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    Grace cried out with exasperation when the home voice mail came on.
    Where is everyone?
    Grace hurried down to the front desk, where Terri had been covering for her.
    “Is it done?” Terri asked, looking up from her magazine.
    “I’m so embarrassed,” Grace told her, “but getting the tattoo made me a little light-headed. Would you mind staying here? I think I need to go home and lie down.”
    “No problem,” Terri said kindly. “Feel better.”
    Grace quickly gathered her things, making sure to only take what she’d ordinarily take home for the night. The rest would be left behind.
    Why do I feel like I’m never coming back here?
    It was such a strange sensation, this instinct. But it felt like certainty.
    When I get home, everything will be better, she told herself.
    But those words also felt hollow, as if she already knew better.

 
    The Bullit-Bus left Grace off only a few blocks from her house. At first she hurried toward it, eager to find her parents, but Grace slowed her approach as she neared her home, and a heavy wariness came upon her. Pushing back her hair, she surveyed the scene. The front door was open. So was the garage — and both cars were gone. No one, not even James or Kim, would have left the house wide open like this. It was one thing for them to be gone, but quite another for it to be so recognizable. They wanted her to know: We’re not here.
    But where had they gone? And why had they run off so fast?
    Grace was a few houses away, hanging back behind the trees, when she noticed the SUV parked at the curb with G 1 SP written on it. GLOBAL-1 SECURITY POLICE.
    The low flame of fear burning in Grace’s gut flared into full-blown panic.
    What were G-1 police doing in her house?
    They have my family, she thought, and at that moment she was ready to go to them, to turn herself in, in order to get them free.
    But then she thought, No . Because if the police had taken her family, they would have left the cars.
    Her family had gotten away. She had to believe it.
    A Global-1 officer stepped onto the front walk wearing the usual uniform: black helmet with a mirrored glass visor, black pants, and black shirt. The slightly padded bulletproof vest he wore bore the taser, laser guns, and ammunition of his profession. Turning his head slowly, he surveyed the neighborhood, his handheld laser rifle at the ready.
    “Hey! Grace!” Eric was walking down the driveway nearest her, moving at a fast clip. His voice was low, insistent.
    “Eric!” Grace gasped, surprised to see him.
    He came close, wrapping his fingers around her arm, drawing her nearer to him.
    “There she is!” the officer across the street called to someone. Three more police officers ran out of the house and began running toward Eric and Grace.
    Still grasping Grace’s arm, Eric took off, propelling her forward.
    A stream of electric red crackled past her cheek, scorching a shrub just in front of her. The three G-1 police cut a diagonal path across the street. A blaring truck horn hurt Grace’s ears as a large tractor trailer careened onto the road, blocking her view of the approaching police. The truck’s brakes screeched as it stopped and the back trailer doors opened.
    The young man standing in the tractor trailer looked just like Mfumbe Taylor from the holographic Decode video.
    “Go! Go!” Eric urged her to run to the truck. There was no time to think about it — she just had to do it. The young man in the truck reached down to help her up, pulling her in as she jumped up. Eric leaped in beside her.
    As they slammed the back doors shut again, another jagged red line buzzed the door handle.
    The truck lurched forward, throwing Grace back into its interior. In a moment they were speeding forward. Eric knelt beside her.
    “You okay?” he checked.
    “I think so. What’s happening?” Grace shut her eyes and tried to order the events of the past day and a half as best she could. But they resisted order, or logic. It was a