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faded, and his laugh dried up.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œThe cooker’s heating back up. They’ll be ready for a new batch soon.”
    Liao glanced back over his shoulder, then leaned in and lowered his voice.
    â€œHey, just take it easy,” he said. “I want to save them too but I don’t want to get killed doing it. Another night won’t change anything.”
    â€œA night could change everything. It could mean the difference between some of them getting killed, and all of them.”
    â€œLook, maybe you don’t like the timetable, but that site is going down, that’s the important thing. After that, they won’t be grabbing anyone else. This isn’t the border zone, you can’t just call in an air strike or something here and—”
    â€œYou’ve got it wrong,” I said. “I got sent to recon three processing plants, just like now. Every time, we got called back once we determined none of our soldiers were in there with the rest. That’s how we handled it at the border. We knew there were people in there—knew it, just like now, and we left them there. Three different times.”
    Liao didn’t say anything. I don’t think he knew what to say. His face had fallen a bit, and he’d taken a step back from the rail. I took a breath, and made myself calm down.
    â€œYou know I asked an officer why, once,” I said. “I asked him what the official policy on that was, and you know what he told me? He said that command’s feeling was that the less hungry the locals were, the less trouble they’d be.”
    â€œWe won’t get called back,” Liao said. “I can promise that. I don’t know what the holdup is, but this isn’t normal. Something has to be up, something we don’t know. Have a little faith.”
    â€œThis was supposed to be different.”
    â€œIt is, trust me.”
    A CTIVE N ODE D ETECTED.
    The alert splashed up on the holoscreen.
    â€œHang on, I’ve got something.”
    â€œShao, you’ve got to run that by Heng. He’s running this show.”
    â€œI will.”
    I polled the device and pulled up its info. The node was a 2i model, several years old. They were popular with kids, used mainly for social networking. The main transmitter had been switched off, but not the backdoor police band.
    I established a link and sifted through the data sitting in the 2i’s storage. There were a lot of social contacts, music files, and videos all wrapped in a bubblegum-pink theme. When I pulled the 2i’s serial numbers and ran a lookup on the purchase and installation, I got a full name—Xiao-Xing Zheng, a twelve year old girl whose address was in the system as “unknown.”
    â€œIt’s a kid,” I said.
    Using a security override code, I switched her transmitter back on.
    Xiao-Xing?
    A few seconds passed, then she responded.
    who r u?
    I’m here to help.
    u can help me?
    â€œTell me you’re not initiating contact,” Liao said.
    What is your situation?
I asked.
    Another pause.
    they r going 2 kill us
    Who is?
    butchers
    I turned back to Liao.
    â€œIt’s a little girl,” I said.
    He sighed. “You’re going to take heat for this. We were told to hold our position.”
    â€œI did.”
    â€œInitiating communication is an overt move.”
    â€œIt’s a gray area.”
    â€œGray area,” he said, shaking his head. “You hang out here in your gray area. I’m going to go hold my position. Let me know when it’s either time to shoot bad guys or they shitcan you.”
    â€œA little girl, Liao.”
    He left, and I heard him start back across the wall to the stairwell door. I wondered if he’d report it to Heng, or if he’d just stay out of it.
    who r u?
she asked.
    My name is Dragan Shao. I’m with security.
    really?
    Yes. We know you’re there and we’re going to help you.
    I looked her