LOGIN(Theo POV)We reached the bottom of the hill where the compound road met the Lowlands main street and Danny stopped and looked at the card in his hand and then at me."I will call before noon, before setting off with the others." he said."Good," I said."And I will not tell Curtis about the drainage route thing," he said."That would be best," I said.He nodded and put the card back in his pocket and patted the outside of his jacket where the map was and turned toward the Lowlands. I watched him go, his pace picking up once he had turned away from the compound, the stiffness from Harrison's office burning off with each step until by the time he reached the first corner he was moving at his normal rate, which was fast and slightly uneven because Danny walked the way he did everything, with more energy than coordination.I stood at the junction and looked at the Lowlands and then I turned around and looked back up the
(Theo POV)Few minutes later Curtis returned with Danny and we set off.The administrative building was on the north side of the compound, a separate structure from the main residential wing, connected to it by a covered walkway that had been added at some point after the original construction, the newer stone visible in the join between the two buildings. Adaeze met us at the outer gate and walked us through without speaking beyond a nod, her coat the same one from two days ago, the buttons catching the morning light.Danny walked beside me with his hands in his pockets and his eyes moving over everything we passed, the guards at the outer gate and the covered walkway and the administrative building entrance and the corridor inside it, all of it going into his head in the way everything went into Danny's head, absorbed and stored and available for retrieval at any time regardless of whether that time was appropriate.Adaeze stopped outsi
(Theo POV)Nobody moved for a while after the door closed.I looked at the ceiling and then at the paper and then at Curtis."Talk," I said.Curtis came to the table and sat down and picked up the paper and read it again, his eyes moving along the lines slowly. He put it back down and turned it so the seal was facing me and tapped it once with the eraser end of the pencil."We talked while you were out," he said. "Before she arrived. About the cache and the northern positions and what comes next for the movement now that D-Day is off the table." He paused. "And then she knocked on the door.""You talked to her without me," I said."You were walking," Jake said, not unkindly."What did you decide," I said.Curtis looked at the paper. "The mineral compound is real," he said. "I had heard about it before, not in these terms, but there were rumours two years ago about the research team running tests in the n
(Theo POV)I walked to the end of the side street and turned onto the main road and kept walking.I walked to the eastern boundary fence and stood at it and looked at the scrubland beyond it, the same scrubland where Cole's people had waited on D-Day and found nothing, and I looked at it for a while and then I turned around and walked back.The walking back took longer than the walking out because I was not moving at the same pace, and by the time I turned onto the side street again and came through the passage and back through the gate into Curtis's yard the ice on the water barrel had melted completely, the surface of the water smooth and dark.I went through the back door.Curtis was at the counter with Jake, the two of them looking at something on a piece of paper, talking low. Pete had his boots on and his jacket and was standing near the door like he had been about to leave when something stopped him. There was someone else in the room.The someone else was sitting in the chair
(Mira POV)He stood at the end of the passage for a while longer and I stood near the wall and neither of us said anything and the street beyond the gap went on with its morning, the cart sounds and the door and someone calling a name two houses down, ordinary and indifferent.Then he turned and looked at me."She was pregnant," he said. "When she was in my house. She was already pregnant and she never told me."His voice was quiet."Yes," I said.He looked at the brick wall opposite him."She slept in the back room," he said. "She ate at my table. " He stopped. "She sat on my bed and I held her hand and she went to sleep and she was already carrying his child and she did not tell me.""She was not ready," I said. "She had only just found out herself and she was trying to understand it before she could explain it to anyone and she was scared of what it meant and she did not know how to say it to you specifically because of everything between the two of you and she needed more time bef
(Mira POV)He was already moving toward the back door when I said, "Wait."He stopped with his hand on the frame and did not turn around."I am going to tell you," I said. "But not in there."He turned then. He looked at me and then at the door and then at me again, and I could see him deciding whether to trust that, whether this was another version of the same thing I had been saying all morning."Not in there," I said again. I looked at the back door and then at the gate at the side of the yard, the one that led out to the narrow passage between Curtis's house and the house next door, the passage that opened onto the side street rather than the main lane. "Come out this way."He looked at the gate."Curtis will hear us through the door," I said.Theo looked at the back door of the house and then at the gate and then he walked to the gate and lifted the latch and pushed it open and went through and I followed







