“It’s citywide?” June asks.

Jessan nods grimly. “As far as we can tell. We can’t reach anyone. No calls going in or coming out.”

If the entire city’s system is down … the pandemonium on the streets in the Undercity must be unimaginable. My heart seizes at the idea of Eden still being trapped somewhere underground there.

“I’ve seen what happens when you have a complete blackout in a city as divided as this one,” June says as we run. Her face turns grimmer. “When people who have been held down for decades suddenly realize that their chains have been removed, things unravel quickly. It can take less than an hour for a society to destabilize.”

Jessan looks sharply at June. “What do you mean?” she asks.

“I mean, you’d better make sure your military is down in the Undercity right now, before things get out of hand,” June replies.

I think of the constant outages we had in Lake, the unrest that would take over the streets. June’s right. There had been one particular outage that once affected the entirety of Los Angeles—and within the hour, fires had broken out all over the city as the poor sectors clashed with the Gem ones. I remember seeing the tanks rolling down the streets to bring order back. My mother had forced us to stay inside for two weeks as police swarmed through the neighborhoods.

“Ross City is not the Republic,” the director says stiffly to June.

“No,” June replies, just as severely. “It’s worse. This is a far more concentrated place, and the effect will be swifter. As far as I can tell, without your system in place, the Undercity will crumble, and it will happen soon if you can’t get your system back up.”

Damn, I’ve missed hearing her talk when she’s breaking down a situation. Min scowls at the bluntness in June’s voice, but she doesn’t argue back this time. Instead, she returns to trying to place a call out to the President.

“Emergency power’s still not up,” she swears under her breath after a moment.

“Head northeast as soon as we reach the ground,” I say to June. “We’ll go in the general direction where we’ve been hunting for Eden.”

She nods without hesitation. I have no idea what we’ll do after that, or how we’ll find our way down, but it’s the best bet for finding my brother.

We finally reach the bottom floor. The stairs lead out to a tall set of heavy, barred metal doors, and when we slide them open, they reveal the streets of the Undercity.

We step out into a scene of chaos.

All around us, the names and data hovering over each street stall, each shop, each person, are gone. When I look up, I notice that virtual overlays have vanished from over the elevator stations too. There’s nothing we look at that isn’t already real.

My eyes go to June, but she’s looking down the street. Some are taking advantage of the moment already, and the space in front of a station is starting to flood with people. My first, fleeting thought is that all the stations have also powered down instantaneously—if everyone’s Levels have been flattened, then everyone is trapped wherever they happen to be.

But that’s replaced almost instantly by my second thought: Our Levels haven’t just been flattened, they’ve been deleted. In one fell swoop, Ross City’s Level system—the class system I’ve always argued about with AIS, the same system that Eden rebelled against by constantly coming down here—has been cleared.

People are now able to enter the stations and stairwells, no matter their Level. Local police patrolling the streets struggle in vain to control the flood of people. Small, isolated scuffles have already started to break out between the authorities and the citizens.

Behind us come several other AIS agents. The director hurries over. “Coordinate the police in this district!” she shouts at me, pointing down the street. “Tell them we’re calling for reinforcements. Emergency martial law, immediately. Understand, Wing? We have no time to lose.”

I nod at her. “Yes, ma’am,” I reply. Then she’s off like a bullet, running with her other agents toward the nearest police headquarters to try to get the emergency lines up and running.

Shattered glass already litters the concrete, and not far from us, people are pushing into a store and eagerly starting to haul things out. Carts full of food they would never have been able to buy with their Levels, armfuls of clothing, appliances, and furniture. Around them, others are starting to get the hint too. I can hear the shouts rising up and down the street.

“Quick!” someone yells. “Before they get the system back up!”

I keep running in the direction that my brother might be in. How the hell am I ever going to find him in this mess? I reach a busy intersection and halt in the middle of it, looking in despair down both streets to see masses of people crowding out into the road. Beside me, June takes my hand and squeezes it once. I look at her, hating the feeling of helplessness that washes over me.

Suddenly, I feel like I’m back in the heat of the war with the Colonies, searching frantically for my brother in enemy territory.

And then, I see something familiar.

There. In the middle of the street. A flash of familiar, wavy blond hair and the glint of his metal glasses. A miracle in the midst of absolute chaos.

At first, I think I’m hallucinating. There’s no way Eden is here.

But I blink, and he doesn’t disappear. There’s his hair again. June also tightens her grip on my hand and points in his direction. “Is that him?” she calls out.

I don’t know how he got away from Hann. I don’t know how he found his way back here to the surface of the Undercity. I don’t know anything except that maybe he was heading back in the direction of our home too, so that our paths crossed.

But I raise my voice, and in it, I can hear my own terror. “Eden!” I shout. “Eden!”

His head snaps over to us. His gaze falls on me. From his distance, I see the recognition click on his face. “Daniel!” he calls back, and it’s as if I were seeing him as a child again.

Everything in me floods with adrenaline. I suddenly start pushing my way over to him. Beside me, June follows. I have to get to my brother before something happens to him. The fear in my heart reaches a bursting point.

Eden shoves his way toward us. It seems to take an eternity for him to fight his way through the throngs. For an instant, I think we’ll never reach each other. This is it, I think. I’m lost in one of my nightmares. I’m running and running toward my brother and I will never reach him.

But then he’s suddenly standing before me. And I’m not dreaming. And I’m sweeping him into a fierce hug. He embraces me tightly back.

It’s Eden, and he’s out of Hann’s clutches.

EDEN

I’ve never seen Ross City without its layers of augmented-reality before. I don’t think it was ever meant to be seen this way.

There are no signs or street names, no hovering messages, no grid lines. Most of all, there are no Levels over anyone’s head. It is as if everything that holds a city together—streetlights, traffic laws, police enforcement—has vanished in the blink of an eye.

Riots are triggered so quickly that—from the AIS headquarters in the Sky Floors—we can see the chaos happening in real time on their screens. At first, people stand around out on sidewalks, puzzled, muttering to one another as they ask others if their Levels had suddenly vanished. Auto-cars and trucks stop in the middle of the roads. The traffic starts to pile up.