“Risha. Tell me more about you and Scott,” Avery commanded, just to hear someone talk.

Risha dutifully recounted the latest development in her on-again-off-again romance with Scott Bandier, who was a senior at Berkeley. Avery forced herself to laugh so that no one would notice her strange mood. If she laughed and smiled and nodded enough, nothing would really be wrong.

But inside, her mind was roiling erratically, fluttering from one topic to the next without any resolution. She couldn’t focus on anything, couldn’t think—just kept picking at the cold remains of the miso soufflé. The kaleidoscope of light and sound washed over her, dulling the persistent ache in her heart. She kept taking sips of her martini, which Ming must have refilled at some point, though she hadn’t noticed.

Eventually their group began to swell. First it was a couple of other girls from their class, Anandra and Danika; they’d seen the snaps and wanted to join. And then more Berkeley kids showed up, clustering around the bar, ordering that signature purple martini and posting snaps to the feeds, bringing even more people. Soon Avery felt like half the Berkeley student body was there, spilling onto the dark wooden dance floor in sticky clumps. She thought she saw Leda at one point, but before she could be sure, a trio of guys—Rick, Maxton, Zay Wagner—bore down on their table.

“Zay dumped Daniela, you know,” Ming whispered, with a meddlesome wink.

Avery didn’t react to that news at first. She’d been sitting in the same place all night, a little like a queen presiding over her subjects; not that she’d meant it that way. She just hadn’t cared enough about anything to bother moving.

But Ming had a point. Why shouldn’t she talk to Zay? What was left to hold her back? She didn’t have Atlas anymore, no matter what she did.

Avery suddenly remembered how whenever Eris felt heartbroken after a relationship, she would throw herself violently and wholeheartedly into a flirtation with someone new. Avery had asked her about it once. “There’s no forgetting like that kind of forgetting,” Eris had replied, with an arch smile and a knowing flash of her eyes.

“Zay!” Avery exclaimed after a beat, standing up slowly, the way Eris would have. “How’ve you been?”

Zay seemed startled by her attention; after all, she’d soundly rejected him several months earlier. “Great, thanks,” he said cautiously.

But Avery was determined not to be ignored. She turned her flirtation on full wattage, flashing her brightest smile. Poor Zay didn’t stand a chance.

She was just about to lead him onto the dimly lit dance floor when someone tapped at Zay’s elbow.

“Mind if I cut in?” Cord took Avery’s arm and smoothly led her away. Zay stood there about to protest, his mouth half open like a gutted fish.

“That line was a bit clichéd, even for you,” Avery accused, though she didn’t really mind. She hadn’t actually cared about Zay. She’d just felt strangely loose and unmoored, and needed to do something—anything—to feel anchored.

And if Atlas saw her on the feeds, bright and glittering and careless, that wouldn’t have bothered her either.

“Here I thought you were going to thank me for the rescue.”

“Zay isn’t that bad,” Avery protested unconvincingly.

Cord laughed. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was rescuing Zay from another broken heart. You’re a little cruel sometimes, you know, Avery,” he said lightly.

Avery glanced up at him. They hadn’t spoken since the party the weekend before. “I didn’t know you were coming out tonight.”

“I wasn’t, until I saw all the snaps.”

“Cord,” she said, not quite certain what she wanted to tell him. That he shouldn’t read anything into that moment on his couch, that she was raw and hurting and that he should stay away from her. But before she could formulate a coherent thought, she let out a hiccup.

Cord laughed. Avery had always loved the way Cord laughed—really laughed, not his cynical dark laugh but the genuine one. He laughed with his whole body, the way he used to when they were kids.

Before she’d quite realized it, they were dancing, his hands at her waist. “You’re still not going to tell me what’s going on, are you,” he said at last.

“I’m fine.” Avery gave her head an emphatic shake.

“Look, I don’t know who this guy is, but if you really want to make him jealous, you need to do better than Wagner.”

“How did you know it’s a guy?” she asked quickly, wondering what had given her away.

Cord gave a triumphant grin. “I didn’t, until just now. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.”

Now it was Avery’s turn to laugh. It made her feel surprisingly good; almost normal again, for a fleeting second, if there could be such a thing as normal in a world without Atlas.

“Come on, you’ll have to get closer to really sell it,” Cord told her, his voice husky. Avery hesitated before stepping in to loop her arms around Cord’s shoulders. He really was very tall. A terrible, sinful part of her hoped that someone was snapping it and uploading it to the feeds. It would serve Atlas right.

But then she thought of Atlas actually looking at the snap, wondered what he would think of her for going straight to Cord—again—and her arms fell back down. Cord didn’t miss a beat, just began twirling her in an easy, friendly way.

“Besides,” he added, “I’ve been your friend since we were in preschool. I know you wouldn’t command our whole class out on a weeknight without good reason.”

“I didn’t command them, they just showed up!” Avery protested, realizing a beat later that he’d used the word friend. A sense of relief flooded through her. They swayed back and forth for a while, the electric lights above them flashing drunkenly from one color to another.

Avery felt suddenly exhausted. Too much had happened lately—her world falling apart, all the tears she’d shed, the knowledge that Atlas really was leaving, going halfway across the world. She closed her eyes and allowed herself the luxury of resting her head on Cord’s chest.

“Thank you, Cord. For all of it,” she murmured, knowing he would understand.

He didn’t say anything, but she felt him nod.

And so it begins, Avery thought, as if she were squaring her shoulders to pick up an impossibly heavy load. She needed to start putting herself back together, piece by piece, because this was the start of her life without Atlas in it.

WATT

“WAKE UP, WATT,” Nadia whispered into his ear as their hydrogen-fueled jet began its descent.

Watt stirred and rubbed his eyes, a little annoyed with himself for falling asleep on this flight. It was his first time on a plane—first time leaving New York, really, unless you counted the one time his science class went to the space museum in Washington, before the latest round of budget cuts eliminated things like out-of-state field trips. Watt glanced out the window on his left and gave an involuntary intake of breath. He was looking out over Nevada, which stretched stark and pigmentless all the way to the horizon. It was like seeing the surface of some desert planet. How surreal to think that normally he was that far down, chained to the earth’s surface by the restraints of gravity.

Next to him, Leda crossed one skinny leg over the other and closed her eyes, glossy and cool and indifferent.

Nadia, what should I say to break the ice?

I don’t know, Watt, I haven’t found much precedent for a couple that’s blackmailing each other, hooked up, and are now headed to a rehab check-in, Nadia replied. I did find one on a holo show, but removed it from the data set as unrealistic.

Watt ignored the sarcasm, though Nadia’s conclusions weren’t far off his own. He had no idea what to make of the situation with Leda. That night with her had been dark and bitter and reckless and honestly, the most electric hookup of his life.

He hadn’t expected to hear from Leda after that—or at least, hadn’t expected anything but more surveillance requests. He’d been shocked when she messaged him demanding that he come to Nevada with her, for some meeting with her old rehab counselor. She’d offered no further explanation than a link to his airline ticket.