Reasons to read the Acknowledgments at the end of the book: you find out that the brilliant book you just read is a prequel written some years after two other instalments.

Cue happy dancing.

In some medium-term future, America has gone entirely corporate, and there’s wars between the main ones (I mean…). This is, however, not the focus of this story at all (but possibly is of the main novel, Firebreak?). Instead, the focus is on 06 and 22 – two children who are no longer children in many ways, but still have some child-like aspects. They have been changed by a corporation, and I don’t really want to go into exactly how or why because discovering that was part of the absolute joy in reading this book. It’s not exactly pleasant, so maybe don’t read it if you’re feeling particularly attuned to nasty things happening to kids, but there’s not a lot of terrible detail, so there’s that.

The story is basically split in two. The main bits are focused on 06 and 22 – biologically 12, kept in a secret facility for four years – having broken out and now trying to find food and survive in what is basically a foreign environment. There’s an intense focus on the relationship between the two (don’t be gross, not like that), which is clearly a huge aspect of the later books but still works without knowing anything of their futures. It’s beautiful and sometimes funny and also quite affecting.

The other, smaller part of the story is the experience of the Director, as she tries to figure out how to get the pair back. For someone who is quite clearly reprehensible, Kornher-Stace does a good job of both humanising her and never minimising how awful she is. It’s an admirable presentation and again, makes me very keen to read more about her, even though I do now know some of what will happen to her in the future: Kornher-Stace is clearly writing this for people who’ve read the other stories, and yet the future-reflections actually still work for someone like me.

I enjoyed everything about this story and have every intention of going to find the rest.