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perform surgeries without anesthesia?”
    “That isn’t something we’ve explored yet,” Catrina told him.
    A girl with dark hair to her waist: “How old will our subjects be?”
    “They’ve all been out of high school for at least a year, so usually between nineteen and twenty-two. Never older than twenty-five.”
    The walls of the corridor curved gently, the floors absorbed the sound of their footsteps, and the light was buttery, shadowless. Everyone’s voice sounded slightly more pleasant, their movements more graceful, and Sadie was struck by the tranquility of the place. It reminded her of her home, but even more calm and orderly. It was, she felt, a place where nothing bad could happen.
    They passed departments of bioethics, sociology, anthropology, psychology, and chemical engineering, things she’d expect, but there were also unfamiliar specialties like neuronutrition, chronogeography, and bricolage.
    As far as Sadie could tell, almost no one involved with Syncopy or Mind Corps was even close to thirty. Which made more sense when the boy with the perfect part asked, “How do you get a job here?” and Catrina answered, “By being the best in your field or by being a former Fellow. Usually, of course, those are the same thing.”
    A few Fellows laughed, but Catrina’s tone made it clear she wasn’t joking.
    Sadie wondered if she ever laughed.
    They turned into another corridor, and Sadie was surprised to see an old-fashioned painting hanging on one wall. It was a portrait of a striking man dressed in nineteenth-century attire. Pausing, Sadie saw that a little metal plaque screwed into the frame identified the man as Judge Montgomery Prester Roque. It would have fit in perfectly upstairs, but down here it seemed strange, almost jarring.
    When she looked at it more closely, she saw there were four round holes in it, right over the figure’s heart.
    “They’re bullet holes,” Curtis Pinter’s voice said from just behind her. “Most people don’t notice.” He came and stood next to her. “It’s nice to see you again, Sadie.”
    “You too, Mr. Pinter.”
    “Call me Curtis,” he suggested. “I want you to feel relaxed around me.”
    There’s little chance of that, Sadie thought as her cheeks flushed. “Curtis, then.” He was looking at her as if he was genuinely interested in what she had to say, but she found her mind had gone completely blank. Finally, unable to think of anything smart to say, she stammered, “How did the bullet holes get there?”
    “It happened almost twenty years ago. After Miranda’s first major philanthropic project—”
    “The Perfect Garden,” Sadie broke in, trying to look like less of a moron.
    “I see someone overprepared for their interview.”
    Sadie’s cheeks flamed. “I—I just didn’t want to miss anything.” She found herself strangely aware of his proximity. Forcing her attention away from the spicy citrus scent of his cologne, she recalled details from the articles she’d read. “The Perfect Garden was a home for underprivileged orphans, wasn’t it? But there was some controversy around it.”
    “Gold star to Miss Ames.” Curtis nodded. “Miranda swore she could take children no one wanted and educate them in such a way that each of them would become a success. The curriculum was basically an intensive study of Shakespeare and weapons training. And it worked. They were creative, aggressive, and disciplined. Every student in the first class—the only class to graduate—had made at least a million dollars by the time they were twenty-four.”
    “That’s amazing,” Sadie said reverently.
    “Yes. Unfortunately, a few of them turned the same traits toward less-than-legal pursuits—and excelled at those as well. A state commission was convened and ruled that Miranda had perverted the natures of those in her care by pumping up their drive to succeed and giving them the skills to be excellent criminals.”
    Sadie frowned. “But they were the