Harbor City's District 7 community center was a small echo of the nation's broken heart. Metal folding chairs, their legs twisted unevenly across the buckled linoleum floor, stood in coarse rows.
A thick haze of mildew, bargain-basement deodorizer, and simmering wrath of a long-abandoned community clung to the air.
Seated in the front on the raised dais were the purse-string holders and, in effect, the men of life-and-death power.
Reuben Stone waited his turn, feeling profoundly ill at ease in his ten-year-old, too-tight suit. He clutched a bare data tablet, his knuckles strained white as the screen glowed in his hand. Beside him, to his right, was Anna Brooks, a rock-solid, reassuring figure. Her posture was ramrod straight, a nurse's uniform traded for a simple blouse, but her eyes we
