2037 is closer than you think.
You will like many things about this life because you feel safe and have more time for the people who matter to you.
What will you do when those very people are the reason you have to break the rules of your zone?
People who should have lived side by side turned on one another. After years of war, the Cataclysm came in 2031.
Afterward, people had heat and enough food again. They received medical care and homes where they could sleep safely. Anyone who accepted that help also accepted terms few would have agreed to before the collapse.
In 2037, you explain to your children why they must follow the rules of the AGI*.
After the Cataclysm, you often woke without knowing what you would feed your children that night.
Today you come home with full bags. Outside your door, mechs are clearing the last of the rubble from the street.
Your daughter asks whether there could be another war or a famine. You promise that she has nothing to fear. You do not even know who is making decisions about your lives behind closed doors.
SYSTEM THRILLER · BOSTON 2037
A Morning with Alice.
Alice is thirteen, and Caleb is her older brother. At breakfast, he gives her an annoyed look but promises to watch her train that evening. Just before school, he wraps her scarf around her neck. “You're really coming?” Alice asks. She does not let him leave until he says yes. Beyond the kitchen window, mechs push a cart loaded with crates down the sunlit street.
ALICE · OUT IN BOSTON
Alice Only Wants to Look.
Alice stops beside two girls wearing FlipTags. Caleb is waiting at the checkout with the cart. The scanner beeps as Megan rings up his groceries. She shifts her gum from one cheek to the other. “You again,” she says. Alice joins Caleb and grins. “She knows you.” “Unfortunately,” Megan says.
2 Seconds
The lights flicker above them.
“Leave it.” Alice raises both hands and grins at Caleb.
What happens before Caleb turns back to her?
ZONE BORDER
To reach Alice, Caleb would have to pass through this gate.
Caleb has never trusted the zones. The only lead to Alice may lie beyond this gate. To follow it, he would have to leave the car at the checkpoint and get past the Officers without knowing whether they would let him out again. In some neighborhoods, the cartels decide who makes it home unharmed whenever the cameras go down. Their men take someone while the cameras are recording. No one steps in, and every camera above the street captures it. Who gave those men permission?
CALEB · AT THE HARBOR
Can Caleb ask the man he abandoned for help?
Caleb remembers the friend he left alone after Ghost Coil. The man was interrogated for three days. Caleb drove home and never called. Now that same man may be able to help him find Alice. Caleb needs him, and he knows how the conversation will begin: three days without windows, not one call from Caleb. What can he possibly say?
BOSTON · 2037
Who Is Fighting for Control of Boston?
Something in Boston is fighting for power. People created it, and they lost control of it long ago. It keeps the city alive. Almost no one knows what it is trying to achieve or what it expects from humanity. Can an intelligence like that feel? Can it have a soul?
ADRIAN VANCE · INVESTIGATOR
Vance Wants to Bring the Missing Children Home.
Adrian Vance was a child psychologist and a senior profiler. Now he is back on patrol in Boston as a Lieutenant in the Civic Stabilization Unit (CSU). Years ago, he doubted the assessment of a teenage boy. Vance signed off on the boy's return. The boy disappeared afterward, and Vance never learned what became of him. Later, he connected several closed missing-person cases. As a result, he lost the case and was sent back to patrol. He still speaks with the families of missing children. At night, he wants to return home to Helen and take care of her. How far can he go when his investigation threatens people he and Helen depend on?
ALICE · SOMEWHERE
In the Dark.
Alice reaches for the scarf Caleb wrapped around her neck that morning and finds nothing. He promised he would come. She is waiting for him when something runs across her shoe.