Peter noticed a new stain on the bathrobe. It was a bright orange artificial color that smelled like cheese.

  After being fired, Flint tried drinking, pills, and shopping. They were all flat. Only the screen felt right. TV was like his job; it was always on.

  Government programs were his favorite. Lectures on the binary power types, Alter, and Condition.

  He watched a program about how the three mother ships were built. He had been born on the Cirrus, excited to leave.

  Living with other Prophets was tiring. Foresight made for bad company. Prophesized were more exciting.

  Flint wanted cheese puffs.

  Peter watched his dad root around in the tube like a raccoon. He fished out a fluorescent puff and shoved it into his mouth without consideration.

  The crunching was too loud. Flint couldn’t hear his program.

  He searched for the remote. It wasn’t on the table. Maybe it was in the chair.

  He propped his elbow on the table. His ass stuck out in the air.

  “Got it.” He mumbled.

  He grunted and pressed the button. Nothing happened. The volume should be going up.

  He felt a layer of grime give way. The volume began to climb.

  He punched the lower volume button. It wasn’t stopping. The TV went from a soft conversation to a shouting match in seconds.

  “Damn thing doesn’t work.”

  He smacked it against the table. The screen flickered off – good enough.

  He waited for his heartbeat to calm, ate more cheese puffs, and dosed off.

  He dreamed he was circling commas.

  Peter wanted to punch his dad. He wanted to punch himself. If he could arrange it, he’d hit both.

  They lived in a two-bedroom home in Angel Avenues. A part of the Nimbus, it looked the same as the other units. The Lumpowskis had found ways to make it their own.

  A.I.-grown herbs lived in the square concrete windowsill. Posters of famous Bureaucrats covered cheap plaster. Colorful drapes hid depressing slit windows.

  In the living room, Peter sat on the floor and waited.

  Five PSAs later, his dad shifted.

  “Snort.”

  Peter coughed. He didn’t want to startle him.

  “Dad.”

  Flint let his eyes drift open. Peter was here. He looked expectant.

  Peter spoke nervously. “About your job.”

  He was awake now. This would be a conversation. He turned to his son.

  “I told you. I don’t care.”

  Peter knew that was a lie. His dad had worked for the Bureau his entire life. Reading prophecies wasn’t a skill everyone had.

  Everyone was born with foresight. Expectant mothers had more than most.

  That feeling you should jump before the car hits you.

  It took training to interpret prophecy. Not everyone could do it. But everyone has the potential.

  Flint had been born with an above-average aptitude for learning his gifts. In the morning a minty taste would build on his gums. Later, it would rain.

  Once, a high-altitude storm had torn the left rear engine from the Nimbus. The Bureau had nearly fallen to the mainland. Later that year, they installed a dedicated engine.

  The night before his teeth had hurt from the taste. The day before he met Peter, he had gone to the healing ward, worried they would fall out.

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  Peter’s voice snapped him out of his fog.

  “You care. You care about everything. Besides, you loved your job.”

  Flint sighed.

  “It doesn’t work like that. I care about you first.”

  Peter puffed. He shouldn’t be frustrated. He was trying to help but seeing his dad lie to himself only made Peter feel dishonest.

  “That’s not how caring works. You don’t move on to other things just because they're more important.”

  He was losing track of his point. He continued anyway.

  “There’s nothing wrong with being upset. I messed up.”

  Flint shook his head.

  “You’re my son. You couldn’t understand.”

  Peter rubbed his eyes.

  “Because I’m your son? Maybe if I talked to them, they would let you back. It was unfair. They shouldn’t fire you because I was there.”

  “Because you’re a kid.”

  Peter stood up. Why had he wanted to talk to his dad? He did nothing but watch TV all day.

  “I got people killed Dad. I want to talk about it.”

  Flint swung the recliner upwards. His son had crows’ lines. He was only fifteen. Peter kept talking.

  “I got you fired. Let me do something about it. Tell me who that woman was.”

  Flint didn’t know. It wasn’t his job.

  “I was the adult. I was responsible for you. I should’ve taken you home.”

  Peter argued.

  “I’m Prophesized, you know. I can take it.”

  Flint faced Peter. His son wasn’t a boy, but he wasn’t a man either.

  “You didn’t kill anyone. You didn’t do anything.”

  Peter swallowed his throat.

  “I tried my best.”

  Flint did a double take.

  “I didn’t mean-.”

  “You meant it,” Peter said. “We both know what happened. I started things, then I did nothing.”

  Flint reached for his son. He only managed to leave an orange handprint on his T-shirt. It waved to him as Peter walked away.

  Peter spoke over him.

  “I got you fired. Yell at me!”

  Flint didn’t know what to say. He liked to tell the truth, but that wasn’t helpful here.

  Peter turned the corner. Bounded past the poster of Famine, smiling with her palm outstretched. The only public agent of the Bureau.

  The small print invited him: remember my name.

  Peter wanted to forget.

  Out of sight from his dad, he broke into a run. It was a short trip to his room.

  Flint burped. His stomach was filled with fake cheese. He could still taste the chemicals. It covered the faint taste of mint.

  Flint didn’t notice.

  Late that night, Peter couldn’t stop thinking.

  He opened the Bureau’s net page and made an inquiry.

  Fibonacci.

  Nothing. They were trying to bury her.

  He tried again.

  Flaw Intensification. Zero results.

  This was pointless. The information he wanted wasn’t accessible on the public servers, if it existed.

  One more search.

  Subject: 35813

  Three results.

  One article and one picture.

  He opened the article first. It linked him to an old page published by something titled the Nimbus Review.

  They called themselves independent reporters in bold letters. Peter had to look up the term.

  That type of private institution was history. An idea the Bureau did away with sixty years ago.

  In the article, he read:

  09/21/2125

  Over 35,000 subjects were successfully fated at the Bureau's new facility, stationed above the Marina Trench. A record-setting number of prophecies have been batch-read.

  A Bureaucrat working in the Destiny Acquisition Department said: “New reading techniques have increased fate determination capacity nearly ten times”

  We spoke to a lucky new Philosophized, subject 35813. “My partner and I feel blessed. Thanks to my prophecy, I know what’s important. “I’m going to change the world for the one I love.””

  It couldn’t be her. She would have to be almost one hundred. That was impossible.

  Peter checked the picture.

  He saw a thin-lipped woman with her arms thrown over her partner. The face was flushed with excitement. Pale, but with enough sun to look healthy.

  Her red hair clashed with her yellow dress. Peter had no sense of fashion, but it seemed comfortable.

  She looked like his mother, before the illness.

  The timeline didn’t make sense. He checked the meta-data on the photo. It matched the date in the article. But there was a link to another photo.

  According to the data it was titled: Guam, Post Subject 53813. Island Terminated.

  It had to be a typo. The meta-data link was proof.

  It was a picture of a coastline. He learned about the ocean in class. It was like a giant pond that surrounded the mainland. He had never seen it before, but he could still tell something was wrong.

  The line between land and water was jagged. Craters marked it like pimples. It was as if the coastline had been shaken by the tail.

  He realized why it looked wrong, It wasn’t a coastline.

  It was the tip of a mountain, trying to stay above the sea. She had pulled it down by the fault line.

  He scanned it again with awe. Had she done this? Her power was incredible.

  His excitement spoiled into fear. This was real.

  His eyes hurt. His brain felt like gears thirsty for oil.

  He wondered if Rush was awake.

  He wasn’t seriously considering his plan. He would wake up and the whole thing would be a joke.

  It meant going to the mainland. That was impossible.

  At Oracle, he learned enough. Humanity had ruined it a hundred or so years ago. Pollution had turned it into an oven.

  Peter dreamed about the Nimbus. A thin hand stretched from the sea and tapped her nose. The vessel dove towards the sea but never touched it.

  When he woke the next morning, he read the article again.

  Fibonacci.

  She had acknowledged him. She had escaped because of him. If he had help, He knew he could do it.

  He could catch her.

  He would get his dad back to work and deal with the feeling of lead in his stomach.

  If he brought an escaped criminal back to the Bureau, they would have to notice him. It would be for the right reasons this time.

  He looked up Rush’s number. It was easy to find in the student database. He sent her a message before he could stop himself.

  Peter started researching. They would need gear.

  Rush heard her phone vibrate on the desk in front of her. Stockton was lecturing her as usual. He had started early today.

  Her right arm was in a sling. The nurse had taken away the pain with a shot. The advice reminded her she was still broken.

  “Make sure to rest. Keep it in the sling. If you use this arm without letting it heal, you risk nerve damage.”

  She checked the message.

  It was from Peter. Only one word long.

  More?

  For the first time, Rush wasn’t sure.