I hear voices in the distance, but I have to focus all my attention on not falling. I’m still twenty feet up. The fall would be survivable—probably. At least the effort of climbing has distracted me a little from my anger and resentment and confusion. It’s hard to think about emotions when your life, or at least your safety, is on the line.

I have managed to lower myself another few feet, when I notice the voices are coming closer. Careful not to shift my precarious balance, I turn my head and search for the source. Bikk! At the very farthest limit of my vision, several blocks away, stands a cluster of Greenshirts on patrol. They are illuminated in a glowing orb of light, and rays of their flashlights extend from that center, making it look like a many-armed underwater creature. The Greenshirts are searching the neighborhood for any signs of suspicious activity.

If they see me, they’ll think I’m some outer circle punk high on synthocybe looking for gelt to finance her next fix. What could be more suspicious than a girl scaling a wall in a ritzy inner circle neighborhood?

Well, a second-child girl with no lens implants, of course. I’m not just any common criminal. I can be as law-abiding as I like. My life itself is a violation of the highest order.

Time for this nonexistent, illegal girl to get back home. My urge to see the world suddenly begins to evaporate as the chance of capture looms. They haven’t seen me—their lights are focused in the other direction—but they’re out, and much too close for comfort.

I lunge for a hold right above my head. As my fingers grip it, though, I have a strange, dizzying, disjointed sensation. The world seems to shiver slightly, and the entire block comes loose in my hand. I’d committed too hard, and with a sickening lurch I fall, my body scraping against the rock wall as I try to slow my descent. After what feels like an eternity—though I’ve only slid about a foot—my fingers catch and I dangle, swinging by one aching arm, still ten feet above the ground.

The stone has crashed below with a deafening noise, and I expect the Greenshirts to come running. But they don’t react. I’m panting now, crying at my own stupidity, wondering how on Earth I was ever so foolish as to try to go out into the world on my own. I’m not equipped for this. Why, I can’t even make it safely out of the house! What did I think I was going to do? Go to a party? Make a friend? I probably can’t even navigate the streets or figure out how to talk to someone I’m not related to and haven’t known my whole life!

Only a moment before, I’d felt in a panic to escape. Now I’m frantic to get back inside, where everything is predictable and safe. I have to leave in three days. I need to cherish what little time I have. Or so I tell myself. Some part of me still yearns to be out in the city, to defy the fate that has kept me a prisoner all my life.

But no matter how I stretch and twist I can’t find a single handhold above me. I’ve slithered into a trap, and there’s nowhere to go but down.

I try to picture Mom’s face when I ring the chime, and she opens the door to find me, shamefaced, on the wrong side of it. She’s going to be so disappointed in me.

It takes me another few minutes to climb low enough that I feel confident to jump without injury. I push away from the wall and drop lightly. Then I freeze in amazement.

My feet are on ground that’s not inside my house. For the first time in my life, I’m outside. I look down, rocking back on my heels, lifting my toes to see the novelty beneath my feet. There’s nothing special about the ground, really. It’s just the smooth, clean, shining photoreceptive surface that lines most walls and floors in this city, gathering solar energy. But it’s not like anything I’ve known before.

It’s outside! I’m free!

It’s like the very ground is sending electric sparks into my feet, ordering them to move without my volition. I take a step . . . and it isn’t toward the front door. It is away. Away from the familiar. Away from the safe prison. Toward dangerous freedom.

I take another step. My body wants to run, to revel and leap as I do at my most exuberant moments inside the courtyard. But I can’t attract any attention. A third step, and I’m on the public sidewalk. Between that and the road stand artificial trees. I know they look exactly like the real, living trees that once covered the world, thriving even in densely populated cities, before the Ecofail. But they are as false as my new identity will be. They’re just tree-shaped photosynthesis factories, making oxygen for everyone in Eden to breathe.

I touch one, and it is cold and dead.

In a daze, almost in a dream, I walk on, down the gently curving sidewalk of our street. Just three rings outside of the Center, our street is a relatively small circle. The houses are low, no more than two or three stories. Eden regulation keeps the inner buildings low so that the Center will always stand proud and tall. I glance over my shoulder at that structure, a huge emerald dome that stands like a giant faceted eye in the heart of Eden. Although I know it holds offices and high-level workers like my parents, I sometimes feel as if the Center is almost the eye of the EcoPanopticon itself, watching over Eden.

Tonight, I feel as if it is glaring at me balefully through the dark.

I turn my back on the Center, square my shoulders, and walk slowly into Eden.

It’s night, but there are a few people outside, talking to neighbors or coming home from restaurants. I recognize some of them, though I’ve only seen them at dusk or dawn when I peep from my aerie. A gentle glow illuminates them wherever they linger or walk, lighting up before them, darkening behind them once they pass. But no lights come on for me as I go. It is as if Eden is shutting its eyes to me, rejecting me.

All my life, I’ve felt like I’d be pounced on if I ever set foot outside my home. But strangely, the scant handful of people on the streets don’t seem to pay the slightest bit of attention to me. I’m relieved, of course, but there’s a sting to it, too.

Then, unexpectedly, a man emerges from his door, fumbling with his keycard as he moves. He sees my shadow, cast in the light emanating from his house, and he looks up for a fraction of a second, giving me a quick nod and smile before turning back to secure his lock. I’ve moved past his threshold before he sets out, and he goes in the opposite direction.

I’m elated and shaking. My first contact!

But if I’m not careful, someone will notice my difference. I pull my cap over my kaleidoscope eyes and wrap my pale gold jacket more snugly around my body, hunching a bit as I walk. Why isn’t the ground lighting up for me? They might not look directly in my eyes and see that I lack lenses, but eventually someone will notice I’m the only one moving in darkness. I only have two choices: get to a more populous part of Eden, where my darkness won’t be noticed among everyone else’s light, or go home.