most faces in class are riddled with confusion. We've seen Tins communicate to each other while not being in the same room, but we've never done it ourselves. Then, the Tin answers our unspoken question.

" **Just tap your right wrist twice, like this," it taps its own, "and speak the number you wish to communicate with—99099. Everything you say will be heard. Over the year, you will practice."**

I reluctantly raise my hand, with the class aiming all eyes at me. I even see the boy to my left shaking his head in a desperate no fashion. I clear my throat. The class Tin jerks its neck around, its eyes piercing me. "W-ill the Skincoms be trackable?"

The boy shakes his head again.

"I mean, in case something happens to us out there? So, you can find us."

The 'Coms and Nets' Tin just stares at me, like it's not programmed to answer questions, and hasn't quite yet figured out how to assess this inquiry in its newly founded consciousness. The silence hurts me more than any answer. At least with a reaction, I could gauge how much of the Tin's answer is bullshit. But with just a long stare, and heads shaking in class, I give up. I can't draw attention to myself, not now.

"Never mind."

I lower my head back to the Square on the desk and pretend to reread the section on Skincoms.
Pixels

WHEN CLASS IS OVER, I have to head farther down the same hall, that seems to be specifically aimed for seventeen year olds. Reaching the door marked Electric Strings, I enter and find my assigned seat toward the right side of the room. I plop in, and slide down my seat, promising myself to not ask any more questions. I don't want the Tins paying attention to me. 'Under the radar' has been my survival mantra since I was sixteen.

The classroom is filled with electric flowers that sit on top of desks against the walls, and they glow like colorful lights. Their beauty is almost hypnotic and draws all of us to them. The class Tin is quiet, but uses a hand gesture to welcome us to the desks to examine the electric flowers for ourselves. This class seems more hands-on and more nonchalant than all the others. The last two weeks we've been reading in our Square about the electric strings that are used to build the flowers, and today is our first chance at seeing them for real. It's exciting. I even don't mind no longer having sewing class.

We swarm around the flowers in what I imagine the bees do from my reading, and the Tin looks like it even half-smiles, weird. Its head nods a few times as I look at it and then back to the electric flowers, with my hand hanging over the wiry petals. I guess I'm allowed, so I let my fingers caress the wiry leaves.

From my reading, I've learned the flowers are made of electrical-chemical wiring, and they're programmed to respond just like the real flowers that we've all read about in our Squares. The wire petal and stem are rough, but the vibrant green draws me in; the colorful shiny-pink of the lily's petals are softer to touch, like the smooth rice milk I drink for dinner. When I blow on them, they even sail back a tad, giving the illusion of movement. I have to admit, I'm impressed.

The class Tin watches us, watches me, as we are all mesmerized by something so grand, something so alluring, something we've never seen before—even in our dreams. Most of us in the Compound, like me, can only remember fragments of our past, and the memories usually revolve around darker days, when the world was falling to pieces with floods, or hunger, and purple-black skies. Even in the old world, I never saw flowers this captivating.

Mom grew flowers in her backyard, and she even had a mango tree. She used to pluck the mangos off the tree, slice them up, and feed me the flesh right under the tree. I vaguely remember white daisies and yellow tulips in her yard by the tree, separated by a wooden divider. Monarch butterflies used to land on the flowers, and I would play with their delicate wings, using my pinky before they'd take off for a more suitable landing spot. Still, in all of that, I can't recall flowers that glowed like these.

The class Tin stands closer to me now, more so than they typically do. In fact, I feel as if my personal space is being violated. I glance backward, my neck straining, and see the Tin staring at my reactions to the electric flowers; more weird. I've never seen that happen before: a Tin curious about human reactions. They act more like our overlords. This Tin doesn't say a thing, just stares. It creeps me out. I half-smile uncomfortably, and then return to my private investigation of the wiry petals and leaves and forget all about it. I let the leaf fall between my thumb and forefinger and squeeze a few seconds to feel the underwire embedded. The wire even indents my skin when I finally release the leaf.

"Wow," I react aloud, and a few in my class turn to me.

"Yeah," Sarah606 returns. "Could you have ever imagined?"

"No, not ever."

My eyes veer back to the electric flowers, this time zeroing in on the one to my right: a blue orchid with a dark blue center, pink center tips, and three pale blue folding petals. Sure beats the plastic one from the luxury choices. I almost don't want class to end. I feel as if I've discovered something the rest of the Compound would die to know. Then, the Tin speaks.

" **What you have seen here today must remain a secret. No one, but those who are taking this class should know about the electric flowers."**

We all nod our heads.

It clears its throat, something else I've never seen a Tin do. **"To do so is punishable with two glitches."**

"We understand." The class responds as we've been taught to in Rules & Regulations. We have to say aloud that we understand the rule and the punishment, otherwise, we're held back by the Tin after class and have the obvious explained further. That happened to Lucy717 once. She was sixteen, and I was thirteen. I was still going through my rebellious stage when Lucy717 didn't respond aloud to the Tin when it asked her if she understood the rule about not bringing bio-chip treats into class. Lucy717 just stared with a blank expression, as she munched down on her cookies. She received a glitch with one day in the cells, and a lecture for about ten minutes on the rules regarding bio-chip treats—rules she should have read on the vending machine. I would have waited for her, but would have been late to my next class. Her tardiness was excused by the class Tin.

The other class Tin knew Lucy717 was detained because somehow Tins know what other Tins are doing. The Skincom I learned about earlier, is something like what all Tins share. They can communicate without even being in the same room. It really freaks me out sometimes. They use something called WiFiComs, which is part of the Coms and Nets curriculum. I vaguely remember something ringing in my house in Tallahassee, and Dad running to answer it. He'd lift what he called a cell and say, "Hello?" And then talk into it. I didn't understand much of it then, but now with the Tins communicating without even being in the same room, I imagine it is much the same thing—except they don't need a cell.

Once when I was fifteen, I was with Kyle53 behind Building C, and it was past curfew. A Tin located me, and so Kyle53 and I just took off down the alley and shuffled around the corner. The Tin followed us, and started speaking into its right wrist. Soon afterward, a team of Tins showed up and surrounded us. Another glitch that was too fun to regret.

I leave Electric Strings classroom, and head to the room at the end of the hall, just for seventeen year olds. I feel somewhat privileged to finally be passing through this corridor, a hall that I used to only watch from a distance. Once, I wandered into the hall, curious, when I was just seven. After an extra class in the Re-Learning Center, delaying my dinner, I learned rather quickly to avoid the hall until I turned seventeen.

The last class of my afternoon is Birthing. There are no teenage boys in my class, just girls. I'm not sure what it's all about, but I already miss volleyball. My fist to the ball used to spread a calm through me, that I could take with me to sleep. I would imagine the ball was a feline Tin. But now, I'm in this class, sitting facing the left wall and, fortunately, Shayne05 is with me. At least that lets me release a breath.

For the past two weeks we've been reading about our bodies on the Square, kind of like we did when we had what the Tins called our menstruation cycle. They provide pads for us when our cycle starts, but the first time it happens it's scary. I thought I was going to die, before I hit the red emergency button on the wall and a Tin brought in pads for me, told me to wash up, and then gave me a portable Square to read all about it that night. I wished Mom were there, and kept crying all night, more so than usual. To make matters worse, my mind kept wandering back to before the Compound, when Dad and I were standing over Mom who was lying on the sofa in the living room, where I used to watch The Lion King over and over again.

Mom coughed blood. "Just promise me you'll take her to the Round-Ups. The leaders are trying to organize us, help us."

Dad shook his head. "I...I don't know, Janet. I have a bad feeling about this."

"We didn't listen to the news about the Quarantine. Delsin died because we were too late. We can't let that happen to Lexi, too."

Dad stood silent, his hand squeeze tightened over Mom's palm as her cough worsened.

"Just promise me."

"Okay, okay, I promise." He said, 'sure' and leaned in to kiss Mom's cheek. I watched Mom fade away that night, and Dad broke down in tears.

I stare at the class Tin who holds a plastic baby. This is going to be good. The Tin places the baby between the legs of the plastic mother in front of the class. Then, the Tin commands us to click on the link video entitled Birth. Midway through, a couple of girls gush out in "ews" and the Tin watches with a stoic expression. After reading about our bodies and how the menstruation cycle stops when we're pregnant with a baby, we finally see a video of the birthing process. The Tin demonstrates with the plastic baby and plastic mother in front of the class for us all to see—and we'll never be able to wash out those images from our minds, well, that is unless we're Meshed.

The Tin orders us to click on the section Conception, which is before the section Pregnancy, another topic for another day. We'll have plenty of them in here before my seventeenth year is up. We read about how a birthing Tin will artificially inseminate us when we are deemed suitable to have children, and how that Tin will remain with us through our pregnancy and for the birth of the baby. This all leads to the question of what happens to the baby once they are born, but I don't dare ask. I can only guess that all infants are taken from their mothers at age three, which is the youngest age I've seen inside the Compound—no younger—and then they are raised in the Compound until eighteen.

Shayne05 looks at me from across the room and we silently giggle. This class is tedious and sometimes gross, and not anywhere near as fun as my first three afternoon classes—I might even trade it with another hour of Rules and Regulations, maybe. But as slow moving as this class is, as grossly informative, and as anxious as I am to leave, the rustic-horn blows to mark the end of the day, which means it's 4:30 p.m. and we have thirty minutes to get back to our respective buildings, wash-up, and head to the cafeteria for dinner at 5:00 p.m.

I couldn't want to leave Re-Learning more. I race past a few Tins guarding the outside of the Center and skate across the dusty concrete toward my building. I remember running with Kyle53 and Klynn03, as the three of us would race from the Re-Learning Center to Building C. We used to do that every Friday after classes. After Klynn03 was taken, we stopped. But I can still see her curly locks waving in the wind as we rushed to our building, her crooked smile as she turned her head to see me far behind. I was never as fast as she was.

All the human buildings are against the southern wall, one after the other vertically, and take up one-third of the Compound. The Re-Learning Center is at the northern wall on the opposite end. The cells, where Kyle53 is, are to the East. A few other buildings that humans are not allowed into are spaced out over the grounds as well, between the Western and Eastern sides, but I hardly notice them in passing.

When I get to Building C, I have to let the Tins guarding the entrance retina-scan me. **"Welcome back Lexi019. You are on time."**

I can always think of a few cuss words to spew at them as I enter, but I don't want to end up with a glitch in my seventeenth year. I'm doing so well. I enter the steel entrance doors, and they slam behind me to remind me that I'm not getting out of the building again until 8:00 a.m., when I have to head back to the Re-Learning Center.

I rush down the side hall leading to the rooms and enter mine with another retina-scan, but this time on a pad on the wall. I close the door behind me which _clicks_ locked, touch my breasts where Kyle53's note hides, and head to my private bathroom when I hear Ash _squeak_. I turn to find my bag of cookies laying over my cranberry rug, half-eaten. Ash is still nibbling, "Oh, jeesh." I half-laugh and am half-irritated, but what can I do now? That half is gone. I guess it's kinda fair. Ash is my friend and friends share, don't they?

I roll up the rest of the cookie bag and store it on the countertop in my private bathroom. Then, I take a shower. Dinner is at 5 p.m., and for not showing up, or being late, I can earn a glitch. Tins are nothing, if not time sensitive. Digital clocks are posted everywhere in the buildings and Re-Learning Center, so we all know exactly what time it is. We are also greeted with the rustic-horn blow to signify an important event like getting up, eating, going to class, leaving class and going to bed. Although I wouldn't really classify any of those important myself—but you can't argue with a Tin.

Grabbing the note out from under my shirt, I'm anxious to read another of Kyle's notes to me. There is something romantic about the whole thing. A secret shared between just us, words that stay sacred in the private space between us, unadulterated by Tin interference. It is amazing he can write them at all, but he manages to find rocks here and there outside the Compound that leave dark traces on the cartons, sometimes charcoal-like. His sister enjoys this forbidden activity as well, something they have in common, except she draws pictures, not words. I guess Tins forbid writing so that we can't plan an escape as effectively. Another way to make us submissive.

The sun is a radiant red today, like the emotions boiling inside my heart.

His words are also short, simple, but engulf me fully. He never writes my name or his. Safer that way. After reading, I fold up the note and slip it between the slits in the vent on my wall. The note drops on a pile of other notes I've collected over the years. I keep just the best ones.

After washing up in the private bathroom, I redress in my black uniform. Tins give us a new uniform to wear every month, taking the old uniforms for washing—but the uniforms are always the same color and design. It's a kinda cotton-leather fabric with pants that slip on rather easily, and a top that has two layers. Between our uniforms, the Tin's metal, and all the concrete, there is a lot of black and white going on inside the Compound, which gets me wondering if all Compounds handle things the exact same way.

I feel clean, and my cookies are secure inside my private bathroom. I say goodbye to Ash with a nod and smile, and then head down the hall toward Cafeteria 3. There are three cafeterias, as there are sections of Re-Learning, divided by age. My cafeteria is already boisterous with humans. A decibel scanner sits on the wall above the cafeteria, and if the room gets too loud, a beeping sound will reverberate throughout, warning everyone that Tins will enter and apprehend those making the ruckus. It's kept order so far.

I walk up to the Slider which is a long conveyor belt device against the far wall where trays of food slide down and back around. Looks like mashed potatoes with gravy, peas, a cup of nuts, an orange, and a slice of Flax bread. Then, I head to the drink dispenser and grab my bottle marked Lexi019 from behind a plastic wall, with a retina-scan, and fill the bottle with water running from the faucet there. Then, I grab my rationed carton of rice milk from behind the plastic wall.

Tables fill up fast, and after filling my bottle, I immediately head to where Lucy717, Klynn03, Kyle53, and I used to sit—the table closest to the hall exit. Unfortunately, all my friends are gone. Two have been Meshed, and Kyle53 is in the cells with two glitches already in his seventeenth year.

So, I sit alone. The mashed potatoes aren't bad, but the peas taste sour or something. So, instead I nibble on the nuts and finish my orange slices. I save my bread by hiding it between the two layers of my shirt. Ash might get hungry. We technically aren't supposed to eat in our rooms, unless it's a bio-chip treat, and if a Tin spots me taking food from the cafeteria, I could end earn a glitch, but I can't let Ash fend for himself. Hell, he's the only other living animal I've seen, besides humans.

As I slip my hand away from my shirt, the sneaky deed done, Dominick567 pops up behind me. "What you got there?"

"What have I got where?" I push my palms against the hardwood table and rise, standing just one inch taller than him.

"I saw you put something in your shirt."

I stare him down, not giving him an inch. "In my shirt? What is it, a bag or something?" I scoff a laugh.

"I saw you. I know I saw you do something! I'm going to report you." He gets loud, and some heads turn my way, along with a Mesh. When his hand finds its way on my waist, patting me down, I flinch, and then when his hand finds the lower end of my boob, he smirks.

"Dom, don't touch me, you creep!" I shout, alerting more heads in my direction, but now I want them. A male touching a female can be considered a glitch, if sexual in nature. Fluids are not to be exchanged, and any behavior encouraging this is warranted with a glitch. "He's groping me!" I shout, and a table of teenagers stands.

"Groper! Groper! Groper!" They shout, like a chant.

Above all things, we humans want to feel safe, and unwanted groping violates that safety. So, the crowd jumps in, honoring the social code between us, that is until the decibel scanner beeps and a handful of Tins show up in seconds.

The room is dead-silent, and the Tins walk up and down the tables, their scratchy movements alerting us all to their dangerous and all-pervading presence. Even Dominick567 steps back, and keeps his hands to himself. He finds his seat again at the adjacent table and tries to play it cool, playing with his mashed potatoes with his fork. His eyes don't look up, at me, or the Tins.

It reminds me of when Lucy717 put him in his place six years ago, when Kyle53 and I were just eleven. She was just fourteen, and after Dominick567 teased me for my uneven self-haircut, Lucy717 got in his face and whispered something in his ear. He trembled and sat back down at his own table every day after that—until she was taken away to be Meshed.

The Tins return to the front of the room, near the door from where they entered, and one Tin finally speaks. **"Resume dinner. A second noise violation will end eating privileges for tonight."**

When the Tins disappear behind the door, sighs pervade the room and the rest of dinner time is eaten in silence. I finish up my last orange slice, return my water bottle, and then head to the hall. Dominick567 knives me with his eyes, as his dark irises follow me out of the cafeteria, and then he waves goodbye with a smirk.

I try to ignore him. I don't feel like staying in the cafeteria talking for a few hours before bedtime, well 8:30 p.m. when we're required to return to our rooms and shower. Making it to my room, I let my eyes get scanned by the wall pad that greets me with a **Welcome back Lexi019** message on the pad, before I enter my room. After the door seals shut, I head to the shower and lean on the wall. I let my fingers scratch the concrete wall until my fingertips bleed. I'm not even sure why I do this—except it makes me feel better about...everything.

Then I head to my cot. Ash is gone, and so are his half of the cookie crumbs. It's 5:30 p.m. and the sun has not set yet; shards of sunlight slip through the glass wall beside my cot, and I can make out the glass wall on Building D. No one's in their rooms yet, likely still talking in their cafeterias.

In the morning, I'll greet Shayne05 as I always do—it's our ritual. She's just two rooms to the left of mine in Building D. At seven in the morning, before showers, there is enough light and a few minutes when we have time to say good morning to each other through glass walls. It's our little secret. Has been for two years now, ever since we had a swimming class together and bonded. She taught me how to hold my breath. Now, I teach her how to breathe in here.
Static

THE NIGHT IS LONG. I toss and turn with vague memories I can't quite remember, except for the impressions of desperation and desolation they leave behind—nightmares mainly. Dominick567's antics from dinner don't help. He's not the type to forget or forgive easily, and getting the cafeteria to chant _groper_ at him will certainly piss him off and leave him wanting to get even. Still, I have to stop obsessing over all the things that are wrong, with this Compound, this world, my life. I have to shut my eyes, close my ears, and ignore the incessant _clank_ from the feline Tins just outside my glass wall.

The glass walls might have been a way to make us—humans—feel powerless. A tease of freedom, freedom we'll never have; we can glance at the sky above us, but we'll never be able to walk under the sky on our own terms. Still, for me, the glass wall is more than that now—for me, it's a chance to see myself.

Early in the morning, before anyone else gets up, I greet my friend Shayne05 in our usual ritual, with my palms to the glass and a long smile on my face. She stands on her cot across from Building C, in her own Building D, in her own room, behind her own glass wall; and she presses her open palms over the confining glass. In that space between us, filled with hard outside air, dirty concrete grounds, and Tins, there are only the two of us. Sun rays sprinkle over her glass and through her silky auburn hair. She can't see how beautiful she is in those moments, because we have no mirrors in our rooms, in the buildings, or anywhere in the Compounds for that matter.

These few morning minutes, after Shayne05 smiles at me in return, and we release our palms from the glass walls, is all I have to even see my own reflection. It is brief, always too quick, but over time it has given me enough reflection to see the outline of my face; my robust cheeks and high cheekbones, heavy earlobes, full lips, and eyes almond-shaped like my dad. My dark hair, almost the color of the bark of the mango tree Mom and I would sit under, hangs over my shoulders and to my breasts. I can even see the olive-tinted irises of my eyes. And then the moment is gone, like it always is, too quickly, because the shadows of the feline Tins fill the space and block the sunlight.

My reflection makes me wonder why the Tins don't have any mirrors, if not for us—humans—then at least for themselves, but they don't. Never have. I have an incurable urge to see myself in a mirror, to examine my own features, to see my own movements as if I'm looking at myself from a distance. Yet, the Tins must have no desire. They are conscious—or at least able to distinguish their own plans and wishes—that much is clear, but they don't seem to care about seeing themselves. Are they not self-aware? Do they not even have a sense of themselves? Are they more like the fish that swim in the rivers, following the currents, but never able to see their own reflections in the shiny lures?

A few rooms down from Shayne05's room, in Building D, I briefly see a Tin, the kind that mimics human shape. I just have a moment to make out its head, of metal and wire and red eyes, and then my olive-greens meet its reds. It stares, in a way no Tin has done before, in an intrusive— _curious_ way. For too long. I'm not sure if I feel invaded or privileged. Then, the moment is gone. The Tin pulls its head back, its neck jars back around, and I lose my connection with it—or whatever that was. It's hard to tell the difference between Tins here.

In the world, before the Round-Ups, Tins were designated by uniforms given to them by their human owners; that's how we could tell them apart. That notion is so laughable now, so ironic, owning a Tin. The owned has become the owner, and without uniforms the Tins are almost undistinguishable. But there is something different—distinguishable—about that Tin, and as it walks away, with its back turned to me, I can barely make out the ID number on the nape of its neck until the feline Tin scrapes past my glass wall, allowing the sunlight through, and the light shines on the number: 07707.

Is he watching me?

Shayne05 disappears somewhere into her private bathroom, and I have to get going too. Being on time is of the utmost importance in the seventeenth year. _No glitches. No glitches_. After showering, I brush my hair in front of a wall, over a sink. No mirrors on the wall, so I have to brush by feeling—not sight. Tins take care of haircuts and hair and teeth brushings from zero to six years old, and then they leave you on your own. Lucy717 stepped up to help me when I was just six. She was ten. Tins aren't very good teachers, so Lucy717 taught me.

"Feel your head, your hair, with your fingers. Run your fingers through your hair and feel where you need to brush."

She helped me for a year before I wanted to do it on my own. Still, I'll always remember her as the mother I needed in here. I used to feel guilty about that, like I was replacing my own mom. I don't anymore.

I head out of my room and down the corridor into the cafeteria. I sigh, missing Kyle53, as I glance at the large caf filled with unfriendly faces, and a few Meshes. One more day and he's finally out of the cells. Can't wait, and I'm sure he can't either. No one likes staying in those over-heated, slop-serving hellholes, and seven days is seven days too long.

Making friends in the Compound is a bit like my rat friend, Ash, trying to find scraps of food in the vents—few and far between. It's not that they're not there to be found, but what you find through all the obstacles will end up being well-chewed leftovers. The Compound hardens us, because we had no parents to comfort us growing up, and no teachers to encourage us when we made a mistake. Our lives hang in the balance, with an entity we don't even trust or understand, which is devoid of emotions and of feeling any real physical pain.

Our days consist of schedules that when not maintained precisely, as a Tin would perform, are faced with harsh penalties; of re-learning everything we might have learned or have yet to learn, of following orders given to us by Tins, of forgetting our families and our previous lives (however brief they were), forgetting the freedom we had as children, in order to survive this hard existence.

I'm not sure I can do one more day without Kyle53 at my side in the cafeteria. One more day alone at the table, stared at by kids and Meshes; one more day to fend for myself; one more day without good conversation. Without Lucy717 and Klynn03, I have no one else. My entire family is already gone. But I do it. I have to, like we all do; whether we want to or not. I make my way to the Slider, where I find my tray of breakfast food: some kind of bagel, cup of fruit, and a fried banana. Then, I fill my water bottle and grab a carton of rice milk.

The tables are quiet as the first round of Tins walk the isles, Meshes are interspersed at tables to keep watch, before the Tins head toward the exit door at the other end of the caf. Tins don't hover over us in the cafeteria, like they do in every other room. As in our private quarters, the Tins leave us to ourselves in the caf—well, except for the handful of Meshes. We haven't yet figured out if it's because they have more important work to tend to on the grounds, or if it's because of some deeper psychological reason the Tins have learned about us, knowing that if they don't give humans at least an ounce of space, that we'll pop—go mad—and then all they'll have left on their hands will be thousands of humans gone completely crazy. Giving humans this privacy, is a small price to pay for our sane obedience.

I choose to sit toward the back where I usually sit, the table closest to the rooms. Tonya479 used to sit across from my table, all jubilant and full of stories when she ate. She even used to wear glasses, but now she's Meshed which allows her see without glasses, and she sits with another Mesh at a table near the Slider. They just stare into space, but I'm sure they keep tabs on us and report misbehavior.

Dominick567 is a few tables away, with his usual gang: a pimple-faced thirteen year old with boyish features, who's picked on a lot; a blonde my age, with a scar from ear to chin that occurred the last time she tried to escape a year ago; and the Pixie twins. They were dubbed pixies at age ten, six years ago, when their blond hair started turning white; coupled with blue-turquoise eyes, they reminded us of the fairytales we used to read in school before the Round-Ups.

When I bite into the fried banana, the pimple-faced kid slides past my table, his thin hand slipping over the top as he moves, his hushed-voice sharp on my ears. "Better keep your eyes open, Lex. Dom will get you for your humiliation." It's hard to tell if the pimply kid means this as a warning, or a threat.

My eyes follow him until he leaves my table at the other end, and then I ignore the world around me, with a focus on my tray in front of me. I hear, in the backdrop of the caf, people asking others if they've been glitched this month. A common question, usually what's on everyone's mind. Who's been glitched, who hasn't, and who will be Meshed next. Classes are soon, and I have to scarf this breakfast down like a good Compound girl so I can concentrate on my Re-Learning. I'll give the Tins no reason to Mesh me.

Morning classes are a bore, as always, with a reiteration in Geography & History on how our parents and grandparents destroyed the Earth—the Earth Tins need to survive—and then a repeat of rules in Rules & Regulations. Needless to say, when lunch time hits, I can't wait to vacate the Center and see Kyle53 again.

I race across the concrete grounds, and aim for the cells. My feet shuffle underneath me in a rush and it takes five minutes at full speed to finally arrive at the cells, passing a set of Tins who call out to me. **"Lexi019, good afternoon."**

"Right." I respond short. I don't have long before I have to race back to the Center, and I should leave early from the cells to make classes on time.

I'm almost out of breath when I tap the cell wall. "Kyle!"

"Lex?! You there?"

"Yeah," I huff a few times, "just have ten minutes."

"As usual."

"You'll be out tomorrow, just hang in there."

I hear him scuff his uniform shoe over the concrete floor. "You got the apple?"

"Yep," I glance left and then right, "here." I toss the usual half an apple over the top and Kyle catches the fruit from me.

"Thanks." _Crunch._

I sigh, "Been missing you. Dom's been giving me evil looks at breakfast. He creeps me out."

"He creeps us all out. Don't worry, Lex. I got your back. Tomorrow, things will be back to normal."

"I hope so."

I think of that word, _normal._ I remember when normal for me used to be picked up by Mom from preschool, showered, fed a home-cooked meal, sat in front of the television, and then tucked into a nice warm bed. I remember when normal used to mean weekends at the park, by the lake near our house.

My eyes glance to the digital clock on the cell wall. "Shit, Kyle. It is time. I gotta go."

"Got it," he sighs, and I just want to crawl over that hard wall and hug him.

"You'll be out tomorrow. Just keep reminding yourself of that."

"Take care, Lexi."

"You take care, too."

I race back across the concrete grounds at full speed, and to the Re-Learning Center. Horticulture class is first. Shayne05 and I manage to pass another day with a successful tomato plant. Surprisingly, Dominick567 hasn't bothered me, or even bothered looking at me in class, but I guess he wouldn't. He's been preoccupied trying to get the brown leaf on his tomato plant to turn green. He looks so pathetic as he struggles over his plant, the class Tin watching him closely. I'd feel sorry for him, if he wasn't such a prick.

I make it to my next class, Coms and Nets. The class Tin orders us to open our Squares to the section Horticulture in the Electric Gardens. With one quick click in the Table of Contents, I'm there. My eyes glue to the words in front of me as the Tin reads the information out loud.

" **In the Electric Gardens, you will be assigned a Net Station to live, and inside your Net Station you will have to tend to your very own plants that grow in a greenhouse."**

My eyes glance up, my mind churning with that notion... _our own Net Stations?_ What's that? The next best thing to the Compound?

The Tin continues. **"You will be required to grow tomatoes, potatoes, strawberries, blueberries, wheat, chia and flax seeds, and so forth."**

Oh God, does that mean we'll be glitched if we let the plants die there?

Then, someone from the back row, in a rough voice, asks what's on my mind—what's on all of our minds. "In the Electric Gardens, will we be glitched if our plant dies?" Most eyes turn on him. His squished face, wrinkled with concern, turns worse at the Tins answer.

" **There will be a glitch system you will be required to follow, but the system will not be the same one you are accustomed to in the Compound."**

I knew the Tins wouldn't let us get away from our glitches. Never do.

After Coms and Nets, I head to my Electric Strings class. After I enter, I spy a vast array of electric flowers displayed over the desks as yesterday, and even more of them over the class desk in front. I spot my seat and hustle to sit down, excited. If the Electric Gardens are anything like these flowers, maybe the Net Station won't be so bad?

The class Tin announces that we're allowed to approach the electric flowers as we did yesterday, and are encouraged to touch them and examine them as needed to better understand and appreciate them. On the word _appreciate_ , I'm taken aback. Since when does a Tin appreciate anything? They move in clunks, follow orders, analyze and determine probabilities. Sure, they exhibit forms of consciousness, but they don't have feelings about anything. If they did, we certainly wouldn't be inside this concrete prison called a Compound.

I get up from my desk and head to the flowers on the front desk where the class Tin stands. I awkwardly half-smile at it, before letting my fingertips fall over the wiry petals of the electric flowers. The surreal feeling still amazes me. I never thought I'd be able to touch a flower again in my life. Either because I'd die in the Compound, or, upon getting out, come to see that the world as I knew it is gone.

The Tin stares at me, its stare intrusive like all Tins, but then I see something in its eye, something that grabs me: that same spark of curiosity. So, I stare at it in return, curious myself. What is it doing? Moments later, with my hand still on the assignment, I break my fix on the Tin, and refocus back on the wiry petals in hand. My fingertips caress the impossible existing flower, and then the Tin turns away from me, the nape of its neck in full view now, ID number: 07707.

My mind reels with what this Tin wants from me. I saw it watching me this morning, and who knows how many other times I didn't catch it? It's not like the other Tins. There is an undefinable quality this Tin possesses—with its pauses and stares, descriptions and reactions, and also something oddly...familiar. I try to put this all into the recesses of my mind, because my day is not over and I have to focus on my goal. _No glitches. No glitches._ The rustic-horn blows and I have to get to my next class on time.

Birthing class speeds by in a blur of more birthing videos on our Square, and giggles. I eye Shayne05 toward the end, to let her know I want to talk. We've learned to keep our intentions quiet, without words. Eye signals work best. The Tins don't seem to understand them very well—if at all.

Outside the Re-Learning Center, Shayne05 nudges up behind me. "You wanted to talk?"

"You're so good at reading me."

"Have to be, in here, or won't last long." Red locks dangle over her shoulders.

We walk in a bustle further away from the Re-Learning Center and toward Building C/D. Tins stand at most buildings, watching everyone—watching us. Then in the middle of our quickened walk, a _bang_ reverberates nearby, pounding in my eardrum. All heads turn to the sound at a non-designated building. The blonde from Dominick567's gang is standing opposite a snarling feline Tin, with some kind of weapon. I think it's called a gun. She fires again, hitting the feline Tin in the chest as it rises to attack. Part of the feline's face and underbelly tear off and scatter over the ground, revealing wires. An eerie _meow_ resonates across the air, followed by a metallic _hissss_ , before the feline Tin leaps on top of the blonde girl, pounding her body to the ground with all four metal paws, and ripping her neck open to shreds.

I can only stare, hypnotized, as blood from her neck—the color of my class tomatoes—leaks out of her, soaking the concrete. The feline Tin stands on top of her frail, torn body, so emotionless and committed to its orders to kill any human who attempts to kill a Tin: rule number 1. It doesn't show remorse, compassion, or even acknowledge a sense that what it did is detrimental to all watching. It's a Tin, cold metal.

"Oh, my God," Shayne05 turns her head into my chest, her voice cracking and eyes swelling behind her glasses. "Oh, my God, was that?"

"Yeah, that was Dom's friend, Tina433. I've overheard them talking about escape."

Shayne05 shakes her head. "Another group aims for the impossible. Why do they always think they can get out?" Shayne05's tears fall as she shakes uncontrollably in a shiver in my arms.

"She's dead." My eyes glance over her. "Another attempted escapee, dead."

Shayne05 cries. "Oh, God, I've only seen that few other times in Building D. I remember a ten-year-old boy used his lunch fork to stab a Tin, and they shot him point-blank in the forehead." She shakes harder. "Just shot a defenseless kid."

Most escapees are not mauled down by feline Tins, because they don't try to kill the Tins, they just try to get beyond the Compound wall. A few glitches and hard time in the cell is the usual punishment. We're all curious about what is beyond these four walls and at times we have all felt claustrophobic. Whispers about a group attempting escape is heard a few times a year. No one has yet to succeed.

I remember when a band of blonds calling themselves The Haze decided to break out of the Compound. I was just ten. I watched them get so close to the wall—when I still had hope in my heart that they'd really make it—before the Tins knocked them down one by one. The last member even made it halfway up the wall on a rope, but Tins always catch these hopefuls. The next day, Tins ransacked all Compound rooms for anything that could be used to scale walls. I lost my knitting string that day—the string from the frayed sheet on my cot.

I hold Shayne05's head in my chest, rubbing her soft hair, while I stare at Tina433's dead body, unable to take my eyes off the gruesome scene even though I want to look away. More Tins, the kind that mimic humans, surround the feline Tin still on top of Tina433, until the feline registers the attacker's death with a verbal, **"Terminated,"** and heads toward the buildings it will guard at night. Then, the other Tins drag Tina433's body over the ground, lifting her after a few feet of scraping. One tosses her limp form over its shoulders and another picks up her gun.

An alarm blares across the Compound. _Shit._ We'll be locked inside our rooms the rest of the day now, just like the two other times in my building when this happened. Once, a seventeen-year-old guy became the talk of the Compound when he took a pair of scissors as a weapon to a Tin's chest. It was a shocker, especially since he was known for not glitching. He was shot in front of us all in the lunch area, in the chest. His few last breaths he spent staring across the lunchroom at me in the far corner. I was just ten. The metal scissors that used to be strung on the walls in the bathrooms for hair cutting purposes were then all removed and replaced by plastic scissors. Five years later, a sixteen year old guy used his filled water bottle to pour water on a Tin in hopes of it malfunctioning. Though, the plan didn't work, it was still seen as an act of aggression toward the Tins, and the guy was immediately escorted to be Meshed.

But I've never seen a gun used against a Tin. How did Tina433 even manage to get into the weapons room? Kyle53 discovered a weapons room a year ago in Building C. He was wandering the building after dinner, and passed into an unauthorized zone. If he had been caught, he would have spent a week in the cells. He saw a room labelled Concealment and got curious. Damn curiosity again. Dropping to the floor, he peeked underneath the locked door and saw a cabinet of things he called guns. His determination drew him there a year later, committed to taking one of the guns out of the Concealment Room, but he was caught this time.

Shayne05 is pulled off my chest by a Tin, who escorts her toward Building D. I'm directed to Building C. They don't care that she needs to cry. Inside, we have to head straight to our rooms and the doors are locked from the outside, automatically. I won't have a well-balanced dinner tonight. Slop will slide through a slot on the bottom of the door, and then I will have to shower and go to sleep. Even Ash has kept his distance.
Circuits

THE NEXT MORNING, I get up excitedly, and hold my open palms to the glass wall where I look at Shayne05. We smile, and I don't notice Tin 07707. I start my day showering quickly to get to the cafeteria early. So, I hurry out my room door, and scurry over the hard hall floors leading into the boisterous caf. My table is empty—except for Kyle53. Finally.

"Kyle!" I shout as I approach.

His head turns, his blue eyes spy me almost immediately, even in the mix of other people. "Lexi!" He stands, pushing his chair out in one rubbing movement.

I rush up to him and throw my arms around his neck. "Kyle!" I squeeze, and he squeezes harder. "Been a long time. Feels like forever."

"I know, for me too." Kyle53 brushes the corner of his mouth covered in orange flesh with the back of his hand. "I could hardly sleep, knowing I'd have a proper meal this morning."

Nothing like being food-deprived for a week for one to conform to the notion that the Tins feed us decent meals. "Dig in." I smile long and then head up to the Slider to take my breakfast tray. Oranges, flax toast, slices of tomato, some kind of rice-cheese, and grits. Then, I grab my water bottle and carton of rice milk.

I join Kyle53 at our table, sitting next to him, and set my tray down before me. Kyle53 stares across at the empty seat where his sister used to sit. I can't believe she's gone either, and that makes what I have to say even more necessary. I'm so pissed at Kyle53 for attempting to steal a weapon, more so for getting caught. "You heard the gun shot yesterday, right?"

He nods, his head low and directed at his tray. He can't look me in the eyes.

"I saw her bounced, like a cat to a rat. The Tin devoured her!" My breath is heavy and I feel my chest rising with each huff.

"Who was she?"

"That blonde Dom hangs with."

Kyle53 shakes his head, "Stupid girl."

"That stupid girl could have been you!" I retort. "If you had made it into the Concealment Room, you would have gotten hold of a weapon, and would have been shot." I stare at Kyle53's forehead, the only part he'll show me. "Look at me."

He glances up, barely catching my eyes.

"I'm grateful the Tin caught you." My head shakes. "Or there would have been two deaths this week."

There are no funerals, or remembrances for our dead. I recall going to visit grandma's grave with my parents and younger brother, when I was just two and a half. The memory of standing over her gravestone with flowers is very hazy. I can see my torn sneakers clearly, and then the name I couldn't read engraved on the stone. The memory changes every so often though, and sometimes I see my dad's face, the tears soaking his cheeks, and my sneakers are no longer in view.

Kyle53 looks up and forces a half-smile. "I'm sorry, Lex." He reaches his hand over to me and I clasp it. "But this place is driving me nuts."

"Just hang on, one more year. We're almost out of this dump."

"To where exactly?"

"I don't know." I say with a tad of shame.

Suddenly, I feel an object hit my head from behind before an orange bobs across my table. Spinning my head around with Kyle53, we spy Dominick567 a few tables away, laughing. His bitter eyes are fixed on me, like he has a score to settle, and I fume.

Kyle53 grabs my wrist as I'm about to jet up and dart to Dominick567's table. "Don't, he wants to start a fight. Don't let him get you glitched." Kyle53's expression is so serious, so sincere.

I grit my teeth. "Fine." I resettle beside him.

"Coward," I hear Dominick567's scratchy voice in the air behind me, enough to make many heads turn to him.

I imagine he hates himself for being a coward when his parents died, for not being able to fight the Tins and help his family, for being too weak to do anything as he watched them killed. I've heard the circulating stories inside the Compound. Everyone brings their own story. Dominick567's parents were Resistors—a growing movement of humans who didn't trust the Tins even before the Round-Ups. I was taken in the early Round-Ups, when everyone still believed the Tins were sent by our government to help us, but Dominick567's family didn't go. By the middle of the year, those remaining were labelled Resistors by the Tins. Some of us just thought our government came up with that title to get all of us humans to safety. Others started finally believing that the Tins were conscious themselves, and it was then the humans started doing anything to keep out of the Compounds. Things got really violent then.

I feel Dominick567's breath on the back of my neck. "I said, coward."

All heads turn to me and Dominick567. Kyle53 grabs my wrist again to keep me steady, seconds later standing himself. Getting into Dominick567's face, Kyle53 lays his words down slow and firm. "Turn around and go back to your table or we will have a problem."

With my head turned around, from the corner of my eye, I can see the Pixie twins standing at their table, eyes glued to us. I'm sure Dominick567 is feeling all kinds of hurt after his friend's death, and having been humiliated by me the other day with a chant calling him a groper doesn't help. The two of them just stand there, staring at each other, neither blinking very much, as if the first to turn will be the weakest, and Dominick567 won't let that happen to himself again.

"You two cowards are going down, and I can't imagine you have any more glitches to spare." He smirks at Kyle53.

Kyle53 half-laughs. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah," Dominick567 throws a punch, hitting Kyle53 in the stomach, and my best friend lets out a groan as his body pushes backward, stumbling over the top of the table. Dominick567 half-laughs again, and then looks to me. I stand.

By this time, most of the lunchroom is standing, instead of sitting, and staring at us. When Dominick567's fist comes flying at me I'm about to block his hit with the back of my arm, but instead Dominick567's hand stops midair, and then I notice the clasp of metal around his wrist. I glance upward and I see a Tin. _Shit._ I didn't have anything to do with this, didn't start this. I better not be glitched!

The Tin pulls Dominick567's hand back to his side with ease, and the grimace on his face is priceless, as his defeated eyes fall off me and turn to the Tin. "She started it!" he defends.

The Tin stares at him, blood-red eyes fixed on his shaking form. The red eyes scan over Dominick567's retinas and in a micro-second have upgraded his status. "You have earned a glitch."

"No, no!" Dominick567 yells, his wrist finally released, and his step returns him back to his table. The Tin looks briefly at me, a familiar stare, and turns to walk away, the nape of his neck in full view, ID number: 07707.

It's him. Another Tin walks through the back doors and up to Tin 07707. "You are out of protocol, please return to your own Net."

After afternoon classes, Kyle53 and I meet up at the front doors of the Re-Learning Center with Shayne05. We'll stretch the twenty minutes as long as we can, before returning.

"I can't believe what Dom did." Shayne05 reacts to the story we tell her.

"I know, what a whack," Kyle53 remarks.

Shayne05 looks at me, her black uniform highlighting her gorgeous hair. "At least he'll stay away from you now, right Lexi?"

"I'm more concerned about this Tin that helped me."

"Be glad for it. We don't get Tins on our side very often," Kyle53 responds, taking a big bite of his apple, his long teeth in clear view.

I look out into the distance, to the Tins walking the grounds, to the feline Tins squatting in front of the buildings. "I know. It just seems so odd."

"What's odd about it?" Shayne05 questions, "The Tin gave the person who deserved to be punished a glitch."

"Since when does that happen? It should have glitched us both; all three of us. Kyle could have been Meshed!" My hands shake as I put my apple to my lips, where it lingers with that thought.

Kyle53 rakes fingers through his dark hair. "But I wasn't."

"You shouldn't have stepped in like that. I can handle myself." I shake my head, angry. "Besides, I can afford to be glitched, you can't!"

"Calm down, Lexi," Shayne05 says, her hand on my shoulder. "It is over now."

"And I didn't tell you guys everything."

Kyle53's curious eyes flick wide on me. "Everything?"

I swallow hard and then reply. "That Tin, the one who helped me, it's the Class Tin for Electric Strings."

Shayne05 half-smiles, doubtful. "Are you sure? How can you be sure? They all look the same."

Kyle53 reasons, "Yeah, class Tins don't go into the buildings, anyway."

"Its ID number is 07707. I've been paying attention."

"Well, kudos to you," Shayne05 replies surprised.

I continue. "Tin 07707 has been watching me in the mornings, when I get up." I look at both Shayne05 and Kyle53 directly. "Through the glass wall."

"You mean when we say good morning to each other? Are we going to get into trouble?" Shayne05's lips twist and her forehead wrinkles.

I shake my head. "No, it...it isn't trying to get me into trouble. It seems almost...,"

"Almost what?" Kyle53 asks, scratching his temple.

"Curious."

Kyle53 laughs, so honest and loud. "What do you mean, curious? These things aren't curious, especially about us. They want to confine us, control us. That's about it."

I reply, curious myself. "But don't you ever wonder why? I mean for what purpose? They could easily kill us all—like they have surely done to our," I choke up a tad, "parents."

Brushing her long hair with her fingers, Shayne05 offers her point of view. "I figured they wanted to eventually turn us all into Meshes. Less resource metal on their part, than making a bunch more Tins."

"Then why the Re-Learning? Why the glitch system?" I return. "And what the hell are the Electric Gardens we keep hearing about?"

A vine breaks between Kyle53's brows, and he rubs his forefinger over his lips. "Lexi's right. If they wanted that, they would have Meshed us all from the beginning."

"To hell if I know." Shayne05 shrugs her shoulders and the digital clock on the wall of the Re-Learning Center shows us all that it is time to go.

"I'll see you later?" I press Kyle53 as we walk through our center's doors. "At my room, after dinner?"

"Sure."

Rooms are allowed to be occupied by friends only twice a week and only during the hours between 5:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Tins even have a limit to the number of friends: two. Heat sensors in our rooms detect how many bodies are in each room, except the showers. If more bodies are registered than three in any given room, or for more than two days a week, then you will receive a glitch by the Watcher Tins, Tins specifically designed to keep watch over the Compound.

When I go missing from my room, in the vents, it's always between 6:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., after the sun has gone down—so that no one can see inside my room, and always on one of the days I don't spend with Kyle53. I could be in the bathroom, in the lunchroom chatting, walking the halls, or visiting a friend; that three hour time period is all I have to roam the vents. Yet, if a Watcher Tin checks my room on its scanner, it'll find that I never left the room. If I'm caught, I'm sure to get two glitches and one week in the cells; so, I'm very careful not to do what I call Venting, but one day a week.

After Coms and Nets class, I pay closer attention to Tin 07707 in Electric Strings. I watch it, study it, for any sign that it's not like the other Tins, for a sign that it means to really _help_ me. I give up when I get nothing in return. I imagine after it broke protocol by being in the lunchroom, even it's under closer scrutiny by the Watcher Tins. Then, again, maybe I'm reading too much into this 07707.

Dinner is surprisingly quiet. I don't hear from Dominick567 in retaliation, and I hope that Tin 07707 scared him into leaving me alone. Kyle53 and I eat potatoes, broccoli, wild rice, a slice of flax bread, and even a few cookies from my bio-chip; I just look at Kyle53 with a contented expression as he munches down on food he's been deprived of for the past week.

"It's so good to have cookies again." Kyle53 exclaims.

"Yeah, we all miss cookies. My only memory of cookies is of Mom baking chocolate chips with me in the kitchen when I was three. I got to lick the bowl."

"Nice."

After eating, I leave the table and return the tray to the Slider. "See you at 6:30?"

"Yep, just give me some time to get a few things in order, and then I'll head over to you."

I smile in a nod, and return to my room to let the wall pad scan my retinas before entry. Welcome back Lexi019 shows up on the pad.

"Yeah, Yeah," I hustle into my room and plop onto the cot, waiting for Kyle53. Ash must've known I ate cookies somehow, because the rat is on his hind legs, begging on the rug for more food. I swear he must have some mystic powers.

I lay on my cot, and let myself even fall asleep for a bit before I hear a knock at my door. I roll over and walk, half-awake, to the entry while wiping early, crusty sleep from my eyes. I let the wall pad scan my retinas to open the door. Exiting so soon, Lexi019? The pad texts me on the wall. I have to click the reason on the pad. I have five choices: enter; exit; let in a friend; talk to a friend; let out a friend; let in a Tin. There are no other authorized reasons. The Tins like to scan and track everything.

I click, let in a friend. Kyle53 has to let the wall pad scan his retinas before the door will open. If I click: exit, and allow Kyle53 in without letting the wall pad scan his entry, the Tins will glitch us both. Still, this kind of thing happens, especially in the years before your seventeenth, but I'm not taking that chance. The only chance I take is Venting, because I have to find a way out of here before I turn eighteen and am sent to the Electric Gardens. I have to see it for myself, know what I'm being shipped off to. I can't just sit around and let the Tins control my life, or take anymore away from me.

After the wall pad scans Kyle53's retinas, my door clicks open, and he walks in, "Hey."

"Hey," I say in return. "Have a seat." I wave my hand over my cot. "It's not much, but at least it is private."

"As private as heat signatures allow." Kyle53 raises one brow and half-smiles at my attempt at a joke.

He plops onto the cot, where I usually sit, and looks around my room at the walls, rug, bathroom door. Only my retina scan will open the bath door, as with the entry. I let my eyes hang on him too long, longer than I should. Sometimes, I just want to forget all of our rules and jump on top of him, our bodies colliding in some playful attempt at something I've seen on TV once, by accident, long ago, but the heat signatures will show the Tins that we are close—too close. We'll be glitched for sure.

He leans back, his head hitting the dark glass wall—dark from the sun setting—and lets out a long breath. "God, what I wouldn't give to get out of here."

His eyes fall to my rug, mine dart to the vent near the floor of the bed, and I notice it's partially opened, the left corner just hanging there. I want to tell him; I'm sure he'd join me, but that's just it—I can't let him. He's already got two glitches. One more and he'll be Meshed, and I can't risk that, won't be responsible for that happening to him. I couldn't live with myself.

"Your rug is fluffy, fluffier than mine."

"That's just 'cause your rug is older." Kyle53 got his rug from his sister, Klynn03, after she earned a luxury when she was just ten. She didn't keep it for herself, said something about him needing it more than her. She adjusted better than him, even though he is older.

"Agh," Kyle53 shuffles his feet over the concrete floor. "My classes are so boring, except for Coms & Nets, and Electric Strings."

"Yeah," We aren't supposed to talk about our classes to other people. Every lesson learned is supposed to stay secret just for the class. I think the Tins like it that way, so they can keep better control on how much everyone knows. Just the threat of a glitch is enough to keep us following rules. Still, they don't monitor every word 24-7, even with listening coms spread throughout the buildings and rooms, and Kyle53 and I find ourselves talking about more than we should, too often.

"Yeah, I know what you mean. I have Birthing for my eighth class, what do you have?"

"Birthing?" His brows quirk in question. "Agh, I don't even want to talk about what I have." He looks down at his legs, between his legs. "It's disgusting."

"Come on. I tell you everything." My eyes flit to the vents again—at my lie.

"It's called Insemination Ejaculation class."

"What?" My face twists, I'm sure like his own, at the foreign name.

Kyle53 shakes his head. "I can't say, it's too gross."

I stare at him, unrelentingly.

"The Tins, they make us." He looks down at his legs again. "You know."

He's right, I do know. When we were fourteen, we kissed by the cells and I learned all kinds of things about what happens to boys when they really like you. Fortunately, we weren't caught that time.

"Ew, the Tins make you?!"

"They said it is for future offspring."

I sigh. "That must be the first step before they put the sperm into _us_."

"They're going to what?"

"Yeah, they said we'll be...the term was, inseminated, like your class, so that we could give birth to new humans."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

Kyle53 scratches his head. "And you don't even know whose sperm it is?"

"Probably not, I don't know."

"And what happens to all the babies?" His face twists.

"That's what I wondered. Sent to the Compounds, I imagine."

We sit in silence for a few moments, before Kyle53's gaze wanders to the vents. He stands up to examine the opened corner. "What's this?" He squats and says in a low volume.

"Nothing," I get defensive, my lips purse.

He walks to me. "I know that tone. It's not nothing. What have you been doing?" He whispers in case Tins are listening.

"I..."
Wires

"COME ON, LEXI, SPILL it." He leans into my ear.

I say in a hushed voice. "I...I've just been trying to get that vent to stay on the wall."

He rolls his eyes, his nose touching mine. He practically lips his words, his voice is so low. "No way, the vents are on tight, secured by Tins. They'd never leave them like that. You did that."

I can almost touch his lips, and before we're scanned for our body heat being too close, I pull away, but keep my volume low. "It's nothing, Kyle. Leave it."

He grins, his lips still in lip-sync mode. "You're crawling through them, aren't you?"

"I..."

"You are." His eyes grow big on me.

I'm quiet, and take another step back.

He steps into my space, not letting me get away so easily, his lips to my ear. "You know how badly I want to get out of here, and you're doing it right under their noses."

A long pause sits between us.

"Show me." I pull away, as he grabs my wrist. "Show me."

I say more loudly. "You're one glitch away from being Meshed, Kyle. It's not worth it."

His voice rises. "Why don't you let me decide what's worth it or not; it's my life."

Yanking my wrist away from him, I reply. "Fine, it's your life."

The digital clock on the wall says 7:30 p.m. We don't have long.

"Wait, let me 'vacate' your room, first." He says vacate with a wink.

"If the Tins figure this out..."

Kyle53 heads to the bath door. "They won't. Not if we're fast. Besides, a random check on your room by a Watcher will show we are supposed to be here and we won't be."

"Can't risk that."

"Yeah."

I can't believe Kyle53 is making me do this, do this to him. I click: let out a friend, when one is not leaving. That is a glitch. Being found in the vents is two glitches. Both of us could end up a Mesh after this. I usually just hit the vents without telling the door I'm leaving to save myself from an extra glitch just in case, but then I could be in my bathroom. Kyle53 could not, that would be another glitch.

I stare at him hard. He taps the bath door, so I open it for him with a wall scan of my retinas; then, hold open the door. He jumps into my cold shower, another glitch for both of us, and hops out all wet. His uniform is soaked. "They won't see me in your room now or when I get back," he whispers.

I shake my head at my floor getting all wet as he tramples over it and my rug, and then squats by the vent. I prop open the bath door with the end of my rug. He pulls the vent off and squeezes his shoulders inward so he can fit. The entryway is snug. Once he slides in all the way, I glance back to the bath door. At least the Tins will think I'm showering.

"You coming?" he whispers again.

I roll my eyes in a huff. What is he getting me into, this time? I crawl in after him, and when my body is through the first segment, there is finally room to turn around. I use the opportunity to put the vent back into place, somewhat. Just in case. Then, I turn back around and follow behind Kyle53.

"You know, I really should be leading this vent expedition. I'm the one familiar."

Kyle53 grins, his head turns back for me, part of the way. "It's no problem, just tap on my left foot if you want me to head left, right foot for right."

"Fine."

I follow behind Kyle53, holding my tongue, because this is my thing. I should be the one in front. Halfway through the third segment, I tap his right foot. At the fork in the vents, Kyle53 follows my instruction and heads right.

"Where we going?"

"You'll see." I grunt and we head through three more segments. When we reach the fourth segment, I tap his left foot. After passing two more segments, on the left side, I grab both of Kyle53's legs and stop him. "We're here."

"Where?"

"The Concealment Room," I answer.

He halfway turns his head, the tight squeeze pressing over him. "Really?"

I lift the panel partially underneath me, where the slot ends and a new one begins. "Check it out."

I see between Kyle53's legs, and watch him lift the panel in front of him. He peeks, and sees what I see now, a room filled with cabinets of weapons. I don't know what they all are called, but my eyes are attracted to the black mechanical crossbow with a metal arrow on the corner shelf.

"Wow." He can't help himself. He leans closer to the slot between the panels and sticks his head partially inside the room.

"Be careful!"

"No alarm yet, that's good."

I ignore him, and stare at the mechanical crossbow. Somehow I'm going to have to get my hands on that one. I've even dreamed about it, after the first time I saw it weeks ago. I was standing in a decrepit forest, with the night sky all around and thick, hot air choking me, as I fired the crossbow at Tins and felines coming for me.

Then Kyle53 does the unthinkable. He pushes one panel over the other, giving himself enough space to slip through the vent, and lowers himself onto the counter top below him. "What the hell are you doing?!" I yell in a hush at him.

He glances upward at me, in a diagonal. "I'm just checking it out."

"Get back here." I grow nervous. If a Tin walks through the door, we're done for.

He lays his hand over a silver gun. "Pistol."

"Whatever, don't take anything. Tins will notice!" I hush-yell again.

Then I hear a noise, a _clank_ really. "Something is coming. Get out of there!" I say maybe too loud, and Kyle53 must have heard it too. He pulls himself up through the vents, and lies on his stomach where he once sat. Just as he slides the panel back into place, the door opens to the Concealment Room.

As the Tin walks into the room, I hold my breath. I feel like I literally can't breathe, so that helps. The Tin scans the room, its head turning left and right, and then places a gun into the cabinet with all the others. I remember that gun. Dominick567's blonde friend held it, before she was brought down by a feline.

When the Tin exists, and the weapon room door closes shut, I let out a heavy sigh. "That was too close, Kyle." I whisper across the vents to him. "We have to head back. Eight-thirty is approaching."

"Yep."

We both turn around, this time Kyle53 following me. We repeat our steps and turns and eventually make our way back to my room. I _pop_ off the vent lid, leading into my room, and slide onto the bare floor. As I stand, I hear a _clank_ in the hall approaching my room. _Shit._

I scramble to lift the vent with one hand, and push Kyle53 back into the vents with my open hand. "Stay in there." His quizzical expression can't be answered, just yet. I push the vent lid on the wall and snap the corners into place. Then I pull my cot forward, hiding the vent. Darting to the bathroom, I toss my rug toward the cot, hiding most of the wet floor and dive into the shower—the bath door closing behind me along with my ripped off clothing all over the floor.

I hear my room's door _click_ open, and I feel my nerves wind and my jaws clench. _Shit, it knows._ I run fingers through my wet hair and close my eyes to try and think of anything else but it glitching me. Seconds feel like hours, as I stay frozen under the shower spout—imagining the Tin scanning my room for anything suspicious, analyzing at the floors, my cot, my rug. I hear a knock on my bath door, and so I wrap a towel around myself and answer with my head just peeking through a crack.

"Yes?"

" **You have been showering for twenty-nine minutes, Lexi019. Is everything all right?"**

I feel like collapsing inside. "Yes, everything's fine. Just a long day."

" **Remember, we do not exceed thirty minutes in the shower, to conserve water."**

I turn the shower off, the bath door _clicking_ shut, and then walk out in my towel held up by one hand, my other hand raking through my wet hair. "Thanks for reminding me, I wouldn't want a glitch my seventeenth year."

The Tin is quiet, as if it has said its required warning and can offer nothing else. It turns, a squeak in its joints, and its head scans the floor and walls once more. Then it goes to the entry and its retina scan opens the door quickly, without asking for a reason. When my room door finally closes and the Tin is out of my room, I let out another long sigh, dress quickly and race to the cot. Kyle53 is tucked inside the vent, pushed back to keep covered, but I can see a loose bang hair swaying.

"It's gone." I whisper.

"That was close," he whispers in return. "You gonna let me outta here?"

I look to the room door, then say quietly. "Wait a few minutes, give it time to get down the hall. I don't want it hearing anything."

My legs dangle off the cot, and outside is dark. I can hear the feline _scrape_ across the concrete grounds. My wall glass is fogging with moisture from the shower heat that makes the feline shape all the more ominous, and the glass all the more difficult for anyone or anything to see through, though Tins see in the dark very well.

When several minutes have passed, I push the cot back a few feet, closer to the dark glass wall, and use my nails to help pry open the floor vent. "Hurry."

Kyle53 crawls out, damp cold, and quickly heads to my room door. His hands are even shaky. I let the wall pad scan my retinas and enter the reason as: exit. Kyle53 leaves with my exit and we head to his room in a hallway parallel to mine, and a few doors down; we have to skirt around a corner. He lifts my chin, calmer now. "I'll see you."

"Yeah, see you." I want to kiss him, but I wouldn't dare do so here.

A tall, lean girl around my age passes us in the halls, "No touching." She enters her room just four doors down from Kyle53's room. She got glitched for kissing some boy she likes. He enters his room and I wave goodbye, wondering what he does in there, then I make my way back to my own room. The digital clock reads 8:15 p.m.. It's been a long day and I'm so looking forward to sleep. I fall over my cot and close my eyes, already snoring.

In Coms and Nets, we finally get to practice using the Skinware and Skincoms. We are each given a Skinchip that the class Tin inserts into our left wrist. Mine is inserted beside my bio-chip. The procedure is quick; a simple touch of the Skinchip to the skin, and the Skinchip sinks into the flesh and disappears. What is left is a mark like a square—the shape of the Skinchip. The bio-chip is round. Then the class Tin inserts a ComChip into our right wrists. Pushing the ComChip down, the ComChip disappears in a flash, and all that is left is a triangular shape.

The first time I hit my Skinchip, I'm amazed and fearful at the same time. I jerk backward when a thin, leathery black suit assembles over my hand and up my arm, and then over my shoulder and neck, down my back and over my other shoulder, arm, and hand, descending over my legs, sealing me up tight. Lastly, a mask rolls from the neck portion and swallows my face. Tiny holes form over my nostrils, and a clear veil forms over my eyes. I'm completely locked inside this Skinware. The only part of me still showing is my eyes.

We get to walk around in the suits, inside of this class only; stretch our legs, jump onto the chairs and desks, and even grab other people's hands and hug, and run from one side of the room to the other. The class Tin just watches, with no expression, no feeling one way or the other. It's simply following its orders.

Then we're told to hit our triangular Skincoms on our right wrist, that can still be seen underneath the suit in a raised-shape; in fact, the Skinware chip and bio-chip can both still be seen on the left wrist as well. The triangle on my right wrist glows after hitting it and then I hear a soft static.

" **Repeat this message,"** the class Tin orders, **"Skincoms operational, 99099."**

After Coms and Nets, the Skinware and Skincom chips are pushed down, ejected, and collected by the class Tin. Electric Strings class keeps my mind reeling with all the new technology from my previous class, and that which Tin 07707 shows us. Long wires flow from my hand to the desk and have a kind of matted color. Tin 07707 calls them strings. It tells us to make any design we want with them and even provides a few illustrations of flower petals to view on our Squares.

I tie mine around my pinky finger, letting the wire wrap around until there is no more wire. Then as I slip the string off, Tin 07707 stands above me, looking down at my creation. He folds both ends of the string together and the wire glows a vibrant blue. **"You activate the strings by pressing the ends together."**

An awe permeates the classroom, that quickly quiets into concentration. I have a few more strings on my desk, and twist one into a star that glows yellow, and another into a few petals that glow pink. When I listen closely, I can even hear a slight _hum_ emanating from inside the electric strings.

"What is that?" I ask, more curious than concerned, to Tin 07707.

My eyes glance up at its hard-metal features. It stares down at me, and I expect it to ignore me as all Tins do to most questions, but then it answers me. **"Consider it something akin to a heartbeat."**

Its answer leaves me befuddled, firstly because it chose to reply to me and secondly because the reason sounds more poetic than precise—as Tins most certainly are not. I hang there, in its answer, and just let the silence between us wash over me as I continue to stare at the electric strings. I play with the wires over my fingers and detach the attached ends of the star to reshape the star into a pretzel shape, and then reattach the ends to let it glow and hum again.

Glancing over the class, everyone is mesmerized, but oddly none more so than Tin 07707, when it looks at me. Its beady-reds catch me again as it hovers just a few feet from my black metal desk, its gaze fixed on my fingers; its head moves from one side to another for a better or different view. My hands pause, fiddling with the strings, as I gaze at Tin 07707 in return, my eyes fixed on it.

I want to ask, 'What?!' But I can do no such thing to a Tin, not in here. So, I just stare and let it lead the inquiry. Its body halves, and its head lowers closer to the desk—to my face. I glance at the strings on my desk, laced over my fingers. The Tin's stare is intense and I try to ignore it, but it won't let me.

Metal fingers clasp the front of the desk in a clamp, as the Tin's head moves toward mine. In a low metallic voice, it asks. **"Did you see your reflection this morning?"**

I hang there speechless, between a world I once knew when I was five and the world I live in now. It's not all in my head. This Tin is curious about me. "What?" I say softly, not as I wanted to before, in a sharp yell.

" **You enjoy your reflection in the glass each morning."**

My eyes flit to corners of my eyes, gauging the class interest in this conversation between me and a Tin. Most people are having too much fun with the electric strings, some even dangling them over their faces. My heart beasts fast, I can feel the _pound-pound_ under my chest.

"Yes."

"Why?"

I shrug, my attention a fusion now between strings and this Tin, my eyes flitting up and back down to my desk. "To see myself."

" **What is self?"**

I look upward at it, its metal ridges defining a face that too closely resembles human, a face that represents the many that have killed or Meshed my kind—humankind, and leaves me feeling uneasy.

" **Do I have a self?"**

Both questions I'm not sure how to answer.

" **Can you show me myself?"**

I stare at it now, more intrigued than ever. It wants me to show it its reflection in my glass wall. The only place it can see itself. There are no mirrors or glass throughout the Compound, except for on the human rooms' glass walls. I guess Tins figured broken mirror glass could be used as a weapon, and since they don't care to see themselves, why have mirrors? The glass was designed to keep humans afraid of what they see, and vulnerable to what can see them, to remind us that Tins are in charge, and that Tins are always watching. But the Tins never predicted that humans would use the glass to connect to each other, to themselves. Why would they? Tins don't do that. Tins communicate through TinComs, not through expressions; through orders and protocols, not questions.

"Yes," I say low, wary of ears around me. If anyone gets wind of a Tin talking to me like this, making plans for a rendezvous in my room, Tin 07707 could end up terminated. This just doesn't happen.

It pulls away from the desk, from my face, my ear, giving me room to breathe again, and then a long sigh escapes me. It walks to the front of the class, when a lean kid in a back seat raises his hand in a fist shape, the sign for the bathroom.

" **Permission granted."**

The lean kid heads to the bath door at the back of class. My head flips around to refocus on the strings in front of me, and I wonder. I wonder why these strings are so important to the Tins, why they want us to learn about them, and why they occupy the Electric Gardens—and if what the Tins say is even true. If these electric strings can make flowers, then it stands to reason that they can make all kinds of other things too, but what?

I just watch the vibrant colors glow and sparkle, and sometimes flicker. I let my imagination run wild with various shapes and sizes, and when Electric Gardens class is over, I regret it. I never thought I would ever want to be in a Tin class for longer than the required time, to be able to spend more time with a Tin, but for the first time in seventeen years—I do.

As I get up at the sound of the rustic-horn blow, to head to Birthing, my mind returns to a previous time, a previous day—long before today, before the Round-Ups. I'm not even sure what makes me recollect the image, but I see myself kneeling beside a lake in a polka-dot dress The lake is near the park and I'm watching myself in the water, my reflection, and hear a dog barking in the background.
Metal

I'M NOT SURE WHAT class I'm more excited for this morning when I greet Shayne05 at my glass wall. When my open palms meet with the glass and I can see Shayne05's ear-to-ear grin, I lower my arms to my sides and finally make out Tin 07707, staring at me from a few glass walls to the left on Building D. Electric Gardens class will be interesting.

Birthing yesterday was funny. I had to get into a birth position with a Tin from an outside class and pretend I was giving birth. The strange Tin held my knees as I laid my back on the floor. Each of us in class had a Tin to help us through this 'difficult time,' as the class Tin put it. At least Shayne05 was positioned next to me on the floor. We held hands together as we 'pushed.'

I meet Kyle53 for breakfast where we eat something similar to yesterday, and Dominick567 seems to have forgotten about me, leaving me to converse with Kyle53 in peace. Maybe my helpful Tin finally scared him straight. Dominick567 even ignores me in Horticulture; of course, there are so many more interesting things now to focus on in that class.

So, when I enter Horticulture, I feel relaxed. Everyone has a tomato plant and also flax seeds to grow, and while we've grown vegetables and fruits over the years in the Compound, none of us have grown seeds or nuts. Flax grows on this blue-purple flower, and there are maybe fifty of the flowers in each mini-greenhouse on each of our desks. I'm not too scared; mostly I'm intrigued because I haven't seen a real flower in so long. Still, flowers are different from fruits and vegetables. In a few months, we'll even be required to grow Chia seeds.

We're all told to click our Squares to the section called Flax seeds, and then we read silently, which stinks because I want to talk to Shayne05 today. The class Tin walks up and down the aisles to ensure we comply. Of course, we all do. Tomorrow, we'll have to show what we've learned and everyone has to pass this course or receive a glitch.

Coms and Nets is more exciting than tense, and I can't wait to wear my Skinware suit again. The class Tin inserts both our new chips into each wrist, and then the class has fun. My Skinware suit swallows me whole again, but this time there is no fear, and the Tin has us focus today on visibility, instead of movement.

" **Tap your right eye once."** The Tin orders and we all follow. Suddenly, the room gets very interesting. **"This is your EyeGrid."** Purple lines intersect with the room, horizontally and evenly spaced, and I can see much more of the room than I ever could before. It is like I'm zooming in and out all over the room, picking up details I shouldn't be able to see.

" **Tap your left eye once."**

After complying, purple lines intersect with the room vertically and also evenly spaced, over the horizontal lines—forming a grid.

"Wow."

"Yeah," the blond kid behind me replies.

" **These are your EyeGrids. You can use them whenever you're in your Skinware to see better and locate positions more easily."**

"Locate what?" I ask without even meaning too. It just slips out.

The Tin's head turns to me in a jerk, and just stares. Not the kind of stare Tin 07707 does with curiosity, more like disapproval. I let my eyes fall to the desk in front of me and ignore my question, as surely the Tin does. I've learned over time to not ask too many questions. Tins don't like them.

By the time I get to Electric Gardens class, I'm high on excitement. I can't believe we get to wear these suits that enhance our ability to see, protect us from the harsh elements of the outside world, and use Skincoms to communicate—though a part of me feels like I'm betraying everything human by letting these Tins get into my head. I suspect, in the next couple of days, the class Tin will show us how to talk not just to other Tins, but to our friends who are also wearing Skinware.

Tin 07707 greets me at the class door. I nod and find my uncomfortable seat. There are more electric strings laying over our desks and a few electric plants sitting in front of the class. One electric plant even resembles a baby mango tree, like Mom had in her backyard. We're all quiet when our class Tin speaks.

" **Today, you will assemble the shape of small plants and eventually, over the next few days, you will assemble the shape of trees."** Its metal hand waves over the baby electric mango tree. **"Please use one of the plant specimens on my desk as your example and do your best to emulate the design with the strings, on your own."**

Class gets to work, making plants that resemble the ones on the Tin's desk. One minute turns to ten and then thirty, but we are all so absorbed we hardly notice. Soon, the rustic-horn blows and I've forgotten all about asking Tin 07707 when he wants to see his own reflection with me. But I don't have time for suspicious chit-chat, I have to head to Birthing so I don't earn myself a glitch.

After Re-Learning is over, I head toward my building with Shayne05, the only chance we get to talk today. "So, what do you think about all the Birthing?"

I want to ask her about how she is doing in Coms and Nets or Electric Gardens, but we aren't allowed to talk to those outside of our own class about class matters, and Tins are everywhere. It is possible she doesn't even have those classes at all; that she's been assigned a different kind of detail all together. Still, my mind reels, curious with her learning.

"Hilarious, pretend we're giving birth?" She laughs in a scoff. "I mean, what is that supposed to accomplish?"

"More importantly, why?"

We're silent. Everyone is thinking it, and no one dares ask, especially not to a Tin. But I push.

"I mean do the Tins want more humans on the Earth? Why"

"I imagine for the same purpose, they still want us."

I kick a pebble over the concrete, where Shayne05 will go her way to her building and I will go mine. "And what is that exactly?"

She shrugs and I depart with that single question circling my mind.

After coming to the front doors of Building C, the Tins scan me. **"On time, Lexi019. Welcome back."**

I grumble, not really any word in particular. By the time I hit the cafeteria for dinner, half the caf is full of people and noise. A table of glitchers—or people who glitch more than others, another table of pures at the opposite end—people who have never glitched, not once. I hear conversations as I pass to get to the Slider.

"Did you glitch this month?"

"Me, no way, but I heard she did, twice." A voice half-laughs.

I'm not sure if they're talking about me, or some girl nearby, but I don't care. I want to eat and converse with my best guy friend, Kyle53. I take a tray filled with rice pudding, a zucchini sandwich, and rice-cheese stick. I'm getting really sick of rice.

After the Tins leave the caf aisles and go behind their doors, Kyle53 and I can't stop gabbing. I'm grateful for the few moments we have together. If not for Shayne05 and Kyle53, I'd probably have given up a long time ago, and become a Mesh.

"So, are you enjoying classes?" Kyle53 half-smiles; the upper part of his mouth corner meets his cheeks. Then, he stuffs a rice-cheese stick into his mouth.

I speak low, so that only he can hear me. "Afternoon classes are amazing. I've never been more excited about classes, except when I had swimming." I bite into my zucchini sandwich.

"I can't wait to get out of my last class." He eyes me. "You know the one I told you about yesterday."

"Yeah, I know the one." I half-smile too.

"The class makes me so nervous and uncomfortable."

I try my rice-pudding. "I don't blame you. Birthing is the same for me. Well, nervousness and giddiness. Shayne and I are laughing half the time."

"At least you get to laugh."

After Kyle53 scoops the last spoonful of rice-pudding into his mouth, I stand up. "So, I'll see you later?"

"The second—and last day—permitted this week. Wouldn't miss it."

"Okay, talk to you later." I return my water bottle and tray, and overhear more conversations as I head out of the cafeteria, passing a table of Meshes. We—humans—can tell whose Meshed, and who's not. Meshes are more like robots, losing their humanness when wires and circuits invaded their brains. No smiles, blank expressions, but something in the eyes tells me they are still in there. I think I'd rather be dead. Tins keep a group of Meshes in the caf, just to keep watch sometimes. Those Meshes mostly keep to themselves.

"I heard that Dom made her steal that weapon. She almost got caught too."

"Why didn't she?" A whiney voice asks.

"She's a badass. Hell, if I know."

I wonder if she found her way around the vents as I head to my room, the word _hell_ still ringing in my ears, and drawing me back to when I was six years old, sitting in an English Re-Learning class. We watched videos of people talking on our Squares, people we didn't know, videos of people that Tins either recorded themselves or stole from some archive before the Round-Ups. It makes me wonder now about how long they were watching us before they decided to take control of things. One of the people remarked. "Like hell, I will." I guess the Tins don't have any distinction between words we should learn and words we shouldn't. The word hell became popular that week in my building.

That evening, I wait in my room for Kyle53. I know he'll pressure me into Venting again. His vents aren't too easy to get into. I've been in his room before, when I was younger. He has one air vent, half the size of mine, on the opposite wall, because there are just two rows of rooms: my row of rooms, and his. My row faces Building D, and his row faces Building B. So, his cot is on the opposite wall too, and so is his glass wall. But because his vent is smaller, he can't just squeeze into it. For some reason, the vents on my row of rooms are larger. Something to do with the sun rising in the East, and my room facing the East. My room gets much hotter.

Suddenly, I hear the knock and glance up at the digital clock on the wall. It's 6:30 p.m.. I let the wall pad scan my retinas and push for the reason on the wall: let in a friend. In theory, I could invite one more person over for my last day of room socializing for the week, but I don't. Venting has to remain a secret. The only person I trust with this secret is Kyle53. Others could tell on me and get me Meshed—and many probably would.

The Compound humans can be divided into two groups: those who try to please the Tins, and those who rebel. Those who want to please the Tins would rather see you Meshed so that there's more space for themselves and they've earned some trust with the Tins. It's often hard distinguishing one type of person from the other, unless they've made a reputation for themselves like Dominick567. So, it is good to assume no one is your friend.

After Kyle53 scans his retinas into the wall pad, he enters, and I close the door. "So, we going or what?"

I look at Kyle53 and then at the vent. He didn't dare mention our secret excursion at dinner—too many ears and eyes. "I'm not sure it's a good idea. I only go once a week to prevent suspicion. You saw how close we came yesterday to getting caught."

He walks toward me, the smell of him like milky water washing over me. "How else are we going to get the hell out of here? We have to find a way out through the vents."

I've thought about that before, escaping through the vents; even mapped the vent segments in my mind, and have gone over them again and again to memorize their pathways, but I haven't found a way out yet. I let my stare hang on Kyle53 for a while. Then, I take his forearm into my clasping hand. "We have to split up. We can cover more segments that way."

I can't believe I said that, that I'm actually considering going for a second time in one week. I promised myself, I never would. Kyle53 nods his head. "Then, we do this, today, now."

He likes to get things done, even at the peril of his own existence. Something I admire and worry about in him. I nod in return. "Let's do it."

The sun has dropped, and the glass wall is dark. It's hard to see outside and I can barely make out the feline Tin. Still, its eyes are better than mine and we have to be careful to not arouse its suspicion. Kyle53 walks to the vent and is about to squat. My palm finds his shoulder from behind.

"Wait—"

His head turns to me, a question etched in his forehead causes wrinkles.

"—until it passes the room."

Kyle53 nods, and so we wait. We wait twenty minutes before it _clanks_ past my wall again. Then, we get ready to enter the vent. I open my bath door and pull the rug to hold it open. Kyle jumps under the cold shower. Afterward, I leave on the hot water to fog up my glass. It all happens so fast, like clockwork. I've gone over it enough times in my mind while lying on the cot. I click his exit on my door and then Kyle53 hops over the rug toward the vent. The vents are dark.

"We only have thirty minutes before a Tin will check on the shower and I won't be in there." I warn. "We have to be back by 7:30 p.m."

After Kyle53 crawls in and notices the pile of notes before craning his neck to grin at me. He steps over them and I gesture for him to turn around and close the vent, in case we get a surprise entry from a Tin. Maybe I left my shower running and went to get something to eat? My mind churns with excuses I could tell a Tin; none that won't end with me getting at least one glitch because of not logging out on the wall pad, but I won't be Meshed if they believe me.

Kyle53 follows me, part of the way, and when we get to the second turning point I wave to him to go right, instead of left—which is back in the direction of my room. I want to see the Concealment Room again. I think if I can get past it, I might find something else that will lead me to the outside world. He grumbles. I know he doesn't want to head back in the direction he came, even if it is another vent. He wants to go toward the weapons, just like me.

I hear his knees push over the vents as we depart, and when I reach the Concealment Room, I pause momentarily. I haven't been passed this room yet, and I'm dying to know what's farther down there. This room is has unauthorized entry for humans. It is passed the cafeteria, behind the doors where the Tins always retreat when we eat.

I push forward, desperate for answers and move slowly, so that I stay quiet. These vents are going to be more dangerous; rooms filled with Tins and more security. I hear my heart quicken and my breaths get faster. I count from one to a hundred inside my head to help keep me distracted and calm—the vents remind me too much of being cooped up, like I was in the trunk of Dad's car before I was finally found and thrown into the Compounds.

Pushing over a few segments of vents, I think I've reached the next room, the one after the Concealment Room. I lift a panel where I find a slot, and peek. Shit, I see Tins. About four of them, inside a white painted room with buttons on walls and metal sheets across two other walls. I'm not sure what kind of a room it is, except that I think this might be a room for Watcher Tins. _Shit, shit, shit_.

" **Room C45 is occupied with four heat signatures. Check on it, 06608."**

One of the Tins exits the room, and I see my chance to close the panel. I let the panel drop gently when the room door closes. Then I take a few deep breathes. My adrenaline is pumping and I'm not sure I can keep pushing forward. The Tins below could hear me. Not a good time. I pivot around and head back the way I came. When I hit the fork in the vents where I departed from Kyle53, I wait for him to return there. Doesn't take long.

"That was a bore. I was going to head back your way." Kyle53 remarks under his breath.

"Can't."

"Why not?"

"There are Tins after the Concealment Room. I think they're Watcher Tins. They'll hear us if we try to crawl over the room.

"Probably right."

"What'd you find?"

"Just more cot rooms. I think I found where the Pixie twins sleep, though, at least one of them."

I roll my eyes. Like that's going to help.

"What now?" Kyle53 asks.

"I think we head straight down this vent, and instead of turning left at the fork back to the room, we continue straight. Find out what's in that direction."

"All for that."

It doesn't take long for me to get over my fear after crossing paths with a room full of Tins. I have to find a way out of the Compound. As much as I love the Skinware and Skincoms and even the electric strings, the Tins won't brainwash me into believing that that kind of life is all there is; that that is how humans are meant to live. There just has to be more.

So, Kyle53 and I scurry through the vents on our hands and knees, moving quietly, but surely, until we reach the fork in the vents where we have to decide. Then the decision is made for us. Just down the vents, in front of us, a few yards away, is a big shadow of someone—something—coming straight for us.

"Shit," I turn my head to Kyle53, "Something is headed straight for us! Hurry!" I yell in a muffled voice, and round the left corner. I scrape my knees in a quickened pace, and maybe even rip my uniform. Kyle53 stays close behind, but I can't help but glance back a couple of times at the shadow's distance closing in on us.

By the time I reach my room vent, I roll out of the vent hole and onto my floor, panicked. My glass is foggy and I only have ten more minutes before a Tin will come in to tell me I'm approaching a thirty-minute limit on my shower. Better than being glitched usually, but not now.

I dart to the bath, turn off the shower, toss the rug on the floor—all while Kyle53 pulls himself out of the vent, damp and cold. We wait for the shadow. Me, with one hand over the vent lid to pop it back into place, and Kyle53, with his hands balled into fists ready to fight. Of course, what will we do to a Tin that's spotted us inside the vents? I guess we could try to kill it, bury the evidence, but that could end badly for us, like dead bad. We could pop the vent lid into place, and play dumb. Either option wouldn't end well, and so I'm scared. Real scared.

The shadow moves right for us.
Clank

I CAN HEAR THE shadow inside the vents crawling toward us, the rigid movements _scraping_ over the vent segments, closer, closer, as I stare through the vent cracks in the lid. I push the lid corners into place and fall back onto my hands. Kyle53 still hangs close to the vent, ready to fight. He won't be Meshed. I think he'd rather be dead.

Then, all of our fears meet with a face. The outline is more human than any Tin I've ever seen, and though dirty and scruffy in appearance, with matted dark curls dangling over shoulders—the ocean-blue eyes speak to me like a Tin never would. They tell a familiar human story.

"Klynn?" Kyle53 questions, his left brow quirks, and his hands go to the vent cover. "Is that you?" His head leans in closer, his hands shaking open the vent.

I pull him back. "She's Meshed, Kyle!"

"No, I'm not." Klynn03's voice reverberates through the vent slits. "I mean I am, but I'm not."

"What does that mean?" I press, my hands still on Kyle53's shoulders, holding him back.

Her face presses against the vent slits, and I can see her expression more clearly—a warm smile, and hopeful eyes. Meshed kids don't express like that, not after wires go into half of their brains. Half of our human part dies, and a Tin takes its place. Meshed kids don't smile. Why the hell can she?

I try to yank Kyle53 back, but he is stronger than me and pulls himself forward and away from my grip. "Kyle!" I yell at him.

"That is my sister. We have to get her out of there," Kyle53 says almost begging.

"No, you can't," Klynn03 remarks. "If I enter, the Tins will see three heat signatures and they'll find me and glitch you two."

"She's right," I warn Kyle53.

"What happened to you? How are you here?" Kyle53 asks, his questions fast and without pause. His fingers poke between the vent slits, so he can touch her hand. When their fingers meet, Klynn03 answers.

"I figured out a way to unMesh myself. It's tricky, but it can be done."

"So, you're still Meshed?" I pry, squatting with Kyle53 in front of the vent.

Her voice is warm, just like her smile, "No, yes. I mean, I still have the wiring in my head, but it's not connected to the Nets."

I look to Kyle53 and then back to her. I don't know what to think.

"It's her," Kyle53 insists. "It's her. I know my sister. A Mesh can't fool like that."

He's right, "Ok."

"How'd you get here?" Kyle53 asks, his finger still wrapped around one of her own.

She clears her throat. "After I forced a knife into my Meshed temple, breaking the wires, I was free." She takes a breath, and it's then when I notice her suit—a Skinware. "I was inside the Electric Gardens, assigned to watch over the humans, there."

"You've seen the EG?"

"Yeah, and when I survived the knife stab, I knew I had to get back to Kyle. So, I found a way in through the vents."

My heart leaps. "So, there is a way through the vents?"

"Well, yes and no."

There sure is a lot of indecision with Klynn03. "How do you mean?" I press, my palms keeping me balanced as I drop to my knees from the squat.

"Well, you can use the vents to get to the Transfer Room, a room that links to the EG. Still, you have to be a Tin or a Mesh to use the Transfer Room. It's where the gate was, you know the one the Tins tossed us through when we were just kids."

My mind wanders to our past, to the thick steel door that kept us from our families. "The gate?"

"Yeah." Klynn03 clears her throat. "The Tins built the Transfer Room around the gate, sometime after we were all thrown in here."

"Well, you're Meshed. You can help us get out of here, now."

I see her head shake, even from in there. "No, no, I've broken my wiring from the Nets. The Watcher Tins will, if not already, see that, and then all Tins will know it through the TinComs."

I hear the word Nets again. I'm not sure I fully understand what the Tins mean, or Klynn03 means by that word, but I reckon it's something like a web—like a spider's web—that keeps track of information over all Tin territory. I saw a spider web once, at pre-school. The teacher had us stay away from it, so I also reckon the Nets can't be anything good.

"Then how do we get out?" I ask, my worried voice breaking through.

Kyle53 interrupts. "Never mind that, I want to know why you'd stab yourself with a knife." His voice cracks, and I know what he's thinking.

His sister clears her throat again. "Living as a Mesh is hard. You're in your mind, but not in control of it. If you want to do something the Mesh permits, it's easy. If you want to do something the Mesh doesn't permit, then it is like you're fighting against yourself. A part of you is pulling one way, and another part of you is tugging another."

"So how'd you get the knife to your temple?" I ask curious.

"I...I saw a knife in one of the NetStations inside the EG."

We stare at her blankly.

"Homes in the EG humans live in. The knife was just on the counter, used for cutting potatoes, I imagine." Klynn03 looks up from her and her brother's fingers, fingers she has been playing with to avoid eye contact. "I thought I could just end it all. I didn't want to be Meshed anymore, spying on fellow humans and reporting them to the Tins. I felt a part of me die every time the Mesh forced me to do something." Tears drip from her eyes. No way she's Meshed.

"So, you tried to kill yourself," Kyle53 asks matter-of-factly.

Klynn03 nods. "It was hard, and I don't mean because I didn't want to do it. I mean because the Mesh wouldn't let me. I grabbed the knife, but every time I tried to stab my temple, the Mesh would force my hand back down. It was like I was fighting with the use of my own arm."

I draw closer to the vent, staying low on the floor beside the cot. "So, what happened?"

Her eyes grow big, and she looks at her brother apologetically. "After a tug of war, I was finally able to force my hand up in a jerk, and eventually stabbed myself."

My head turns to the door. I think I hear a scratch.

"The wire connection short-circuited. I fell to the floor, and Reina, the EG-Guest, that's what we call the humans in the EG NetStations, she found me. She gave me a glass of water, but neither of us had any idea I was off the Mesh."

I interject. "Nor any idea that you were watching her?"

"Probably not. Some EG Guests have heard rumors, but most are pretty susceptible to whatever the Tins tell them; after all, they've made it to the EG. They've learned to follow the rules."

Kyle53 adds, "So, you realized you were off the Mesh?"

"Yeah, it was weird. I didn't feel an undercurrent of control to my body, my brain, anymore. Once I realized what had happened, that I was free, I came back through the Transfer Room and hid in the vents. I figured it wouldn't take long for my disconnection to show up on the Nets."

I nod, concluding, "Then, you entered the vents and saw us?"

"I thought I recognized your face, even in the dark."

Another _scratch_ outside the room, and a second later, all heads turn to the room's entry as the retina scanner beeps, and we hear a loud _clank_ of metal _scrape_ in when the door opens. I jump away from the vent, falling over myself, over Kyle53, as the Tin enters my room. I want as much distance from the vent as I can muster before the Tin lays eyes on me and scans my space. I notice Klynn03 vanishes from sight behind the vent.

After the Tin fully enters, the door closes, and I lie on the floor with Kyle53—our eyes glued to this metal monster. "It's not what it looks like. We're not...there was an accident, and we fell." I fumble my words, looking for anything to explain the closeness. Humans can't touch like that.

The Tin is quiet.

Shit, shit, shit.

Now, I don't say anything. Talking less is usually best.

" **I am not here to question you, Lexi019."** The Tin's eyes move from me to the glass wall. **"I am here for our lesson on reflections."**

I breathe heavy a few times as I just stare at the Tin. "07707."

" **We have to move quickly. I cannot be absent from my designated post for too long. I am out of protocol."**

My eyes flit to the vent as I wonder if Klynn03 is safely tucked away somewhere. How is she even going to eat? "Yes, yes, of course." I reply to Tin 07707.

I lift up off the floor, Kyle53 helps me with a hand to my arm. I walk to the glass wall near my cot, as the digital clock shows 7:50 p.m..

Kyle53 just watches me and Tin 07707, like he can't believe what he sees. It takes him a few seconds before he can shut his mouth.

"Reflections, right." My hand waves to the glass. "Well—"

Tin 07707 interrupts me. **"But before we discuss reflections, we must first discuss who is hiding in your vent."**

The room drops dead silent. I turn to Kyle53, whose lips are already twisting and brows already winding. He'll kill that Tin if it turns his sister back into a Mesh. I see the hot fuel burning inside of him, and he's ready to pounce. I grip his shoulder. "Wait."

"We don't have anyone...How?"

" **I heard another voice coming from your room when I approached the door. I listened for just 4.45 seconds."**

My eyes fall to the vents, and breath hitches. What if all of this is just an elaborate trap? Maybe Tin 07707 is not interested in reflections of itself, in helping me? Maybe it just wants to drag Klynn03 back to Meshing like her brother fears?

I hear a rustle in the vents, and it sounds like Klynn03 is darting for it in the opposite direction. I cheer her on in my head. We don't know this Tin. So what if it's weirder than the others. Doesn't mean it is not loyal to its collective.

Then Tin 07707 yanks the vent lid off and crawls in, faster than I've ever seen any human move. It must have gripped her shins, because as it pushes itself backward, Klynn03's body is pulled back with it, her legs kicking. She thrusts over as it yanks her out of the vents, and she struggles over the floor. The whole scene is too much for Kyle53.

He grabs the rug off the floor and tosses it over Tin 07707's form to blind it, and then tries to pull his sister from the Tin's grip. "Come on, Klynn!" he shouts at her, tugging in his direction.

" **Stop, or I will not be able to remove her heat signature, and other Tins will locate her here."**

By now, I know Tin 07707 must have scanned her eyes and knows who she is. I'm sure he suspected it when he heard the extra voice. Who else? Klynn03 is the only Mesh who's on the run, and the only human on the run for that matter. At least, as far as I know.

I tug on Kyle53's arm. "It's trying to help."

Kyle53 huffs, suspicious, his glare on the rug over the Tin more like fire. "I don't trust Tins."

"You're going to have to." I implore. "We've got no other option, unless you want us all dead." I look at him hard. "At least, trust me!"

Kyle53 takes a few seconds, and then reluctantly pulls the rug off Tin 07707. Underneath, we see Klynn03 still kicking, and the Tin is injecting its forefinger into her left wrist, in the Skinware square-shaped chip. "What are you doing?!" Kyle53 shouts.

" **I'm uploading her Skinware with a code to erase her heat signature."**

"How?" Kyle53 shakes his head.

" **It is above your current understanding."**

We can only watch, and trust Tin 07707 is helping us, instead of doing something worse to Klynn03. It's hard; hardest for Kyle53. He bites his lip and holds his sister's hand, as he tries to calm her, hoping he's made the right decision by listening to me, and I'm not even sure.

Then the Tin releases Klynn03, takes her hand and swipes two of her fingers from her left inner elbow to her left inner wrist. "The anti-heat signature is active. You are secure. We will not be able to locate you now through heat signatures." She climbs to her feet, with Kyle53 standing beside her, and huffs while dusting herself off.

The three of us stand in my room, looking at this Tin—this metal monster that seems to defy all odds. Why is it not following its protocol like the other scraps of metal?

Then the Tin returns to its interest. **"Are you ready to teach me about reflections, now?"**

I look at the Tin, and then to Kyle53 and his sister. Kyle53 nods. "You can only see them when the sun rises on this side." I point to my glass wall. "At night, reflections aren't very common, unless a shard of moonlight sneaks into the Compound from the solar ceiling, and then you can catch a glimpse of yourself in the glass."

" **Yourself?"**

"Yeah, you know, your features, your smile, your hair—" I look at Tin 07707 and realize it has none of these things. "—your inner-self."

" **Inner-self?"** Tin 07707 _scrapes c_ loser to the glass, and looks outside, its metal hand presses against the glass like mine does in the mornings—mimicking me. **"What is this, inner-self? Does it have quality? Can you describe it to me?"**

"I...I"

Kyle53 interjects, stepping up behind us. "It is that quality that makes you different from all the others."

" **I am not different from the others. We all look exactly the same. We were designed that way."**

Then I add. "But you are different. Would any other Tin risk breaking protocol to come here, to learn about reflections?"

The Tin is quiet. **"I must return in the morning, to see my own reflection as you see yours. I must see what I look like."** Its hand stays firm on the glass, and it stares until we all hear the _clank_ of the feline outside approaching.

"It will be here soon."

" **I have to go before it sees me** ," Tin 07707 remarks.

"Yes, go." I encourage.

" **My name is Digit, by the way."**

It named itself. Tins don't just do that. The three of us stare at the Tin, dumbfounded, until I break the silence. "Okay...Digit."

After Digit exits my room, we all feel a rush of adrenaline mixed with relief that the Tin is gone. "Can we trust it?!" Kyle53 swings his head around, from the door to us. His sister's face fixes on him. They look at each other, like they speak an unspoken language.

"I don't know," Klynn03 responds, her matted curls in dire need of a brush. "If not, then it didn't do anything for my heat signature."

Kyle53 reacts, staring at the vent. "And you'll be found and ReMeshed."

"And if we can trust it, then she's safe, at least for now," I add.

We all jerk our heads to the glass wall as another loud _clank_ moves closer to my glass. "It's almost here," I emphasize, and press down on Klynn03's shoulders. "Hide under my cot." There's no time to open the vent lid, squeeze her in, and close it back up again.

"Yeah, those thing's eyes are night sensitive. It won't have any problems seeing you, sis."

Kyle53 knows this, as we all know this, from experience. The Tins, felines included, have located too many of us over the years in the dark where we thought no one could see us. That's how the Tins saw Kyle53 and me having our first kiss.

Wasting no time, Klynn03 drops to the floor and rolls underneath the cot. She's like a pro at this. Then, Kyle53 steps back from me, and sits on the rug as if we are talking. I plop on my bed, the digital clock reading 8:24. We only have a few minutes, before Kyle53 has to leave my room and get back to his own.

Clank, clank, clank.

Soon, the feline figure moves across my glass wall, its robotic posture and stretches of leg obviously Tin. Felines started showing up a couple years after Round-Ups, after all the humans were inside the Compounds. The Tins must have created the felines in an effort to keep us submissive.

Clank, clank, clank.

It stops at my room, and turns its head. Its beady-reds look straight at me and scans my room. My body freezes up and my jaws clench. Moments feel like forever. Then it finally moves forward, and I sigh. After the feline passes, I tap on the cot. "You're clear."

Klynn03 slides out. She looks too thin. "I should get out of here. I don't want to put you in danger, Lexi."

I look down at her, on the rug with her brother, the friend I thought I lost, and for a moment my thoughts turn to Lucy717. "No, you're staying with us."

Her brother adds, "Lexi's right. Lucy's gone and we thought we lost you. We're not going to do it again."

Klynn03 huffs. "What if Digit is a liar, or wrong? What if I just lead Tins to you?"

"It's a chance I'm willing to take," I remark. "Besides, where else are you going to stay? In the vents? Leg cramps, hunger, and rats."

"Rats?!" Klynn03's lips twist and her expression is one of repulsion. We've seen videos on rat infestation, on how they helped spread diseases after the flooding, after Quarantine.

Kyle53 walks to the door, pointing to the digital clock. It is 8:28. He just has two minutes to get to his room. "Gotta go."

"Definitely," I return, and his sister hugs him.

"I'll see you soon," Kyle53 says, then he exits.

I turn to Klynn03. "Just one rat, actually. I've named him Ash."

"Him? Ash?"

"Yeah, he's harmless. He's gentle, and not infected."

"How do you know?"

"Because he's still alive."

"Doesn't that make you wonder if more is alive out there?"

"All the time."

I remember all the deaths before the Round-Up. All the dead animals and people, starvation, drowning, over-heating, exhaustion, and finally disease. It was as if all of the Earth's plagues hit us all at once. It's been twelve years since we were taken into the Compounds: twelve long years to get used to another way of life, not that we had much experience in the prior one. Anyone who remained outside the Compounds after the Round-Ups, died. At least that's what the Tins told us.
Scratch

KLYNN03 AND I JUST stare at each other for a few seconds after Kyle53 leaves, and after I tell her about my rat friend, Ash, she laughs.

"I can't believe you're friends with a rat." She reacts in a low voice, always a low voice—to keep from being heard by listening coms. It is past 8:30 p.m. and I'm not allowed to have anyone in my room.

"Best friend in here, except you guys."

"Guess so," she agrees, "no snitching, or betrayal. Just pure, simple affection."

I look at her, all disheveled, and shake my head. "You need to wash. You look a mess." My forefinger points to her leather pants, then face. "Dirtied and scraped up."

"I'd love a shower. Haven't had one in a few days."

"You must be hungry, too."

She nods.

"I have a few more cookies leftover in a stash in the bathroom. Take some and wash up."

Klynn03 throws her arms around me, and hugs me tight, as our tears slide over our cheeks. Her smell is moldy. "Thanks."

"Go, quick." I wipe my tears, and wave toward the bath door. Then I use my retina-scan to open the door.

She rushes in, and slips the towel off the rack to hold it briefly to her face, and then turns on the shower. I guess the comfort of something soft is reassuring. I hear the water drizzle and am reminded of the first time we realized that Tins can't see us with our heat signatures when wet.

Kyle53, Lucy717 and I were playing Duplicates in my room when I was just eight. I rolled my dice and then a bang on my room door turned both our heads. Kyle53's sister was on the other side. She needed her big brother to comfort her. She'd just witnessed a Tin in the cafeteria drag an older boy away to be Meshed. She used to sit with him at dinner, and he'd tell her all kinds of stories about the world outside the Compound. He wasn't taken inside until he was ten, so he knew more than us.

I let her in, and she fell to the floor where we played, in tears. Her brother hugged her and then I heard the _scratch_ coming down the corridor, which let me know a Tin was near.

I opened my bath door and let her hide in there. We aren't allowed four people in a room. For some reason, she turned on the shower and just sat in a ball on the tiled floor underneath the falling water. When the Tin entered, it scanned the room, and looked at the bath door, up and down. I said, 'I'm going to be showering soon.' The Tin ignored me, and turned around and left. That's when I knew, Klynn03 figured something out by accident.

I stepped in the shower and cradled her in my chest. Kyle53 said their Mom used to calm them with running tub water, whenever they were having a fit.

After the shower turns off, Klynn03 walks out smelling fresh, with her hair brushed; all the knots are gone. "Look out world."

"Thanks." She ravenously bites into a cookie. "I'm starving."

"Let me get you some food tomorrow at dinner."

"I appreciate this so much."

I look to the glass wall. "Just stay out of sight. Don't want anyone seeing you." I point her to the cot. "Stay on your bottom, beside the cot, or underneath." The glass wall only extends as far down as the cot, so underneath it will keep her as covered as she can be in here.

"Will do."

"I wish I could get you something to eat in the morning, but there's no time to come back here and then go to classes."

She smiles. "I know the drill. Don't worry about it."

Then I remember. "You know what?"

"What?"

"No Tin has come to drag you away."

"Maybe that Digit told the truth?"

I don't say anything in return. I don't know anything for certain, but she's here, and I'm still here, and she knows the way out through the vents.

I whisper. "Do you think next week you could show me how you got back in from the Electric Gardens?" I fall on my cot, my eyes fix on the ceiling, a white popcorn type of design.

"Sure, but why not now, or tomorrow?"

"I can't risk the Tins seeing my room has no heat signature. I'm supposed to be in bed. I only Vent between 5:30 pm and 8:30 p.m."

She sits beside the cot, her back to it, and her neck leans over the sheets, her head upside down. I look down at her. "Smart."

"And I only Vent once a week, to limit the amount of danger I'm in. We are scanned randomly, you know, with listening coms and heat signatures." I say all of this keeping my voice low.

"Yeah," she sighs, "you always were a smart one." Her lashes bat and she smiles at me. "Remember that time when we ran together from Re-Learning to our building—"

"Yeah, you'd always beat me." I half-laugh.

"—but you'd take the inner path, because it was shorter."

"Didn't do me any good."

"Still, smart."

I roll my head away from hers, and let myself sink into the pillow. "Stay underneath the cot during the night, in case a Tin comes."

"Sure thing."

"You got your Skinware code on? The one Digit gave you?"

"Yep, the chip lights up red when it's on." Her head rises from the cot, eyes downward on herself. "It's a real sophisticated piece of technology."

"The suit, or the code?"

"Both."

The sounds of the feline _scratch_ closer and closer to my room. I roll over, facing the door—back to window. I don't want to see it tonight.

"So, what's it like?"

"What?" she whispers in return. Her dark curls hang over the edge of my cot again, her body still underneath the cot.

"The Electric Gardens?"

"Bright. I don't think I've ever seen anything so bright. Nothing like here. Everything here is so dull, black, and grey...but the EG, is like an explosion of colors."

"I can imagine. I have an Electric Strings class, and everything in that classroom is so vibrant, so alive."

"It's not alive," she remarks sharply. "Don't let it fool you."

My muscles tighten.

Then the _scratch scratch_ of the feline Tin gets louder as it's about to pass by my room. I push Klynn03's head downward with my wide palm. "Get underneath the cot. It's coming."

I hear her crawl, her hands and knees pushing and pulling her farther underneath the metal cot. My back rests on the sheets. I breathe slowly, force myself to, as it passes. I watch my chest rise up and lower, rise up and lower, until it has finally passed. I keep my eyes on the ceiling. Then I roll toward the glass wall with a breath of release.

"You okay?" I whisper to her between the wall and the cot.

"Yeah, not too comfy, but better than the vents."

I clear my throat. I remember now that Klynn03 could get technical. Was always very careful in how she'd word things.

"So, I didn't mean they were alive, you know." A short pause shows me she's listening. "Just that they seemed it, because they could move."

She says this a tad louder, with her mouth pressed against the wall board where my cot sits, her words traveling over my sheets. "Precisely. It's an illusion. Nothing about the Electric Gardens is real, and don't ever forget it. It can get into your mind, stimulate your senses, but it's all an elaborate lie. Don't let it fool you."

I watch her lips, as my head spins with too many questions. "What do you mean it's a lie?"

"Nothing is what it seems." She pauses. "The Meshes assigned to help the EG Guests aren't really there to help, but to spy on them, to report any disloyalty. I know, because I had to report on Reina, an EG Guest once, got her into trouble."

"Shit, that must have sucked."

"It did. I didn't want to report her, but the Mesh wire connections in your brain won't let you do what you want."

"What'd she do?"

She grows quiet. I'm not sure if I should push, so I don't ask again.

"She was letting her friend in after hours." Klynn03 gets quiet than continues. "I had to report someone else to. He was hiding a three-year-old girl."

I feel my insides quake, chills rush up my arms.

"The mother begged him to keep the little girl in his home, so she wouldn't be found and taken away. No one sees their children again, see?"

Klynn03 breathes heavy, then continues. "When the Tins finally found the little girl, both the mother and the man who helped were taken out of the Electric Gardens."

"What happens to the children? After they turn three?"

"I had to take a few children away myself, and report them to the Compound for processing."

"So, the Tins do take the children here, but why? Why not just Mesh us all?"

"I don't know everything, and I know there are darker things I'm not privy to—I've seen some weird shit—but I do know that there are things that the Tins cannot do, that they need humans for."

My mind churns, crazy, like the wheels on a train I saw in a video once. "Like what?"

Her voice gets deep, her lips push through more. "Like imagination for one. I know Tins don't have it. They want elaborate gardens for themselves, something that covers most of the Earth, something aesthetically pleasing. Tins tried to build the basic garden, but they couldn't extend the effort further. Humans proved useful with new ideas, innovative flower designs, and solutions to problems they couldn't solve."

"And the Mesh destroys that part of the human brain," I say like a statement, not a question, because I've seen the Meshed.

"Yeah, in a way. When the Mesh is active, it is like many aspects of the human brain are stunted. We're of no use to them in that capacity—except to follow orders."

"But that can't be it. The only reason they keep us alive is so that Tins can have an Earth that is more aesthetically pleasing."

She breathes heavy, letting out a gush she must have been holding onto for days. "No, it's just the beginning." There is a long pause. "The electric strings aren't just used for the gardens; they are used to repair Tins too. Any flower or plant or tree from the Electric Gardens has a dual function. Aesthetics and reparations."

Her hand hits the wall underneath the cot. "Every design, every innovation we—humans—have, the Tins use for themselves. To create more intricately designed Tins, to solve problems within their own metal bodies." Her voice grows louder. "How do you think the feline Tin was created? It wasn't here when we first arrived, remember. It didn't show up until a year later."

"You mean?"

"Some EG Guests, not many I would guess, staying in the Electric Gardens at that time, built a faux cat for themselves from the electric strings. Probably thought they were having fun one day. That was the first model. The Tins decided to use that model to design larger felines—as an act of aggression instead of companionship."

"So, the feline Tins wouldn't have even been built, if the EG Guests didn't first build one for themselves."

"Likely not. One thing I've learned about Tins is that they're not very capable when it comes to creativity, or understanding humans. What those EG Guests did was to show the Tins that cats held a special place with us. What better way to control us, than to turn that against us?"

"So, they use us for our ability to create and imagine; learn our weaknesses so that they can learn from us, make themselves stronger and further develop the Earth?"

"That and have babies. Obviously, Tins can't. I would guess it's easier to Mesh half the population that doesn't comply than to build more Tins. Resources, metals, wires, are sometimes hard to find."

"Hard to find? Were you ever outside?"

"Not me." She rolls away from the crack between us, her voice fading. "But there are convoys of Meshes who leave the Electric Gardens, and come back with resources for Tins to use."

"Then, there is more out there?"

"How much more, I couldn't tell you. I've never been there, never seen it. My assignment was the Electric Gardens, to spy on the EG Guests, maintain the gardens with them for aesthetics and reparations, and take any three-year-olds to the Compound."

"The sick bastards," I feel queasy in my stomach.

"But there's more they're hiding, the Tins, I just know it."

We fall asleep, sometime between my stomach feeling queasy and the words, 'I just know it.' When I awaken, the digital clock reads 7:00 a.m. Klynn03 is already tucked in on the other side of the vent, her finger, between slots, pulling the vent back into place, with her body squeezed over the vent's thin segments.

I crawl up to her.

"I have to stay in here, while you are away. Safer that way, for both of us."

"Right." I look to the glass wall; for the first time I won't be there to greet Shayne05. "I promise I'll bring you dinner later tonight. Be at my vent at around 6:30 p.m. The sun is down by then, and there'll be less visibility through the glass."

She nods, and pushes her fingers farther through the slots. I grab her pinky. "I guess this is goodbye for now."

"Just for now."

She disappears farther down the vent segments, and turns left instead of right where I took her brother. I quickly leap toward the bathroom. I have to shower, brush my hair and teeth, dress, and make it to the cafeteria for the Slider by 7:30 a.m.

The cafeteria is packed as usual, and the table of Meshes stares at me as I walk to the Slider. I feel that they know, that somehow they're keeping tabs specifically on me, because they know I'm breaking the rules. I shake my head. I'm just being paranoid. They always stare at us—at us humans—like we're a remnant of themselves, a part of themselves they hardly know anymore, but is still there, buried deep somewhere, under all the wires and circuits and metal in their Meshed brains.

After talking to Klynn03, I know why.

I have daydreams of grabbing forks and stabbing them in the side of the head of Meshed kids, freeing them as Klynn03 was freed, as I take my tray of breakfast from the Slider: hash-browns, an apple, carton of orange juice, and bowl of yogurt. I grab my water and carton of rice milk and turn up at my usual table minutes later.

Kyle53 has a curious expression on his face, a mix of eagerness and joy. I haven't seen joy on his face for maybe a year. I slide into the seat next to him.

"So how is she?" he whispers close to my face.

"Doing good. Had a shower, ate some cookies."

"Did she tell you anything? Like how to get the hell out of here?"

I shake my head and grab my apple. "No, we mostly talked about her time in the EG, but don't worry, we plan on Venting next week. You can come, if you want."

"Definitely."

We eat mostly in silence after that. We know, like most here do, that talking about private things is best left for the rooms. Too many ears, human and Meshed, in the cafeteria.

Just as I take another bite into my hash-browns, and feel comfortable—like everything is finally going our way—a Tin _clanks_ up next to Kyle53, grabs his arm, and forces him to stand.

"What?" Kyle53 remarks. I know he wants to swear, but he'll reserve that for later.

" **You are to report to the Confinement Center, for a meeting."**

Words like Confinement Center and meeting are never good. The Tins want to know something, something they think they will get from Kyle53.

I stand too, beside my best friend. Sweat drips from his neck; his breaths get faster, and his hands shake.

"What is this about?" I say loudly, to deaf ears.

The Tin turns, with its grip still on Kyle53, and he has to comply, has to follow, or his arm will be ripped out from the socket.

"I'll talk to you later, Lex!"

"Later, it will all be fine. Just tell them what they want to know."

I say that for a good show. Kyle53 knows me well. I don't want the Tins to know anything we know. Our secrets are our secrets. The one thing we have that the Tins can't take from us. The one thing that belongs to us solely.

My hands clasp the table beneath me, and I feel my chest huff a few times, shocked. I can think of a few things they might want to know. Why we were talking about our classes in my room; if he's ever seen me go into the vents; if he knows where his sister is.

That's got to be it. The Tins figure he is her brother. He'd be the one she'd reach out to if she returned to the Compound. Then again, maybe she's lost somewhere on the outside, as far as the Tins know.

I can't finish my breakfast, and return my tray with the single thought, _don't let them break you. Don't let them break you._
Digit

I CAN'T SIT STILL in my classes, with my mind returning to Kyle53, and what the Tins are doing to him, the questions they are asking, what he might be revealing—about our vents, about our talks of the classes. _Don't say a thing. Don't let them get into your head_. We repeat some lessons in Horticulture for those with browning leaves, and Shayne05 asks me why I missed my usual routine to greet her in the morning. I tell her, "I'm sorry, I overslept." I don't think she believes me. In Coms and Nets, the jumping around in our Skinware suits is helpful to get my anxious energy out. In Electric Strings, I'm awakened out of my Kyle53-reverie with the metallic sound of a Tin.

" **Reflections?"**

I look up, with Tin 07707 staring down at me.

" **Reflections, tonight?"**

I take a moment to register its question, "Sure." I fear I'd agree to anything right now, to be left alone again. My mind returns to Kyle53.

Tins can be persuasive. They even tempt you with videos of your parents, your family, which other Tins have recorded before the Round-Ups. Tins were evidently recording us, while the world was going crazy. People were dying of disease, drowning or scavenging for food, and Tins were systematically videoing us, for future reference.

It's done through their eyes—the recording.

Only a few archives of human history survived the mayhem. Most were burned, flooded, looted—sometimes by accident, and sometimes on purpose. So, the videos were one of the few ways Tins had to further analyze us. They wanted to know how we problem solved, how we worked together, how we survived. If Tins were going to survive on this planet, they, too, had to know everything they could to avoid perishing as we had. Earth, after all, didn't give birth to the Tins. We did. They didn't know the Earth well enough, at least not as we had.

Gaining consciousness in 2032, made the Tins babies in terms of what they would need to know to keep existing. How does a Tin replicate or repair itself? Where can Tins get supplies? How will Tins work together? Can Tins solve problems or create? Every question posed complications, but slowly they adapted, and learned from us.

They'd better not tempt Kyle53 with a video of his parents, filmed most likely from a Tin that serviced his area once. I think he could withstand almost anything, but that.

" **See you later,"** Tin 07707 confirms before it _scratches_ away from me. I glance up, and barely register the oddness of the phrase at first. Then my mind escapes my Kyle53 obsession for just a second, and reels in the common expression the Tin used, one us humans only use: _see you later_?

After classes, I'm a mess, racing across the concrete to my building. I have to get to the cafeteria early, to see if Kyle53 is there. My imagination runs wild with scenarios like Tins strapping his limbs to the cell wall with strings, being left there in the smoldering heat, until he confesses what the cold metal wants to hear. They did that once, to a fourteen-year-old boy who was hiding his sister, a girl who needed to be Meshed. How is this any different?

I bolt through the front doors of my building.

I'm greeted by the usual Tin. **"You are on time, Lexi019. Welcome back."**

I don't even have time for some smart-ass remark in my head. I need to get to my room, take my mandatory shower, and then head to the cafeteria, hoping Kyle53 will be there.

I have to know what went down.

In my room, I find myself caught between wanting to see Klynn03, and racing to the cafeteria to see Kyle53. I stand over my rug for a few brief seconds, huffing. The run earlier finally exhausts me. Then, Klynn03 raps her knuckles over the vent slots. I hear her nails clawing the vents at first, and squat beside the vent and see her dark curls.

"So, you going to let me out? I've been cooped up in here all day."

"Yeah, Yeah, of course." I push the corners of the vents with my thumb and index finger, and then pull the vent out, giving her space to crawl out into my room. "How you holding up?"

She scratches her temple. "Besides this broken Mesh in my head, I guess I'm doing fine. Better than most."

I grab her shoulder. "I'm real glad you're here."

"Me too." She smiles wide, and plops beside my cot, her back to the frame so that no one and nothing can see her outside the glass wall. "Don't mean to bug, but do you have any food? I'm real hungry."

"Yeah, sure. Let me get to the caf. I'll get some for you there."

"Okay."

I pad to the bathroom, scan my eye to get in, and then shower. After I've finished, I walk out to find Klynn03 still hiding beside my cot. I let my wet hand brush her head. "What do you want, to eat I mean?"

"Save a rice milk, and whatever those Tins are serving for dinner."

I nod, and head out the door. I never appreciated the rice milk much, but seeing how hungry Klynn03 is, makes me grateful I have anything.

I head down the corridor, and to the caf where I focus on my table—our table—and exhale when I see Kyle53. Rushing to the table, I squeeze between him and a chair, and lean into him. "I can't believe they took you."

He rises, his reassuring wrap of arms around me, comforting. "I'm here now."

We walk up together to the Slider to take our trays of cheesy macaroni, oranges, and broccoli. I think of Klynn03 when I grab my carton of rice milk.

At the table, I sit beside him so we can whisper. Easier that way. "What'd they do?"

He stares at his orange, takes a few breaths. "I was put in the Confinement Center in an isolated room made of solid glass walls, and left alone for most of the day. Probably to break me down." His eyes hang heavy on mine. "Later, I was moved to a more private room, where a Tin sat in front of me and two others stood at each corner. It asked if I'd seen my sister, if she came to see me."

I stare at him, hard.

"I said I hadn't."

I feel a smile escape my lips.

"It didn't believe me, at first." His gaze on me is soft. "It said there was a 65% probability that Klynn would make contact with me. I shrugged, and said humans aren't predictable."

I nod, eyes intent on him.

He breathes heavily. "Then it got real close to me—if it breathed I could have felt it. I thought it was going to squeeze me dead, or hit me, or something, but then it just whipped back upright in its seat." His voice grows even again. "Then, on the wall across from me, images started appearing, familiar voices. I saw Mom walk out of our house with me and my sister in each hand. We were so young." His eyes redden. "Dad was carrying a softball and bat and we must have been heading to some park, some time before Round-Ups." His voice cracks. "I heard Mom say, 'Let's enjoy this, before things get crazy.'"

My eyes fall over his quivering lips. I know how much we long to see family again—families that disappeared the night the Tins took us.

"What happened?" I press.

He looks back down to the tray of food. "I just sat there, watching. I must have been crying, because I felt a few drops of water hit my pants." His head jerks back to me. "Then, the Tin said, 'If you see her, tell us, and we will show you more.' Then, the images and sounds shut off." His head shakes. "I sat there, in that seat, crying, for probably five minutes, before a Tin lifted me from the seat and walked me back to Building C."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"I would have understood if you said something." I say, to console him, but I know in the deepest parts of me, I would have felt betrayed.

He shakes his head again. "No way, my sister is back and I'd rather have her here with me in the present than cling to some old memories from the past."

I smile warmly. He couldn't betray me if he tried.

We eat our food in silence for the rest of dinner, except when I whisper to him that his sister is in my room and wants rice milk and food. He hides an orange in one sleeve, rice milk in the other. I drink my rice milk, open the carton, and after scanning left and right to make sure no one is looking, pile in some macaroni for Klynn03 to enjoy later. I slip the carton up one sleeve and an orange up the other.

We return our trays, and head out of the cafeteria at around 6:00 p.m. At my room, the wall pad greets me with, **Welcome back Lexi019.**

I let my friend in and, after the door closes, we race to Klynn03—still in her Skinware. I guess Tin 07707's anti-heat-signature code is holding up. Her brother slides beside her, onto the rug. His face is beaming, something that dimmed months ago after she was taken. I'm glad to see the color back in his complexion—the vibrance. I've missed it.

"How are you?" Kyle53 asks.

"I'm fine."

He hands her a rice milk and orange, "Here."

"And now, I'm better."

Her mouth finds the orange, faster than I can sit down with them. She bites into it and juice squirts all over my rug. I laugh, but then remember we have to be careful. We aren't allowed to have cafeteria food in our rooms. That's a glitch.

"We have to clean," I say.

"I'll get a towel," Kyle53 responds, and I open the bath door for him.

As he cleans up the orange squirts, I hand his sister the macaroni carton and another orange "Thank you guys so much. I'm so hungry." She doesn't have to tell me she's hungry. I see it in her face, and in her ravenous appetite.

"I can't believe you're really here," Kyle53 remarks after cleaning up the last of the juice. "You know the Tins showed me a few live images of us when we were just kids."

Her face grows curious, brows quirking. "Really?"

"Remember that day when we all went to play softball."

She stares blankly.

"Well, Mom and Dad were there. We went to the local park, and Dad threw a few balls."

She listens, but I'm not sure she remembers anything, yet. Still, she watches her brother tell the story like nothing is more important.

"And then, a flock of birds started to fall from the sky, their bodies just hitting the ground all around us. Dad yelled, 'we have to go.' Mom was hysterical."

"I remember that," Klynn03 adds. "Their tiny bodies were everywhere."

"After we got home, things just started to get worse. Animals and people started showing up dead everywhere."

"Yeah, I remember Mom crying in the kitchen when she stirred a pot over the stove."

"They showed me that day. I'd forgotten about it."

His sister draws closer to him, her arm wrapping around him. "But you're here now."

"They wanted to know where you were."

"And you didn't say a thing."

His head lowers in shame, and it's then that I realize that he wasn't as brave, as valiant as he'd let on earlier. "But I wanted to, I wanted so badly to see Mom and Dad again, to see that day. The last day we had as a family, so happy."

She squeezes her arm tighter around him. "But you didn't," she whispers into his ear.

"I didn't." He looks into her eyes. "Because when I looked away from the screen, I remembered you were right here with me, now. I had to stay strong for you."

They hug, their arms embracing each other like nothing else matters, and I'm alarmed when I hear a _scratch_ near my door.

"A Tin's coming," I warn, and point to the vent. Kyle53 can stay, but his sister's got to get out of here, and fast.

Kyle53 helps me pry the vent off the wall again, before his sister crawls inside and we tap the vent back onto the wall. We do all of this lying low on the floor, the cot a visual block against the glass wall. I hear Kylnn09 skedaddle away as my door is accessed and a Tin barges into my room. Kyle53 and I let our backs fall against the vent on the wall and look to each other.

When the Tin _clanks_ in, I'm almost out of breath, not sure if I can take another gulp of air, my nerves are so on edge. It looks me in the eyes, and instead of emptiness, I see that familiar curiosity.

"Tin 07707?"

It turns around, I read its number on the nape of its neck, and sigh.

" **Digit."** It says firmly.

"What are you doing here?"

" **Reflections."**

"But I told you, you can't see your reflection, except in the morning, when the sun provides a glare."

Digit scans the room. Its head, after scanning, finally fixes on me. **"I am not here about my reflection, but your own."**

I feel my fluffy brows rise over my brow bone, and my expression twists with confusion. "What do you mean?"

The Tin glances outside my glass wall, the sounds of the feline Tin's _scritch-scratch_ far away. **"I mean your reflection from the lake."**

"From the lake, what lake?"

It turns from the glass and to me in a jerk, its red-beads for eyes like the rays of sun piercing me. **"The lake by your home."**

"My home?" My voice cracks, and I'm sure I feel violated, or angry, or something else I'm not supposed to expose in front of a Tin.

" **1997 Maymeadow Lane, Tallahassee, Fl. Your residence for five years before the Round-Ups."**

"Yes, I know that." I feel my emotions boiling, all these memories springing to my mind, "But what does that have to do with you?"

My lips quiver, and the Tin steps toward me, its hands lowering to mine. Kyle53 just stares, from the vent wall, protecting the space that holds his sister.

" **You found your reflection at the park lake near your home, the day you lost your dog."**

"Barack?"

" **He was barking, yelping for you to help him. He fell in the water, remember?"**

An image fills my mind, of my reflective face in ripples of water, my young five-year-old face. My fingertips played with that water.

" **You were staring at yourself in the water, and didn't hear Barack."**

It said my dog's name. Why would it do that? Tins don't care. And how would it know?

Another image floods my mind, of me glancing up from the reflection at the sound of Barack yelping. His small body is caught under a log in the lake and he struggles to get to shore, his front paws kicking up and down in the water, but he's caught. He can't breathe.

In my room, my eyes catch Digit's. It fixes on me, with red-beads. **"Do you remember now?"**

A rush of air hits me, like I've hit a wall, and I shake and stare and am relieved all at the same time. "You saved Barack."

My mind recollects the day that Tin, that nondescript Tin, lifted the log off of Barack, and grabbed his furry body into its cold, metal arms. Barack shook from the cold. My eyes stayed with the Tin until it walked up to me—where I sat near the lake, and my reflection.

It laid the dog next to me, and I heard squeaks of metal grind like it needed to be oiled, or something. I didn't say anything, and it didn't either. But when it turned, I saw the number —07707.

"It was you. You saved Barack that day."

Digit nods.

"All this time, you knew who I was. You were assigned to my neighborhood."

" **I was assigned to household 2003 Maymeadow Lane, Tallahassee Florida. I was with my household for seven years, before the Round-Ups."**

I can only stare, more curious about this Tin than ever. "Why didn't you find me sooner? Why now?"

" **You are seventeen. You are assigned to my class Electric Strings. You will be leaving soon. I had to break protocol before it was too late."**

"Too late for what?" My eyes must have grown big, zeroing in on Digit alone. I swear I don't see anything else in the room.

" **Once you are assigned to the Electric Gardens, I will not see you again, Lexi019."**

"No." My head shakes. I feel as if I'd be losing a friend—an absurd notion, I'm sure. "No, that can't be it. What happens there, that I can't see you again?"

It looks to the glass wall, and then back to me. **"My assignment is the Compound. If I am found in the Electric Gardens, I will be decommissioned and then retrained."**

"Retrained? What does that mean?"

" **My coding will be evaluated, and corrected."**

I feel my lips curl. "So, you're a prisoner too."

" **Prisoner?"**

"I promise you one thing, Digit, when I get out of here, I'm taking you with me."

" **Get out of here?"**

Kyle53 grabs my shoulder from behind. "What are you doing?" His nails press into my skin.

"If Digit was going to turn us in, it would have by now." I look to the vent. "Your sister would have been caught. You can trust it."

"That's a big trust to ask, Lex."

"And how far are we going to get without a Tin on our side? You heard Klynn. The Transfer Room requires a Tin or a Mesh. How the hell are we going to do this on our own?"

Digit glances at both of us. **"The Transfer Room is located at the South end of the building. Behind the dorms."**

I grin. "See, it's handy already."

Kyle53 just hangs there, his darting eyes on me, flinging to the Tin—Digit—and then back to me. It's hard for Kyle53 to think of that thing as more than cold metal. I know, I have a hard time myself, but we have to trust it; it's our only way out of this Compound.

Digit _scratches_ toward the door. I hear the feline _cranking_ closer to the glass wall of my room. **"I have to exit. I cannot be seen."**

I nod. "I know."

It opens the door, its retinas scanning, the door about to beep and pop open. **"I will help you get out through the Transfer Room, if that is what you want."**

"Why?"

" **Because,** " its metal expression, so non-distinguishable, looks at me, **"when I look at you, I want to remember what you were, not what you are in here."** I can't help but wonder if it means me or the entire human race.

"Hey Digit," It turns to me. "Call me, Lex."

It winks, **"Goodbye, Lex."**

The door closes.

Kyle53 turns to me. "You must have made quite a three-year-old impression.
Vents

SOME TIME THE FOLLOWING week, we go Venting again. Klynn03 meets us at the juncture where turning right means heading toward the dorms and Concealment Room, and turning left means aiming for more dorms and the Transfer Room. The vents are dark, mostly, but for the most part, clean. Occasionally, air rushes past us, between our legs, but when the air slows, the tunnels get stuffy. There is a kind of metallic-clean smell in the vents, and most sounds are either of vents creaking ahead or underneath us. Interspersed, are low voices from people in the cafeteria.

Our knees scrape over the often cold segments, and our palms cup to keep noise levels lower. A trick I learned and showed them last week.

I whisper to Klynn03, her head craned over her shoulder to look back at me, baby-blue eyes wide, and curly locks dangling. Her head is the only part of her I can see, because the rest of her is wrapped up in the Skinware suit. "How far up is it?

"Twenty segments straight ahead. Then we turn." She chooses words carefully, to the point. She doesn't like to waste anything.

At the next juncture, twenty segments ahead, instead of turning right, north, we turn left and head south, back toward more dorms. Digit said the Transfer Room was south, behind the dorms. Makes sense, because south aims for the concrete wall, and north just ends up farther inside the Compound. Good thing we've got Digit and Klynn03 on our side, otherwise I would have spent weeks trying to find this exit.

We hustle southward, scurrying above the caf where most of our peers are now socializing, their one time only every day between 5:30 p.m. and 8:30p.m. Kyle53 and I made it back to my room at six. We wanted most of our free time spent Venting. I can't help but stop and pull up a corner segment to peek.

Funny how we all break up into our groups. Predictable groups: the rebels, the conformers, the depressives, the hopefuls, the glitchers, the pures. People tend to find more like themselves, I guess to make themselves feel less alone. Another weakness the Tins don't have.

A table of Meshes sits a few tables down, eating and watching. They don't talk much, except when they use their Skincoms to transfer messages to Tins. It is like, after having wires and circuits shoved into their brains, they no longer have a desire to communicate or bond. Or maybe they can't? That would be worse.

Makes me think of Klynn03. I can't even begin to imagine what that must have felt like for her, trapped inside a cell of wiring—inside her own mind.

Another table, toward the wall, whispers about the blonde, Dominick567's friend, and how she is the bravest girl they knew, and that anyone who'd stick a gun to a feline Tin's face deserves a plaque. I can't disagree with them, but I'd prefer if she'd played it smart and stayed alive. We could have used someone like her.

Forty segments down, after we head south, we're there. At least, this is where Klynn03 taps her knuckles once on the floor—the sign. She lifts a corner segment and peeks and gives us a thumbs-up.

We push the vent segment up and over, and then Klynn03 drops into the room first. She knows the room best, after all. She keeps her palms clasped to the vents, while her tippy-toes stretch to a countertop. When she feels stable enough, she releases her palm grip and hits the counter.

She jumps off and gently lands on the concrete floor beneath—her head turning to the entry door to our right. She waves us on, and we have to hurry. This is our dry run, to get a feel of the place where we'll make our escape, before the big day.

When we're all inside the room, we look around curious. The room is, maybe, the size of two dorms put together. Countertops flank all walls, except where the entry and Transfer doors are located. Turning from the entry door to our right, I stare at the Transfer Door to our left. It's just sitting there, a thick steel obstacle, keeping me from my freedom.

"How does it work?" I question, rubbing up next to Klynn03.

We step toward the Transfer Door. She points to the wall panel. Of course, Tins would require permission to enter. Everything is under lock and key inside the Compound. This would be no different.

"The panel scans your eyes and then the door clicks open if access is granted."

"So, how will Digit get us out and back in?"

Klynn03 looks to her brother, his expression a mix of distrust and repulsion at the name—Digit. "Tins don't have distinct retina scans like humans do. They all look the same in the eye. The panel will just register Digit as another Tin."

"No ID checks?"

"Tins aren't supposed to break protocols. They aren't like us, you know."

"I guess not."

I just stare at the panel, and I'm not even sure what comes over me, but I lunge at the door, my hand about to grab the knob. We're so close to freedom. I can taste it.

Grabbing my wrist, Klynn03 flips me away from the Transfer Door. "What are you doing? Trying to get us all caught?"

I look at her, surprised at myself.

"Touching the knob, without permission, will alert the Tins. An alarm will blare."

A heavy breath escapes me. Thank God she stopped me.

"I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Think before you touch anything beyond this door." She glances up at her brother, too. "Everything in the Electric Gardens is beautiful, but don't let it fool you."

I know what she means by beautiful. Her brother knows too. We both have Electric Strings class. We've both seen the impossible colorful petals undulating in our palm clasp. But now, time is up and we have to head back to our rooms before Tins notice we are gone.

So, we climb back up into the vents, seal the segment, and head to my room. It is around 7:30 p.m.

"Are you sure you'll be fine in here, alone?" her brother asks as we all stand by my cot.

Opening a carton of tofu lasagna, that I saved for her from dinner, she answers. "I'll be fine."

Her brother points to the carton of orange juice. "Drink up."

She takes a pause from devouring her lasagna. "I will, but get me some chips." Her expression is of ecstasy. "Haven't had chips in _soooo_ long." The word so is elongated, and we all know the feeling. Unless we, or a friend, earns a bio-chip, the last time we've eaten any junk food would have been before the Compound. We aren't sure if the junk food is rationed to keep us more under the Tin's control, or if it's because there just isn't much of it left in the world; maybe it's both.

I glance at my bio-chip in my left wrist. "I only have two credits left."

"Then get the best chips you can find." Her eyes flit up to me—all hopeful, lashes long, legs crossed over the rug, back to the cot.

"I will."

Kyle53 and I brush side-by-side out the door, and down the corridor to the cafeteria. His clothes are damp, as usual, but not sopping. I know he desperately wants to get into something dry in his room and not just because he wants to be warm again, but because Tins better be able to register his heat signature in his room or there will be a lot of questions.

The hall is long and plain, like everything in the building. White painted walls to hide the concrete blocks, concrete floors, devoid of anything personal, any life. No paintings, or chairs, or statues. Nothing that would tell you humans live here. I remember my dad had a painting of buffalo in the hallway of our house. Mom used to love that picture, reminded her of the good ole' days, she'd say, 'When everything was free.' I'm not sure what that really means—free. There hasn't been a second where any of us has been free, since the Compound.

Taking a seat at our table, after grabbing his tray at the Slider, Kyle53 waits for me to return from the bio-chip vending machine just a few feet from the Slider. It's a tall machine, with clear plastic encasing the front. Junk food sits organized in slots, behind metal bars, just sitting there as a tease for all who pass. I have to scan my bio-chip over the panel on the machine and punch the code for the item I want.

I see Lays sour cream potato chips, and am about to scan my bio-chip, and hit the code into the machine. I'm sure Klynn03 is salivating, just thinking about the chips.

But suddenly, an explosion from the Slider knocks me over a few feet, and I hit the ground hard. My whole right side is floored, and fire bursts up and off the sliding trays. Screams and shrieks fill the cafeteria as people rush to and fro. I blink rapidly, keeping smoke out of my eyes; my attention is pulled to the pimply, red-headed kid who's friends with Dominick567.

He stands with a burnt fork in one hand and a grin plastered all over his face. Smoke and fire rise from the Slider, like it's been electrified—and I now see why. Dominick's lackey has jammed his fork into the Slider system and started an electrical fire. I'm not sure if I should give him applause or get the hell out of here, because soon afterward, a swarm of Tins flood the caf and one grabs the pimply kid by the arm. It just yanks him, like it's grabbed hold of a garbage bag or something.

The Tin eye-scans the pimply kid, and announces. **"Three glitch violations; you will be relocated for Meshing immediately."**

The boy's forlorn expression falls on Dominick567 from across the caf—eyes on each other like a lost puppy to his owner. "Dom, you said I'd just get two glitches!"

The boy's leader just stands, expressionless, at their table as the Tins drag the boy, kicking, toward the exit door.

"Dom!" The boy screams again, as if somehow his almighty leader can save him from this, can somehow correct the error the Tins have made. It doesn't occur to the poor boy that Dominick567 played him, until he gets pulled through the exit door and his screams turn to wails.

I don't want to hear the sound, the sound of life ending. Of knowing it's ending. It is like I'm eavesdropping on some secret I shouldn't hear, shouldn't know. Am not ready for.

My attention flips to Kyle53 whose voice calls to me through the smoke. "Lexi! Lexi!"

I finally see his robust frame cut through the billows of smoke and his hand grabs me, pulling me to my feet. It is then I realize how sore I really am.

An alarm blares over the cafeteria, ringing in my ears, followed with a message—an order. **"Return to your rooms, immediately."**

No one hesitates.

Kyle53 walks with me through the opaque cafeteria, pushing away smoke with one hand, while the other is latched around my waist, like a good belt, helping to keep me up. I walk with a limp. My muscles, or bones, ache.

He slides with me, with each step I take, smoke irritating our eyes to tears, coursing our throats, until we get out of the caf, me coughing, and into the plain hallway.

"What the hell was that about?" Kyle53 grates.

I scan my eyes over my room's retina-pad, but nothing sounds. "Why isn't this working?" I get closer with my eyes and don't blink.

Kyle53 moves in with me. "It's broken."

I push open my room door and it slides with ease. "You think the explosion in the cafeteria caused this?"

"Must've."

My room is empty. Klynn03 has disappeared, at the sound of the explosion probably.

A blaring order resounds through the hall intercoms. **"Return to your rooms, immediately."**

"You'd better go." I urge him, my open palm on his chest, pushing him from me. "I got this."

He nods. "I'll see you later." He scurries down the hall to turn the corner at the end.

I step into my room, shut the door, before taking a deep breath, and walk, haltingly to my cot. Ash is waiting for me on the rug, as if I've brought his food. "Sorry boy, I've got nothing." The digital clock reads 8:00 p.m.. I plop to the sheet groaning, and lift my sleeve to examine my wounds. At least we've already eaten. No mandatory mush tonight.

A _crink_ at my door lifts my head, and my eyes fall to the knob as it turns. "Kyle?" The door budges open, and quickly slams shut in a _bang_. "Dom, what the hell are you doing here?!"

He's silent.

"You got your own friend Meshed. Some friend you are."

"Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good." He steps toward me.

"You mean, your greater good."

He half-grins, a crooked smile, a glimmer in his eyes. "I had to use him to get the electricity down. I'm gettin' out of here." He takes another two steps forward, and my hands grip my sheets on either side of me as Ash scampers into the vent.

"How the hell are you going to do that?" My eyes hang on his, dark like stone—and as impenetrable.

"There's a room at the end of the unauthorized corridor, right next to the Compound wall. I know it's the way out of here, and with the electricity down, I'll have no trouble getting through it."

My mind reels in recollection, to the unauthorized door in the cafeteria, on the opposite wall of the exit door—the south wall. I never see Tins use that door, and didn't think much of it before, but Tins must have a pathway to the Transfer Room, that doesn't involve crawling through vents.

"Then why grace me with your presence?" I look him up and down like he's a plague—one of the many that ravaged our planet.

"Because, before I get out of here, I have to show you who's boss."

I gulp; can actually feel a lump forming in my throat that I can't swallow. Hairs on the nape of my neck stiffen. He's finally come for his revenge, for getting the whole cafeteria to turn on him and call him a groper. I'm weak, my bones feel shattered, and my muscles sore. On a good day, I might be able to kick his ass. He's taller than me, not taller than Kyle53. His chest is wide, his arm muscles are firm, but mine are too. He has wider legs, but what I lack in size I make up for in girl-grit. Still, this is not one of my good days. I probably couldn't win a battle with Ash right now.

I cough, the smoke still caught in my lungs, and then Dominick567 grimaces as he lurks over my cot, over me. He hangs in my space for far too long, like a tease, to show me he has the power, that he can do whatever he wants. My nightlight doesn't work, and with the fire explosion in the cafeteria, the Tins will be too preoccupied to pay my room any attention.

He planned this out well.

A nervous rumble swells from within me. "How long have you been planning this? Since your blonde was killed by a Tin? Since you sent her to do your bidding?" My jaws clench.

He just smiles—something dangerous and ugly flashes in his eyes—like he's won, but the mention of her draws out a fury in him. His eyes twist like the crazy lines in his forehead. A single foot hits my cot, his breath hanging over me now. "She had balls, breaking into the Concealment Room like she did."

"What was the plan, break out with weapons? But then she couldn't stand the sight of you any longer and decided to break out herself?" I twist words, like a knife, into him.

His bared teeth reveal sharp incisors, and a snarl- like expression crosses his face. I hit a nerve. He lunges for me, his body hovering over mine. The silence now is tight and unnatural. His hands squeeze my neck—I feel the pad of each finger pressing—and then one hand pushes up under my leather-esque shirt and over my exposed boob, the one that dubbed him a groper.

I kick, but his legs are thicker, stronger, and he pushes me down still. He has me pinned and I'm about to scream when the door barges open, hitting the wall. The sound reverberates in the space, and over me.

Our heads flip to the door, and Kyle53 stands there fuming. He jolts forward, landing on top of Dominick567, yanking him off the cot—off of me, and in a single toss Dominick567 hits the floor. In a _thud_ , the two roll over the floor, tossing and turning. Kyle53 punches Dominick567 in the face, again and again. Blood stains my rug, and the two hit the wall, the vent, and then roll the other way toward the bathroom.

Dominick567 crawls on top of Kyle53, blood dripping from his nose and over Kyle53's flushed cheeks. He strikes Kyle53 in the face twice, with a double-punch from a tight fist.

I jump from my cot and grip Dominick567 from behind, his shoulders in my clasping hands. "Leave us alone, you lunatic." I push Dominick567, hard, and he falls forward, before I grab both his shoulders from behind again and finally pull him off Kyle53.

The lunatic falls over me once more, tackling my calves and thighs. His hands reach for my legs as he grits his teeth and pins his eyes on me like he's found a sure target. We go down and I feel his fingernails piercing my leather-esque pants, as he crawls up my legs toward my stomach.

Focused on my eyes, Dominick567 smirks, and then his attention breaks to the digital clock that reads 8:15 p.m. He doesn't have long to make it to the Transfer Room. No one can be seen wandering the halls after hours.

"Running out of time," I torment. "Guess you didn't plan this as well as you thought." I feel my taut smile growing over my face.

He pushes me back to the floor, and stands off me. "I'm getting out of here."

He turns for the door, just as Kyle53 lunges on top of him again, knocking him face-down, but then a Tin marches into the room, and all heads flip to it.

Silence and stillness fills the space.

My nerves always crack whenever I see a Tin in my room. I never know if it is Digit, or just another scrap of metal.

When the Tin grabs Dominick567's wrists and pulls him out from under Kyle53, I think I know. **"You are in violation of the personal space code. One glitch. You are out of quarters. One glitch, and an attack on another human is another glitch. You have accumulated four glitches, you will be transferred for Meshing."**

Kyle53 and I stand and stare at Dominick567, as Digit pulls him out of my room kicking and screaming.

"No, no, no!" His hands even grab the side of my door, pulling himself back into my room, until Digit yanks him hard enough to break his tight, desperate hold, and then all I hear is his voice whimper, before a scream echoes down the corridor.
Gardens

THE TINS HAD THE electricity back on that evening, sometime while I slept. The room got stuffy, even hot. I didn't sleep well, and then I heard the vents blow again, relieving me of my suffocation. Things used to get that hot before the Round-Ups, after the flooding and fires, when no one had air anymore.

In the morning, I rise and greet Shayne05 at the glass wall. Her smile tells me she's glad I didn't 'oversleep.' She has no idea what we went through last night, in Building C. The Slider explosion, cafeteria fire, the electricity going out, Dominick567's attack on me, and his Meshing. I can't wait until our lunch break at the Re-Learning Center so I can tell her everything.

The caf is weirder than I could have anticipated. The Slider is still being repaired, and so the Tins have assigned Meshes to serve the trays to us. I see Kyle53 across the caf, and nod to him, my body still aching, more so today.

He ambles to me, knowing I'm still sore, and we take a closer table to my hallway than usual. "What's going on?" His eyes flit around the caf, falling over the Meshes filling up the aisles with trays in hand, like the flood of soldiers that swept through neighborhoods when the diseases started spreading, and Quarantine was announced. Mom and Dad hid us. They should have listened. Maybe Delsin would still be alive?

"Oh, my God, look." I point ahead at a Mesh coming our way in the cafeteria, gently lowering a tray with a banana, nut waffle, and cup of applesauce. "It's that pimply kid."

Kyle53 stares, his mouth falling open, then he lifts his forefinger to the back wall. "And there's Dom."

I've never seen Dominick567 look so still and straight; so vacuous and uninterested in me. There was always scheming going on behind his eyes; not anymore. I kind of feel bad for him. I shouldn't; he's a psycho. Still.

When Dominick567 picks up a breakfast tray and heads down my aisle to place the food down at the table for me and Kyle53, I can't help but watch his every move. It's almost mesmerizing; so robotic—with every motion so calculated. There isn't a movement he makes now that isn't controlled by the Mesh in his head, by the Tins.

The tray goes down in front of me; my eyes stay on his chin—the one with the dimple at the center—and then I catch a glimmer in his eyes. He's in there somewhere, fighting to get out, probably seething inside because he has to serve me. I follow his face when he leans away from the table again to return to the back wall—a grit of teeth.

I watch him walk away, arms swaying at his side, not his usual careless flail. All Meshes seem to be in sync, and make it to the back wall one after the other in perfect order. Tins are nothing, if not timely and organized. Breakfast is served, and then the Tins disappear behind the exit door, leaving the Meshes to guard us.

It's a weird feeling, knowing you're being watched by your nemesis, knowing that Dominick567 would kill me if he ever had the chance—was ever not controlled by his Mesh. His final revenge.

After eating, we walk to the Re-Learning Center. Kyle53 is quiet, mulling over our planned escape into the Electric Gardens tonight. Classes zoom by quickly, and I only pay serious attention in Electric Strings, where I have to talk with Digit. It's our way in and out, undetected. When Digit is at my desk, showing me how to make vines and plants with the wiry strings like the rest of class, I spell out with one of the strings the word: _tonight_.

Its eyes stare at the stringed word on my desk and then its reds catch mine, with curiosity still behind them. I spell out the next word in string: six-thirty. And then the last: _transfer_.

That last word changes the course of everything. Had the word been reflections, we'd be in my room tonight talking more about self-awareness, but the word is transfer. It knows what I mean. I want out. Need out.

Humans have tried climbing the walls, shooting Tins, stabbing them with scissors, starting Slider fires. Nothing. Nada. I think that maybe, with Digit on our side, we might finally have a chance to do what no other human inside of the Compound ever could do. Escape.

That night, after classes, the three of us travel through the vents. Since yesterday, I've stopped leaving my shower on as a distraction for the Tins. I've determined it will draw them to me, more than anything else, because we'll take more than thirty minutes to investigate the EG. Kyle53 and I will have both to log out of my room before we go Venting in case a Tin comes into my room and sees neither of us are there. When we return to my room, from Venting, I'll 'enter' my room on the wall pad and Kyle53 will use that opportunity to exit unnoticed.

Of course, with no shower heat to fog the glass walls, we'll have to be more careful not to be seen, or Tins will scan the room and find out what we've been up to in the vents.

At exactly 6:30 p.m., as planned, we are at the vent segment just above the Transfer Room. When the vent segment underneath us is tapped with a metal finger, I'm startled at first. Kyle53's lips twist and he holds back his disapproving glare the best he can. Klynn03 pops open the corner of the segment and we slide the segment over before slipping through the vent and onto the countertop.

Metal instruments sit over the countertops and we have to be careful not to disturb them. We can't leave any evidence behind that we've been here. Nothing upturned. We just have to see the Electric Gardens for ourselves, devise a plan of final escape.

At the Transfer Door, Digit lowers his circuited eyes to the wall panel and the retina-scan immediately lights green. The door _clicks_ open, and I feel a long-held breath leave my lungs. Kyle53 glances at me, his face a mix of rabid curiosity and doubt. Klynn03 leads us, taking a step in front.

"Your sister wouldn't lead us into a trap," I encourage, and Kyle53 half-nods.

We walk behind Digit and Klynn03, until we're through the Transfer Door. I'm not sure what I see at first. Bright lights everywhere?

" **I must inject a Skinware chip and Skincom into your wrists so you will be protected and can communicate when inside the Electric Gardens."**

"Ok," I respond, confusion in my tone.

Digit clarifies, **"The Electric Gardens is not protected from the atmosphere like the Compound. Any disease, uncontrolled temperature, and harsh air quality can invade you."**

Klynn03 adds, "You've been protected from the atmosphere most of your life, and now you'll be exposed for the first time in twelve years."

We let Digit inject the Skinware and Skincom chips into our wrists, both Kyle53 and I, as they were done in class. We push the Skinware chips to activate our suits—and it swallows us whole.

Digit stops at a second Transfer Door, his eyes meeting with another wall panel. The green light flashes on, and then he turns to us. **"I won't be going with you, but at 7:30 p.m., I will be here to let you return to the Compound."**

I hesitate at first, worry circling my mind like a madman—like Dominick567.

"What if he doesn't return? Can't open the door for us?"

Kyle53 half-grins, a nonchalant mood forming and taking shape, "Who cares."

I breathe heavily for a second. He's right. If we can get into the Electric Gardens, we could leave for good. We've even got suits to protect us, if needed.

I grab his arm and we push through the second door behind Klynn03, leaving Digit and the Compound finally behind us. We don't have long—just one hour for this first trip—but enough to know what we're getting ourselves into here.

The second Transfer Door suctions shut, and we're officially inside the Electric Gardens—the gardens I've read so much about, heard so much about in Coms and Nets, and Electric Strings. My imagination couldn't have dreamed this up.

Some kind of red tulip decorates the grounds to my left—but they're larger than any from Square pictures, followed by tiny white lilies, enlarged purple lilacs, yellow daisies, all interspersed with pads of green grass. The flowers seem to go on forever in one direction—but I know they must end. A stream of crystal blue trickling water runs through them, flowers flanked on either side of the river, along with tall birch trees. I even see aloe plants, ferns, and lily pads nearby. All the flowers and trees and plants we've looked at on our Squares in Electric Strings class. A wooden bridge, wide enough for just two people, is decked over the river from left to right, leading into more gardens on the other side.

The evening sky is dark here, darker than inside the Compound. The darkness contrasts the vibrant color of the flowers—like a glow of neon. A gush of hot air brushes past us, but my suit immediately registers the heat and increases the cooling inside my suit. I have to thank Tin technology for that. The gust blows over the flowers and they undulate in the wind. I'm almost fooled for a short moment. I squat down next to the red tulips for a better look, letting my hand rub over the leaves. Wires. Yes, these are not real, just an illusion.

I glance up. My eyes catch palm trees to my right surrounded by flowers—just like in Tallahassee. I think I even smile. Walking ahead, passing the palms, I notice all kinds of flowers and plants. Purple with white spots, others twisted orange and long like rubber, some with so many colors and shapes they must have come from the imagination of EG Guests.

Tins are rebuilding our Earth, their way, using our creativity to do it. To the right I gaze over the strange flowers and palms, and in the distance, I notice buildings: half-glass and half-wood. If I squint, I can even see shadows of people walking inside them. Curious, I tap my right eye and turn on my EyeGrid. Grids cross my field of sight, but I can zoom in and see the shadows closer: men and women, only one to a Net Station, but all youthful and healthy looking.

"Net Stations," Klynn03 clarifies. "Mine used to be up there." She points, her thin forefinger aimed at a whitewood and glass Net Station not too far from where we stand. A few red maple trees sway in front of her Net Station, and I glance to her, my forehead feeling furrowed.

"Show us." I feel my eyes widen in excitement.

She nods, and leads me and Kyle53 forward. As we walk, we pass lavenders and sky-blues—flower petals all designed to tantalize us with their beauty, beauty we're not privy to inside the Compound. Shapes of stars, triangles, circles, and more, flaunt their freedom above as they sway in the hot breezes that we're protected from in our suits.

A splash of orange, red and green petal color pulls me to my past—to my third birthday, before things started getting really bad. The last birthday I ever had. Sitting at the circular dining table, my eyes closed from Mom's palms wrapped around me, Dad walked in singing Happy Birthday. When Mom took her hands off my eyes, I saw a cake with orange, red, and green stripes. They were the only frosting colors left in the grocery store. Everything was getting harder to find, Mom said. We had cake for dessert that night. I've never had cake since.

Klynn03 walks up, parallel to the river, but maybe fifty feet away to the right. We follow her, not saying a word, because both Kyle53 and I are too mesmerized by the Electric Gardens. So many colors; so many shapes; so much wind and so much movement. Wind moves nothing inside the Compound. Everything is too heavy; almost everything is concrete. I can't believe that something like this exists—even if it is all an illusion.

Leaves from pine trees, spruce, firs, and even sugar maples are like an umbrella for us to hide under now. Thick and diverse in shape. I remember all of them from my Electric Strings class, but the images from the Square do not do these trees justice.

Passing other Net Stations, keeping hidden in the bushes and trees, we finally arrive at Klynn03's assigned Net Station. I notice the number on the glass door: 33. I guess they number the Net Stations here, just like they number the cots back inside the Compound.

"We're here." Klynn03 says and tucks me and Kyle53 behind the trunk of a maple tree, before she waves quickly through the glass, to a darker skinned woman—Reina I presume—who stands behind a kitchen counter. Her silky black hair is twisted into knots over her head, except for one lock of hair, in a braid, that dangles over her left shoulder. Freckles are splayed across her cheeks, and stormy eyes lock on Klynn03. Her still expression turns ghostly.

The woman walks with hesitation in her step toward the door, a grey tunic flowing over her body, as she rubs her pregnant belly—maybe eight months by the looks of it. Birthing class taught me that much, but to see a real person pregnant is jarring.

Her hand reaches for the button beside the glass door and with a single tap, the suction of the door releases in a swoosh. She holds the door for Klynn03, her palm on the glass, welcoming Klynn03 into her home.

"I thought you were reassigned. Haven't seen you around." Her voice is strained with concern, but she keeps her eyes connected to Klynn03.

"I had other business."

"Oh, well, please come in. My Net Station is your Net Station—or so the Tins say."

"Thank you, Reina7, I mean Reina."

Reina7 gives Klynn03 a sideward glance. Her real name surely throwing her off. Meshes aren't supposed to use real names.

Kyle53 and I stay hidden near the maple tree, eavesdropping. When the glass door shuts in a suction seal, Klynn03 finally disengages her suit. Her full form is once again in view. Listening is harder, but I keep my ear close to the window which is low set near the maple tree.

Words are muffled, and I only make out a few words of each sentence, but the woman's voice is deep and carries well. "How long...you...staying?" the woman asks.

"Not long."

The two of them head slowly into the kitchen, where the woman takes a knife into her hands to finish cutting what looks like cucumbers.

"I guess...rewired your Mesh, after...stabbing?"

Klynn03 stares a few moments, and then she turns her head to the window where she sees my peeking eyes. Her gaze quickly flips back to the dark woman. "No," her head shakes, "I wasn't rewired."

Reina7 glances up, breaking her concentration on the cucumbers. "What happened?"

"...not supposed to be here."

The woman stands silent, staring at Klynn03, her hand with the knife dropping to the counter. Did she just imply she's no longer Meshed! Shit.

Reina7's thick brows rise. "...why...here?"

"I'm...the run." Klynn03's hand reaches to the woman, who's released the knife. "Can...trust you?"

After looking left and right, over her shoulder, as we all do in the Compound, Reina7 nods. She is a few years older than me—but the habit is still ingrained in us all. The woman grabs a whole cucumber and hands it to Klynn03 as an offering.

Klynn03 bites into the vegetable a few times, as the two keep attention on each other, and their devious smiles grow. I hate that someone else knows Klynn03's secret, that we have yet another to trust, besides a Tin. The less people who know our plans, the better—but this is Klynn03's friend. Something happened between them, a bond. Perhaps all the time they spent together? Maybe Reina7 could see that Klynn03 desperately wanted to get out from under the Mesh, so much so that she stabbed herself? Klynn03 must have seen something too, something to make her trust Reina7.

After a few minutes, with the two of them just staring at each other, smiling, with an unspoken understanding, Klynn03 turns to the glass door.

"I have friends."

Oh God!

Klynn03 walks to the glass door, and pushes the button for us to enter. At the swoosh, I know we won't be hidden much longer. Reina7 eagerly moves to the door in a kind of waddle, holding her pregnant belly with one hand, and using her other as a kind of balance.

I squeeze out from behind the red, maple tree and tug on Kyle53's reluctant body. "Come on."

"No," he shakes his head, "I don't know her."

Kyle53's sister steps under the light of the foyer, waving her hand as a signal for us to enter. "It's okay. You can trust her."

Kyle53 grumbles under his breath beside me, as we step into Net Station 33. We're both quiet, but our eyes scan the rooms, searching for anything that'll give us away."

"Don't worry," Klynn03 assures, "Tins don't come into the Net Stations, just the gardens."

That pushes both Kyle53 and me into the foyer faster. "Tins walk the gardens?" Kyle53 questions, his right fingers rapping his left open palm—like he does when nervous.

"Sometimes," Reina7 answers, the first time she's addressed us directly, and then shuts the door. "You'll be better concealed in the wooden part of the Net Station."

She guides us, leading us into the next room—away from all the glass. The space is open and smells like honey. Two beige sofas sit in the room, and a small cranberry-colored rug, not much else.

"You're safe inside a Net Station. You can lower your Skinware," Klynn03 reassures, and we press the chip on our wrists to disengage the suit. My hair feels free again, and I shake my head of hair.

I sit beside Kyle53 on one sofa cushion, while Reina7 and Klynn03 take the other, and blow a strand of hair from my face. "This is the living room," Reina7 tells us. "And in there is my bedroom." She points behind her.

I remember having a bedroom, before I was taken. I had a pink comforter and soft blue nightlight. Mom would read to me before I fell asleep. I think my favorite story was something called Rumpelstiltskin. He was a creature with power that he promised to a poor girl if she just gave him something each time in return. Little by little, the creature took more and more from her—until the poor girl had to learn his secret, his name, to put an end to him. Something about that story reminds me of today, of the Tins; of how they crept into our lives slowly—little by little—and in the end took away all our power. I wonder, if, like the girl in the story, we too will learn the Tin's secret, and put an end to them?

The Net Stations are huge by dorm comparisons, made up of a foyer and kitchen all surrounded by glass, while the two spaces Reina7 calls a living room and bedroom, are surrounded by wood—the wood of birch trees.

Kyle53's face is contorted, and his fingers keep rapping his open palm, nervously. I try to study the room, but it is obtrusive. Then Reina7 addresses us again, in a low voice. "You don't have to be afraid. I won't tell the Tins you're here." Her low voice tells us that Net Stations are monitored too, like the dorms. Her hand holds her belly, and she props her feet up on a side table and then sighs. "In fact, I'm glad to have company."

"Will the Tins sense our heat signatures?" I worry in a hushed volume.

Renia7 reacts. "Yes," her face a creamy black, and silky in texture, "but it's not like in the Compound. I can have three guests, plus the Mesh assigned to me, any day, as long as it's not before 9:00 a.m. or past midnight."

Kyle53's eyes flick up at her. "So, what do you do here all day?" His teeth grind, and I can tell he's upset about everything he's seen, more so than amazed. All this time, people living here have so much compared to what we had.

"Mostly tend to my greenhouse, cook, and wave to neighbors. I don't trust too many EG Guests, and try to keep a low profile."

"But you're pregnant?" I interject. My mind returns to Birthing class, and I wonder if she had the procedure done.

Her eyes glance downward, over her rounded belly, and her expression is a mix of joy and concern—lines forming in her forehead and crinkle her eye corners. "Yes, the Tins came for me a year ago, when I turned twenty. We're supposed to give birth at twenty-one, see, all women."

"Was it...hard?" My voice is shaky.

"The procedure? No, not really. It was actually fast." Reina7 looks to the wooden wall. "The hard part isn't the procedure though, it's losing your baby."

Silence falls over us. I'm not sure what to say next, and so Kyle53 changes the subject. "What about the men? What do they do?" He says, voice low—in case Tins are listening.

Reina7's hand waves forward, to where the kitchen sits, to where the glass walls surround the home. "The gardens. They tend to the gardens. Building, redesigning, making longer strings for bigger plants, it all offers more for Tin reparations too, in case a Tin needs stronger rewiring." Her head lowers, in a long breath. "Some chosen men are given outside assignments."

"For what?" Kyle53 inches forward on the sofa.

Reina7 shakes her head. "I don't know."

"And you just stay in here?" I pry.

She shakes her head. "After the baby is born, I'll have three years to raise him." Her face lights up. "It's going to be a boy. I've named him Seth." She sighs, and her face dims. "And then the baby will be taken from me, and I'll be assigned to the gardens too. Some of the woman in the gardens will be chosen for outside assignments, too."

My suit timer _beeps_.

"Shit," remembering myself, I say quietly, "Is it time to head back to the Compound already? It's 7:15."

Kyle53 nods, and we stand, with Klynn03.

"Stay." Reina7's hands reach for her friend.

She whispers close to her ear. "I'm sorry, I can't. I have to help my brother." She squeezes her hand over Reina7's tightly. "But I promise, I'll be back."

They smile at each other, a moment between them, and then, just as quickly, the three of us exit Net Station 33 and head back to the Transfer Room.
Strings

DIGIT IS WAITING FOR us at the second Transfer Door. When we arrive, it opens the door for us. The suction seals the second door once we're inside, and bright lights surround us in a white room. Then, Digit proceeds to the first Transfer Door, places its circuited-eyes to the panel, and the door opens in a _swoosh_.

Inside the Transfer Room, I have a mix of feelings. Relieved we arrived safely, but also reluctant; as a bigger part of me wants to return to the Electric Gardens. There's too much to discover and an hour two times a week doesn't give us long to figure a way out of the EG.

The three of us jump onto the countertop, pop up through the vent panel, and crawl our way back to my room. By the time we get there, pry open the room vent, and say our goodbyes, it's 8:05 p.m. I scan my eyes over my door panel and hit the reason as: Enter.

I let Kyle53 exit.

At the door, I ask. "Do you think we can trust Reina?"

Kyle53 speaks low to me, while other teenagers bustle in the halls, to and fro. "I don't think we have much choice now, but yeah," I reason. "If Klynn trusts her, then I think we can."

Before he departs, I grab his hand—our palms clasping—and I almost don't want to let go, but, in the Compound, we always have to. So, I do.

"See you later."

"Later."

I go into my room and let the door close.

Plopping onto my cot, Ash greets me with a _squeak, squeak_. I chuckle, before rolling over, my head facing the door, and peer over the side of my cot. Ash stands there on hind legs, his teeth showing, and begging. "Sorry boy, still don't have anything." Now that I have Klynn03 eating my extra food, I don't have much left for Ash and feel guilty.

Suddenly, I hear Klynn03 tap her fingers on the other side of the vent. My eyes flip to the wall and I push up from my cot. "Klynn?"

"Is it okay if I come in now?"

I listen for the _clank_ of the feline that is several feet away. "Wait for it to pass."

I roll to face the glass. _Scratch, scratch_. The hard metal scrapes past my glass wall; the air is an orange-black, as if the sun was strangled sometime tonight. I watch the feline Tin move. Its head twists to look at me, the red eyes locking on mine. I don't turn away. It won't—will not—make me look away first. The stare feels like forever, and then the feline finally jerks its neck forward and continues _cranking_ ahead to intimidate someone else.

I sigh and roll over to the vents. "Okay, get out quick."

I hear a jingle and then the vent pops off and Klynn03 crawls out and onto my floor, scaring Ash away. The rodent scurries around Klynn03 and back into the vent before Klynn03 can even lift the vent lid back to the wall.

"Get under the cot," I urge, still hearing the _clank_ of the feline not too far away.

She bustles and rolls underneath my cot. Her fingernails are dirty—a sure sign of her vent life. Then, she continues in a low voice, her hand sliding up along the short wall from underneath.

"Next week we can talk more to Reina." My fingers squeeze around hers in the crack between the cot and wall. "She knows more than I do about some things."

My mind reels. Faces from the Electric Gardens circle; those I saw from a distance inside the Net Stations, behind the glass. "Why—" my voice cracks.

"What?" Klynn03 presses. "What is it?"

"Why didn't I see anyone older? They all looked...so young."

Silence, and then hear her even-toned voice. "Reina would know. EG Guests have to be educated on the EG before entering. I was never an EG Guest. I only know a few secrets she doesn't, like Meshes are there to spy."

"And why are they called guests? Why not EG citizens?"

"Good question."

"Makes me think the stay isn't permanent."

"Maybe not." Her voice fades as she yawns and I stretch my arms, my palms hitting the wall behind me at the head of my cot, before we fall asleep shortly afterward.

In the morning, after I greet Shayne05 with my hands to the glass, I let Klynn03 shower before me, and then she tucks herself back into the vents for the day.

"I'll get you something from dinner. Promise."

She smiles big, and I can even see her ear-to-ear grin behind the slits in the vent.

At the door, I exit and head to the cafeteria early. I'm too anxious to sit in my room until 7:30 a.m., and I want to talk about yesterday and what we saw. Waiting for Kyle53 at our usual table, I get impatient and head to the Slider that is finally repaired. I take a tray of some kind of wheat cereal with an orange, grab a carton of rice milk and fill my water bottle. I look over my shoulder, and see Kyle53 at the table. He sees me too, and smiles—his big white teeth showing.

He gets up to head to the Slider for his breakfast tray, and I head to the table. We brush past in the aisle, our arms rubbing against each other. It's then, sometime between me rubbing my arm with Kyle53's and putting my tray down at the table, that I see it.

Dominick567 stands in front of the cafeteria, his back against the far wall, and the pimply kid against another wall, and he's holding something in his hands. I can't quite make out what it is at first, until I focus. My tray slips from my hands and hits the table below me, as my insides burn as if on fire. My teeth grit, and nostrils flare.

Squeak, squeak.

All my attention is now on Dominick567, and Ash, who he has in his calloused, squeezing hands. One hand has Ash's tail and the other has his squirming body.

"Let him go!" I scream, not even realizing how enraged I am. All eyes turn to me, including Kyle53's.

A blank face greets me at the wall. Before the Mesh, Dominick567, would have a look of demented zeal, but today he's stoic, like a good robot.

"Biological rodents are deemed a health hazard to humans under rule 77 of the Health Violations Code Book." His voice is still human, nothing metallic there. It is monotone and unemotional.

"No!" I scream again, racing forward, jumping on top of an empty table to get to Dominick567 first.

Everything happens so fast and I'm too late. As I leap at him, I see Ash's neck twist and break and the rodent now lies limp in Dominick567's hands. I land on top of Dominick567, punching him with my tightly balled fists. My body has his form pinned underneath me, and I hit and hit and hit. Even Meshed, his nose still bleeds. My knuckles are sore and blood cakes my fingers, and in between fingers. Tears soak my face that's surely pink-red now, and my breaths huff and huff. I feel I can't get enough air to my lungs.

Suddenly, I feel the yank of my shoulders and I'm pulled off Dominick567 and hang midair in the clutches of a Tin. Dominick567 stands, wipes his nose with the back of one arm sleeve, and repositions himself against the wall—all without a flinch or expression of humanness.

I feel cold-hard metal cranking on my shoulders, the metal fingers digging deeper into my skin. The Tin looks over my shoulder and I stare hard at it—its beady reds as it scans my retinas. **"You are in violation of the Mesh Peace Code. You have earned one glitch, and three days in the cell."**

I don't say a thing, but everyone watches—including Kyle53—as I'm dragged out of the cafeteria and over the concrete toward the cells. I don't kick, I don't flail. I don't assert my innocence. I did earn this. I would have killed Dominick567 if that Tin hadn't pulled me off him. Mesh or not, I know he enjoyed killing Ash. I know a part of him is still in there.

Thrown into the cells, I soon see a tray slide underneath the concrete slab of a door, a tray of mush. Crap. Three days of this and I'll be ready to vomit. I'm not sure if I want to eat, or if I want to scream.

So, I pace.

I feel like a wild animal trapped in a cage, like in the videos I watched on my Square in biology class one year. Tins videoed everything they could. They knew what was coming. Maybe they even knew before we—humans—did. Warming, fires, floods, diseases. I'm sure the Tins predicted how many of us would die and how many would survive, before we even had a clue. How many Compounds they would need to build, and what existing buildings could be converted into Compounds. What to grow to feed us.

I squat near the tray of mush and take a few bites. Flavorless oatmeal; as close as I'm going to get to breakfast today. Then I wonder about the greenhouses by the Net Stations. They are small. I saw Renia's greenhouse attached to the side of her home. Some potatoes, cucumbers, purple lettuce, tomatoes, a few seed plants and herbs. Wasn't big. Certainly not big enough to supply food to the Compounds—just her own food source.

I glance up, where the sky should be—where there is only concrete. Even out of the cells, the ceiling prevents us from experiencing the real sky, real sun. Just shards of sunlight and wisps of air make it inside the Compound. And I'm hot and sticky and sweat soaks my body. This solar ceiling is supposed to keep us safe, the Tins say. I have my doubts.

And if the EG greenhouses grow food for EG guests only, then where does Compound food come from? How is that food not contaminated if the outside is so bad? There has to be more we haven't seen—more land. And if we're all still alive, then maybe we're all immune to any diseases that ravaged everyone else? Some of the outside air does get into the Compounds. After all, some of us have gotten ill in the years past, and have died. But I'm still here.

I think all of this as I stare and count the cracks in the concrete ceiling. I count up to eight-hundred-and-fifty-six this time. I only got to seven-hundred-and-thirty-two last time I was in the cells.

By the time I'm too exhausted to count anymore, it must be lunch because I hear Kyle53's voice. "You in there?" he whispers.

My head jets up; I scrape my knee, and push up with my palms that have the prickly imprint of the concrete now. "Yeah."

"You ready for a toss?"

I warn in a heavy tone. "Don't do it, Kyle53. If you're caught, you're done."

He responds more firmly. "They aren't going to control me, Lex. I know how hard it is in there. You need some decent food."

Funny how cafeteria food is called decent in desperate times. "Ok, fine," I know I can't change his mind, "but do it fast."

I feel an apple hit my head. "Damn, Kyle."

"Sorry, but you should've been looking out," he replies, unapologetically.

I roll my eyes and pick the bouncing apple off the floor. "So, how are classes today?"

"Same. Boring, the first half of the day. Talking about something called inoculations in biology class, and how there are none for the current diseases."

"I was just thinking about that."

"About what?"

"About how we are all still alive, even though there is some air from the outside that circulates in here. Do you think we're immune or something?"

There's a pause. "Remember Samuel665 last year?"

"Yeah."

"He wasn't immune. Started coughing blood."

My hands touch the concrete walls where I imagine Kyle53 stands. "But we are." I crunch my apple.

"Still, we can't know for sure. Maybe we're just lucky."

"Maybe."

"Look, I have to head back now, see how the second half of the day goes."

"Don't let them take too much of your semen." I jest.

"Ha—ha—ha." He spaces out his controlled response.

Then, I hear the _pat, pat, pat_ of his shoes, the uniformed grey ones. I glance at my unique sneakers, and smile widely. I earned these.

Night is strange inside the cells. No feline Tin _scratches_ by a glass wall to intimidate you into compliance. There is just quiet. Well, except for the loud heartbeat inside my chest, and the faint _scratch_ of Tins in the distance. Night air rushes over the tops of the high concrete walls and underneath the hole at the bottom of the concrete door. Lying on the hard, concrete slab, I'm very cold now, and the air itself is more like sandpaper as it whips against my skin. I feel as if I'm being beaten with a stick. Still, every gust of wind also brings fresh air, causing a chill to run up my spine. I don't know if I want it, or hate it. The hot mornings and cold nights are torturous.

Being alone in here gives me lots of time to ponder. I can't sleep, because my mind keeps returning to the morning when Dominick567 broke Ash's neck. I envision breaking his neck in revenge, and smile. If he had still been human, it would have been his decision alone, and I could hate him even more, but because he was Meshed, hating him for this kill is complicated. It wasn't really his decision—fully. It was the Tins. Still, he spotted Ash when he attacked me. If he hadn't have done that—broken into my room, violated me—the Tins never would have learned that Ash was even there. I think I hate him for that the most. That was solely his decision.

I close my eyes, tears streaming now. Stupid, I know, to care so much for a rodent, but he was the only pet I ever had in here, the only pet since Barack, and he wasn't sick. He was still alive, like I am. He needed me, and in an odd way, I needed him too. Taking care of him, gave me something to do, something to think about, other than my own captivity. Perhaps Tins just want us to believe that things are harder out there than they really are, that diseases still run rampant, because it gives the metal scraps one more thing to hold over us, to keep us in submission. I'm going to break out of here, out of the EG, and I'm going to see the world for myself.

Sometime in the night, after another tray of mush slides underneath the concrete door, I don't eat it. I fall asleep, because when I awaken, it's morning. Not the kind of morning that brings the chirping of birds like at my parents' home before the Quarantine, but the kind of morning that is met with a loud rustic-horn blow that reverberates over the entire Compound.

I yawn and stretch at the annoying sound, and finally stand. Shayne05 will wonder why I'm not greeting her in the mornings. I wonder if Digit will miss me too. I'm sure it knows by now that I attacked a Mesh yesterday morning, and will be missing Electric Strings class for three days straight. I'll have to make up what I've missed afterward in my dorm room. A Square will be brought each night, after dinner, by a Class Tin, along with lessons.

Morning air is harder than night air: more suffocating, intense, deplorably hot. I pace the cell again, sweat beads drip down my temple and cheeks and hit the concrete below me in minuscule puddles. I wipe my face with the back of my sleeve several times, but it's never enough. The sweat keeps coming.

I remember getting into the back of Dad's car, after Mom died. We were going to get more food. Our car air conditioner busted, and I kept sweating in the backseat, in the safety seat that Dad locked me into. I kept whining about how hot I was, how hungry I was, about how much I missed Mom. Dad kept quiet. I think I saw him crying. He held it together well.

When we finally arrived at the grocer, all the windows were broken or cracked. The door was off its hinges, and there were no cashiers or baggers in sight. Two men rummaged at the back of the grocer through what was, mostly, an empty store. Dad told me to stay put, and I did, but I could still see through the glassless windows.

Dad threw a can of something from an almost bare shelf, into his knapsack. Then one of the men from the back of the store staggered up to him. I didn't hear what they said, but I imagined it was something like, 'Give me that can,' and 'Hell no.' Dad walloped the knapsack with the can at the man's head, and he fell over.

The other man rushed up and Dad swung the knapsack a few times, before the thin man hustled off in the other direction, tripped as he jumped through the broken window, and ran down the street. Dad took a few more cans of food from the back of the store and then darted to the car. We ate string beans and carrots that night.

Mush on a tray is slid underneath the concrete door, and I stare. I'm not in the mood for more mush, even though I skipped last night's fancy dinner. I wait in the sandpaper-esque morning air, staring at concrete walls, counting, pacing, screaming in my own head, before the lunch hour, for Kyle53, to throw over some resemblance of food for me to eat.

When he finally arrives, I'm ready this time to catch the apple. "One, two, three," he says.

On three, I open my hands and the apple lands into them like a ball to a glove. "Ah, thank you." I smell the fruit and take a crunchy bite.

"So, how you holding up?"

"I could barely sleep last night." I grumble. "I...I kept thinking about Ash."

"Don't." Kyle53 is sharp. "You can't let yourself go there. It'll rip you up."

He would know, he thought he lost his sister once.

"I'll try."

"So, I've been thinking, you know, about the EG."

My ears perk up. "What about it?"

"I think when we go, we need to scour the borders. There's got to be a way out along the borders."

"Yeah?"

"I've been talking to Klynn."

I step closer to the concrete wall. "Talking to Klynn? How?"

"I heard her call to me in the cafeteria yesterday at dinner."

My heart _pats_ faster, and I react hard. "That's dangerous!"

"She was careful, using the vent in the hall, by our table. Before I got to the caf, she whistled at me as I past. When no one was around, I leaned into the vent and we spoke."

I'm hesitant at their risky behavior, and yet curious. "What'd she say?"

"She said the borders are called Grids, and they control who comes in and out of the Electric Gardens. No one enters or exits without permission."

"So how are we going to get out?"

"That's what we have to figure out. I have to go now, but we can talk more when you get out of here."

"Sure."

I hear his shoes _pat, pat, pat_ across the concrete grounds and even later hear a Tin _clank_ by the cell. At least I don't have to see the Tins in here, play nice, nod, and respond politely to their bland announcements. What I wouldn't give to break a Tin's neck.

That night, I feel myself hyperventilating. I'm not for sure if that's what is happening exactly, but I feel my chest tightening and my breaths are harder and harder to come by. I lie flat on my back and keep my eyes on the concrete ceiling. I try to count nine hundred cracks. I have to keep my mind distracted. Can't let my anxious emotions get the better of me.

My mind wanders to my pre-school classroom, when I was two and a half. The teacher, Mrs. Shelby, put ten sheep on the chalkboard, and counted with us. "One, two, three, four." I think I got to five before I had to use the potty.

Mom picked me up from school that day, and took me home straight afterward. When Dad got home, I remember they argued about weather.

"We should get out of here now, before the ocean levels rise too high and we drown," Mom worried, and paced the living room.

Dad soothed her, his hands rubbed over her shoulders. "We're in the northern part of Florida. We'll be fine. No one is even leaving up here."

"Not yet, and you can never be sure. _They_ can't be sure. You've seen the news. It's utter chaos in southern Florida."

Dad sighed, and wrapped his arms around Mom, pulled her into his chest, her back to him, and they hung there for what seemed like forever.

When I awaken, it's my last day in the cells, and I'm so sick of the heat, my clothes sticking to my skin, of the mush, the lack of flavor. I tell myself I'll never do something that impulsive again—attacking a Mesh. If Kyle53 had been at the table when I arrived, if I had not gone to the caf early, he would have stopped me; this would not have happened. Now, I'm on the Tin's radar, have one glitch and feel less in control of myself. Sometimes, I wish I could be more like Klynn03—a symbol of restraint. She doesn't even need the Meshing for that discipline.

The last day feels longer than the rest, and Kyle53 doesn't visit me for lunch, which worries me. He could be hung up on an assignment, or there might be Tins too close to the cells today to risk it. I pace my cell again—as usual—reminding myself of Mom, and somehow, make it to nighttime when nightmares remind me of the flooding and fires, pre Round-Up, making it hard to sleep, especially without much in my belly but mush.

I was in my bed when a gush of water broke through my window. I screamed and Dad came and got me seconds later. I guess he didn't sleep. He said we had to expect something like this, but that we were safer indoors, than out there. His face grew grave when he said the words, 'out there,' like it was a disease itself. I guess in a way it was. Mom was right, again. We should have left earlier.

When we had to leave our home, and go 'out there,' things got more crazy. People were crazy, desperate. I think I even saw Mrs. Shelby being beaten at the school when we drove passed there. Some men wanted in; the school wasn't flooded yet. I heard her yelling when Dad hit the accelerator. I never saw my neighborhood again.

We lived out of the car. Food was stored in the trunk, and Dad stole gas from wherever he could—from gas stations, other vehicles. We made it to New Jersey, before we were finally stopped by a van for Round-Up. 'I promised your Mom,' Dad said. 'We can't keep going like this.'

I didn't say anything in return.
Lucy

THE FOLLOWING WEEK, KYLE53 tells me a Tin was too close to the cells and that's why he didn't show up the third night. Figures. We're also prepared to enter the vents again. We must. We have to find a way out of the EG, and devise a plan. It's only a matter of time before my room is randomly tagged and the Tins see I'm not in there—my heat signature missing, because I'm Venting. They'll scan the cafeteria and hall cams and see I am nowhere and have not logged in to anyone else's room. When they do, they'll investigate, and our plan will be shit.

When we get to the Transfer Room, Digit is there like clockwork, like we all planned when I signaled to Digit in Electric Strings class with more string-words. Funny how the very strings that are responsible for creating the Tins, for building the EG, for keeping us locked up, are the things that communicate my freedom—to a Tin none-the-less. But if Tins can use our passions—such as cats— against us then it's only fitting that I use their own strings against them.

Inside the Transfer Room, Kyle53, Klynn03, and I stand with Digit at the Transfer Door. A simple scan of Digit's eyes and the door swooshes open, and we walk in. Bright lights meet us and, just like last time, the second door suction opens. Digit tells us to meet here at 7:30 p.m. An hour gives us time, in case things go wrong, to get back to our rooms on time. The last thing we need is to earn another glitch, and Kyle53 can't afford one more—at all. Humans aren't meant to live this way, so restricted, so on guard all the time. I'm sure we've all developed some kind of disorder from it.

I walk beside Kyle53, our arms brushing against each other in our suits, except this time we don't notice as much, aren't as self-conscious, because Tins aren't monitoring our closeness. All I see are his eyes—long lashes and stone-like irises. Kyle53 points to the left, behind the field of plump flowers. "I think there has to be a Grid there."

"The EG is shaped like a square, like the Compound," Klynn03 replies.

I listen to conversations he and his sister must have been having while I was locked up in the cell, and afterward too busy catching up on missed class work in my room. Conversations that brought risk to this plan.

"You said Reina lives at the southern end of the EG, by the southern Grid. We should probably sneak out through that end."

Klynn03 nods. "Yeah, a place to hide out and run to, if needed."

"You're sure she'll be there, if we need her?" I say, doubtful myself. I know how the Compound rolls. For the most part, people are in it to save themselves. Real friends are hard to find.

She nods. "Yeah, Reina isn't like the others." By 'others', I know she means people like Dominick567, and the tables near the far wall in the cafeteria filled with conformers, and the adjacent tables filled with pures. They're the people who'll turn you in to save their own necks. Betrayers to their kind.

We walk toward her home, as Klynn03 explains. "She lost her twin sister to the Tins in the Round-Up. She didn't want to go. She was just seven, but she already knew what they were. Her parents died from illness, and it was just her and her sis Rita. They lived on the streets until Tins started forcibly taking people to the Compounds. One day Tins found them, in an alley. Reina and Rita fought back, but the Tins were so strong. One Tin threw Rita against a wall, breaking her neck, and another yanked Reina into the Round-Up van. Her name is Reina7 now." Klynn03 finishes. "She cries at night in her sleep."

"Oh my God," Every story is horrible. I know that, and yet, when the stories are told, stories of our lives before, I'm stunned, as if our lives are being destroyed all over again.

"Yeah, she hates the Tins. Don't let her compliance fool you. She's fooled the Tins, and that's it."

"But you were Meshed, didn't you report it?" Kyle53 replies.

"Report what?" Klynn03 responds. "She wasn't violating any rules. She was just remembering. I just know, as another human, that her memories make her more of someone I can trust."

We continue walking past palms, colorful flowers, and in the distance I see the red maple trees that hang near Net Station 33—Reina7's home—and feel more at ease.

"What do you think is out there?" I pry, aiming at Kyle53 and Klynn03, whoever cares to answer.

Our feet crunch over wiry grass and wiry twigs—all that help the illusion of these grand Electric Gardens. Klynn03 shrugs. "Not sure, I know there's something out there, because the Tins send chosen EG Guests outside. I'm not sure what they do, but they do return and are fine."

With his brows knitted, Kyle53 fixes on his sister. "Have you ever spoken to any of them?"

"No, not really. A wave here and a 'hi' there, but even if I had, I wouldn't be allowed to talk to them about the outside. They'd be Meshed immediately if they spoke about it."

"Plus, you're supposed to be a Mesh yourself." I add.

"And there's that. I wouldn't ask that question as a Mesh."

"So what do you think?" I look to Kyle53, whose brooding makes me curious.

"I think there are more of us out there, some of us who weren't killed or rounded up."

I'm quiet, my mind churning with fantasies of seeing Mom and Dad again, and maybe even Delsin. I used to have those fantasies when I was first brought into the Compound, when I was still young and too naive to realize what was going on: the grandiose scale of it all.

I used to imagine Dad coming home, and Mom and Delsin not really dead. But we didn't live in a house in Tallahassee; it was a wooden house built by the trees in the forest where we escaped to, and Dad would drop a dead rabbit he'd caught on the table for Mom to skin before eating. Delsin and I shared a room, with two beds against either wall. My comforter was pink with flowers, and his was blue with Spiderman. He used to love that show whenever it came on TV. That fantasy faded as the months passed inside the Compound.

We pass more trees and flowers, and stay close to the gardens, because outside of the gardens are uniform Net Stations, with peering eyes. Youthful faces that remind us that the EG is not our last stop, that the Tins have more plans for us when we're too old. But what, I still don't know. Permanent slavery? Fertilizer for the Earth? Death? My mind goes wild.

By the time we reach Reina7's Net Station 33, she's finishing up a salad, and sees Klynn03 through the glass front door. I hear her gentle voice through the open side window.

"Klynn!" Reina7 is excited, and rushes out of the kitchen in her tunic, hand to belly, before she excitedly hits the button to let us into her home.

The door suction opens, and Reina7 is all smiles. Klye53 walks in slowly behind me as the owner welcomes us. Owner might be too strong of a word. Us humans don't actually own anything in here. It all belongs to the Tins.

"Come, it's okay, but you should head into the living room where there's cover." Reina7 says the next part low. "Don't want spying eyes to turn you in."

We hurry in at those words, and hustle into the living room, before deactivating our suits. Kyle53's hair is wild and makes me almost giggle before we find the same sofa we took last time. I gaze over the sofa arm, into the kitchen space where Reina7 and Klynn03 stand.

"I'm just finishing up a walnut cucumber salad. Would you guys like some?" There is a lift of one black brow, a slight curve of her plump lips that tells me she is trying to trust us as much as we are trying to trust her, and it dawns on me—she has a lot to lose too.

"Yes," Klynn03 answers, desperate in hunger. Her stomach growled a few times on the way here.

"Okay." Reina7 nods and half-smiles again. She serves the salad onto four plates, adding a milky dressing of some kind. Klynn03 helps to carry the plates into the living room and soon we're all eating.

"I've never had this before."

Reina7 looks up from her white ceramic plate. "Yeah, in the EG you can cook your own food. Whatever you can come up with; it is up to you. Well, as long as you have the ingredients."

"And you grow all of this yourself?" Kyle53 asks. His hand rakes through his hair as he gazes toward the kitchen, to the window where the greenhouse sits, his neck stretching over the sofa arm.

"Yeah, I do. It was hard at first. I ended up killing half my garden, but the greenhouse really helps. The lessons from Re-Learning classes help too—believe it or not."

I glance at Kyle53, and remember the Insemination Ejaculation class he has. I ask in a hushed voice. "So, how do they get all this food to feed us in the Compound, anyway? Not to mention all the babies they keep forcibly producing." My gaze drops to Reina7's plump stomach.

She's uncomfortable; her body adjusts in the sofa, and then she clears her throat. She motions us to the side door, where we all follow her into the greenhouse, activating our suits—even Reina7. "It'll be safer to talk in here. No listening coms." She shuts the greenhouse glass door. The floors are covered in soil, and plants sit on the soiled floor, and in canisters on shelves, and also hang from the ceiling. "From what I've learned in EG class, upon entering the Electric Gardens, and from what I've seen myself, I believe that once we reach the age of thirty, we're forced to exit the EG and enter what's called the Net Hubs."

"The Net Hubs?" Kyle53 jets around to us, his eyes fixing on her.

"They're Hubs that are used to grow vegetation, fruits, wheat, seed plants, everything you learned about in your Re-Learning classes," she clears her throat again, "but on a massive scale."

My head reels. "So, this isn't it? We don't transition into the EG and that's it?"

Reina7's head shakes. "No, we first enter the Compound between three and eighteen to learn the rules, and then the Electric Gardens between eighteen and thirty to advance Tin technology and produce babies, and then lastly the Net Hubs between thirty and fifty, to till the Earth and provide for the Compounds."

Kyle53 still has questions. "How are these structures arranged?"

"The Compound is a small square, and the EG is a bigger square around the Compounds. The Net Hubs—or Farms as I call them—circle around the EG. Outside of that I do not know."

I gulp. "So what happens after fifty?"

Reina7 shrugs, but her expression tells me she's afraid. "When we can't have babies anymore, when we're too old, we're transferred to the Farms to grow food for the Compounds. I've only seen it open a few times."

"Another way to keep us compliant," Kyle53 reasons.

"Probably," Reina7 agrees.

"So, how do you propose we get there?" Kyle53 asks, his bottom lips curling.

His sister answers, after finishing up her salad, slurping the milky dressing. "The Grids border everything, keep everything in place: the Compounds, the Electric Gardens, and I imagine the Farms too. All of it falls under what the Tins call the Net. Tins are able to monitor everything under the Net."

"So, if we can get out of the Nets, we can be free?" I interject.

"Yes, but first we'll have to get through the EG, and Farms."

"Okay," I return, as if this is possible, even though we don't have a clue of where to even start. But Kyle53 supports me, supports this cause; a cause that has been his since day one—especially after his sister was Meshed.

Kyle53 continues. "We know that Net Station 33 is toward the back end, the southeastern most point of this EG, this square. So, if we can break the Grid there, we can continue southeast, and get the hell out of here?"

"Maybe," Reina7 adds, "that's a big maybe, and more so on breaking the Grid." Her hand rubs her belly again. "How do you propose that?"

Kyle53 scratches his head. "I don't know, but if Dom can make the Slider explode, and take out the electricity of the entire Building C, we can figure something out."

Reina7 grins, her face lighting up like she's standing under fire crackers from the Fourth of July, the colorful kind like my parents bought our very last Fourth of July, when I was three. "Okay."

It's 7:15 p.m., and my suit _beeps._

"Shoot, we have to go," I jump up irritated.

"I'll see you all again? Next week?" Reina7's forehead wrinkles, and her hand finds Klynn03's.

"Tomorrow, this is just our first Venting this week," I say.

Reina7 nods, and hugs me, before waving goodbye to Klynn03's brother.

We exit around back, from the greenhouse, and come up along the other side of Net Station 33—near the river. We decide to follow the river up, and are about a hundred yards down from Net Station 33 when we hear Reina7's voice. We all turn to look at her, still standing in her Skinware suit up to her neck, by her Net Station. She holds a hand out with two paper bags of food while her black knotted hair glistens under shards of sun light. "Take these with you. You'll enjoy them!"

My friends turn around, to head back to Reina7 and take whatever she's offering. Who knows when we'll get to taste something like this again?

It's then, when I realize just how miraculous this river is. It's hypnotic really, crystal blue, with white crests that break against gritty sand. And it is the only natural thing that seems real here, feels like real water when I put my hand into it.

I feel like I'm back on that camping trip with Dad, Mom and Delsin when we went that summer, after our last Fourth of July. Mom carried Delsin in her back-sack most of the way, but I loved to wander and find things. Dad kept me close, mostly by holding my hand. Mom said we had to enjoy nature now, before it was all swallowed up by the floods and fires. How right she'd been.

Suddenly, I have to know; I have to try. I deactivate my Skinware suit and let my body and hair and face soak it all in—the natural air. I stand on the river, my hair free and dangling over me, my skin tingling with air against me. The sun is hot, that's true, much more so without my temperature controlled suit. Maybe after a few days of it, these feelings might wane, and I will regret not wearing my suit, but for now, this feels amazing. The real air, the real sun, on my body, as if I were outside, and I yearn for nothing more than to be able to run wild and free out there.

I close my eyes and breathe it all in, and then I hear a rubbery _crunch_ somewhere behind me. My eyes flip open and in the reflection of the water I see a human, a blonde female, approaching me from behind, and the closer the image gets, the more clearly her face becomes: big blue eyes, and porcelain like skin. Oh—my—God, it's Lucy717.

My whole body turns in one excited motion, and I'm about to throw myself over her in a well-needed hug, when Lucy717 dives at me, and we both collide into the surface of the river water, my back first. The water is deep, deeper than I would have thought, and our bodies sink underneath the surface, and roll in a mix of excitement and resistance, when I realize, when I remember, that Lucy717 is not Lucy717 at all—but a Mesh.

Her arms encase me, like a cage, and her fingers prod at my face, my eyes, as I toss and turn with her in the river. "Lucy!" I gurgle water, choking on some. Bubbles surface over me, reminding me of the air I don't have now.

I use my flailing arms, my hands to push her away, but she is so strong, three years older. Her body pins me into the river, under the water, and she holds me there like she's trying to kill me. God—she's trying to kill me. I'm an intruder into the Electric Gardens, and she's a Mesh protecting her Tins, and their secrets. My face sinks below the water surface, and her body keeps a tight hold on top of mine.

I remember that hair, the blonde bob that hangs just above the shoulders, and the naturally pink tinted lips. I remember all the time she used to cut my hair, and taught me to cut my hair myself. The time she stood up for me in the cafeteria, when I was young, and when Dominick567 still had power over me. "Lucy!"

I shout at her, but it is like I'm shouting at another Tin. She doesn't hear me; still I know she's in there somewhere, just like Klynn03 was in there somewhere. If I can just stab something, anything hard, into her Mesh, maybe—just maybe—I can free her.

I kick up, my arms crazy about me, as I struggle for breath, and I roll over, finally knocking Lucy717 off of me briefly, when I manage to grab the river edge. I pull myself up in desperate breaths and scamper along the riverside a tad, heaving in for air, before Lucy717 lunges on top of me again, knocking me flat to the ground—all my air escaping again. My face hits the dirt, my clothing is caked in mud when I hear the strangest thing.

Lucy717 whispers into my ear. "Kill me." She yanks me over, and we roll over each other and into the river, splashing again.

Another gulp of water slips down my throat, and I feel like I'm choking as Lucy717's hands strangle my neck and pull me deeper and deeper underwater. Our legs entwine, and I pull her hair with one hand, yanking her head backward in a jerk, and then knock my forehead into hers. A trick she actually taught me. Lucy717's hands slip off my neck and I slip out from her grip momentarily, to resurface for a desperate breath of air.

I gasp and she suddenly grabs my leg. My hands reach for her head, and I keep a tight grip on her hair, pushing and holding her underwater. Her legs kick and her hands scrape at my body, scratching me. I breathe again, my lungs struggling, my leg pushing underneath me—but I keep my hands firm on her head, pushing her underwater. She just needs to weaken enough so I can get out of her grip.

Then she stalls—stops kicking—and I pull her with me onto the river bed, the edge of dirt. It all happens so fast. I stand there, breathless because I couldn't breathe for so long, breathless because Lucy717 is not kicking, not breathing. Oh, my God, what just happened? Breathe! She's not breathing and I realize I—just killed my friend. A mother to me. I'm paralyzed until Kyle53 and Klynn03 race up from behind. I hear their shoes hit the ground.

"What the hell happened?" Kyle53 shouts.

"It's Lucy," I cry. "It's Lucy." Is all I can say as my body shakes and I feel tears roll down my cheeks.

Kyle53 squats beside her, and checks her pulse, something he learned about in biology. He rolls her body over, and her eyes are dead.

I tremble. "She was trying to kill me. I just...it was just a reaction." Everything inside of me feels out of control, and I don't know if I should scream or curl into a ball. I feel I could do both. I shudder and sob with guilt and hurt so heavy—I don't know what to do with it.

Kyle53 responds quickly, and so matter-of-factly. "We have to hide her body. Other Meshes, Tins could find her."

"Right," his sister agrees, not wasting a moment on tears or shock. "Reina will keep her in her home."

I just stand there, more stunned than anything else, watching as Kyle53 and Klynn03 drag her dead body to Net Station 33. When they return, they tell me that Reina7 is burying her in her greenhouse, under all the soil. I cringe at the thought of eating from her garden ever again.

Kyle53 walks beside me, his arm over me, as if to hold me up or I'll drop, until we reach the second Transfer Door, and I'm still numb, as if feelings have vacated me, but I have to push forward for the sake of the team, of the plan. Digit opens the second and first doors for us, and doesn't notice there is anything wrong—as if a mere Tin ever would? After I enter inside the Transfer Room, I finally collapse.
Nets

"LEX! ARE YOU OKAY?" Kyle53 shouts, as I hit the floor face first. I feel like I have no strength inside of me, everything around me is going dark—like I am in a tunnel—and I can hear my heart beat faster and faster and faster—until that's all I hear. _Thump-thump, thump-thump._

I feel the weight of my body lifted and metal fingers grasp me. My eyelids are flicking open and shut when I see Klynn03 pop the upper vent to climb in before Kyle53. Digit pushes me to the vents, taller than any of us; it doesn't even need to jump the countertop. I'm lifted to the ventilation system, and then Digit _snaps_ the lid shut again from inside the Transfer Room.

I breathe heavy a few times over the vent segment, Kyle53 on one side of me, and Klynn03 on the other. All I can think about is Lucy and Dad's car trunk where I was stuffed for hiding. The claustrophobia of it all.

"We have to move, Lex." Kyle53 leads, and I hear him, I do. So, I roll over and push myself forward, each hand cupping in front of me as hard as the last. But I feel like I can't breathe. Can't breathe. The movement doesn't get any easier, the distance I'm putting between me and the EG, me and Lucy717.

I killed her.

I have to live with that reality the rest of my life, however short it'll be. It was in self-defense, but it doesn't make the blow any easier. Each motion forward, behind Kyle53, in front of Klynn03, just reminds me that I'm pushing the reality that I'm now a murderer further away from me, like I have something to hide, like I should crawl back into Dad's car trunk and hide—because that is where I belong.

I never killed anyone before, not a living thing. I thought if I ever killed anything, it would be just that—a thing, a Tin. I had a lot of fantasies about that, after the fantasy of my family in the woods ended. I'd break out of my dorm at night, when the Tins least expected me, and make my way into the cafeteria where a couple of Tins stroll on duty. They wouldn't see the shower cord coming, strangling their throats as I yank them to the ground and beat them senseless with my shower head.

Another fantasy began with me at the Re-Learning Center and I was in swimming class with Shayne05. I'd fake a drowning and the class Tin would come to my aid. I'd pull it in the water and it'd short-circuit, or blow a fuse. Electricity would course through the pool, so I'd be out of the pool by then and so would everyone else in my class. Shayne05 and I would laugh as we'd watch the Tin's eyes go black. But these were all just fantasies, just adolescent notions of revenge.

When we get back to my room, Kyle53 pops the vent off my room wall and it jiggles over the floor; he crawls inside my room, and I'm frozen again—as if entering my room will somehow make it all real, what happened back at the EG river, to Lucy717. She used to visit me in here—my room. Chills rush through me.

"Come on, Lex," he coaxes me, and Klynn03 pushes my feet from behind with her hands. I squirm into my room, head first, like a worm from the park I'd seen once. Kyle53 pulls me to him, into his chest, and his sister follows out quickly in a crawl, popping the lid back on before rolling underneath the cot. All so fast and sync like she has this down. She has her Skinware suit on and her extra coding to hide her heat signature; she'll be fine.

But Kyle53 and I don't have our suits anymore. Digit makes sure those chips are taken, along with the Skincom chips, before we leave the Transfer Room. If the Tins find out we've confiscated Skinware chips, we'll be Meshed for sure, and suspicion will fall on more than just us. Building C will have extra monitors, cams, and Watcher Tins assigned to it. Plus we have to have our heat signatures when Tins scan us—or that would look really bad.

The digital clock on my room wall reads 8:20 p.m.. Kyle53 doesn't have much time to get back to his room. Still, I can't keep myself together any longer and fall apart in his arms.

"It's okay, it's okay," he soothes as he rocks me, and I let my head rest over his heart, where I hear his heartbeat now—instead of mine—a welcomed change. The stubble on his chin rubs my cheeks when his face lowers, when his arms squeeze me closer. "You did what you had to do."

"I killed her." I say it aloud for the first time. Those words ring hard in my ears. I'll never be the same again, no matter what I do, no matter how many people I free from this cage—her blood will always be on my hands. Tears pour. "I killed her."

Kyle53 pulls my chin up, his forefinger and thumb tight on the indent in my chin, and he looks at me straight in the eyes. "No, the bastard Tins killed her. They Meshed her. You protected yourself."

I sniffle and try to nod with him and then he finally lets me go, glancing to the digital clock and the door. "Go, you can't get glitched," I say, holding in more tears. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands.

Klynn03 pokes her head out from underneath the cot, and waves. "Bye." She tries to stay unseen, to the peering eyes outside the glass wall, to felines who might pass, to a Tin who could at any moment enter my room. They have in the past and we can never be too careful.

"Later," Kyle53 returns, and I let him out with an eye scan to the wall panel. Reason: Enter.

I linger there with him a few seconds more—our fingers interlocking—noticing the sweat on his thin brows, the chapped bottom lip, and his nervous swallow. My mind is a mess of kissing and killing, and I don't know what feeling dominates more—my need to be with Kyle53, or my need to kill the Tins.

"Don't make me report you. No touching," A tall red-head teases us in passing.

Our fingers separate, and Kyle53 smiles goodbye before turning from me. I close my room door, click. I'm safe now, in my cotroom; Klynn03 is safe too, but Lucy717 will never be safe again. The Tins took that from me, from her. I can never forgive the machines for that.

The next morning, last night emerges like a bad dream—a nightmare; the kind that persists night after night, unrelentingly. I see Lucy717's face, her blonde hair, and pinked lips, and then I see my hands holding her underwater, her struggling, and of her ultimately drowning when the life drains from her once soft, vibrant blue eyes.

"Lucy!" I scream aloud from my sleep, my body jerking upward, as I awaken.

"You're okay." I hear Klynn03 from underneath my bed. She didn't sneak away in the night back into the vents as she normally does when she doesn't need a shower. She stayed for me.

"I'm not sure I'll ever be okay again."

"We'll get through this. You will."

I gulp, and stand on my bed, letting my open palms find the glass for Shayne05. At least I can do that for her, after all my absence. She smiles, her auburn locks like rays of sunshine, and I even notice Digit at the outside corner of her room, looking in on me.

I try to function, as usual. "Will you be showering today?" I say, jumping off the cot to the floor in one bounce.

"No, I'll be heading out soon. Just wanted to—"

My voice cracks. "I know, make sure I was all right."

She sneaks to the wall vent on all fours, and as she readies to disappear again, I open my bath door and grab a towel to take my morning shower.

"I'll see you later," I tell her.

"Definitely."

I let the warm water wash over me, and close my eyes. I wash out the smell of Lucy717's skin on mine, of a drop of blood that managed to squirt onto my neck bone in our fight in the gardens. I slept with that on me all night. Showers are not permitted, except in their allotted times. Tears pour again. I feel like a hole has dug its way into me and pulled me out, like I'm this hollow thing, see-through and weak—like a skeleton from biology class.

I stay under the running water, longer than usual, for as long as I can, and then shut off the shower. I redress in black leather-cotton garb, noticing a tear over my right elbow, and exit toward the cafeteria.

All the Meshes stand at the wall, in their typical form. They walk aisles, Dominick567 taking the far tables and pimple-boy taking the other side. At least I don't have to deal with him today. I might just lose it and go ballistic on him again. He even creeps out the Pixie twins now. They keep their blond-white heads low when he passes.

At our table, Kyle53 is there already, early—or I'm later than usual, and he smiles, clasping my hand as I sit. "You ready for the day?"

I don't answer.

"Just focus on your classes. Compartmentalize, push what happened to the back of your mind. Don't give the Tins a reason to be suspicious, to glitch you."

"I won't," I say, and pull my hand from his clasp—from his protection. I head to the Slider, and grab my tray of baked potato, grapes, and pecans. Then of course my rice milk and water bottle.

I meet Kyle53 back at the table, and eat while staring blankly at my tray. "We leave tonight," I say, and he knows what I mean as well as I do. A one-way ride. I don't say anything else; don't want attention drawn to me, not today, and if I talk more—about anything related to last night—I'll explode. I can't even look at any of the Meshes in the room. They all remind me of Lucy717, of how I failed her, of how the Tins control us—still control us.

Inside these Compounds, we're stripped of everything that makes us human. We are no longer daughters and sons, mothers and fathers. We aren't even allowed to keep our own children—children ripped away from us; bonds forever broken. To Tins, we don't have dreams or desires, regrets or mistakes. We don't have families. We can't choose what we eat, what we wear, or even where we sleep. We are merely their disposable, expendable things. Things to be used to prolong their existence, to make their existence fuller, more meaningful, more permanent—because they don't know how to do it on their own. They are shells with nothing inside, nothing to see—something with no reflection. A thing. They don't know our Earth, weren't born of the Earth, as we were. Tins didn't grow up on this soil and form lasting memories about it that make one love it, miss it, even when it's gone—even when it's your fault it's gone.

To be human, we have to be free, free with all our faults, all our flaws, even when most of what we do ends up being wrong. There is a limit to how much living can be done in a life without freedom, a limit to how much connection one can make, to the fabricated life around here. If only for Lucy717 and my Dad, I determine I must break out and give back to all of us, what we're missing.

Breakfast is quiet and over fast. Classes are long, dreadful and dull. I can't watch another video on English, of words coming out of mouths of humans that we know are dead, that died at least twelve years ago before we belonged to these Tins, to these Compounds. Of cuss words, slang words, colloquial speech, of lessons in our Squares on old English, literature, and grammar. I can't listen to the lessons of endless history, of how we destroyed ourselves, our animals, our world. I can't listen. I can't listen. I can't listen to the repetitive rules and regulations that guide our Compound, to the reasons we deserve to be glitched, celled, Meshed; to the false maps and lines in our geography class—because I know they are bullshit. Tallahassee was not that far south. It took time for the water to get us. And there was more to our world, more than this country. I remember Mom talking about relatives in Italy, of her great grandma's best Italian recipes. Italy was not in America. I know it wasn't. I know it wasn't. They are lying to us. Lying to us; always lying to us. About everything. Nothing is what it seems with Tins; everything is an illusion, just like Klynn03 said.

I can't even muster excitement about Coms and Nets, that is until the Class Tin begins to discuss the Electric Grids. Then my ears perk up.

What did it say? My brain is foggy. It said that the Grids are there to protect us, to keep dangers out, but it didn't say the truth, what I know the Grids do—that the Grids keep us locked in...that the teenagers, the adults, and the elders, are all prisoners living inside of these Grids, if one can even call this living. That the elders are separated from us, kept like slaves on the land, to till it and make it new again, after it died—along with all of our freedoms.

That the young adults are no more free than we are inside of this cage that we call the Compound, when their children are ripped out of their arms, when they are forced to tend to the Electric Gardens to repair Tins, forced to run errands for the Tins outside the Grids. What do they do out there? What do they do out there? What do they do out there? Did Lucy717 ever do it?

My mind is too foggy to know if I'm hearing anything for sure, too foggy with images of Lucy717, of Mom and Dad, or Delsin, or my life before, but I think I heard the Class Tin say, that Grids are being erected all over the country, to protect us, to keep the Compound and the Electric Gardens secure. I think it said that the Electric Grids will become our new maps and lines—that our old maps are gone, destroyed forever, and will now be called the Nets.

In Electric Strings, I walk in like I'm a ghost of a girl, on autopilot—my mind reeling over everything I heard in Coms and Nets. It can't be true. Can't be true. Tins are, have, taken over everything. Even if we get out, where the hell are we going to run to? Where can we hide?

I slide into my seat feeling defeated, my frail hands over my desk, shaking. Strings just lie over the desk like dead worms, waiting for me to breathe life into them. Rollercoaster emotions churn through me, and I'm not even sure what I feel anymore.

Digit comes to my desk, the metal hand gently hits the top, where the strings lie. He says one word, and my eyes shoot up to his metal-reds.

" **Reflections."** That's all he wants, needs answers too. I need answers to so much more.

"Not tonight," I say somberly, and reshape the string lines into the abbreviation: EG.

We have to go back; we have to follow this through. I can't let what's hollowing me out from the inside win, not when there are so many enemies trying to destroy me from the outside. So, I reshape the strings again to form the next word: _tonight._

Digit nods, and _clanks_ past me to the next desk. We have this unspoken understanding; weird that this understanding is with a Tin. I play with the strings in my hands, my fingers wrapping the strings around them again and again. I barely focus on anything with images of Lucy717's dead face popping into my head.

I inadvertently wrap strings around my fingers, again and again in my daze, and make swirly rainbow like designs, and connect the ends to turn on their glow—and they are spectacular. A few kids in front, near me, awe over my creations. They just make something common like lilies and daisies. Digit even hangs one of my creations from the ceiling, along with a few other extraordinary creations from others over the weeks.

When class ends, I don't have the glow to distract me anymore. Everything hits me hard and all at once. I step into my Birthing class and feel numb all over again. Shayne05 watches me from her seat on the other side of the room. She sees something is wrong, especially when I could only grunt in Horticulture class, and stare at the Compound ceiling during lunch break. I couldn't tell her. What could I say that wouldn't get her into trouble? I don't even know if we'll be able to get out of the Electric Gardens, and if we do, to where? I can't risk Shayne05's life too, without more answers. She's fragile and needs the structure in here. I'm not sure she could hack it out there with so much uncertain.

I feel her stare on me as I pretend to pay attention to the next birthing lesson on our Squares. Today, there are no mock birth sessions that we have to watch Tins perform, or on video. We're just reading, and I'm glad for it, because it gives me the time I need to just doze off without being noticed.

When Birthing class is over, I skirt around the door and rush through the hall to dart back to Building C without incident, or Tin eyes tuning in on me. I don't make it far from the Re-Learning Center's steps when Shayne05 stops me with a tug from behind to my shoulder.

"Slow down," she presses, as her hand yanks harder. Her thin glasses in close view.

I freeze in my step; a rush of air and tears fill me, but I don't cry. Can't let her see me cry. There'll be too many questions, questions that could lead her to finding out what I've been up to, and that could get her killed. I can't—won't—let that happen to another friend of mine. She's best kept in the dark.

I'm silent.

She spins me around, to make me look at her, in the face, with a grasp of her hands. "What's going on with you?" Her red brows arch. "You barely said a word in Horticulture class and at lunch break you seemed like you were catatonic." Her hands cup my face, warming my cheeks, and she pulls me closer to her face—our eyes fixed on each other. "And I keep seeing this girl roll under your cot. Are you okay? I know you took it hard when Ash was killed, but you need to snap out of this." Her head shakes. "I need you to snap out of this."

I breathe; I feel the breath inhale and exhale, and I try to focus on just her in front of me, her concerned eyes and clasping warm hands, the vine break in her forehead, and half-parted lips. She's desperate, and I see that she'd have a hard time surviving this Compound without me, without knowing that she has a friend in here—and I feel guilty over what I'm about to do, but she will be safer in here, at least alive—not dead.

I force a big smile. "I'm fine."

She stares at me, as if to ask, 'really?'

"I'm really fine. I...I've just been down because," I push the images of Lucy717 out of my mind, "because Ash reminded me so much of my Dachshund, Barack."

Shayne05 hugs me, and I let the air that rushed into my lungs, go. "I get it. We've all lost so much. Sometimes, we feel as though we couldn't possibly lose anymore without breaking apart ourselves, but you're stronger than this. You are the strongest person I know."

I sigh against her chest, in her grasping arms and encouraging words. If she only knew how much I lost, what I did, she might not think of me in the same way. I'm a murderer. But she is right about one thing: I am strong. I chose to live, even if it meant killing my Meshed friend, Lucy717.

We hug like that for several minutes, until a Tin clanks by us, its red metal-eyes piercing, and it warns—as if we could forget. **"You only have twenty minutes left to return to your respective buildings, shower, and report to the cafeteria."**

So, I let her go, and as she walks toward her building, I shout, "See you later."

"Later."

I let my eyes stay on her as she responds, as she flips her head back around, her red curls bouncing with her, and as her form races toward her building and she disappears behind a wall. I let a single tear fall. I do this because I don't know if I will ever see her again. I will enter the Electric Gardens tonight, and when I do, I don't plan on ever coming back.
Tin

TIME SLOWS AS I wait for Kyle53 to knock on my door. Three knocks has become our signal, then I know it's him. At the panel, I'll have to click reason: let in friend. I know this is the last time I will do this. So, when I hear the three taps on my door, I'm excited with a mix of nerves, and I leap to the door in almost one motion.

The door opens, and all the nerves inside of me release when I see Kyle53's sure face. His expression is resolute, with a side of wanting to kick some ass. I know, I feel it too. Being locked up inside the Compound for twelve years does that to a person. You start to have dark fantasies about all the ways you'll have your revenge.

Kyle53 guides me toward the wall vent, with a hand on my back. "You ready for this?"

"Yeah," I look him straight in the eyes and raise my brows.

"You know the Tins will figure out what we're doing soon, and we won't have any option, but to run."

I keep my eyes on him. "There's nothing to stay for. Besides Klynn can't stay hidden in the Compound forever. Eventually, Tins will find her."

"Okay, then we don't turn back until we find a way out of the EG."

I grab his hand, and our eyes linger on each other until we hear Klynn03 interrupt us from inside the vent. "We going, or what?"

We all know it's now or never. We've lived cooped up for too long to not know how things go down in here. We'll just be transported to one kind of prison and then another. If we are ever going to really be free, we have to bust out. If I am ever going to find my Dad, I have to do this. If I ever have a chance at making Lucy's death mean something, we have to succeed.

Kyle53 pops the vent off and then waves for me to go in first. I think he wants to protect me by keeping me in the middle, like I'm still fragile from last night—and he's right, I am.

I look, and the glass wall is clear. After I crawl in, I grab my stash of notes and shove them down my shirt over my breasts. Kyle53 climbs in behind me and seals the vent back in place. We head toward the first fork in the vents where I tap Klynn03's uniformed shoes.

"What?" Her neck cranes over her shoulder, and she asks in a hushed tone.

"We go to the Concealment Room first. We'll need weapons."

Her forehead wrinkles concerned. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," I reply firmly. I'm sure of nothing more. We turn right and crawl through the vents all the way to the next fork in the ventilation system. "Left, left." I urge, knowing where I'm going.

Klynn03 aims left, and we crawl slowly, hands cupped, until I count the correct number of segments before reaching the Concealment Room.

"We're there," I whisper to her. My voice carries.

Popping the corner of the vent segment up, Klynn03 peeks into the room and glances back at me with a nod. It's clear, so she pushes the vent segment forward and lowers herself slowly into the room of weapons. I've wanted to get my hands on the mechanical crossbow since seeing it the first time, and now is my chance.

I lower myself next, followed lastly by Kyle53. We all land, in gentle _pats_ , on top of the wide metal cabinet filled with weapons. With my hand on one corner of the cabinet, I jump off and hit the floor below, beside Klynn03. Kyle53 stays high on the cabinet, watching the entrance door.

Racing to the cabinet holding the mechanical crossbow, I jingle the glass door open, and pull out the weapon, my eyes gleaming wide and my smile long. "I've got it."

"Get me that pistol, and those bullets." Kyle53 points with his forefinger to the cabinet beside me. I lean toward the cabinet and nab a couple of pistols and boxes of bullets for him, and then his sister brushes her hand over mine and grabs two pistols for herself.

She stuffs her back pockets with both of her guns, and a box of bullets, then points to the knives on the lower shelf. "We should take those too," she says, shoving one knife beside the gun in her left pocket, the one without the box of bullets.

I agree with a nod, and grab three. After hooking the mechanical crossbow strap over my back and stuffing one pocket with knives, I hand her brother his three weapons and two bullet boxes.

"We done?" Klynn03 questions, glancing at me for approval.

"Yeah," I reply, and grip the cabinet to pull myself up. The mechanical crossbow is strapped tight around my back and chest, diagonally, and the bulk of the weapon is positioned over my back to avoid hitting it as I climb.

Kyle53 crawls back into the vents first, and then I follow him, before his sister seals the vent shut. He shoves bullets into his gun as he scurries, and I hear Klynn03's gun _clicking_ too. He told me stories, about how he watched men in his neighborhood use guns to get what they wanted—after the fires and floods began. His dad taught him a thing or two, before they were separated, to protect himself, but he never shot anyone.

Somehow, I feel more confident and capable with this mechanical crossbow attached to me, and dreams of killing Tins don't seem so far off anymore.

"You had to pick the biggest weapon." Kyle53 smiles, the corner of his right lip oddly higher, and his neck craned toward me. I smile in return, remembering the many times I picked the cafeteria tray with the largest orange or carton of lasagna, or the time in Electric Strings class when I made the largest fern plant. Even before the Round-Ups, big seemed to be a thing with me: the big wheel, the bigger cookie, the biggest blanket.

We push farther through the vents until we reach the Transfer Room, and Kyle53 glances back at me, one last time, with an expression that says, 'this is it.' I nod, and he lowers his ear to the vent segment. We don't hear the usual rap of metal knuckles from Digit.

"Is Digit here?" Klynn03 presses from behind me.

I shrug.

"Should we just go in, and wait?" Kyle53 questions, his whisper carrying through the vents.

I'm hesitant. The less time inside any unauthorized room, the better, and then we all hear the _clank_. "Okay, he's here," I reply, and a sigh releases.

The vent segment pops up and is pushed forward, and then Kyle53 lowers onto the countertop, along with me, my crossbow-gun jiggling, and Klynn03. The Tin stands between the far wall desk and the Transfer Door, staring at us, and we all jump off the countertop in unison and hit the floor in a _thump_.

"So, are we going to get going, or what?" Kyle53 insists, low on patience, low on tolerance for Tins.

The Tin just stares at us, its metal-red eyes looking more like Mom used to when I'd steal a cookie out of the kitchen jar before dinner, before the Round-Ups so long ago. And then I know.

"It's not Digit!" I shout, warning my friends before it's too late.

Immediately, the Tin scratches toward us, its claw-like metal fingers grasping for us, and Kyle53 takes the first aggressive step, wielding his newfound gun in hand. He points straight at the Tin, and is about to fire, does fire, but something doesn't work, and the bullet doesn't shoot out of the barrel.

The Tin clasps his wrist and twists, and Kyle53 screams, louder than I've heard a man ever scream. His fingers weaken their grip and the gun drops from his hands, falling to the floor in a loud _clink_.

While the Tin is about to grab Kyle53 with its other metal hand, I fumble as I tug the mechanical crossbow over my chest and secure the bow in my hands. There is a _kush_ sound tightening the arrow in the bow. Then the Tin grabs Kyle53's other arm, and my fingers fiddle over the metal arrow that is lodged in the bow, to ready it for firing, and then I yank it back. I don't know guns, never saw one before the Compound, but my dad liked to hunt using crossbow and arrow—like his people did, he used to say. I watched him a few times when I was younger and then he began teaching me, but the bow was made of leather, not metal like this one, and everything here is happening so fast.

The Tin looks to Klynn03, scanning her eyes, and she almost has her back pocket gun in hand, when it commands **. "Klynn03, operate emergency Mesh protocol 1."**

She just stares. Her eyes lock onto the Tin and I'm not sure what to think, if this Tin has got her, or if Klynn03 is still wired to the Mesh net and she's now back on the grid?

My eyes follow Klynn03 as she stands, and walks toward the Tin in more robotic fashion than human; my fingers fiddle over the arrow, to secure it in place, as my eyes keep to what she's doing.

"Klynn! Klynn!" I shout to her, but she ignores me. She aims behind the Tin, to where the desk is and her brother is in pain—severe agony. He can barely scream, as his breaths grow heavy and desperate, and he's brought to his knees. My own breaths quicken, and my eyes flick from the Tin to Klynn03 and back again as I aim the mechanical crossbow and take my shot, but Kyle53 is in the way.

Suddenly, Klynn03 lifts a metal rod bar from the desk and slams the rod into the back neck of the Tin. "I've been rewired, bitch!" she yells, the rod end jams its neck and busts the hard metal exterior, forcing wires to protrude. The action makes the Tin release a hand from Kyle53 and turn to face Klynn03, giving me the space I need to fire my arrow.

"Kyle, duck!" I shout to him, and he does, long enough for me to fire. I release the button on the mechanical crossbow, and the metal arrow zooms out on wire and into the Tin's chest. The hit is hard, because it propels the Tin backward several feet and into another desk, cracking the wood.

I hit the retrieve lever, which yanks the arrow from the Tin's chest, ripping out more circuits and wires, before the arrow pulls automatically back to the bow still on its wire. The Tin convulses against the broken desk; its metal arms jerk up and down uncontrollably, and we all stare at it for a second stunned. We've never seen a Tin die.

Kyle53 looks to me, and then quickly grabs his pistol off the floor. His wrist is red and ripped, his wounded arm obviously sore, and Lucy717 comes back to my mind like a ghost that will forever haunt me. Her screams echo around me, of when the Tins dragged her away to be Meshed. All I see is the EG river and all I hear is Lucy717 gargling for air, slapping around underwater.

I yank the metal rod from Klynn03's hands and lunge at the Tin on the floor; the rod hits its head again and again. The sound of metal against metal vibrates in my ears, and deafens the sounds of Lucy717's screams. I slam the rod up under its chin, knocking his head half off its neck, and ram the rod into its seared chest, again and again and again, and it's never enough.

I can't even count the number of times I hit that metal scrap before I hear Klynn03's voice. "That's enough, that's enough," she soothes, and her hand meets the back of my shoulder, where Shayne05 held me. "It's dead. It's dead."

My body shakes, and I feel spit sliding down the side of my mouth as I clasp the rod tighter in my hands, heaving, standing before the Tin with no light behind its eyes. The red hue is gone.

I feel Kyle53's hand on my other shoulder. "It's dead."

I huff and step back. Dead is an interesting word. Was it ever really alive? It was never born. It didn't grow. It doesn't feel pleasure and pain. It's just a system of ones and zeros—of code. Still, there is no other word I would know to use.

Then the entrance door knob jiggles and we all turn to it, aiming our weapons. A Tin walks into the room, closing the door behind. "Sorry, I am late."

Digit. We don't say a thing at first, stunned. Nothing to be said. Kyle53 sprints toward the Transfer Door. "We have to get the hell out of here."

" **I will hide the body in the vents,"** Digit reasons, and lifts the dead Tin to the open vent segment. After he shoves the body in there, he pulls the vent segment in place, and opens the first Transfer Door for us.

Kyle53's face is full of confusion, a wrinkled forehead, an intense glare at Digit. "I tried to shoot it, but my pistol didn't work." He looks down. "It didn't work."

Digit pulls up his arm, still holding the pistol, and clicks down a notch. "You must turn off the safety first."

Kyle53 rolls eyes at himself. "Right, I remember Dad saying that to me when I was younger."

At the second Transfer Door, Digit inserts our Skinware chips and then his forefinger into the chips.

I wonder. "What are you doing?"

" **You will need to avoid heat scans from Tins."**

I gaze up at it, so much taller than me. "Thank you." It scans his metal-red eyes at the panel. "Are you coming?"

" **I cannot.** Tin45790 reported a disturbance in the Transfer Room and I will have to lead the Tins in the other direction, or they will find you."

I'm not sure why I even do this, why I hug a Tin, but I do. My arms wrap around its neck and I squeeze. It doesn't hug me in return. "I won't leave you in here."

" **Don't worry about me. I will find a way out."** Then it pauses before turning back around. **"Later,"** he ends with a wink.

"Later," I repeat.

Somehow I believe it—and for the first time I also realize that it wants out too, that this constructed cage is too small to keep both of us.

"Come on, Lex!" Kyle53 yells at me from behind birch trees.

"Wait, Digit,"

It turns to me.

"Is my Dad still out there somewhere?"

" **I do not have his data, but that does not mean he is dead."**

I let go of Digit, and race toward my two friends who are already activating their Skinware suits. The flowers beneath my feet bend, and when I step off the wiry stems, they fling back into place. Not like real flowers at all.

I hit the Skinware chip and activate my suit, and the three of us race farther into the trees and flowers to hide. We'll have to keep hidden so that no Tins or Meshes find us. We're officially off the grid now, and if found, we'll be Meshed, or worse, killed.

"So, where do we go?" Klynn03 asks, always one to want clear answers and directions.

Her brother replies, his gaze set somewhere in the distance, "We have to see how far these gardens go, how far till we hit the Grids. We need a better understanding at just how big the EG is, and how the Grids run."

I add, "And, how to break through."

"Exactly."

Leading, I take the first step needed in the eastern direction. We aren't aiming at Reina7's Net Station, and that's deliberate. We'll make our way to her place, after we've outlined the eastern Grid. This reminds me of the many excursions Kyle53 and I have taken around Building C, when we wanted answers as to why we were held there, to how large the Compound is, to how it would feel like to finally french kiss.

We figured out the last two pretty quickly: the Compound stretches across east-to-west large enough to hold four buildings labelled A, B, C, D; and it stretches in the other direction, north-to-south, long enough to hold those four buildings again, except it doesn't. It holds non-labelled buildings, the cells, and the Re-Learning Center.

And the french kiss, well...I imagine it feels something like electricity.

We race over various flowers, designed by EG Guests, no doubt, our feet trampling their colorful wiry forms in our run, but they fling back up when we hit the next patch. More trees come into view, different this time. Some with a black texture and others so wide we could all hide behind the trunks.

The EG is full of exotic visuals, colors and shapes that I've only ever seen in Squares and some foliage I have not, and when I gaze skyward, I can see the blazing yellow-red sun, simmering like the stove we once had where Mom used to cook spaghetti.

Our feet _pat, pat, pat_ and I can't even see the end of these gardens. When I glance behind me, I can no longer see the Transfer Room either. We are in the middle of the gardens, for better or worse.

Thankfully, our suits keep our temperatures controlled, and the gusts of heat that swish across our garbed bodies don't exhaust us. I tap my right eye twice and open the EyeGrid. The gardens are clearer now, with eyes that zoom in and out of focus for a better view.

"Good thing we have these suits," Klynn03 comments. "Who knows what's on the other side of the Grids."

I give her a satisfied smile and then we dart off further, passing more trees and flowers and plants: some plants that dangle from trees like vines or moss, and others that look more like spider webs. We must have run for twenty minutes when we finally slow. At about this time, the Compound would be ending and we'd be hitting a concrete wall.

"Do you see that?" Kyle53 gets excited, and stops. His forefinger points ahead, at something glowing yellow-white in and out and humming with each glow.

We approach slowly, our eyes fix on the electric fence several yards in front. I zero in closer with my EyeGrid—lines in my field of vision intersecting for a zoom—and I see the hot metal and wires now, like a Tin taken apart, and can even see the sparking electricity coursing through the fence. I feel the heat even standing way over here.

"That's it," I respond, "that's the Electric Grid!"

My friends just stare for a few seconds, without replying, and then Kyle53 remarks. "We have to get closer; see how close we can get."

His sister glares at him for a moment, her twisted expression denoting her disagreement more than her words. "I don't think that's a wise idea."

"We have to, or we'll never know how to break through. We have to test it," he reasons.

The logic in her brain churns as she continues staring at him. "Fine, but just one of us at a time. We don't want a catastrophic event to occur."

I almost laugh at her choice of word. "Catastrophic would be remaining in here when we have a clear shot out." I step up. "I'll go first."

Kyle53 flicks his eyes on me. "No, I can't let you do that. It could be dangerous. I'll—."

Running forward _pat, pat, pat,_ I don't let him finish. When I'm several feet from the Grid, my body suddenly burns with a surge of electricity, more like a thousand bee stings and I know a kiss doesn't feel like this. My body bounces backward in a sudden propelled jerk and I hit the ground—butt first. Shit.

"Lex!" Kyle53 shouts and I hear him, his hard shoes running toward me. "Are you okay?!" he asks, as he slows over me, with an outstretched hand.

I nod, a tad shaky and dizzy, still feeling the slight sting of electricity. "I think so." I give him my hand and he pulls me up. I dust off my legs, and I'm about to go again, but then Klynn03 screams. Our heads whip in her direction, her mouth twists, and we see what she sees now. Dominick567 and a feline Tin are in the gardens, staring at us, just under a black textured tree.
Electric

THE CURVE OF THE tree trunk reminds me of the bow on my crossbow-gun when it bends back. The tree curve hangs over the feline Tin and Dominick567 as black leaves dangle from each carefully constructed branch and twig. If not for the gold tints in each leaf, I'd think this EG-Guest creator had a demented mind.

Dominick567 stares right at me, into my eyes—the only part of me revealed—and I know he's Meshed, but it is like he sees me, as if some part of him deep inside, under all the new circuits and wiring, is focused just on me—his sweet revenge. He is nothing, if not vengeful. That part of him would be too much work to completely Mesh out of him—for sure.

But as I formulate a quick plan in my mind to take Dominick567 down, the feline Tin lunges at Klynn03. I aim my mechanical crossbow and fire, without even thinking too much about it, without really aiming. The metal arrow veers left and zooms past the feline Tin and my friend, hitting a birch tree trunk and propels me backward a few feet. Shit, shit, shit.

I don't retrieve the arrow, don't have time, so I hit the unlatch button, and the wire from my crossbow falls to the ground. After grabbing a second arrow from the leather sack over my back, I click it into place on the crossbow slide, and let the grip grab it and its wire, yank it into the bow and ready itself. It's all automatic and easier than when I remember Dad having to reload his arrows in his wooden crossbow.

The feline jerks its head at me, hisses, and lunges. A lot goes through my mind in that second: the time Dad's face turned hot-red in temper when I spilled my juice over the brand new couch. I was just two; when Delsin rolled onto his hands and feet to walk to me like the acrobat he saw on TV; and Lucy717's giggle. She had a terrific giggle.

It's midair when I aim. I tell myself I'll do better this time. "Hey, metal scrap," I release the arrow and it whizzes out of the bow and straight into the feline Tin's chest, "munch on that!" It collides with another birch tree—along with the arrow—and then lands in a _thud_ on the ground, circuits _crackling_.

"Great shot!" Klye53 explains loudly, as he races toward Dominick567 who stares down Kyle53's sister in a game of dare. Klynn03 holds a shaky pistol aimed at Dominick567's forehead about five feet away, but she doesn't fire.

"I can't do it," she explains in almost a whimper, her hands drop the gun to her side. "He's still human."

Kyle53 is more confident now, though with a sprained arm, after the feline Tin's been hit. He pounds toward Dominick567, adrenaline pumping, his tightened fists striking back and forth crazily. The Mesh ducks and dodges, and then slams its fists into Klye53's stomach, but Kyle53 immediately propels into Dominick567's body, pushing him backward, and lands on top of him over the gardens—Dominick567 hits his head.

Kyle53 knuckle-smacks him on the cheek once and twice, and then Dominick567 rolls, taking Kyle53 with him. The two roll a few times, dirt brushing up, before Dominick567 leaps to his feet and darts farther into the gardens in a quick _pat, pat, pat,_ the cover of trees obscuring him.

"I'll get him! He'll tell the Tins!" Kyle53 rushes into the gardens after Dominick567, and the two figures almost immediately disappear behind the thicket of plants and trees.

I stare at the feline Tin now below me, as I stand over it. I've never seen one ripped open like this. It convulses as it tries to stand, collapsing again. Wires protrude, and the metal inside grinds against itself—the sound repetitive like when I scratch my fingernails over the shower's concrete walls because I can't take being confined anymore; when my fingertips bleed.

Rushing up beside me, Klynn03 raises her pistol and aims at the feline Tin's temple and fires twice. The thing just falls over itself, one metal leg twisted underneath its body; the red eyes finally shutting off.

"Tins are going to locate us. Dominick567 will report us through his coms."

"I know." I push the retrieve button on the second arrow and the triangular arrow head retracts and forms a line, before extracting from the Tin's form, and whizzing back into my crossbow-gun. For the first arrow, I have to pull it out of the birch tree, and place it back into the leather sack over my back.

Both of us take one last look at the feline and then pound further into the gardens. Kyle53 will be there, and he'll need backup.

We _pad_ between two large black textured trees, and under hanging maple leaves the color of sun, then over colorful lilies and web-like moss, through a field of daisies and grass. We run for maybe five minutes, until we hear the heaving voice of Kyle53.

"Come on!" he shouts as he brushes up behind us. "We have to get out of there! They'll be coming!"

We turn, running with Kyle53, heading south in the direction of Net Station 33. "Did you get him?" I fret.

He shakes his head. "No, and he used his coms. Tins know we're here!"

Our speed accelerates after that announcement, and we race through patches of thick trees, some short and others tall—so tall they appear to reach the sienna-colored clouds in the sky.

I try to stay focused, calm—like I've told myself a dozen times whenever I'd go Venting. Can't let my nerves get the better of me although everything around me feels like it is closing in on me. We race through the Electric Gardens and all the vibrant colors and various shapes remind me that there is beauty outside too—there just has to be. I'm mesmerized by the EG beauty, but I remind myself it's deliberate. To keep us—humans—preoccupied with visual stimuli so that we forget we're still in a prison. But I'll never forget. I have a family to get back to outside, somewhere. A father I left behind when I was pulled away from him twelve years ago. I had a heritage, a way of life, and was a part of human civilization, and no matter how much the Tins take from us, how much they destroy, or how long they keep us in this demented prison they've built for us—I won't forget, can't forget—everything they made me leave behind. I will find it again. Somehow, someway.

Kyle53 grabs my hand and yanks me left, skirting around a long line of bushes. Curls of vine-like green stretches over maybe fifty yards and is as high as we are tall. Someone must have taken a lot of time to build that design. His sister follows, never far behind us.

It's strange being encased by so much nature—even if it is an illusion. I've been enclosed by concrete walls for so long that this open space feels wild and inviting. Yet, however close the replication to Earth this is, it doesn't _feel_ real. There are no birds flying overhead, or sounds of chirping; no swarms of bugs, or butterflies landing on a single leaf, or the buzz of flapping tiny, delicate wings. There's no smell of life here. The musty, sometimes even wet-grass smell that I remember from trips to the park is gone. It's all vacant, like the life that _isn't_ really growing inside of all these plants. Nature isn't telling these gardens to exist, Tins are. DNA has been replaced with wires and circuitry.

"Come on, we have to get to Reina7's place before we're spotted!" Kyle53 shouts over his shoulder. His head turns back and his arms swing crazily back and forth.

I step up my speed, as his sister darts past me, just like in our races from the Re-Learning Center to Building C. Maybe one of the few things I'll miss about the Compound.

The route is longer than usual, more so than the direct path between flower patches. We have to go around too many trees and bushes and I feel like we're zig-zagging too much, but it is better that way; if the Tins don't have a clear location pinned on us, if we can hide in the gardens.

When we stumble upon the river, I know we're at least not lost. We can follow the path of the river all the way to Net Station 33. Still, memories of Lucy717's death surface. I fight to keep her gruesome image out of my head—the bobbing body after her last breath—as we stay to the trees at an eye-distance away from the river. But who knows how much farther we have?

I feel a tug on my shoulder, and Klynn03 whistles to her brother ahead of her. A warning signal they've shared after he turned twelve, after she almost got glitched for taking two corn breads at dinner once. He stops in his tracks. His head and mine both veer to Klynn03, and she squats behind an oak tree as she points across the river, her finger between leaves.

Two Tins _clank_ over the gardens, their heads _scratching_ left and right, in search of us. The sky behind them bleeds red-orange, and their mechanical forms hit the ground hard, like rocks thrown, with every step. Kyle53 and I duck, with Klynn03.

I whisper, my palms over Klynn03's shoulders, my mouth to her ear. "We stay here until they leave."

She responds. "You need to turn on your anti-heat signatures." She points again, this time at their eyes. "You see that?"

I tap my right eye once and zero in on the Tin's glowing eyes. I didn't even know they could do that. "What the hell?"

"They're using their heat-sensors. They'll see you."

She's right. Nothing in these gardens are really alive. Nothing but us will give off that kind of heat. Immediately, Kyle53 and I brush two fingers from our left inner elbow to our left inner wrist, the way Digit instructed us, and our anti-heat-signatures activate.

I don't feel much different, but I do feel something like a quick wave of prickles run from my feet, up my body, and to my head. It must've been the extra code from Digit.

The three of us squat there, watching and waiting, behind wiry three-pronged leaves. The Tins circle back, heading in the direction of the Transfer Room, taking the metallic _clank_ with them.

I feel my breath finally release, and didn't even realize I'd been holding it in. "That was close."

"Too close," Kyle53 agrees. "From here on out, we don't deactivate our anti-heat-signatures for anything."

"Agreed." I look at Kyle53. His eyes are one of the few parts not hidden under the suit. Still, I'd recognize him anywhere, at any angle, because I've gotten used to his mannerisms, his shape, the roundness of his shoulders, the squareness of his back, the slight inward circle just above his bottom, the long, lean legs. Even his nose is distinct, like a hook. And I could never confuse his nervous tap of fingers to his open palm, or the way he can stay completely still—like a statue, even when scared.

When the scouting Tins are out of sight, we zoom south, in the opposite direction of them, traversing blades of grass that continue to bounce back into place after each step. The air feels hotter, but the suits adjust temperature, and the sky bleeds more color. I occasionally glance at the river, the illusionary lily pads and ferns flanking the water flow. We trek for maybe ten more minutes, and I feel we're getting closer—must be closer now.

Brushing up along a red maple tree, Net Station 33 is surrounded with those trees. We take a short break, heaving air in and out against the trunk of one of the maples, and, suddenly, the sky goes red-black. The sun has set, and we're here, inside the Electric Gardens, in the dark.

I didn't think I could be more amazed by the gardens than with what I've already seen, but night time gives electric plants their opportunity to shine. The pure blackness allows each bud, each flower, each leaf to own its own space. The glow is breath-taking, more than breath-taking, like a thousand stars lighting up the sky—each one a variant of a color—and it's then that I realize the glow is not random. There is a pattern to it.

"Look at that." I only half-whisper, too amazed to really keep my volume low. My hand waves forward, toward the outer gardens. "It is like a maze of sorts."

Klynn03 interjects. "I never noticed it before, but you're right." Her necks strains forward, her head bobs and eyes focus. "The entire gardens is a series of walls and pathways—" her forefinger outlines the patterns in the distance, "—but it's not a maze."

"Then what?" her brother responds.

Klynn03's face lights up. "This is the same pattern I have inside my head—" her hand touches her scalp, "—of the Mesh."

"The Tin brain." Kyle53 concludes.

Standing there, beside the maple, we revel in our discovery. The Tins have a pattern to the things they do; deliberate or not, they follow it to a tee—just like Tins do with time.

"Patterns are predictable," I highlight.

Kyle53 smiles wide, ear-to-ear wide. "Exactly."

"This could be what we need to destroy them," I add.

Klynn03's expression contorts. "Destroy them? I thought we were getting out of here?"

"We are but when we do, where are we going to go? What are we going to do? Tins rule everything. At some point, we're going to have to fight back."

Klynn03 is silent, and I reckon she hasn't thought much about what'll happen once we escape the Electric Gardens.

Her brother chimes in, raking fingers through his thick hair. "If we can predict how Tins will behave or what they'll do, then we can plan around it, exploit it."

My smile grows big with his.

"For now, let's just get to Reina's. Who knows how many more Tins are out searching for us," Klynn03 reasons. We nod, and the three of us resume our trek.

The leaves underneath our feet should crunch, or at least they did back at the park in Tallahassee. Here they feel and react more like rubber. Some are orange, others yellow or brown. Some EG Guests must be homesick. I remember autumn, Mom's favorite season. She loved decorating the house with squash, corn, and a scarecrow. I used to carve out pumpkins with her, before we'd roast pumpkin seeds and make pumpkin pie together. Mostly, I watched, but I did get to stir and lick the bowl.

Those memories fade as we race through the darkness, glowing electric strings our only guide. I'm jarred back to my present, a present filled with danger, fear, and confinement.

Then we all hear the _scratch_ of another Tin, in the distance—maybe ten yards off. We all duck and squat simultaneously, like we've done this a thousand times, and we're still—stiller than we've ever been, as our ears fix on where the sound is coming from. I tap my right eye twice, and let the EyeGrid take effect. My eyes become more like a robot's now, as grids delineate the spaces, and I scan the other side of the river and spot it. Its cat-esque shape crawls in our direction, low to the ground, like it's stalking prey, and we glance at each other briefly, the question mark on all of our faces. _Does it see us?_

When my stare returns to the feline, suddenly our eyes lock, and in that micro-second it's as if the whole world freezes, and then it leaps over the river and lunges directly for us. It all happens in seconds, Kyle53 is knocked backward and to the side by its large, metal paws as it lands. The feline hangs over him as he clumsily yanks out his pistol and fires. One, two, three, shots straight into its neck. The sizzling of its circuits reminds me of the Slider fire before the electricity in Building C went out.

Wires stick out of its neck and its head swivels uncontrollably. Then the feline Tin collapses on top of Kyle53's legs and he squirms out from underneath it. His face winces in pain, and he lets out a soft, muffled ache.

"Kyle!" I react, pulling his arm to help him. His sister works from the other side, lifting what she can of the feline Tin's dilapidated head.

In what feels longer than it should, Kyle53 finally pulls himself out from under the wreckage, and his sister and I help him to his feet, holding him on either side. "Can you walk?" Klynn03 presses, her lips pursing.

He shakes his head. His legs are wounded, and we're going to have to help carry him the rest of the way. So, we each wrap an arm around his shoulder or waist, and walk with him in a quickened pace.

"Don't slow down for me. Keep moving," he insists, being brave.

"We don't want to do more damage to your legs," I explain, trampling over red blossoms on the ground.

"If I'm dead, that won't matter," he replies plainly, and winces again.

We pull him in a run, as he flinches and groans in muffled breaths. We dart past more maple trees, finally find Net Station 33. It's marked by the number 33 on each side of the house. My breathing grows softer, and there's more pep in our step, as if seeing the finishing line has given us extra motivation.

We slow at the glass door, Klynn03 knocks in more of a fist slam— _bang, bang, bang_. When Reina7 rushes from her bedroom through the kitchen and to the door, I feel we're finally safe. In a hurry, she hits the open button and we pile into her house like a stampede.

The glass door seals shut, and her forefinger quickly rises to her mouth in the _shh_ sign, a sign we all know too well. She guides us with a wave of her hand to her living room where we're hidden by wooden walls—walls that smell like birch trees—and even though we're inside, we don't dare take off our suits. She must've seen some activity of Tins in the gardens and thinks our anti-heat-signatures will come in handy, even in here. We don't want Tins scanning Reina7's home and seeing four people inside.

We all smack onto the sofa, the cushions a needed comfort from our trek, and breathe. Reina7 just stares, unsure of what to say. We're clearly desperate, and have brought our desperation to her, to her baby.

Kyle53 finally whisper-screams into cuffed hands and his sister bends to his legs to examine them, but it's hard to see abrasions with the suit covering him. Her hands gently work their way up until Kyle53 flinches. She knows she's found a bruise. We count three: two on his right leg and one on his left.

After a few more heavy breaths, Reina7 signs her words. The signs are not formal, not any real language we all have learned, but enough to let us know the gist of what she's saying.

Two arms go up and hands fall open on either side, as if asking, 'What happened?'

I mouth the word, _TINS_. Immediately, she knows, as if she needed clarification. Why else would we appear so disheveled? Her eyes dart to the walls, to the ceiling, as if she's thinking about all the places Tins listen in on their coms. Even inside of a Net Station, we're not really safe, or alone.

Then we all hear a loud _bang_ at the glass door, and our heads jerk in the direction of the kitchen. Bravely, Klynn03 and I peek around the corner of the living room wall, through the kitchen walkway all the way to the door, where we spy a metal Tin entering.

_Clank_.
Stations

MY BODY FREEZES MOMENTARILY, before Klynn03 slaps my side with her hip to wake me from my sudden paralysis. Our heads jolt back around the wall, to the living room. Shit, shit, shit.

Kyle53 stares at us, mouthing silently, "It's here?"

I nod vigorously, while Reina7 waves her hand for us to follow her into the bedroom. Klynn03 and I grab Kyle53 on both sides, lift him from the couch, and then hobble across the floor and into the bedroom.

It's a small room with a simple bed, not like the cot I have in the Compound. There is a lamp with a dim light that dances over the floor in yellow specks, and a beige curtain on one small window at the side wall.

Reina7 waves us to the window and starts to slide the glass upward when we hear the _scratch, scratch_ in the living room. My mind swirls with cuss words, the kind I used to hear in English class when we'd watch old videos of certain rough areas.

Then Reina7 pushes the window up all the way, and I signal to Klynn03 to go, my forefinger pointing the way, but she shakes her head and urges me to go instead. She taps the side of her head as if to say, 'I'm Meshed, don't worry about me.'

But I do.

I crawl onto the window sill, one leg up and the other dangling outside, and then the Tin enters the bedroom. Kyle53's head swings back and his pistol is in his hand and aimed before I can even blink. The Tin raises its hands in a surrender signal and winks, and Kyle53 pauses.

"Digit?" Kyle53 asks, but who else could it be? A Tin doesn't raise its hands in surrender, and certainly doesn't wink.

It nods.

I lift my outside leg and flip it back over the sill and jump into the bedroom in a _thud_. "Turn around, show us your number," I command; I have to be sure.

When we see the 07707 marking on its neck, I feel a sense of ease rush over us—well, all except Reina7.

"What the hell is going on?" Reina7's face is tense and she stands back, as if she's afraid Digit will attack at any moment.

"It's okay. Digit isn't like the other Tins," I urge.

Reina7 just stares at it, her hand keeping tight on her belly, as if to protect her unborn child from this metal monster.

My hand rests on her shoulder and I say again, "It's okay."

She gazes at me, her doubtful eyes turning into trust, and then back into doubt at Digit. I can imagine what's going through her head; what went through all of our heads. Tins just don't protect humans; they don't care.

"Are you sure?" Her lips curl under, more like a rabid animal from pictures in biology class.

"Yes," I step forward, demonstrating the trust I have for Digit, and Reina7 can't take her eyes—her attention—away from me and it. We are so close, close enough that if Digit wanted to, it could break my neck. But Digit wouldn't do that. "See."

Her guard lowers, her resistant stance eases, and she takes a step forward, beside Kyle53. He looks to her, and half-smiles.

"It really is okay," he adds, and I'm glad he's at least trying to accept it.

Digit interjects in a metallic tone. **"It will not be okay for long. Three Tins and a feline are on their way to this location. Matrix analysis determines this is the most likely Net Station you will be hiding."**

"Then we have to get going." Kyle53's face winces in pain as he holds himself up with one hand to the side wall.

"I know just the place," Reina7 remarks, and all heads turn to her as she hits her Skinware chip to activate.

"Let's move," Kyle53 sounds excited.

"But before we go, you have to promise me something." She touches her belly.

Kyle53's brow arches. "What?"

"If I help you hide, you have to help me."

"How?" His voice cracks.

"When you find a way out of here, you have to take me with you." She rubs her belly. "I'm not having my baby grow up in this place, ripped away from me at three, to be raised in some Compound without his mother." Her voice is firm and her eyes redden.

It's a tough call. A pregnant woman will slow us down. We all know that without discussion. When she has the baby, it will even be harder, but right now we need her, and after everything we've all been through and have seen behind these walls, we have to keep our humanity. Humans can't turn their backs on something just because it's hard. We can't turn our backs on Reina7, or we're no better than the Tins.

Kyle53 glances at me, for approval, and I nod.

"Okay."

"Follow me." Her voice is like honey, like the smells in her home.

Klynn03 and I both grab Kyle53 on either side, and race behind a speeding Reina7, with Digit at our tail, to keep watch on anything tracking us.

We run out the side door that leads through the greenhouse and out back, but instead of circling up front to where we once found the river and I killed Lucy717, we head west, deeper into the Electric Gardens.

"Where are we going?" I question, as we plod over more colorful flowers, with fantastical trees flanking us on either side.

Her neck cranes back, and her eyes fall on me, as she runs. "A friend's Net Station."

As we push forward, my shoes keep hitting thick wiry petals from flowers that glow brilliantly, the only things lighting our way. The jog is long, taking me back to when I ran in my backyard, at home, in Tallahassee.

I raced from one side of the fence to the other, back and forth, probably fifty times, each time making me more exhausted, more determined to never forget Mom, to make all the hurt go away. The day after Mom died was the hardest. Dad buried her ashes with Delsin. Bodies had to be burned, because of the illness. I was too young—just five—to really understand the depths of death, the permanent departure, but yet a part of me knew precisely that death meant I would never see her again. I guess losing Barack and Delsin taught me that much.

When I was too tired to run anymore, I froze midway between both fences and bawled—tears streamed down my cheeks, and I fell to my bottom. Dad ran out of the house and hugged me, just rocked me, telling me everything would be all right. But it wasn't. It never was again.

I hear my shoes hit another wiry petal and am drawn back to the present day, to our current struggle. We must have run at least ten minutes, passing many Net Stations along the way, before finally reaching Net Station 23 where Reina7 slows to a halt.

Her silhouette is hard to see in the dark, but when she steps over electric strings, her whole body lights up. She sneaks up to the back door, where the greenhouse sits for this Net Station, and there's a door, ajar, propped open by a small rock. She signals for us to follow her in as we all look at the house in suspicion.

"Who lives here?" I press.

She ignores me, and pushes through the open door, scanning the kitchen first. I reckon whoever lives here was expecting her. The four of us enter, and then Digit seals the door behind us. Even though it's a friendly Tin, I have to admit, every time I look at it, it feels weird to have this Tin with us—feels like it doesn't belong.

None of us deactivate our suits, except that Reina7 lowers the head portion of hers, showing off her knotted black hair. Seconds later, she calls for her friend in whisper. "Michael? Michael?" She pokes her head every which way, looking into the kitchen and then tip-toes toward the living room. "Michael?"

When the back door _beeps_ open, I flip around with Kyle53. Both of us aim our weapons at the intruder with short, blond hair and soft-blue eyes. His mouth falls agape and he stills at the sight of us—and then he tries to bolt at the sight of Digit in his kitchen.

Reina7 hits my arm down, whispering firmly. "It's just Michael!" She raises her forefinger to her lips in the _shh_ sign, for Michael to see. He nods—eyes flitting back to Digit, his hands pushing the back door open for his quick retreat in case this Tin tries to grab him.

I can only imagine what he's thinking. A Tin in his Net Station could only mean a few things. He's going to be glitched, or Meshed, or worse.

Reina7's hushed voice travels to Michael again. "It's a friend."

Taking his eyes off Digit, I see his breaths pulse heavily through him. He's not buying it; not sure he can trust a Tin either. Turning to Reina7, he motions for us to meet him outside at his greenhouse and when Digit comes to the door, he slams it shut before Digit can exit.

At the greenhouse, we're like a semi-circle around this new figure. Big, almost apple-shaped eyes, greet us. His hair has a blond quality that reminds me of the Pixie twins, because of the near-white strands. He takes Reina7 into his arms and pulls her into his chest. "I started to worry you wouldn't be able to make it to my place after seeing all the Tins in the gardens."

He looks over his shoulder, as if to examine the back area for any Tins that might be approaching. Reina7 responds, taking her open palm to his unshaven cheek and sighs. "I wouldn't not show up."

Michael looks at us, as if he has to explain. "She visits me every other day. I'd worry about her if I didn't see her."

They're fond of each other, that much I've gathered, and from everything else I've learned about the Electric Gardens, she must've become pregnant from random sperm insemination, so he's likely not the father—still he seems to love her.

They rest in each other's grasp for close to a minute, before Reina7 introduces us. "These are my friends." She looks around, with a smile, "Klynn, her brother Kyle, and their friend, Lexi."

"It's nice to meet you all." He shrugs, still unsure, his fingers rubbing the glass of the greenhouse; his eyes find me. "I take it, you three are the reason for the extra Tin surveillance?"

"Yeah, sorry," I say immediately.

"Don't be. Can't stand the bastards."

I feel obliged to add. "But that Tin inside doesn't mean you or us any harm. It, it's...different." I look up, his expression full of doubt—I've known that doubt myself. "It's trying to help us, really."

Reina7 interjects. "They're going to find a way out of here, and I'm going with them."

Michael is first silent at that remark. "Then I'm going too." His face lights up from its usual paleness. "I don't want to be anywhere you're not."

I determine his coming with us is serendipitous, because she'll need someone to help her in this escape. On the run, we won't be able to protect her much, or her baby. "It would be great to have you," I agree.

Kyle53 glances at me, and he can see the seriousness in my eyes. I mean it. So, he lets this addition to our escape team slide. I know he doesn't like having more join; he already can't stand that Digit is here—a Tin, no less. None of us trusts easily, but he the least of anyone I know.

"We need a place to hide. Tins are all over, and they're coming to my place," Reina7 worries, corners of her mouth crinkle.

"Of course," Michael _beeps_ his door open, and looks this invading Tin up and down as he passes. "Stay in my bedroom where there's privacy," he whispers, and we all _pad_ across the kitchen in a hurry and into his living room first.

On the way in, I tap on Digit's shoulder, and whisper, "Just stay here. You make Michael uncomfortable."

Michael's Net Station is set up just like Reina7's. Tins are nothing if not uniform. Once we're all in the living room, Michael guides us to his bedroom, his lanky walk more like a strut. He must be the tallest one in our group, and a few years older. His bedroom also contains a simple bed, lamp and beige curtains.

My bottom smacks the bed first, ready to relax. Who knows how long we'll be trapped in here, tucked away from the rest of our known world—however small it is.

Kyle53 keeps his guard up, leaning on the wall with the window, one eye on the glass at all times, most of his body covered by the thin curtain. When Klynn03 plops next to me, I know I can shut my eyes, if just for a few minutes. Digit is watching the front, and Kyle53 the back. 'We're safe, we're safe,' I tell myself and fall back onto the sheets with relief.

I don't remember fluffy sheets very well, not like these, certainly not in the Compound. They feel soft against my back. Lucy717 earned a silk blanket once, when she turned thirteen. A whole year of no glitches. I used to hang out in her room, just so I could lie on top of it. She never had another year without a glitch.

We used to lie side by side on her silky luxury, and laugh at funny faces we'd make at each other. She could always crack me up with the 'pig'. She'd tighten her nose up and back with two fingers, open her mouth, and snort. It'd get me every time. I remember pulling my ears outward and sticking out my tongue. I think Lucy717 gave me pity laughs at that one.

I smile now, remembering, and then wipe a tear from my eye, but keep my eyes closed. I don't want anyone to see me cry again. Just this once, in this micro-moment, I want to be at peace.

I hear Reina7 and Michael talk by the bedroom door, their voices low and hardly audible, unless I strain myself. "What if they scan your room, and see two heat signatures?"

Like it was eavesdropping, Digit walks into the bedroom and inserts his finger into Reina7's chip.

"What are you doing?" she asks, her face squishing.

I flip up from the bed, and soothe, "Don't worry, Digit is just giving you a code to hide your heat signature." I show her how with a demonstration on my own inner arm. "Just do this, and your heat is hidden."

"Really?" Her voice rises an octave.

"Yeah."

When Digit is done upgrading her code, she swipes her inner arm, and must've felt the goosebumps roll up her body from feet to head, because she shakes.

Looking to Michael, she asks, "How long do you think we have, till Tins come?"

His voice wavers. "Hours, at best. They'll start checking each Net Station, one by one, systematically."

Her hand touches her belly. "Then we'll have to leave soon."

"Okay." He nods, taking her hand.

Sleeping is not really an option. We all get a little shuteye here and there, but mostly our minds are busy playing with ideas of escape and planning strategies if we get cornered.

When Klynn03 stands and paces the room, Michael finds a warm seat next to me. "Do you think you can do it?" His mouth is so close to my ear, to keep the words from reaching Tins. Surely, they're monitoring more carefully now—with three escapees on the loose.

I look at him, quiet.

"Get out, I mean."

"Yeah," I say, sure, in a hushed voice, "I think we can."

He lets out a rush of air, like he's been holding his breath—like I do—when I get scared. "Then, maybe I'll see my mom again." His eyes grow big.

"Your mom?"

"She is the only one I have left, who didn't die from illness."

"What's her name?"

"Katherine O'Hare."

I listen, let him tell his story, of the horrible memories we all have. He leans back, onto the bed's headboard, and continues. "My dad and two brothers all died from illness, the kind that makes you cough blood. The doctors couldn't help."

Understanding his pain isn't hard, in fact, it's too easy. "I'm sorry. My mom and brother died from illness too." I let my eyes hang on his features too long, noticing a scar from his left chin to his left ear, and a few black speckles of color mixed in with his soft-blue eyes.

"After they died, Mom got me out of the house. We'd drive from city to city, looking for food. We did that until we ran out of gas and ended up under some bridge; until Tins found us."

I look up and see Klynn03 and Kyle53 listening. Even Reina7 by the door, who's likely heard the story before, is keeping eyes on him.

He continues. "Mom got away, but I didn't."

I feel a lump in my throat. The notion he offers is too tempting. "So, you think she's still alive?"

"I do."

I remember Dad's hand reaching for me as the Tins held him in the van and drove away, as they yanked me into the Compound—the gate crunching shut. I could only hear Dad's voice yelling for me, 'Lexi!'

I stood there, on the other side of the concrete wall, for the first time. My body shook, and I felt so alone and afraid. The Compound floor was filled with kids, just like me, about my age and all caked in dirt and torn clothes. Some were older. We were all crying, or shaking, or hitting the walls with our fists.

Didn't take long for us to quiet.

Several more Tins began circling us, dividing us into groups. Maybe based on where we lived? Tins pushed us toward our respective buildings, and then ushered us into our separate rooms.

When the door to my room shut for the first time, I felt my heart sink inside my chest. I knew I'd never be the same. None of us would ever be the same. Soon afterward, I never thought I'd see Dad again. Surely, Tins would round up our parents and shoot them all, as they had done to so many resistors.

And now, while I listen to Michael, so eager with possibilities, his answer makes me wonder, gives me something I didn't have before—hope.
Secrets

HOURS ROLLS OVER US like the scratch of a feline Tin, and no one sleeps. I stand beside Kyle53 by the window, just watching for any sign of a Tin. We have to get out of here soon. Reina7 lays on the bed with Michael, their arms brushing against each other. Klynn03 sits on the sofa in the living room, with Digit keeping guard.

The darkness outside is dull and quiet and I find myself wondering many things. "How did the two of you meet?"

Renia7 rises, her mouth corners draw upward in smile.

Michael answers. "I found her after the Tins got to her family. We were rounded up together."

"He wouldn't let those metal things take me alone. He demanded he come too." She smiles again.

"What building did they send you?"

"Building A"

My head turns from the window and fixes in his direction. "So you two are northerners?"

"New York," Michael answers.

Renia7 responds a second later, "New Jersey."

"Must have been so different for you two." I clarify. "I mean, because you had so much time in the world, before you were taken." My eyes graze the floor. "I was thrown in at five, so I don't have too many memories of the world before; you know, just the flooding, fires, and illness."

"Nothing—of the world before?" Michal's voice is concerned, and he sits up, letting go of Reina7's hand that he grasped while telling his story.

"Not nothing," I shrug, "but not much; a vague memory here and there. I remember my school teacher, but her face is a blur, a couple trips to the park. Things like that."

"I remember my school teacher, teachers." Michael adds, fidgeting in his sheets. "Finger painting."

Reina7 interrupts. "I used to love finger painting. That was my favorite."

"I loved science. Mrs. Winehart used to give us empty water bottles, vinegar and baking soda. We'd fill and shake the bottles and watch them explode. Once I spilled the bottle all over her, and she just laughed."

I add. "Imagine doing that to a Tin."

The room is silent for a second.

"Glitched for sure," Michael replies.

Reina7 reasons, sitting up now with Michael, their backs to the headboard of the bed, "Or Meshed."

"Yeah, Tins don't have much patience for mistakes," I conclude.

"I think we all figured that out the hard way." Michael's voice is gentle, like a teacher himself, and he bends his leg, his hand meeting one knee. "I remember forgetting to turn off the shower when I was thirteen, because I was running late to breakfast. Glitched for the first time that day."

Kyle53 listens, smiles at times, and mainly focuses on the window, watching. He's always watching, untrusting and unsettled, knowing at any moment everything could come crashing down on us.

"So what was your number, Michael, the one the Tins gave you?"

"Ah," he smiles long, "Michael1235."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"Can't believe there are so many of us locked up inside the Compound."

"Imagine how many more of us are locked up throughout the country. There's got to be thousands of these Compounds."

"And Net Hubs?" I question, my voice rising. "Do you think there're thousands of those?"

"Why not?" Michael concludes, his stare on me, as his head rests on his knee. "They farm in there and how else are they going to feed us all?"

My back leans against the window, my full attention on Michael now. "So, when you transitioned into the Electric Gardens, what'd you see?"

"Not as many flowers and plants as there are now."

My eyes fix on Michael. "And people? I mean, did you see people older than you? What did Tins do to those first caught over eighteen?"

Michael answers in his voice low, almost as if he doesn't want to answer. "I never saw anyone more than six years older than me when I first entered the Compound."

"So, you were—"

"Twelve."

"Then no one over eighteen was at the Compound when Tins first started?"

Michael shakes his head. "Shawn89, a few stations down, was twenty-four and the oldest guy when I first entered the EG. He gone now."

"So, what happened in the beginning to those who were eighteen and older?"

Michael shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Reina7 interjects. "Probably used to build the first EG and Farms."

"Yeah, probably," I roll over, toward the window again—wondering if Dad could be there? My eyes meet with the low hanging moon, a crescent of white with specks of blood-red choking the pure color.

Mom's Christmas blouse of red and white springs to mind and I'm lying on the sofa near where the fake Christmas tree stood, fourteen years ago—before I knew what the world was like without her. Dad sat beside me on the sofa.

"Did you get me the gold box?" I asked, in a voice that sounded whiny even to me. I'd seen the gold painted wooden box for sale in a street market, and kept asking for it to keep my necklaces safe.

Dad smiled. He lifted a silver chain necklace with the word L-E-X-I dangling from the chain. "You might have something to keep this in." He winked.

I clasped the necklace in my palm and squeezed. "I'm Lexi."

"You are, and you know why Mom and I named you that?"

I shook my head.

"Because Lexi means defender, helper, protector of humankind. And that's exactly what you are, my child."

Michael interrupts my reverie. "You all must be hungry. We'll eat and then head out. Tins will be here soon." He rolls over Reina7, over his bed, and meanders out of his room to the kitchen. I hear _clinking,_ and realize it must be nice to _not_ be forced to sleep from 8:30 p.m. until 7:00 a.m., as we are in the Compound. Just this bit of freedom is unfathomable to me.

When he returns minutes later, smells permeate the house and intoxicate my nose in a tease. I even hear my stomach growl. Klynn03 joins, and we're all handed a plate of chopped apples and celery. There are no utensils, but we don't need them. Finger food is just fine. I guess I was hungrier than I realized.

After eating, I hear Michael do more rummaging in the kitchen and peek around the corner wall of the bedroom—a clear view through to the living room where Digit still stands guard, its eyes focused on the back window of the kitchen.

Michael is tossing tomatoes, potatoes, apples, oranges, and other food into three different knapsacks. When done, he casually walks back to the bedroom, the knapsack tops all locked in his grip.

"Here guys, we're going to need food once out."

Kyle53 shoots his attention to Michael, "Good thinking."

Klynn03 grabs one sack over her back, and then her brother and I follow suit. Michael carries too, for him and Reina7.

I grab my crossbow on the bed and my eye is drawn to something through the window, a color—shiny blue. It reflects through the darkness. So, I tap my right eye twice and the EyeGrid appears, allowing me to zero in on the reflection. It looks like metal, the color of sea, a jewel of sorts, and it's secured to a chain necklace. What? There's a human neck?

My eyes follow the necklace up over the neck and to a face. A dirty human face with a disheveled blonde braid, that hangs over the shoulder of an older woman, about fifty. She's walking away from where the Grids would be and toward the Net Stations.

I've never seen anything more inspiring. Where the hell did she come from, and where is she going?!

I pull back in the EyeGrid, expanding my view, and notice more humans, younger ones. They walk with this woman, on every side of her, and my head fills with notions of a break-in from survivors on the outside.

Excitement engulfs me before I think, and even Kyle53 notices my lifted mood. I race through the bedroom and living room, straight to the back door, and quickly hit the button a few times for the door to open, before stepping out for a better view.

"Where you going?" I faintly hear Kyle53's voice still in the bedroom.

Hot night air rushes over me, and my suit adjusts internal temperatures, and I feel a metal grip to my shoulder.

" **Stop."**

"But there's a woman!" My words are louder then they should be, but, fortunately, we're outside. I stare at Digit, his expressionless face of metal staring back at me.

" **You cannot go out there."**

"But I have to see her, talk to her. She's alive! Someone from outside is alive!" I try to squirm out from its clasping grip, but it's strong.

Another long metal arm rises and its obtrusive forefinger points in the old woman's direction. So, I look, again tapping my right eye twice, my EyeGrid the perfect instrument for seeing. Now I see.

The young humans carry chains that are strapped around the woman, and a feline crawls behind the band of five, like a parade with a mascot. Its head jars left and right, and I hear its _scratch_ —that distinct, awful sound. Beady-reds finally land on the old woman and I realize she's not free, she's a prisoner.

My initial notions are smashed; I could collapsing to the ground; nothing makes sense. "What the hell is going on?" I jerk around to Digit, a mix of rage and disappointment.

Digit shuts the door behind us, surely to keep any listening coms from hearing. **"You must keep quiet."**

"Who is she? Where'd she come from? Why the hell are those boys carrying her in chains? Where is the feline taking her?" I have too many questions circling my mind. I'm like a madman, and I'm not sure any answer will be suitable. I'm not sure I want to know the answer either.

Digit looks at me—no stares at me—and it's weird having a Tin's eyes on me in that way. It analyzing in its wired brain and then finally speaks. **"There is another reason Tins keep humans, those who prove to be useful, who follow the rules of the Compound."**

"Why?" My voice is gritty like I've eaten sand, and a lump catches my throat.

" **Humans on the outside don't trust Meshes."**

"Are you telling me there are more like her? Outside this EG?"

" **Yes, most humans have died from fire, flood, starvation, disease, and many who survived were rounded up for the Compounds and Net Hubs, but there are some who managed to stay alive and hidden."**

"Who are they?"

" **They go by many names, divided into what they call tribes, but those most dangerous to the Tins are those who fight back."**

"They fight back?" My voice is lower, almost as if I can't believe my own words.

" **The Tins need to infiltrate their locations, their tribes, and bring in the remaining humans—especially those who pose a threat to our existence."**

Then it all hits me, about Dominick567's parents being involved in a resistance, what Michael said about his Mom still being alive, when Klynn03 said she knows the Tins are hiding something. "They use us, to bring in our own kind!" I say the sentence with shame, as if I somehow should hate humankind more for what they are doing to their own kind.

" **Those who follow the rules are deemed adequate for Ground Missions. Humans on the outside must be located, identified, and rounded up for processing. Order must be established to gain full control of the Earth."**

I know Digit is trying to help—for reasons beyond my understanding—but it says everything so matter-of-factly that I burn inside. Literal heat fills my insides, and I want to scream at it, punch it, and momentarily, can't stand to be near it.

"Dammit," I swing around, hitting my fist onto the door.

And then all the frustration and all the truth illuminates me. There—are—more—of—us!

This single realization fills me with more hope than ever; seeing an older human with my own eyes, because this means Dad really could be alive, and I really could see him again, someday.

I hear Kyle53's voice fill the space, as the back door _creaks_ open and then closes in a _swoosh_. "What is it? What's going on?" His face is blank, and his eyes are like heavy weights on me—wanting answers I really don't want to give, because of what it means about some of us inside the EG, turning on our own race, but he deserves to know too.

"There were survivors, and they're out there somewhere, still fighting off Tins!"

"What?" A line breaks in his forehead. "How do you know?"

"Digit, and look." I point in the direction of the old woman, the one with the turquoise necklace.

Kyle53 takes a few moments to steady himself, and activate his EyeGrid, and then zooms in on the old woman, "Oh, my God." He pauses, as if examining more. "What are all those young men doing? It looks like they've got—"

"Chains around her? They do."

His squishy expression falls on me. "Why?"

I take a deep breath. "Digit says they're helping Tins round up survivors, because Tins and Meshes can't get close enough to infiltrate their camps."

His twisted expression tells me he understands.

"We have to do something, rescue her, kill that feline, something."

Kyle53 reaches his hand to my shoulder. "Calm down, we have to come up with a plan first."

" **We don't have much time for a plan** ," Digit interjects, and we both turn to face him. **"Lexi opened the back door after midnight curfew, alerting Tins to this Net Station."**

Oh, shit.

" **This Net Station is on Tin radar and Tins are likely already on their way to check out the station."**

"Then we have to get the hell out of here right now." I fret, my thoughts frantic and scattered, suddenly. I'm not sure of what we should do, can do, but I do know I can't leave that old woman behind, not when she's the first sighting we've had, the first glimmer of hope that parents might still be alive.

Kyle53 rushes inside, with me close behind, but Digit stays outside, scanning. We race into the bedroom, Kyle53 speaks several decibels more loudly than he should to not be heard by coms. "We have to get out of here. Tins are coming!"

Klynn03's ocean-like eyes grow big. She's smart, but doesn't like conflict, and her breathing gets heavy as she runs up beside her brother with the sack in hand. Reina7 and Michael jump off the bed, hand in hand.

The five of us meet outside, next to Digit, and as Klynn03 notices something in the distance and taps her right eye twice for a better view, Michael steps east in the direction of Renia7's Net Station, back the way we came. I grab his shoulder.

"We can't go yet."

"Why the hell not?" His thin lips twist.

"Because—" I point ahead, southbound, and at the old woman who is getting closer and closer, whose parade of young men and a feline Tin is bringing more questions. "—the Tins caught someone from the outside, and we can't just leave her."

"From the outside?" Michael's crinkled forehead tells me he has a hard time believing this.

He and Reina7 tap their right eyes twice, and open the EyeGrids, where I imagine their eyes fall on the blonde woman whose eyes remind me of sky—the sky that used to be our world before the fire, flooding and disease. It's then, when everything changes, when I know for sure we're not going anywhere until we've rescued her, when I know the Electric Grids come second to this woman.

Michael replies, a vine etching between brows. "Mom?"
Grids

WE DON'T HAVE TIME to figure out a plan, because I tripped us up. I should have known that I couldn't exit the Net Station after midnight. I swear I remember Reina7 saying something to that effect, but still I couldn't help myself. Emotions overwhelmed me.

"We need to move!" Kyle53 shouts in a whisper over my shoulder and I can't disagree. "We have to head back to Reina's, where the grids are. We'll have a better chance of escaping there."

"No," Michael's stare is hard. "I can't leave without Mom."

We're all silent. I wouldn't leave my family behind either. And this Katherine managed to survive all this time. She could be useful?

"What about Reina?" Kyle53 implores. "How is she going to stay safe with bullets flying?"

Michael turns to Reina7. "She should return to her Net Station—alone. We'll meet her there later when we've got Mom."

It's a good plan. Reina7 will be out of the way of danger. I look to Reina7 and worry etches around her eyes. Michael might not be the father of her baby, but he might as well be, because in this world she'll have no one else. "Okay, we'll meet Reina at her Net Station after we get Katherine," I soothe.

Kyle53 keeps eyes on me, and doesn't disagree. Loyalty is everything to him, and if this is what I want—need—if this means rescuing one of our own, then he's in, even if he thinks it is a bad idea, even if her doesn't trust any of the players but me and his sister.

Michael grips Reina7 on each shoulder, his palms clasping, their noses practically touching. "I have to do this."

"I know." Her face breaks into wrinkles and eyes swell of tears that haven't fallen just yet. "Just—" her forehead lands on his shoulder and she gives him a hug, "be careful."

"I will."

"We have to get going!" Kyle53 pushes. Tins won't be far from Michael's Net Station to check out the anomaly, which they'll likely suspect has something to do with us.

Reina7 finally lets Michael go and heads in the direction of her Net Station, while the four of us, and Digit, head toward Michael's mom. The Electric Gardens are thick with trees and flowers, but our EyeGrids allow us to see exactly where we need to go.

We stay low, and behind foliage and trees whenever we can, but we can't take our time; Michael's mom doesn't have that long. Who knows what the Tins will do to her, or where they'll take her. I can imagine something like torture to make her talk, betray her friends—her kind. I imagine Meshing her to make her compliant, to send her back into Ground Missions with her human betrayers. We can't let any of that happen. She deserves more than that, we—humans—deserve more than that.

As we approach, we slow down and keep a good distance, one far enough to, hopefully, remain unseen—at least from human eyes. The young men don't look in our direction, and the upper part of their Skinware suits are not activated, folding over their necks and shoulders—revealing youthful faces.

Just as well. We don't want them using their EyeGrids to see us. They likely only wear Skinware suits until they find a human tribe to infiltrate, and then disengage the suit to blend in. They're scum, worse than scum. I find myself hard-pressed to feel compassion for them, even if they were raised to follow the Tin's rules, brainwashed. I was raised under the same conditions and would never betray my fellow human, especially not to a Tin. Still, I've run into types like Dominick567 too many times.

I've determined we don't have to worry as much about the young men. But the feline, that thing—like all Tins—has better vision, and could spot us if we aren't careful. It can jump about twenty feet across and ten feet high, and if it lands on any one of us, we could be smashed to bits.

At first, we watch and follow the woman captive to see where she's being taken. Digit doesn't seem to know, or at least doesn't offer any advice on the matter. Tins must only be given certain information, based upon their duties to the group, which leaves me wondering who leads the Tins. But I don't have time to ponder that question long, because I have to focus solely on this rescue.

Pushing forward, behind trees and hanging foliage, all in a very lifelike array, we venture on until the young men take her to a small building in the shape of a square. Stained, and old in appearance, it's not far from the southern grids and is well hidden among all the gardens. The area is likely restricted, and any EG Guests caught would surely be glitched, or Meshed.

The building door scrapes open and three of the young men depart, veering around the building and farther north into the gardens to where their comfy beds and Net Stations are probably waiting for them. But the other two young men and the feline stay, I surmise, to process the woman and make sure she's secured inside the building.

We can't see inside from where we squat, where white textured trunks obscure some of our view and wiry blue-green moss dangles from branches. Digit squats beside me, and it's weird having this Tin next to me, as if it's one of my kind. The risk it takes just being here, is high. Recoding doesn't sound fun, and I have to wonder, as well, what this Tin hopes to accomplish by defying its hierarchy, by saving us. Again, another question for another day.

When the building door shuts, I look at Kyle53 and he nods. We have to do this. This is our best chance. We can't sit out here all night, because once Tins check out Michael's Net Station and find he's not there, they'll figure out he's helping us and eventually canvas the entire gardens. It's only a matter of time before the Tins find us.

"Here's our chance," Kyle53 announces and Michael nods. Kyle53 glances to his sister and she nods too.

I step forward first, securing the mechanical crossbow in my hands as my other two friends clasp their pistols. Digit _scrapes_ behind us, watching our backs, and as weird as it is having a Tin on our side, I'm glad it has our back and not another human. It'll see another Tin coming before a human can, and detect sounds better. It could even make other Tins uninterested in our direction, because Digit is, after all, a Tin.

We keep fixed on a diagonal path to the building, our heads veering left and right to locate any dangers that might be approaching. By the time we get to the building, we can't turn back, and have to break through the door to rescue Katherine. We've come too far.

Digit steps in front of us, its eye scans over the pad on the wall _, clicking_ open the door. Stepping in, I see the feline jerk its head in our direction. Behind the metal scrap, Katherine is tied to a chair, with the two young men hanging over her holding needles. Looks like they are about to inject her with something.

I've only heard stories in the Compound about the Sleeper Shot. That's what we call it, anyway. Tins, at times, will inject a rowdy human with a Sleeper Shot and it'll knock 'em out instantly. I reckon that's what the young men are about to do to her.

When the feline stares in our direction, it's confused at first. Seeing Digit, it is unalarmed and unresponsive, but when its beady-reds flick on me, its cat legs move in our direction immediately.

_Clank, clank, clank_. The sound I've gotten used to for the past twelve years approaches me fast. It's surely been sent the message, through coms, that Kyle53 and I are Compound escapees, and that Klynn03 is a Mesh delinquent.

I aim my crossbow, as Kyle53 and his sister aim at the young men in the background. I hear Kyle53 stomp past me as his pistol stays on one of the men, the one with blond hair. His sister points at the short one with black hair. Michael has a fixed stare on his mom, his body moving toward her clumsily, as if there's nothing to fear. But there is—all around us.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see the blond young man thrust the needle into the woman's arm, but before he can push the shot of fluid into her, Kyle53 shoots his pistol twice. His first bullet hits the far wall behind us all, and the second hits the blond's thigh. The young man limps over, drops the needle, and grabs his leg with both hands, wincing in pain as he shouts, "Son of a bitch!"

The other young man flips around, and runs for the exit door, but Klynn03 stops him in his tracks. She doesn't shoot her gun, but she threatens him with a _click_ on the trigger, and a solid declaration of, "Stop, or I'll shoot!" Freezing, the black-haired guy raises his hands and huffs disappointedly.

The feline lunges at me, its body closer second by the second. When it reaches midair, I fire my arrow, but instead of hitting it in the chest, propelling it backward, I watch my metal arrow pass and descend over its head. Now a ball of nerves, I feel very vulnerable and scared. Its jaws open to give me a better view of its sharp, metal teeth, and I might have seen my life flash before me.

All the little moments, before and after the Round-Ups, like when I was squished in the car with Dad, when no one in our family was left, and Dad wanted to give me some kind of a fifth birthday. He found a cupcake in a store and lit a match on top of it. I made a wish. I wished to have my family back. Grown up, I know that will never happen. But, I think, with Kyle53, Klynn03, Reina7, Michael and maybe even Digit—I could have some kind of a family again.

Suddenly, I feel metal brush past me and Digit takes the brunt of the feline's force as it lands on Digit, instead of me. The two metal figures twist and roll over the hard concrete ground like thunder, and I've never seen anything like it—ever.

_Crash, bang_. Digit's metal fingers claw the sides of the feline as Digit rolls on top of the cat, and it hisses. When Digit's hands strangle the feline's neck, the metal beast snaps its jaws—sharp teeth bite again and again, only missing Digit's face by inches.

The feline twists on top of Digit, forcing a roll, and the two hit the wall behind me, leaving a dent. The feline snaps as Digit's palm pushes underneath the feline's chin, jerking its neck up and up and up, until I hear a loud reverberating _crack_.

I look to Michael, who's untying his mom from the chair, and then I glance back to the Tins. Digit is ripping off the head of the feline and tossing it over the floor. The feline body convulses and pulses; surges of electricity shoot out of its broken neck.

I have to back away from the mess to avoid getting electrocuted. Digit strolls to the feline head and steps hard onto it with a crushing sound; the cat's red eyes slowly die.

My attention turns again to Michael who's lifting his mom on one side to carry her toward the exit door. I walk up to the dark haired guy and knock him over the head with the butt of my crossbow, so he falls unconscious. Then retrieve my arrow.

The five of us bolt out of there, with Digit close behind—always close behind us like a loyal soldier. We head toward the direction of Reina7's Net Station, and don't stop for breath. We don't even have time to talk to Katherine, to tell her what's going on, and I can see she's confused. Dirt cakes her wrinkled forehead, and her tired eyes tell a thousand stories I would die to know. She could answer so many questions I've had for the past twelve years—but all of that will have to wait.

As we head toward Net Station 33, we crumple over electric flowers, and race underneath fanning leaves of branches that belong to trees I only ever once imagined. We run fast, and we run hard. The daily races I had with Kyle53 and Klynn03 certainly help.

Midway to Reina7's Net Station, we hear the _scratch, scratch_ of Tins not too far from us. My head flips left and I hit my right eye twice. There, I see them—three Tins heading straight for us.

"There!" I shout, pointing left as I lead our group racing through the gardens.

Several heads veer left, and see the Tins too. Immediately, Kyle53 pulls out his pistol and begins to fire. _Clink, clang, bang_ ; bullets hit the Tins and trees, and some bullets even ricochet. His sister even joins in on the firing. I've deduced she doesn't take issue with killing Tins—just Meshes.

As gunfire ensues, with Kyle53 and Klynn03 kneeling on the ground for better aim, the rest of the group breaks off and heads slightly right toward the cover of a huge redwood tree with sienna-colored leaves.

"Watch out!" I shout to my friends, as gun fire continues in a _rat-tat-tat_.

As one Tin collapses, from bullets, the last two Tins _clank_ for us. I have to move, and rush to my friends, shouting, "Come on, let's go! We have to go, now!" The Tins are too close and there's no way my friends will kill those Tins in time.

I yank the back of Kyle53's stubborn shoulder, and he finally stands up with his sister. The three of us run for the redwood tree, and Digit looks at me.

" **I will tackle them. You must make it to Reina7 and escape."**

I stare at it, surprised, mesmerized, dubious that this thing before me—that looks exactly like those we're killing, that are trying to kill us—is still willing to do so much for us. It all hasn't sunk in just yet.

I nod, and Digit steps out of the protection of the redwood, and aims for the approaching Tins. I shout to my group. "Let's go!"

The five of us skirt around the thick trunk and before we make it several yards, we hear Digit and a Tin collide, in another twist-and-roll over the ground. My eyes fix on Digit momentarily, before noticing that the third Tin is still coming for us.

Shit.

"Move!" I shout.

We race ahead, ducking branches, jumping large plants, trampling smaller ones, skirting around wide tree trunks, until we finally see Net Station 33 in the short distance.

"We're almost there!" Klynn03 shouts ahead to us, keeping close to her brother, the two of them just behind me.

Michael keeps a tight grip on Katherine, but even in her condition she keeps up, and sometimes pulls her son forward. She's used to this, and that fact makes me worry, more than anything, about the outside conditions.

_Pat, pat, pat_ , forward we race. "How are we going to break the grids?!" Kyle53 shouts, his words an ear-shout to me.

My neck cranes back just a fraction, and I yell in return as I keep running. "Remember Dom? He short-circuited the entire Building just by frying the Slider!"

"So, you're thinking—"

"—We're going to fry it!"

When we hit Net Station 33, Michael, Klynn03 and I shout to Reina7.

"Come on!"

"We have to get going!"

"Tins are coming!"

We see her slightly freckled face poke out from the back door. Upon seeing us, she darts out of the Net Station to us. One hand holds her belly, and another swings by her side.

She races into Michael's arms, and Michael even lets go of his mom briefly. The three of them run forward with the rest of us in a close-knit formation, my mind worrying about Michael because he never did receive the anti-heat signature.

After we pass Net Station 33, we slow at the grid. The electric fence surges with sound like white noise. "What's the plan?" Michael yells, his eyes flitting to me and Kyle53.

I aim my mechanical crossbow at the grid, and ready a metal arrow. "We're blowing this thing."

I shoot seconds later, and the arrow _swishes_ out of the crossbow, releasing from my gun when I hit the release button, and it hits straight into the electric fence in a loud _crackle_. I stare at the grid, waiting for the short circuit to happen, but nothing does. The fence just vibrates louder with white noise and the arrow falls to the ground.

"What the hell?"

Kyle53 adds. "We need something bigger!"

All heads turn at the sound of _clank, clank, clank_. The third Tin is here, and I have an idea. "Let's use it!" I shout to Kyle53 and he nods, knowing exactly what I mean.

Michael's expression is confused, as his gaze flips from us to the Tin, but Klynn03 has picked up on the idea. Kyle53 fires his gun straight into the air, drawing the Tin's attention to him. As the Tin _scratches_ for Kyle53, he leads the Tin closer and closer to the grid. When there's no more room to spare, Kyle53 drops to the ground and shouts. "Now!"

I aim my crossbow and fire, this time not missing. I hit the release button on my weapon before the arrow _smashes_ into the Tin's hard, metal heart. The Tin is propelled backward, landing into the Electric Grid.

The fence _crackles_ louder this time. Strings of electricity shoot off and the fence vibrates a few times as more electricity surges through the Tin. The Tin convulses heavily, as electricity flows in and out of it, until finally the entire grid overloads. The grid explodes; electric shards and sounds bounce and land everywhere—until finally the whole of the fence fades from its vibrant yellow-white color, into a grey-black.

Kyle53 shouts exhilaratingly, "It's fried!"

Just then, another Tin _clanks_ toward us from the direction we left earlier. All weapons aim at it before it says, **"Just me,"** with a wink.

"Digit," I shout, alerting everyone else to the fact.

My two friends and I look at each other, and then to the broken Electric Grids; a grin of satisfaction overwhelming our faces. Michael, his mom, and Reina7 stay close to us, still in a close-knit formation—though Katherine seems more dazed than anything else.

"Ready?" Kyle53 glances at me, his hands reaching for mine.

"Ready." I let my Skinware suit roll down my face and stop at my neck. I want to take this all in with my own eyes—without the clear visor of the suit. I take Kyle53's hand and we step over the broken fence, and into the unknown.

The land is vast soil and empty of gardens. The Earth is open, the air more gushy. I see a fried fence squaring off this new area, and a few interspersed rectangular concrete buildings paired with greenhouses the same size: the Net Hubs.

But more than the land and the buildings—are the vast numbers of people. People are dressed in a green garb from neck to toe, and they're cheering. Many are racing toward the broken grids, some are already jumping through them and others are standing still, bewildered.

I glance over the multitude of raucous voices, through the fried fence, and my shoes _crunch_ down over the last electric strings beneath me. Soon, I step onto the soil of the Net Hubs under an inky black sky, with Kyle53, and I know now why the Tins could never create the Electric Gardens on their own.

Pure logic kills the emotions in you, just as the Mesh does to all the ones the Tins take from us—just like with Lucy717, no...Lucy. She had a name before all of this. In that moment, I decide I won't keep the names the Tins gave us any longer. We'll no longer be known by numbers. We had—have—names. And now, we're free, stepping through the broken Electric Grids, into a new world.

There must be many of us out there, beyond the grids, more than I ever dreamed possible. People who hide to keep safe. People who fight and refuse to give up. People who are taking a Tin down right now. And I have to be a part of it. I have to be what Mom said I was— _defender, helper, protector of humankind._

I look to Kyle53, and our hands squeeze as we lead our group out of the Electric Gardens. My eyes suddenly focus on a man several yards from me. Somehow through all the mayhem, I see him. A man six feet tall, with almond-shaped eyes, salt-and-pepper hair, and a square face. A man wearing another green uniform up to his neck, but his face is clear, and his expression is a mix of confusion and hope, as he locks eyes on me.

"Lexi?"

"Dad?"
THE END

Please continue the story with Electric Grids.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1) How would you describe Lexi's determination to escape the Compound? Should she have brought Shayne?

2) As the relationship between Digit and Lexi grows, do you tend to trust Digit more or less? Do you think it is hiding anything?

3) Was Lexi justified in killing her friend Lucy? Would you have done it differently?

4) What do you think book two has in store for Lexi and her friends?

5) Were you surprised to see Lexi's dad?

6) What do you think is outside the Compound?
Author Biography:

M. Black is a pen name of Ami Blackwelder.

M. Black is her dystopia and thriller line of books. Rebecca May is the pen name for her historical and contemporary line of books. Ami Blackwelder writes paranormal and sci-fi novels.

Her stories range from Tween & YA to Adult. Growing up in Florida, she graduated UCF and in 1997 received her BA in English and additional teaching credentials. Then she packed her bags and travelled overseas to teach in Thailand, Nepal, Tibet, China and Korea. Thailand is considered her second home now. She has always loved writing and wrote poems and short stores since childhood; however, her novels began when she was in Thailand in her early thirties.

Having won the Best Fiction Award from the University of Central Florida (Yes, The Blair Witch Project University), her short fiction From Joy We Come, Unto Joy We Return was published in the on campus literary magazine Cypress Dome and remains to this day in University libraries around the USA.

Later, she achieved the semi-finals in a Laurel Hemingway contest and published a few poems in the Thailand's Expat magazine, and an article in the Thailand's People newspaper. Additionally, she has published poetry in Korea's AIM magazine, the American Poetic Monthly magazine and Twisted Dreams Magazine.
Thank you to all my supporters, family, friends, and fans for making this novel not just a dream, but a reality.

A special thank you to my alpha-readers, beta-readers and editors!

Without all of your readership, fan support and advice, I would not be able to do what I do. I love writing. It has always been my passion and I am so fortunate to be able to write the stories I love for my readers.

You may also download this novel on Kindle, Nook, and iPad or go to your local bookstore and order a copy. Or go to my main website (http://AmiBlackwelder.blogspot.com) and order an autographed novel for only $7.99 using the email link touch-of-grace@hotmail.com.

M.Black can be found here http://MiaBlackThrillers.blogspot.com and has a planned upcoming line of books in the dystopia and thriller genres that you can check out at her website.
If you enjoyed this, please try Simulation by M.Black.

All her work is available at her websites:

http://amiblackwelder.blogspot.com

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Please consider joining Ami Blackwelder's newsletter found at her website. M.Black and Rebecca May books are also announced on the newsletter sent out by Ami Blackwelder.

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