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Lily crossed her arms. “Apparently.”

A few minutes later Harvard trudged back through the snow, smiling like it was Christmas morning.

“We think there are beacons,” he said, motioning for us to follow him into the field. “Some kind of transmitters arranged all around the town, kinda like an electronic fence. That’s why, when we get too far out, the implants hurt.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t see anything out there.”

“It was dark this morning,” Lily said.

“It’s dark now,” I snapped.

“You weren’t looking before,” Harvard said.

“Those kids in the school—the sisters,” I said, changing the subject. “Why do you care? Just another couple of prisoners.”

We had reached the trees, and Harvard stopped and fished in his pockets, eventually producing a spool of twine. He handed one end to Lily, and then measured ten paces to her right.

“Because it’s weird, you know? It’s not the way the school does things. Everyone starts as a human student at the school, and then they either try to escape or get sent to detention and wind up here. But those two went straight underground.”

He pulled the twine tight between him and Lily.

“What am I supposed to do?” she asked.

Harvard’s voice was excited, and he stared at the forest like he was a few steps from freedom. “My thinking is this: there’s a series of transmitters somewhere out there, and they radiate their signal in a circle—well, a sphere, if we’re being accurate. So you and I will walk toward a transmitter, and we’ll each stop when we feel the pain. Presumably that means we’ll both be the same distance from the transmitter.”

Even in the dim moonlight I could tell Lily was rolling her eyes. “So?”

“So if we’re each the same distance from the transmitter, then Benson will go to the center of this string, and then walk at a perpendicular direction straight into the forest. He should walk right into the transmitter.”

Neither Lily nor I said anything. It didn’t make any sense to me, though I admit my mind was elsewhere.

“It’s geometry, folks,” Harvard said. “Some of us paid attention in school.”

Lily just looked at me and shrugged as Harvard began slowly walking toward the woods. She did the same, trying to stay in a straight line and keep the twine tight despite the underbrush and muddy snow she had to navigate around.

“What if the transmitter isn’t out here?” I said, watching them. “What if it’s in the center of town, and your implants hurt when you get too far away from it?”

Harvard paused. “Thought about that. But I can’t find anything in town.” He began again.

After a moment—he was standing only a foot from the first tree—he stopped. “I can feel it.”

Lily kept walking, taking a few steps into the trees and climbing over a rotted log before stopping as well. “Me too.”

“Hold it tight,” Harvard said, and motioned for me. “Stand in the middle and look perpendicular to the string—that’s ninety degrees.”

“I know what
perpendicular
means,” I said, peering into the dark forest. Even the slightest amount of camouflage could hide a transmitter in this darkness. And I wouldn’t know what one looked like in full daylight—an antenna, maybe? “I’ll be back.”

I entered the woods, my aching body fighting against me as I clambered over the thick growth here. I wanted to help them—of course I did—but this seemed like such a waste of time. We didn’t even know whether anything was out there to find. Maybe the best plan was just for Becky and me to get supplies and run.

I was only ten feet into the trees when I heard Harvard swear. I turned back to see him looking somewhere over to my left. Lily was crouched down and alert, like we were playing paintball again. I dropped to my knees, shrouding myself in the brush.

For a moment there was only silence, and then I heard boots in the snow. I was so stupid. Of course they’d come looking for us again, and here I was tromping through an open field. How could I have left Becky back at the fort with only Carrie to guard her?

Something moved in the brush.

I tried to peek out between the tangle of sticks and briars, but it suddenly felt much darker than before—darker and colder. I was a sitting duck out here. I wanted to get back to the Basement. I
needed
to get back there.

“Deer,” Lily whispered, much closer than I thought she’d been.

I exhaled.

“They watch us,” she continued.

“I know,” I said.

Lily scanned the trees, her eyes smart and vigilant. She was good at this—the best paintball player at the school. Most of the tactics the V’s used had been hers, and her tiny frame hid her surprising athleticism.

But they’d still caught her. She was still a prisoner here.

Lily ducked back down. “I don’t think it saw us.”

“I should have waited a couple days before I came out of the fort.”

“We’re okay,” she said. Whatever she’d seen—or not seen—had eased her tension. She wasn’t on lookout anymore.

“We don’t know that until the deer is gone.”

The forest was cold and claustrophobic; every twisted pine and tangled bush seemed to surround me like bars and chains. I wanted to run out into the trees, toward freedom, but I needed to get back to Becky. Right now I felt like I couldn’t move either way, like I was trapped. I didn’t want to listen to Harvard’s geometry or Lily’s trivia. I didn’t care. I—

“Hey,” I said, grabbing her hand and looking her in the eye. “What are you doing out here? What about the implant? The pain?”

She smirked. “That’s why this is a waste of time.” She tried to stand, but I didn’t let go, and she fell back to her knees.

“What is going on?”

“It hurts, sure. Kind of like a vibrating headache. But how do we know that my pain threshold is the same as Harvard’s? Even if there is something out there, there’s no way to tell what direction it’s in. And I know my geometry, too—it could be twenty feet away or a hundred. This is pointless.” She glanced back again for Harvard, and then stared at me. Her smile was gone. “You need to get out of here.”

“I told you already: I’m not leaving without Becky.”

“Damn it, Benson,” she said. “I’ve only been here a couple weeks, and I’m already going crazy. I heard about Becky’s arm—that’s going to take a while to heal, and every day you spend waiting is another chance to be caught.”

I peered through the bushes. Harvard wasn’t far away, talking to a guard. He didn’t seem to be paying attention to us.

“But I’m helping you,” I said. “That was my deal with Birdman. That’s what we’re doing right now—trying to figure out where these transmitters are.”

“This is all Harvard, not Birdman,” she said, frustrated. “Birdman’s not trying to escape. He’s waiting.”

“For what?”

Lily shook her head. “Listen, I don’t know all the politics of this place, but I’ve learned there’s one subject that no one here talks about: you get too old and they take you away. This whole place exists as a training facility for teenage robots. If you get to be twenty or twenty-one, you don’t fit anymore.”

“Where do they go?”

Lily shrugged. “No one knows. But Birdman is getting close to the deadline, and he’s scared.”

“Then he should be trying to escape.”

She shook her head. “He thinks they’ll take him back underground. That’s why he holds the meetings and makes the maps. He thinks that’s his best shot.”

Harvard was walking toward us.

Lily dropped down into her old hiding place by the tree line, disappearing into the dark shadows.

“It’s gone,” Harvard said, out of breath, his voice hushed. “I don’t know if it was a real one or a camera.”

I stood and fought my way through the brush. “I’m going back.”

“We made a deal,” he said.

My eyes weren’t on him as I spoke—I was watching for the deer. “The deal was that I help you if you help Becky. If they find us because I’m out here on some wild-goose chase, how does that help Becky?”

“You’re going to have to search for it sooner or later,” he said.

“Later.” I started across the field, and he had no choice but to follow.

CHAPTER NINE

J
ane came to get me the next morning. The sun was already climbing—it was later than I’d thought.

A dozen people were outside. They were all heading to build the new dorms—on Birdman’s orders, Jane told me. No one seemed to be protesting, even though I couldn’t have been the only one who wished I was still asleep.

Jane insisted I pull the hood of my sweatshirt up to conceal my face as much as possible. She even brought me a knitted scarf that I wrapped around my nose and mouth.

“Did you find anything last night?” she asked as we walked.

I shook my head.

“I didn’t think you would.”

“It was too dark,” I said. “And I wouldn’t know what a transmitter looked like if I saw one.”

“If they’re even out there.”

“Well, something’s messing up your brain.” As soon as I said it, I felt embarrassed. “I mean—”

“It’s fine,” Jane said. “You’re right. There’s a transmitter
somewhere
. I just don’t believe it’s in the forest.”

“Where else would it be?”

We entered the shade of the trees along the stream. “I don’t know much about science, but I do know that there are better ways to stop us from leaving than putting transmitters around the town.”

“Like what?”

“GPS. If they’re going to all the trouble to put an implant in our brains, don’t you think they’d make sure it could track us no matter where we went?”

She took a step onto a rock dotted with frost. I followed her lead, and we hopped from stone to stone across the stream.

“GPS makes sense,” I said, kicking myself that I hadn’t thought of it first. It was so much simpler.

“Harvard’s just looking for something to do,” she said. “We’ve talked about GPS before, but if that’s what it is, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

I wanted to keep holding her hand. Her skin was warm in the cold morning air, and something about it just felt comfortable, like I wasn’t so alone.

Before I could think about what that might mean, Jane stuffed her hands into the front pockets of her cotton jacket, and gave me a quick, uncertain smile.

I could see the others now, all gathered in the field beside the commissary. The stacks of lumber sat uneven on the frozen ground, and several people were already digging the foundation for the new dorm with old, square-ended shovels and heavy picks.

“Don’t worry,” said a voice behind me. “We have guards out.”

I turned to see Mouse.

“I hear you had some problems last night at the tree line?” I couldn’t tell whether she was upset with me or with Harvard, but something had ticked her off.

“Just a deer,” I said, and turned back to watch the digging.

“Should Benson even be out here right now?” Jane asked.

“We have extra guys at the perimeter,” Mouse said. “They’ll keep out the animals.”

She was gone before Jane could reply.

It didn’t make any sense to me, either. Any help I could give building this dorm was only going to be negated by the several guys who had to leave and guard the tree line.

The construction was moving quickly but with precision. These were teenagers, not construction workers, but they seemed to know what they were doing.

“What’s the point of this?” I asked, watching the guys dig. “Why make us build the barracks when they could just bring in robot labor? For that matter, why were you milking cows when the school sends food?”

“Keeps us busy,” Jane said, and she actually sounded like it didn’t bother her. “It’s not nearly as strict as at the school—the cows and chickens are here because Maxfield offered and we accepted. We can grow fresh vegetables. But most of the field is for games—soccer and football and whatever else. It’s not a terrible place.”

“They keep you just happy enough that you won’t end up like Dylan.”

Someone shouted something, and I looked up to see Shelly staggering in the road. A girl ran to her, grabbed her around the waist, and helped her sit.

“Feedback,” Jane said, and tapped her head. “Shelly still has an active dupe.”

“And that makes it so she can’t stand up?”

Shelly was sitting cross-legged now in the dirt, her face in her hands. She was sobbing, loudly enough that we could hear it thirty feet away.

“Like I said,” Jane answered, taking a deep breath and turning away, “if the dupe is feeling a really strong emotion, then it’s all you can see. It takes over.”

“She’s crying,” I said stupidly.

“Her dupe’s been down in the underground complex for two days,” Jane said. Her voice was quiet, somber. “She probably thinks she’s going to die.”

I sat on the edge of the newly dug trench, next to an enormous mound of gravel, and watched Joel and Walnut mix concrete in an old wheelbarrow. The cold earth under me felt good—my muscles were tired and sore, and I was sweating despite the winter air. I wanted to take the scarf off my face, but didn’t dare.

Maybe the reason Birdman wanted me down here was just because he didn’t want to shovel out the foundation himself.

“You got a minute?” Without waiting for a response, Shelly sat down beside me.

“Sure. Feeling better?” Despite her earlier episode, she looked completely normal.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Totally used to it.”

“That makes one of us.” Shelly had a Southern accent, something I didn’t remember her dupe having. Then again, I didn’t know her dupe well.

“You should have seen what this place was like before.” She leaned back on her hands and turned her face to the sky as though she were trying to get a tan. “You saw what just happened to me—imagine that happening to everyone, five or ten times a day each.”

“Sounds dangerous. What if it happened when you were crossing the stream or something?”

“We have the buddy system. You know when Birdman cuts your arm if you’ve been alone? That’s his paranoid take on a rule I started with the Greens. He uses the buddy system to make sure we don’t have dupes infiltrating the town, but I started it to make sure no one falls down the stairs or drowns in the stream because they’re getting feedback.”