Each breath came with a sinking feeling but Maddie hardly cared now. What would it all matter? There was no point. Everything was gone—everyone was gone. So when that pit in her stomach returned, she resolved to let it consume her.

It was what she'd earned.

Something wet brushed Maddie's cheek and she cringed. A swat of her hand did little to remedy the nuisance.

"You shouldn't be rude to Sam. He's trying to cheer you up, Lala."

Gut twisting, Maddie sat up. The outline at a doorway made her sick all over again. It meant one thing.

"I'm dead. Or I'm dying and this is all an illusion. I'm dead."

"You're not dying." The limp was pronounced but the scars were something else. One mechanical eye greeted her as well.

"Daniel...."

A part of Sam's ear was missing, but otherwise he was in good health.

"You're alive," Maddie whispered, confused.

"No, Lala. But you are. So wake up."

Maddie opened her eyes but life shuffled past in a blur.

"She needs stitches. We'll have to use more conventional means. Bring the compound."

The voice was unfamiliar, though Maddie was sure she'd heard it before.

"Don't worry, darling. You'll pull through. You're here with us; you're safe now." A hand stroked her brow. "Shhh. Don't try to move."

Maddie wasn't trying to move. She was trying to see, to focus.

The memories came back in a rush and she reached down to grab her stomach. What she found left her defeated. There were no more tears left to cry now, so she resolved to stay still while the people around her rushed to do whatever it was they were doing.

More than once, Maddie blacked out, but that didn't matter. The moment she could focus on her rescuers, one face stood out.

"You're awake," her mother said, sitting on a chair close by. "Was starting to worry."

Shivering, Maddie struggled to figure out who the woman was talking to. In all these years, Maddie never received so much as a glance.

"You're safe," she said. "Your recovery was a little rough but you're doing better now."

"My child?" Maddie whispered.

That answer came slower. "Safely volunteered. Laura's a woman of her word."

Maddie closed her eyes. She was unsure how to feel. There was no safety—not even here.

"Laura'll raise her as her own, I'm sure."

"A girl." Maddie nodded, genuinely thankful for that information. "They wouldn't let me hold her. They wouldn't let me hold her," she repeated.

When she crouched up, a hand put on her shoulder made her shove the woman back.

"Don't touch me. Where were you all this time?" The pain in Maddie's body stopped her from doing more than verbally protesting. "You don't have a helmet—don't wear a helmet other than the emergency ones. You knew."

The woman sat back with a sigh. "And what good would telling you have done? It didn't benefit Ray or Laura. Sometimes I think it drove them crazier."

Maddie crouched up again. "Ray...."

Ray was dead. That was why Maddie gave up. There was no fighting Laura after that.

"I kept the secret," Maddie said. "I didn't tell them anything."

"It'd hardly matter if you did," her mother said. "The harvests of the Old City would keep regardless."

Maddie had nothing more to say.

On the ground lay a bag. The sight of the plant didn't interest her as much as the badge—the harvesting tag, and the picture there. Hands shaky, Maddie reached out for it.

"Daniel...." Harvesting tags never left the body until it was no longer necessary.

Maddie took him in. He didn't have that funny wrapping on his head anymore. His hair was cropped short, a thick scar running from the front to the back of his skull. He looked healthy otherwise. In her dream he was missing an eye, but here...at the time of the picture...he still had both.

A part of her died at the sight of this tag, but equally, she couldn't bear the thought of throwing it away.

"Ray brought it a while back." Her mother met her gaze. "You can think whatever you want to think of her—and there are so many bad things to think. Half the cuts she made herself and I can't say with certainty she hated every minute of it."

Ray. Ray was no hero. She was twisted in her own way. Maddie didn't know what this picture was supposed to do. Was it a keepsake or a trophy?

Maddie wrestled with something to cling to. "Ray said once it's not a personality contest, only the results." She met her mother's gaze. "I disagree. And I'm just as bad for always turning a blind eye to it. I thank her for what she did for me, but what she did to others.... Well, her soul will have to rest with that."

The only thing left in the bag was a mirror.

"Rest up, dear. You've gotten the best medicine. Ray left the plant with the rest."

Maddie noticed the deep scar on her own right thigh.

Her mother assured her, "We took out the tracker. That doctor was trying to see where you'd go. It needs a pulse to work." The woman hiked up her dress to show a fresh, new cut of her own. "So now I get to have two."

Her mother was caring for her, and now this.... Never had she imagined such a thing.

It took a year for Maddie to recover. She kept the picture tag. Each time she looked at it, she noticed small details despite Daniel's seemingly unmoving face. The extent of Daniel's injuries wracked her with guilt. The only purpose they served was as a stark warning to any tribe or clan who questioned Maddie's claims of what he'd endured. Month after month, year after year, she went into the Old City. She was unwelcomed at most clutches, but her mother's old helmet's translator meant she'd keep right on going until they listened.

So the people in the Old City went deeper which was also dangerous because of the animals within. It wouldn't work for long; Volunteers would go deeper, as well.

Maddie often stared at the outline of the Outer Limits. She couldn't make much of it out from this distance other than the dome. Today when she stared, her mother stood with her.

"She'll come to see you, you know."

A part of Maddie hoped that wasn't true. "Maybe." She met the woman's gaze and said, "But I'd talk to her."

"Would you?"

Maddie scoffed, "You assume Laura told her about me."

"That's unavoidable. Your daughter's the new 555. Those records are never erased. She knows about you. Sentinel 666 claimed her. That'll help her grow strong. But eventually, that, too, you'll have to contend with. So tell me again that you'll talk to her."

It'd be hard but Maddie made up her mind. "I would talk to her, if she came."

The woman walked away. "Would you really? That harvesting tag, you keep. Yet you hide away your daughter's picture Laura sent. I know why you do, and maybe you should think about why you do, too."

Maddie felt at her neck for the string looped there and the tag attached to it. She didn't look at it anymore—she used it for her travels. But the baby's picture on the back of Daniel's harvesting tag was something else. She looked like Daniel. That should have thrilled Maddie but instead it hurt the most.

Daniel's memory deserved truth. It would be too easy to pretend he never existed. It would hurt less, but when faced with both contrasts, his pain and then his offspring, she was torn.

She'd steel herself for it, though. She promised to do better for her daughter than her mother did for her.

Her mother disappeared into the sanctuary, so Maddie returned her focus to the Outer Limits and came to a conclusion—she knew how to disarm a Volunteer. She'd go back into the Old City, even the tribes who banished her. She'd go back yet again and teach what she could.

Her thoughts fell to Gus more often than they fell to Ray. Each time the memory skewed. Like-minded people flocked together. Whatever she saw in Ray was engrained in her. It took Gus to pull her from that. Gus nearly pulled Ray from it, too. But Gus wasn't strong enough to launch a revolution, Maddie even less prepared.

So twenty years later, a radio in hand, Maddie found herself on that hillside staring out at the Outer Limits. and the bellowing fires lighting up the sky with each explosion of those archaic air filter generators.

The radio thundered to life. "Be on the lookout for a horde of Vagrants and ex-Volunteers. Contain at all cost. But their leader, Devlin Priest, Sentinel 555 is to be captured alive. She's not to leave the Outer Limits. Repeat...."

Maddie waited. Sentinel 555 was coming—her daughter was coming and Maddie took comfort in one thing—truth was patient, but inevitable. And this time she was ready.

End

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