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who’d been through Sonia’s basement. Most wrote to their parents. They are missives of sorrow and disillusionment. Anger and the screaming question of “why?” Why did you? How could you? When did things go so wrong? Even the state wards, unloved but tolerated by the institution that raised them, found something to say to someone.
    He wonders if Sonia ever sent his letter, or if it’s still in there, buried among the other raging voices. He wonders what he would say to his parents now, and if it’s any different from what he wrote. His letter began with how much he hated them for what they did, but by the time he reached the end, he wasin tears, telling them that he loved them in spite of it. So much confusion. So much ambivalence. Just writing the letter helped him understand that—helped him to understand himself a bit more. Sonia had given him a gift that day, and the gift of the letter was in the writing, not in the sending. But still . . .
    â€œI’d ask you to move the trunk back into place for me—but you’ve gotta be on the other side of the trapdoor before I do.” Sonia raises her cane, pointing down the steep basement steps.
    â€œRight. I’m going—don’t use the cattle prod.”
    She doesn’t whack him with her cane, but on his way down, she does tap him gently on the head with it to get his attention.
    â€œBe good to her, Connor,” Sonia says, gently. “And don’t let Beau get to you. He just likes to be the big man.”
    â€œNo worries.”
    He descends, and she closes the trapdoor above him. The basement smells like teen spirit, as the old prewar song goes. For a brief moment he has a flashback without words or images—just a swell of feeling—back to the first time he was herded down those steps two years ago. The invincibility he was feeling when he woke up is now tempered by the cold concentrate of that memory.
    Risa’s at her little first aid station tending to a girl’s swollen, slightly bloody lip. “I bit my lip in my sleep—so?” the girl says, instantly on the defensive. “I have nightmares—so?”
    Once the girl is tended to, Connor sits down in the treatment chair. “Doctor, I have a problem with my tongue,” he says.
    â€œAnd what might that be?” asks Risa cautiously.
    â€œI can’t keep it out of my girlfriend’s ear.”
    She gives him the best Oh, please look he’s ever seen, and says, “I’ll call the Juvies to cut it out. I’m sure that’ll take care of the problem.”
    â€œAnd it’ll give some other poor soul a highly talented sensory organ.”
    She allows him the last laugh, studying him for a few moments.
    â€œTell me about Lev,” she finally says.
    He’s a bit deflated to have the playfulness so totally squashed out of their conversation.
    â€œWhat about him?” Connor asks.
    â€œYou said you were with him for a while. What’s he like now?”
    Connor shrugs, like it’s nothing. “He’s different.”
    â€œGood different, or bad different?
    â€œWell, the last time you saw him, he was planning on blowing himself up—so anything is an improvement.”
    Another kid comes to Risa with what looks like a splinter in his finger, sees the two of them talking, and goes away to take care of it himself.
    Connor knows he can’t get out of this conversation, so he tells Risa what he can. “Lev’s been through a lot since the harvest camp. You know that, right? Clappers tried to kill him. And that asshole Nelson captured him, but he got away.”
    â€œNelson?” Risa says caught completely by surprise. “The Juvey-cop you tranq’d?”
    â€œHe’s not a cop anymore. He’s a parts pirate, and he’s nuts. He’s got it out for me and Lev. Probably you, too, if he could find you.”
    â€œGreat,” says Risa,