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as if she’s been waiting her whole life for this. Mom kneels beside my head, still wearing the checkered apron from breakfast.
    â€œWhat is it with you and eyes, Peznowski?” I shout.
    â€œWait,” Dad says. He’s almost too late. Mom has already positioned the tips of both blades a half inch from the corners of my left eye. A horrific stainless steel V in my vision.
    In my right eye, Dad’s hybrid face appears. He’s flush and excited, eyes like pale lanterns behind his glasses.
    No kill switch, no kill switch, no kill switch.
    Dad looks apelike, cheeks swollen, eyes sharp. “Do you know me?”
    â€œI’m Harris Alexander Pope.”
    My parents let out an astonished gasp in the same instant. Their heads rotate to regard each other, slack-jawed and gratified.
    â€œHarris?!” Dad sits back, laughing heartily. He stands up and does a fist-pump in the air. “Oh! The universe loves me!”
    Mom leaps upon me, knocking the wind from my lungs. Her laughter is shrill and hideous as she gouges both my eyes out.
    H arris? Look at me.”
    Dad’s voice, followed by wicked female laughter.
    I turn my head in the direction of the voice, trying not to think of my mutilated face. My throat is ragged from screaming.
    â€œYou know,” Dad intones in my ear, “I would never have known you were the traitor. I died up there…no memory of what happened. We always planned on regrouping in New Haven if things went wrong and at first, I wondered why you didn’t regen with us. I spent hours combing through the files for your save. Then I saw all the magazines and news clips. Harris Pope, war hero, went undercover with the Partisans and popped our headquarters like a bad blister. Who sent you here?”
    â€œThe ghost of Christmas Past.”
    There’s a terrible silence. The pain in my eyesockets fans into my skull. Fear is an incredible emotion. We are nothing more than ragged pulses of fear, tossed out of wombs and onto a great frying pan. Even with technological miracles delivered through syringe or ingestible, we are still the primeval beast howling for all time.
    â€œWhat was the plan?” Peznowski asks. Can’t tell if it’s Mom or Dad. Husky voice, almost a whisper. “You kill us, and then…what?”
    â€œThey didn’t tell me. Honest.”
    â€œThey?”
    â€œChristmas Past, Present, and—”
    It must be his fist that smashes through my teeth. The attack stuns me into mute stupidity, the broken teeth in my mouth like peanut shells. I spit them out in a gob of bloody saliva.
    â€œI’m going to torture you forever, you know.” Mom’s voice in my ear. “But not like this. Matthew and I have been talking about how Peter grew up too fast. We want a little baby again. How would you like your consciousness downloaded into a helpless creature, engineered to never grow up. Your mind trapped in that prison for all time, slowly turning to mush, while we feed you, and wrap you up and change your diapers …year, after year, after year? Forever?”
    A new scream starts in my throat, shredding my resolve.
    I stutter through broken teeth and blood. “Earth will eventually step in.”
    â€œNo, they won’t,” Dad says. “We made a mistake in our earlier dealings with Earth. Strict isolationism doesn’t work. The birth world needs to be brought to heel. With their environmental problems, economic problems, political problems…all it will take is one big disaster to reduce them.”
    â€œEarth will show up sooner or later and erase every last Partisan file!” I hear desperation in my own voice.
    â€œA dozen captured asteroids too small for detection,” Dad says. “Hurtling toward Mother Blue. You think Mars was hit hard? Earth will be thrown back to the Stone Age, and we’ll make sure they stay there.”
    The terrible majesty of what he is saying is underscored