Son of Sedonia

37

Answers


MATTEO FELT RIDICULOUS in the new clothes they’d given to him. The long-sleeve, shiny, mesh shirt-thing shrink wrapped his upper body and chafed his joints pretty badly. Over that, they stuffed him in a thick, puffy vest with an equally puffy collar that almost buried his head. Probably a good thing he had trouble seeing his legs over the collar. Whatever kind of boots they’d strapped him into made him feel like he’d jumped calf-deep into wet concrete. Sitting in the backseat of Corey’s bulky hover-van, he scratched at the bunched fabric in his arm pits and retreated back into his mind.

Matteo was still trying to make sense of what Corey had said. He knew you had to have a chip to get into the City, but the rest had been a mystery.

“They’re like little computers,” Corey explained simply for Matteo to understand, “and everyone has a color based on their class. Mine and Liani’s are blue because we’re from Inner Ring, a few levels out from the Mesa. Yours is gold. Either the chip or you, or both are from the Mesa itself. Some call it Center Ring, and it’s the tippee-top. Home to the richest, most powerful bastards in Sedonia City...no offense. Anyway, that chip combined with the top-shelf nanotech you were injected with at birth made you just a little more than human. You’re sharper, more observant, quicker to react, and you have a memory like a steel trap, all thanks to these microscopic gadgets hooked onto your neurons.” He saw Matteo’s blank stare. “The building blocks of your brain. Now, we all have the same kind of memory storage in us, but it’s illegal to access it directly without a court order...it’s not exactly productive for society if everyone can live in the past for real, right? But if you commit a crime, out comes the memory to convict you. If you’re killed, your memory is your witness.” Corey’s friend, Illyk, was the man to see about ‘getting access.’

Matteo blinked and shook his head. He realized all of it was true. The entire conversation had just played back in his head. In detail. He’d always been able to do that. Jo would frown at him when he’d recite the exact words of a broken promise Utu would give him shopping lists without writing them down, and laugh deeply when Matteo came back with every last item. And in the Pits he’d had a mental catalog of which objects were valuable, which were useful, and which were dangerous. There had to be thousands.

Growing up, it had been just one more thing to get him called a freak.

Sweat poured from his forehead as heat radiated up from inside the vest. He tugged at the collar. Illyk can get ‘access.’ The thought of digging up every f*cked up detail of his life for all to see made him ache. Liani turned and faced him from the passenger seat.

“Nervous?” she asked. Her feline-green eyes glistened at him as she smiled. Matteo’s pulse raced. The mop of shiny red curls draped over her shoulders, just hiding the curves of her chest.

“Nah...” he said, shaking his head, “Nah.”

“Good, good. New outfit’s cute on you! Cuter than it was on my ex anyway...you like it?” Matteo wiped his forehead then rubbed the sweat on his mesh pant leg. Nodded.

“Yeah, it’s great,” he said, puffing his chest, “Great outfit.”

“He looks like a marshmallow in combat boots,” Corey scoffed. Liani punched his arm.

“Ahh! Shit, Liani, I’m driving!” said Corey. Matteo smiled, escaping the quicksand of his thoughts. He pulled the vest collar down further to get a better look out of the half-canopy window.

The buildings had gotten shorter. Blockier. Where the downtown ones were sleek and beautiful, these wore their guts on the outside. Complex networks of pipes and bits of worn machinery seemed to both decorate and entangle the neighborhood. Not so much flying traffic out this way either. There were a few transports and freighters humming in their aerial lanes, but most of the movement happened on the hanging train system. The Superway. There had been a blurb about it in one of Utu’s magazines. The tracks wove through the City like veins and arteries in a massive body. Train cars slipped along the rails at ridiculous speeds, stopped for passengers, then took off again like a gunshot. Matteo instantly wanted to ride one. Yet the further they went, even the train stops seemed fewer and further between.

“Jesus, Corey,” said Liani, “How deep in the sticks are we going?”

“These guys live as far on the edge of the grid as they can, Li. They don’t exactly want to be found,” said Corey.

“And you have found them before...right?”

“I...um...not exactly.”

“Oh this should be good,” said Liani, leveling a stare at him.

“I managed to trace my contact’s IP back through a couple dummy servers he’d set up. Rather badass of me considering these guys don’t f*ck around with security,” he grinned at Liani as she rolled her eyes. “Naturally, the signal dead-ended before a specific location came up, so all I could get was a district tag.”

“Meaning?”

“We’ve gotta stop in the neighborhood and ask around.”

“Perfect,” Liani said.

The squat apartments and dingy storefronts finally gave way to the Outer Ring, a skeletal, tangled landscape of power plants, towering steam vents, loading docks, shipyards, and warehouses. As a kid he’d assumed the smoke rising from just beyond the Border was some sort of curtain, meant to stop him and his kind from looking in. Maybe the City kept monsters there.

Corey flew the van over the belly of the beast and dipped down into one of its gaping mouths. They landed on a round, concrete clearing amidst all kinds of other parked vehicles. Most had wheels though. Cars, trucks, vans, even bikes. Matteo fiddled with his harness, excited for a closer look but more eager to get the hell out of the van. Flying had been more fun when he wasn’t hungover.

“Okay, here we go,” Corey said as he popped the seal on the van doors. “We’ll start in that power station over there. My guess is they use the interference given off by the transformers to help block incoming Wi-Fi.”

“We’re guessing now. Awesome,” said Liani.

The complex felt unfriendly right away. Workers with tattered jumpsuits, dirt-streaked skin, and suspicious eyes kept their distance. They milled through the maze-like facility with exhausted, silent purpose. Grating metallic sounds of sparks and heavy tools rang out, underscored by a low electric hum. Matteo’s palms started sweating. For a moment he thought himself back in the twisted stomach of some wrecked sky-freighter in the Pits.

Corey had a hard time approaching the workers, let alone talking to one. Either they ignored him completely or pretended not to hear him over the noise. After half an hour of this, he finally dropped the excuse-me’s.

“We’re looking for Illyk!” Corey shouted above the din. Several men stopped what they were doing and glared. Liani grabbed Corey’s arm and clung tight. A stocky, brick house of a worker stepped toward them. Seemed like out of nowhere.

“We don’t know who that is, bud. You guys ain’t safe in here without gear. You should leave before some kind of accident happens.” The man nodded to the way they came in, then turned his back on them.

“We, uh,—” Corey coughed, “We have something he’d be interested in. Worth his while.”

“You?” the worker asked, laughing the question.

“Yeah, me. He used to help me run a blog back in the day,” Corey gulped and glanced at Liani, “‘Engine of Vengeance?’” The worker squinted at him.

“Nerd,” Liani snickered under her breath. A booming laugh from the worker startled all three of them. The spectators all around seemed to relax.

“Shit yeah! I used to check out EoV all the time! So...you must be TruthHammer! You’re a real wise-ass, bro,” the man chuckled as if remembering an example. Liani laughed out loud.

“TruthHammer?!”

“Told you, I’m a badass,” Corey said sheepishly. Matteo heard the click, saw the handgun.

“Whoa—” Corey started.

“Sorry, T.H., just a precaution. EoV went dead five years ago, and that’s plenty of time to turn Fed. Give me the rings and show me the arms.” Corey frowned, then took his off. Nodded to Matteo and Liani who both followed suit. Matteo watched as his two new friends held out their left forearms. The worker took out a local profile scanner and touched it over their chips, triggering a quick beep.

“Hm,” the man said, reading as he stepped to Matteo. Matteo turned his arm over and hesitated, looking at the skin. He remembered Themis. Being pinned to the ground and forced to submit to a similar device. He looked at Liani.

“It’s okay,” she said, “It doesn’t hurt.”

Matteo nodded. Stretched the arm out for the worker. Reading the profile, the worker’s eyes went wide.

“Yeah. He’s what’s worth your while,” Corey said, “calls himself Matteo, but, as you can see, the chip’s got a different name.”

“He follows me. You two stay here,” he said, turning away.

“Wait, what?! No, man, we’re—”

“You’re Media, or at least you were. We can’t risk you leaking anything that we’d rather keep tight,” the worker tapped a finger on the side of the gun, “No arguments.”

Matteo stole himself, putting on the toughest scowl he could. But truth was, every inch further into the complex they went, his nerves screamed. He buried the thousands of questions for the moment and refocused his mind on their route. A long forgotten lesson from Jogun surfaced right on cue. ‘When in doubt, know the way out.’ The voice was so vivid in his head. Heard through the new knowledge of his hidden talents, it dropped a lead weight on his shoulders. Still, he did his best to take the advice.

He found the pattern in their path. Thick black cables hung bracketed to the metal frame walls. Some kind of hard line setup for both power and networking, not all that different from some of the rigs used around Rasalla. The EXOs could tap into Wi-Fi signals too easily. The cops had to find a local hard line before they could hack in. Why would anybody on this side of the Border need to hide like this? The people of the City were all supposed to be rich, fat, and comfortable, living in beautiful apartments that look down on the rest of the world. Do the EXOs raid here too? In their own City?

Another turn and the two of them arrived at a small clearing in the structure. In the center of the cylindrical chamber squatted an older model IG-6 military transport. Matteo flinched as years of programming begged his legs to run. But this one was rusted. Sleeping under a camouflage net to hide it from open sky. A ring of dried mold surrounded its base and crept up the hull, showing him it hadn’t moved in a long time. The black cables wormed their way up to modified ports all over and around the ship, spread over the platform like thick noodles. The worker stepped over the cables toward the ship. Matteo hesitated. Heard the familiar click.

“No turning back now, I’m afraid,” said the worker, holding the gun for Matteo to see, “C’mon.” With every step, the decaying ship grew. It loomed over the two of them as they approached the hatch door under the nose. A surveillance camera next to the hatch buzzed as it focused on the two of them.The worker grinned up at it, showing his crooked stained teeth.

“It’s Simon, open up,” he called up to the camera, “Got a special guest who’d like to...uh...reminisce.” The hatch bolts popped and the door squealed open on rusty hinges.

It took a moment for Matteo’s eyes to adjust in the dim blue glow of the inside. Flickering monitors lined the stripped bulkheads, outlining seated figures. They swiveled in their chairs to look at him, then turned back to their work. Whatever that might be. A thin figure descended from a ladder in the ceiling and jumped down, landing with a thud on the metal floor. The hot cherry of a lit cigarette swayed from side to side in the twilight as the figure walked over to greet them. A monitor brightened, lighting the mystery man’s face. Just a kid?

He had to be between Matteo and Jogun’s age. Sunken eyes studied Matteo in the dark, set in a gaunt, scruffy face. He was thin except for a slight gut and dressed in a filthy undershirt and baggy sweatpants. They watched each other in silence for a moment.

“Well?” asked the raspy, young voice, “What’s up Inner Ring? How can I be of service?”

“You’re Illyk?” Matteo asked. The strange kid spread his arms and bowed.

“A votre plaisir,” Illyk intoned, “Now, I’m busy so get to your f*cking point.” Matteo had just about enough.

“I’m not ‘Inner Ring.’ I’m not any ‘Ring.’ My name’s Matteo and I grew up in Rasalla. Scrap, ashes, and dirt, but this,” Matteo held up his left arm, “This says my name is Aden Rindal.” Illyk sucked on the filter of the cigarette, staring. The others in the room stopped typing and turned in their seats. Matteo felt hard, expectant eyes on him. The air hung dead as Illyk exhaled a curling plume of smoke.

“That’s...a heavy story...‘Aden,’” Illyk said, “‘Long lost son of the fallen hero.’ Not sure I believe it, although trust me...I’d like to. That’d get some serious cloudtime, and way beyond just the forums. Dad, prep the Chair for our guest here.” Simon crossed the room, opened an inner hatch door, and dipped out of sight. Illyk stepped closer to Matteo, his sour breath seeping out as he spoke.

“To reiterate, I’d like to believe you. But I don’t. My time and services are not only valuable, they are very, very risky and, as I’m sure you know, very, very illegal. We’ll take a look for you, but it comes with a price. Whatever I find, I copy and keep, got it?”

Matteo didn’t. He squinted at Illyk.

“TM Data, bro. Your worst, most traumatic memories. Don’t ask me why, but people pay max credits to live through someone else’s pain and anguish. Not exactly pretty, but it’s how we keep the lights on and fight the good fight, so I’ll repeat: Whatever I find, I copy and keep. Got it?”

Matteo clinched his fists. Looking around the room, the others were still seated in front of their screens. Illyk looked pale. Underfed. He could take him. A quick punch to the jaw or throat, then he’d flip around to deal with…

Matteo felt the gun barrel dig into the small of his back. Simon. Father to the grinning rat boy in front of him.

“Sorry, kid, it’s for the cause,” said Simon, “Think of it as your contribution. Now let’s go have a seat.”

It was a reclining chair bolted into a platform in a small separate chamber. A headdress of electrodes and wires sprouted from the headrest like some kind of techno jellyfish. Open shackles waited for his limbs on the arm and leg rests, each blinking inside with strange technology. Where the main cabin had been for prisoner transport, this room was for something else. Interrogation. Matteo had heard rumors around the market about it. The EXOs would strap you down in this chair, hook you up to machines, and put the screws on you. A few T99s would try to brag that they got put in the chair and never gave up a thing. But the ones that really went through it...they never came back the same. Most spent the rest of their lives as permanent patients in the Temple. Matteo prayed a silent prayer that the hardware in his head made him different. Corey said I was recording...maybe they’ll just hit ‘Play’?

No choice. Matteo tried to imagine he was sitting in Utu’s healing chair back in the Temple, waiting for a check-up. He regained focus as he sat down.

“What ‘Cause’ is this for again?” Matteo asked, “All I see is a buncha guys sittin’ on their asses in a rusted out dropship.”

Illyk turned his forearm over in the humming blueish light. A long, ragged scar ran the length of his pale flesh where the chip should be. It rippled as Illyk closed a fist.

“To show people that their paradise is a prison. Death Row for the human race,” Illyk said as he stepped to the chair control panel and punched a few buttons. The shackles clamped shut, trapping Matteo’s forearms and ankles. The tentacles of the headdress grasped his skull and squeezed. He felt the electrodes arrange themselves with little ice-cold snaps. Illyk tapped a few more buttons then inserted a smooth, rectangular cartridge into the panel.

“Brace yourself,” Illyk said.

The comforting memory of Utu’s office dissolved as bits of blinding light streaked toward him from the room. They gathered faster and faster, blotting out his vision. Before leaving the present moment entirely, he heard Illyk’s grinding voice.

“This isn’t gonna be fun.”

The scenes came on fast. Racing through settings and times and people and emotions at a thousand miles-an-hour. All from his living point of view. Every bit of it was as vivid and detailed as though the moments were happening. And somehow his mind kept up, tasting every breath and feeling, every hurt. The hurts seemed to slow things down closer to real time. Somewhere in his current awareness, he could almost feel Illyk watching.

Matteo felt the cold floor of his cell back in Themis, watching himself pound the glass as Jogun explained the truth. His past mind swam with confusion. Waves of anger crashed against denial and pain as the answers rolled out of his broken brother, destroying the world and his place in it. Then came Kabbard. Then the gas. Darkness. Fading to Jogun’s screams.

He blinked then winced as the cinder block wall above him was cratered by rifle rounds, raining hot debris down on his head. Suomo and the T99s huddled around him, popping up to take quick shots at the stranded EXOs. A boy beside him, no older than sixteen, took a bullet in the brain. Warm, red wetness splashed his ear and shoulder. Bits of gray in it.

Rewind through six years in the Pits. A chunk of falling fiberglass nearly took off his arm at the shoulder, crippling him for weeks as he healed.

Lying awake and starving to death on more nights than he cared to remember.

Jogun appeared, lying bloody and limp on the grooved metal roof of their old house. Kabbard and the EXOs had beaten him almost to death, and they kept at it. The sickening impact of each strike shook Matteo’s tiny body. His throat burned with wheezing, choked sobs as he shrieked for them to stop. Jogun smiled. ‘You got this.’

Then he was in the Dream. The same one he’d had off-and-on since he was a kid. Yet as the scene slowed to real time, it came into waking focus. He looked at his hands. Small, chubby fingers wiggled and flexed. The feeling made him curious. He waved the little hands in front of him, then squealed. So happy. A white bandage wrapped tightly around his left forearm, tugging the soft skin as he wriggled.

Two people sat in the front seats, talking. A man and a woman. Beyond them, bright white clouds and blue sky shone through glass, moving gently over them. The two familiar voices warmed him as they spoke, but his observing, adult mind understood words that the young mind did not.

“Dammit, Alan, would it kill you to look on the bright side?” the woman asked. “I know this is important to you, I really do, but it’s been eating you alive for years now. It’s been eating all of us lately with all the long nights, press conferences...cameras in our faces. We all need some time away, and this—”

“There is no ‘time away’ anymore, Patty! We’re not taking a break, going to visit old friends, we’re running for our lives...and I’m not sure I can live with what I’m leaving behind,” the man said. Somewhere in time, the icy tingle of recognition worked its way up Matteo’s spine. The voices...his real mother and real father, continued.

“Are you so goddamn preoccupied with that that you can’t see what you’re taking with you?!” The painful tone in his mother’s voice tightened Matteo’s small, weak chest. Tiny, wheezing sobs chirped out of him. His parents turned in their seats. The looks on their faces filled him, both then and now. The corners of his mother’s hesitating smile...he’d seen them thousands of times since in the mirror. Her opal eyes trembled as they looked down at him. Mama? He’d always wondered what she looked like. Dark, almost black skin, smooth like still water. Short black hair kept neat in gentle waves, the longer strands in the front draping across her forehead.

Then there was his father. The man Jogun told him he didn’t want to know, except this was a different man. My real dad... Love radiated from the man’s gaunt, brown features, but through a mask of desperation. Matteo had seen that face in the mirror too. His parents turned back to each other.

“That’s all I can see now,” his dad said, “I look at you and Aden, and I just—I don’t just want us to be safe, I want us to be free. I’d do anything to find a place where he could grow up to be his own person and not a slave. To choose a life rather than it be chosen for him, but that’s not the world we live in now.” His dad held up the left hand. A thick black ring coiled around his middle finger.

“Like hell it’s not,” his mom said. She reached over and snatched off the ring.

“Patty, no!” he screamed, lunging for the device. She recoiled in her seat, holding the ring out of reach. Matteo...Aden started to cry. After several moments, the cabin stilled.

“You see? Nothing’s happened. Nobody’s chasing us, your brain wasn’t hijacked. It’s not the end of civiliza—” she stopped as a loud bang erupted from the reactor compartment. The ship’s smooth glide dipped into violent, shaking free fall.

“Alan?! ALAN!” his mother screamed, clawing at her arm-rests. She fainted, rapping her head on the dash.

Though his dad’s hands were firmly locked to the flight sticks, trying to pull up, the man could still speak. Matteo strained to listen past his own piercing screams.

“You’ve seen what’s happened, Aden! You can’t understand it yet, but if you survive this, someday you will! Others have to see what you’ve seen, and they need the truth you carry! Five-seven-echo-alpha-zero-zero-one-two-one! Remember it! Remember forever...we’ll always love you!”

The roar outside the ship drowned out any other sound as they plunged. Matteo could still feel his cries stinging his soft throat. The dust-colored streets of Rasalla quaked in a blur below them. Closer and closer until...Black.

Then he was alone. Wheezing sobs reflected back to him in the tiny chamber of his child seat. It was hot. Smells from his wet pants choked him as he struggled to breathe. His sips for air grew smaller and smaller.

Muffled sounds came from outside his bubble. Yelling voices, heavy thuds, screeching metal...and a scraping. A chunk of foam broke away, spilling light into his car seat. A shadowy face appeared in the hole. More scraping. A series of pops released the bubble, and rough young hands scooped him up.

“Stay quiet, little brother,” the young voice whispered, “I got’chu.”

Jo.

The sunlit halo around his brother spread until all was white. As the blindness faded from his weeping eyes, Matteo found himself back in Illyk’s chair. The shackles clicked open and the head-tentacles retracted. Illyk, Simon, and all of the technicians in the room gathered around the chamber, staring at him. He wanted to hide. To shrink into a deep, dark hole somewhere and come out maybe five years later.

Suddenly, strange text files, blueprints, and photographs appeared on screens around the room. Some kind of ship... Beyond massive in the half glow of the curved Earth beneath it, the body looked almost whale-shaped. Miles of solar panels lined its broad, flat wing arrays. Giant glass domes punctuated both the back and the underbelly, housing every biosphere on the planet. And millions of pin-point windows covered the hull.

Without reading the screens, fresh memories bubbled up into Matteo’s awareness. ‘The Narayana.’ Total Occupancy: 2.8 million persons. Top speed: 99.9992% SOL. Destination: Gliese 581g. Distance to Target: 20.26 LY. Projected Launch Date: 09-2090AD.

“My God...” Simon said, “They’re gonna—”

“Leave us all to rot! Ho-ly SHIT!” Illyk shouted, “We got ‘em! Dead to f*ckin’ rights, we got ‘em!” Excited laughter broke out all over the room. Matteo willed himself to sit up, but his head rolled into a mat of fuzz. He almost passed out.

“Whoa, whoa, buddy! I bet that was rough...but don’t worry man, ‘cause everything’s about to change! We’re gonna put this out on every channel we can think of. Hell, we’ll project it on the sky over Mesa-f*cking-Park!”

Matteo heaved his throbbing head up and saw the control panel. The memory cartridge.

“No...” Matteo muttered. He yanked the head-tentacles off, killing the streaming data. Then, in one quick move, his hand shot out and grabbed the memory cartridge from its port. The laughter died in an instant, replaced by the click of Simon’s pistol.

“Now, you got what you came for, Aden,” Illyk said, “You’ve seen more truth about yourself than most people ever should, but we had a deal. Give us the stick, and you can walk away. Don’t, and...well...”

They’d never let him walk away. They would parade him through the streets for their ‘cause,’ and plaster his name all over the Net. A rallying cry that would destroy the City of his dreams, replacing it with...what? These people? His palm sweated as it gripped the digital sum total of his life, and the secret stored within.

BOOOOOM!

The entire cabin shook, throwing Illyk and his people off balance. Lights flickered and several monitors fell off of their mounts and smashed on the bulkhead. Matteo stumbled, but seized the moment. He launched his shoulder into Simon’s chest, wrenched the gun out of the man’s thick hands, and rolled out of the way. The group lunged for him then stopped, facing the barrel of the gun. Matteo kept it trained on them as he crept backward to the hatch door.

“This is my life,” Matteo said, holding up the cartridge, “Use your own for your ‘Cause.’” He opened the hatch. Sounds of chaos spilled inside.

“Kid, you’re making a mistake! Didn’t you hear your old man, he said—”

Matteo interrupted Illyk with a warning shot.

“Don’t follow me!” He jumped outside, slammed the hatch shut, and twisted the lever as hard as he could. As he got his bearings, he saw a column of ink-black smoke rising toward the sky. Sirens, screams, and shouting filled the air.

Spotting the opening in the path, he sprinted for it, bounding over the thick cables in the dirt. He’d almost made it to the opening when he heard the IG-6 hatch door slam open behind him. The familiar near-miss shriek of speeding bullets surrounded him. He tucked his arms and head toward his chest, then dove through the opening as rounds tore shrapnel off its metal frame.

Following the cables out was harder than he’d thought coming in. They curved down paths he hadn’t seen, split into several directions. He turned a right he thought he remembered. It dead-ended into a transformer box. With the violent shouts growing louder, he looked up into the hollow framework of the facility. Started climbing.

The labyrinth of multicolored supports, braces, and beams made picking a clear direction impossible. Gotta get distance. The same advice the vets would give young Nines for being chased into a strange district. ‘Don’t worry about where you’re going. Just go.’ He wove through the columns and swung over gaps. Climbed around generator hubs and over groups of sprinting workers. Before long, he realized that no one nearby was concerned about him anymore. They all ran in one direction. Matteo paused to breathe the acid out of his lungs, then climbed through to the top of the super structure.

Half of the sky toward the Border had turned black with smoke, filling his nose with the smell of burned synthetics. Then, eyes drifting downward, he saw it. No more than five miles away, a jagged, freighter-wide wound gouged through the Border in a giant ‘V’ shape. Glimpses of the Rasalla District beyond peeked through the billowing smoke. Matteo’s jaw dropped. Paralysis gripped his body, locking him in a blank stare. They did it. It’s happening.

“Corey! Corey, get the f*ck down here, let’s go!” said a female voice carried by the wind. Matteo blinked. Others had emerged all over the rooftops, towers, and landing pads of the Outer Ring. Everyone faced the Border.

“Corey!” screamed the voice that had to be Liani. Matteo scanned nearby and saw Corey’s chunky silhouette climb clumsily over a catwalk ledge. The man struggled to his feet and lifted a handheld camera. But the wind carried another sound to Matteo. A kind of low background noise that got louder. And louder. And louder. Then it was a roar. Thousands of voices chanting in unison.

The wave of shock dissolved into needle-flesh all over Matteo’s skin, waking his throbbing limbs. He sprang up, picked his route to Corey, and took off across the complex.

“Corey RUN!” He waived his arms then leaped to catch the next ledge. Pulled himself up to face Corey. Still filming. Matteo grabbed the camera and stared his new, dumbfounded friend in the face.

“Rasalla is coming!” said Matteo. As Corey opened his mouth to speak, a shockwave slammed into both of them.

BOOOOM! BOOOOM! B-BOOOOOOM!

Knocked flat on the catwalk, Corey pushed Matteo off of him. Both sat up. Columns of smoke and giant boulders of falling concrete rained down throughout the Outer Ring. Three fresh fractures had punched through the Border to join the first. Corey shouted above the ringing in Matteo’s ears.

“Okay, we can go!”

As they turned for the climb down, Corey’s van sidled up to the ledge, blasting them backward with exhaust. Liani at the wheel. The rear passenger hatch hissed open.

“You have five f*cking seconds to get the f*ck in the f*cking van!” Liani shouted through the PA.

“Jesus...” Corey said.

“NOW!” she shouted. The two of them fell over each other to climb inside. Matteo barely got his foot through the door before the hatch snapped closed. The van bobbed hard and lurched up into the sky.

“About time,” Liani said, “Now quit dicking around back there and get a shot of that!” She pointed out the window. Matteo handed the camera back to Corey, and the two of them clung to the seats to take a look.

Streaks of gunfire waived through the smoke in sweeping curves. Thousands of muzzle flashes crept along the ground in front of four smoldering gaps in the Border. Fresh explosions popped off throughout the Outer Ring. Flames licked up toward the van. Then, from the ashen plumes emerged ships. A fleet of them...all shapes and sizes. Matteo recognized names spray-painted on their hulls in giant red letters.

‘Falari.’

‘Alati.’

‘Temple.’

‘Rasalla.’

‘Jogun.’

‘Matteo.’