EJECTED EARTH

Chapter One

Residential Node | Easthold | Greylunde Territorial Outpost

28 April 2560

523 Years Post-Ejection

The air from the tunnel hubs always carried a taste of metal. Cold and sharp. Like licking the edge of a coin.

Jack liked it. It meant the filters were working. It meant the vents hadn’t frozen again. And it meant the sublimators were still melting just enough ice into the air to keep the walls from cracking.

The central node was always quiet. The walls absorbed sound like they were made to forget it. In that stillness, only the deuterium refinery’s hum sang through the bones of the dome.

Jack walked the grated platform—satchel bouncing, boots tapping. The others peeled off toward the rec hall, but Jack had his own routine.

Lights buzzed high overhead as he walked down the ramp to the StrataMole pens. Bay four was his dad’s. Had been for years. Jack knew every scuff and bubble-gum weld on that gate.

Kids weren’t supposed to be in the StrataMole pens without a tech, but Gerry always waved him through. Even this late in the day, the pens buzzed with activity. Crew chiefs barked load orders, techs swapped scorched dampers, and cleared spall from the deck plates. Junior techs raced crates against shift call.

Jack knew that if he wanted to retain his trespassing privileges, he had to stay well clear of the techs. He also knew that if he wanted to retain his limbs, he’d have to stay well clear of the StrataMoles.

While Jack waited for the activity on the decks to die down, he counted all of the techs with four limbs. One less than last week.

Seeing his opening, Jack crossed the busy thoroughfare.

Loren’s eyes never left the controls of his side-loader, but noticed nine-year-old Jack bounding down the breezeway stairs.

“She’s going out in twenty. Make it quick.”

Jack replied with a two-finger salute. Just another tech.

Lucille was already coupled to her cargo cars, ready to deliver his father’s crew their nightly resupply of provisions, equipment and materials. Jack never understood why all of the mining crews named their StrataMoles and TerraVores girl names, or why Jack’s mom hated it.

Climbing onto the lead cart, Jack opened a small door with “John Greer” written in white paint. Inside: a dented metal tin. The kind his mom used to send cookies to his dad in. Already grinning, Jack pulled out the leather-bound journal.

Inside was a drawing of a skeleton wearing boxing gloves. Underneath the drawing was written, Why don’t skeletons ever fight?

With a cringing smile, Jack pulled out a pencil and wrote.

“They don’t have the guts…You need funnier friends.”

Jack took off his satchel, sat cross-legged on the cart, turned to fresh page.

He blew away the loose graphite dust and put his pencil in his jacket pocket. Somewhere between last week’s fart joke and report card, he tucked in the note he’d written the night before and placed it back into the old metal tin.

Most of the other kids talked to their parents on expedition through vidlink, but ever since his father sent him that drawing of a funny looking Martian, Jack and his father wrote back and forth through the leather-bound notebook. Dad named the Martian Marvin.

He jumped off the cart, boots ringing out on the metal grating below.

“Thanks, Lo!” he shouted over the rising thrum of the other moles coming online.

Loren climbed out of his side loader, adjusting his prosthetic leg as he moved.

“You bet!” Loren shouted over the growing noise. “Gerry’s fixing your dad’s old Vore if you want to check—”

“Came by this morning!”

“Of course you did.” Loren cracked a smile and gave him the salute.

Just another tech.

Jack responded in kind and sprinted across the loading apron. Before leaving he stopped to watch Lucille as her fusion reactor spooled up.

Lucille’s reactor wound up slowly. The vents across her freshly painted yellow hull flickered as the coils stabilized. The startup pulse came next. Abrupt. Clean. Like a hundred breaths held and released all at once.

He’d always hold his breath with her, waiting for the thrum—slow and low. The kind you felt in your teeth.

He watched her hum to life longer than he needed to. The thrum faded behind him as he turned and started the quiet walk home.

The walk home was long. He didn’t mind. He liked the quiet and never minded the cold. It was his favorite time to dream. About the future, about Dad, Lucille—about everything.

Jack walked into his family’s hab and shed off his heavy jacket.

Jack’s mother looked up from the stove. Jack’s older sister, Elizabeth, kept her gaze fixed on her tablet.

“Hey Jackie.”

“Hey mom.”

Jack knew what home was supposed to smell like, but all he caught was the sharp dust of the logistics hub, still clinging to him for dear life.

“Supper will be ready in a minute. Go get washed up.”

Jack’s mom didn’t hum when she cooked anymore. He couldn’t remember the last time she played the piano.

She still smiled. Still asked about his day. But he could tell it didn’t come without some effort. She wasn’t sad exactly. Just…slower.

Dinner felt long, though no one talked much. When it ended, they scraped bowls in the dim light and settled into the quiet. The low hum of the node filled the silence between them, a sound they all trusted completely.

Sleep usually found Jack quickly, but not tonight. He kept seeing his dad’s old TerraVore half-melted across Gerry’s shop floor.

He tried swallowing the knot in his throat. Maybe he’d get out of school tomorrow.

Eyes shut, he dreamt of straddling a StrataMole rocketing across the frozen surface under the actual stars.

Someplace called The Sahara.

One day.

He woke before his alarm, dressing in the half-dark, still chewing on the questions that kept him awake. Questions that school couldn’t answer.

He tried thinking about anything else on the long, quiet walk back to the pens.

Gerry would tell him what happened.

Gerry was Dad’s oldest friend. From before Mom even. His mom liked Gerry well enough, but he knew she would rather Jack find a friend his own age. Or at least someone who didn’t swear so much.

“Hey, Gerry.”

“Whatcha say there, Jackie boy! Come to see Annabelle?” Gerry stood up, wiping his metallic hand with an oily rag.

“Last night I was thinking about that gas pocket.”

“She was a big fuc–” Gerry gathered himself. “What about it?”

Jack wandered by Gerry’s toolbox and pulled out the same half-inch torque wrench he always fiddled with in Gerry’s bay.

“So it was a big one. Any idea what it was?”

“Best guess? Whale carcass. Must’ve been buried under the ice shelf before any of this was even here. Drifted in, got sealed up. Over time, the organic stuff broke down and left a pocket full of gas.”

Jack sat down on the mechanics stool, clicking through the teeth of the wrench.

“My dad told me that the Vores had a way to see those. Something like radar.”

“LiDAR. Don’t ask me how—it just works. Nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of a thousand, we know it’s there before they start cutting.”

Gerry put the last of his tools away, sat down behind his workbench and turned a screen towards Jack. “Take a look here.”

Most of it looked like static to Jack. Rings of pale green layered across dense bands of darker green. He knew what the two parallel lines were. Orange: TerraVore mainline. Yellow: StrataMole boreline.

Gerry circled a small smudge along the edge of the orange path. Barely a dip in the signal.

“Right there,” he said, tapping the screen. “See it?”

Jack leaned closer. It didn’t look like much. Not a crack. Not a void. Just a faint blur.

“That’s where it was.” Gerry adjusted the scan with a flick of his fingers. “Signal hit basalt. Dense shit. Real compressed. Soaked up the return. Read it as solid.”

Jack kept staring at the screen. A smudge on the scan. Just small enough to miss. Just big enough to matter. To do everything right…and still lose.

The knot came back.

“There’s not a system in this place without a blind spot somewhere,” Gerry said, smiling faintly. “Same goes for people, I guess.”

Gerry turned the screen back toward his workstation. “There’s an old-world saying for when fate finds us, no matter how clever we think we are.”

He gave Jack a half-smile.

“Shit happens.”

Jack stood from the stool and put the heavy torque wrench back in the toolbox—right where it belonged.

“I’m gonna be late.” Jack turned to walk out of the service bay.

“Jackie—,” Jack stopped at the yellow halon fire bottle. “John’s a real bitch. He’ll be home telling his tall tales before Day of Last Light.”

Jack smiled. “Thanks, Ger.”

It didn’t make him feel any better, but Jack never came to Gerry for comfort.

At school, Jack spent the day tracking Lucille’s route in his head. Speed, distance, stops. If they’d tested him on boreline logistics, he might’ve finally earned a spot on the coldkeep.

He counted the relays like prayers, refusing to believe anything could go wrong.

Jack’s boots hit the slab tiles before the bell finished its last chime. He had time. Lucille never left before four, but he couldn’t shake this feeling until he was holding something from his father. A letter, a corny joke, a shiny rock—anything.

He’d made it out of the residential nodes before he realized he was running. By the time he reached the hub, he was running full tilt.

The logistics hub felt asleep. Gerry and a few others tried waving him down, but Jack kept running. Whatever Gerry wanted could wait.

With each step, the voices behind him thinned.

He rounded the gate and stopped.

There was Lucille. Bay four. His dad’s—right where she should be. His pulse began to slow. Just a little.

But something was wrong.

Loren was gone. His loader, left running in the middle of the apron. The other bays—all abandoned. He stepped down the metal breezeway stairs and climbed onto Lucille’s cargo cart. Sitting on his feet, he held his breath as he opened his father’s cubby.

The old dented tin sat right where it always did.

His breathing slowed and shook. He fanned the pages. He needed a joke. A note.

Inside, a sketch.

He turned the journal in his hands, tilting into the light.

A broken voice cracked a hole in the silence.

“Jack?”

Gerry stood at the top of the stairs, breathless. His voice was cautious—guarded.

Every tech on shift stood silently behind him. Watching.

Jack squinted. “Ger?”

The sea of techs behind Gerry began to part.

The air in Jack’s lungs fled as he searched the wall of faces.

“…Jack?”

The hum of the hub and the howl of the wind from the lines behind him faded to nothing.

His mother’s slow, shallow voice drowned out everything else.

His eyes found hers the moment he heard her voice.

Tears flooded his eyes—his throat closed.

“Yeah, Mom?” His voice cracked and shook.

It wasn’t real until someone said it.

“Jack…”

“he’s gone.”

Tears wet the pages of the journal opened on his knees.

The damp pages shook as he traced its shape—his father’s last mark.

A ball.

Three arrowed lines crossing.

Depends on the reason you’re here. I suppose the fact you’re reading this at all, means you’re not in the camp of Reason #1. And for that, I’m obliged.

Go ahead and read the whole thing though. It’s got a whole…flow.

Reason #1: Reciprocity

More often than not, if I subscribed before liking or commenting on a post of yours, it’s just me dog-earring your account for later. I saw something in a note, or someone I like tagged you and I don’t have time to read. Later when I do read your posts, if your writing doesn’t connect with me, I’ll unsubscribe quicker than you un-liked that photo you accidentally clicked on of your ex from 2008.

And if you subbed me, just a-wishin’ I’d sub you back…. It’s like I’ve heard all my life.

Wish in one hand. Shit in the other. Then come and tell me which one fills up first.

Reason #2: Levity

You laughed at one of my comments on a note and you subbed thinking there would be more of the same.

Sorry, bossman. The bits I run in the comments section and notes are for me. I post the comment, screenshot it, then text it to my wife.

I laugh. She laughs.

That’s the extent of it. Don’t expect comedy in my posts. And if a comment of mine pissed you off, blame my wife. She likes those best.

Reason #3: Tribalism

You found me out in the wild seeming to argue for an ideology that you subscribe to.

On a platform as ideologically monochrome as Substack, it’s not often you see a bearded redneck arguing for smaller government. Pair that with my apparent obsession with pocket knives and fish that I manage to shoe-horn into everything, and you start to get an inkling of where I’ll end up on Election Day.

So, you think maybe I’ll have some posts that will mirror and somehow validate your worldview.

Fuck. That.

I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. Not even a Libertarian. I’m whatever I have to be to justify not voting since season four of American Idol.

Call it apathy if you want, but when the Titanic sank, who didn’t look at the violinist and say, “Yeah…that’s the way you do it, right there.”

And even if you did manage to peg me down, I’d just pick up the counter argument like it was the last broom out of Oz.

It’s not even a lie, really. I’m a Grandmaster contrarian and as consistent as gravity.

Reason #4: Merit

Alright. You read something you liked. Now we’re getting somewhere. Go ahead and sub.

But I should warn you. Whatever you liked is not likely to be repeated.

I came to writing late. Started writing fiction when I was 37. Wrote my first poem when I was 38. I turned 39 in June. I don’t have a backlog. With the exception of my novel, I post everything I write.

Science fiction, comic supernatural crime noir, the occasional essay, formal and free verse poetry. You get the genius straight from the fire hydrant. Just don’t always expect water.

Capricious? Yeah, probably. But I like to think about it more like McDonalds. A McFish doesn’t taste like a Big Mac. But throw the menu in a blender and it all just tastes like McDonalds.

I’m still figuring out all the containers that fit my “voice”. Someone tells me what a Sestina is on Tuesday, I read a couple dozen on Wednesday, write a bad one on Thursday and I post it.

It’s not that I have low standards. I don’t realize it stinks until I’ve read and written more. Sometimes that takes a long time.

Unless…

Reason #5: Craft

You obsess over the nuts and bolts, you beautiful maniac. You want to get better. You see where I need to.

This is the best possible reason to consider subscribing to me. I’m not saying that I can make you a better writer.

I want to be a better writer.

This is your license to kill. You read something in my fiction that confused you, took you out of the story, or you saw a decision in a poem that didn’t land for you—

Tell me.

I don’t need a compliment sandwich, but don’t be a dick about it either…unless it’s funny.

But if you are an unfunny dick about it (zero points for attempt), I will consider it shots-fired and update the rules of engagement accordingly. But this ain’t war, I ain’t in Switzerland, and I don’t do…proportionality.

And I don’t consider polite feedback a carte blanche to start critiquing your work either. I always ask first. However, unless you wrote a poem about shooting ducks, having too many kids, or IBS, I’m likely under qualified.

Still with me? Alright then. A few more expectations to manage.

First, as much as I love the idea of being a professional writer, it would never pay all the bills I got. And worse, I actually enjoy what I do for a living. So I’ll never, and I mean ever, turn on paid subs.

Second, I got four kids. Young kids. I’m writing this on paternity leave. Depending on when you read this, and how effective this vasectomy is, I’m juggling at least four kids, a full time job, and laying regular, hopefully sterile, pipe. Adjust your expectations accordingly.

One last thing. I regularly cull subscribers who never actually read or interact with me in any way. You got 60 days from when you sub. That’s not a threat. Subscribe then ignore me for two months and you won’t even notice when I cut you.

Then you get the pleasure of subscribing to me all over again.

Lucky you.

A reward for reading to the end.

E.F. Morgan wanted you to see his fish.

Some company get coffee,
others get golf on TV.
A man I had known but only now see,
listlessly staring at grass on a screen.
Wincing through the screams
of eight happy feet
Checking the time—
pining to leave.

How do I tell him his father’s ruby was glass?
Or the gold in the ring was plate?
If he asks for it back
I’ll tell him to look
in that liminal gap 
between the seats of the Honda 
I left rusting in some heap.
Maybe after commercials—
before the next putt.

With a roll of his eyes
he stood to pace and
with a muttering breath he reminds
how he would silence his house.

Like I’d forgotten
anything.
Least of all 
the enforcement 
of silence—
his most prized possession.

I remember it all.
The consequences,
never the infractions.
Like his Twist of Oliver,
a mandated willful return.
Please sir, can I have some more,
of my thrice-a-day penance?
Oh, what a story—
decades told.
I knew where to hold—punchline.
For a laugh.

Nearly all did. But
what would he have said
of the tears in her eyes?
Would he have seen it then
as clearly as I?

Maybe I’ll brew a pot,
put Bluey on TV,
and tell him that loud homes
are safe homes.
Proof in the eight crazy feet
laughing, screaming, and crying.

…

Right after this drive.
Let him have Scheffler.
Then maybe I’ll tell him
before the plaque in his brain
enacts its cruel mercy
and erases my name.

Author’s Note: Thank you, to for helping me put a finer tip to this one. You’re a true gent, and I’m proud to count you among friends.

This one is a little rawer, more directly vulnerable, and less “constructed” than a lot of my pieces, but given the subject matter, every abstraction felt further from the true thing I wanted to say.

Here, if no where else.

Up the creek the frogs are singing
where the ripples go to die.

Water striding insects
Chase stars along the glass.

Knees of trees and red-glow eyes
peer out into the night, and

the will-o’-the-wisp’s callin’:
just stay here 
tonight.


A spider sleeps in Spanish moss,
dangled over black.

A warmouth watching from below
waits for it to fall.

And somewhere close, could be far,
an owl begins to laugh, and

the will-o’-the-wisp’s callin’:
just stay here
tonight.


The grove of hallowed cypress 
older than the Son,

stand sentry over waters
few have ever known.

Just you, just me, and
the sprite among the trees.

She’s callin’:
Where are you going?
Just stay here 
tonight.

Authors Note: The bald cypress trees in the Three Sisters Swamp of North Carolina are the oldest known living wetland trees in the world at nearly 3,000 years old.

I’m a card carrying pragmatist, so bursting mystical bubbles is a duty I fulfill with zeal, but something about this place always made me wonder.

I couldn’t help but feel like if we stayed too long we’d never leave. Still, my dad would pole in deeper. A bigger fish to catch. One more frog to gig. Another lurking gator to avoid. Daring us to stay for the night.

If this particular poem reads as more “song coded”, you’d be correct. I wrote the first line and realized it sounds way too on-the-nose Dylan. It’s not uncommon for me to steal (let’s say borrow) the cadence from a verse or chorus of a song and build my rhythm from there. I decided to heavily lean into that on this piece.

Call it an homage to the great Robert Zimmerman’s, One Too Many Mornings.

We were the young—restless and bold,
we sons of mothers with forfeited names,
stepped off a bus and into the flame.
Too young to die stupid, too dumb to grow old.

New hearts as strong as case hardened steel,
we cut in new ink, we rode hard on two wheels—
pinned in the red, sun burning our heads.
We were the young—reckless and bold.

We kept in lock-step with the day
chased skirts and played games with the night.
We’d boast of hearts won, lie of love lost.
Too young to die stupid, too dumb to grow old.

With pride in our mouths and sand in our eyes,
our skin was kept cool with Hoppe’s No. 9.
Walked taller than wise—no fear left to hide.
We were the young—careless and bold.

Blindness in numbers, deaf when alone
They’d call us strange names, no longer our own.
Adjust. Readapt. Words useful to some,
while others just ride—outrunning,
some succumbing
to numb.

We were the young—helpless and bold.
Too young to die stupid, too dumb to grow old.

Thanks to for introducing me to the contrapuntal!

It was more fun to write than it is to read, but sometimes seeing it done poorly is the only motivation you need to try one for yourself.

             my son                      my daughters
 when will you know          how I love you
    what love I have            and hope for you 
       to teach how                      to share   
             to give                         and cherish
            and tend                           a love
                not                               to freely 
               hold              but            grow.
                                                                         

Author’s Note: This was my first attempt at a sestina. I wrote and posted it last year, but it never sat right with me, so I came back for another pass.

One of the biggest problems (one I still didn’t solve) was the choice of end words. This poem taught me how much a sestina depends on words that vary in tone but stay pliable enough to survive thirty-nine lines.

Undone. Wheel. Empty. Ruin. Ache. Lie.

Bleak soup.

But it’s a poem about addiction, and about fighting a God you’d already firebombed out of existence.

I’m not fuckin’ Billy Collins.

The Names That Won’t Come

A breath, just one, before I come undone.
A last hurrah, and then you take the wheel,
and end the void. Fill the empty.
Destroy this plush, this sordid pit of ruin,
this absolute and ceaseless, gnawing ache.
But first let me wallow in the sweet lie.

Hold your breath. Taste the rot in that lie.
Say their names. Pull the trap undone.
Scratch old wounds. Bleed fresh ache.
Bend it to form, this broken wheel,
and fight for the day that doesn’t know ruin.
A well is just a hole drawn empty.

The names don’t come; nothing now but empty.
A lie told in earnest is no longer a lie.
I’ll bathe in the pit and sleep in the ruin —
unwind as it all comes undone. 
Incessantly spinning, this woeful wheel,
Each turn a new thrill, each thrill an old ache.

Their names won’t come, so let me name your ache.
The furthest side from nothing is not empty —
I wake. Prodigal Son, spin round that wheel,
and curse the name you prayed had been a lie.
Not stain, but dye; your foolish doubt undone.
You will be rebuilt, stone by stone, from ruin.

I’ve tried and failed — there’s no rebirth from ruin.
I spat out the teeth that ground my ache,
excised your Word — made You undone.
In that, I found victory. Maybe my first. Empty.
Happy. Alone. I am I — my prized lie.
So, here I’ll dance and die on this wheel.

It will turn, as does all — but I. Your wheel
will cease on my Word. But first, you must ruin
your pompous pride and your ludicrous lie.
My light offers life, not peace. Yes, the ache
remains, but you will be whole with Me. Empty,
no more. My name will undo your undone.

Yet, I remain undone, prostrate on the wheel.
No names soothe my ache. No word mends my ruin.
Again, it spins, as the lie whispers empty, ‘til all is undone.

Lyrics by T.S. Morgan.

Music by Suno.

The Ballad of Julian Locke

I stole a horse I couldn’t ride,

named him Truth and watched him lie.

Bet the sheriff his life I could best his hound,

named her Blue, then I watched him die.

—

Slapped Mother Mary—she gave me a wink.

Flashed Stevie Wonder—and made him blink,

Told Saint Peter to “check again,”

He lost my name, and I lost my sins.

—

The Times crossword—all in ink.

Carry-on luggage—I bring the sink.

I taught a rock how to bitch

Taught your sister how to moan,

My time never runs out, I just take out a loan.

I shot the concept of mercy dead,

Robbed a bank inside my head,

Fate? I cut its throat at the bar.

Now cause and effect won’t park my car.

—

I drew on my shadow at noon,

It said, “good shot”, I said “you too.”

Killed my past just to feel new,

Future me said, “I’d kill you too.”

—

I drowned an ocean then drained it dry,

I shot the moon for asking why

Unplugged the sun to see who’d cry,

Now the stars won’t meet my eye.

—

I taught a fossil how to breathe,

Gave the plague a minor key,

I framed OJ for Nicole

I use chaos for control.

I threw your mama in jail

I stole the money for bail.

Fine piece of tail.

—

The Times crossword—all in ink.

Carry-on luggage—I bring the sink.

I taught a rock how to bitch

taught your sister how to moan,

My time never runs out, I just take out a loan.

I shot the concept of mercy dead,

Robbed a bank inside my head,

Fate? I cut its throat at the bar

Now cause and effect won’t park my car.

—

I erased the world to make a point.

I burned their scrolls for a brick joint.

Collapsed six heavens,

now there’s only two.

There’s still nine hells—

I’ll be there waiting for you.

—

I waltz through holes in space and time.

Every “then” was always mine.

Heat death of all is where you end.

I start over again.

—

The Times crossword—all in ink.

Carry-on luggage—I bring the sink.

I taught a rock how to bitch,

taught your sister how to moan,

My time never runs out, I just take out a loan.

I shot the concept of mercy dead,

Robbed a bank inside my head,

Fate? I cut its throat at the bar

Now cause and effect won’t park my car.

—

I shot the author, stole the page,

And I locked his ending in a cage.

So if you’re wondering how this ends—

…it already did.

Jack Greer and his crew are deep in the buried underworld of Sol Seterra—a lawless zone called the Pox—trying to reach Freelund, where a scientist critical to humanity’s survival is being held.

They’re outgunned. Their guide just abandoned them.

And Phil—who hasn’t spoken a full sentence in years—is about to say something.

Tram Maintenance Node - NE-121 | Sol Seterra

28 April 2585

2101 hours

The tram didn’t announce the stop.

In the rear cargo car, the change in speed came through the floor. The brakes started low, winding to a grinding moan. The rows of hanging tie-downs swayed once, metal on metal.

No windows. No overhead announcements. Just a narrow strip of maintenance lights, a quiet door, and faith in a tram operator with a few extra dollars on his brick.

Jack stood, one hand steady on the wall.

Across from him, the space near the rear hatch, emptier than it should have been.

Could have been the same car.

Who could remember.

The pitch of the brakes shifted again. Phil looked up first. Arthur didn’t wait for instruction.

The rear latch clanked once as Arthur heaved.

A few seconds later, Harlan nodded.

“Now.”

The hatch opened before the wheels stopped—dim red light outlined their faces. Cold air knifed into the car with a mineral tang. Deep ice. Dry, neglected air.

The duffels from Mile High hit the tracks first.

Lester and Arthur swung them down into the red wash as Jamie cracked the port door and helped Erik down.

Franklin helped drag their gear to the narrow maintenance ledge outside.

Phil dropped last, boots crushing frost with a controlled thud.

Jack cleared the corners of the car.

The brakes released with a jerk.

Keying off his light, he stepped out of the rear hatch and into the tramline—the red light from the tram, already fading.

The tram curled away out of view. The rails sang for a moment longer. When the sound died, it died.

Far ahead, dim amber lights burned in a loose cluster.

Harlan at his side, Jack broke the silence.

“Lights.”

In a breath, seven beams snapped alive—hard white cones cutting through the black.

No one spoke as they headed west.

Phil adjusted the light on his chest and ran a gloved hand along the wall. It was blue. Glassy. Pressed nearly a foot too close.

Conduit brackets protruded from the ice, mounts half consumed. Barely a centimeter of pipe remained exposed. A faint crack ticked from somewhere inside.

Arthur veered across the rail to the north wall.

In spots, conduit hung free where the brackets no longer met the wall. Clearance was wide. Maybe a foot.

Like the ice had forgotten to stay put.

They walked with purpose, tracking tolerances without meaning to.

Jack jogged ahead, hugging the southern wall. The rest followed, boots ringing on steel as they climbed the steps onto the loading deck.

Lester turned off his chest lamp. “Another few inches and we would have been dragging.”

Jack swept the bay ahead, checking for access points. A few meters into the far left corridor was an irregular opening, nearly three meters across. Its edges reinforced with rusted patchwork scrap.

Behind him, the others rifled through the duffels and began donning their rigs.

Erik adjusted his satchel—The Girls nested quiet against his chest.

Harlan shouldered the backpack air compressor and buckled the chest clip. “We early?”

Jack checked his watch. “Nope.” He pushed Harlan’s hose into its fitting.

“Shit.”

Arthur pulled two orange powder-nailers from the duffel and handed one to Phil. They clipped them to their yokes and let them hang.

Loose coats did little to mask intent.

“This is a bad idea.” Harlan scanned the armed invading force.

“This contact says they can get us close.” Jack tightened his yoke and strapped on the kukri he’d fashioned in Mile High.

Jamie inspected Lester’s rig, following the hose from the two bottles on his back. “This is what you’ve been bragging about? A torch?”

Lester keyed it on.

The bottles thumped as the regulator opened. A sharp hiss followed, quickly rising to a shriek.

At the nozzle, the air warped—a tight white-blue flame snapped into place with a dry pop.

Everyone stepped back, shielding their eyes.

Lester held it as far away from his face as he could, still attempting a smile.

“Lightsaber.”

With a hand blocking the glare, Jamie leaned in and shut it off at the tank. “Goddamn, Les! Can you make it smaller?”

Lester pressed on his eyes; showed him the regulator. “As low as she goes.” He blinked hard. “I actually don’t know how big it gets.”

Jamie laughed. “You are fucked if you think that’s a good idea. This whole place is holding on by a prayer and you want to bring that thing?”

“He’s right,” Harlan said, flinching at drops from the melting ice. “The glow-stick stays.”

“Could come in handy.”

Harlan took the torch off his back. “There’s another air-gun in there and plenty of sabots.”

Team 3 was armed. Waiting.

Jack paced, glancing to Erik for an update.

Almost checked his watch again.

He leaned against the wall. “You said that Meredith was the only friend Vera didn’t know she had.”

Erik nodded, but didn’t look at Jack.

Still leaning, Jack turned. “Why?”

Erik exhaled. “Because she’s Elara’s sponsor.”

“…sponsor.” Jack looked at nothing.

It took him longer than he’d care to admit.

“Oh.” Jack looked at Erik. “Like, drugs, or—”

“I honestly couldn’t tell you, Jack.” Erik met his eyes. “In the six years I’ve worked with her, it hasn’t been relevant.”

Jack swallowed. “Right. Good.”

Arthur paced. Phil loosened his belt and sat on the ground with a sigh.

Harlan stood. “First Flynn, now this contact. Doesn’t give you the warm and fuzzies.”

“That’s not it.” Jack drummed his thumbs against his biceps. “Flynn burned everything to get away from Sol Seterra. Never should’ve assumed he’d go back.”

Harlan exhaled. “So what’s the play?”

He looked at Erik and nodded. “What’s the range of those things?”

“Depends.” Erik straightened. “Straight line forward observation—eleven, twelve kilometers. In there?” He shrugged. “Depends.”

He looked over his crew. They were all watching Jack. Waiting for green.

“Fuck it.”

Arthur gave a single clap and sprang to his feet hauling Phil and Franklin with him.

Black pulsed on Erik’s chest, then smoothed to a whirring whistle as it launched through the makeshift tunnel entrance.

Erik stepped to Jack, setting his open terminal on a toolbox. After a few keystrokes, its path lit red.

“Can we see what it sees?”

Erik pulled out a cord, plugging one end into the terminal, the other into his neural implant.

Harlan leaned in.

The first node was small and dark. A warehouse—racks packed with crates. Half dozen lifts. An untouched layer of frost covered it all.

Black took the only exit southeast.

It sped through the empty tunnel. Faint light waited around the next bend.

Black stopped.

“That’s all we’re getting through this ice.”

Erik pulled the cord from his head.

“Okay.” Jack nodded once. “We take them one at a time. Can they all map like that?”

“All but Blanche—Purple.”

Jack keyed on his light. “Three’s good.”

He spoke to the crew huddled around.

“Stay tight. No stragglers. Do not engage with locals. Keep your ears open and your eyes on the man ahead. We’ve been trained for this.”

“Walk fast.”

“Walk mean.”

“Own the space.”

“…we were never going to blend in anyway.”

Jack led Erik and his crew through the tunnel opening—lights clicking on as they hit the dark. Lester was last in—a few seconds behind the rest.

Narrow. Uneven floor. Slick in spots.

It was rectangular. Messy. Like it was cut by men who couldn’t spell geometry.

After a few dozen meters, Jack stopped counting supports. It didn’t matter.

He picked up the pace.

Erik stepped to the side as they marched. Gold and White shot loose down the tunnel.

Another hundred meters and they reached the warehouse.

They didn’t slow.

“Left. Far end.” Erik took a slow, deep breath. “Populated, but sparse. Kids kicking a ball around.”

Lights hit the crates in his periphery.

“Eyes straight.”

The next tunnel was wider. Better supports. Still dark.

Their steps fell into rhythm. Heavy. Quick.

“Four hundred meters.” Erik struggled through the words. “We’re making a lot of noise. They’re starting to notice.”

“What are they doing?”

From above, Gold panned the streets near the node entrance ahead.

“Nothing. Looks like they’re hiding.”

Gold panned further.

“Shit—the rooftops.”

Jack didn’t slow. “Weapons?”

“No. None I can see.”

Black and White had scanned another two nodes.

“Straight. All the way through.” Erik huffed.

A minute later they rounded the curve and kept marching toward the light.

Just shy of the end, they heard a chorus of rhythmic shouts. Sharp. Aggressive.

Jamie caught it first. “Those are fucking dogs.”

The tunnel opened to an empty street bordered by row apartments. Five stories loomed over the narrow lane.

The rooflines and windows were littered with eyes. Some peeked. Others stared.

Jack and the others didn’t turn their heads, but they all saw.

“We still have eyes?” Jack said, just above a whisper.

Erik kept an eye on Gold. “They’re just watching.”

Every step wanted to be quicker than the last.

Another block and they were clear of the apartments. The barking and growls grew louder.

They passed chain-link corrals. Sand pits—stained red. Stacked cages of fur and gnashing teeth.

Bleachers.

Jack had seen pictures of old-world animals. Some videos.

The breedyards got most of them pretty close.

Not these.

Jack picked up the pace.

By the time they hit the tunnel, they were at a near jog.

“What the fuck,” Franklin huffed, “were those things?”

“Sounded like dogs,” said Jamie, “goddamn if they were.”

Jack slowed their pace and looked at Erik. “Where to?”

“There’s a split,” Erik caught his breath between steps. “Four hundred…meters.” He spit. “Left.”

Jack watched Erik’s stride. Uneven. “After this one, we’ll take five.”

Panting, Erik nodded.

The tunnel branched.

Left.

Five hundred meters more and the light from the next started filtering in.

“If we hold left, we can skirt the wall to the next tunnel.” Erik toggled to White. “It’s a bigger node. More people, but less eyes.”

Jack nodded, picking up the pace.

The tunnel led to a scrap yard. They went left, holding to the wall.

A rusted dozer blocked their way.

They cut east through an alley then looped back.

“Three blocks,” Erik said. “Then left.”

Jack eyed every door. Every second and third story window.

Doors opened as they passed. Watching.

“Erik—”

“I know.” Erik toggled to Black, whirring high overhead. A boy on a bicycle followed close behind.

“Just a boy.”

The alley intersected another.

A man in a yellow jacket, arms crossed, pushed off the wall and followed. He waved in two others.

“You lot got some place to be?”

Steady on. End of the block. Left.

“Hey!” Franklin yelped. “Don’t fuckin’ touch me, kid.”

Yellow jacket caught up and kept pace beside Phil, staring. One flanked left.

The yellow jacket spat on the ground.

“You’s lot look like other ones—some place to be.”

“Some place, this ain’t, boys.”

Phil unfastened his coat, powder-driver dangling in view.

Yellow jacket smiled.

“Dis’n here tastes iron, boys!”

Jack hit the end of the alley and turned left down the street.

Erik kept watching—Gold hovered high above, the tunnel still four blocks away. “That’s it—straight ahead.”

A block ahead and across the street, two more stepped out. Hands in pockets, they walked slowly.

Jack heard Purple begin the spool.

“Wait.”

Harlan pulled Erik by the shoulder and stepped to Jack’s side.

The two ahead had crossed the street and turned toward them.

Jack kept stride. “Phil. Art. Need cover if we break. Rest, don’t stop.”

Harlan didn’t need instructions.

“Boys!”

Jack wanted them to move.

He really did.

Harlan spotted it first.

“Gun.”

They exploded into the two men ahead.

Phil and Arthur side-stepped formation. Powder-drivers swept the three followers while Harlan and Jack finished it.

Grin gone, the man in yellow froze.

In full mount, Jack struck three times. Two would have been enough.

Phil stared down the man in the yellow jacket. He winced when he heard the bone break.

Phil didn’t.

Harlan rolled with the other. His head was squeezed under Harlan’s arm—legs kicking. One knee didn’t bend.

It folded.

By the time Lester and Jamie passed, Harlan and Jack had fallen back in step.

Phil and Arthur did the same.

Walk fast.

Walk mean.

The last hundred meters doubled.

His breathing shook.

Edges blurred.

Sinuses burned.

He should’ve grabbed the gun, but they would’ve had others.

Jack held his breath. Waiting for the crack of a shot that never came.

In the mouth of the tunnel, Jack turned and walked backwards.

The yellow jacket stood where the others lay, watching.

Jack turned around.

Shit.

Lester gave a single sharp laugh. “Think they got the message?”

No one responded.

Jack worked his way up to Erik.

A flash of white, then gold up ahead. The Girls. White nested first. Then Gold. Black.

“There’s an empty node ahead.” Erik’s hand trembled on the terminal. “Small. Five exits.”

“Good.” Jack wiped his forehead. “We’ll break there.”

Jack walked slowly. The tunnel sloped down just enough that he had to compensate.

Near the end, he shined his flashlight on the node’s floor. The light scattered. Not like frost.

Something softer.

Jack stepped into the node.

His foot fell past where the floor should’ve been.

He rolled in the fall, grasping at nothing.

He hit hard on his side.

“Jack!”

His healing wound screamed in waves.

He scrambled up, clutching his ribs.

The air around his knees shifted. Cooler. Heavier. It settled back against his legs.

He wiped at the pink, oily slick coating half his jacket.

“Shhhhit.”

Lester chuckled. “It’s a goddamn sump.”

“You good?” Harlan called.

“The fuck is this shit?” Jack tried to smell it. Didn’t smell like much.

Wading back to the tunnel, his foot hit something in the shallow soup below the fog.

He unclipped his ice axe and fished it out.

“Jesus.” Franklin winced. “Is that a leg?”

“It’s the fucking dogs.” Jamie stepped past Harlan. “How are we not smelling this?”

“Shit.” Harlan pulled his sniffer and knelt. “Kerch.” The bars split. “Sulfur. Rot. Same difference.” It vibrated and beeped.

“Lester’s right. It’s a sump.”

Franklin pulled Jack back into the tunnel.

Phil tossed Jack a towel. He wiped his face and dried his hair.

He shouldn’t have looked at the towel.

Harlan dumped a bottle of water on his head as he vomited back into the node.

Harlan laughed. “Ole’ Jack Greer meets his match?”

He spit. “Fuck you.”

Erik stepped up with his terminal, wiping the screen clean. Black, Gold and White whirred and flew from the ports on Erik’s rig.

“The routes get messy from here.” He plugged the cord back into his neural implant. “Each of the five exits branch before the next node.”

“This is Gold.” Gold’s feed populated the screen. “This takes us the closest to the main nodes, but it’s the most populated.”

“How many nodes after that one?”

“It’s just out of range, but it couldn’t be more than one or two.”

Erik toggled to Black. “This is Black.”

They watched it scan the streets.

“Looks empty.”

Jack pointed to a window overlooking the tunnel. A curtain was held open, then fell.

Harlan sighed. “Nope.”

Erik tapped the display. The screen was blank.

“Doren, status on Betty?”

“White is offline.”

“Shit.” Erik bit his lip.

“Problem?”

“White’s down.”

Jack nodded. “Gold it is then.” He took off his shirt, checking his stitches. Still holding.

Erik grabbed a bottle of antiseptic out of his bag and shook it.

“Closest node to where we’re going means it’s the furthest out.” Harlan clipped his sniffer back onto his yoke. “If they’re hostile, they’ll be prepared.”

Erik sprayed the rot out of Jack’s stitches, applied second-skin and handed him a SterexPen.

Jack reached for the pen, but stopped. “Can you do it?”

Erik looked at the auto-injector, then to Jack.

“I don’t like needles.”

Erik stared at him.

“Unbelievable.”

Erik plunged it into his hip.

Jack rubbed at the sting, looking over his crew with a grin.

“You fuckers do look mean.”

A few chuckled. The rest smiled.

“No more posturing. We’re going in heavy.”

He scanned their faces one by one.

“Good.”

Jack turned to the sump and high-stepped through.

“Shhhhhit.” Lester breathed. “Shoulda known.”

They slowly waded through the sick to the exit on the other side. No one had the stomach to pull anything else out from under the carpet of fog, but they knew it wasn’t only dogs.

Black hummed out of the east tunnel and settled back into its port on Erik’s chest.

Jack and Harlan led the march through the tunnel to Gold, Erik behind them calling out the turns.

Jamie and Franklin swung the half empty duffles around as they walked. Franklin passed a powder-driver up to Jack. Jamie passed another up to Erik with a pouch of sabot tungsten spikes and charges.

Erik inspected the modifications on the heavy tool.

Harlan rested his weapon in the crook of his arm and pointed to Erik’s weapon as they walked.

“Magazine holds five. Just flip the top—push them in one at a time.”

Erik loaded the magazine and closed the dust cover.

“Push the charge lever forward.”

A cammed steel block lowered with a hollow clunk. Erik dropped in a five-shot charge, then pulled the lever shut.

He kept the muzzle down—finger straight.

Harlan smirked. “Good.”

Erik kept track of Gold’s feed. The streets had mostly cleared. Those that were there were there by choice.

Five hundred meters out, Gold advanced, mapping the next node.

“They can break us up,” said Jack, huffing. “Don’t lose your anchor. Har, you’re with Les. Erik’s with me.”

Jack loaded his powder-driver and shoved five extra sabots under a strap on his yoke.

“Our exit is six blocks up, four blocks left,” Erik called out. “Southwest wall.”

“Anyone gets blocked in, you call it out,” said Jack. “Erik’s Girls can do a lot more than scout ahead.”

Jack twisted a headphone into his ear. “Everyone test comms.”

They cinched their throat mics and pressed in their earpieces.

Jack keyed his mic. “One.”

Harlan keyed his. “Two.”

…

Silence.

Harlan’s voice broke.

“You can be three, Erik.”

Erik looked over his shoulder at their faces.

“Three.”

Arthur was slow to respond.

“Four.”

“Five.”

“Six.”

“Seven.”

Franklin swallowed—his voice weak. “Eight.”

Jack slowed their pace. The formation tightened as they stepped out of the tunnel and into the node.

Purple and Black flew from Erik’s chest.

Black flew straight.

Purple stayed just overhead.

Gold stayed in overwatch.

Jack and Harlan led the formation—eyes straight.

The rest covered their assigned vector, with Jamie and Franklin covering the rear.

They swept every door. Every corner and open window with their weapons.

There was distant shouting. The occasional sound of fleeing boots on metal stairs.

Black disappeared around the corner as they approached the sixth block.

Gunfire.

Purple zipped ahead, rounding the corner.

Erik called it out. “Two garages—one on either side of the street.”

Then the piano.

Thank you for being a friend…down the road and back again…

An eruption of electric cracks.

Strobing purple lights.

Then gone.

Jack waved the left flank to the wall as they approached the ambush.

He led his column to the right wall—weapons trained on the adjacent garage.

Both stopped shy of the door.

Jack held three fingers, counting down.

Both columns filed in.

Jack and Erik held their weapons on the three still standing.

Franklin took their weapons.

Phil put them out of the fight.

Franklin chuckled. “Jesus, Erik.”

Jack and Harlan brought them back into formation.

The exit was in sight. Southwest tunnel.

Two shadows on the right moved from behind a dumpster and into an alley.

A few more shouts from the left.

Running feet. Getting quieter.

Gold and Purple whirred over Erik’s shoulder and found their ports.

Black shot overhead and into the tunnel.

They all followed.

Arthur exhaled. “What in the hell did that thing do?”

“Some song from an old-world TV show. Elara’s idea of a sense of humor.”

“One of their heads was gone!”

“Oh…yeah.”

Jack clipped his powder-driver to a D-ring on his yoke. “How are we looking up ahead?”

“Black’s almost there.”

“So once we’re out of these…Pox—” Lester tightened his shoulder strap, adjusting the weight with his hip. “What then?”

Harlan answered. “We find the lift into Freelund. Save the girl.”

“Elara.” Jack corrected before Erik could. “Dr. Elara Voss.”

“Right. Sorry.”

Erik’s mouth disappeared behind his white whiskers. His forehead wrinkled.

“You okay?”

Erik didn’t answer.

Jack shifted the powder-driver to his other hand. “Three hundred meters out.”

“Jack?” Erik stopped. “This one’s different. It’s not a node. More like a giant room.”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean it’s not a dome. It’s irregular. Corners and dead ends.” Erik watched the feed. “Low ceilings. Maybe twenty feet.”

Jack took a drink of water. “Is it a problem?”

“It’s a maze.”

Jack chewed the inside of his lip.

“You have it mapped?”

Erik shook his head. “There’s too much shit in the way. Their buildings go all the way to the ice. Some of them are probably load bearing.”

Jack thought it over. “So we stay together. Map as we go.” He handed Erik his water.

Erik nodded and took a long pull.

They continued their march, dim light flickering through the bend ahead.

They readied their weapons.

Gold and Purple sang off Erik’s chest.

Gold out front, Purple overhead—Black still mapping the node.

The streets were narrow—more alley than street. They navigated the first few turns and held to the right of the first straightaway, walking underneath low-hung balconies.

Jack swept each door they passed.

Erik touched his mic. “Right at the truck.”

He motioned Harlan’s line across the street as his column turned, hugging the corner.

A snap.

Three more.

“Left!”

Jack fired at the empty window.

Three one thousand grain sabot darts removed the window. Debris hit the ground in front of Harlan’s advancing line.

Gold flew in and finished the job.

Another crack.

Harlan chased the fleeing shadow into an alley with two quiet shots from his pneumatic launcher.

He yelled across the street.

“Where are we going, Erik?”

“Straight,” Erik said. “End of this run.”

They moved fast.

Another shot from behind—too far to matter. A second from a window they’d already passed. Purple snapped upward. Gold vanished through broken glass. A body fell and didn’t get back up.

They turned right.

Left.

Right again.

Erik’s eyes stayed unfocused, watching what only he could see. Black pulsed, lines sketching and erasing.

“Hold,” he muttered, slowing half a step.

Gunfire cracked somewhere behind them. Too distant. Too late.

“Got it,” Erik said. He touched his mic.

“Exit—next left. End of the street.”

At the far end of the street, past a sagging balcony, the ice wall split into a dark seam. A low arch, half-choked with debris.

No corners. Sixty meters.

“Move.”

They broke into a run.

Their boots hammered ice. Breath burned.

Thirty meters.

Purple whirred overhead. Gold and Black returned to their ports.

The seam widened with each stride.

Ahead, an overhead door opened. A truck idled out, crashing into the mouth of the tunnel.

Silence—long enough to understand.

Then two more overhead doors opened.

Men poured from both sides of the street. Pipes. Rifles. Machetes. Dogs straining at chains, eyes rolled white.

Behind them, boots hammered pavement. Figures filled the narrow corridor.

Jack turned once.

Black pulsed over Erik’s shoulder. Blank walls. No gaps.

The barking grew closer.

Harlan raised a hand.

“We’re passing through. We never meant you any harm.”

Only the dogs replied.

A voice rose from behind Jack, vibrating in his spine.

“You b—b—boys…w—want to t—t—t—taste iron?!”

Everyone snapped to Phil.

He stepped forward, tossing his powder-driver aside and drawing his knife, pointing it at the man in the yellow jacket.

Phil forced the consonants through.

“Come and t—t—taste iron.”

Jack let the powder-driver fall.

Harlan slid off his backpack air compressor.

One by one, the rest of Jack’s crew dropped their weapons.

The man in the yellow jacket dropped his.

Soon, hands were filled with pipes. Blades. And hammers.

Jack unsheathed his kukri with one hand.

An ice axe filled the other.

Jack heard Erik’s breathing race.

“Jack.”

Jack didn’t turn.

“When we break, you find a corner and hide.”

They advanced on Jack and his crew. Chains slipped from their grasp, dogs straining.

Grips tightened.

Feet braced.

Jack heard a hollow thump—a hiss.

Lester stepped forward, his plasma jet torch squealing to life.

The air warped. The tight blue beam sharpened to white.

He thumbed the valve to max—the jet of plasma extended, jagged, pale-orange at the top.

Frost flashed to vapor.

It singed hair. Burned lungs.

It stopped their advance.

Squinting, Jack followed their gaze up.

The ice detonated into steam overhead. A fracture webbed the ceiling.

Face turned, eyes shut, Lester stepped forward—screaming.

The ice groaned. The walls sweated.

Ahead, the crowd thinned.

Behind—already gone.

Jack and the others picked up their weapons and leveled them on the remaining crowd.

They put down a few. The rest scattered.

With every step, the pops and cracks from the ceiling grew.

“Shut! It! Off!”

Lester wailed as he peeled a gloved hand off the torch. The regulator shut with an indifferent thunk.

“Get it off me!”

Franklin and Jamie lifted the bottles from his back and peeled his other hand from the torch—glove and skin melted onto the nozzle.

They ran to the truck and filed through the doors and into the tunnel.

Gold flew down the tunnel as they ran.

Arthur huffed, barely holding onto his bag. “Somebody tell me that’s the last one.”

“Just up here is an alcove,” Erik said.

Jamie helped Lester lie down. Erik assessed his wounds while Harlan opened the IFAK.

Harlan stuck a dampen patch on his left bicep and handed Erik another for his right.

Erik pressed a finger on his carotid. “He’s fading. Fix it.”

Harlan swabbed his hand with an ethanol wipe and placed the IV.

Lester’s breathing sped.

Erik flashed a pen light across his eyes.

Lester laughed once.

Erik checked his pulse again.

Erik gave Harlan a nod.

Harlan exhaled. “Thank God.”

Erik started taking off his jacket. Harlan stopped him.

“Thanks, Erik. I got it.”

Harlan draped his jacket over Lester’s torso and began treating his hands.

Erik sat and took a long drink of water.

Holding out two open hands to Phil, Jamie looked at the others. “We’re just not going to talk about—”

Phil glared at Jamie.

He dropped his hands. “Fine.”

Jack sat next to Erik.

“Tell me you have some good news.”

Erik took another sip of water, then opened his terminal. “We’re here.” He dragged a finger less than an inch. “San Jacinto.”

“So, good news?” Erik shrugged. “This tunnel takes us within twenty meters of Sol Seterra.”

“Bad news? Unless you brought a plugger, we don’t know how to get in.”

Jack’s head fell. “Fucking Flynn.”

Arthur stood from the wall, whispering. “Chief.”

He waved Jack closer.

Footsteps.

One pair.

Light. Sharp.

Jack took out his flashlight and steadied his powder-driver on his forearm.

After a breath, he rounded the corner and hit the light.

A woman. Early thirties. Hands raised.

“Meredith?!”

Nothing stays buried forever.

The old stories say miners used to take little yellow birds underground to check for deadly gas. No one remembered if they warned with a song, or just died.

Didn’t matter. You sent life in first so the rest might live.

But in Greylunde, single-use was a dirty word.

The Tunnel Wars had ended forty years ago. Forgetting was a luxury afforded to victors.

Greylunde hadn’t.

Canaries were trained to fight in cramped corridors. Their rigs and knowledge of the ice and rock made them ideal breach teams if war ever demanded it.

That was Team 3.

The ones you watched to learn if it was safe to follow.

The ones you’d followed when it wasn’t.

New Orleans | Louisiana | USA

9 June 2037 | Ejection Day

Bigger than I imagined.

As big as they said, but it wouldn’t have been Kern’s first lie.

Brown dwarf. Even the name was a lie.

None of us tried imagining any of this. How could you?

Snow in the bayou. Not since our wedding day. Ten years this Christmas.

Still…not like this.

He rose from his front stoop, shaking ash and snow from his boots—dry, delicate—revealing the handprint of a six year old boy in the concrete slab.

Still perfect.

A breath of silence slowed his pulse.

All that was promised.

All I had promised.

The low groan of the pleading earth broke his gaze from the handprint.

The sky split wide. Aurora hung in twisted green ribbons across the dim noon sky. A sudden, violent gust fanned the fire devouring the house next door.

He didn’t need to look. His shadow told him enough.

Heat pressed the side of his face. Acrid. Familiar.

The wind shifted. Gone.

He looked at his hands. They’d stopped shaking.

Why now?

No more sirens.

Didn’t think they’d ever stop.

Between lightning strikes and makeshift fireplaces, something was always burning.

Police had given up long before the fire department.

A man’s promise to provide. To protect. It was everything.

But when the food’s gone. When you’ve run out of things to burn—you protect.

The sky sizzled. His hairs stood on end.

With a lungful of burning air, he closed his eyes and faced the cloud, ready for the darkness behind it.

A bolt struck the car across the street.

He didn’t flinch.

Defeated, he dropped to his knees and wept.

There are debts a man can pay, and debts he must carry.

He had chosen his lot.

Absolution would not meet him at the end of his road. Not light. Not arms to take him home.

He’d given that away—for them.

What waited now was older than despair. Older than hope.

The dark waited.

He would meet it when he got there.

The earth stilled. The wind stopped.

An empty bottle of pills hit the snow. Not enough for all three.

Wouldn’t have taken them if there were.

He needed hell to be real.

And if it wasn’t—if the only punishment left was here—

He would meet that too.

He wouldn’t cheat the devil.

For the first time in a week, the sun slipped past the purple wound in the sky.

Another promise.

Facing the light, he prayed.

I pray she forgave me.

I pray he never knew.

Chapter 7

Great Lakes District — Greylunde

16 April 2585

Present Day

Jack didn’t waste much time dwelling on the thought: his father hadn’t died by accident.

He resisted coincidence on principle, but he still saw it as a variable worth eliminating.

If his paranoia was confirmed, they would be coming for Jack just as they did his father.

If someone was actively suppressing quantum computing, there would be some keyword trigger in the network of some kind.

He considered the last twenty-four hours. Stephen queried the book. He must have queried every book on the topic. If there were keyword triggers, he’d tripped every one.

Jack checked his watch. 2254 hours. Just seven hours since Stephen typed the words “quantum computing” into his computer.

Jack strapped on his boots, threw on his coat, and hurried for the door. He stopped just short.

He didn’t know what he’d run into, but he didn’t make a habit of being underprepared.

He grabbed his utility yoke, taking inventory of everything that could maim or kill.

Knife, multitool, telescoping piton, mini-pry bar, ice axe, plasma torch. All deadly without much creativity.

Polyseal, grease pen, infrared thermometer, flashlight. Not deadly, but too handy to leave behind.

He mentally mapped the tools strapped to the yoke laid on his bed. For a moment he wondered if he’d finally cracked.

Jack didn’t think of himself as violent—though a few crooked noses might say otherwise. But there are no trophies for all the teeth you didn’t loosen.

He’d fantasized about this. Dreamt of it. An outlet for righteous fury. Defensible rage. Not defensible to the state. To himself.

To his father.

And now that he actually might have it, he felt a weakness in his knees.

He strapped into the kitted-out yoke, whispering comforting lies to his limbs.

It wasn’t an accident that so much of a Canary’s loadout was so deadly. After the Tunnel Wars, settlement demilitarization was the price for peace—no armies, no weapons.

But Greylunde had lost the most. They didn’t bury their warfighters. They just handed them an ice axe and taught them to dig.

Maybe just one more.

Overkill was underrated.

He pulled a metal case from the bottom of his footlocker.

Inside: a black-market machete. Cost him a Les Paul.

High-carbon steel, full tang, matte-coated to kill any shine.

In the hand, it felt like it wanted to fall forward. Weighted at the tip, built to drop hard and finish whatever it started.

Not balanced. Committed. It didn’t ask for finesse. It asked for follow through.

He pushed the kukri into its scabbard and secured it under his left arm. Jack checked his watch. 2303 hours. He slipped into his jacket and made for the door.

He ran to Stephen’s. At this time of night, it was impossible not to stand out. Shift call happened with, or without, your permission. Greylunde didn’t make night owls.

Stephen’s shop wasn’t far from anything. You had to pass it to get just about anywhere. Less than ideal for a covert raid.

Jack slowed at the edge of the courtyard and scanned. Stephen’s shop was one of the six modular units on top of the supply wing. Middle left. No lights. No movement.

Jack walked slowly, listening. Watching. He climbed the metal stairs. In this quiet, it was as good as a doorbell. The six units faced inward, each door opening onto the noisy metal grating.

Locked. He’d never known Stephen to lock the doors. Then again, he’d never been here this late either.

Could knock. If he was just being paranoid, kicking in the door this late would be tough to explain.

Knock and get killed, or apologize and pay for a new door.

Easy call.

Knife in his left, mini-pry in his right. He wedged the bar into the frame.

Drawing a deep breath through his nose, he burst through the door like a Vore through sandstone slapping on the light.

Nothing. No one.

Stephen was agoraphobic. Worked here. Lived here. Jack had known him for ten years. Never left once. They’d have to drag him out cold.

Jack triaged his thoughts and tried to tune in the room. The bed. More disheveled than it should be. Dragged out, maybe. Jack pressed the back of his hand to the sheets. Cool, not cold. Just the faintest hint of warmth.

The usually cluttered table—cleared onto the floor. Two nylon tie-downs. The computer. Gone. Just gone.

Other than that, the place didn’t seem that bad. It was a shithole—but it looked like Stephen’s shithole. Not ransacked.

Jack sheathed his knife and made some educated guesses. They grabbed Stephen out of bed, strapped him to the table. If they asked questions, he answered. No reason not to.

The caught the tang of bleach. Subtle, but it was there. In Stephen’s quarters it was as out of place as perfume in the pulp vats.

There on the doorframe he spotted a single overlooked crimson boot print.

It almost doubled him over as the realization drove the air out of his lungs. He thought he’d be relieved that he wasn’t going crazy, but realizing he wasn’t was worse.

Jack checked his watch, then bolted out the door. 2324 hours.

If Stephen talked, then they’re already there.

The ‘what if’s’ trickled in as he ran.

The warmth in his sheets. Twenty—thirty minutes max. They had Stephen by the time Jack woke up.

He ran the timeline from when he’d seen Stephen last to now. Less than twelve hours.

He tried to remember the details from when his father died. Cod Cape was a dead-end line. Five hundred kilometers from the next closest node.

And still—roughly the same response time to Stephen.

That wasn’t nothing. He’d flesh that out later.

Jack’s legs seemed to get faster the more numb they became. Almost home.

They had to do something with Stephen first, but they wouldn’t waste much time. Or there were two teams and they were already there.

Jack slowed his pace and measured his approach. He cut down an alley, scaled some scaffolding and stalked along the edge of the building overlooking his front door.

The adrenaline hadn’t let up. The drum in his neck dulled everything else. He blinked through the stars, struggling to read his watch. Seven minute mile.

Good Christ.

His thighs burned. Lungs heaved. A body his size wasn’t built for that speed. Not for three klicks straight.

His perception returned in fragments—edges sharpening, noise filtering back in.

It looked quiet. Same as Stephen’s.

He pulled out his journal, pen in hand. Ready to jot down any and every detail he could flag.

He pressed back the tunnel creeping in on his vision and shook the tremor from his hands.

Jack’s eyes never left his front door. One way in, one way out. Anyone small enough to fit through the back windows wouldn’t be much of a threat.

Jack checked his watch again. 2358 hours.

He didn’t want to consider the possibility that no one would show. He wouldn’t worry about that until after 0100 hours.

Eyes back to the door.

Fuck!

The door closed. He was pretty sure it closed. He wasn’t sure if he heard it. But he was pretty sure he saw it.

Someone must have left. No way someone spoofed the lock that quickly.

Jack held still, ears straining. He scanned the windows for a glimpse of something. Anything.

Then he heard them.

One—no, two sets of footsteps. Barely audible. Unmistakable.

Sounded like they took a left, just out of his line of sight.

Moving right just along the building’s roofline, he dropped to street level into a dark alcove.

Peeking around the corner, he spotted two figures walking briskly towards the corridor headed to the transport hub.

Average height, build, matching gait. Might as well have been twins. Nothing of significance to note. Which, in and of itself, was worth noting.

Once they hit the corridor to the trams he’d have no chance of following. Stealth was gone.

Jack eyed the front door.

No way they all left. Someone had to be waiting inside.

He crouched. Thought it through.

He could run. Sol Seterra would take him. Kaine always needed skull crackers.

Could run down the two in the corridor. Dumb fun. Not smart. Plan B smart.

The only move left was through that door. He hoped.

One way in, one way out. No strategy. No waiting. The chaos of shift call would give him a cleaner approach, but who knew what backup could show before then.

Jack had the training, though he never expected to use it. Least of all in his own home.

He shut his eyes, breathing through his training.

Close the gap. Own the space.

He stood, shrugged off his jacket and rig, laid out the kukri, pry bar, and knife.

All gas. No brakes.

He calmly crossed the street.

Thirty feet out from the door, he moved the kukri to his off-hand, picked up a ceramic shard, and hurled it through the kitchen window.

The moment the shard left his hand, his pace went from brisk to sprint. The glass shattered a second and a half before Jack barreled through the front door. Just enough.

One man. Still dark. Holding something.

Jack kept the pry bar close. The breaking glass bought him just enough time to close the distance.

He led with his shoulder, kukri primed—careful not to silhouette his strike.

He torqued, swinging up and left in one clean snap.

The man step kicked Jack’s wrist. Almost lost it.

Hand coming in straight, fast. No glint, but unmistakable intent.

The pry bar braced against his forearm deflected the strike.

Jack’s charge was still in full force. The two collided and slammed into the wall.

His pry fell to the floor. Left hand searched for the man’s blade. Found it. Control it.

The man fought to grab the kukri’s blade.

Jack’s knees came in fast, searching for a rib.

The man wrenched the kukri from Jack’s grip.

He can have it.

Knife drew. Slipped it in quick. Again. Three times. Now lose count.

The man’s dominant hand wasn’t losing strength. His other flipped the kukri, hand on hilt.

Kukri came in straight. Too close. Ineffective.

Jack planted the knife again—hard—just right of his sternum and left it there.

A burst of new strength welled up in the man. Kukri swung out clear, finding room for effect.

Jack pinned it to the wall with his knee, both hands now wrestling the man’s dominant.

He broke the man’s knife free, cutting Jack’s hand as it skidded across the floor.

Jack drove his knife deeper into the man’s chest—palm to hilt. In the same heartbeat, he cracked his skull—elbow to temple.

The kukri clattered to the floor.

Jack folded him at the waist and planted his skull into the tile. He snatched the kukri and finished it. Deep. Final.

He stood over him, chest heaving. Barely breathing.

He looked down. One hand. Then the other.

The dim light caught the blood on his left. His right—clean.

He should’ve been covered.

Jack turned on the lights.

What should’ve been a bloodied heap on the floor… wasn’t.

He stepped closer, but didn’t need to. He knew what it was before the lights.

Android. The kind they said would never exist. The kind you had to cut open to know for sure.

He stared at the mangled synthetic corpse that lay on his kitchen floor. During the fight he never saw its face. To see it now just…vacant.

He barely made it to the bathroom. Wasn’t sure if it was the adrenaline, the relief he hadn’t just gutted flesh and blood, or something else. It didn’t really matter how the vomit in the commode got there.

It helped.

As he rinsed the sick from his sinuses in the sink, an iron tang, like wet nails and rot, whispered from behind the shower door.

His hand reached for the shower stall door slower than he intended.

Stephen.

A single puncture wound to the carotid. Efficient.

His body blocked the drain. All five liters filled the shower basin.

If he was able to produce any more bile, he would have.

Stumbling out of the bathroom he almost tripped over the synthetic cadaver in his kitchen he’d actually forgotten.

He couldn’t just leave it there knowing nothing else.

He shook the last of the adrenaline out of his hands and got to work.

He kicked the broken door shut and barricaded it with a table. He searched the android, not expecting to find anything.

He pulled his knife out of his chest. Working his kukri out of its neck took some doing.

He rolled the body over, planted a knee in its back, and started cutting. Clothes first. Then the skin. Or, whatever.

He was looking for a signature. A component that could point him in the right direction. Though, there was a level of grim delight in the act.

He peeled back what he could. Inside was a maze of tightly wound fiber bundles and mesh-filament muscle.

Jack kept digging.

He found the neck seam and pried it open. No serial numbers. No markings. Whoever made this didn’t want credit. Or blame.

This wasn’t black-market. It was custom.

Jack sat back, scanning the exposed internals. No killswitch. No memory stack. No shortcuts. Fiber optics. Hardened signals. EMPs were useless.

Inside looked expensive—not exotic. Someone built this to leave no trace.

But engineers always leave a fingerprint.

He checked the joints. Old design, but standard. Plating—mass-produced.

Then he saw it.

Base of the neck, under the false collarbone: a flush, keyed connector. Not power. Not data.

The alloy didn’t match. It was newer. An upgrade maybe.

He pried it loose. A six-prong port on a polished alloy disk—no markings, no serials. Buried deep, made to stay hidden.

As he turned it in his hand, one prong flickered blue. Once. Then nothing.

Jack froze. It didn’t do it again.

He wrapped it in a rag and slipped it into his pocket.

Not a trophy.

Something better.

A question.

And somewhere behind that question… a name.

He checked the wall clock. Twelve minutes after midnight.

A lot can happen in ten minutes.

If the StrataMoles talked in real time, he had to assume they did too. Time to move.

He slid the table from the door and headed for the alcove. He grabbed his gear and wrapped his hand. Kept moving.

He needed somewhere quiet enough to think. Somewhere out of sight. He knew the place.

He cut across the node toward the StrataMole pens. He’d spent a lot of time in places like this as a kid. It wasn’t Easthold, but Greylunde didn’t do variation. The damp rot in the air was the only thing telling him he wasn’t home.

Blending with the logistics techs, he slipped down a supply aisle, climbed a ladder, and vanished into the stacks.

He hadn’t done this since he was a kid. A therapist might call it regression. Say he hit a wall and ran to a time before Jackie had to be Jack.

Maybe. Didn’t matter. He needed to think. And if that required a pacifier and a blanket, so be it.

Jack peeled off his jacket and pulled out his journal, dropping both to the floor. He unwrapped his hand and inspected the cut. Superficial. He cleaned and bandaged it with the IFAK he’d swiped along the way. Then he rolled the jacket into a pillow, unbuckled his rig, and laid down.

With the journal opened in his lap, he clicked the pen and sat in the familiar thrum of the pens.

He began writing down what he remembered, doodling between thoughts.

The two in the corridor. Similar height, build. They walked…tall. Hard to say for sure, but comparable in stature to the one in his kitchen.

Skin was pale. Forgettable features. Probably by design. A face you were meant to overlook. They wouldn’t repeat faces. Too easy to vary. The body was harder.

He walked backward through the timeline. He’d been in the house at least fifteen minutes. That should’ve been enough time for the others to circle back.

But they hadn’t.

No real-time comms.

Passive systems, maybe. That would mean no outgoing signals to scan for. Designed to hold up under scrutiny, maybe.

He rubbed his sore wrist. If he hadn’t let go of the kukri that thing would have broken his wrist.

It should’ve broken his wrist. It was certainly stronger than a man of a similar build, but a machine should have broken him like a glass rod.

Could’ve been throttled. Another point in the column for designed discretion. Couldn’t think of another reason.

If someone put a cap on their performance, they could take it off if they got desperate enough.

He had to find a weakness. Fast.

EMPs were out. Fiber-optics meant signal hardening.

Jack pulled the interface from his pocket. Turned it in his hand.

He closed his journal, shut his eyes and leaned back into the jacket still fidgeting with the salient part.

Until he found their pressure points, he would need to exploit the only blind spot he could think of.

He would need to be unpredictable. Machines hated that. So did tyrants.

They’d expect him to run.

So he’d hunt.

He thought of a few names who might point him in the right direction—none of them in Greylunde. Robotics engineers. The ones hell bent on designing a better Mole.

That was the plan. Find the puppet’s strings.

He’d need a plan B.

Plan B…

If he tried for the two down the corridor…

Or if that shard of ceramic hadn’t caught his eye—bought him that extra second.

He wasn’t faster or stronger. Definitely not smarter.

Just dumb luck and a kitchen shard.

He felt his stomach churn at the near misses.

Don’t dwell. Adapt.

A sudden pulse droned through his chest. Then he heard them whine. The moles were starting their sequences. He sat up and peered between the crates.

The Moles never changed. They may be smarter now—more efficient—but that low thrum still pulsed through the floor the way it always had. Constant. Mechanical. Like they’d bury us all.

Jack watched as the StrataMoles disappeared, one by one, down the borelines.

Smarter wasn’t the word. They were more deliberate. Intentional.

He remembered the day NIS was rolled out. The way the machines moved. It didn’t correct. It just acted with certainty. Instinctual.

Like the one in his kitchen.

He didn’t know much about robotics engineering. But he saw what NIS was. What it allowed a machine to become.

Androids were always the next step. The ban made more sense now than ever. Always wondering who had a pulse. That spiral could get dark—fast.

Existential dread could wait.

He knew who he needed to find. The man behind NIS. The one who promised the world this could never happen.

Erik Francs.

Never met the man. But the right hand of the High Chair wouldn’t be hard to find.

He worried for a moment if it was too predictable.

Brushing away the thought, he closed his eyes.

He might worry about that tomorrow.

Dr. Jeffrey Kern | Journal Entry

3 September 2023 | GNI Site-4, Consultation Wing

Subject: Preservation Models – Final Draft Review

Fifty—three—thousand. That’s it.

Fourteen years. Unlimited resources. The cooperation of every developed country on the planet. And still…everyone will die. Everyone except these fifty-three thousand.

As a percentage of population, marginally better than Noah’s ark. Marginally worse if you count the animals.

It’s pragmatism gone mad. When a ship is going down, you don’t interview the passengers. You throw them a vest.

In my gut, I know it’s wrong. But we’re not saving people. We’re likely not even saving humanity. The only survivors will be whatever emerges from these frozen tombs in the millennia that follows.

The predictive modeling is crystal—there is only one scenario that gives favorable odds to a multigenerational surviving population.

Individual settlements spread equidistant across the globe with no more than 13,000 apiece. That’s it. Any more and the odds begin to go down. Sharply.

We’ve decided on four settlements in total. Salton Sea in California, Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland, Lake Turkana in Kenya and Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia. All situated in geothermal hot zones. There has been some research to determine minimum human population; however, maximum population? That was a little trickier.

The DARPA spook seemed unnervingly confident in her quantum predictive modeling. Makes you wonder.

The project would be an engineer’s dream if it wasn’t already a nightmare. Geothermal power, water treatment, food production, air quality, seismic abatement. It’ll need to be big enough to allow expansion as the population grows, but eventually they will need to expand. Humanity will need to adapt to life underground, but this too is temporary. At some point, they will need to find a new home. It’ll take a lot of luck and a little sorcery to pull off.

The real magic trick—selling it.

So far only I and the five other GNI board members know the true settlement numbers. We’ll need to keep it that way to have any chance of global cooperation. Officially, we’ll report populations of a million per settlement. That means we’ll need to build it out for a million per settlement.

We can sell that.

Fifty-three thousand? No one can sell that.

At those numbers, some morally dubious decisions will need to be made. You don’t need to be a geneticist to understand that none of us would be here if Eve had cystic fibrosis.

It wouldn’t take more than a few generations to amplify any existing genetic defects present in a population that small. The need for digitized family history alone would exclude entire regions of the world.

We’ll think of some other name for it. ‘Genetic Optimization’ or ‘Generational Viability Planning’. Make no mistake.

It will be a genetic purge. A holocaust on massive portions of the human genome.

And it will be absolutely necessary for the survival of mankind.

Chapter 6

Basement Level Conference Room of Kern’s Tower

Lucerna, Endeleza

3 May 2579

Six Years Earlier

“One final order of business. A proposal for selection into the program.” Erik Francs stood, distributing six folders around the table before taking his seat again.

“Elara Voss. Recent graduate from Zabaia University with a doctorate in Computational Neuroscience. I believe some of you are familiar with her work.” Erik looked to Dr. Bray.

Dr. Bray felt his gaze, but continued to read along.

Erik continued. “Twenty-five years old. Orphan from Sol Seterra. Exceptionally bright—unorthodox, but sharp. Her thesis on predictive mapping algorithms, though controversial, has demonstrated a mind that works well outside of conventional models.” Francs turned the page.

Dr. Bray gave a curt laugh. “Controversial? Try incendiary. Heretical, even.”

Erik looked up over his glasses. “Her algorithm has promise in many fields.”

Her voice flattened. Her pace slowed. “Neural Deviation Mapping.” She let the words hang.

“To forecast one’s mental collapse. Their cognitive deviation from established norms. I trust I don’t need to explain to anyone at this table the implications.”

Erik held his glasses in his hands. “I understand and share your concern, Dr. Bray. But intent matters. Elara’s father was schizophrenic. When she was six, he beat her mother to death. She watched.”

The room stilled.

“You see a mind blind to the repercussions. Or worse. I see a young woman dedicated to change.” He continued. “Regardless of its potential abuse, the point stands: They split the atom for a bomb. It also gave us nuclear power. Tools don’t choose how they’re used. People do.”

Dr. Bray rolled her eyes. “The point is moot. Her thesis is entirely theoretical. The real controversy is whether or not it’s even viable.”

She took a breath, weighing her words. “She studied under Dr. Dreyfus—her words, not mine: ‘methodically erratic, occasionally brilliant.’” Her tone was clipped. She closed the file with deliberate care.

“We don’t have the time—or the bandwidth—to reverse-engineer a theoretical model that barely survived a dissertation defense.”

She addressed the room without looking at anyone in particular. “We need execution, not untested abstraction. We’re at the stage where rigor matters more than intuition.”

Dr. Reyes had a way of bringing the blood pressure down in any room.

“I know Dr. Dreyfus—Laura. A dear friend. She wastes few words. She values precision.”

“I’d be lying,” he said deliberately, “if I claimed to understand the entirety of Elara’s thesis—her algorithm.”

“But her results supported her model. With confidence.”

He looked back up.

“To me… that puts her firmly in the ‘occasionally brilliant’ category.”

He looked to the wall. “At present, we are charting a course with no map.”

His eyes returned to them. “That isn’t science… it’s faith.”

He placed his folded hands on the table. “When methodologies stagnate, innovations cease.”

He leveled his eyes to Dr. Bray. “Perhaps we could use some… erraticism.”

Bray didn’t respond. Her fingers folded neatly in her lap, but her jaw had gone tense.

The room stayed quiet a beat too long. Not disagreement exactly—just discomfort. No one wanted to say what they were all thinking: they couldn’t afford to be picky.

Vance, unbothered, had already moved on. He slid the file across the table with a mischievous grin that said more than it should aimed at Francs. “She’s perfect.”

Francs met his eyes and gave nothing back. The game had started.

Dr. Bell straightened in his chair. “I agree with Erik. I’ve read her thesis. Her algorithms have tremendous potential in course modeling and fusion propulsion. Combine that with her age, and she’s a prime candidate.”

Francs looked to Dr. Sarah Thorne. “Dr. Thorne? Do you have any objections?”

“If her algorithm is as potentially impactful as Dr. Bray fears,” she said, “we’d be wise to keep it close.”

Francs shifted his eyes. “Tom?”

Dr. Reyes measured his response. “Potential should be tested,” he said, folding his handkerchief and sliding it back into his pocket. “Not dismissed.”

Bray didn’t look up. Her fingers interlocked on the table, tighter now. Just enough to whiten the knuckles.

All eyes went to Dr. David Cestel. His eyes darted between Francs and Vance. Uncertain of what passed behind the grin from the moment before. His eyes fell to the file and lingered on her family history. Sparse. Even for an orphan.

“You know I was orphaned.” He chewed the inside of his lip. “So was Aristotle…so was Bundy.”

The room was quiet. Even Vance stopped fidgeting, if only for a second.

Cestel covered the doodles in the margins of the file that he didn’t remember starting. “No exceptions on her test results. Without her family history, her psych profile will need to stand on its own.”

Francs acknowledged with a single nod, as he quieted his sigh of relief.

“Thank you, David. I will see to her recruitment. As Dr. Bell pointed out, the most promising application is deep space course modeling. That will be her primary focus while Dr. Cestel evaluates her for integration into the program.”

Erik took off his glasses and stowed them in his shirt pocket. “If there are no additional orders of business, we can adjourn.”

Dr. Bell closed his notepad. “Our deuterium demands are about to double. Velocity is there, but our fusion propellant isn’t nearly as efficient as we had hoped.”

Erik calmly crossed his hands in front of him on the table. “You’ll have all you need.”

“How? Dr. Bell leaned forward. “Chair Strauss is already sniffing around our deuterium usage. The numbers don’t line up, and we’ve run out of excuses. His Auditors don’t need pretext. Just a ledger that doesn’t balance. If we can’t get the deuterium we need—”

“Strauss is a banker.” Vance stood, slipped on his jacket, and checked his watch. “Deuterium is cheap. And the fools in Greylunde will keep it that way. Supply outpacing demand into the grave.” He smiled at Dr. Bell. “You leave Strauss to me, Dick.”

Dr. Thorne addressed the room. She spoke the least among the seven, but everyone listened when she did. “We shouldn’t underestimate Chair Strauss. He’s consolidated more power in the last nine years than any of us thought possible. And these Auditors? Tripled since Chair Friedrich.”

“Well—which is it Erik?” Dr. Bray placed her hands in her lap. “You’ve served under Friedrich and Strauss. Is he too naïve to see through us, or too clever to let on?”

“Both—neither?” Erik exhaled and sat back down. “James—Chair Friedrich—was a true believer. He genuinely believed that his office’s neutering was the single greatest threat to humanity. As did I.”

“I’ve listened to Strauss mew for nine years.” Erik ran a hand down his beard. “He is an opportunist and an idealist. Credulous and incredulous. To put a finer point on it—“

“I have not a fucking clue.”

Erik looked down to his folded hands. He measured nine years of maneuvering in a breath. “We only have his actions to consider. Listeria outbreak, cyber attacks, adulterated pharmaceuticals—manufactured or not, no crisis has gone to waste.”

Erik paused to gauge their faces. This wasn’t news. “He knows he’s in the dark. It is highly unlikely he knows about what. He likes to posture like he does. He’s not nearly as subtle as he’d like to believe. He doesn’t know. Couldn’t.”

Francs looked up. Filtering his digressions had only gotten harder with age.

“But until it comes to a head, there’s nothing—no crisis for him to exploit. No excuse to extend his reach. If we do our jobs—if we finish what our predecessors started over a century ago—there will be nothing left for him to control.”

The seven sat in silence. Each of them had been so focused on their siloed responsibilities, they rarely stepped back to see the future they were actually building.”

“If there’s nothing further,” Erik said, rising once more.

They rose in silence, placing their notes and folders into assigned lockboxes before filing out of the buried chamber. Under dual control, Francs and Cestel logged the minutes into the air-gapped console, then sanitized and secured the room.

After watching the elevator close behind Dr. Cestel, he stepped into his lift. Once the door closed, he shut his eyes and leaned against the wall.

Alone with his thoughts, Erik reminded himself why he couldn’t take his true aim to council. He had heard it said that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. He thought of the founders that convened some 560 years ago. The atrocities they committed. All in the name of survival.

Francs was resolute. He would not repeat the sins of their founders.

Francs stepped out of the elevator and into the atrium. Peter Vance waited by the wall.

“Orphaned at six, adopted before her eighth birthday. Her, and her brother. In Sol Seterra, no less. A nation of the orphaned.. And neglected.”

“She was a prodigy. Her, and her brother.” Erik was grateful Vance had chosen the direct approach for once.

“Oh, of course. ‘Exceptionally bright,” were your words, I believe.” Vance held onto the smile just a little too long. “You’ve been playing your own angle for years now. And today, we got our first real glimpse.”

Vance straightened. Erik blinked.

“Don’t get me wrong—I still don’t have a fucking clue what you’re up to. But it’s taking shape. Underselling Voss, leaving out her obvious connection to Vera Kaine… I haven’t been this intrigued since I first heard the name Iannone.”

“Say that name outside that bunker again and…” Erik said, eyes scanning the corners of the hall.

Vance’s smirk sharpened. “Like I said—intrigued.”

He could feel Vance studying every micro reaction on his face. Like his face was confessing in morse.

Vance dropped the smile. “I’ve known you a long time, Erik.”

“Not that long. I’m an old man. Time is relative.”

“Eleven years is long enough to know you’re principled. Whatever it is you’re up to, you believe in it. And you believe in Ms. Voss.

Erik didn’t speak. He’d already listened longer than he planned to.

Vance let the charm fall. Just for a moment. “I know you don’t respect me—what I do. But no one does it better. I’m not the narcissist you think I am. Not entirely.”

He slipped the mask back on. “When the time comes—and I believe it’s coming soon—you’ll need me.”

Vance adjusted his hat and made for the far door. Erik stood a moment longer, puzzling over the exchange. Erik wanted to believe Vance was capable of selflessness. It really didn’t matter if he believed him or not. He was right. He would need him—a fact that said more about the situation than it did about Peter Vance.

Lucerna, Endeleza

12 May 2579

Kern’s Day (Day of Last Light)

1158 hours

The tram came to a silent stop inside the east arrival terminal. Elara stepped out into a city that was never supposed to exist.

The dome above was disorienting. It mimicked a perfect sky. A sky no one had seen, with a sun no one had felt. Unbroken blue, flecked with drifting clouds that would never rain. A crisp spring breeze cut through the terminal. Filtered, scented—managed.

The scale of Lucerna alone was enough to induce vertigo. It was the largest single chamber in the world, but the panoramic projections made the world feel infinite. Elara knew that this was the closest facsimile to earth’s surface before the intervention of Neovise, but nothing felt more alien.

She turned slowly in place, trying to take in its five miles of simulated grandeur. Buildings stretched upwards in clean, crisp lines and reflected trees that swayed with the programmed wind. Somewhere above, digital birds chirped right on schedule.

She wanted to squint—throttle the overwhelming assault on her senses. But her eyes stayed wide, seemingly starved for the unfamiliar light.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Voss.” An androgynous voice came from the oval pod that rolled silently to her side.

“Fuck! You scared the shit out of me.”

“Apologies, Ms. Voss. It was not my intention to startle you. Dr. Francs has requested that I transport you to your quarters and serve as your concierge for the duration of your stay here in Lucerna.”

Elara let out a sharp laugh. “I’m going to have a hard enough time adjusting as-is. I’m not sure having a robot…

“Personnel-oriented drone, or POD, ma’am.”

Elara rolled her eyes. “Right. Always an acronym.”

“If you would prefer to walk, then I will escort you.” A door silently opened on the side of the cart. “Your luggage, Ms. Voss?”

She lowered her focus from the sky and watched the current of pedestrians and silent transit carts. No one seemed to appreciate how batshit crazy this all was. “This is fucking wild.”

“Indeed. Most report the sensory overload to subside after 24-48 hours. Stay here long enough, and this will all feel perfectly natural.”

“I seriously doubt that.” Elara picked up her bag and tried to gain her bearings. “How about you just give me directions. You never really know a place until you get lost.”

“As you wish, Ms. Voss.” The door on the cart closed. “Your hotel—The Faraday—is located directly north of Kern Tower. The front desk is expecting you.” The luggage door slid closed. “If you change your mind, just ask for me by name. My name is Doren.”

“Ask who?”

“Just ask. If you are in a populated, public area, you will be heard.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic. You guys really took ‘nanny-state’ to a whole new level.”

“Indeed.” The pod feigned a chuckle as it silently skated into the flow of the crowd.

Kern Tower was impossible to miss. Taller than any structure in human history. A cathedral of glass and steel that reflected the faux sun like a lamp—a lucerna.

Elara pulled her auburn hair into a tight pony, took a deep breath and stepped into the torrent of Lucerna’s pedestrian flow.

She couldn’t help but stare at the audacious oddities that passed her on the street.

First-time visitors weren’t common, but they were always easy to spot. Even the floor tiles knew she didn’t belong. Her clothes were stiff. Functional. She squinted at the sky like it was about to fall. Walked like the floor might disappear. They didn’t stare back.

Chin a little higher now, she cut through the crowd hoping no one could see how small she felt.

Few were born here. Citizenship in Lucerna wasn’t inherited. It was earned, married into, or bought. However you got here, everyone still remembered their first day in Lucerna. It didn’t matter if they came from the gritty sprawl of Sol Seterra, or the cold, pragmatic mines of Greylunde, they all appropriated the culture of Lucerna. Some quicker than others.

“Excuse me.” Elara had finally spotted someone she felt she had the stamina to talk to. It was an elderly man in a white shirt and disheveled tie standing at a small doorway.

“Ma’am.” The gentleman straightened his tie and gave a respectful nod.

“Good afternoon.” The formality caught her off guard. “I was just wondering—are the streets always this…active?”

“No, ma’am. It’s the Day of Last Light.”

“So—what? People just wander the streets when they get a day off?”

The gentleman chuckled. “Well, I suppose some might. I don’t pretend to know the mind of a Lucernian.”

“You don’t live here?”

The gentleman laughed. “Oh, no ma’am. Turaza.”

“I’m sorry?” Elara blinked, genuinely confused.

The gentleman smiled, then pointed downward with two fingers.

“The original settlement?”

“Yes, ma’am. After they expanded up here under the ice, this became the new Turaza. Down there, it was just the underbelly—the slums. They renamed the settlement Endeleza and this city Lucerna. I guess someone got tired of it being called the underbelly, so they reclaimed the name Turaza. Nobody else was using it.”

“How have I never heard any of this?”

The gentleman just smiled, eyebrows raised. Silly question. A city this clean doesn’t run on ideals alone. Everybody shits—even Lucernians.

“Have a beautiful day, Ma’am.”

The gentleman remained planted at his door. His averted gaze said plenty. Turaza wasn’t something they wanted discussed. Especially not in a city where the air had ears.

As she walked, the conversation echoed in her skull. Everything had a different hue now.

Elara was no stranger to inequality. Sol Seterra had taught her that early. She remembered standing in the Artisan District as a child. City center at Five Fingers, you could see it all. Wealth and want. Power and desperation—the full spectrum of humanity colliding. And sometimes coexisting.

This wasn’t that.

This wasn’t inequality. This was exploitation—buffed to a mirror shine. Sold as progress.

The closer she drew to Kern Tower, the more obscene the opulence became. She did the math. A city this perfect didn’t run on luxury. It ran on labor. Twenty-five, maybe thirty thousand workers doing jobs no Lucernian would touch. Conservatively. Triple the original settlement’s designed capacity.

Lucerna’s sheen had dulled. Her fascination with Lucerna—its façade, its perfection—was giving way to something else. Not outrage exactly. Not yet. Static, maybe. A pressure building behind her eyes.

Elara caught her reflection in the mirrored glass of a storefront. Posture too straight. Face too composed.

You’re fine. You’re here for a meeting. One meeting. Focus.

Whatever Turaza was—whatever it asked of her—could wait.

Before stepping through the door of the extravagant hotel, Elara cracked her satchel and sent a message.

“Welcome to The Faraday, Ms. Voss.” A model-grade girl no older than seventeen greeted her at the door like she’d been watched for blocks.

Blonde hair. Rare. Beautiful, really—until you considered the implications.

“Thank you. Please, call me Elara.” Her voice came out far smoother than she thought it might.

The girl smiled with her eyes more than mouth. She gave a slight nod to her right. Bellhops practically materialized beside her to take her bags.

Elara squinted to read her name badge. Rory.

“Rory? Let me guess. Raised by a witty single mother with a poor sense of boundaries?”

Rory feably tried to hide her confusion with a smile.

Pre-ejection pop culture was practically her second doctorate. Statistically, her references had a low hit rate, but the blank stares were often more rewarding than recognition.

The Faraday rivaled even the most luxurious pre-ejection hotels. The staff were all teens. Kids, really. Apparently, some jobs were just below the station of Lucernian Elite, but just above that of a Turazan. Truly, their jobs should have been automated, but being greeted by flesh and blood was quietly appreciated.

Her room was even more luxurious than she imagined. Even the door was exorbitant. Solid white oak. It had to be real. Maybe one of the first trees they planted.

Rory stood by the door as Elara took in the room. “If you need anything at all, just ask for me by name.”

Elara turned sharply. “Are you serious? They can hear me in here too?”

“No, ma’am.” Rory blinked, unsure. “Just press here for the front desk.” She pointed to a small console near the door.

Elara exhaled. “Of course. Thank you, Rory.”

With a polite nod, she started to close the door behind her.

“Uh, Rory?”

She turned sharply. “Yes, Ms. Voss?” She wasn’t going to use her first name.

“The window. Does it—?”

“No, ma’am. The windows don’t open. Safety.”

“No, I mean… is there any way to block it?”

“Oh! A privacy veil. Yes, of course.”

“Yes. Privacy.”

Rory stepped back inside and gestured toward the console. “Everything in your room can be controlled from here.” She slid two fingers down the screen, and the window frosted over in a smooth blur. “It’s all very intuitive.”

“Thank you, Rory.”

“My pleasure, Ms. Voss.”

“Please—Elara.”

Another subtle smile and curt nod.

Worth a shot.

Elara waited for the latch to click, then walked back and locked it herself. She wanted to believe her. She really did. But nothing in Lucerna convinced her she was ever truly out of earshot.

Still, she had to take the chance.

She dropped her bag of clothes on the floor and placed her satchel on the bed. Out from her satchel, she pulled her tablet and sat cross-legged on the bed.

“What gives? You’ve been a Lucernian for what? Three hours? I figured you’d be in a giant barrel hat by now eating chocolate with your new socialite friends?!” Meredith was Elara’s sponsor and, whether Elara admitted it or not, her closest friend.

The moment Meredith’s face appeared, Elara’s chest tightened. A tear she hadn’t approved welled up. She wiped it away and forced a smile.

Meredith gave her an understanding smile. She let Elara take the lead. However long it might take.

Elara took a moment to listen to her heartbeat and find her breath. Once found, she looked for a piece of a chuckle. “This place is utterly batshit.”

Meredith smiled ear to ear. She waited on Elara’s inevitable rant that always made her smile.

“Did you know they engineered wind? Not air circulation. Wind. Shifting, variable-speed patterns. And the ‘sunlight’? It’s warm. Not the air. Not the vents. Just the beam.”

She leaned forward, her voice sharper now.

“I need you to appreciate how hard that must’ve been to pull off. Motion tracking, pinpoint thermal emitters, and a hell of a lot of wasted energy. All to make people feel like they’re living in a past no one’s lived in twenty generations.”

Meredith tried to put herself beside her, stepping off that tram, blinking into artificial sunlight. “I can’t begin to imagine how jarring that must’ve been. How overstimulated you must feel.”

“And the people,” Elara said, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear, “they don’t look like me, walk like me, talk like me. Like they’re all from a different planet—where all of this is normal. And I’m the alien.”

Meredith studied the tension in her face. The fatigue. The flicker behind her eyes.

“I did see one normal person,” Elara added. “Not sure I was supposed to. An elderly man—eighties, maybe. Said he lived below Lucerna in the old settlement. He called it Turaza.”

She looked down at her finger, bloody now at the cuticle. She stopped picking.

“People get real dirty making a city this clean. And these people?” She glanced off screen. “They don’t clean anything. Turaza’s keeping this city running, and from what that man didn’t say…it might not be a choice.”

Meredith quietly listened. Elara wasn’t finished.

“This place doesn’t overwhelm me because it’s fake. It overwhelms me because it’s flawless. Every surface, every sound—it’s all curated. Orderly.”

She rubbed at her forehead, wiping away grime that wasn’t there.

“It makes the noise in my head feel like the only messy thing left.”

She glanced off-screen, eyes settling on the solid oak door. It really was beautiful.

“This old man—white shirt, loose tie. Standing at a door no one noticed. Too small to need a doorman. It didn’t make sense. The way he just stood there. Like he was part of a different story I didn’t understand.”

She hesitated.

“Like me.”

Her voice thinned.

“Everything about him felt… real. Nothing around him did.”

Elara looked down to her finger. The blood started to dry.

“That’s when I wanted to make it stop.”

Meredith had been keeping count. “That’s quite a few triggers.”

She leaned in, voice calm but firm.

“But if you’re wondering whether you can do this—you already are. You got through the shuttle. You made it to the hotel without buying anything. That’s not nothing. That’s doing it.”

She let that settle between them.

“You don’t have to believe you can do this forever. You just have to believe you can get through tonight. That’s what we do. Stack up one night at a time. That’s strength. That’s recovery.”

Elara swallowed hard.

“I don’t feel strong.”

“I know,” Meredith said. “You don’t have to. You just have to stay honest. Stay connected. Tell the truth. You’ve never had issues with that.”

Meredith’s mischaracterization of her honesty stung in the silence that followed.

Meredith was perhaps the only living person who knew how much everything had cost. Her intellect, her breakthroughs, even her sense of humor came at a price few were willing to pay.

She just didn’t know what it had cost.

“I’ll check in tomorrow?” Meredith asked.

Elara nodded again. A little steadier this time.

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

Elara put away her tablet and wiped the last of the tears from her face. She leaned back into the oversized pillows on the oversized bed.

She still had one drug she never had to quit. The one that never betrayed her.

A soft pillow. A warm blanket. And The Faraday had the good stuff.

Restful sleep was a rare gift in recovery—a fact not lost on Elara.

She brushed her teeth, pulled on her black satin pajamas, queued up Kid A, and slid beneath the covers.

She was already halfway to nirvana when the first explosion lit her darkened room in shades of blue, green, and orange.

Elara launched out of bed and hit the floor hard.

“What the fuck?!”

More flashes. Louder cracks. A hissing sound?

She crawled to the console by the oak door. Another burst cast jagged red shadows across the ceiling.

She slapped at the screen, swiping up with both fingers.

The window unfrosted in a blink.

Fireworks.

She sat back on her heels, catching her breath.

“You have got to be kidding me.”

She’d heard Lucerna made a spectacle of Kern’s Day. Seen the official pictures. The gleaming towers, simulated night sky, and a celebration so perfect it felt unreal.

She’d assumed the scale was exaggerated. Just another piece of Endelezan propaganda.

It wasn’t.

Elara sat back in bed and watched, arms wrapped around her knees.

The irony was there. She just didn’t have the energy to chase it.

So instead, she did something increasingly rare for a mind like hers.

She just watched.

Morning came gently. Elara was already awake before the facsimile sun even considered rising. She’d always been a morning person. Genetics, mostly, but that never stopped her from feeling quietly superior about it.

She spent the morning getting into gear. For what, she had no idea. All she knew was that Erik Francs, the brain behind Neural Intent Synthesis (and a personal hero of hers) had invited her to Kern Tower for a meeting.

Probably the only reason she would’ve agreed to step foot in Lucerna.

She didn’t spend much time getting ready. Pretty girls are always disadvantaged in the lab, and she was always disadvantaged in the lab. Makeup would’ve just made it worse.

She spent even less time walking to Kern Tower. Head down. Big strides. Didn’t need Lucerna’s curated perfection wigging her out before sitting across from Francs.

The ground floor wasn’t nearly as populated as she’d expected. Seven—eight people, maybe. Maybe the room was just a lot bigger than she thought it would be.

She approached a reception console mounted on a nearby pillar.

“Ms. Elara Voss for Chief Francs.”

A familiar, androgynous voice came from the screen.

“Good morning, Ms. Voss. I trust you had a restful evening.”

Elara ignored the pleasantry. She always enjoyed watching an algorithm feign awkwardness.

“Yes…well, Chief Francs will see you now.”

An elevator opened to her right. She stepped inside, catching her reflection on the polished panel as the doors closed.

Ugh. Maybe some foundation wouldn’t have been the worst idea.

The doors opened on the seventh floor. She was quietly devastated.

Tallest building in history. Over nine hundred meters. One hundred eighty-seven floors. And she gets the seventh.

It was quiet. Just hallways and closed office doors. She skipped the reception console and read nameplates as she walked.

One empty office after another she walked. Floor, glass, walls. All spotless. Brand new. The possible explanations started to fall in line, but was interrupted before she could narrow any of them down.

“Ms. Voss.”

Erik Francs was standing down the hall behind her.

She turned quickly to face him.

He smiled.

“Welcome to Lucerna.”

Huron Infirmary | Great Lakes District | Greylunde

16 April 2585

The Lakes were awake now. Techs and Admins on their way to their corner of the Greylunde machine. Jack only noticed the bustle of the commuters after a man walked into him in the walkway.

He meant to think of what to say to Frankin, but all he could picture was the fuse he just lit in Room 109.

Jack’s pace slowed as he approached the infirmary. Franklin was the only tech Jack hadn’t served with before. He thought that would make this easier. Wrong again. Six months or six years didn’t make much difference in the lines.

Jack approached the directory kiosk on the wall. Auer, Franklin. Fourth floor.

Before opening the door, he tried to exhale the remaining fire in his lungs. He entered the room, unsure of what he was about to walk into.

Franklin sat up to turn his left eye to Jack. With half of his face, he smiled.

Relieved, Jack returned the gesture.

He walked to the head of Franklin’s bed, heeled the wheel lock and turned him to face the door.

Frank laid back into his bed and looked comfortably at the door, then back to Jack.

“Would you believe me if I said that they told me the wheel lock was broken?”

He gave Franklin a crooked grin. “Clearly, you weren’t recruited for your problem solving capabilities.”

“Yeah, well. I always knew I would end up in the log hubs eventually.”

He pulled up a chair and sat next to the bed. “You kidding? Have you seen what these new eyes and ears can do now? Once they get you wired up, you’ll be more valuable than ever.”

Franklin rubbed the bandages on his right arm.

“You ran with Fin for a long time. I could tell.”

Jack still wasn’t ready to think about him.

“It was his snark. It never bothered you the way it should’ve. Like you counted on it.”

He looked down at his hands as he picked at his bloodied fingernail. “Never pegged you for perceptive, Frank” He leaned back in his chair, as forced himself to think about Finley. “He ever bitch about anything you weren’t already thinking? He was my barometer.”

In an attempt to lighten the mood, he let out a cautious laugh. “Plus, he gave Har someone to focus his paternal instincts on.”

Franklin smiled, but it missed.

His tone fell flat. “I’m having a hard time deciding if not remembering it is a good thing or not.”

“You don’t remember anything?”

“Just the cold…and salt. I can still taste it.” Frank ran his left hand through what hair he had left. “Like a sleepwalker in a boxing match. I can’t remember it, but my body sure does.”

He leaned forward, staring at the ground with another dry laugh.

“Wall came by yesterday.”

Jack’s ears started ringing. “That was fast.” Slowly, he sat up and leaned back in his seat. “Haven’t even give them my report yet.”

“He seemed more interested in you than in the Line. Like he was looking for something on you. Leverage.”

Jack’s neck began to warm.

Franklin caught Jack’s unease. “That was our first expedition together. Told him what I knew. Nothin’.”

Jack took a deep breath. “What’s to tell?”

“Yeah, well. Thought you should know. Not sure who else he’s talked to, but I doubt I was his last stop.”

“Har make it out here yet?”

Franklin laid his head back down on his pillow. “Still here. His dad…remember?”

“Right” Jack hadn’t remembered. Harlan had been quietly carrying that burden for so long now that it didn’t seem real. Cancer wasn’t nearly as prominent down here as the old-world stories suggested it used to be. It seemed to make a vengeful return anytime it was at risk of being forgotten.

“Wall talk to him?”

“No. And Harlan was actually surprised when I told him.” He gave Jack a questioning glance. “More surprised than you, anyway.”

Jack ignored the unspoken question and bent to tie the laces of his boot.

“You don’t need to worry about Wall. Or me.” Jack stood from the chair. “If you want back in the lines, come see me. I’ll always have room for a salty cyborg.”

Painfully, Franklin laughed. “Fuck you. Salty. That’s low.”

Jack smiled. “You call me if you need anything.”

“Thanks, Chief.”

Jack left Frank’s room and found Harlan waiting in the hall. Out on expedition, Harlan had a knack for keeping storms at bay. Jack depended on him for that as much as the crew did.

Seeing him now, like this, was selfishly comforting. Jack needed to see that no one was immune to the storms. Some people were just able to schedule them.

He sat beside Harlan in the hall. Harlan leaned forward in prayer. Jack waited.

He opened his eyes, but didn’t look at Jack.

Jack hiked up his socks and adjusted the blousing strap of his pant leg. Leaning back he draped an arm over the back of Harlan’s seat.

The two men sat in shared silence for the better part of half an hour. Harlan didn’t need words. A friend’s presence was enough for now.

“We need a stretcher! Somebody give me a hand.”

They both turned to the commotion at the door.

“Holy shit—is that Wall?”

Jack scratched his beard. “Frank did say he was here.”

Harlan studied Wall’s injuries as they carted him by. Right jaw broken, left knee hyperextended. Two hits. Brutal. Precise. As good as a fingerprint.

Harlan glanced at the side of Jack’s face, not ready to believe what he already knew.

Jack didn’t move. Wall’s eyes found Jack’s and flinched, looking away like a man who’d just seen death.

He didn’t feel pride, or regret. Just a certainty that this wasn’t over.

“It is Wall, Jack.”

Harlan stared in disgust. “What did you do?”

Jack clenched his jaw and looked at the wall.

Harlan sat back, stunned, as a wave of understanding hit him ten years too late. “You know. Don’t you?”

Jack didn’t answer. Harlan leaned in, voice low. “Mediterranea. What—ten years ago now? You were there weren’t you?”

“No.”

“So what? You found out later? How? From who? How in the fuck could you be so sure?”

“Doesn’t matter. I know. He knows.”

Harlan started piecing the timelines together in his head. “And, you’re sure because you sold silence for a promotion.”

Harlan laughed. “So who did you just cripple? Wall, or yourself?”

Jack sighed. He never imagined hearing it laid out so plainly. Least of all from his oldest friend.

“It still doesn’t make sense, Jack. You were always going to make Chief. We all knew it.”

Jack had been scraping the dried blood from under his nails again. He stood, brushing the flakes from his lap, and leaned against the wall.

One of Harlan’s best qualities was his perceptiveness. Right now, it felt like his worst.

“You went looking for meaning. But all you found was the same machine that used your father. And you liked it. You needed it. Still do.”

Harlan let the revelation hang in the hall. “The relics, the fights—it’s not rebellion. It’s just you, looking for someone to finally pull you out. You’ll never leave the lines willingly, but there’s some part of you that wants out.”

Jack didn’t speak. He just stared a Harlan, jaw tight, weighing the truth against the cost of admitting it.

“We all look for purpose, Jack. I’m not going to pretend to know what yours is, but until you deal with what you lost, you’ll have no chance of getting out clean.”

Jack looked back to his feet. “How’s your dad?”

Harlan closed his mouth. He didn’t answer right away. He let out a deep sigh and rubbed his forehead. “They moved him to hospice last week. Maybe a week? They never know.”

Jack sat back down beside his friend. “Jess has been stretched real thin over the last six months between Dad and the kids. I’m putting in for a temporary assignment in logistics.”

Jack stood and shouldered his bag. “Maybe I’ll do the same.”

Harlan laughed. “Jack Greer, Expeditionary Logistics Engineer. You know, people underestimate your sense of humor.”

Jack smirked and started for the door. Harlan weighed his duffle with a glance. “Tell Stephen I said hello.”

Jack kept walking.

As usual, Harlan was right. Jack had one more stop before heading home. It was nearly noon. He knew where to find him.

Stephen ran a rig shop just two nodes down. Rewired O₂ tanks, tuned regulators, replaced cracked visors—standard stuff. But if you needed your loadout tighter, your clamps stronger, your torch hotter, he was your guy. Everyone in Greylunde used him. Everyone liked him. Few trusted him.

He didn’t knock. Stephen wouldn’t have heard it anyway. He could hear the music from across the way.

“I was beginning to worry. I heard you got in this morning.” Stephen turned down his music and finished the last bite of his lunch.

Jack placed his duffle on a table and sat. “It’s been a morning.”

Stephen pulled a small data drive from his desk. “Get yourself caught with that bag and it’ll be a few thousand mornings in Pacsol prison.” Stephen handed the drive to Jack. “Last haul moved quick.” Smiling, he returned to his seat. “Easy money.”

Jack pocketed the drive.

Stephen opened the duffle and began pulling out the books. “Textbooks.” He carried them to his desk and checked the covers. “Good colors. Sharp corners.” He flipped through the pages and showed them to Jack. He smiled. “Still have their sheen.”

Stephen closed the books and slouched into his chair. “I heard about Salt Lake. I didn’t know Finley.”

Jack looked down to the floor. “For the best.”

Stephen didn’t let the silence linger for long. Jack’s body language was clear.

He turned back to his computer. “Let’s see what you brought me.”

Jack stood up and zipped the duffle and dropped it by the door as Stephen began looking up the values of the books one by one.

“These three will go quick for sure. Chemistry always moves. Same with physics.” Stephen pulled the last book from the stack and typed the title into the database.

“And…nothing.” He flipped the book and typed in the barcode on the back. “Come here.” Jack walked behind Stephen’s chair. “That’s a four, right?”

Jack squinted. “Pretty sure.”

“That’s what I was afraid of.” Stephen slid the book to Jack. “Doesn’t exist.”

‘Quantum Computing: Progress and Prospects’ read the title. “Doesn’t exist?”

Stephen contemplated the implications of a book with no record of having ever existed. “Could be an error. Unlikely, but possible I suppose. Could be that it just wasn’t cataloged. If that’s the case, you just found a very, very valuable relic.”

Jack studied Stephen’s face. He didn’t appear very sure of either of those explanations.

Stephen flipped to the back of the book and typed some more. Stephen stepped away from the computer and began to pace.

Jack waited for him to process before asking any more questions.

“It’s been purged. Not just this book. An entire field of study. Most of the books listed in the bibliography—all gone.”

Jack picked up the book. He studied the cover before flipping to an arbitrary page to read. “Might as well be binary.” He put the book back down on the desk. “Purged. Any idea by who?”

“No way to know for sure. At least no way I know of.” Stephen stared at the book like he was afraid it would move. “These—I’ll move. But this?” Stephen slid the book to Jack. “My advice…burn it. You don’t need the money or the trouble.”

Jack picked up the book and smiled. “I’m an engineer first, Steve.” Jack placed the book back in his bag. “And my curiosity hasn’t peaked in a very long time.”

“Engineer? Stephen chuckled. “Coulda fooled me. Mits like yours I woulda put money on gorilla.”

He left with a nod. It had been a long morning. Jack was headed home.

On his walk home, his mind raced. Who could erase that much information? All he knew was where to start.

Jack’s home wasn’t large, but it was enough. Same as everyone else’s in the Lakes. Still, Jack found ways to make it his. Old-world relics littered the walls. All registered. All approved.

He shed his jacket and draped it over his desk chair. He took out the heavy textbook from his bag and sat it down on the kitchen table. He had been awake for almost thirty-four hours. Whatever mysteries it held could wait for now.

Curiosity pulled him out of bed. He checked the clock. Ten hours. Still didn’t feel enough.

He sat at the table and ran his thumb over the title like it would smear away.

Quantum Computing.

Felt like a curse he didn’t want to say out loud.

He read the publication page first.

2019. Three years before anyone knew about Neovise. Before the settlement. Before the ice. When the sun was more than a myth.

Jack turned another page, then another. The text was dense, rigid. Built for minds that spoke in mathematics and theoretical physics. Hilbert spaces. Quantum gates. Fault tolerance.

He paused at the diagrams, tracing them with his thumb like maps from a world he wasn’t born to understand. Patterns emerged. Context gave shape to the jargon. It read theoretical. Fragile, experimental. But the premise was clear enough.

If they solved the core problems—the noise, the stability, the scale—this would have made every standard computer obsolete. Not incrementally. Completely. The kind of breakthrough men might kill for.

Or bury forever.

He looked back to the diagram he had traced earlier. A Bloch’s Sphere.

It was a graphic depiction of all possible states of an electron. He wasn’t completely unschooled in quantum mechanics. An electron’s spin was just a physical property of the electron, not a unit of information. Or at least that’s how he remembered it taught.

“Where have I seen this?”

He brought the book to his desk and sat down. Something dug into his back. Cold rippled down his spine.

His dad’s journal.

Jack quickly pulled the journal out from his jacket and frantically turned the pages.

There it was.

February 10th, 2560. There was no date written on the page, but he knew it well enough.

It was the last thing John, his father, had drawn.

It wasn’t a clean diagram. Hadn’t meant it to be. The circle was rough, hand-drawn across the page of the journal. Three lines crossed the center. No labels. No measurements. Just a quick sketch of something John had seen that day. A habit they both shared.

Jack didn’t make a habit of intentionally thinking about that day. He didn’t open it for a month after he died. The drawing had never made sense. A sphere. Crossed lines. A curved arrow near the edge. He had always thought it was just some logo or emblem John found interesting. No different from the other things he’d sketched in the journal over the years.

But now, looking between the journal and the textbook, it wasn’t just an emblem. And it wasn’t a coincidence.

Jack closed the journal. He didn’t need to read the entry from that day. He had it memorized.

“Who needs funny friends when I have you? I love you buddy. See you soon. And tell your mom I don’t want chicken this time.”

Just another day.

Jack should’ve felt rage. He didn’t. This is what he’d been looking for. Any hint. Any clue that his father’s death could be linked to something bigger.

In that moment, he understood that some part of him had always known.

Jack smiled. “Well, Gerry? Looks like you were wrong this time, old friend.”

Shit never just happens.

Still smiling, Jack closed his eyes and felt a calm certainty wash over his skin.

“Everything hidden will be known.”

Expeditionary Logistics | Great Lakes District | Greylunde

16 April 2585

Coming home was supposed to be familiar.

It never was.

The air in The Lakes was heavy and warm, but their lungs were still full of Salt Lake. Jack wiped the sweat that beaded on the back of his neck.

Readjusting was a sort of penance. Every labored breath a reminder that nothing would ever feel clean again.

“Welcome home, Boys!” The young tech pulled up a loading cart and reached for their bags.

Phil slung his bag over his shoulder and looked at the tech like he was carrying a body, not a duffle. Harlan showed his teeth. Attempt at friendliness. He didn’t care if it passed.

“Thanks, Alvin. We can carry our bags.”

Harlan patted the young man on the back. “We travel light.”

“Sure—I heard about Fin. Damn shame. Those shears can really pop out of nowher—“

“You’re about to lose your load.” Jack gestured to the tech’s loader.

Good thing. If Jack hadn’t stepped in Phil would have snapped his collarbone like a twig. Harlan wouldn’t have stopped him.

No one said goodbye. They just scattered. Lester and Arthur probably went to see family. No one asked where Phil went. No one cared where Jamie drank. Everyone outran the lines in their own way.

No words. Just nods—barely. Salt Lake was two thousand kilometers behind them.

Not far enough.

The job was done. Now came the part where Jack had to explain it to warm, comfortable men.

Jack preferred to get this part over with. Let them see the blood under his nails, the loss behind his eyes—still fresh.

The walk to General Admin wasn’t long enough. He wanted more time with the memory of Finley before it was fouled under the microscope of bureaucracy and procedure. But the Lakes had a way of snuffing out even the most intentional thoughts.

It didn’t feel at all like home. Easthold was alive and orderly. This place didn’t march the way home did. It dragged its feet. No reactor hum, no chatter. Just the faint hiss of drying vats and the sour decay of fynwood pulp—almost sweet at the edges. People said you’d get used to it. Jack never did.

Locked. It was the first time since leaving Denver he had thought to check the time. 0603 hours. Janet would be the first to arrive. Two hours. Jack sat on the front step to the building and passed time the only way he ever had.

He sharpened his pencil with this knife, opened the journal to a fresh page and scratched at an oval as it began to take shape.

As a kid, he didn’t care much for drawing. He drew because his dad drew. But the older he became the more sense it made.

He’d never found much comfort in the lines. Months of unbroken ice gray. Now matter how you’d pilot the Vore, each kilometer was the same as the last: a twelve-meter diameter tomb.

He drew to think of nothing else. He drew to escape when it was impossible otherwise. And occasionally he drew to remember—or so he wouldn’t forget.

“You’re a predictable man, Jack Greer.”

He blinked, forcing himself to see her—really see her—past the hunger and the ache in his skull. He gave his first genuine smile in months.

He hid his journal as he stood, but didn’t know why.

“You’re early.”

“Yeah, well, something told me you’d come here first.” Janet showed him the bag in her hand. “Something else told me you hadn’t eaten.”

She was right. Jack hadn’t eaten in days. Salted ham biscuits. He should’ve smelled them a block away.

“Right.” Jack chuckled. “Predictable.”

Silence hung in the air a bit too long. Janet looked back towards the transportation hub, then back to Jack. “It’ll only take what you let it. You should know that better than most.”

Jack felt heat well up his throat. The weight he’d fought so hard to hold in started to seep out.

Janet nodded to the door. “Now get inside and eat—stubborn man.”

Jack’s second honest smile. “Yes ma’am.”

Janet knew loss in the lines better than anyone—in ways only a mother could. Jack respected few others in that building.

None like her.

With a full stomach, Jack sat in Schaffer’s office as he waited. Everyone seemed to like Schaffer. Avoid confrontation and always hold the opinion of the strongest in the room, and you’ll be liked—not respected.

Jack stared at Schaffer’s chair—the kind that was only comfortable to the person who logged the hours necessary for it to hold that shape.

“As I breathe…Jackie boy!” Jack stood as Schaffer approached with an outstretched hand. “My God it’s good to see you. Janet said you’ve been here a while—that you came straight here.”

“Yeah, well…Figured they’d have questions. Might as well answer them fresh.” Jack released his hand and waited for Schaffer to sit first.

“Sure, sure.” Schaffer ran his hands through his hair as he sat. “Well look, you’ll get no barbs from me. It was a tough situation. Who am I to tell Jack Greer it was the wrong call?”

Jack didn’t let him off the hook that easy. He waited and watched him fidget his fingers under his desk.

Schaffer took a deep breathe. “Reykjanes has forwarded some questions that they’d like us to go over with you.”

“Us?”

Schaffer braced in his chair before answering. “Jeffrey”

Schaffer glanced at the door nervously as Jack laughed at the implication. “So they send Jeffrey Wall, of all people, to recall me?”

“Jeffrey was an expedition miner for 14 years. He’s respec—“

Jack stopped Schaffer with a stare. “He’s respected? By who, Terrence? By you?” Jack usually didn’t yell. Didn’t have to.

Schaffer didn’t budge. It would take him the better part of a week to recover from this.

Jack slouched back into his seat. “Well, what the fuck are we waiting for?”

Schaffer began forming a word, but stopped just shy of it. The phone rang. Schaffer grabbed it before it finished its first ring.

“Understood. Ontario. We’re on our way.”

Jack was already on his feet, bag in hand. “Excellent.”

Jack stormed out of Schaffer’s office—Schaffer no closer than ten steps behind him. Jack knew where he was going. It was the room where he first met Jeffrey Wall, his first Line Chief, sixteen years ago. Ontario Conference. Room 109.

Jack stopped just short of the door. Blind rage wouldn’t help. He closed his eyes and drew a breath. He heard Schaffer’s heavy breath as he caught up.

He opened the door, slow and deliberate.

“Jack. Long time.”

He could count on one hand how many times he’d seen Jeffrey Wall seated. Bad salesman. Jack didn’t buy it.

“Mr. Schaffer said council had questions.” Jack made little effort to strip the acid from his voice.

Jeff gestured to an empty chair at the table beside him.

Jack didn’t blink.

“They did.” He straightened in his chair. “Terrence, would you step outside?” Relieved, Schaffer left.

Jeffrey stood and pulled his jacket taut. “And if I asked…any of them,” He took a step forward. “You would have likely broken my neck.”

Jack matched his step. “Still might.”

“They’ve never been in the lines. I know why you made the call you did. You probably even left it to a vote. Just like I did.”

Jack’s hands clenched into fists without him noticing. His blood pressure spiked. He noticed that. He took a step forward, smiling.

“Just like you did.” Jack steadied his breathing. “When you prioritize your crew—” Another step. “and not just yourself,” he said spitting, “there’s never more than one option.”

“They want you recalled, Jack. Still might. For now at least, you’re safe. I know what you’re looking for out there, Jack. I understand it.” His tone shifted. “But if I get the feeling—even for a second—that your ghost hunt endangers the safety of the men and women under your command, you’ll never set foot in the lines again.”

Jack’s rage peaked. Pinned in the red. His jaw began to cramp from grinding his teeth.

“Who the fuck are you talking to? No one else is here. I took your deal, and I gotta live with that, but don’t you dare pretend you give a good god damn about anyone but yourself. Not to me.”

“You misunderstand me, Jack. I didn’t pull any strings to get you out of this. After everything—the violence, the reckless calls…the relics. Yeah, we know about that too, Jack.”

Jack stared—silent.

“After all of that, do you really think the board would listen to your bullshit from more than ten years ago?” Jeff took a step towards Jack. “I don’t need you anymore.”

Jack listened, waited.

“Make no mistake, Jack. I didn’t get you clear of this.” Jeff took another step forward. Too close.

“…Your father did.”

Jack lunged, driving his heel into Jeffrey’s knee with all his weight. He couldn’t even register the pain before Jack’s elbow broke his jaw.

Jeffrey collapsed. His moan was unmistakable. Agonizing. Muted.

Jack shoved the heavy table aside, mounted him on the floor and pulled him up by his wool jacket.

“Kenny.”

“Luke.”

Jack almost choked. “Sarah.”

Jeffrey’s breath quickened, shallow and panicked. The shock started wearing off.

Jack caught the terror behind his eyes. It shook him out of his rage for a brief moment. He couldn’t remember deciding to move.

“You knew what Bore Chief meant to me—to my family. And you used it to make sure no one else learned what you did—what you didn’t do.”

“There was no vote.” Jack pulled him in closer. “Just—Jeff.”

Jeff silently writhed on the floor. Cornered prey trying to break free.

Jack’s grip tightened as he reached for the knife strapped behind his back. He pressed it to Walls throat hard enough to dimple the skin.

“That’s the second time you’ve threatened me, Chief. I’ll only do it once.”

Jeffrey lay helpless on the floor. Jaw—broken. Knee—probably.

“You don’t need me? I have proof, mother fucker. Satan would be a credible witness with what I have on you.”

Jack paused to feel Jeffrey’s heart ready to leap out of his chest.

“If I were a better man—if I didn’t need the lines—I’d slit your throat for what you did.”

Jack slid the knife back into its sheath. “But you’re going to tell the council it was a bar fight. You’re going to tell them that Jack Greer is a focused, committed Canary Line Chief, and a model Greylundian.”

Jack released his grip as he stood over Jeffrey. “You bought me cheap, Wall. Making me Chief cost you nothing. My price has just gone up.”

“And who knows.” Jack stopped shy of the door, but didn’t turn. “Maybe one day I won’t need the lines.”

Jack closed the door behind him. The fuse was lit.

Jack stepped out into the hallway. His pulse still hadn’t slowed.

He caught his reflection in this glass. The miles were starting to overtake him. Older than his father, John, ever was by three years.

Couldn’t remember the last time anyone remarked on their likeness.

Just needed sleep.

He passed Janet in the hall as he walked out of General Admin. She looked at him like she saw the whole thing. She didn’t judge. She just…saw.

She wouldn’t rock the boat, and Schaffer will think whatever he’s told to think. Still, Jack knew he would have to settle up one day.

Everything hidden will be known.

With Jeff and the inevitable fallout at his back, Jack was headed to his second stop.

Franklin.

Salt Lake City | Expeditionary Team 3 - ‘Canaries’

13 April 2585

The men of Team 3 sat in Maggie’s hull, warmed only by the memory of her fusion core that ticked like a metronome as it cooled.

Everyone waited for the answer to the question that no one wanted to ask.

Lester was the first.

“Now what?”

Jack hesitated, breathing into his stiff fingers. He woke up Maggie and turned to face the panels.

“Sixty meters. Call in Sheila.”

Arthur blinked, “You gotta be kidding me.”

Harlan snapped. “Get behind that feed and shut the fuck up. Jack’s right. Our line is compromised sixty meters back—at least. What do you suggest? Bore a U-turn and drill back sixty—seventy—meters? In this minefield?”

Jack ignored the exchange and continued the startup protocol. Harlan would handle it. He always did.

Jamie muttered, “Why not just call in for a replacement MPLiD, like we should’ve done in the first place?”

“Where the fuck have you been? We’ve covered this.” Les turned his screen to the crew. “It’s not dead. Not deaf. Just wrong.”

The crew sat in contemplation. Les continued. “If it’s the salt—“

Phil cut him off with a single dry laugh. “Ha!”

Jack glanced at Phil.

“Forgive me if I fail to find the humor here,” Arthur snapped.

Jack didn’t miss a beat. “No one thought to test on salt deposits…in Salt Lake. It’s sure as shit gonna be funny at some point.”

Harlan dropped behind his station. “We’re over simplifying it, but it doesn’t make a difference.” Headset on. “We’ve come too far. Simple as that.”

One by one, the crew took their stations.

Jack looked them over. He’d never lost a tech. He’d rehearsed this moment a dozen ways, for a dozen names.

Never Finley’s.

He knew these men. Knew they’d carry the loss in their own way, on their own terms. But not here. And not now.

No one spoke. Not about Finley. Not about Franklin.

They ended their descent at ground level. After nearly six months and six hundred kilometers, they reached Salt Lake. No one celebrated.

Phil dumped the wine, Arthur cleaned the consoles, and Lester double-checked every ping from Knuckles. Twice.

Routine was how you stayed sane.

Sheila and Roxanne set out to survey old-world structures while Maggie hollowed out a primitive node.

The crew reinforced the walls and set up camp—the first in Salt Lake. Finley and Frank’s absence left a quiet void that no one wanted to break.

Jamie scrolled through the schematics of the city.

“Sheila’s at the natural history museum. No dice. Library’s next.”

“Roxy…” Jamie checked his feed. “Forty minutes out from Huntsman.”

Arthur put on his headphones and reclined in his seat. “No one gives a shit about dinosaur bones anyway.”

The men grew restless while Roxanne mapped and surveyed the Huntsman Center—a 15,000-seat pre-ejection arena at the University of Utah. A near-perfect dome, built over six hundred years ago. If anything still stood in Salt Lake, it’d be the Huntsman.

Fifteen thousand seats. Couple thousand more than the first settlements.

A sudden drop in pressure popped in their ears as Roxanne’s boreline began to siphon the atmosphere out of the line and into the void of the Huntsman. A good sign.

“Huntsman is clear.” Harlan’s first stab at optimism in three days. He watched the controls as the howling of the wind slowed to a crawl. A few minutes more and the results were in.

“Pressure has stabilized. No oxygen, but nothing that will kill us.”

“Okay.” Jack folded away his console. “Har, take Art and Jamie to Huntsman. I’ll stay back with Phil and Les and wait for Sheila to reach the library.”

“Finally!” Art said standing up and stretching.

Harlan shook the last six hundred kilometers of ice-grit and metal dust off of his jacket. “We’re here for one reason only. Forward expedition. Relic retrieval is not authorized.”

He looked at Phil. “You hear that Phil? No relics.”

Jack was the only member of the crew that wasn’t scared of Phil, but Harlan put up a good front.

Phil gave Harlan a subtle grin. “Hard copy.”

Then Harlan shot a glance at Jack. Same warning—no words.

Jamie and Art pulled Finley’s body bag from the cargo hold then loaded him onto the first car. Jamie laid down on the second. Arthur, the third.

Before crawling into the boreline, Harlan leaned in to grab his satchel and whispered, “Everything hidden will be known.”

Harlan was a good man. No better right hand, but Jack could do without the sermon.

Harlan slipped into the molecar. A second later, they were gone.

Lester looked over to Jack. “The library?”

“The library.” Jack didn’t have to explain more.

Lester and Phil knew why they were going to the library. Relics.

Relics were sacred in Greylunde. The state paid for the digs so the state owned the yield. Every relic had to be registered. If it mattered, it vanished into the archives. If it didn’t, you could petition to keep it, but you were forbidden from ever selling it.

They decided what relics you were allowed to take, and when you were allowed to take them.

But in Greylunde, everyone got the same stipend. Regardless of occupation, regardless of risk, regardless of loss. If you wanted to get ahead you had to find perks.

Or bribe your way onto the Guild council.

The three waited—each in their own way. Lester paced. Phil took a nap. Jack sketched.

Lester got up to check the feed as Roxanne’s structural assessment populated his feed. “Partially collapsed. Not stable enough for a camp, but we could…poke around?”

The boreline howled as the three loaded onto the mole.

The air in the library was cold and thin. Rebreathers on, they stepped into the ruin. Lester and Phil set up the lightalls.

Light fell onto the contents of the library for first time in over five hundred years. Three levels. Books. Computers. Chairs. The ground floor littered with tents and frozen bodies. A refugee camp of transplanted college students with nowhere else to go.

Phil moved among the bodies, checking coats and jeans. A logical move for a man like Phil. Old-world jeans were always an easy sell if you had the stomach to pull them off their previous owners.

The fact that they’d died half a millennia ago helped. They’d seen the stars with their own eyes. Felt rain and snow. They swam in oceans warmed by an under-appreciated sun.

And died never knowing the inside of a vault. They weren’t pitied. They were the lucky ones.

Jack moved through the aisles with purpose. He knew what he was after. Textbooks. The scientific elites in Endeleza paid top dollar for textbooks in good condition.

They weren’t just nostalgic relics of a world no one remembered. They were better made. Mineral-stabilized paper resisted acid-rot for centuries. Inks that never faded, bindings that held in damp vaults, diagrams printed in forgotten pigments.

They made books like they would last forever, even when nothing else would.

Jack grabbed an old milk crate and began rifling through the aisles. He didn’t pay much attention to the spines. Only three criteria: heavy, boring title, good condition. Some would be worth more than others. Stephen would sort that out.

He set the crate of books on the floor. One of the bodies—the students—caught his eye. A boy. Couldn’t have been twenty. He was wearing a black cotton shirt. On the front was an animated characterface black, green helmet, yellow bristle crest on his head. Marvin the Martian, it said.

It was the character his dad drew in the journal he sent to Jack in that old metal tin all those years ago. The sketch that started it all.

Phil leaned over to grab the student’s shoes—the boy’s shoes.

“Wait.” He held a hand to Phil, and walked closer to the boy.

Jack looked over the body lying stiff on the tile floor. Every sketched character and joke from the journal in his coat pocket began rolling through his memory.

A thought occurred to him. All of his best, most vivid memories of his father weren’t memories of his father at all. Just old graphite dust pressed into fibers of paper.

Phil watched Jack look at the body like he expected it to move.

“We good?”

Jack blinked through the cascading emotions, all seemingly determined to crumple him to the ground.

“No, Phil. We’re a damn sight from good.” He shook the ghosts from his jacket and returned to his crate of contraband.

His father had drawn dozens of silly characters in that journal. Jack always assumed they were his.

Of course they weren’t. Funny how perceptions shift.

It bothered him more than he would ever admit.

The three men swept the facility then loaded their haul onto the molecar. Sheila’s structural readings weren’t very reassuring. Not before the breach, and certainly not after.

Not a word was spoken as they took their places back on the mole.

With their loot stowed behind Maggie’s walls and under her floorboards, the three rejoined the crew at the Huntsman.

Out of the boreline, Jack stepped slowly through a shadowed tunnel. At the far end, the arena stretched wide—fifteen thousand seats rising in tier. Each rust red seat aimed directly at center court.

Jack stood on the painted logo and traced the nosebleeds with the light-all.

The seats were empty, but he felt seen in a way that made his palms slick.

Harlan stopped a few feet back as Jack watched the rows for ghosts.

“Jack?”

He dropped the light to the floor, letting the dark reclaim the quietly judging seats.

“How are we looking?”

“Atmosphere isn’t bad. Could be better. We got the three ASU’s set up. Figured another three should do it. ETA another twenty.”

Jack adjusted his rebreather. “Big hab. Lots of air.”

He looked at the dome overhead. “RADs still green?”

“For now. Those steel beams are doing most of the work, but this much brine? Corrosion’ll eat through fast once we get oxygen flowing. Engineers will need to get in quick or they’ll have to burn in from scratch.”

Lester and Jamie walked by carrying a body bag toward the far wall. Jack watched as Phil and Art prepped another for disposal.

Jack’s voice was flattened. Soft. Reverent. “How many?”

“Forty-five. The library?”

Jack hesitated as the image of the boy flashed in his mind. “Sixteen.”

Old-world corpses were the most common relic found in the ice and, in the wrong hands, the most profitable. Greylunde law treated them like citizens. Full rites, zero tolerance for theft. Even relic fraud didn’t carry sentences that steep. On the black market, frozen flesh had buyers—gene farms, identity brokers, worse. Most crews never crossed that line.

Jack had heard the stories. Everyone had.

Sheila cut five deep diagonal shafts into the compacted sand and clay below. One-by-one, they disposed of the forgotten souls into the ground.

On the opposite wall, Roxanne cut a single shaft into the dirt and stone deeper than the rest.

The six remaining men of Team 3 shared in the quiet as Harlan granted Finley his request: committing him to the dirt.

One-by-one, the crew returned to their duties. Jack and Harlan stayed.

Jack looked up at the dome overhead. “Almost looks like home.”

Harlan glanced at the ceiling then back to Jack. “Yeah…I suppose it does.” Harlan’s voice softened. “Come on. Help me clear out these tents.”

With the last of the ASU’s online and the RADs still flashing green, they were finally able to take off their masks. Harlan and Phil were always the first to fall asleep—a gift the rest of the crew all quietly hated them for.

The next morning, the remaining six men of Team 3 made final preparations for the team of engineers behind them. Wallmen from Denver had already repaired and reinforced their line. It was time to go home.

More went into planning expedition routes than most would ever know. It needed to be high enough off the dirt to avoid pressure faults, old highways, fuel tanks, and God knew what else the old-world buried, but too close to the surface and you’re cooked from cosmic radiation. Jack had studied the route for months.

The dig cost Team 3 six months, one life, and enough pain and suffering to matter.

Now it took just ten hours to forget it ever mattered.

His thirteenth tunnel. First casualty.

Number thirteen.

Superstition was the closest thing to a state sponsored religion in Greylunde. It was a religion he tried to disavow, but no Line Chief had carved fourteen.

Just about all of the significant sites from the old-world had been excavated. He didn’t know when or where, but he knew it wouldn’t be his last.

With the last of their gear on board, they climbed into Maggie’s hull and drove through the haunted line back to the Denver hub.

At five-hundred and fifty kilometers per hour, the maglev tram to the Great Lakes District felt like a time machine after half a year of crawling through ice.

Expedition miners never slipped back into daily life easily and certainly not quickly. More often than not, the ritual started with celebratory shots at the canteen.

Not this time.