My heart sank; I looked up at Henry. Whatever color had entered his complexion with his rising temper drained--he was deathly pale, almost matching the straight hair framing his face. "No," I said softly, having no idea what else to say. "It's not true." It could absolutely be true, but could I say that to him? What could I possibly say? "Henry, please--please can't we try to go?" But he was stone-still. I tried to read his face, to know his thoughts, but the only movement I saw in him was the whirling light beyond his eyes, as if lightning were trying to escape. I was afraid for him.

The woman showed no sympathy for Henry, instead adjusting the bracelets she wore. She lifted one wrist to her mouth and spoke into it: "Moving Henry. Ready a room." Then she turned to us with her body but kept her eyes on other things, as if she didn't want to see the effect of her words. She added rather casually, "If the truth pains you, Henry, you strengthen your resolve. We'll leave it to Mr. Aguado to reconstruct your memory." She started toward the back wall, then turned to face us one more time. "I can only hope," she concluded, "that once you work past this hindrance, you will realize how foolish your reaction has been. You're sad you aren't a good person? No one is good. We are all, to some degree, bad. And bad brings power; bad brings money--the two things that buy the privilege to determine what's called good or bad. When you understand that, when you're reacquainted with who you are, you'll be much stronger for it." Then she exited as seamlessly as she'd arrived.

We were left with so-called Mr. Aguado, who had slipped his weapon back into some unknown fold in his clothing, and I was torn as to whether I should address him or Henry, the latter was in no mental state to rationalize.

A thin black man suddenly entered the room where the woman had left it, went to Mr. Aguado, and began quietly conversing. Through my disordered thoughts, I heard bits of what they said.

"The girl?" asked the black man.

"Your circuit?"

"Yes."

"All right. I trust you can handle her."

They moved slightly toward the jellyfish (which were still moving in incongruously peaceful, lovely motions across the screen), and spoke in undertones far too difficult for me to make out, but their eyes stayed on us. I was panicking. I had to move him. Staying put gave us no chance. "Let's go," I whispered fiercely. "We have to try!" He wouldn't budge. I became desperate. "You don't know that they're telling you the truth!"

Henry shook his head. His clear eyes looked off into a space I couldn't see. "I feel it," he said. "I can't remember, but I feel that I've done terrible things. I've hurt people."

"But that doesn't mean you murdered them!"

The knot of fear had unwound and spread through my entire body, and if he wasn't going to do something, I at least had to try. We were right by the door. There were no visible means to open it, but I placed my hands on it, pressed, felt around--nothing. And yet, there was something . . . I somehow got a sense that on the outside, the keypad was waiting for instructions. I placed both palms on the door, listened, and felt numbers move through me. It was the strangest thing; I didn't know what was happening or how it was happening, exactly, but somehow a three-digit number arose in my thoughts as if out of a murky body of water, and suddenly, the door was moving outward. I was as stunned as the two men, who caught sight of what was going on and shouted something, moved forward as if to come after us, but I grabbed onto Henry's shirt and literally pulled him out into the hall.

That woke him from his daze. He stumbled but kept his footing, and we were racing down that hallway, back toward the entrance where Mr. Clean had been. I cursed Slim in my thoughts; he'd walked us into a haunted house, the traitor! How could he have done this to his old friend? These people were not our friends.

Past the doors we ran, the two men behind us, but I could hear them slow their steps, gasp out words in exasperation. They couldn't be done with us; this wasn't going to be that easy. Even as we neared the entrance room, I expected someone at any moment to jump out one of those closed doors. But no one did, and we were suddenly facing that rotating laser X and turning away from it, going through that almost-invisible door toward the tunnel. Maybe this would work! If we hurried up that tunnel . . . perhaps we could somehow get that lid open. And the warehouse--Slim had said it opened only at dawn and dusk. But maybe we'd figure something else out. It was too much. I knew there was no way we'd make it, and yet I couldn't stop. An animal fear, blind hope drove me.

The moment we burst into the entrance room, I saw that the desk attendant was standing as calmly as if he'd been expecting us. I shot a look at the tunnel, but it's opening was sealed. Mr. Clean was just staring at us.

"Please," I panted, approaching the young man. "Please open the tunnel for us."

"Afraid I can't do that," he said through gritted teeth, as if he didn't like what he'd had to tell me.

"Open the damn tunnel!" Henry practically roared.

But the man lifted up something resembling a handgun, saying, "Not sorry to have to do this, Henry."

And before either of us could do or say anything else, he'd fired two shots at us. I felt a sting in my chest, and then something warm quickly spread across my body, into my arms, down into my legs. Everything began to grow numb; my eyes became drowsy, my whole body felt as if it were falling into some warm puddle. In those last seconds before I lost consciousness, I thought I felt Henry take hold of me, and whether it was only my unreliable disintegrating consciousness or a beautiful reality, I was sure his fingers on my bare arms emitted an electricity that engulfed me with heat in those brief milliseconds before it all went dark.

I woke to golden light. Dim golden light, though golden all the same. It was a welcome contrast to the stark white I recalled. My eyes blinked, and I saw above me metal bars . . . Henry! I sat up so fast that my head swam and ached, and I had to lie back down. Beneath me was a pillow; I was on a bed, the lower half of a bunk bed. The bars above held a mattress. The similarities to waking at Oliphant were depressing, although I could at least recall everything that had happened. I just didn't know where I was, exactly, or how I'd gotten there. Taking deep, slow breaths, I again sat up, but I took my time, allowing the dizziness to subside. I was in what looked like a dorm room. There were two bunkbeds, the one I was on and one across the room. Their bedding was more comfortable than that at Oliphant, but it looked hotel-quality. The floor was carpeted, though, and the lights glowing in half-moon lamps embedded in the walls were soft. There were no other furniture or decorative elements. It was sterile and industrial, even in its softer lighting, and I lapsed into the dread that I was basically in another Oliphant.

I brought my legs around and placed my feet on the ground. Rising, I saw that hanging on the wall between the two beds was a large screen, probably a television of some kind. Across from that was a door, and I immediately went to it, tried the knob and, to my joy, found it opened. But it went into a bathroom. When I flicked on the light, I saw a toilet, a shower, a sink. There were some signs of life, though: a half-full cup of water, three toothbrushes, a tube of uncapped toothpaste lying on the sink. Other people were staying here. But Henry--oh, where was he? I had to get out of here.

Leaving the bathroom, I strode between the two bunkbeds and toward the television screen, and I noticed a second door, behind the ends of the bunkbeds, down a short and narrow hallway. That had to be the way out. Again, the knob turned easily in my hand, and when I pulled the door inward, I was immediately met with the blinding white light of the hallway. I stepped out, covering my eyes so they'd adjust, and practically ran right into someone.

"Good. Now that you're awake, we can have a conversation. Come with me."

I lowered my arm, wincing from the light. It was the black man I'd seen in that office, speaking with Mr. Aguado. "Where's Henry?"

"Not here."

He was moving away, expecting me to follow, but I had no intention of doing so. I was in a hall so similar to the last I'd been in that I was disoriented. Was this actually the same hallway? Or was it another? I didn't see any laser lights or even an end to the corridor. But there were doors all along the walls and, I realized as I stood there, they were numbered. I felt fairly sure that the other hallway's doors hadn't been numbered. I must be somewhere else.

"Come."

The black man had stopped, turned to me. "Not unless you tell me where Henry is."

He was about twenty feet from me, but I saw his condescending grin. "Well, you aren't quite in a position to bargain, are you?" He slumped his shoulders, seemed to be somewhat sorry for me. "Listen. You certainly won't see him again if you fight us. Let's just have a conversation. All will be well."

I didn't believe him for an instant, but what I did believe was that I had absolutely no choice in the matter. He was right--I wasn't in any place to bargain. I was probably hopelessly lost in a maze of passageways, and Henry could be behind any door. It was like some horrible fun-house. And if they could knock me out again as easily as Mr. Clean had done, I had no chance. I remembered that at Oliphant, I'd decided to play along, to stop resisting, in the hope that I could learn more about my situation. I'd have to do that here, too, for now. I wasn't going to find Henry by shouting and running.

So I did as he asked. I followed through several identical hallways, wondering how big this place actually was, knowing I'd never find my way through it on my own. I tried to pay attention to the numbers on the doors, and for the most part, they were in descending numerical order. The one I'd exited had been forty-three. We were now in the teens. But we left the numbered doors and re-entered the hall I'd perhaps first been in with Henry--these doors had no labels, and I thought I saw in the distance a lasered X. Maybe. It was difficult to tell.

"Here," said the man, opening a door and stepping aside to allow me entrance. "Go on, sit down."

His office was like the other office had been—bright and white, with very few embellishments, although the back wall of this particular room had a screen of forest trees and deer peacefully rustling through foliage. It was even more disconcerting than the jellyfish, because the deer rose their heads and walked around; one actually seemed to look at me. I sat in an uncomfortable chair in front of his desk, and he proceeded to claim his seat and tap at what had to be a computer, although it was much more compact than I had ever seen. I concentrated on my breathing, unable to get comfortable and sitting up very straight, with my hands on my lap. Every moment that passed felt ages.

"I'm Mr. Mallinkrodt. I supervise the Eden Circuit," the man began. Then he looked up from his screen at me. There was no kindness in his eyes. "What did the boy call you?"

"Nadia," I replied, feeling the word like a weight on my tongue. Was he going to tell me my real name?

"That's what I'll call you, then." He didn't realize how disappointed I was at his words. "We didn't know your name when you came to us. You were recruited about nine months ago by one of our scabs. From the data, it seems you'd been on the street most your life. No family, no home. You didn't know where you came from anymore than our scab appears to have known."

My heart sank. That couldn't be true! I wanted to hear I had a family, that I had a life, a home, a name!

"You were brought in, hungry, cold, improperly clothed. Here we took you through standard Circuit procedure. You were given room and board. All evidence of your previous existence was erased, including your fingerprints; all our recruits lose them. That way, you will never be linked to a crime through your prints. Then we had you analyzed and placed into the Eden Circuit, as it seemed the most likely career path for someone of your qualifications. We're a bit bottom-of-the-foodchain here, Nadia. Eden is where we put the ones who really have no other potential than for what they've already had to do living on the streets: steal. We teach you how to steal. Or, at least, we teach you how to do it more efficiently. We place a special emphasis on decoding alarm systems. And you underwent all basic training. We do have a system, here, which allows you to build your way to the top of the Eden Circuit, allowing you then to transfer to other cities, to work for some of our outside clients."

Cliché images of cat burglars rappelling down wall sides flashed through my mind, but my vision was disturbed by one of those deer on the back wall, which, if it hadn't been an illusion, I'd swear was staring directly at me. Unknowingly, I craned my head around Mr. Mallinkrodt to get a better look at it, but he snapped me back to attention.

"I am speaking to you!" He closed his eyes, rubbed the bridge of his nose, then folded his fingers together. "Anyhow, you were with us for several months. You disappeared on your second job, it seems. You weren't even alone on it. It was a double job. Your partner returned from it, but for some reason, you never did."

He smiled with his mouth but not with the rest of his face. "Now here you are, coming back after all these months, with no recollection of your training. That means we'll have to blank slate you. Maybe as you are re-trained, your memory will come to you, and you'll be able to recall what you've learned. That's what I'm hoping to accomplish. I would like to see another of San Judo's Eden recruits go further than the boundaries of this city.

"I'm going to place you with the underages," he continued. "It's standard procedure to place new recruits with underages until they complete their first round of training; then we'll move you. How does that sound?"

Underages . . . I was trying to think. This was the first time someone here had asked me my opinion. "Is that where Henry went--the underages?"

Mr. Mallinkrodt sighed hugely. "You'll have to forget about him. He's not under my supervision. I have no idea where he went."

"I don't believe you," I said darkly.

He leaned back in his chair, threw out his hands. "Doesn't matter what you believe. It's how it is."

I wasn't going to get anywhere by talking about Henry. Recalculating, I stepped back in my questioning. "Can--can you explain the underage thing to me? How that works?" I felt almost certain that Henry hadn't been placed with kids. I needed to find out where older recruits went.

"Well, as I mentioned, we have the underages and new recruits together until they come of age or, in the case of those over twelve, complete their first round of training. We then move them up to the of-ages, those thirteen through eighteen."

"Where are the of-ages?"

He caught on to me, tilted his head with a little grin. "Well, that's not your concern, at present."

"And what happens when people age out? Are over eighteen?"

"They work for us, out in the world. By contract, usually."

"Or . . . what? What if they don't?"

"They do."

"Or what?"

Mr. Mallinkrodt took in a deep breath but kept his features placid. I was sure I was beginning to frustrate him, but this might be my only chance to get questions answered. If Henry were eighteen or almost eighteen, I wanted to know where he might end up. "My supervision concerns only those in the Eden Circuit. I am not responsible for contracted work. No more questions, now. I have much to do." He rose, indicated I should as well.

"Wait! I--I have one more question."

He didn't sit back down but did pause, wait for me to ask it.

"You said I disappeared on my first job. What was it--the job? What was I doing?"

Mr. Mallinkrodt seemed to tower over me (which was quite a feat, seeing as he wasn't a particularly tall man), and I was suddenly worried that I'd been too demanding and that whatever patience these people had shown toward Henry had been his special privilege. "It was a typical first," the man finally replied in a curt, indifferent tone, waving a hand in the air as if to brush it all away. "A bank job. Your partner completed it, said you ran off halfway into it and never came back." He leaned closer to me, narrowed his eyes. "Look, Nadia. Whatever happened to you, it was something calamitous. At present, we're of the mind that you were somehow attacked or coerced into abandoning your post. But I will warn you--the Circuit has confidentiality standards that must be upheld, and if you show any signs of deserting, your position here will be immediately terminated. Consider this your only second chance."

Terminated? I had a sickening feeling that if I screwed up, more than my position would be terminated.