She can’t. She drops to the ground. Crawls to the wall. She’s scared.

I watch her make it to the base of the barrier. She presses her hand against the wall. A small hole opens.

A way in. I step forward.

But the entrance closes on the woman’s legs. She’s trapped. She gives cries of pain and continues to struggle. She wants out.

Who is this woman? An Inmate escaping a prison?

The woman in black fights herself free.

She runs into the capital’s streets, barefoot. She holds on to a hat that hides her face.

The hole closed up again. I need the woman to open it.

It takes me three minutes to find her. Fear is making her move quick. But she’s surrounded. In the middle of a main street. Not by Guards, but civilians. Angry civilians.

“It’s the First Lady!”

“Mrs. Roth! Get her!”

The First Lady of Texas? This must be Governor Roth’s wife.

I need to get to her first. I push my way to the front of the circle. The First Lady is on her knees.

A woman my age steps forward. Slaps the First Lady’s hat from her head. “You should be mourning for our country, not your dead grandson!” She lifts her right shirtsleeve. A tattoo. The Common’s mark.

“See this? The Common is taking over Dallas. You don’t rule here anymore.” The woman kicks the First Lady in the chest. She falls to the ground.

Claps. More shouts of “Get her!”

Three civilians grab her arms and neck. Bring her to her feet. I give her an eighty-five-percent chance of dying before I can get to her.

“Take my jewelry!” the First Lady begs. “Take my jewelry and let me go, please . . .” She can’t break free of their hold.

Begging never saved Inmates in the Camps.

It doesn’t on the outside either. The civilians laugh.

“Your money will not save you,” a man says. He takes the jewelry and throws it into the street. He pulls out a knife.

A percentage of me wants to help the First Lady. She cries like an Inmate about to be sent to the Gulf.

But this woman is with Governor Roth. The Roths are the Wardens of Texas. The Camps stay open because of them. They let women and men die. Break up families.

This woman had the power to stop it. But she chose not to.

“The First Lady is mine,” I say. I charge forward. Stop when an electronic voice shouts from speakers overhead. All across the capital. As loud as a Scream Gun.

“Mandatory curfew! Return immediately to your residence, or you will be arrested!”

Half the civilians take off. The First Lady uses the distraction to free her arm and tear open her bag. She takes out a gun. A Guard’s gun. She came prepared.

“Stay away, or I’ll shoot!” she says. Her grip is firm. This is not her first time holding a weapon.

The First Lady turns a full circle, pointing the gun at everybody. Stops on me. “Get away from me!” she shouts. She pushes her hair out of her face.

Up close, she looks nothing like her portraits. Now she looks worn. Sad.

Desperate.

She smells like she hasn’t bathed in days.

The gun clicks.

“Get away!” she shouts. “Get away from me!”

The rest of the crowd breaks up, runs from danger.

I don’t run.

It’s the First Lady and me, alone on the street.

“Don’t make me shoot you . . . I’ll do it,” Mrs. Roth says. She’s begging again. I pull off my hood, put up my hands.

Pretend to submit.

“Mandatory curfew! Return immediately to your residence, or you will be arrested!”

We both stand where we are. She looks me over.

The First Lady’s eyes go wide.

“Lynn . . . ?” she whispers. “Lynn . . . you’re alive?”

The gun drops to her side.

My twin. She knew her?

“Yes,” I lie. It doesn’t come easy. CGs knew if you lied.

“Darren hid you too?” the First Lady asks.

“Yes,” I lie again.

She looks scared. Shakes like the starved cats that would sometimes find their way into the Camps. Before the CGs got points out of them.

She breaks down and cries. I feel nothing for her.

The kittens always die. It’s the way life has to be.

But I need her to get to the governor. I will keep her alive.

A siren sounds. The Guard is coming.

“I can’t go back there,” Mrs. Roth cries. “I don’t know what to do . . . He took them . . . He took them all.”

“Who did he take?” I ask.

“Halton . . . Alexander.”

Two names I don’t recognize. Who are they?

“I know where to hide,” I say. A safe house. Cleo told me to find a yellow door. “Come with me.”

She follows Lynn.

She has no idea I’m a twin. An enemy of the state. Her state.

But she will.

AVA

I wake with a start, the harsh cry of an albatross screaming in my mind. My head slams back against the wall, and instead of seeing stars, I see long-winged birds in flight.

Tucked away in my corner refuge on the cement floor, my map draped across my chest, I open my eyes to see nothing has changed inside the safe house cellar since I finally lost the battle against sleep. I fought it as long as I could, but my body demanded rest, and the long hours we’ve spent waiting for our plane to arrive have been maddeningly endless and uneventful.

With no communication out or in, I can do nothing but sit tight and think while the repercussions of my actions unfold without me.

Mira, please be safe. Mira, I’m sorry if I was too reckless this time. I’m just so angry, sister.

Nobody on my team trusts me anymore. They won’t say it to my face, but when I scan the room—Emery, Barend, Senator Gordon, even Pawel—none of them can look me in the eye. No one has spoken to me either since we entered our underground hideout well over twelve hours ago. I’m being shunned.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

The verse pops into my head unbidden. Then my heart begins to race. Project Albatross.

Why didn’t I remember this before? Father reading aloud “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” every night in the basement for an entire month freshman year. It became an after-dinner family ritual. Mira practically memorized the entire epic poem.

As I look back now, it’s like he was trying to tell us something. Or maybe that’s around the time he began his work on the “twin gene” therapy. Was he admitting his guilt to us?

I filter through my memories, searching for clues or hidden meanings.

Out on the open sea, being followed by an albatross was considered a sign of good luck—an omen for fair winds ahead. But killing an albatross results in a curse. In the poem, a sailor shoots an albatross with a crossbow, cursing the ship. The crew makes the man wear the dead bird across his neck, to be carried as penance.

It’s a metaphor for the burdens we all have to bear.

Were your secret twin daughters your curse, Father, and Project Albatross your penance?

Or was it the other way around?

I wish Mira were here with me. Between the two of us, she was always more of the reader. She could help me sift through the poem and comb out any meaning about our father’s mysterious project. If there is any meaning to be found.