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Twenty classrooms with live and automated instructors.

There was a single dining hall, where the food was well-balanced, tasty, and served three times a day, precisely at seven A.M., twelve-thirty and seven P.M.

Midmorning and afternoon snacks were available in the solarium at ten and four.

She’d loved the scones. She had good memories of the scones.

The living quarters for the students were spacious and well decorated. If, at the age of five, you passed all the tests, you were moved into those quarters. Your memory of those first five years was . . . adjusted.

In time, it was possible to forget—or nearly—the experience of being a mouse in a maze.

You were given uniforms, and a suitable wardrobe. One that was designed to suit your personality type and background.

You had a background, somewhere. You’d come from something, though it was not what they gave you. It was never what they gave you.

Instruction was rigorous. A Brookhollow student was expected to excel, then to move on to the college, and continue. Until Placement.

She herself could speak four languages fluently. That had been handy. She could solve complex math theorems, identify and date archaeological artifacts, execute a perfect double-gainer, and organize a state dinner for two hundred.

Electronics were like toys to her. And she could kill with efficiency, using a variety of methods. She knew how to pleasure a man in bed and could discuss interplanetary politics with him in the morning.

She had been intended not for marriage or mating, but for covert ops. In that, she supposed, her education had succeeded.

She was beautiful, had no genetic flaws. Her estimated life span was one hundred and fifty years. Which might be considerably extended through continued advancement in medical technology.

She had run at twenty, and had lived a dozen years in hiding, forging her way underground, honing the skills she’d been given. The thought of living another century as she had to this point in her life was her constant nightmare.

She did not kill coldly, however efficiently. She killed in desperation, and with the fervor of a warrior defending the innocent.

For this death, she wore a stark black suit custom-tailored for her in Italy. Money was no problem. She’d stolen half a million before she’d run. Since then, she’d accessed more. She could have lived well, avoided any detection. But she had a mission. In all of her life, she had only one.

And was well on the way to accomplishing it.

The starkness of the suit only made her look more feminine, and it set off the bright red of her hair, the deep green of her eyes. She’d spent an hour that morning subtly changing the contours of her face. A slightly rounder chin, a fuller nose.

She’d added a few pounds to her body, all of them curves.

The changes would be enough, or they wouldn’t.

She wasn’t afraid to die, but she was terrified of being taken. So she had what she needed in a capsule should she be identified and captured.

The father had allowed her to come in, had granted her audience, had believed her claim of loneliness and regret. He hadn’t seen his death in her eyes.

But here, in this prison, they would know what she’d done. If they recognized her, her part was over. But there were others who would step forward if she fell. Too many others.

If there was fear in the back of her throat, her face was calm and serene. She’d learned that, too. Show them nothing. Give them nothing.

Her eyes met the driver’s in the rearview mirror. She worked up a smile, nodded.

They paused at the gates for the security scan. Her heart tripped now. If it was a trap, she’d never go out those gates again. Dead or alive.

Then she was inside, winding through the lovely grounds. The trees, the gardens, the sculptures.

The main building loomed in front of her, five stories. Soft, soft red brick bedecked with ivy. Sparkling windows and gleaming columns.

The girls, she thought, and wanted to weep. Young and fresh and lovely, walking