The federal safehouse was a modest two-story house on a quiet street in a suburb of Portmorris, indistinguishable from its neighbors except for the unmarked vans parked at the curb and the agents who rotated through the living room at all hours. It had been two weeks since the Proscenium went down, two weeks since the network had gone silent, and the world was still catching up to what had happened.
Caleb sat on the back porch, his injured side propped against a cushion, watching the autumn leaves drift across the small yard. The doctors had told him to rest, to let the wound heal, to give his body time to recover from the accumulated damage of two years of running and fighting and nearly dying. He was trying. It was harder than it looked.
The screen door creaked, and Troy stepped out on
