Cole moved to intervene. “What is that?” he asked.

“It’s so she won’t remember,” he said. He passed the needle to another boy, who plunged it behind the woman’s ear. Cole cringed from the sight of the act.

“And now for the Miracle,” Marco said. He grabbed Cole’s arm and turned him toward the old man. More syringes were produced, one identical to the last and another that was much larger and gleaming with a stainless steel casing.

The boy with the smaller syringe held it out toward Cole. “You wanna do this one?”

Cole shook his head, and several of the others laughed. The needle dove behind the man’s ear and the plunger was depressed.

“Hold his head steady,” Marco said.

Two boys knelt by the cot and braced the man’s skull. Marco accepted the larger syringe and moved behind the head of the cot so he could lean over and steady himself. One of the boys holding the man’s forehead used two fingers to pry open his eyelid.

“What is that?” Cole asked. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re gonna make the blind see again,” someone whispered.

Marco paused before inserting the needle. He looked up at Cole. “It’s stem cells,” he said, waving the syringe. “Doctors perform this procedure all the time, only these people can’t afford it.”

“I thought we were against stem cells,” Cole said.

Marco laughed. “We’re against doctors, slumrat. People can’t afford to pay them and tithe at the same time.”

With that, he looked back to the blind man’s open eye and lowered the large needle. Cole fought the urge to look away as the metal rod slid into the corner of the open eye. The plunger went halfway down, and then the other eyelid was pulled open. The procedure was repeated, the old couple tucked in, and before Cole knew it, they were back in the alley, locking the door behind them.

“What did we just do?” Cole asked.

“Our good deed for the day,” someone called out.

The boys had returned to their youthful state, jostling and joking as they skipped toward the end of the alley.

“These people will be approached later in the week,” Marco said. “A group of Sisters will go door to door, telling everyone in this neigh-borhood about the Church. The Sisters won’t know what happened here, but they will hear about it soon enough, right from the source. And you can bet this couple will be in church next Sunday. And you can bet Picoult will have them on stage, asking them about this Miracle.”

“That was a Miracle?” Cole asked.

“There’s nothing like your first one,” Marco said. He clasped Cole’s shoulder and squeezed. “Congrats again on the promotion.”

They hadn’t even reached the end of the alley when everything else clicked into place for Cole. The obvious punched him in the gut, taking away his breath and making him feel sick to his stomach. He staggered out into the busy street, leaned on a rusted light pole, and clutched his abdomen.

“You okay?” someone asked.

“I think he’s gonna be sick.”

Cole looked around for Marco, who moved to his side.

“She’s really pregnant,” Cole said.

Marco knelt down beside Cole. “That she is.”

“Did you do it?” Cole asked.

Marco smiled. “Yeah, but not like you think. She’s still a vir—”

Cole’s hands clamped around the rest of the sentence, squeezing Marco’s throat. The other boys stopped giggling and tensed up. Marco pried Cole’s hands away from his neck, then slapped Cole across the face.

Cole hardly felt the blow. His body was bristling with rage. All he could think of was Joanna on a cot, pinned down by a pack of boys, needles or worse invading her flesh. He launched himself at Marco, tackling the boy. He landed a few blows before someone pried him off, the other kids a tangle of cloaks around him, all of them grasping and clutching at Cole.

Cole felt himself pinned in place. Marco was on his hands and knees, his nose bleeding. The other boys had fistfuls of his new cloak.

“Hold him,” Marco said.

Cole sagged down, wiggling his arms out of the wide sleeves. He felt a primal fury coil up in his gut as the lie of the black hole and its explosion dawned on him as well. He thought of the grieving widows and the confused orphans all around the Church the past weeks. He thought about how Joanna had cried and cried over their losses. He fell to the pavement, leaving the boys holding his empty cloak, and emerged a free and mad animal.

Cole lunged forward and kicked at Marco’s face. He landed a serious blow, but kicked again. And again. He kept kicking, even as the other boys realized they no longer had him and reached to seize him once more. He kept kicking, even as they rained their own blows against him. He was kicking still when the cops came and took their turn at holding him down. Even as they peeled the other boys off him, he kicked. As they shoved him to the pavement and cuffed him, he kicked. He even kicked later as they dressed his myriad new wounds. Cole kept kicking and kicking and kicking at anything he could.

11 · The Courtroom

The courtroom remained silent long after Cole finished relaying what had happened. Even the lawyer in the dark suit seemed unsure of what to say. He paced over to his desk, slid a few pieces of paper around, then returned to Cole.

“Is that where the bruises came from?”

Cole brushed his fingers across his cheek, which was only sore when he touched it. The swelling had gone down the past weeks. He nodded.

“So you resisted arrest?”

Cole shrugged. He did remember becoming even more violent when he saw one of the cop’s badges read “Mendonça.” He remembered trying to punch that officer in the face, but couldn’t recall if he’d landed the blow.

“And now you want this court and a jury of your peers to take the word of—what did you call yourself?”

“A slumrat,” Cole said.

“Yes, a slumrat. And a murderer. And probably the planner behind the bomb that killed thousands—”

“Objection.”

“Sustained.”

The lawyer in the black suit smiled.

“I’m not asking anyone to take my word,” Cole said. He looked to the jury box, ignoring the lawyer, who was raising his hands, palms out, as if suddenly Cole shouldn’t speak. “I’m just telling you what I know. For context. It was part of my deal.”

“For context?” the lawyer asked. “Context for what?”

Cole’s lawyer stood from behind her desk. “When you’re done badgering my witness, I’ll call my next one and we can get on with this,” she said.

Cole looked out to her and saw a smile on her face. He was pretty sure he’d screwed some things up, but he’d related everything the way he remembered it, and that was all they’d asked of him. He watched the other lawyer mumble something and sit, and then an officer led him out of his stand. Cole shuffled through the small wooden gate and down the aisle between the silent and rapt pews. When he got to the door, another officer opened it, the flash of a badge catching Cole’s eye, a familiar face smiling at him above it. Cole looked to the man and saw a patch of dull purple around his happy eye. Cole was glad that the punch had landed.

The door was pulled open, obscuring the officer. As Cole was led out, another familiar face was led in. It was the blind man from the alley house, his eyes much brighter and younger-looking than the rest of his weathered face. The man smiled at Cole and nodded. Cole’s lawyer called the gentleman to the witness stand, her voice sonorous and confident, and Cole realized how little he’d been needed for how much he’d bargained away.

•• Two Years Later ••

The crowded bus jerked to a halt in front of a tall gate with coils of razor on top. An American in a military uniform stepped out of a guard booth and spoke to the driver through his open window. Soon after, the gates let out a metallic clang, then began parting, sliding to either side on squealing wheels.

The brakes hissed as they let go, and the bus lurched forward and into Cole’s latest in a long string of adoptive homes. Immediately, however, he saw that the Galactic Naval Academy would be nothing like his previous shelters. Low, shiny buildings consisting almost entirely of glass greeted them beyond the gate. White walls, silvery windows, flawless pavement divided up with painted lines that still appeared wet and new—it was the opposite of his home on the dingy barrio streets. And there were no gardens or greenery like the orphanage, no wandering Sisters and Brothers like the Church. It bore no resemblance at all to Lisboa’s Military School for Young Boys, his latest home, which had been carved out of a castle complex, crumbling and old.

This new home of his in a state called Arizona was all orderly and new and sitting amid an excess of emptiness that would’ve made any structure in the barrio blush with embarrassment. Cole was in an alien land, as far from any life as he’d ever dreamed of living, and he was giddy with nerves and excitement.

“Look at all them kids.”

The boy in the seat beside him leaned over Cole and pointed to a string of buses lined up by the curb. Their own bus took a circuitous route through the parking lot and ended up at the back of the line. The brakes squealed and the doors popped open. A man with a shaved head stomped into the bus and began barking orders, the first familiar thing in Cole’s new home.

It didn’t seem to matter that the boys came from dozens of military academies scattered all over the planet, everyone in the bus knew how to snap to an adult’s demands. They knew how to march and they knew how to stand in perfect lines. They also knew how to communicate with the barest of looks and the most timely of whispers.

“My name’s Cole,” he said to the boy from his seat. The two of them had squeezed out of the bus together and now stood shoulder to shoulder in the back of a phalanx of nervous kids.

“Riggs,” the other boy hissed, his mouth parting on one side.

They nodded to each other and smiled, the two of them bound by chance proximity in this new world they’d entered. The boys ahead of them began marching off in a column four wide; Cole and Riggs fell in as directed, and the precise line of cadets wound its way through the yawning doors of the GN Academy, down the shiny tiled halls, and into a crowded gymnasium.

Once inside, the large groups were pared down to smaller ones. There were officers everywhere in their crisp uniforms, shouting advice and orders. Cole spotted what appeared to be a few upperclass cadets helping out, boys just a few years older than himself in uniforms of their own, already decorated with badges and medals.

“That’s the support classes over there.”

Cole turned to see where Riggs was pointing. Across the wide hall, he saw other groups of kids receiving their stacks of fatigues and falling into cliques that would soon learn engineering and other auxiliary roles. There was a much wider mix of cadets in those groups, a smattering of girls and even a few members of other races. Cole tried to take it all in, but his line was jostling forward and he had to pay attention to where he was going.

“Step forward!”

The two boys ahead of them shuffled to a line of tables arranged across the gymnasium floor. They gave their names, stuttering and nervous, and cadets riffled through cards in little boxes. Something was checked off the cards and stacks of clothing were handed out. Cole noticed with no shortage of excitement that flight helmets were placed on top of each pile of folded garments.

“Next!”

He and Riggs hurried forward and gave their names. Cole held out his arms and flashed back to similar scenes from his past. He remembered much skinnier arms trembling for a clean shirt and a new pair of blue shorts. He recalled the pleated pants from Lisboa’s Military School, much nicer than the lifetime of prison clothes the cops had threatened him with. He watched as a folded flightsuit, a black uniform, a pair of glistening boots, and then a flight helmet were loaded up in his now older and thicker arms. His dizziness and excitement were interrupted as the upperclassman behind the table shouted for him to move on.

Cole followed Riggs out of the gymnasium and down a hallway. The boys ahead of them were already chattering about their new gear and winning shouts from the older cadets directing traffic.

The long line of boys with their clothes and helmets filed into a smaller room full of simulator pods. A hushed awe fell over them as they shuffled into place along the room’s interior. Cole noted how much newer these simulators looked compared to Lisboa’s. He wondered if everything he’d learned at his last Academy would have to be re-learned. Maybe his above-average scores wouldn’t be reproducible here and they’d send him home as a failure. The first sensation of raw panic stirred in his guts as he imagined being kicked out of flight school. Riggs had to elbow him into place, he’d become so distracted.

The hopeful cadets stood shoulder to shoulder in a long line stretching down the room of simulator pods, waiting. Upperclassmen in flightsuits and aged officers strode up and down the line, taking stock of the newest class. Cole studied one of the older cadets, trying to imagine the boy having once been in his place. He tried to picture, years hence, being where that boy stood, seeing the fresh and frightened recruits lined up and trembling. He noticed one man seemed to command the respect of the rest of these older cadets, a fat soldier in a straining flightsuit. The officer lumbered up and down the line frowning, his jowls hanging down like a dog’s. Cole stiffened when the man walked by, then relaxed and resumed breathing once his back was turned.

“These must be the navigators,” Riggs whispered.

Cole followed his gaze to see another file of recruits shuffling in, their bundles clutched to their bellies, different-colored helmets wobbling precariously on top. They filed to the end of the simulator room and turned to face the string of hopeful pilots as the officers and cadets strolled casually up and down between the two lines.