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open, trying to stay calm but really wanting to run.
    “Of course.” Paul didn’t stop me. “Owen?”
    I turned to see him standing casually, hands in his pockets. “Just remember, I’ve seen it all. The more you share with me, the more I can help.”
    “Okay, um, thanks.” I hurried out.

Chapter 3
     
    OUTSIDE, IT WAS EARLY EVENING. THE TEMPERATURE was balmy, the breeze like a soft hand. The moisture in the air made my skin feel sticky. It was still a strange feeling, but a relief compared to being with Paul.
    The SafeSun lamps had been dimmed to orange, the SimClouds tinted purple. The wind had been turned down, and the insects were making a bunch of different sounds: drones and screeches and blips. Out at Hub, we only had the usual insects that could’ve cared less about the Great Rise, like ants and flies, and the cockroaches that had adapted to become hand-sized so they could compete with the snakes for the rodent supply.
    EdenWest was supposed to contain all the animals that used to live in this part of the country except for the mosquitoes and biting flies, which they’d thoughtfully not included. I was passing tall bushes of purple flowers by the dining hall, ones that Todd had called rhododendrons, and I saw yellow-and-black bugs buzzing around. Bees. Actual bees. That made sense. You’d hear stories of how they had things like real honey in the Edens, just like they had up north in the HZ.
    I stopped to watch them work, floating to a flower, then flicking their delicate leg structures and abdomens to gather pollen. It seemed so amazing that creatures like that, so small and complex, were the work of the same world that offered massive things like oceans, or a Three-Year Fire, or even this soaring dome.
    Something bounced on the air, closing in on the bush like it was being controlled by a puppeteer. I flinched, then saw that it was a butterfly, another creature that was only memory out at Hub, and in most of the world. Its wings were powder blue and jewel green with black curling patterns. It flittered around the bush, like it was looking for a free flower. I stuck my arm out near it and the butterfly wobbled, then landed right on the top of my wrist. I could barely feel its feet.
    I moved it closer to my face to get a better look, its wings flicking up and down slowly, its feet readjusting so that it almost seemed to be looking right at me. It had a long, straight abdomen trailing behind it, two delicate antennae, and shiny eyes. Except, I saw that there was actually only one eye. And it wasn’t even an eye. . . . It was a camera. Now I recognized a tiny humming sound, and clicks as the legs moved.
    A robot.
    Its tail was actually an antenna. I looked up at the lavender TruSky, and wondered if there was someone up there in the Eagle Eye who controlled this thing. It lifted off and fluttered away from me and the bush, not actually needing the flower nectar.
    I started down the hill to the playing fields. The itching on my neck was acting up again, getting hotter. Despite Dr. Maria’s warning, my fingers found the outside of the bandages and started rubbing softly. It helped a little.
    The boys’ cabins were on the south side of camp, in the woods between the playing fields and Mount Aasgard, which wasn’t really a mountain like out West, but it was a high hill with a naked set of rock ledges at the summit that reached out and almost touched the curving dome wall. The granite sparkled in the pink sunset light.
    I entered the pine trees, my sneakers scuffing along a wood-chip path. The forest was still except when I passed near an air blower. A steady chord of insect noises hummed in the background, but I wondered now if that was real or instead broadcast from hidden speakers.
    I reached the clusters of boys’ cabins. The girls’ cabins were on the other side of the fields, near the beach. Each cabin was named for an extinct creature, and I could hear the wild calls and thumps from mine, the