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“I know,” Logan said.

“So if you're gonna bother being nervous about the Pledge, you might as well just be nervous about every little thing you do in life.”

“I am.” Logan shrugged.

The indifference in his tone was suddenly infuriating. “You're not gonna die from getting the Mark!” Erin said forcefully. “Everyone got it when the program started. Millions of people in the A.U. Millions more in the E.U. They're all
fine
. And the kids who turn eligible each year are fine too. We've all heard the rumors about flunkees, but honestly, that's just ridiculous.” She wasn't sure exactly what frustrated her so much about the turn in their conversation, but Erin found herself feeling increasingly defensive.

“Sorry. I know your dad works for DOME,” Logan said.

And, in fact, that was it. That was what irked Erin so much about what Logan was saying. “Yeah, so what?” she said, admitting nothing. The last thing she wanted was to get into a conversation about her father. His secret was so fresh in her mind, she didn't trust herself not to slip up and reveal something about it, even to this stranger.

“Well, I'm not questioning it or anything. I mean, DOME's great and all. I'm just . . . I don't know. I just don't think it's unreasonable to be a little nervous about it.”

Erin didn't blink. “It is unreasonable. No one actually dies from the Pledge, okay?”

Logan looked away. He shrugged and was quiet for a moment.

“My sister did.”

7

The morning of Lily's thirteenth birthday, it was Logan's job to corral the guests and family. Being eight at the time, and the youngest of his relatives by several years, he'd been sent to bed long before the previous night's festivities had died down, and while Logan had managed to spend half the evening sitting with his ear to the floor, listening to the laughter and music and chatter leaking from every level of the house, by the time the sun rose, he was still easily the best rested and first one up. So Logan went floor by floor that morning, banging on doors, switching on lights, throwing open curtains, and jumping on beds until every last guest was wide-eyed and vertical.

“Get up, get up! It's Lily's birthday!” Logan said to his aunt Susan and uncle David. “It's Lily's birthday! She's thirteen!” he said to Grandma. “Today's the biggest day of her life!” he said to his cousins, Selma and Jake, without quite knowing how right he was.

So the family gathered around the kitchen table, groggy but excited for the day, and Lily's best friend Daniel even stopped by on his way to school. Mom was making pancakes and French toast, and everyone who wanted it was welcome to leftover cake.

Aunt Susan and Uncle David were the owners of a bakery over in New Chicago, and every year for Logan's and Lily's birthdays they would bake a particular treat. Usually they'd bake black forest cake, or cheesecake, or chocolate mousse cake, or angel food cake, but this year's was special. This year's, double layered and the size of four or five dinner plates, had been crafted precisely to look like an enormous . . . well . . .
hand
, palm up, with an elaborate, speckled pattern tattooed in frosting on its wrist. This had been the source of much merriment the night before, of course, for as unappetizing as the cake looked to Logan, not even he could deny the craftsmanship involved in designing a cake that looked so much like the hand of a Marked. Desserts like this were not unheard-of at a thirteenth birthday celebration, but they were something of a novelty otherwise, and since Lily was the first in Logan's family to turn in some time, its design was new to him—and revolting. So, as excited as he had been for his sister's big day, when his aunt gave him, as a treat, the entire pinkie the night before, Logan couldn't bring himself to eat a single bite.

This morning, Logan helped himself to a pancake and sat at the table, quietly enjoying his family's excitement. He dangled his feet off the chair as he carefully drowned each bite in a plate-sized lake of taste-enhanced nanosyrup, and he waited for Lily to join them.

“So, she have any plans for a job?” Aunt Susan was asking, between bites of cake thumb.

“Not yet,” Dad said. “But she's looking. We don't want to rush her at all.”

“I'm just glad she can run errands for us now,” Mom joked, and everyone laughed.

“Yeah, I'm sure that's just what she wants to think about on her big day!” Uncle David said. “Chores! Real nice!”

Out of the laughter, Grandma spoke quietly, but her voice cut through the room and commanded attention. “Shame on you,” she said. “All of you. How easily you've forgotten about life before the Unity. Before Lamson, and Cylis over in that awful E.U. It's not a joke!”

“We know, Grandma,” cousin Jake butted in. “Paper money, citizenship from birth—”

“Walks to school in the snow—”

“Uphill!”

“Both ways!”

The family all chimed in, talking over one another and laughing. Grandma's reminder of the old ways was one they'd heard a hundred times. Even Logan knew it by heart.

“You laugh now,” Grandma said. “If I could cut this Mark out right here, I would.” She fingered a charm on her necklace as she spoke. Logan had seen it before, but he didn't know what it meant.

“That's enough.” Mrs. Langly shook her head. “This is hardly an appropriate conversation to be having the morning of—”

“It's the
perfect
conversation to be having the morning of Lily's Pledge! While there's still time to walk away!”

“Mama, stop it! Today's about Unity, country, quality of life! The States War—we were falling apart!” Logan had never seen his mother so worked up, especially not at his grandma. “Who knows what would have happened without Lamson? Do you think we'd even be here? This town was
burning
when he turned the tide. Your home was
burning
.”

“Oh please.” Logan's grandmother clawed at her Mark until the skin around it was red and chafed. “You all think—”

“So why'd you get it, then?” Aunt Susan interrupted. “Why not just turn it down and live with the rest of the bums on Slog Row? Huh? Think we would have missed you too much?”

“Well, if I'd have known then what it was starting—”

“Mama, I cannot believe that you really think this morning is the best time—”

But then Lily entered the kitchen. “Let her finish,” she said. “Grandma's right. It's important.”

“I'm finished, sweetheart,” Grandma said, and then she was silent, and she stared again at her own Mark, remembering.

“It's all good review for the test, anyway, right?” Lily said, lightening the mood. And everyone laughed nervously, and looked at their own Marks, and ate.

And it was true what his mom had said, that in the years before Logan's birth, before General Lamson came along, his family and all the families in Spokie had suffered, had feared for their lives. There wasn't a year in school Logan wasn't reminded of this, of the war his generation was born into but just barely remembered, when states still divided the continent and fought horribly among themselves over things as simple as economics and religion and basic human rights. Logan couldn't remember which state his would have been. Wisconsin, maybe? Minnesota? They'd all been called such strange things. Even the American Union had a weird name—the United States—as if separate states could ever be united.

But was it also true what his grandmother had said? Had always said? About life being better before the Unity? It was hard to imagine. In school the lessons stopped short of any real exploration of the topic. They simply didn't teach the time before the war, except to say that everything about it had led to the fighting, to the chaos, and was worth forgetting and never repeating. On the Internet, Pedia articles that might have explained the era were perpetually “Under Construction” or “Down for Maintenance,” even when the rest of the Web worked fine. And whenever Logan got up the nerve to ask a parent or teacher about it outright, whenever he wondered—innocently, curiously—what possible advantages the old government might have had, or what details separated the myriad religions prior to the Inclusion, he would be told only, “Not to worry, not to worry,” that it was best this way, no doubt about it.

“But can't you just give me a straight answer?” Logan would ask.

And the adults would grow nervous and say quietly, “You just never know, Logan. You just never know which walls have ears.”

So in this way, over time, Logan was made to forget his lingering questions of long ago, and Grandma was the only person he'd ever known to say a single negative thing about it. At this point, of course, he and everyone else chalked up most of what she said to senility—“She's lost her marbles,” Mom would tell Logan—but something about it was hard to ignore, even so. “You don't wanna be late,” Dad said to Lily, finally, once the mood was back to bright and the chatter around the table returned to its frenzied clip. “This is, indeed, the biggest day you'll have for some time. We gotta get you to the Center.”

Lily's birthday was on a Tuesday that year, a school day ordinarily, but by law, students were exempt from school on their thirteenth birthday, so as to facilitate the Pledge. It wasn't compulsory, getting the Mark, but the idea of spending your thirteenth birthday doing anything else was unheard-of. In the ten years since it had been implemented, the Mark had quickly become the capstone of a childhood well spent, the crowning achievement in a young man's or woman's life, the opened door to adulthood and independence. Logan couldn't wait to see how it looked on Lily's wrist when she got back.

“Wish me luck,” Lily said as she walked out the door.

“Good luck,” Daniel said.

“Good luck,” Grandma said.

“You don't need it,” Dad said.

That was the last anyone ever saw of Logan's big sister, Lily.

8

Logan found himself telling this to Erin—all of it, all at once— without thinking, during the rest of their walk home. He didn't know why. Maybe it was because he finally had her attention, and he didn't want her to look away. Maybe it was just on his mind recently, and easier to talk about with a stranger. Or maybe, deep down, Logan really did have a bone to pick with Erin and her DOME bureaucrat father. Either way, he kept going, telling everything he remembered, telling all the details, layers and layers of them, beyond any he'd ever heard himself give before, even to his closest friends. And his words surprised him.

By the time he was done, they'd made it all the way to Erin's apartment building, and it was there that Erin surprised herself too. She invited Logan in.

“So you've been paranoid ever since?” she asked.

“I don't think I'm paranoid,” Logan said. “My mom does, as if she's one to talk. And my dad, but he puts it in different terms.”

“What's wrong with your mom?” Erin asked.

“I'm not sure. I think the day my sister didn't come back from the Pledge, Mom just . . . checked out. Everything inside her just left. Like poking a hole in an egg and sucking out the yolk . . . Mom's all shell now.”

The furniture in Erin's apartment was mostly still wrapped in shipping tape, and the floors were littered with boxes, so Logan made his way toward the kitchen table and sat in a folding chair beside it.

“My dad won't be home 'til late. Last night he didn't make it back until morning, I think. So we're on our own.”

“Okay,” Logan said, his voice cracking a little.

But he nearly fell to the floor when something darted up the curtains beside him. To Logan it looked like a dragon, hanging by its claws, four feet long, scaly and wild. “Erin!” he yelled helplessly.

“Oh.” She laughed. “Except for my iguana.”

“You have a pet iguana?” Logan looked at it stupidly. “Shouldn't that be illegal or something?”

“It is,” Erin said. “Funny thing about having a law enforcer for a dad, though . . .”

Logan inched his chair away from the window. “What's its name?”

“Iggy.”

Logan stared at it. The lizard basked in the light of the window, tilting its head to peer at the two of them thoughtfully. “You named your iguana ‘Iggy'?”

Erin reached up and grabbed the animal, draping it gently around her neck. It paced from shoulder to shoulder. “I guess.”

“You gonna name your kids ‘Kiddies'?”

“First of all,” Erin said, walking to the cupboard, “I'm never having kids. And second of all, it's an iguana. What's he gonna do with a proper name? You think he's struggling with self-identity?” She picked out an apple and began rubbing it on her shirt, right where the lizard's tail had been. “Snack?”

“I've heard those pets carry disease . . . ,” Logan said tentatively.

“Yeah.” Erin nodded. “Salmonella.” She held the apple out to him and smiled.