"They're saying it's shameful. How else am I supposed to fight?"

-

The piridum dominated Sen's thoughts in the weeks that followed. He took every opportunity given to practice with a spear in the ring. A few days in, Seross procured a glaive for the boy. The weapon rarely left his side. Inside of a month, none of recruits could beat Sen in CQB, the glaive's superior reach and his deft, expert movements leaving no openings.

But Sen wasn't satisfied. All he'd done was even the playing field against people more powerful than himself. He wanted to figure out how his Mennesk abilities worked as well, and use them reliably. So he asked his instructor.

"I'm an everyday, garden-variety human being," Seross Archambeau said. He didn't know how to help the boy. "I'd ask Gova. She's one of our few Mennesks. Powerful, too."

It was the first he'd heard of it. "What can she do?"

Seross barked out a laugh. Sen noticed the instructor reminded him of a seal occasionally. "A Mennesk should be the one to reveal their power," he said, punctuating the sentence with a clap. "Ask her directly."

And so he did.

"For the record, I'm not convinced you're a Mennesk." She held up a hand to stop his protesting. "It's not that I don't believe you have abilities, it's that we've done extensive testing, both here and on the Revenant, and none suggest you're anything but a person with strange anatomy. I don't know if I can help you."

"What else could I even be?"

She didn't answer for a moment. The silence was almost painful. Just as Sen opened his mouth to fill the void, Gova sighed. "I don't know," she said. "I didn't think there was anything else. But we lost so much knowledge during the Shattering, anything could've fallen through the cracks."

More silence. Sen stared past her at his own reflection in the darkened television. He looked tired. "Your dad would know," she muttered into her mug. The coffee in it had gone cold an hour ago. "Probably turned off his radio to focus and forgot to turn it back on."

"For over a month?"

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

"You're nothing like your dad. He's a scatterbrained scientist with untreated ADHD. Not a chance he gets meds out here. Geni's disappeared for months at a time without a word, only to return with a new breakthrough."

Sen scratched his temple. "How long has he...?"

"Been a part of all this? About three years."

It was the answer he expected, he supposed. It matched up. Invasion, and all that. He opened his mouth again, hesitating. "What's your ability?" he asked, almost immediately regretting asking, but he bit his tongue. "Seross said only a Mennesk should reveal their ability."

"Good. I'd've skinned'm alive if he'd told you."

Sen suppressed a shiver.

Three days later, Calibura delivered news of Geni's departure from The Extrusion. The boy had answered the door in his pajamas, his golden hair messy from the somewhat reasonable bed he'd been provided. "Say again?" he asked, not fully awake.

"Your father is on his way here." Calibura squinted at Sen. Even beyond the sleep-addled expression, he could tell the kid was exhausted. He was pushing himself hard. "Left last night. He says he has a stop first, then he's headed to us."

"Where's he going?"

Calibura shrugged. "Didn't say," he answered, with an expression that said this happens all the time. "But if it's more important than his son, I'm not going to question it."

Sen decided against voicing his displeasure. It wouldn't do anyone any favors. He simply nodded and closed the door.

Inside, he leaned back against the door, and slid to a seat. He was feeling the mental strain of constant training and anxiety over his future. But too many things kept him going. Far too many. Speaking of...

Sen sighed as his vision swam with darkness. Almost immediately, he slumped over in the doorway.

-

This one was different. Each blackout was. It didn't feel like design to him; rather, it felt broken and fractured, as though he were skipping steps in a tutorial.

Li was nowhere to be seen this time around. Sen found himself sitting in the back of an empty movie theater, not unlike the replicas they'd had on Mars. The screen shone a bright, blank white, illuminating the sea of red chairs.

Sen blinked. The screen flickered to a title: The Dos and Don'ts of an Extradimensional Invasion. He blinked again. The title didn't change. "Uh, Li?" he called, glancing around.

"Hush." The boy nearly jumped out of his skin. It had been so long since he and Li had shared a dream body directly. "Watch."

"Why do I need to know about this stuff?" Sen tried to ask, suddenly anxious. Other dimensions are something he'd stopped believing in a decade ago. "Li?"

No response. The feature began, and he found himself inexplicably drawn into the subject matter as the narrator spoke. Relevant scenes played in the background pertaining to each topic.

Sen realized, after a few minutes of ever-changing recordings, the creatures shown were not of the Sol system; many clearly didn't fit the classic definition of "organic," and the boy found himself struggling to even perceive a handful of them. "None of these are carbon-based lifeforms."

"Well," Li responded with a shrug, "Neither are we."