Harriet drives past our usual entrance to the Lab, then past the parking lot at Seattle Secondary. Her foot is like lead on the accelerator, and she jerks the van between the tame autonomous vehicles on the road.
Soon, we're on the highway, headed south, and I know where to take her. I quietly text Mason while Harriet fumes. After thirty minutes of silence, I clear my throat.
"Turn the car around, Harriet. There's something I want to show you."
She pulls off the highway and turns around so we're headed back toward Seattle. "I should have run Boer over, like you said."
"You were right not to draw attention to us. If the National Guard had gotten involved, it would have gone badly for us."
"That's how it always is. Behind every evil Evolved sonofabitch like Boer, there is a bigger, more powerful Evolved bastard with plans to exploit Throwbacks. There's no end to it."
"There is an end! We are crafting it, every day."
Harriet's voice is emotionless, unrecognizable, when she responds. "You sound like me, five years ago. I grew up, and so should you."
"Pull over right here," I tell her.
Harriet shoots me a glance, but she pulls off the highway at a rest stop with a weathered old restaurant. I'm relieved to see Justus's dad's rusty car parked out front. Mason beat us here.
Harriet parks, and we get out of the van. I pull her around back.
"This is where Throwbacks used to have to sit if they wanted to eat here. The food dispenser was ancient," I tell her. "This nasty old guy ran this place, and one time, I saw him beating up a Throwback who tried to sneak inside. It was the first violence I ever saw."
"That's exactly what will never change."
"Wrong."
I lead Harriet to the door to the restaurant. A sign hangs on the entrance that says "Everyone Welcome."
"The old asshole had a change of heart? Or did Crew beat some sense into him?" Harriet asks, unimpressed.
"Neither. The old guy died, and now his daughter, Danica, owns this place. She changed the rules to allow Throwbacks the same privileges as the Evolved inside her restaurant."
"But that old guy died a miserable bastard. You didn't change his heart," Harriet says, but her tone holds interest.
"We don't have to change everyone's mind to change the world. We have to bring in a new guard that is more progressive than those that came before them. Evolved like Danica and Officer Ben have more tolerant ideas, because of change that started before we ever met. Maybe Aft and his movement aren't useless. Just slow."
I push open the door. Inside, the restaurant is much busier than it had been the last time I was here. Danica added some decent music, and a much-needed update to the tables and chairs. But best of all is seeing a group of Throwbacks eating a few tables down from some Evolved men having beers. The groups peacefully ignore each other.
Sitting alone in a booth by the window is Mason. He stands up when he sees Harriet and takes both her hands in his big ones.
"Found you, like I always do," he says. "Joan helped."
Mason pulls Harriet into the booth, and she rests her head briefly on his shoulder. "You two are going to team up on me now?"
"If we were here to fight with you, we would have brought way more than the two of us," I tease, sliding into the booth across from Mason and Harriet.
Her eyes drift around the room and settle on me. "My brain knows that what you're trying to show me is true. But my heart is too tired to believe."
Mason takes Harriet's right hand and gently massages it. "Is it any better today?"
Harriet jerks away from him.
"What do you mean? Did you get hurt again?" I ask, alarmed.
Mason looks from me to Harriet and back again. "The incubus couldn't heal all the broken bones in her hand perfectly. She only has thirty percent mobility in her right hand, and it hurts her."
"Officer Boer did this?"
Harriet grunts in the affirmative, and I shut my eyes. My fault. Officer Boer beat her so badly to send me a message, and now her hand will never be the same. Shame winds around my heart, squeezing.
"That's why I didn't tell you," she said. "Your brain is still Evolved. Officer Boer would have beaten me just as hard no matter who my friends are. He enjoys hurting Throwbacks, like so many Evolved do. Power corrupts. This isn't your fault."
I nod, because she needs me to believe her, but the squeezing around my heart won't let up.
"Neither of you understands," Mason says. "You are two bright stars, no matter what is written into your DNA. Don't muck around in the mud like the majority of Throwbacks and Evolved, letting your ideals get clogged with the hate and resentment. You have to shine a light for us all. Rise above it, when so many can't."
"You can," Harriet says, tracing an old scar on Mason's cheek.
He puts his hands on her shoulders. "You were my light. You showed me the way out of the muck. Now you have to show everyone else."
I drive us back to the Bunker so that Mason can return Aft's car. Harriet is quiet the whole ride. But it's a different silence from the one we shared when we sped away from Officer Boer. She's turning inward, like a doctor searching for a wound in order to heal it. I hope she can.
We slip inside the Lab as the sun sets and Throwback curfew is in place. The door to the Bunker is ajar, and the sound of shouting has us all stiffening up.
"Renounce this group, Justus, and leave with me now," Aft commands as I push my way into the room. "You could have been killed today!"
"I agree that Joan was wrong to team up with Strand, but I still believe in the ability of this group to make a difference," Justus says. "And Marie and I got out safely, which is all that matters."
Nic gives Aft a piercing glare. "Joan is the beating heart of this group. You and your Throwback drones are soulless."
"What's going on here?" I ask, loudly enough to stop Aft and Nic from getting in each other's faces.
Marie steps forward. She's unhurt, but her eyes are red. "Al tried to help us. But Lexi caught him. She dragged him away. Maybe to kill him!"
Justus's shoulders sag. "Not before she tortures him."
My phone pings with a message. I read it and swallow down bile.
"Lexi is using his life and Jo's as leverage. If we don't toe the line, she will have them retired," I say.
The volume of the grumbling in the room rises. Leo pushes his way toward me. "It's time to end this experiment with Strand. Accept the loss of Al and Jo, before more are added to the list."
"We're not abandoning anyone," I say before Marie can protest.
"Then get into bed with those vipers," Aft says, his face red. "You spurned my movement and chose this. You're all tools of the wicked, in one way or another."
"You need to leave," Justus says, pushing his dad out of the Bunker.
I scrub my fingers through my hair and address the crowded room. "Let's get some coffee. We can't sleep tonight. We need a plan to break Al and Jo out of that place, now, before Lexi asks us for help we cannot give."
"This jail break is another distraction from our real mission," Justus says, slipping back inside the Bunker. His face is cold, closed. "I sent my dad away, but he's not wrong. We have made so many mistakes. Maybe we need someone with experience to lead us."
Nic fumes, and I put my hand on his arm. "Mistakes are a part of growing. We've had our share, but we're learning, getting more effective at stopping mob attacks before they start. We have spies inside of Crew's movement who are close to getting information on his plans. We have stolen files from Strand that could yield important leverage over Lexi. I will not accept that the only role for us in changing Throwback lives is to act as famous faces to get new recruits for your dad's sit-ins or rallies. We will crush Crew, and then turn the full force of our brainpower toward creating change in Seattle. We will see Throwbacks move toward equality in our lifetime."
Harriet moves to stand beside me. She doesn't say anything, but her presence means everything to me.
"Marie, pull up the maps of the area around Strand's headquarters on the tablet," Nic says, breaking the silence. "We'll find the best way into that place and estimate where the prisoners are being kept."
"I'll talk to the two Mollys I know who work at Strand. If they know where prisoners are held, they'll share it with me," Justus says, watching me as if I might lash out at him after his words.
"Good," I reply. "Harriet, Sun, and I will work another angle. Maybe we can have Al and Jo released."
"How would that be possible?" Leo asks.
"Mav's mom was held at the Seattle Psychiatric Clinic when Headmaster Hunter wanted her hidden away. It's likely that Strand keeps their undesirables there, rather than some dungeon inside of headquarters. It would expose them to too much risk if such a place were discovered."
"A clinic would be subject to laws and rules that we could exploit," Harriet says, immediately understanding my plan, as usual.
We break into teams, and the energy in the Bunker falls into a rhythm that has become all but second nature in all our weeks together. In spite of my fear for Jo and Al, as I gaze around the room, my heart is full of hope.
We work well into mid-morning before Leo calls for rest. I agree, because a tentative plan is in place that my gut tells me will work.
"Come on, grab a bunk," Nic says, his hand warm on my back.
Involuntarily, my body leans in to his touch. It would be tempting to forget everything for a while, to lose myself in his warmth. But I won't allow myself to be distracted until the current crisis is resolved.
"I have one more thing I need to do. Alone. Then I'll get rest, I promise," I say.
Before, Nic would have fought with me about going off on my own, but now, he nods and kisses my forehead. I touch his cheek with my palm before leaving the Bunker.
Stealing down the dark tunnels of the Lab, I head toward the room where I'm supposed to meet Elizabeth for an update on how our vid was received by Crew. But before I'm halfway there, a hulking figure steps in front of me.
My body recognizes the threat before my mind, and my laser is in my hand, armed to kill, by the time my brain processes the features of Crew's face. He knocks my wrist aside with a powerful, deft jab.
The laser pen clatters to the ground, and I grip my wrist.
"I didn't break your wrist. I'm not here to hurt you. Please, listen," he says.
It isn't fear that makes me freeze. It's Crew saying "please."
"What happened?"
"I hurt her," Crew says, his voice almost unrecognizable without its usual confident edge. "I thought I was prepared for anything she would say to me, but I wasn't. She'll never forgive me now."
"Who did you hurt?" I ask, images of Elizabeth's and Sacajawea's mangled, beaten bodies making my dinner rise in my throat.
"Jo. I know you're going to get her away from that horrible clinic, and you have to tell her that I love her. That I'm sorry. Convince her to forgive me!"
How does he know our plan? Icy dread fills my stomach as I consider that there might still be a spy among us, someone other than Cesar opening his big mouth to his girlfriend.
Unwilling to let Crew see that he's thrown me, I keep my voice level. "What did you do to her?"
"I went to rescue her, to take her back with me. In time, she would have seen that I am right in the choices I've made. But she would not come."
He swallows before continuing. "I was ready for her reaction. I came prepared to dose her with a sedative. But she hit me with her chair and called for her captors to rescue her. Strand's doctors! Strand's guards! To take me! She knows that the people who guard her held me for my entire childhood! How could she call for them, risk that I might be dragged back down into their experiments — this time until I die? Better for her to kill me than to send me back."
Crew is shaking, vulnerable. How can I take advantage of his weakness? My laser is too far to reach so that I can kill him or subdue him.
"So you hurt her?" I ask, keeping my tone gentle.
"I hit her, in her face," Crew whispers. "I've killed and hurt others, when I must, but this I did out of anger. And to the one person I swore I would never hurt. Always, always I knew I would win her back, because beneath her anger toward me is love. But I hit her in anger, as her father did, so many times. That, she will not forgive."
I lay my hand on his arm, and he flinches. "It's okay. I'll help her understand, Crew. I'll explain why you lost control. I will fight you every step of the way in your violent plans for this city, but in this, I will help you."
Have I pushed him too far, or will he believe?
His body sags. "She's all I have left now that your team deleted my files."
"That crypt of DNA information on the world's worst villains? That's what you miss as much as Jo?"
"There was another DNA sequence in that file. Jo and I had a child. She died shortly after taking her first breath. The technology to create children from cloned parents was still in its early stages. But someday, I hoped to fix the errors in my baby's DNA sequence and clone her, to have the life that was taken from us."
My body goes rigid as Crew dissolves into tears. "We didn't know she was on the file when we deleted it."
I'm not sure if he can hear me through the haze of his misery. Finally, I understand that his pain has carved roots in his mind so deep that they deformed it. I back away until his form is indistinguishable from the shadows of the Lab. Only then do I run.