Adrian Foster's veins pulsed with disappointment. As the helicopter circled over rolling green forests and stony mountain crags, he rubbed the stiffness from his cold hand. Home, he thought, lips pursing in distaste. Home, empty-handed.

He really thought for a moment the boy might be smarter than his parents. But perhaps they had deluded him—or worse, not told him anything and thrust him into this life unknown. Waking up in that reality, a person would have to jump at every shadow. In that way, he could almost understand. Mr. Foster had once lived where the world was his enemy, where everyone offering help had something else to gain from it.

But Foster wanted nothing from Jason, other than to help him.

Perhaps that's what I should have said instead. Their conversation replayed in his brain in angry spirals, tighter and tighter as the helicopter circled down to land. The sunlight cut away as they descended into a cave. The blades cut off, and the door was opened for him. The soldiers in the hangar saluted as Foster stepped out. Their black and grey fatigues, so similar to the military uniforms his father used to wear, assuaged some of the anger clouding his mind. As he dipped a nod, their chins tipped up, pride flaring in their eyes.

Good men, he thought, passing through their ranks. Good men and women, all of them.

He signaled, and a few fell in behind him. He raised his palm for the biometric scanner at the door and keyed in his password. The camera above the mantle flashed green as the security technician verified his identity. With all three measures satisfied, the doors slid open.

Flanked by his soldiers, Foster strode through utilitarian back hallways. They were little more than brightly lit passages cut out of the natural cave walls. The air was stale and perpetually cool, kept at a natural sixty degrees by the cave itself, which removed the need for ventilation—and the security weaknesses that come with it. No small children would be crawling through his ceilings.

People rarely traveled to the hangar, and those that did did so on business. No money was wasted decorating or making the passages to it more comfortable when such comforts only would have served to help hide from the cameras.

He palmed, keyed in, and waited for verification at the next door. Static crackled on the other side as, per regulations, the technicians radioed to let the guards know someone was coming. The camera light blinked green, and the doors opened onto an observation balcony.

The guards posted at the door saluted as he passed between, but he barely saw them. Foster had eyes only for his city, spread below him. A ghost of a smile haunted his lips. Up this high in the compound, it looked like an inverted planetarium—bright lights sparkling against dark rock. The common buildings glittered at the bottom of the cave's basin, shorter in the middle and reaching higher as they went out to the edges. Streets and treeless parks wound through in a spiraling, organized grid. Dormitories took their home up the walls of the basin, their warm lights spilling out of other open-air balconies. Is this really so bad a home, young Mr. Reeves?

Foster's fist clenched. But of course, he reminded himself, the boy doesn't know any better. If anything, Foster decided, he should be impressed. Whenever Mr. Reeves finally arrived, he would have to congratulate him. Yes. His hand unfisted. He would congratulate him. And if he had the genes for it, Foster would train the boy himself.

"As you were," he said to the door guards behind him.

Though he'd like nothing more than a hot shower and a few hours sleep after the flight to and from Oklahoma, Foster turned away from the dormitories below him and angled up even higher toward the offices. A path wound up the side of the basin. It was a glassed-in hallway that let the city below be seen—as well as anybody who wasn't supposed to be there. Foster repeated the authentication process—palm, code, visual verification—both to enter and exit the hall.

On this top floor, his most trusted agents buzzed around, exchanging intel, making plans, assigning missions. They'd nicknamed the place 'the Diamond Ring' since it encircled the whole basin city. The people here, more than any of his discoveries, were the crown of his accomplishments and his most treasured possession. He dismissed the foot soldiers on the outside of the door and stepped through by himself.

His secretary Josalyn fell into step behind him. Her golden hair, so very like her sister Jessica's, was pinned into its standard bun. An earpiece fit neatly in one ear, keeping her connected to the whole compound. A notification lit on her tablet, while more sensitive documents were pinned to the analog clipboard beneath it.

"Any luck, sir?" she asked. Her voice was brisk and professional, but her lingering, hopeful eyes told a different story.

"Your nephew is not quite ready to be recruited yet, no." He passed through a wave of agents, and they parted before him.

"Do you have a last known? I can get our people working on crime tips and security footage." She was already clicking through her tablet.

He raised a hand to stop her. "Don't bother."

"Sir?" Her eyes flicked up.

"He is, as I said, not ready. But he knows how to contact us."

"But... I found them. And I can keep finding him. It's not a lost cause, sir. It's barely a blip in our resources."

He dismissed it with a wave. "It's not about resources. It's about respect. Every time he evades us, he thinks he's winning. Never mind that it's only himself he's hurting. I'll not have him make fools of us. When he's done being a fool himself, he can call us."

Her lips tipped in careful disapproval, and she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear that wasn't loose. "Sir, your party messaged me that you recovered his phone from the train. You can't be sure he has your numbe—"

Foster liked Josalyn, appreciated her sharp insights, so he only rebuked her with a raised brow. Her mouth closed mid-word. He nodded appreciatively. Respect, he thought. The world could do with more of it.

"Jason Reeves," he explained, "is an uninitiated teenage boy, yet he's slipped through three of our nets."

They hadn't, of course, been tight nets. Foster hadn't been the one to organize the capture of the Reeves in Virginia or it would have been cleaner. Instead, Josalyn, fueled more by emotion than logic, had tried to bring her family in. To be fair to her, Jessica and Matthews had been notoriously difficult targets, and she had succeeded in getting them. Just not their children.

In New York, Foster's mistake had been underestimating the boy. He'd assumed Jason was little better than the average civilian and therefore had minimized resource utilization. He could have called on more than the Minutemen. He could have swamped the place with surveillance and drowned it with agents. But a good soldier never uses a full clip when a single bullet will do. It wasn't often Forster miscalculated, but then again, he hadn't counted on the children blowing up a building either.

Most recently in Fort Smith, he had offered a hand of friendship. The only mistake there, he believed, was on the boy's part.

In no instance had Foster brought the full weight of the organization down on young Mr. Reeves. Even so, weaseling away was more than most of the population could have accomplished once, never mind three times.

"He is no fool," he explained to Josalyn. "He kept the number."

Foster pulled a key out. For this door, no rogue technician or infiltrating hacker could keep him out. He input a code for a manual lock, like one on a safe, and inserted the physical key. It clicked open easily and welcomed him into his office.

Bookshelves on genetics, chemistry, history, psychology, and military science all filled the walls. A large desk, barren of a computer but covered with stacks of color-tabbed files, took up the middle of the space.

"What else?" he asked her, putting an end to her arguments.

She entered behind him and gently closed the thick door. She was too careful as she did it, her steps purposefully soft and clipped, the heavy door almost silent as it slid shut. "We found the D.C. courier while you were out. He's on his way back right now."

He could pick out the disappointment in her falsely-even voice like a musician picks out a sour note. She wasn't happy at being made to drop the issue of her nephew. Foster could hardly blame her considering the state her sister was in right now. And the seventeen years of silence before that. Jason Reeves tasted like a memory and a bit of fresh blood all rolled into one—a chance to start over. To heal.

He took her hand lightly in his and patted the back of it. His voice softened. "When the Dawn breaks, we'll have all the time and resources we could ever want to bring him home."

They both knew he wasn't talking about the recovery of the courier boy. Josalyn searched his eyes, as if there was any doubt the conviction she needed wouldn't be there. He offered her a gentle, reassuring nod. She drew a deep breath, like she was drinking in his surety, and squeezed his hand. "Thank you."

It wasn't enough. Anger still lingered in the stiffness of her spine, and hope still haunted the depths of her eyes. But she was a good agent. She trusted him. She would listen.

And if she didn't, if she went behind his back and chased after Jason anyway, she had better bring back success in spades.

But it would do her no good to know he doubted her. "Always, my dear." He squeezed back and let go. "Find out if the courier sent word to the vice president before he fled. And make sure he's honest." He raised an eyebrow meaningfully. "Cowards we can abide, but never a man who lies to his family."

"Of course." Her eyes fell to her tablet. "I'll take care of it."

She clicked away, and he took his seat, looking over the papers he had left himself. Her fingers fell silent. As he perused, she lingered where he'd left her, silent, hesitant, finger rubbing the edge of her tablet. It was as if she were afraid to approach—not him, but some idea, or perhaps there was something she didn't want to tell him. Considering she'd been rather bold with her opinions so far, it didn't inspire confidence.

He looked up from his papers, brow quirked. "Josalyn, I've only been gone for a day. What terrible fire can have sprung up in my absence?"

His voice was warm, but her body language had gone cold.

"Josalyn?"

Straightening her shoulders, she looked to the left and the right, then crossed the space and lowered her voice. "Some of the agents... have been quietly criticizing your recent forays into the field, sir."

"Oh?" Dumb children, he thought. Always bickering. To calm the woman, he held out his hand for the new reports Josalyn carried in with her, just like it was any other day, any other small problem. She handed them over. "How serious?"

"Not very, sir. Nothing openly rebellious. I think they're just nervous. But that's how it was when..."

Josalyn wasn't usually one to mince words; he'd picked her specifically because of that. "When what, Josalyn?"

She folded her hands in front of her. "Right before the Split happened, sir."

"Hm." His fingers tapped thoughtfully along the edge of the desk. Now her hesitation made sense; the murmurings brought back old wounds. "You would be the expert on it. You were there." Neither one of them said the quiet part out loud: and your sister led it.

She nodded somberly. "Yes, sir, I was."

The worry, normally so cleanly tucked beneath her practiced years of business, leaked over her facade. And even if the chance for another split was small, even if was quiet right now, it wasn't something they could afford. Not this close to the Dawn.

"I'll stay at the compound," he assured her, "as the time draws nearer. A man must keep his own house in order, no?" He met her eye, and she nodded, tense shoulders relaxing as she stepped back.

"I want to meet with them, the dissenters." Cold pain flared in his withered hand, but he kept any mention of it from his face. "Don't single them out. Were they all Diamond Ring?" Josalyn nodded, and he continued. "Then we'll hold a strategy conference. Remind them of the mission, and of my dedication to it. Schedule it."

She clicked through on her tablet, making the necessary arrangements while he looked through the reports generated since he'd been gone:

41% of AWOLs accounted for...

Two (2) possible leads on AWOL base. Trackers currently in field...

78% of supply chain logistics prepared...

Serum production up 9%, projected completion in six months...

Anatole Reeves-Mason Lab Results...

His fingers paused on that report, and he scanned it more closely. And then a second time. He held it up to Josalyn. "Did they verify this?"

She glanced up with a sigh, eyebrows lifted and lips curled in dark humor. "In... a roundabout way. Everything has been verified except for the performance test, but no one can get the room to see her. I've never seen anything like it; she keeps sending them out." Josalyn flushed. "Which is a performance test of its own, of course, but I know you'd prefer something more thorough. Her abilities seem to be sonic. I have agents with earplugs ready to go, but I thought you might want to take a look first. Here."

She flipped her tablet around and pulled up a video. It was from one of their medical examination rooms. Foster's doctors undid Anatole's restraints and watched dumbly as she crawled out of the room. One of them, a full grown, well-studied man, even curled up on the floor like a kindergartner to take a nap. His brow rose.

"And there's these," Josalyn said, swiping over to other security footage. These were shorter clips collaged. Different agents tried to enter the temporary housing room that Ana was staying in: psychologists, maids, food servers, even a girl her age. Each time they came in, Ana opened her mouth and the agents walked right back out.

"This..." His finger drummed excitedly against the table. "I haven't seen this before." And Adrian Foster had been here from the beginning. He had seen it all. "The speakers in that room, they're functional, no?"

"Of course, sir."

"Then I'm going to talk to her. We're going to give her whatever she wants."

Josalyn's brow drew. "She's non-responsive, sir. The brain scans even indicate she might be nonverbal."

Of course, he'd seen that in the report himself. Josalyn wasn't telling him anything he didn't know. When he met her narrowed eyes, he saw there doubt and confusion, but it was an expression he'd seen too many times to let it bother him now. He'd always seen farther than most people, forging a clear path ahead while the rest of the world groped along slowly and fearfully, lest they fall in a pit. He always offered his hand to them, but few chose to take it. And even those like Josalyn, who he had proved himself with time and again sometimes still fell prey to that darkness, forgetting he had never led them astray before.

"Nonverbal doesn't mean not understanding. She wants something. Everyone does. She's cognizant enough to go after it, or she wouldn't be using that power. Get me what I asked for, Josalyn." He rose, leaving behind the reports, and strode toward the door. "Miss Anatole might just be the key we didn't know we needed."