We walked swiftly onto the road just as the agent turned back to look in our direction.

My breath caught as I made brief eye contact with him. He was only about a hundred feet away from us. It was the first time in a long time that I was voluntarily so close to a government agent, and I tried to steady my breathing as I diverted my gaze. I was Nora White, the Dry River factory worker, not Robin Sylvone the terrorist. I had to keep that in mind.

I could see the agent looking us over in my peripheral vision, but then he lost interest and looked ahead again. I exhaled. We had made it into the Dry River crowd without too much trouble. But now we needed to get past Helping Hands volunteers and into those trucks. And it was obvious that they were relying heavily on a registry that we had no real proof we were even on.

But since our identities had been successfully reassigned, judging by Nathan’s ID scanner, it seemed like we could trust Aurora’s ability to change things in the government systems. I felt like our chances of getting onto those trucks were good. As long as we didn’t screw it up some other way.

Kory and I tried to blend in as we walked toward the heavy crowd of people in the middle of the plaza. Townspeople were already gathering tightly around the Helping Hands woman as they prepared to get onto the trucks. The backs of the trucks were open, a flimsy ramp leading into the cargo hold, and there was a red-shirted volunteer beside every truck ramp.

They were going to load us all into the backs of the trucks like cattle, I realized. All the pieces were there. All they were missing was the electronic cattle prods.

There was a sudden crackling as the woman switched her speakerphone back on and brought it up to her lips.

“Hot food and dry shelter await. We want everyone well fed and cared for before factory work commences after refurbishing. Please begin lining up. Please remain in your family units.”

The crowd lurched together like a wave of water, the townspeople all clamoring to form a line at the first truck. Kory and I were briefly swept up before we could regain our footing and begin to push past people to get to the front of the line. It felt cruel and exploitative to elbow past these hungry, tired, poor townspeople to that first truck. They needed the food and shelter that was promised to them a lot more than we did. But these masks wouldn’t last past five hours, and the diversion would come even sooner.

We just didn’t have the time to wait.

Kory and I quickly found ourselves ahead of the majority of the crowd, and I began to notice more and more agents as we pressed farther into the plaza. All of them were dressed in the same crisp blue uniform, and all of them were armed. They were watching the crowd closely, some of them with their hands resting on the butt of their weapons.

Then, as the crowd pressed toward the first truck, I started to feel pressure from all sides. The line wasn’t forming properly. People were still crowding around and trying to push past one another. I grabbed hold of Kory to try to stay near him and hold our spots by the front, but I could already tell that was going to be more difficult than we’d thought.

The woman was yelling into her speakerphone now, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I was starting to feel like I was drowning in the crowd. As more and more people squeezed against us it was getting harder to breathe, and I began to panic. We were going to be crushed here.

But then a terrifyingly loud crack rang out. The squeezing stopped and the crowd grew silent. I whipped my head around in the direction of the noise and saw an agent standing to the side of us with his gun still pointed in the air. A wisp of smoke was rising off the barrel and into the damp air.

“Straight line!” he yelled. Then he started walking toward us. He stopped within ten feet of Kory and me. “Starting here!”

The crowd began to press again, but this time it moved quickly and efficiently until we had snaked out into one long line. Kory and I were fifty or sixty people behind the first person in the line. I hoped that meant we’d make it onto the first truck.

The gunshot had changed the general atmosphere around us. People were quieter now, as well as noticeably tenser. But the woman on the loudspeaker droned on as if everything was normal.

“Please prepare for scanning and loading.”

I looked over to Kory. They would be scanning our IDs before we boarded the trucks. I suddenly felt very nervous again. Would anything about the IDs tip the volunteers off? What if our masks weren’t close enough replicas? What if one of us forgot our name?

Kory was obviously thinking similarly,

“Don’t be nervous, Nora,” he said to me in a strangely flat voice.

“I’m not nervous, Silas,” I replied knowingly.

I let out a breath. We knew our names. We were going to be okay.

The line thinned until it was a more orderly single file, and then began to coil back into the plaza a long way. I looked back at the number of people. It didn’t look like we would all fit on the trucks, but I had a feeling that we were going to be crammed in until we did.

And then my attention was pulled back to the front of the line. We had started moving forward. It was a slow process, but I could see the first few people in line being scanned and then corralled into the first truck.

Kory and I inched along silently and nervously as the line moved forward. Agents strolled up and down both sides of the line to keep us orderly and compliant. But judging from the people around me, we wouldn’t have been able to put up much of a fight anyway. The townspeople were pallid and malnourished. A man behind us was coughing incessantly into a blackened handkerchief. Factory work made for hard living, and none of the people around us looked like they were physically or emotionally capable of going against the flow. I remembered those horrible conditions from back in Trenton. If I hadn’t had a place far away from the cold, concrete sadness of the town itself, I would’ve lost my mind.

We were within a few people of the truck now, and I started repeating my name over and over in my head as we got closer to the volunteer and the ID-scanning device. Nora White, I reminded myself. Nora White. We could do this. It would all be downhill from here. We just had to get on those trucks.

And then we were the next people in line. The male Helping Hands volunteer didn’t make eye contact as we walked up. He just raised his scanner and waited for me to raise my right hand.

“Name?” he asked gruffly.

The scanner traced over the fingerprints on my raised hand. I could feel that my palm was damp with sweat.

“Nora White,” I responded.

The volunteer looked at the small screen on his side of the scanner and then looked up at me for the first time. His beady eyes studied my face. And then he gestured me forward and toward the truck. I was in.

“Name?” I heard him ask Kory behind me. I was walking forward onto the truck, assuming Kory was right behind me, when I heard the volunteer raise his voice slightly.

“Name?” the man repeated.

I whipped around to see Kory standing dumbly, eyes wide, like a deer caught in headlights. He had blanked. It looked like the fear had gotten to him, and as every second crept miserably by, he was sinking further into panic and confusion.

The volunteer put his scanning gun down to his side and took a step toward Kory. I could see agents on either side of the line starting to notice the sudden lack of movement. Eyes were turning to face us. Kory stood there frozen.

“Silas,” I said suddenly.

The volunteer and Kory looked back at me. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, but I didn’t see any other option at this point.

“Silas, come on.”

The volunteer narrowed his eyes as he looked up at me. But then Kory’s voice returned behind him and he spoke.

“Silas Miller,” he said strongly.

The volunteer turned back to look at Kory. He stared hard at the image projected on his scanner screen and then back up to Kory’s face. He was comparing the faces closely, obviously suspicious now, and I held my breath in anticipation.

The volunteer waved his hand toward the truck, letting Kory go by. The agents next to the line returned to their patrolling. Kory took a few teetering steps toward me, and then we were together and getting onto the truck.

A ramp led from the ground three feet up into the cargo hold of the truck. There was a row of seats built against each wall, but they were already full. People were now standing in the middle of the truck, shoved up against each other. That was where Kory and I were going to have to go.

More townspeople crammed in after us, and Kory and I stood uncomfortably in the middle of the truck for many long minutes until it was obvious that no one else was going to fit. Then the aluminum door pulled down from the top of the truck and latched shut from the outside. Suddenly the only light visible was from small airholes and slats in the sides of the truck. The truck rumbled to life, the floor beneath us vibrating. We all swayed together toward the back of the truck as it started forward, and we steadied in a mass. We were on our way.

The ride was jerky and uncomfortable. There was nothing for us to hold on to, and pretty soon people were leaning against each other to try to gain some relief from the pressure of standing. A sickly woman leaned heavily against Kory. Kindhearted by nature, he braced himself to provide support for her during our long drive.

I wanted to talk to him while we were being transported, but with so many people around us, it didn’t feel safe. If someone overheard us they might start to be suspicious, especially if they happened to realize that they had never seen us around their small town before. Ultimately, I decided to keep my mouth shut and travel in silence to be safe.

I worried slightly about how long the drive would be. If we were delayed in any way, if the truck got a flat tire or had an engine breakdown or even just got caught in traffic, then our masks would start to “melt” right here in full view of all these people.

So many things could go wrong. Although I didn’t hold it against him in the slightest, Kory had already effectively proven that even the simplest of details could be botched. And there were so many unknowns in our plan. What if immediate death awaited us once we reached the shielded expanse of woods, some sort of government plan to rid themselves of pesky poor people when factories went under? How would Nathan and the rest of Little John save us if we were doomed to die before our five hours were up? I tried to reason with myself. The regime was awful, sure, but was it that evil?

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a good answer.

After what felt like about an hour, maybe longer, the truck made a hard right turn and the road began to feel rougher and rockier, like we had moved from asphalt to dirt. I tried to examine our surroundings through the sides of the truck, but it was impossible to make out any distinguishing features. It was still gray and wet outside, and now the afternoon was bleeding into early evening. Who knew where we were now?

When we all lurched forward as the truck braked and then parked, it seemed obvious that we had reached our destination.

The townspeople began to look around anxiously. There were new sounds carrying through the air to us now. It sounded like several men were walking around the truck, stepping over gravel in heavy boots. Then the truck cabin door squeaked open and closed again. We could see figures moving past through the holes in the truck’s siding. But there were no voices, and no one inside the truck spoke either. It was silent save for the crunch of gravel and the ragged breaths of the townspeople.

Then the latch was pulled up from the other side and the truck’s door rolled up. Three men stood there. None of them were wearing Helping Hands shirts. They were wearing light blue uniforms and holding weapons. These men weren’t volunteers.

They were more Authority agents. We had walked right into a government stronghold.

“File out,” one of the men said roughly. The ramp was pulled back down to allow easy access to the ground, and the townspeople all began to push toward the new opening. Many were unsteady on their feet after standing for so long in poor health. I watched in horror as an older woman stumbled down the ramp and landed on all fours in the gravel below. No one bent to help her up. I pushed past others on the ramp to reach her and grabbed her gently by the forearm.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

The woman winced in pain. She looked up at me and tried to force a smile. “Thank you,” she replied in a hoarse voice. “I’m fine.”

“Move!” an agent yelled at us.

I wanted to argue with him. I wanted to grab a handful of gravel and fling it into his face. How could someone be so callous and heartless around people who were obviously ill and exhausted? Instead I kept my head down and helped the woman to her feet so we could get out of the way of the ramp.

There’d be time for fighting later. For now, we had other things to do.

Kory joined me outside of the truck, and we began to look around to get our bearings. Another truck was driving up the dirt road behind us, but we were the first to arrive and unload. There were agents milling around us and corralling people toward a large metal gate. On either side of the gate ran long, tall fences. Beyond the fence I could see a multistoried, white, windowless building. Beyond that lay a more average-looking red brick building. But the vast majority of the land beyond the fence seemed to be uncovered and open.

The metal gates swung open, and the agents led our group up to them. I looked over at Kory. We were going inside. And once inside, we would have to rely on the strength of Little John’s diversion and collection teams to get us back out.

We must’ve had less than three hours left.