"I swear, if they don't let me out of this stupid glass building. I'll take my chances with the Underlings," Ryke says, standing at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows that serve as walls to our awful dormitory. He leans against the window, watching as families walk past us, gawking and pointing. Ryke sneers at them and runs a hand along his throat, sending the child away in screams of fear.

I groan and roll over on the bed, my leg aching. "Leave them alone, Ryke. It's not their fault the blasted Father won't let us out of here."

Hayl shifts in the bunk above me, making the wood creak. "They don't want us to interfere with the antidote. Greer let me help with the first few as a show of goodwill even though I came up with the entire thing."

It's been three days since they let us out of here, and everything we've learned has been through Audra and Luk. Once a day, Audra takes Luk to see Ila and updates us on the progress of the cure. So far, it's been completely successful on all of the children except for Ila. Ila remembers Luk, but she's still extremely confused and shows no signs of recovery. Luk doesn't complain though. When he does talk to us, which is rare, he just seems defeated, but not as broken as before when there wasn't much hope. At least Ila recognizes him now.

"At least the food's good," Tali says, and I see her on the bunk across from me, swinging her legs from the top bunk and munching on a fresh pear from the orchard. "Definitely better than the Underworld. What do they eat, mud?"

I glance at Elz, who sits next to Orrick on another bunk, leaning against his shoulder. She doesn't even look up and I don't bother to correct Tali. I'd rather not think about the Underlings right now.

"Audra said she was coming sometime today to let us out though, right?" Orrick says, glancing at Luk. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm with Ryke. I vote we break out of here."

I follow Orrick's gaze to Luk, ignoring the rest of the same monotonous conversations we've had for the last three days. Luk doesn't look up but stares at the floor, leaning on his knees. He's barely said two words to any of us, and nothing to me. I don't know whether I want to punch him or kiss him.

He lied to me. He told me he left Domus behind, but up until the moment they captured me, he was feeding his evil father information. He was playing me, using me as a pawn in his game. He was never really on my side, not like he is with Ila, letting nothing come between them. But then he did stop working with Paul when his father forced him to choose between working with the Underlings and going back to Domus. Maybe he even made that choice for me. It's not like we can talk about it--we've been stuck in this room with everyone else, and Luk hardly looks at me.

The door to our small dormitory opens and Audra walks in. I still can't get used to her overly perky smile and huge teeth. "Good morning!" she chirps. She turns to Luk, who is unfortunate enough to be in the bunk closest to the door, and kisses him on both cheeks before he can stop her. Thankfully, she doesn't extend the greeting to the rest of us. "I'm sure you're anxious to leave the dormitory."

"Yes!" Ryke groans, turning towards her from the window. "Get us out of this strafing prison."

"Well, today's your lucky day! I've been authorized by our venerable Father to give you a tour of Domus now that the antidote has been successfully given."

Finally. We all murmur sighs of relief, and I even try to stand up but crash immediately back onto the bunk without the use of my crutches. Thanks to very little movement over the past few days, I haven't gained any more strength. Orrick comes to help me, grabbing my crutches and helping me stand. I don't even look at Luk. A few days ago, he would have leapt to help me but now we barely make eye contact.

"Ready to go?" Audra asks as we put on our hideous orange clothes and matching white sneakers.

We file out of the dormitory, basically just a few sets of bunkbeds with a small restroom, and into the warm Domus air. The sunlight feels warm filtered through the dome even though I can see hints of snow a few hundred feet away at the edge of the city.

"First of all, let me tell you about the dome!" Audra says, clasping her hands in front of her. "The dome is created out of incredibly durable glass coated in transparent solar panels and heat conductors that both keep Domus warm and provide our main source of energy. If you look up at the triangular panes of glass, the slightly darker ones have heat conductors while the completely clear ones have built in solar panels."

I squint and stare at the dome, noting the mismatching color of the panes of glass. While the Civilization was powered by solar panels and excavated coal, we didn't have this sort of energy-saving technology. Orrick and Hayl, the two scientists, look on with barely repressed awe.

"How did the dome survive the attack?" Hayl asks, craning her neck back to study it.

Audra's face clouds despite her smile. "There was some damage to the dome, but our scientists were able to quickly recreate it."
"Were a lot of people injured?" I ask, thinking back to the hospital. I didn't see many people, but no doubt they would have kept me separated from the injured since I'm an Outsider.

"We did lose a number of people to the attack," Audra confesses. "But luckily they only reached one of the children's domes before they had to turn back, so casualties were not as bad as expected."

The attack failed. If I had more time to think about it, I would review the attack plan in my head and figure out where it went wrong.

Audra keeps walking before we can ask any more questions, gesturing in a large circle with her arms. "Domus has many different sectors. You've already experienced the medical sector and the government sector," she says, gesturing towards the Head, hidden behind its complex layers of domes, and then to the white medical building, also within another dome. "But there's much more to Domus than both of those."

We walk a few more feet and stop beside a dome filled with fruit trees and gardens. A few women in long colorful dresses bend over the rows, picking beans and pulling weeds. Some of them carry bags in bands around their foreheads as they harvest the fruits and vegetables. I recognize some of the plants--carrots and eggplants--but others are foreign to me. With the warmer climate in Domus, they can grow everything from the Old World. I wonder what the Curator could have told me about all these plants.

"This is one of the agricultural domes," Audra explains. "They are specially insulated and regulated by temperature to ensure the highest quality of produce!"

"What about hunting? Does anyone leave this place?" Tali asks, hungrily glancing outside of the dome.

Audra shifts from one foot to the other. "Yes, we hunt for protein," she says. "We also have agricultural domes dedicated to raising livestock for milk, eggs, and meat."

"Milk?" I ask, the word unfamiliar on my tongue. "What's that?"

Audra exchanges a glance with Luk and furrows her brow. "Well, it's hard to explain. It's a--a liquid produced by animals that we drink and cook with."

I scowl. That sounds disgusting. Animals are for meat, and that's it. We never could have raised any in the Civilization, at least not anything besides the giant rats in the Underworld.

"Shall we continue?" she asks, hurrying down the sidewalk. "We also have our children's domes," she says. "Now that all of the children have been cured, these domes are filled with houses where children and their parents live together. The parents leave the dome to go to their various duties, and the dome is used to protect the children and educate them while the parents work."

We all stop outside one of the domes and look inside. Parallel rectangular buildings line several streets in perfect, faultless rows. Each of the buildings is painted white and is lined by doors. I see one of the doors open, and a mother, father, and child emerge. The little girl has dark pigtails and she swings between her parents' arms. If it weren't for the dome, I could hear her laugh.

I think about Luk and Ila. Is this the life they had with Addi before the plague? Did they live in this perfect world, swinging their little girl between them? Did they pass their days inside a dome like a perfect little family? My stomach twists, not in jealousy but in emptiness. I don't have days like those to look back on; I have bitterness, betrayal, naivety, and pain. I can't look back at a single time in my life and remember only happiness. Okay, maybe I can. Maybe in that brief moment when Luk and I were by ourselves in the middle of the tundra and he kissed me for the first time. Maybe then everything faded away and I forgot about all of the heartbreak. But the present tinges that memory with heartbreak because I know the chances of Luk and I ever kissing again, much less making things right, are incredibly low.

I can't help but risk a glance at Luk as Audra continues to drone on. His eyes follow the couple with the little girl, and I wonder if he's mourning Addi's death and Ila's damage. Either way, he doesn't look at me. He seems like he's in a dome of his own, impenetrable to the rest of us, especially me.

"Continuing on!" Audra prattles, and I limp after her, my crutches under my arms.

"You've seen our medical dome," Audra says, gesturing to the building where Ila is still trying to recover. "Mother Greer is constantly leading our physicians to new medical discoveries so we grow healthier."

Domus's obsession with health makes sense, given the plague that decimated them, but I'm not convinced Mother Greer or anyone else can protect them from the biggest risk to their well-being, their own human nature. I've faced mine in the face and seen what I'm capable of, so I know how powerful it can be.

"On your right, you'll see our weapons dome. While we consider ourselves a peaceful community..." Ryke interrupts her words with a snort. I can't forget the bombs Domus dropped on the Civilization, killing hundreds. Audra glares at Ryke and continues, "But we are more than capable of defending ourselves when needed."

I look towards the weapons dome, but the glass plates are charged with something that makes them opaque and my curiosity remains unsatisfied. I know Domus has bombs since they used them on the Civilization, but what other secret weapons do they hide? Audra doesn't linger outside this dome but leads us past it quickly to another dome, nearly touching the weapons dome. Inside of this one I see a large building, the walls made of black windows.
"This is our technology dome," Audra says, "where we work on technological advancements that improve our society and surveil the outside."

An image of the surveillance room comes into my mind--Domus and the Civilization may be vastly different in ideals, but some things will never change. The Father wants control, and he gets it by watching everything his people say or do. And sometimes even watching the Civilization with the help of his son.

"We're going in here," Luk says suddenly, surprising all of us. He doesn't ask Audra for position but strides past her, approaching the guard in all gray. "Luk Adrian," he says to the man. "Permission to enter."

The guard blanches at Luk's name and glances to Audra, who looks disconcerted. She obviously doesn't want to refuse Luk, but none of them really knows if he has permission to go where he wants.

"Well?" Luk says, hand on his hip.

The guard nods his head. "Uh, yes, of course. And your...friends?"
He glances at us with obvious distaste. He may have to respect Luk, but we're nothing here. Luk raises one eyebrow and keeps his eyes on the guard. "They're with me. Any problems, soldier?"

"No," the man says, glaring at us openly this time. "We'll have to search you though."

He calls for a few more guards, and they search us from head to toe. One of them takes a little too long searching Tali's curves, and I'm pretty sure she's memorizing his face so she can murder him later. The guard assigned to me barely runs a hand over the looser parts of my outfit, assuming an emaciated cripple like me can't be hiding much. I almost wish I had a weapon on me to prove how wrong he is.

Finally, the guards let us through and Luk leads us in. By his assured steps and confidence, I can tell he's spent lots of time in here. The door leads us into a narrow corridor and Tali's whispers echo down it. The corridor leads to a huge open room with a high ceiling and tons of computers and pads everywhere. On each side of the room is a staircase that leads to several floors that open into the main room. Domus's Technologists, all clothed in blue, bustle around with devices attached to their ears. Luk scans the room with no sign of the awe we all feel. Orrick's eyes are wide and his jaw has literally dropped. This puts the Civilization's technology to shame.

I look up at the gigantic screen that spans one entire wall of the huge building from floor to ceiling and recognize the footage immediately. It's a surveillance feed, showing several different locations on cycle, and I limp forward studying it carefully. It shows blackened wreckage, smoking ruins, and even a single leg bone with a burned shoe on the end of it emerging from the wreck.

"Blitz," I whisper under my breath.

It's the Civilization.