Sanctuary.

Refuge.

Asylum.

A piece of Raine’s heaven.

I walk up the steps and turn, staring back at the empty church, the white stone balcony above the entrance doors, and the towering gold pipes of the organ above that. Everything just as I recall.

The world’s changed, Locke. It’s always changing.

At least some things don’t change.

I sit down on the last step and look down at my hands. The gashes are gone. When I wasn’t looking, wasn’t paying attention, wasn’t trying to hurry it along, the BioPerfect did what it was programmed to do. It repaired me just as my own skin would have done—but faster and better. Hundreds of small changes that took place right in front of me to add up to something bigger and whole.

I run my finger across my lip. That gash is nearly healed too. I listen to the sounds of the church, the ghosts of another time, rosary beads squeezing in my grandmother’s hand, the shuffle of the repentant on their way up the aisle to accept communion, the collective amens that were like notes of music, as clear as yesterday but lifetimes ago. So much has happened since then—a jarring kaleidoscope of events I never planned, one piling onto the next, changing me into someone else more than any blue gel beneath my skin ever could.… The accident, being trapped for centuries, running for my life with Kara, nearly killing Gatsbro with my bare hands, carrying the remains of Dot in my arms, leaving Jenna and California for the unknown, the Favor, and then—

I stand. There were so many things I never could have foreseen. I walk back down the center aisle and step out the side door into the night. I adjust my coat against the chill. All these people, all these things, all these changes for better or worse, are the truth of my life. I wouldn’t change any of it because it’s what led me to Raine, and she’s what changed me the most of all.

I remember her sarcastic words to me on the first night we met. The truth’s a bitter pill displaying princesses.

Yes, Raine, I’m afraid it is, but sometimes we all have to swallow it.

Affairs in Order

I wake up early. It’s going to be a full day.

My first stop is a meat market near my apartment. I order a dozen whole raw chickens. The clerk raises her brows. “Large party?”

“Something like that. Just wrapped in paper, please.”

I carry the two bags straight to the public gardens. As I pass I look at the ground where I lay four nights ago, leaving a trail of blue goo. It’s not there anymore. I pace back and forth, passing time until a couple holding hands walks away, and then I slip through the bushes to the makeshift entrance of Arlington station. I carefully make my way down the steps of rubble, allowing my eyes to adjust completely before I step into the cavern. I set the bags down and touch the wall next to me, sliding my hands along it until I find what I’m looking for. I press it and simultaneously a dim red light in the distance illuminates an area of about fifty feet in front of me and a high-pitched hum echoes through the cavern. I pick up the bags and walk to where the red light is and feel the wall, again searching until I find what I need and press again. Another hum, another fifty feet of dim red light.

I dump out the bags on the walkway above the abandoned track. “These are for you!” I yell. “I know you’re hungry. Come and get them.”

I leave, repeating my process, touching hidden panels to illuminate my way back, but more importantly sending the high-pitched hum echoing around me. That’s how LeGru managed to navigate these tunnels unscathed. Like bats in a cave the half-humans depend on sonar to help them navigate the black tunnels, which explains their screeches, and the high-pitched hums temporarily disorient them. If only I knew where every hidden panel in the grid was, but I was only able to pinpoint two before Raine elbowed me and I had to abandon my search. I emerge from the bushes back into the gardens. Maybe the chickens will provide a little cheap insurance.

Next I search the city for a hardware store. I know that nearly everything is ordered via cybermarts now but surely there are still stores for those who can’t wait for deliveries. I find one tucked down an alley off Commonwealth Avenue. It claims to be the oldest hardware store in Massachusetts—and I’m guessing, maybe the only one. Like the haberdashery in Cambridge, they play up the quaintness factor with a Coke machine in one corner that would have been an antique even in my day, and wooden barrels that hold merchandise—but most of it is unrecognizable to me—building materials that even my father couldn’t have guessed at. I go to the counter and ask for rope.

“How much and what kind?” the clerk asks.

I eyed the amount I would need earlier today but I throw in a few extra feet for good measure. “Sixty feet. And whatever kind of rope will hold me.”

The clerk looks at my build. “That would narrow it down to about everything we have.”

“Something lightweight that throws easily,” I add.

“That helps.” He leads me to a wall of spools and pulls one out that has a thin flexible rope—but it’s bright orange. I tell him I need something less conspicuous and he pulls out a spool of lightweight black rope that is perfect. I leave with sixty feet of rope tucked into my pack and head for my next stop.

The Information Exchange on State Street is a secure place for the exchange of sensitive information. An Information Bot asks me to peruse the menus as I wait in line before I engage a Service Kiosk. Births, Deaths, Real Estate, Taxes, Banking, Utilities, Licenses, Transportation Applications, the list goes on and on. I look at the various occupied kiosks and I can see people who look like they’re talking to themselves. Virtually nothing is visible other than the customer. Even sound is secure within the invisible boundaries of the kiosk. When it’s my turn, I request Banking and I’m directed to a kiosk with a Virtual Representative. A woman, who appears to be a real woman in some other reality, sits in front of me.