Mercer Was Not the First

In the Texas hills, a young man with a rare gift steps off a bluff for a blind test jump paid for by a famous Foundation. Months later, Mateo Ruiz arrives at that Foundation's academy as one of its scholarship fellows: eighteen, gifted, grateful, and told that the Warren Albright Assessment Suite will decide his future.

He is joined by Piper, who can hear the world as a mimic and a skeptic; Ethan, who counts everything; and Jalen, who knows too much about the exits. The fellowship comes with a stipend, a conduct clause and a clipboard of risk scores.

Behind the polite donors, brass plaques and kolaches, the four find an archive of crosses for the dead, circles for the renounced, and a line from a dead founder's notes: someone else was taught before them.

As the Foundation tightens its grip, they follow a thread of cream envelopes and old paper across Texas, to a vault where the records are kept, and to testimony that will cost them the thing they were trained to protect.