understand who this boy is. Or more to the point, what he is.
He’s an Icon Child, like Ro and me.
There are more of us.
My heart is pounding. I knew there were stories—rumors of other Icon Children—but I never really believed there could be more than me and Ro.
Had the Padre known?
If I had only read the book when I had the chance.
“What is it?”
Ro hasn’t seen.
My mind races.
He showed me his markings.
Why?
Had he seen mine, here in the water?
Could he have been conscious when Ro and I bound hands?
No.
I had been there when Ro smashed him in the face with his own weapon, knocking him out.
I was there when he fell.
I saw his eyes roll back in his head before anything happened.
No.
He showed me because he knew about me.
He knows about us.
He knows.
“What’s wrong?” Ro tightens his grip on the gun.
“They’ve come for us, Ro.”
“Of course they have. What do you think that was all about back there, on the train? They send out their fat, lazy Sympas to drag us into their stupid Projects, just like the other Remnants. I told the Padre we needed to arm ourselves, we needed better defenses. He wouldn’t listen.”
I shake my head and try again. “They’ve found us, Ro.”
I hold up the boy’s wrist, and I unwrap mine.
The resemblance is undeniable. The distance of the dot from the palm, the size of the mark. Next to each other, we are perfect matches.
Just like Ro and me.
RESEARCH MEMORANDUM: THE HUMANITY PROJECT
CLASSIFIED TOP SECRET / AMBASSADOR EYES ONLY
To: Ambassador Amare
From: Dr. Huxley-Clarke
Subject: Icon Children Mythology
Subtopic: Rager
Catalogue Assignment: Evidence recovered during raid of Rebellion hideout
The following is a reprint of a recovered page, thick, homemade paper, thought to be torn from an anti-Embassy propaganda tract titled Icon Children Exist! Most likely hand-published by a fanatical cult or Grass Rebellion faction.
Text-scan translation follows.
7
A DECISION
“Four dots. You know what this means? There are more, Ro. More than us.” I look at Ro.
Ro studies the boy in my arms. He doesn’t put down his blade. He doesn’t put down the Sympa gun. He grips each more tightly.
I feel a red-hot blaze of pure hatred that I have never felt before. Not from Ro, anyway.
“Three,” Ro finally says.
He points to me. “One.” Himself. “Two.” The boy. “Four. What about Three? What did they do to him?”
The boy says nothing. The boy only looks. He moves his head restlessly, and a moment later I hear why.
Embassy Choppers overhead, closer than before. The blades flap, low and loud. They want to make sure we know they're coming. In force.
“Damn. Damn. Damn,” Ro mutters, wiping his sleeve against his face. “We need more time.”
I look down at the wounded boy and feel his rising panic. “We have to get him out of here.”
Ro’s voice is cold and hard. “Why?”
“Ro.”
“He’s one of them.”
“Look at his wrist, Ro. He couldn’t be one of them, not even if he wanted to be.”
“Why not?” He looks as stubborn as the rock he wants to throw at me right now.
“Because he’s one of us.”
Before Ro can respond, the boy struggles to get to his feet. I push him up from behind, but I can barely pull myself up along with him; he’s all but deadweight.
“Give me my gun,” he croaks. “Now.”
Ro laughs. “I must have hit you harder than I thought. You’re talking nonsense.”
“Give me back my gun. It’s your only chance to survive.”
“Really? What are you threatening me with? The gun you don’t have?”
“I’m trying to save you. They see you with my gun and you’ll die. Both of you.” He doesn’t look back at me. I slide my arms down, letting go of him. Now, just barely, he is standing—swaying—on his own.
“What’s your name, Buttons?” Ro smiles, without a trace of friendliness.
The boy hesitates.
I let my arm fall on his shoulder. “It’s all right. We know you’re from the Embassy. Just tell us who you are.”
“My name is Lucas Amare.”
I bite my lip so as not to gasp aloud.
Ro bursts out laughing. “Oh, very good. That’s excellent. You’re human contraband like us, and your own mother is the Ambassador?” He grins at me as if we are sharing a really exceptional joke. You know, have you heard the one about the three Icon Children and the Ambassador?
He says it again, shaking his head. “Lucas Amare is an Icon Child? And you thought we had secrets to keep, Dol.”
All I can do is stare.
Ro’s right. We aren’t contraband, not exactly, but it feels that way. Whatever we are is something the Padre went to great lengths to conceal, not just from the Embassy but from everyone, even from Bigger and Biggest. And now we find this Sympa, who’s also an Icon Child, living right in the Embassy itself?
It makes no sense at all.
I understand what Ro is thinking. There is no way the son of the Ambassador, the devil herself—the Hole’s only earthly link to the General Ambassador to the Planet, GAP Miyazawa, and beyond him, the House of Lords—can have anything in common with the two of us. No matter how many markings we share.
And with that, the world is back the way Ro likes it to be. A world of two.
“It’s not a secret. Not from my mother. She knows I’m here.” He sounds defensive.
“Here, in this miserable water cave? Or here, out poaching innocent Grass children?” Ro is almost laughing. He can’t believe our good luck, that we stumbled upon something so valuable.
Someone.
“I found out you were being brought in, both of you. I wanted to—I wanted to help.”
“Help us? Or help them?”
The boy lowers his eyes.
Ro