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learn to smile again. He reached into the pocket of the denim shirt they had given him as part of his exit uniform and drew out the creased and faded snapshot he had hidden and treasured all those years. The two boys were younger then, of course, and he wondered what they looked like now, at fourteen and nin e. Fourteen and nine! The numbers confounded him, confused a memory of tiny little people just beginning to form personalities, likes, and dislikes of their own.
    Devin studied the snapshot closely, as though reexamining an icon. Caleb was four, sandy-blond hair, blue eyes, all seriousness. Billy was nine, an older version of Caleb physically but with more of Devin’s free spirit. As he stared at the picture he felt as if he was being watched. He was about to look up to seek out the intruder when the prisoner next to him spoke.
    “Yours?”
    Devin pulled the snapshot to his chest protectively. He stared at the man intently, finally deciding he could be trusted. He nodded and returned his gaze to the
    pictures.
    “I had a couple of my own,” said the prisoner, a heavyset man with a face that looked as if it had at one time belonged to a jovial man.
    “Had?”
    The man shrugged. “That was four years ago.”
    “You gonna find them?”
    The man watched the desert. “You know it.”
    Devin looked back at his picture and said softly, “Yeah, I do.”

    That morning, at an exclusive private school in Chicago, nine-year-old Caleb M. Andrews, formerly Caleb Milford, was participating in a social-studies class. His school occupied a full block in a comfortable old residential neighborhood, fronting on a gracious street of swaying elms that shaded stately brick houses. Once the domain of industrialists and professionals, the neighborhood was now an enclave of party officials, government lawyers, and scientists. There was a fenced-in playground where carefree children frolicked, but inside the school, much had changed. Teachers were certified by the PPP—the People’s Progressive party, the political juggernaut that had swept into power in the midst of the Transition—and their curriculum was written in Washington and approved in Moscow.
    Caleb was answering his teacher’s question about his nation’s past.
    “Our ancestors were very rough,” he said. “When Americans conquered the country, they killed Indians who had been living on the land peacefully for thousands of years.”
    “Thank you, Caleb,” the teacher, Clara Chavez, said. “Can anyone tell us what the cause of their violence was?”
    The boy wrinkled his brow, trying to remember. “It was like . . . survival of the fittest,” he said. “The rich people controlled everything and ordinary people, even kids, had to work in factories or coal mines for almost nothing. Wars were fought to make rich people richer.”
    As Caleb spoke, an elegant woman with commanding eyes, thick wavy coal-black hair, and a sensual, feline smile slipped quietly into the classroom. She had an intense, polished, and somehow serpentlike beauty.
    “Good, Caleb,” the teacher said. “Can anyone eke tell me the name of this violent philosophy they followed?”
    The children could not answer; their indoctrination had not reached that point. The woman raised a hraceleted hand. The teacher beamed at the opportunity to show her admiration and respect for the woman once known as Marion Milford. “Yes, please do tell the class, Ms. Andrews.”
    “It’s called Social Darwinism. But now we believe in Social Humanism, which means everyone helps everyone else, and we trust our new leaders to help us do that.” Marion’s voice was gentle, even comforting, but she spoke with absolute conviction.
    The teacher smiled. “Boys and girls, let me introduce Caleb’s mother, Ms. Marion Andrews, who is a magistrate here in Chicago and also a member of the National Advisory Committee that helps our president and Congress make important decisions.”
    Even without the glowing introduction, the