Emery turns without further comment and steps into the cabin of the chopper. She gives Mira and me a firm look. “Your actions matter now more than ever. The surveillance cameras may be gone, but remember those who are still watching.”

The landing skids hover off the ground.

Mira and I give each other a side-glance, knowing exactly what the other is thinking.

Apparently so does Emery because before either of us can take our first step to bulldoze our way inside, Emery slides the door closed, and the helicopter rises up into the heavy night air.

But then suddenly, I don’t care that Mira and I have been left behind. The helicopter, the commotion of the blackout, all of it fades into the background as I narrow my focus onto an agile figure with long raven-black hair that hangs straight as rain to her waist. She moves closer, fighting to break through the wall of soldiers at the edge of the lawn.

I know that face.

Mira squeezes my hand. She sees her too.

“Let her through,” I shout.

Our old friend moves toward us.

Lucía.

OWEN

Well, things are looking dark.

It’s lights out for nearly all the skyscrapers in the cookie-cutter residential section of Dallas that I’m wandering through, and I’m lost enough to admit I’m the one who may have needed an escort.

No power’s not good for the tenants who live above the second floors. Modern high-rises need electricity—air-conditioning, specifically—to keep them habitable. The higher floor windows don’t even open, which means zero ventilation. In this heat wave, the buildings have turned into fifty-story ovens.

I bet there are even a few poor chumps stuck in elevators.

Since it’s way too hot indoors, the nighttime streets are clogged with sweaty bodies stripped down to their underwear, which is a pretty fascinating sight. I’ve never seen so many people this naked at once before. Crazy-high UV indexes and the illegality of swimming pools kind of spoil any use for bathing suits.

Inspired, I peel off my shirt. Not in vanity, to be clear, but to make a headwrap to keep the sweat from dripping into my eyes. It works, and the nonbreeze actually feels quite nice against my bare chest.

Am I serious right now?

There’s a statewide power outage, I completely botched Ava’s first—and probably last—advance, I’m heading toward a secret I’m risking my neck and sanity to keep, and I’m distracted by moon bathing?

Get it together, man.

A loud pop, pop, pop fires off somewhere nearby.

I don’t even flinch. Since the Battle for Dallas, looting has been a huge headache for the Common, but now that the grid’s down and citizens have their own guns, it’s going to be an outright free-for-all in the capital. People will always take advantage of chaos. It’s like it’s written in our DNA: Now’s the time to get what you think you’re owed!

High beams from a string of military SUVs suddenly barge their way through the jumpy crowd. The new and improved Common Cavalry.

Looks like I’m not the only one who’s anticipating some serious damage tonight.

The SUV’s headlights shine on a group of girls wearing lingerie with way too many straps for comfort. Their hair is all dyed blonde and chopped short like Mira’s on the night she outed Roth’s hypocrisy on top of the Capitol steps. That’s the “it” style these days, for girls and guys. Doesn’t hurt that the cropped cut also helps beat this crazy heat.

The girls carry clubs and empty sacks in their hands, which tells me they’re about to inspire some trouble. Just like their idol.

“Join us?” one of them asks, raking her charcoal-lined eyes over my shirtless body.

I’m famous now, by Cadwell association. Rayla plucked me from mundane obscurity and brought me with her to the biggest fight of the century, and I was right there by her side until her bitter end. Me, some punk kid from an autonomous car factory in Detroit.

This guy must be something special, people think.

In the old days at Kismet, I gabbed out loud to myself like a dope, because I couldn’t get anyone to talk back. Now anyone and everyone will talk to me. They are honored to speak to me, actually. I used to spend mindless midnight shifts at the factory, pipe dreaming what it would be like to bask in the limelight for doing something that mattered.

Now that I’ve achieved some fame in real life, it all feels a hell of a lot emptier than I ever imagined it would.

I don’t have the skills to unpack that. A lifetime of ignoring any form of self-reflection has left me emotionally handicapped. Perfect for a Code Cog, sure, but I’m aiming higher for myself nowadays.

Ava Goodwin’s a megahigh bar to meet halfway, yet I know that’s exactly what she deserves. A partner who is her equal. Any person worthy of her has to be willing to put in the work.

And my work won’t be done until I make sure Roth disappears, permanently.

“I’ve got somewhere else I need to be,” I say to the Mira look-alike, shaking my T-shirt wrapped head. “Duty calls.” She looks disappointed, but I don’t have it in me to flash her one of my best grins.

Smash! Storefront glass shatters up and down the street. The girls laugh and move toward the sound of anarchy like it’s a siren’s song. Common Guards shoot out of their SUVs, guns raised, shouting for order.

“Return to your homes!”

“Shelter in place for your own safety!”

Those words are scary close to what Roth’s Guards were ordering Dallas citizens to do, just three weeks ago. Return immediately to your residence, or you will be arrested!

Sure, the Common isn’t locking the citizens up. Yet. But after tonight’s lawlessness, it will be a different story.

Case in point: Just up ahead, a group of men in briefs starts a scuffle with the uniformed Guards. Punches are thrown. The scuffle turns into a brawl.

Okay, time to leave. I’ve got places to go and people I don’t want to see.

A perimeter fence rings the Strake campus, one of the few orders Emery and Alexander agreed on after the Common’s takeover. Something about safeguarding the places of higher learning justifies the nice, not-so-gentle zap! that will knock your butt to the ground if you try to climb the thing.

Even though I have no skin in the elite college game—Kismet recruited me out of school at thirteen for my prodigy-level computer know-how—I was all for the electric fence for my own personal purposes. The secured campus was a perfect stash house for my unwelcome guests. I took a two-pronged approach: trespassers can’t get inside the weaponized fence—well, except for Ava, apparently, but she seems to be the exception to every rule—and most key to my needs, my self-labeled POWs can’t bust free.

Now that the power’s out, all bets are off.

They damn well better still be in there, or I’ll go nuclear.

Turns out, there’s no need to disable the fence with my fancy Cybersecurity Team fob, like I’ve been doing for the past two weeks, because the gate at the north end of the Great Lawn is wide open.

You’ve got to be kidding me.

We practically made a blood oath that they’d stay hidden inside the swanky Finn House dormitory when I’m not around to protect them. The idea that they’re loose or worse, discovered, ratchets up my pace.

I blow past Stephen F. Austin and his limp Texas flag, zigzagging through an obstacle course of downed surveillance cameras and facial recognition scanners that litter the dark quadrangle. When I reach the purple ivy-covered building, in record time, I slow down. Be cool, don’t show them you’re in a tizzy.