I climb onto a small balcony that juts out from the hillside. Immediately two protesters wearing the same black-and-white bandanas with computer-generated patterns I saw earlier approach the lip of the fountain directly below me, refilling their bottles with the precious resource.

Resupplied, one of the demonstrators pockets his bottle as his partner scans his bandana with his tablet.

A block of jumbled text appears on the man’s bright tablet screen. I covertly watch as his fingers type in some kind of password to unscramble the sentences, but he turns away before I can read the decryption.

“A cellular pod is needed around Central and Ninth,” I overhear the man say. “A communications blackout by the Glut-loving bastards.”

The bandanas not only preserve the protesters’ identities, they carry with them hidden messages. It’s how they must be secretly communicating.

And the military allows this?

I rip my eyes from this fascinating display of abundance and liberty and scan my surroundings. A rally now thousands strong stretches across a vast, artificially grassed square, ringed with colossal honeycomb-shaped towers made from what has to be engineered wood, with shiny glass facades and plant-filled balconies.

Woodscrapers.

Iron may rule Dallas, but wood clearly reigns supreme in Calgary.

Where is the military? The Scream Guns, dropping the crowd to the ground, immobilizing them with overpowering high-pitched sound? Controlling them into obedience. I’ve never seen a protest before—the people of Dallas were not permitted to use their voices to fight back.

I jump down from my perch and push without direction through the tangled throng of bodies, letting their anger and fear wash over me. It’s better than feeling the raw anguish of my father’s death.

Then suddenly a gigantic screen that scales a soaring timber-structured building pops on, projecting the impassioned protest back to all of us inside the public square, live. Thousands upon tens of thousands of virtual-reality avatars materialize on the screen, swelling the crowd to unimaginable numbers. People stand on rooftops, shouting for the Gluts to be returned; they hang from high-rise windows like monkeys swinging from trees and climb atop autonomous cars and lampposts; there’s even a human pyramid as tall as the Great Pyramid of Khufu, boasting a flag at its apex declaring, “All surplus must go!”

I quickly sweep the ring of buildings surrounding me and find them demonstrator-free, the streets, though teeming with real protesters, devoid of pyramids. The people are marching from the comfort of their own homes all across Alberta by virtue of VR. Ingenious.

I have to tell Emery—the Common could use this to our advantage—even if right now it makes me feel like the whole world is against us.

As I wade deeper and deeper into the center of the rally, the heated call to “Send the twins back! Send the twins back!” intensifies to an almost unbearable fever pitch. My nerves thrum with energy, sending a shiver of warning through my body. I need to get out of here, but it’s like I want to punish myself. I pop my knuckles and readjust my hood, making eye contact with no one, and continue to wander among the mob screaming for my death.

That’s exactly what would happen if the protesters’ wish were granted: Roth would make sure Mira and I were dead. The entire Goodwin family, gone.

After what seems like an eternity, I’m pushed through a line of people and find myself standing alone within a thin strip of no-man’s-land. A divide.

It’s then I see one of the greatest surprises of my life.

Hundreds of real people clad in yellow shouting, “Save the twins, and the revolution begins!” The unified call is loud and clear, jolting into my veins like lightning. A multitude of Albertans march down a broad boulevard and into the hostile square in support of twin girls from Texas stuck in limbo nearly two thousand miles away from home. It’s so humbling. For a moment the heavy weight inside my heart is lifted, and I’m almost moved to tears.

The Common is more powerful than I thought. I have to tell Mira.

But when I turn to find a path back toward Paramount Point Hotel, I’m hit with the stark reality of our situation. The opposition that howls to expel Mira and me from their country outnumbers our side four to one. My eyes dart to the mega screen, and I watch as anti-twin VR protesters continue to emerge, filling every available space throughout the square. Eight to one.

A slender woman with a gleeful smile on her face taps my shoulder and hands me a pair of sleek glasses. “Look up.” She points to the cloudless sky.

In a daze, I throw on the glasses to find giant, colorful hot-air balloons floating above the crowd, passing straight through buildings. The fabric of the gas bags is decorated with threatening slogans like “Find the Traitorous Twins!” and “If we let them in, we let them win.”

I suddenly feel terrifyingly claustrophobic inside the mass of strangers, and I have an urgent need to get away, to find a quiet space where I can think.

My heart races like the frantic wings of a hummingbird, and my hands and fingers start to go numb. I feel faint, and my breath comes in fitful bursts. I need to get out of here before I lose all control. Move. You’re good at that.

I rip off the glasses and stagger through the signs and the bodies, unable to think of anything except how the majority of the people here want us out.

We’ve already overstayed our welcome.

Somewhere on the edge of the metropolis, I sit on a sculpture of an endless wooden staircase that leads to nowhere. My legs dangle off the edge of the twentieth flight of stairs, nothing but still air in front of me. Quiet and alone, I gaze out at the magical colors that linger on the horizon, the fluorescent pinks and yellows not quite ready to say good night to the world.

The best view is west, to my right, but I can’t tear my eyes away from what’s spread out so plain in front of me: south. The direction home.

I lean back against the polished wood, close my eyes, and dream that these limitless stairs could lead me all the way up to wherever my father is now waiting.

MIRA

We’re on the run again.

Ten of us, packed inside a white passenger van, “Paramount Excursions” painted on its sides. Two vans follow close behind, others traveling an alternate route somewhere farther north. All heading where?

They never tell me.

Ava and I sit in the back row, baggage stacked between us. The locks and zippers clink and jingle, mixing a maddening duet I have to fight to tune out.

I haven’t spoken since we gathered our measly belongings and fled the hotel. I haven’t thought much either, too busy willing my swollen eyes to dry up. I refuse to let any drops fall. To let anyone see my pain leak from me through wasted tears.

The AC blasts through the air vent, sending chills down my spine and legs. I shove the vent away, shifting the arctic current toward the row in front of me, directly at Pawel’s head. He doesn’t flinch or say anything. No one has said anything. They’re all too afraid to even look at us.

“Mira,” Ava whispers beside me.

I continue to stare straight ahead, fixated on the bursts of air that plaster Pawel’s thick hair to his skull, reminding me of the way grass flattens as a drone lands.

A squeeze of panic shifts my eyes to the window. A few cottontail-shaped clouds dot the sky, the only disruption in the azure blue. No drones.