“You guys don’t need to worry about me,” he said, shifting his body to get more comfortable, yanking on the restraints to conquer a little more freedom. “I’m just spacing, trying not to think, trying not to worry about why we’ve been kidnapped by complete strangers twice in the last month. Kinda three times if you count Kletter and the boat.”

  “Seems like you’re trying to not do a lot of things.” Sadina gave him a condescending frown. “I can tell the truth when it comes to you, Isaac. I don’t care if your eyes are closed, open, rolled up or peeking down, crying or stung from something caught in your eyeball—none of that matters. I can read you, I’ve always been able to read you, and I’ll be reading you to the day you have your last gasp and die. Now talk to me.”

  Isaac found just enough of a bright spot inside to let a little laugh escape. “You got me, kid, you got me. Let’s see . . . what devious things am I thinking right now? Hmmmmm. What could it be? Let’s see . . .”

  “Cut the horse crap, Isaac,” Trish said tersely. “Just tell us what’s on your mind about all this and we’ll do the same. We’ve gotta use our brains to get out of this nightmare.”

  Isaac knew it was time to get serious, to stop deflecting with the usual avoidance mechanisms. He’d coped with the loss of his family; he could cope with this new, terrifying situation. He sat up, leaned his back against the metal frame of the headboard, pulling the chains attached to his feet to the very lengths of their restraint.

  “Okay, let’s talk through this, step by step, and make a list of what we do know, what we definitely don’t know, and then things we may know, things we’re not certain about, guesses, whatever.”

  “Alright,” Sadina said. “So . . . three columns . . . Know; Don’t Know; Might Know. How’s that? If only I had a pad and pencil.”

  “You forgot your pad and pencil?” Isaac asked. “Shame on you. Look, let’s just talk through it one time, see if we’re all on the same page. Pun not intended.”

  “And we better hurry,” Trish added, still peeking like a spooked child from behind Sadina’s upper shoulder. “No telling when we’ll be yanked out to go somewhere else.”

  Isaac took a big breath. “Okay. Kletter arrives on our island, convinces us she’s legit, that they need Sadina, maybe her mom, maybe some others of us, as many as they can get. She feeds us all that stuff about science and studies and still having a chance to eradicate the Flare forever.”

  Sadina had been nodding the entire time he spoke. “Yeah, and maybe we were idiots to go, naive enough to think we’d come back to the island soon, whatever. But we went. That’s that.”

  “Right. We get to the continent, safe and sound. Even Old Man Frypan has somehow not died and gone to join the Great Gladers in the sky. All is pretty well and we’ve seemed to gain a liking to Kletter. She tells us about the Villa, lots of scientists and doctors, interested in the bloodlines that descend from the original Gladers—especially Sadina through Sonya. Sound about right?”

  Sadina nodded. Trish nodded.

  “So I’ll go next,” Trish says. “We’re feeling good, heading toward the Villa that Kletter told us about. Then you two knuckleheads decide to go follow a creepy man into a damned haunted house just for kicks and giggles. And you meet Timon and Letti.”

  Sadina picked up. “Letti kills Kletter, like there was nothing to it. Or like she’d planned to do it all along. Then they take Isaac and me away, mainly keeping us in line with threats. We left clues for you guys, and I’m pretty sure they knew we were doing that the whole time and didn’t do a single thing to stop us. That’s why all of you stayed right on our tail, always close.”

  Isaac’s turn. “Which lines up with what Letti said before getting bashed in the head. Do we even know if she’s still alive? Anyway, she said this had always been the plan, to get everyone together in one spot—including, I assume, that Minho guy and Roxy. And then, I swear, Letti kept looking up at the sky, scanning it from horizon to horizon, searching for something without even trying to hide what she was doing. It was weird then, obvious now. She knew those Bergs were coming. No doubt. She’s in on it, and I have to guess that Timon the Gentle Giant is, too—although he seems a little more braun than brains if you know what I mean.”

  “Okay,” Trish said. “So then these people show up with a dozen Bergs and those weird-ass monster things with spiked leg-wheels and claws and snapped us up.”

  Sadina rubbed her face and let out a small groan. “Don’t forget the whole line of Cranks—yes, Cranks, something I never thought I’d see—tossed out of a Berg like garbage. Chained together, moving around as if they were some kind of sophisticated toy. Then they were a human fence, pressing in, making sure we had nowhere to go.”

  “Snatched up and here we are,” Isaac said. “Why are we here? Why did they need not only giant flying ships and those Grief Walkers or whatever . . . I mean, that wasn’t enough, they needed an army-chain of Cranks, too? To capture a dozen people with no fighting skills, no weapons, no sense of direction, no plan whatsoever. The whole thing is bonkers and yes, that’s the best word I can think of in the heat of the moment. It’s bonkers.”

  “Don’t worry, it’s a solid choice,” Sadina proclaimed.

  Trish thirded the motion.

  Isaac leaped to the next logical questions.

  “So. Okay. First, what does that all mean? Second, what do we do now?”

  A moment passed, each of them avoiding eye contact, looking down as they put some thought into it. Isaac tried hard, letting the succinct pile of details they’d just gone through swim around in a small space within his mind. Back and forth and up and down, one by one, passing his internal reference of vision as he tried to put the pieces together.

  “Here’s all I know,” Sadina said. “We’ve been flying through the air for at least a few hours, now. I can’t quite tell which direction we’re going or how fast, but it’s not a short trip. That much is obvious. Wherever they’re taking us, I don’t think it can be good. Simple as that.”

  “Simple as that,” Trish agreed.

  “Simple . . . enough, I guess,” Isaac whispered, not sure it was simple at all. “So . . . what’s your point?”

  Trish and Sadina looked at each other, then both turned their gaze to Isaac.

  Sadina spoke. “We’ve gotta get off this fancy ship, Isaac, before someone on this fancy ship kills us or worse.”

  Simple as that.

  With a heavy heart, Isaac realized that after all that talking, they’d gotten absolutely nowhere.

  Hours in that little cell, crammed in with those bodies, breathing each other’s breath, smelling their odor and sweat and feet and all manner of unpleasant things, listening to their whimpers and cries and silent prayers—it had all added up for Jackie. Hours. Barely able to find air to suck into her lungs.

  There had been a lot of movement after being captured. Enough to make her stomach jump into her throat, especially one particular shudder and jolt that made her think the machines had been pulled back into the Bergs, and the Bergs had once again taken flight. Flight. Flying. It was beyond her capacity to envision and yet she was doing it. Flying above the earth.

  She’d finally detached herself. Closed her eyes, thought of better places, refused to respond to any physical stimuli or noise or voice. She pretended, absolutely, that she simply wasn’t present and accounted for. Hours.

  A door opened.

  Cool, swirling air whooshed into the room, so clean and full of oxygen that Jackie teared up as she sucked in breath after breath, pulling them deep, deep into her chest, holding it there, sighing it out in a gush, ready to start over again. She instantly felt better. But the insurmountable, crushing weight of her worries remained, all the same.

  A man dressed in a robe of coarse material darkened the small space revealed by the door, silently watching for far too long to seem normal. Bright light shone behind him, and the whirs and beeps and hums of heavily running machinery grew much louder. The robed man had an odd mask on his face—an oval of hard plastic or metal, slits for eyes to see and a mouth to speak and breathe. Creepy as hell, this guy.

  “Who speaks for this group?” the man asked. “I need a representative.”

  What an unfeeling thing to say, Jackie thought. Knowing the uncertainty and terror they must all feel, but not a word of compassion or empathy. It was something to grasp, something to hold on to. She could hate this man, and yank herself from the swamp in which she’d sunk. Everyone but Miyoko was asleep, knocked out from exhaustion and fear.

  “I’ll do it,” she said, weakly, but raising her hand to make it clear she’d volunteered.

  Miyoko gaped at her, maybe the only person more surprised than she was, herself.

  “What’re you doing?” she asked, probably wondering what had come over this deflated person she’d been comforting for hours. “Ms. Cowan or one of the council members should do it. Or make Dominic go. He’s the biggest.”

  This bugged Jackie but solidified her decision. “I don’t think we need older or bigger right now. I think we need smarter.”

  Miyoko smiled at that, then reacted in the best way possible. She nodded, firmly.

  “Come on, then,” the masked creep said. “I’m not asking for a human sacrifice for Flare’s sake. Just someone to talk for the rest of you. Come on. Please.”

  Jackie couldn’t read the man. Maybe he was just an errand boy. Regardless, she stood up, shook away the fear that had tried so hard to drown her in the last few hours, and followed him out of the cell.

  A young woman was brought in, dark of skin and hair, eyes that burned with emotion, though he couldn’t quite tell what that emotion was. Something between childlike fear and murderous rage. She had a long, thick braid of hair draped over one shoulder. Griever Barrus saw to it that she sat in a chair across the table from the Orphan, then quietly slipped out.

  The Orphan had been told what to do. But the deepest workings of his inner machinery clanked against his heart, dismayed that Roxy wasn’t the one sitting in front of him.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Jackie. What’s yours?”

  He had one of those life-defining moments, then, a moment that lasted less than a second. He considered several options at once. He chose.

  “I think you already know. Um . . . Minho.” He paused, half-expecting her to show amazement that he’d committed such a blasphemy as to name himself openly. And he knew . . . they were probably watching, listening, so it had been an incredibly risky calculation. But that’s what it was, exactly. A calculation. Show too much resignation and they couldn’t possibly believe that he’d repented of his subordination.

  “Yes, Minho, that’s right,” she replied with a forced smile. “I like it. Your parents must’ve really thought you’d turn out pretty great. Looks like maybe you didn’t though.” She gestured at the walls of the small room, obviously meaning much more.

  “I don’t have parents.”

  She showed no pity at that—he had to remind himself that she assumed he was one of the bad guys. Worse, she was right. Which only made him all the more resolved on what he must do.

  “They want you to tell us about the group you came with. Especially the one named Sadina.”

  “Came with?” She repeated. “The group I came with? I think you meant to say the group that your people captured with a giant, horrible claw of metal. What is this, anyway? You’re barely older than I am. Why’re you in charge?”

  “I’m not.” Frustration stretched his nerves so thin he worried they’d snap. “They must’ve thought you’d feel more comfortable around someone your own age. Look, that doesn’t matter. We have about three hours before we get to where we’re going. That’s three hours they’ve given us to talk. You don’t have to tell me anything right away. But . . .”

  He sighed, ashamed of the sweat that had broken out on his forehead. He wanted information from her, and yet not for the reasons that Griever Barrus requested it. Minho wanted to know who these people were and where they’d come from. He needed to know. Information might prove to be the only real weapon he could wield in the new plans slowly formulating in his mind. For Roxy, for him, for everyone.

  “I don’t really care how we do this,” he said. “I’m just an underling and I’m doing what I was asked to do. Telling us things can only help you. You’re not the enemy to them. And they shouldn’t be the enemy to you. It’s—”

  She interrupted him. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Something like that?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “So who’s the enemy? Who’s your enemy? And mine, apparently?”

  Minho had to tread carefully. “The Godhead. Heard of them?”

  Jackie showed a crack in her shell for the first time.

  “So you have,” he said. “Listen, that’s what this is all about. The Godhead. You talk to me, and I’ll talk to you. It can only help the both of us.”

  She didn’t answer at first, eyeing him long and hard. Finally, she appeared to come to a decision, although he wasn’t so sure it was a decision that either he or those watching would like very much.

  “What would you like to know?” she asked, her smile now genuine.

  It was that smile that worried him.

  At least a half hour had passed since Sadina or Trish said a word. It was as if they’d come to the same realization as he—talk all you want, but when you’re chained to bed railings there’s not a lot of good it’ll do you. He lay with his shackles, staring at the low, gray ceiling, trying to ignore the very real fear that slowly gripped his stomach in an ever-tightening vise.

  What was the Evolution that Letti had told him and Sadina about, keeping most of the details a secret. Who was the Godhead? Were the Godhead? He couldn’t even ask the question correctly in his own mind.

  A door opened and two young people came into the room, one boy and one girl. Both of them were dressed exactly the same, in the oddest set of clothing Isaac had ever seen. Black from top to bottom, with a sparkle to it that almost made it seem wet, one-piece suits clung tightly to their skin, broken up by bulges of pockets along their arms and legs, chest and stomach. These pockets were stuffed tightly with something unknown, as if they had to carry their every last possession wherever they went. It looked neither natural nor comfortable, and Isaac wanted desperately to ask them about it.

  “We’re here to unlock your restraints,” the male said. He was a skinny kid, cursed through genetics with a very unfortunate nose, bent to the side like he’d slept with all of his weight on the poor thing every night of his life. “You’ll be free to use the attached bathroom, and they’re going to serve a meal soon. Just don’t do anything weird or stupid and we won’t lock you up again. They told us to tell you that we’re all on the same side, here.”

  “Wow,” Sadina replied. “Yeah, sure feels like that’s the case.”

  Trish elbowed her. Isaac agreed with the sentiment. Get unchained first, then be a smart aleck. He’d learned a few things during the last month of being someone’s captive, enough to know that anyone can be manipulated through subtlety and patience. On both sides.

  The two guards—that’s the word that popped into Isaac’s mind to describe them, dressed as they were, with keys to their chains—came over to the small beds, now looking three feet taller as they stood there. Both of them had short hair, or hair slicked underneath the black caps that they wore, it was hard to tell. The girl had a stern look on her face, as if she really hated her job, and when she tilted her head one way, Isaac could see that her hair was actually bright orange. Now that was something he’d never seen before.

  The boy, stern enough but a downright gentleman compared to his partner, bent over and quickly set about unlocking the shackles with a long metal key. Clicks and clacks replaced the silence as he worked at it, his awkwardly crooked nose not always moving in the same direction as the rest of his body.

  “You guys have names?” Trish asked.

  “No,” the girl snapped. But then the boy answered in a sad, reserved manner. “No, we don’t have names. Not yet, anyway. We’re Orphans, and we’re all one and the same.” He had finished Trish and Sadina, and now moved to work on Isaac’s restraints.

  To his surprise, the girl’s entire demeanor changed in an instant, sporting a devious smile and an excitement in her eyes. “You can call me Orange. That’s what your friend, the Orphan, calls me. And he calls this guy Skinny because calling him Nose would’ve really hurt his feelings.”

  “That’s just mean,” the boy known as Skinny muttered. “You guys will find that Orange is a very interesting, adventurous, humorous person, and that I’m pretty much the most boring human being ever born.” With a satisfied sigh he unclasped the last lock on Isaac and stood up. “But we call your Orphan friend Happy behind his back because he’s the exact opposite of that. When he has a bad day he likes to beat his fists against a stone wall until the knuckles bleed. But he’s not all that bad. Sometimes he shares his food.”

  “Wait,” Sadina said, rubbing her eyes, now sitting on the end of her bed, almost touching the one named Orange with her knees. “Wait . . . just wait. Lots of questions, here, but who is this Orphan friend you keep talking about? We don’t have an Orphan friend, unless you’re talking about Isaac.” She reached back and squeezed his hand. “But you say the word like it’s some kind of title, and the same as you. I promise we don’t have any friends who walk around bragging that they don’t have names or parents.”

  “But he was with you when our Bergs arrived,” Skinny said.

  “You mean that Minho guy?” Trish asked. “The crazy dude that climbed out of the river with a log and bashed Letti over the head? The guy who showed up with his grandma?”

  The questions were enough to make both Skinny and Orange look perplexed.

  “His grandma?” Skinny repeated, as if that might be the strangest word uttered in the entire conversation.

  “Let’s get on with it,” Orange said. “We only have a couple of hours before we get to Alaska, so we better get a move on.”