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sentenced to wander the Archives for the remainder of their lives. You will know them due to their blank stares and hooded cloaks. Do not interact with them. Shadowed citizens serve as living reminders of the great gifts bestowed on the citizens of Indra, the Archives being among them, and the severe penalty for taking advantage of them.
    *** Archive areas and experiences are restricted by and provided at the sole discretion of the High Council. The High Council has the power to alter, modify, and adjust archival simulations. All further matters regarding Archive operations and “shadow” status are restricted by High Council command.

CHAPTER 2
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The Orphanage
Lex
    There is a story that everyone in the Orphanage knows. It is not about family, hope, or love. It’s about genetics. Mutations.
    The ones that lurk beneath the earth, that are cloaked in shadows and hidden within the eaves of the cavernous mantle. Though I have never seen one, they have made orphans of many.
    If you listen closely while nestled in your too-small sleeper, you can hear their breathing beyond the security gates. Their bloodcurdling cries, their savage grunts. Each night, at lights-out, we feel we are at their mercy.
    That is why twice a year the caretakers round up orphans, no one knows how they choose, in the middle of the night while everyone is asleep. They are forced to walk outside in their bare feet, their slippers left bedside to be reused by someone else. They are taken to a junction and there they wait. How long they wait depends on how hungry the mutations are.
    The mutations . . . they can look like anything. The one I imagine has fused eyes and twin mouths that feed into the same throat. Its spine arcs so much it almost breaks through the skin of its back.Its pupils are the color of mother’s milk, and its jaws are powerful enough to snap through bone.
    When you’re brought to the junction, you’re left in the pitch-black. You cry, and every noise frightens you. You don’t know yet how to be strong. When they come for you, if they don’t eat you immediately, they will take you back to their tribe, far below, to be raised among them. They will put you to work, and your own body will betray you. It will become like theirs. Your legs will crack as they grow into new forms, and if you are pretty, you will lose that, too.
    Twice a year the mutations take orphans, gifted to continue our sanctuary here in the bowels of the earth. At the point where the City of Indra doesn’t care what goes on—we are that far beneath. There are greater worries.
    After all, who’s going to miss an orphan?
    â—ŠÂ Â â—ŠÂ Â â—Š
    All I had was my own hyper-crib at the Orphanage, and sometimes even that I had to share. A tiny box on tall legs, stuffed with two hungry babies. It was but one of a dozen in my unit, and but one unit among a dozen others.
    The Independent High Council sent Recruiter to the Orphanage twice a year to inspect the new babies born without names. He wandered the rows of identical cribs, serving Indra in its “moral obligation” to its underprivileged. Recruiter came, he looked, and he left. He didn’t expect to find anything worthwhile. In fact, he was pretty confident he wouldn’t.
    â—ŠÂ Â â—ŠÂ Â â—Š
    If you made it past the crib stage, you were assigned to Infant Surveillance. That wasn’t so bad. You’re so little, you don’t know anydifferent. If you made it a few more years, you got a cot in the Intermediate Dormitory.
    Now that was something else entirely.
    During processing, I got a way-too-big uniform. “Room to grow,” said Caretaker.
    If you got the chance, that is. At the time I didn’t know that not all of us do.
    Caretaker leaned over and looked at me. She hated me, I could tell. All the caretakers did. Even as an infant, I didn’t play by the rules. Made too much noise, used the playthings incorrectly.