Tossing a dead man’s key from hand to hand, True contemplates tactics. He’s startled her; an advantage against a typical foe, but perhaps not the wisest choice when facing, say, a wolverine. She’s automatically half-crouched, and he knows she’s thinking about weapons first, speech second.

True knew Chicago’s mother: she used to teach his Sunday School class. He attended Sunday School, and Chicago didn’t. It’s never struck him until now how odd that is.

They really would look alike, he finds himself thinking. Those eyes, those freckles.

The curl of her lip.

The fall of her hair.

Two prints: the beaker halfway up its bounce, intact. The beaker at its peak, exploding. She almost expected to see a bullet piercing it. Instead it’s the cap of a pen.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asks herself.

“Yeah,” says True, behind her. Chicago chomps her tongue to kill a yelp.

These comprise two packets of silver nitrate, a small cascade of instructional DVDs and a beaker of sulfuric acid. It’s a Pyrex beaker, and sealed; it bounces off that indestructible black resin countertop once without breaking.

Then Gretten and Hill scream, because the beaker bursts in midbounce. It’s been struck by something very small, moving very fast.

But not as fast as Chicago’s shutter.

“Just enter the petition,” she says.

“Sweetie, we get a lot of kids in here,” he says reasonably. “I know life with Mom and Dad can be tough, but unless you have a signed form–”

“Here.”

“–and not in shaky cursive–”

“It’s notarized,” Chicago snaps.

“Emancipation isn’t for fun, Miss.” He’s flat-eyed now too. “You’ll be a legal adult and your decisions will have real weight, you understand that?”

Chicago’s heart pounds and pounds.

Her teachers rarely object to the latter, though. They keep passing her, or at least passing her off: nobody wants her twice.

She doesn’t do many afterschool activities either. She remembers why every time she walks down the third floor corridor, where True has somehow talked the Fellowship of Christian Athletes into protesting, via flier, the suffrage of women.