Description: One A stabbing pain jolts me awake. I open my eyes to darkness. Total darkness. My head feels thick, my thoughts clogged. The pain is where my neck meets my shoulder, but it''s already fading. I remember a sting just like it, but much worse. That day . . . was it my birthday? Yes, I think so. My twelfth birthday. A chill floods me--this has happened before. I am in a coffin. A monster is coming for me, a rot-black thing with one ravaged eye. Matilda. No . . . that''s not quite right. It''s different this time. I can move my hands . . . last time they were held down. My fingers rise up through the darkness. I feel a lid, so close it''s almost touching my face and chest. I need to escape before the monster destroys me. I need a weapon. The spear . . . where is my spear? I punch at the lid, I scream and I hammer at it with fists and knees. A noise, a whir of machinery; I feel the coffin lid start to slide down toward my feet. Light hits me, burning my eyes even through tightly scrunched lids--I can''t see. I lash out wildly, blindly, punching and clawing. Hands grab my wrists. "Em, it''s okay!" A girl''s voice. I recognize it: Spingate. "Calm down," she says. "Everything is fine." Her hand takes mine. Our fingers clasp tightly. Her skin is warm and soft, her grip strong and confident. "We''ve landed," she says. "You''re safe." Safe. That word is an illusion. And yet, I feel my body relax a little. I recall something big and silver, something that gave me hope, but the image evades me. "Landed? What are you talking about?" Her other hand strokes my hair. It comforts me, takes away some of my fear. "You''re still groggy from the gas in your coffin," she says. "The effects should wear off pretty fast." Even as she says this, I feel my head clearing. The fog drifts away. Memories rush back. Horrible memories. Waking up in a coffin. The needle driving into my neck. Fighting my way out. Not knowing who or where I was, my entire past gone save for a few wisps of someone else''s life. Saving Spingate. Then O''Malley. Then Bello, Aramovsky and Yong. The hideous, cracked skull of a little boy, skin dried tight to his bones, clothes too big for his small body. The skeletons. The dust. The endless dungeon hallways. Our long walk. My knife sliding into Yong''s belly. Finding Bishop, Gaston, Latu and the rest. The vote, where I became leader--two tribes merging into one. The pigs. Latu''s death. The Garden. That''s where I last felt safe, when I still believed that childish concept existed. Bello''s terror-wide eyes when the monster''s wrinkled black hands dragged her into the Garden''s underbrush. Those monsters--the Grownups--with their red eyes and spindly limbs, their gnarled skin, fleshy folds hanging where their mouths should have been. Bello. The shame of that moment hammers me. I left her. For the greater good, my head tells me, but my heart calls me a coward. Meeting Brewer. Discovering that we weren''t underground, that we were on an ancient spaceship called the Xolotl. The Grownups were creatures that should have died centuries ago. They wanted to wipe our minds clean and take over our young bodies as easily as someone might change their clothes. Learning about Omeyocan, the planet we were made for. Then, my decision to attack. Harris, dying somewhere in the Garden. Capturing Matilda. Finding the big silver shuttle. And when we were almost away, El-Saffani--the boy and girl twins who finished each other''s sentences--charged an army of withered, walking corpses and were blown to pieces. We escaped the Xolotl, but at such a price. "Let''s stand you up," Spingate says. She helps me rise and step out. My legs immediately buckle--Spingate holds me, keeps me from falling. I think of an almost identical moment when I was the one comforting her, telling her to be calm, helping her out of a coffin. My eyes don''t sting as much. I blink them open, and see the face of my friend. Spingate''s curly red hair is a tangled mess. Her green eyes are sunken, ringed by skin so dark it looks bruised. I''ve never seen her this pale; the black, circular gear symbol on her forehead stands out in stark contrast. "I think I can stand on my own now." Spingate kisses me on the cheek, lets me go. We''re in a long, narrow room. Red walls and ceiling, gleaming black floor. Two rows of thin white coffins lined up side by side run the length of the room. Wide aisles run along each wall, as well as one down the middle that leads through a curved opening. Just past that opening and to the right is the door we used to enter the shuttle. Past that door, the strange room of light where Gaston and Spingate glowed like angels. These coffins are simple and plain. Designed just to let people sleep, I think. They aren''t like the big, carved coffins that tended to us while we grew from babies into the bodies we have now. My coffin is open--the lid rolled down somewhere into the foot of the thing. The other coffins remain sealed tight. The one to the right of mine holds O''Malley; the one to the left, Bishop. I held their hands until the lids closed. A boy walks through the curved opening, shuffles down the middle aisle toward us. It''s Gaston--he''s holding my spear. He''s still wearing his red tie, which is embroidered with a yellow and black circle of tiny images, the word mictlan in white letters at its center. His white shirt is mostly clean, mostly untorn. I glance at my own too-small shirt, ripped in a dozen places and splattered with blood. My shredded plaid skirt barely covers me. Gaston offers me the spear. I take it, then he clutches me in a hard hug. "Em! We did it!" I return the hug. It feels so good to hold him. "You did it," I say. "You flew us to Omeyocan." He steps back. His smile--part charm, part arrogance--is as wide as ever: Gaston is impressed with himself. Despite his joy, it''s clear he also has had no rest. His black hair hangs down his face, partially hiding his eyes. "It was amazing," he says. "Once the pilothouse lights hit me, I remembered my creator''s training from when I--I mean he--was little. Some of my blanked-out areas seemed to clear." I don''t know how that''s possible. I have "blanked-out areas," too. We all do. When our brains search for memories we know should be there, they usually return only whispers and echoes. We were never meant to know anything for ourselves. We are receptacles, shells, created to house another person. If he can "remember" how to fly, maybe our blank areas aren''t permanently blank, like Matilda told me they were. Gaston and Spingate look exhausted. I''m sore and scratched, bruised and beaten, but I don''t feel tired at all. "How long did I sleep?" "Only the two hours it took us to land," Spingate says. "The shuttle told us the coffin gas does something to our brains, lets you sleep far deeper than you could on your own. We can take it in the pilothouse, too. You''d still be sleeping if I hadn''t told the shuttle to give you the wake-up injection." That sting in my neck. Not a knife, not a snake, not a bite . . . just a needle. I think about Brewer, how he tried to use a coffin needle to murder me, then I push that thought away. We don''t need to worry about him anymore--we''re home. "What''s it like outside?" Gaston''s little hand reaches over to Spingate''s. Their fingers lock. "We don''t know," he says. "It was dark when we landed. The shuttle had a preprogrammed landing path that took us down a big, circular hole of some kind. Maybe to protect us from wind, I''m not sure. It was nighttime when we flew in, and there was heavy cloud cover." He says cloud cover like he''s proud of the words, like it was an obstacle that not just anyone could overcome. "So you haven''t been outside at all?" Spingate shakes her head. "You deserve to be the first." They waited for me, out of respect. I don''t know what to say. "I''ll go with you," she says. "The shuttle says the air is safe for us." For us, but not for the Grownups who made us. We were designed to be able to survive down here. And in that lies our safety; even if the Grownups could reach Omeyocan--which they can''t, because this was the last shuttle--this planet''s very air would kill them. Spingate holds up her left arm. Her forearm is wrapped in a sheet of gold, intricately carved and studded with black jewels. It reminds me of the bracelets the Grownups used to kill El-Saffani, but somehow I know it''s not a weapon. "Gaston found this in storage," she says. "It''s called a bracer. I can use it to scan for things that could hurt us, things like microorganisms or toxins." She speaks those words the same way Gaston said cloud cover--new, important words that she is proud of knowing. There''s no reason to wait any longer. We have nowhere else to go. The Birthday Children will survive on Omeyocan, or the Birthday Children will die here. My stomach lets out a loud growl. An instant later, I wince at the pain--I''m so hungry it hurts. "We have food," Gas

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