Home. I remember what that word used to mean. Love, familiarity, comfort. This is not home. At least, not yet.

My dwelling is essentially a round tent constructed from long branches of wood and fabric. It's just big enough to fit a makeshift bed made from long, rectangular floor pillows, and a small table to hold my belongings if I had any. The door is a long sheet, not exactly the most secure system, but I guess the heavy military presence is supposed to make up for that.

Despite the lack of security and comfort, the dwelling is full of color. The fabric walls are light brown for camouflage, but the bed pillows are sewn from many smaller pieces of fabric, all in different colors and patterns. There are flowers and stripes and solid colored fabrics in reds, purples, pinks, yellows, oranges, and greens. My table is made from a variety of different woods, all in different hues and textures. The ground is covered in animal pelts—white rabbits and tan deer and brown bears—all protecting me from the rocky earth beneath my feet.

I suppose I can't complain. For what it is, it's lovely.

"So? How do you like your new place?" I turn around to see that Declan has walked in. I'll have to put a bell or something on the "door."

"It's... quaint," I say.

"For sure. Mine is not much bigger."

"Yours is bigger?"

"Well, yeah, obviously, I'm super important around here," he jokes. "No, the first ones built were all a little bigger. The more people we find, the less space there is, so the dwellings become smaller."

"I see. I guess I'll let that slide." I smile.

"Well, Miss Blume, I was sent to retrieve you. We're going to take you and Bea on a tour."

"Who is we?"

"The whole attack crew. All nine of you, plus me and General Sato."

"When will we be able to talk to him?"

"Later, once the leaders have gone to bed. General Sato is usually up late. We will be able to talk to him then."

"Okay. As soon as possible," I say.

"Of course. I feel better here, though; don't you?"

"I do."

He smiles at me and turns to head out of the dwelling.

"Declan, hold on," I say.

"What?"

"Everything is going to be okay." I pause, and he smiles. "Right?"

He returns to hug me. I can feel now how much I needed that. As I embrace him, his spine pokes out of his back, jabbing my arms. "My goodness, you're skinny," I laugh.

"I know, I know," he says. "But, listen, everything is going to be okay. You will use a better attack strategy, you will find your family and Hugh, and when you get back, I will be here to welcome you all home. We will escape or make a move for power, whichever one you want, and we will be free to be ourselves instead of pawns in this game called 'who can rebuild the earth first.'"

I smile. "I wish you were coming."

"I know, I wish I could come, too, but somebody's got to hold down the fort," he jokes, mocking the leaders. "C'mon, let's go." I nod and together, we meet the group at the dam.

We follow General Sato and Winston as they lead us through the inner workings of the dam, through tiled hallways and walkways between the water and the rocky canyon, until we stop in the great room where all the massive water filters rumble below pristine American flags. These flags haven't been touched by time like the ones in Mountville were. Someone here must have been taking care of them all these years.

"When we first got here, there was already a group of people living in the dam," General Sato tells us. "They were survivors who had been keeping up the filtration system maintenance all these years to keep the mussels from the lake from shutting the whole system down. They already had some semblance of a community in place, so we joined them. They still work and live in the dam. They are the only people other than high ranking officers and scientists who are permitted to live inside. They're the Originals, at least that's what they call themselves. All other Deathless live in the communities along the lake," General Sato explains over the rumble of the filters. "Let's continue."

We follow him toward a door at the side of the room, and he turns back to search the group before landing his eyes squarely on me. "Isla, right?" he asks. I nod, and he smiles a sneaky grin. "I'm told you will love this next room."

He opens the door, and motions for me to join him at the front of the group. "Go ahead," he says. "Turn on the light."

There's a switch on the wall beside the door, and I flip it on, illuminating an entire room of books. All four walls are covered floor to ceiling with completely full bookcases. The room can't be much bigger than our living room was in Pennsylvania, but to me, it's massive. This is the closest I've come to feeling at home since we left. I'm speechless.

"Well?" The General asks. I can hear Mom gasp behind me.

"It's... this is fantastic...," I stutter.

"And all of this is open to you at any time," General Sato says. "Let's continue with the tour, and then, if you'd like, you can come back."

I nod, mesmerized by the sheer amount of worlds captured in this modest room, and then I turn off the light.

We finish our tour outside beside a pair of giant sitting angels at the far end of the bridge. A line of Deathless soldiers guard us.

"So? What do you think?" Phoebe asks.

"It's amazing," Mom replies.

"It is. We can almost pretend that the nuclear holocaust never happened here," General Sato adds.

"Almost," Phoebe stresses.

"Right. But this place gives us hope. We can continue to rebuild here until we are back to some sort of normalcy. That's why we fight. We are fighting for the future," Sato replies, and it's clear why he's the leader of the Deathless camp: He, too, genuinely believes in our cause.

We all agree to meet later for dinner and a strategy meeting before splitting up, but the General's words stick with me: We are fighting for the future. I remember the fantasies I used to have about Daniel and my children, and teaching them the ways of the world and how to survive in it. Here, we could live longer, we could meet our grandchildren, and we could teach them about more than just survival, like our parents did.

***

After an afternoon of reading and wandering around the camp, I meet Mom and Declan at the entrance of the community lodge, and he leads us into a back dining area where the rest of the crew is seated.

"I'm meeting with an oncologist from the Originals in the morning," Mom tells me as we walk. "He'll clear me for the attack as long as everything is under control."

I can tell she's worried, so I take her hand. "You'll be cleared," I say, and she nods as if she's trying to convince herself it's true.

The three of us take a seat at the far end of the bench around a long table made from unfinished light wood. Nothing is elaborately decorated here. In fact, the table and benches where we sit look identical to the ones the rest of the Deathless and Originals use. Here, we are equal.

Deathless soldiers carry plates of food—fish on a bed of salad made from lettuce, cactus, and seaweed—and set them in front of everyone. I lift my fork to poke at the salad around the fish, trying my best not to look at its eyes staring up at me. I'm not sure if I'm properly masking my disgust, but it becomes clear that I'm not when Declan chuckles at me from across the table. I set my fork down. My appetite's gone.

"Let's not waste any time," General Sato starts after chewing a few bites of food. "You all know why you're here, but we need to be clear on a few things. To be able to best fight our enemy, we must know them. Roberts and Cooper is the enemy. They are a secret organization of men who conspired to destroy the world so that they could rebuild over the ashes. I found this out before the scientists who dissented later, because high ranking military officials and political leaders were unfrozen first.

"George Cooper met with us, and revealed that the destruction of civilization was part of a bigger plan, and that there were already measures being put in place to ensure the continuation of their plan. Obviously, all of us were fuming by the end of this meeting. You spend your whole life protecting people and fighting for freedom only to discover that you never really had any freedom to begin with, and that all those people were wiped off the planet in an instant.

"That night, we gathered together and decided that we needed to kill the Roberts and Cooper men or die trying. What we didn't know is that Roberts and Cooper is an international organization with people all over the world. There was no way we could have killed them all that night, but we wanted to cut off the head of the snake.

"Later that night, we crept into their rooms and murdered nearly all of the American Roberts and Cooper men. Unfortunately, George Cooper got away before we could get him. Rumor has it that he has a fortress somewhere that he escaped to, we just have to find it. Until then, there's only one other person we need to kill from Roberts and Cooper here in the states" President McCleary."

"Why didn't you kill the President the night you killed the others?" I ask.

"When we went into the President's room, he was already armed. He killed a few of our men, so we escaped before he could call in any reinforcements. We would have been decimated.

"We traveled across country, and in our travels, collected a group of survivors, one of whom told us rumors about the Hoover Dam. So we came here, and we've been rebuilding ever since."

"I'm sure the soldiers at the bunker know about Roberts and Cooper by now. Why are they still there?" Mom asks.

"The President lied to the soldiers. He made it look like we had gone crazy from our stasis change. Just like how he told everyone that the world was still too full of radiation to safely leave the premise of the bunker. He lies to keep control."

"Even if they do know," Phoebe adds, "they have probably been threatened to stay in line, or bribed. I was promised land and cities in the new world if I invented certain war machines. I supposedly earned power over Boston if I created the collector droids."

"Which you did create," I say.

She clenches her jaw. "What can I say? Fear and vanity are man's greatest weaknesses. Why else do you think Gunther Quail is now McCleary's second hand man? If there's anything I know with certainty, it's that Gunther would do just about anything for notoriety; and if he's the one writing the history books, you can bet we'll have a new federal holiday to celebrate the great scientist who led us out of darkness."

I look over to Alexander, and remember how hopeful he looked while talking about Gunther. He focuses his attention on his plate, as if he's blocking out all other noise, and I wonder whose version of Gunther is more accurate: Evil genius Gunther or long-time friend Gunther.

"It's important for all of you to know this, so you remember that when we attack, we aren't just doing this to keep them from progressing, we are doing this to show them they can't continue," Phoebe adds.

"Yes," General Sato adds, "but while we are there, we will be rescuing as many hostages as we can. They have been collecting survivors to build an army, and we have to save them and show them the truth of what's going on. We also have to find out where Cooper is hiding. After we do this, we must kill both President McCleary and Dr. Quail."

"And if we don't?" Gabriela asks, her words marinated in fear.

"Then we die trying. It is much better to die fighting for your convictions than to live in fear, and I promise you that if we don't try to stop them, they will continue to grow until they are big enough, smart enough, and strong enough to finally kill us all." He takes a sip of water. "I know this is all overwhelming, but I hope that you are all ready for this attack, and if you aren't, I hope you find it in yourself to become prepared. We will be training you from now until the attack. Tonight, Phoebe, Winston, Alexander, and I will sit down and strategize, since the government hacked your immersion. Until we have a plan, feel free to go to the target range and practice with your weapons from the immersions. They've been placed in the tent just outside of the lodge." He peers around the table. "We will be ready. We may not complete all of our goals, but no matter what, we will show them that we are strong enough to fight back. That we are still here, and we're not giving up."

They are strategizing tonight. Declan and I won't be able to talk to General Sato. I look across the table at Declan, who bites his lip. He takes a deep breath, and raises his hand. "I think I know why we were hacked," he says, and everyone focuses on him. "Gunther was working on neuro devices. Implants, like the one he put in Victor."

"Right...?" Winston says.

"Well, Gunther thought that if the implants were ever successful, he could control the person's mind, but their consciousness would be able to access whatever computer network was being used for the controls. Almost as if the person was pushed into the computer, you know? Anyway, if he got them to work the way he wanted them to, that could explain that soldier's presence in the immersion and his confusion."

"Not possible," Mitchell says. "I encrypted the crap out of our network."

"So that means either they have someone better than you there—"

"—Impossible," Mitchell interrupts.

"Or... they have someone on the inside."

"And you took until dinner to tell us? Jesus, Declan," Phoebe says, throwing her napkin over her plate. "I say we get to work now. We need to be on top of this situation."

There's a rumble in the distance, and the water in our glasses expands in concentric circles. Everyone silences as the rumble continues in rhythmic bursts. Then I hear it. A sound that makes my stomach drop and my heart rate accelerate: The roaring gears of the Prowlers, immediately followed by screams from the east end of camp. Then, gunshots.

Everyone stands from the table, and races out of the room. We follow General Sato to a nearby tent where all the weapons are kept, and he leads us to a shelf in the back. "Here are all the weapons you used in the immersion."

Everyone grabs their weapons, no longer virtual but still light in our hands, and I arm myself with my magnetized slingshot.

We race wordlessly with the pack of Deathless toward the sounds of war. Toward the shrieking and grinding gears of Prowlers.