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thinking.”
                  “Dad would throw a fit if he knew you were out of bed alone.”
                  “I think he might understand,” Sophie countered, and Kaizen supposed she was right. He didn’t know if his father favored his little sister because he’d secretly always wanted a girl, or if it was because he pitied her for the life she’d been forced to lead: a prisoner in her own home. While Kaizen’s ventures to Icarus were rare, and rarer still were his ventures to any of the neighboring cities, at least he’d been off of these four tiny islands.
                  Sophie had, too. Once.
                  Her only friends were the servants. And the servants were ninety percent ball-jointed porcelain and killed with the turn of a key.
                  “Besides,” she went on, “what’s the harm, really? The islands are secure. No one will ever know.” No one will ever know that I exist, she meant. “Just like when we went to Celestine last year. Remember that?” she added. Sophie often spoke of Celestine in a wistful, distant tone. As if she were back on the family’s airship again, coasting around the diameter of the metropolis. Celestine was a great, beautiful city. It was even larger than Icarus, and vibrant with color. Sophie hadn’t been allowed off the airship, though. “Maybe . . . maybe we’ll go again soon. Or maybe even to Heliopolis!”
                  Kaizen grimaced at the bright expression on his sister’s face, knowing that the likelihood of their father allowing her to attend a vacation to Heliopolis was very low. That was the bustling capital center of New Earth. The risk of someone sighting the girl—especially a superior to Duke Taliko—was too high.
                  “Maybe,” he offered.
                  But Sophie had seen his grimacing reflection in the glass, and pulled her hand away from the dome, turning.
                  “Yeah, maybe,” she said, walking away without a backward glance. Her lack of sociability made the girl almost ghost-like. “Goodnight, brother.” And she was gone over the wooden bridge.
     

Chapter Four
     
                  Legacy and Dax were lagging so far behind Trimpot and Gustav, they almost completely missed the trigger for the hidden door of the Chance for Choice headquarters. The two rebels were standing at the automaton statue of Archibald Ferraday, a rotund, flaky-cheeked, balding figurine with half-moon glasses welded to his ears. Archibald Ferraday had been the first of the line of monarchs in Heliopolis, and he was in the middle of his famous coronation speech.
                  “Come on, come on, come on,” Gustav hissed, scouring the park for intruders.
                  “. . . always be a people whose strength and perseverance was prepared to pay the price of freedom . . .”
                  “Yes!” Gustav kicked down into the Ferraday plaque with zeal, and the plaque depressed beneath the pressure.
    Incredibly, the eastern face of the copper mountainside beyond them—a long, flat rock partially shielded by copper brush—sank and slid to the right, revealing a narrow entryway.
    The four escapees rushed inside, and the door snapped into place within seconds, a system of locks clapping and clicking over its hinges.
                  “All right, there’s only so much you can ask of a man. I’m going to wash up,” Gustav announced, departing toward a familiar-styled screen in the back corner. “I had to force myself to throw up only, like, three or four times.”
                  Legacy’s eyes shifted to Dax, drawn by the rapid rise and fall of his chest. His complexion seemed waxy and bleached. “Are you okay?” she whispered.
    He nodded and waved her off, though she could see his oxygen filtration had been overworked by the physical strain of