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Consequently, the sky between cities was open and infinite, unobscured by a single skyscraper or overpass (except the occasional ruin), and it seemed to Erin that it might swallow her whole if she didn't hold on tight to her seat.

As they rode north through the suburbs, fifty miles out from New Chicago's city limits, the development returned. But it was hardly the bustling urban life she'd grown up with. This was small-town, and everything about it was unfamiliar. The buildings stretched only ten, maybe twenty stories off the ground. The streets were quiet and humble, scattered with pedestrians, but hardly any rollersticks or electrobuses. There were no treads on the sidewalk for automatic moving. No trams. No crowds. The buildings' sides were vinyl or glass or brick, and none were covered with the ground-to-sky advertisement and news screens from back home. Intersections didn't even have stoplights here. No one moved fast enough to need them.

“You're looking at it!” Erin's dad said as the train came to a stop. “This is Spokie.”

Half an hour into their walk through the quiet streets, Mr. Arbitor wasn't so jovial. Sweat pooled in the crevices of his shirt as he lurched and dragged an oversized luggage carrier behind him. Droplets beaded and ran down his forehead. He huffed and spoke very little.

Erin refused to help.

“It has to be somewhere around here,” Mr. Arbitor said. He wiped his face hopelessly on the collar of his shirt.

They passed Erin's new middle school three times before either of them saw it.

2

“I hate this,” Erin said, standing at the edge of a large, empty field sandwiched between tall buildings on either side. “I can tell already.”

The field was carpeted with plasti-grass, lined with bleachers, and big enough for any variety of outdoor sports. At its edge was a track for running, and by the sidewalk was a small sign announcing the school's presence: The Spokie School of Middle Development.

“Middle of nowhere,” Erin said, and Mr. Arbitor walked with the luggage to a glass booth at the field's corner.

“I guess this is the entrance,” he said, and they opened the booth's door and descended the long escalator into the school below.

The halls of Spokie Middle were bright and warm with a natural light, surprising for a place so far underground. There weren't windows in the traditional sense, but the walls were indeed lined with glass, behind which were simulated, three-dimensional video projections of vistas from all over the world—a reminder to the students of how things once were. Erin was impressed in spite of herself. Her school back in Beacon had hallways named for their subjects of learning: the math wing, the English wing, the science wing . . . but Spokie Middle's seemed to be known by their views. There was the Amazon Wing, with its “windows” looking out at ground level through the virtual trees of a rain forest from long ago; the Sahara Wing, with a “view” of the sand dunes of northern Africa; the Pacific Wing, re-creating with startling accuracy the sensation of walking below the old ocean's surface; the Arctic Wing; the Beach Wing . . .

Erin walked with her father through what must have been the Moon Wing, rendering its view of Earth from Tranquility Base. The school's main office was just beyond the lunar module.

Behind the front desk, another “window” looked out into an endless expanse of computer-generated stars and planets. A small woman with short black hair sat facing away from the door, staring into their infinity.

“'Scuse us,” Mr. Arbitor said, and the woman jumped and spun around. “I'd like to register my daughter for class here. I believe you got my message last week—”

“Mr. Arbitor! Oh yeah, sure, I remember.” The woman spoke in an old-fashioned Midwestern accent that made Erin feel farther from home than ever. “Pleasure to meetcha. Nancy Carrol.” She extended her tiny hand to shake theirs. “From Beacon, aren't'cha! Oh, sure, that's a long ways.”

“It is,” Erin agreed.

“And what brings you to Spokie, now?” she asked as she pointed to a Markscan on the desk.

“Business.” Mr. Arbitor shrugged, and he and Erin swiped their hands under the scanner.

Ms. Carrol read the back of the Markscan and wrote some things on her tablet computer. “And what is it'cha do?” she asked, but before Mr. Arbitor could respond, the answer popped up on the screen she held in her hands. Ms. Carrol's eyebrows lifted well into her forehead.

Erin couldn't tell if the woman was impressed or afraid. “Government work,” she said.

Mr. Arbitor smiled politely. “That's right.”

And everyone knew that was the end of that conversation.

3

For lunch, Mr. Arbitor suggested they stop at a Spokie diner for “some local flavor,” and while Erin had no desire to know what that was, they were soon looking over the menu in their corner booth.

Beside them, a television frame flashed world news at a low volume, and their table displayed snippets from the local paper, which could be expanded and read by tapping on the glass surface.

Erin was skimming an article on a recent Spokie kidnapping when her father directed her attention up to the frame.

“Seems Lamson and Cylis are close to a treaty,” Mr. Arbitor said, and they watched on television as the general in chief of the American Union met with the European chancellor overseas.

Erin nodded. “It'd be good for us, right?”

“Best thing possible,” Mr. Arbitor said. “Anything to avoid another war.” He swiped his Mark against a scanner on the table and tapped his order into its interface. “Besides, the chancellor's ideas are good. His E.U. policies make sense. Practically every speech Lamson gives, he's singing the guy's praises . . .”

“Everyone is. Mom can't say enough about how great it's been over there recently.”

“I'm aware.” Mr. Arbitor rolled his eyes. “She certainly visits enough to know.”

“She has to, Dad—it's her job.”

“And yet I'm the bad guy for bringing us to Spokie.”

“Let's not talk about it,” Erin said, and she swiped her own Mark to place an order.

“You know, your mom's not the only one ‘forging unity' these days.” He waved his hand dismissively as he said it.

“Okay, Dad.”

“What do you think we're doing out here, anyway, huh? What do you think ‘government work' actually means?”

“I don't
know
, Dad. You won't
tell
me.”

“You think your mom's algorithms would do any good if there weren't people like me to—”

“Dad,
drop
it.”

There was a pause. A waitress came by with Erin's grilled soy cheese sandwich and Mr. Arbitor's tempeh burger.

“
Enforce
it,” Mr. Arbitor said quietly.

But Erin didn't respond.

The truth was, Erin's mom
was
gone quite a bit. Ever since she'd had Erin, Dr. Arbitor had worked increasingly from Europe, facilitating the merger of A.U. and E.U. economies as the Americas adopted Cylis's Mark program under the encouragement of General Lamson. Now that a treaty was in the works to merge governments too, Dr. Arbitor was overseas half of each year.

“Will Lamson still be in charge?” Erin asked, watching the news on the wall.

“Of the American branch, sure.” Mr. Arbitor was absorbed in his sandwich.

“What about Parliament?”

“They'll still be around. Like how it used to work with state governments in this country.” Mr. Arbitor wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Why, you gonna run for office?”

“What'll they call it?” Erin asked.

“Call what?”

“The new country.” On the television, Chancellor Cylis was smiling and waving to the cameras.

“It probably won't happen for a while yet,” Mr. Arbitor said.

He pushed his plate away and stood up to leave.

“But when it does.”

Mr. Arbitor smiled. “The Global Union,” he said.

“And then there won't be any more conflict?” Erin thought back to the earliest years of her childhood, of how scary it had been, hearing bombs fall at night and gunshots each day, seeing bodies on the street, learning of family members who weren't coming back. The four billion people dead or AWOL. Gone for good. And that was already after the worst of it, after General Lamson had come along and turned the tide.

Those were distant memories now, brushed under the carpet of ten peaceful years without American borders or divisions. And yes, under Cylis, the situation had improved in Europe, and in Asia and Africa too. But somehow, the idea of a totally unified world, East and West together . . . it seemed too good to be true. Worth fighting for, sure. But possible?

“It's possible,” Mr. Arbitor said, swiping his Mark against the table again and punching in a percentage for the tip. “And this right here”—he touched his own wrist and pointed to the Mark on Erin's—“this is the start of all that. This is the symbol. This is what I'm in Spokie to protect.”

“Okay,” Erin said, not knowing at all what that meant.

They thanked their waitress on the way out.

4

After returning from the new DOME office where Mr. Arbitor had taken her that afternoon, Erin spent the night unpacking, alone in an unfamiliar apartment on the seventeenth floor of a complex at the edge of a town she knew nothing about. It would have had a nice view if the small skyline hadn't looked so lonely to Erin. The lights weren't even enough to wash out the stars, and to her it looked as if no one was home, anywhere. She stared out the window and thought of the starscape in her new school, of the Moon Wing in the administrative hall, of the secretary at the desk.

“Government work,” she'd said
.

“That's right.
”

And the look on her face that followed . .
.

What was it Erin didn't know about her father's job?

She turned to fill the shelves and closets and tabletops with tablets and clothes and mementos from Beacon, but looking around the apartment now, Erin couldn't help but notice that the place her father had chosen was really only big enough for the two of them and the lizard. So instead Erin said good night to Iggy, turned off the heat lamp above his cage, and placed a family album frame by her bed to watch its slide show. She sat above the covers for a long while, thinking sadly of her mother back home, knowing that she wasn't on her way, knowing that it wasn't just a matter of weeks, and wondering honestly when they'd see each other again.

In that moment, Erin was reminded of quiet summer evenings like this growing up, when, like now, her father would stay late with work.

Except those nights were never so lonely, because always, Dr. Arbitor would be home too, reading to Erin while they waited for Dad in the late hours. She would read Erin anything, not just children's stories, but news articles and editorials and classic literature, insisting that the world was ready for Erin, and that Erin was ready for it, whether or not she still sucked her thumb. This made Erin feel like the luckiest kid in the world.

One summer, years ago, Erin and her mom even plowed through the entire works of Shakespeare, acting out all the parts in their pajamas over the course of the passing weeks. And every night, by the second or third or fourth act of a given play, Mr. Arbitor would return home and take his share of the spotlight— usually making up his own parts and speaking in silly voices and fully derailing the story as he did—much to his wife's chagrin and his daughter's delight.

But those memories were far away now, impossible even, and with a small sigh, Erin rolled out of bed to turn off the picture frame so she could finish moving in without distraction.

It wasn't until halfway through emptying her last box that she finally got a call from Dad.

“I'm gonna be late at work, sweetie,” he said.

“It already is late,” Erin told him. “I'm practically done unpacking.”

“That's great! Maybe you could empty some of my stuff too? Just lay it out for me? Don't stay up too late or anything, but just some clothes and essentials for tomorrow?”

“Sure, Dad,” Erin said, seeing no advantages to a refusal. She lifted the top few boxes off his pile without complaining, but soon found herself running a hand over one that caught her eye. “Hey, Dad?” she asked, just before ending the call.

“Yeah?”

Erin chewed her bottom lip. “When are we gonna be a family again?”

In her tablet, Erin could see her dad smile sadly. “That's up to your mom, Erin.”

“Then we're not going back, are we?”

Mr. Arbitor sighed. “Someone's making a mess in Spokie, Erin. And the Department of Marked Emergencies thinks I'm the best man to clean it up. If I can do that quickly, we'll go home. If not . . . well, listen . . . I really think you're gonna like it here.”

“What's the mess?” Erin asked. “Just tell me already. Give me something to believe in.”