“I think . . . no,” I say, not wanting to worry her about my mysterious encounter with the young Greenshirt.

“Still, something’s up tonight to have increased security. We should go the long way around. If we cut out to the next ring and then take another spoke back inward, we’ll attract less attention.”

I’m nervous, but I trust her. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

She gives me a smile of mischief. “I’ve snuck out to a meeting or two,” she admits. I question her with raised eyebrows and she elaborates a bit. “People who think like me. People who aren’t so certain that all is well in Eden. Naturally, the less attention I get the better. And some of the meetings are in outer circles, so it’s safest to be sneaky.”

I know she means not just safe from the focus of authorities, but from the seedier element that lives in the outer circles. Ash never mentioned any of this. I guess Lark has a secret life, too.

I hardly even see the gaudy lights, the extravagant costumes of the passersby. We’ve reached the next ring, and though it is visibly less clean and chic than the entertainment circle closest to my house, it is still hopping with activity and crazy with color and decoration, on both the people and the buildings.

“Look out!” I whisper when I see a Greenshirt up ahead. But Lark takes my hand and pulls me so that I veer away from him. He hadn’t noticed us before, but the sudden movement makes his head swivel toward us. I tense, ready to run, but Lark laughs and leans toward me as if whispering some secret. What she really says is “Smile! He has no idea who we are. Just girls out for a night of fun together.” I stretch my tense face into a smile, and the Greenshirt turns away. We clearly aren’t a threat.

Bit by bit, I start to relax. With Lark to guide me I feel . . . not safe, exactly, but as if I’m in good hands. The music, the crowds no longer intimidate me. I feel like I’m a part of it all now. I have a connection. I have a friend.

“Do you have any idea where you’ll be living when you go with your new foster family?” Lark asks. I shake my head. I left before I could learn any details of my future. “I hope it’s close,” Lark goes on, “but if not, there’s always the autoloop. You can get anywhere in Eden in a few hours now that they’ve upped the rail speed.”

There’s so much swirling around in my head. Just a couple of hours ago I was told I’m about to leave my home, my family. Who knows when I’ll see them again? I’ll be living with strangers. I’m torn up about that, and yet . . . Somehow, there’s an edge of happiness. When I ran away from my home into the night I felt like my whole world had broken. Now I begin to think that I can put the pieces back together. Not in exactly the same way, of course. But maybe, just maybe, even better.

Is it Lark that makes me feel that everything isn’t as grim as it first seemed? Now that I’ve met a friend, shared my secret, anything seems possible.

Not that I don’t have enough problems of my own to worry about, but somehow I keep thinking back to everything Lark told me about the supplies, the one-child policy, her vague theories about something being wrong with Eden. But what does that matter? The world is what it is—dead outside, alive in here—and I have to make the best life for myself given what I have. Whatever is going on in the government and supplies, or in the electronic heart of the EcoPanopticon, that’s not my problem.

My heart slows to the point that I can have a real look around me. We’re walking briskly through the next entertainment ring. While the one nearest my house—the entertainment district closest to the Center—seemed loud and boisterous at the time, I can see now that by comparison with this ring it was quiet, civilized, and staid. There, people walked slowly, in orderly fashion, politely making way for one another. Here, they jostle and shove. There seem to be many more people. More security, too. Did Lark make a mistake going this way?

“They have other things to worry about,” she says when I express my concern. “Look over there.”

I see a man standing on a small folding stool, head and shoulders above the crowd. Fragments of his impassioned speech reach me. “Dominion over land and sea, over the beasts of the Earth and the fish of the sea . . .” Few people seem to be paying him any attention. Most just walk by, but every once in a while someone stops to shout a curse, and once someone hurls soggy scraps of a sandwich at him. He keeps on declaiming with the burning eyes of a fanatic.

“Idiot,” Lark says, scowling in his direction. “That’s the kind of thinking that got us here in the first place.”

“What is the Dominion, exactly?” I ask. I’ve heard the term occasionally, but I only have the vaguest idea what it’s all about.

“It’s a cult, or a political movement, depending on who you talk to,” Lark said. “They believe that humans were meant to rule the Earth, and that destroying it was just part of the master plan.”

“Whose master plan?” I ask.

She shrugs. “They talk about a book written thousands of years ago that gives them permission to kill and destroy and conquer whatever they like. Far as I know, no one has ever seen or read this book, though. Now they mostly just spout off about how when the Earth is finally healed then people can reclaim their rightful place at the top of the food chain, slaughtering animals and laying waste to the land.”

I shudder. How could anyone actually think like that? I remember reading in Eco-history how in our distant past huge animals like cows and sheep were raised only to be killed and eaten. If a cow walked through Eden right now, every citizen would fall on their knees in amazement.

Except for the Dominion members. They’d probably start slicing steaks.

“But the Dominion does have one thing right,” Lark said.

“What’s that?” I ask nervously. I know that mere association with the Dominion carries a mandatory prison sentence.

“Humans belong out in the world, not trapped in a prison city.”

“But Eden is the only reason we survive!” I say. “How could we live out there?” I gesture in the direction of the far edge of the city.

Lark shrugs. “I didn’t say it was possible,” she says. “Only that’s where we belong. We’re part of nature, not this artificial paradise.”

I look back at the proselytizer. “Why don’t they arrest him?”