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Ro puts his feet up on the table. “Sure. Seneca. That guy.”

“Or, if you prefer:
Factum est illud: fieri infectum non potest
. Which is attributed to Plautus.”

“Done is done, it cannot be undone,” Tima translates, frowning.

The blackout shades roll up just as Colonel Catallus appears outside the glass door, pushing past the Sympas. He places his hand on the doorknob, and I watch in amazement as the door unbolts, the moment before he opens it.

“False alarm. No need for the excessive security, Computer.” He sounds annoyed. “Now, what’s going on here? Where were we?” The Sympas follow him into the room, four of them. We look surprised—as surprised as we can.

“
Alea iacta est
,” Lucas says to Colonel Catallus, as the Colonel orders the soldiers out the door with one look.

“The die has been cast? What die? Cast where?” Colonel Catallus looks at us, but nobody says anything.

I watch as Tima slowly draws her pen back out of her pocket to ink a few words, this time on her palm. She flexes and unrolls her fingers, showing it to me.

NEED TO TALK.

Then her fingers flash again, and the words have disappeared.

Lucas looks at me, and I wonder if he is thinking about Fortis, or about his mother. His face admits to nothing, no allegiances. Whose side he’ll take.

Not yet.

I try to push deeper, but I’m met with only silence.

As Colonel Catallus launches into a lengthy discussion of the key role he plays for
Her Ambassadorship
, I wonder how long Lucas will stay silent.

If he will betray us.

When.

August 4, 2071
•
Washington, DC

In a shocking turn of events, scientists and government officials are confirming that the fragments of the asteroid Perses have changed trajectory, and are now headed directly toward Earth.

Officials estimate contact to occur within less than one year, and are scrambling to calculate points of impact and mobilize defensive measures in hopes of minimizing damages.

One UN official, speaking anonymously, said, “There are at least a dozen fragments that have suddenly and inexplicably changed course. We
don’t have an answer as to how or why this happened. Our best hope is to find out where they will hit and try to minimize casualties. Until we know more, we can only recommend that people stay put, live their lives, and pray.”

The Catalina Presidio. That’s what Tima and Lucas call this part of the Embassy. From what I can tell—mostly from a hidden box holding their stash, which isn’t much more than a few candles and a deck of cards—it’s where they come for their private conversations.

Doc isn’t here because we are outside, on the catwalk at the top of the Embassy walls. There are no little round gratings in these walls. And I know Virts can’t live outside, not yet. At least, that’s what we hear, out in the Grass. Then again, I’m starting to realize we don’t know the truth from the lies, not anymore. That’s pretty clear by now. The events of yesterday have upended everything. If the four of us agree on nothing else, we agree on that.

Which is why Ro and I agreed to come and hear what Tima and Lucas have to say, before we decide how and when to try again, to get off the island. Escaping won’t be easy, especially now that Sympa soldiers go everywhere we do; this morning, it has taken Tima close to three hours to determine the precise moments we would need to access certain floors, and use certain stairwells, but her calculations are correct, because we are alone now.

The Presidio isn’t old, like the other presidios in the Californias. It’s only meant to look that way. It’s the highest part of the square, walled complex of buildings that make up the Embassy—and this part is more a fort than an embassy, really. According to Lucas, the Presidio houses the Pen, which is the Embassy prison, and the military quarters. It takes up the whole north end of the island, and from these rooftop catwalks, I can see everything.

Except the Hole. Not today. I lean over the crumbling concrete wall and stare into the dark, swirling waters off Santa Catalina Island. Old brass telescopes line the catwalk, but I don’t bother to look. There’s nothing to see in the fog. I shiver. I’m beginning to think the fog will never lift. Maybe the Embassy controls the weather, like they control everything else. Maybe the fog isn’t fog at all, but some Sympa-derived optical vapor that neutralizes every person it comes in contact with. Or maybe it’s a bay full of
dragons’ breath, like the Chumash used to say, long before the Porthole existed.

Maybe it’s just fog.

I let the ocean settle me, as it always does. If I keep my eyes on the waves, our current problems are not too painful to bear. Almost.

“What do we know?” Lucas turns to Tima. “You’re the one who likes a plan.”

She shrugs casually, but I know her mind is racing. She’s thinking as she speaks. “We have to look at the facts. What’s changed? Why bring Ro and Dol to the Embassy? Why now?”

“They want the four of us together.” Lucas leans along the wall, his arm hanging on a telescope. “So they want something from us. Or they’ve discovered something about us, like the Merk said.”

She paces in front of him. “But all we can say for certain is that the Embassy knows more about us than we do. At least, more than we’ve been told.”

Lucas sits. “Not just that. The Rebellion knows about us.” He’s completely stressed out, you can see it in his face. And I can feel it, deep inside him. He feels like marbles rolling in every direction at the exact same time.

Nobody could catch them all at once.

“So?” Ro speaks up from his perch across the walkway. “That’s not a bad thing.”

“It’s not a good thing,” Lucas says, taking the deck of cards from the box.

“You don’t know that.” Ro slumps against the far wall.

Lucas tosses a card from the deck. Then another.

He can’t say anything, because Ro’s right. Which of those things is the bad news? Which is the good? We don’t know who to trust. We don’t know who to blame.

Tima speaks up. “Okay. What about the Rebellion? If the Merk is working for them—”

“Merks don’t work for anyone,” I interrupt.

“Fine. Dealing for them. Either way, they know our names, they know our faces, they knew our schedule. They knew when they would be likely to find us, and where. It’s the only explanation that makes sense. How else would he have been able to find us?” Tima ticks off the basics. We all get the main point, which is this: we aren’t so secret as we thought.

“So we have to assume they have the ability to get inside the Embassy. At least, virtually.” I remember Fortis, lying in wait for his next customer inside the Tracks car. “Probably physically, if they wanted to.”

“Nobody can get to Santa Catalina if the Embassy doesn’t want them to. We control all the barges.” Lucas sounds wounded. At least his pride does. “Not just the garbage ones,” he adds, as if he needs to remind us.

Ro and I turn to him, almost involuntarily.

“ ‘We,’ ” says Ro, spluttering. “You mean you and your mommy, Buttons?”

“Shut up.”

“Is that it? You want to ask your mother? Who the bad guys are?”

Lucas turns purple.

“Enough. We don’t have time for this. You have to be quiet so I can think.” Tima looks at me. “Is this Fortis someone you trust?”

Is he?
I hesitate. “I don’t really know him, just that he’s a Merk. I paid him to help me escape the prison car.”

“You paid him? With what?” Now it’s Ro’s turn to glare at me. Whatever it is, he knows I don’t have the digs for a Merk. He knows it can’t be good.

“A book. A Grass book.”

Ro stiffens.

I try again. “It was from the Padre, for my birthday.” I add the last part shyly. But Lucas and Tima react as if I’ve shouted it. As if I’ve slapped them.

“When was your birthday?” Tima asks.

I try to think. How long ago was that, my last day at the Mission? “The Blessing of the Animals.” Lucas and Tima look at me blankly. “The day I came here.”

Lucas sits up straight. “Wait. My birthday was the day I met you. My birthday, and Tima’s birthday. We’re birth mates, born on the same day. That’s the only reason
I’m not in more trouble for sneaking out to go with the soldiers to the Mission raid.”

Which makes me his birthday present. Us. In a way.

Great.

Lucas frowns. “Not that it’ll happen again, not anytime soon.”

Tima leans closer to him, looking at me. “We have the same birthday. The same year. Lucas and me and you. That has to mean something.” She turns to Ro, who is now chucking stones over the side of the concrete. “What about you?”

“I don’t have a birthday.” Ro doesn’t even bother to look at her.

“You mean you don’t know your birthday.”

“Whatever. Same thing.”

Like me, Ro doesn’t remember much about his parents, and unlike me, there were no photos.

I wonder.

Three of us on one day. Maybe four.

Tima looks at Lucas, then turns to me. Resuming her line of questioning.

“We can’t figure it all out now. But what about this book? That you gave the Merk?” I was hoping she wasn’t going to ask me that. I know how it will look. But, one conversation. One honest, private conversation. I owe them at least that. I look at Lucas. “Do you remember when
the Ambassador was asking me about a book?”

“The one she was looking for at the Mission?” He lowers his voice and moves closer to me. Tima and Ro look confused.

“The one she killed the Padre for.” My voice trembles as I say it, and Ro’s mouth tightens into a grim line. Lucas looks stricken.

He understands the trouble I’m in.

“
That’s
your book? The one the Embassy is searching half the Californias for? And you gave it away to a Merk?”

I start talking my way out of it, as fast as I can—but the truth of the matter is, I already feel worse about it than any of them ever could.

“The Sympas came and I didn’t have time to read it. But the Padre said it was the story of me. The Icon Children.”

They look incredulous.

Tima sighs. “What I wouldn’t give to have a book like that. There’s so much we don’t know about ourselves.”

“What’s the big deal?” Ro steps between us. “It’s just a stupid book. It didn’t mean anything.”

Lucas sounds shocked. “Well, obviously it means a lot if he wanted it, and if the Embassy wants it. Think about it. She gives a Merk a book about her—about us—and then he shows up here, in an Embassy classroom? In the middle of the Embassy library? While the Ambassador
is desperately trying to find it? You think that’s a coincidence?”

“Maybe it’s not the book. Fortis isn’t like that.” I try to defend myself, but I can’t. I don’t know Fortis, or what’s so important about the book I gave him, or how it found its way out of the Ambassador’s hands—and into the Padre’s. “Besides, it isn’t even really a book. It looked more like a notebook, or a journal.”

And I have no idea why everyone wants it so badly. Or how to explain that none of it seemed this real before I met them. That it was just Ro and me on the Mission. That none of it seemed like it mattered.

Tima crosses her arms. “Fortis isn’t like that? What does that mean? How do you know what this Fortis person is like?”

“I just do.” Why am I defending Fortis? Did I trust him? Do I? He’s just a Merk.

Still.

He didn’t have to help me. And now that he’s come to me again, I find myself wondering if I’m a part of his latest Merk enterprise. Judging by what he was saying, it’s also his biggest Merk enterprise, ever.

I try to change the subject. “Forget the book for now. Go back to the birthdays. Three out of the four of us were supposedly born on the same day. There has to be some record of that.”

“What about the other stuff?” Lucas asks. I know
what he’s talking about. The part where we’re the silver bullets cutting through the Embassy’s armor. “Do you really think the Icons aren’t invincible? People have tried to attack them before. It’s never worked. Nothing does.”

He doesn’t say it, but it’s clear. If the Icons can be taken down, then so can the Embassies.

So can the Ambassador.

I’m not sure, suddenly, if this is a conversation we should be having with Lucas.

“First things first,” says Ro. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing I am. That it’s worth staying around, even a little while longer, until we get to the bottom of a few of these questions.

Not for long. Just longer.

“First Doc, and the records,” says Tima. “If we can figure out why we were born the same day, maybe we can figure out the rest. I don’t like people knowing more about me than I do. I don’t like being a bullet being shot by somebody’s gun. So we find out where we came from and why. Then we’ll deal with Fortis.”

“We have to find that book,” sighs Lucas.

In a miracle of miracles, the fog is beginning to lift. From where we stand, we can see the dim brown outline of the Hole against the pale white sky behind it.

I look into one of the old brass telescopes along the side of the wall. The glass is cracked, but I twist the rusting
knob and the land beyond the water comes into focus.

The clouds part, and the Icon looms tall over the city, rising up out of the stubble on the hill like one gangly tree in an otherwise razed forest. We all stand there, the four of us, watching it. Wary.

As if we haven’t seen enough.