Hinote barely kept up with Shun and me. People were running away, panicking, though I had no way of knowing whether this was due to Kaito telling them to evacuate or because of the Andalaf’s feed on their endorphinscreen sets. Knowing Andalaf, though, I guessed they’d cut the feed to Meek Alfrandil, so it was probably Kaito.

Infantrymen attempted to keep the crowd inside, but people were fighting back now, desperate to get out. I watched as a woman was shot down from the top of the trash. The people were trying to climb the slopes to get out, and the infantry was keeping them in. A muscular man with a knife climbed up and managed to injure one infantryman, but another shot him in the kneecap and kicked him down the slope. I saw traces of fire and ice in the air, but the crest of the trash concealed the sources. No one was coming for us, though—something I found odd.

“That’s fucking Kaito up there! We gotta get him and get the hell out!” Hinote said. Sure enough, up a slope filled with Under-City people was Kaito, kicking the shit out of Andalaf infantrymen while the people escaped out to the trash sea. Hinote shouted, “You motherfuckers!”

Hinote fired up at the oblivious infantry with his stolen endorphingun, and they fell in line, though we’d drawn attention to ourselves now.

“Taking fire!” I said, rolling to the left for cover behind a building. Shun was beside me, but Hinote was still shooting, running down the street. To use his words, the man had balls. I only had my knives and the earth Sachi, but now was not a good time to create fissures in the ground; people were trying to escape.

Shun and I took cover for a moment behind buildings across from each other on the road and waited for a lull in the gunfire. Hinote was halfway up the slope now, running up to Kaito, who was busy ushering the people of the Meeks into the sea of trash.

“It’s gonna blow, man!” I heard Hinote yell. “We need to get out!”

Hinote had almost reached Kaito. Shun and I were close behind—Hinote wasn't the fastest runner—when the endorphincopter rose. Kaito stood on the hill smiling at us, his red headband blowing with the wind from the copter. His grin fading, he slowly turned and faced the endorphincopter, and the two automatic rifles attached to the underside of it shot him down. Hinote howled, running the rest of the distance to the top, and he pointed his gun to fire, but … the copter turned sideways. Shun and I scrambled up the rest of the trash and stopped next to Hinote, wind whipping our hair, the copter’s blades beating a deafening chop through the air. Ai was sitting inside the open side door of the copter, two men in dress suits and ties to either side of her: Jonnys. They hovered in closer to us.

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“I agreed to come with them!” Ai yelled over the roar of the copter. I felt panic rising in my chest. She can’t be taken because … she just can’t. “To ensure they would not hurt Toshiko or my father, or you three. I’m sorry about Kaito. She is with him, Hinote. Nin can take you there!”

“Alright, that’s quite enough,” said John Jonny. Never liked him. I never liked any of the Jonnys, fucking half-machine puppets of Andalaf. He shut the door, and the endorphincopter headed upward, toward the Upper-Plateau, toward Andalaf Tower. Toward Ben Nejirita and his lab.

“We need to get out of the Meek,” I said, trying to steer my thoughts away from Ai and toward our safety. If I didn’t get out of here, who else was going to get her back from that sick fuck’s experiments?

Hinote looked at the river of people coming up the slope. “We need to help them,” he said.

“Hinote!” Shun said, “you have a child waiting for you. You’ll be no good to her if you’re torn apart!”

“What about their families?” Hinote pleaded, eyes shaking. He looked at me, face twisting. “Huh?! Don’t you give a shit—”

I grabbed his arm. My armor reacted, assisting me in the endeavor. “I give a shit. I also know what it’s like to grow up without a fucking dad. So, let’s go, Hinote, so Toshiko doesn’t have to do that,” I said, pulling him along. “Alright?”

“God, it’s all my fault. This whole damn—”

“It’s not. But it’s time to fucking leave now,” I said. He finally got the point and ran with me away from the Meek.

Ten minutes through the trash, and the bomb went off. We were far enough away that we weren’t hit with the full force of it, but we were thrown far ahead. I landed on my stomach, my Sachiarmor protecting me from a nasty, jagged piece of scrap metal. I got up and looked for Shun first. She was already standing back up, which didn’t surprise me. Hinote had turned around to watch the destruction of his home and his people. A large cloud of smoke rose halfway to the Upper-Plateau, and the Meek glowed like a hot coal as it blew apart.

Hinote’s bulbous shoulders trembled, and tears filled my eyes as I walked over.

“How soon before the motherfuckin’ sky falls?” he said shakily.

“My mom was in there,” I said.

“Wh—and you didn’t try to—”

“We haven’t spoken in years, Hinote. She never even met my son.”

“Still your mom, though,” Hinote said.

“Hinote …” Shun said.

“It still hurts. All the more because it’s almost a relief,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my gloves.

“What the fuck? Just when I was thinking you was alright.”

“You don’t understand, Hinote,” Shun said. “Leave it be.”

People walked past; many lay behind us, bleeding on the unforgiving metal of the trash sea. I sat down on an old wooden box. It was rotting and damp on one side and sunk against the metal below but held my weight.

“I don’t understand,” Hinote said, turning his attention back to the Meek. “All I know is … it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I never thought … shit. It just wasn’t supposed to be like this.”