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all of our problems. There would only be so much energy, so much food, so much space. There would still be hard labor, and hardship, and sickness. But the earth of Yunhe could check the entropy, afford us new ways and means.
    The earth of Yunhe could hold us back from the edge.
    Finally, we asked people to join us, to save us, to assemble outside of the Patient Whale . That plea was the hardest thing to write, and the most crucial, and we agonized over the wording. It didn't matter how many people we intrigued with our soil-seed; if no one showed up, our plan was worthless. We tried to acknowledge the dangers of assembly without making the act seem revolutionary, and asked those unwilling or unable to show their faces to leave anonymous comments of support on our post.
    Comments, of course, were unlikely to save us.
    Xiao used the wi-mo I'd received from Little Wuxie to record a video of me reading the declaration. I had enough credibility throughout the city that my image could lend weight to the message; besides, vids always got more attention than text. When we were finished, Xiaohao and I shared a wary, weary glance. My hands were clammy, and part of me wanted to collapse on the cell floor. The other part was so hyperactive that I doubted I'd sleep for days, no matter how our little sedition ended.
    Xiao nodded, and I uploaded both the transcript and the video, tagged so that they would appear on every feed in the city of broken places.
    And then we waited.
    We sat in silence, refreshing our feeds. We'd turned off our knives, and the bulb in the corridor had given out, so the cell was lit only by the moon-white light of the Wuxie wi-mo. We watched the video's viewership slowly, slowly rise. Every minute that passed without a comment felt like a punch to the gut. The cell was sweltering, but I felt cold.
    This was it. The endgame. Either our plan worked, or I went down with Xiaohao. Would Papa really execute both of his children? Could he really keep so cool, so consistent? I worried the question until it was raw, tried to imagine what answer Papa would give if I asked him point blank.
    Finally, Xiao broke the silence. "What would Mother think?" he murmured.
    When was the last time I'd thought about our mother? Papa never talked about her, and Xiao had been gone for so long. "I don't know," I said. "Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I think I remember her. And then I realize that I'm thinking of some old vid or picture."
    He smiled sadly. "Yeah. I know. Wasn't really a question." He bit his lip and turned his attention back to the wi-mo. "She'd be just as pissed off as Father. Maybe moreso. They were two of a kind." He was only a few years older than me, but he claimed to remember so much more. Sometimes I suspected that Xiao had invented our mother. Sometimes I resented his stories.
    "Grandfather," I said. "I think he'd be proud."
    "Yeah? Seriously?"
    I rested my hand on Xiao's. His skin was clammy. "He'd be proud and he'd be pleased. He always cared more about his land and his family than--you know. Whatever the rules are this week. You're bringing back the land, and you're doing it for the family. He'd be proud."
    Xiao fixed his gaze pointedly on the wi-mo. For a fleeting moment, I thought I saw a warbling of moisture in his eye. "Thank you," he said. And then: "Oh shit."
    "Oh shit?"
    He showed me. Comments were pouring in now, ten at a time. Some were cynical, others supportive. Only a few were outright angry. Several of the supportive comments linked to another video, which showed indistinct figures gathering on a dock not far from the Whale .
    Some of the figures were security officers.
    "It's starting," said Xiao.
    The new video was a not-so-subtle message: we want a new Yunhe, we have muscle, and you can find us at this location. The sight of the security officers was both heartening and sick-making. We had muscle, yes, but now guns were in play. In all my fervor, I hadn't quite realized that things might get very