Arif finished his late briefing and stepped down from the makeshift podium, cobbled together from pallets and crates. As soon as he did, conversations among the rebels picked up.

"Did you understand him?" Miri asked.

"Only a few words," the boy replied.

"He said that the World Union has agreed to a truce starting at midnight."

"Why?"

"To create refugee corridors, so civilians can leave Rykuunh before the enemy soldiers march in. In two hours, several heavy-duty airships will fly over the city and take as many people as possible, so they can escape Rykuunh and find safety elsewhere. In three days, the world government will send troops into the city."

"They gave us a date?"

"Why not? It's no secret that the World Union wants the Black Orb. And it's no secret that the rebels won’t give it up. In three days, they’ll bomb the city until not a single building is left standing. They’ll kill anyone who stands in their way."

"They’ll search the research facility first. They’ll find that damned thing there before any more blood gets spilled. Right?"

Mirela remained silent, a silence that sent a shiver of fear down his spine.

"They still have the pearl here, don’t they? Tell me the damn thing's still here."

"They smuggled it out, Lex."

"No. Then the killing will keep going," he said. "Until there’s nowhere left to hide the Black Orb." Leaning forward on the bench, he watched a group of rebels standing in a long line. At the front, an officer sat handing out papers to those waiting. Men and women, young and old, signed them and handed them back to the officer. Miri had stood up and seemed ready to join the crowd of rebels filing out of the briefing room.

They walked silently side by side through a basement passageway to a storage room, a large warehouse where they had already begun stockpiling essentials for the population over the past few months. Trying to say something that would break the silence between them, he asked, "What were those people signing up for back there?"

"For more bloodshed," she said, as people pushed past her from both sides. "For more stupidity. More atrocities."

"Can you be a little more specific?"

"The rebels want revenge. They’re thirsting for it, blind with rage. That’s why they’re looking for volunteers to blend in with the refugees and travel across the Great Sea to the other continent. They wanna go to Vega Prime, to the heart of the world government, and carry out attacks against the corporations. They want revenge for the war that the puppet government here started. They say they’re doing it for the victims. But in truth, they’re just doing it to satisfy their bloodlust."

The boy stopped, as if he had walked into an invisible wall. "When are they leaving?" was all he asked.

"That was the final call just now. As far as I know, the rebels are setting off in less than an hour. The first airships will fly over the city at midnight. Lex? What’s wrong with you?"

"Nothing," he said. "I was just thinking about what would’ve happened if I hadn’t asked you about it."

"What do you mean?"

Rebels streamed past him, and one bumped his shoulder, making him step aside. "We’re going back to sign up," he said. "Then we’ll get out of here before we get killed in this war."

"What are you talking about, Lex? You told me yourself that you’re happy here. We can’t abandon these people. My family lives here. This is my home. We have to protect it."

"The war won’t leave much of your home," he said, more harshly than he meant. But it was the truth. "Maybe your family’s already fled. You’re definitely not going to see them again if you stay here. Because in three days, you’ll be dead."

He knew he should have said more. That there was a goodbye hanging between them. But he didn’t know what. All he could think about was how every second he stood here made it less likely he’d ever return to Vega Prime.

"I’m sorry."

That was all he said before he left.

*****

The briefing room had emptied out by now. What remained were the smells of sweat, stale cigarette smoke, and cheap aftershave. The document he held in both hands was worn and crumpled, so he had to smooth it out on the edge of the table. He had no idea what it said. Or why there needed to be a contract to carry out an attack on another continent.

"Can I have your pen?"

The officer looked at him.

"The pen. To write." He mimicked scribbling in the air.

The man in uniform patted his breast pocket, pulled out a pen, and handed it to the boy.

With a firm belief in destiny, Lex signed his name and asked where they were supposed to meet. He had learned the word "where." But just as the rebel officer unfolded an old city map on the table, Arif suddenly appeared, snatched the signed paper from his hand, and tore it up right in front of him.

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"What the hell are you doing?"

For a moment, he stared in disbelief at the two halves of the paper in his hands, looking as though he was feverishly trying to figure out how to undo it.

The dark-skinned rebel let the paper strips fall to the floor and put a hand on his shoulder. It was a firm grip, not a friendly gesture. When he tried to push him toward the exit, Lex slapped his hand off.

"I’m going with them," he said, pointing at the unfolded map. "At midnight, I’m out of here."

Arif seemed to consider his decision. But in reality, he was just hesitating before, in one swift motion, he unclasped the holster on his thigh, pulled out his handgun, and pressed the barrel against the boy’s chest. He cocked the hammer. It clicked.

"Loa," he said. "You come with me."

*****

In a back room, Algernon Beaulac stood motionless in the shimmering dust. The evening sun slanted through the small basement window, casting his shadow right up to Lex’s feet. As he took a drag from the cigarette between his fingers, the tip glowed in the darkness. It was so quiet that the boy could hear the faint crackling as the paper and the tobacco inside burned. Beaulac tapped the cigarette with his finger two or three times, knocking the ash onto the floor.

"There’s bad news," he said. Behind him, directly beneath the window, a prisoner knelt with a dusty flour sack over his head.

"Things have come to light that make you look bad."

"Things?" the boy asked.

"Truths," Beaulac said.

His heart raced in his chest. Lex knew a lot had happened in the jungle—things he couldn’t tell the rebels.

"These truths didn’t sit well with us. They make it hard for us to trust you. Did you ever take part in the atrocities committed by the corporate thugs?"

The boy remained silent.

What do they know? he wondered.

He glanced at the shadowy outline of the kneeling man beneath the window.

"Not even once?"

In the darkness, the glowing cigarette tip fell to the ground, sparking as it landed on the dusty floorboards. The commander stomped out the glowing butt with the toe of his boot, looked up, and said, "You were in Aalgongonok when a few corporate rats raped a woman and killed her husband. You took her baby."

"I tried to save it," he said into the heavy silence, which pressed down on everything in the room, as though the back room were on a distant planet with multiple times the normal gravity. Under the weight of his guilt, in the face of his fear, even breathing became difficult. He looked into the shadowed face of the commander, searching for any sign of leniency. But his expression remained unchanged.

"I wanted to save the baby, and I risked getting shot by Vasker to do it. I know I’m no hero. But I didn’t want to die, either. I put the baby in a basket and sent it downstream because Vasker was about to throw it in the water."

Algernon Beaulac crouched down, picked up the cigarette butt, and dropped it into an old coffee cup filled with crushed filters. Then he switched on a dim light. The faint glow illuminated a thin woman with streaks of gray in her hair and olive-colored skin. She was dressed in a red robe, holding a boy, barely more than a baby, clad only in a cloth diaper and an old, oversized shirt.

"Fishermen found the basket barely a mile downstream. They were on their boat when they heard the baby crying. Word spread quickly. By the next day, they were reunited."

"Tell her I’m sorry," the boy said.

Ignoring his request, the commander continued, "Getting her baby back made her as happy as you can imagine. But she never forgot what was done to her. Or who did it. She swore revenge. Three weeks ago, she fled the jungle. She braved the war in the cities just to come to us. We promised her we would find those responsible."

"And now you’re going to kill me?"

"That’s not up to me," the commander said. "It’s up to her. We serve our people. Even though you helped us, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill you if that’s her wish."

Then she spoke for the first time.

Her voice was broken and soft, a choked whisper. Even if she had spoken in the common tongue, he wouldn’t have understood her. Her face showed no emotion.

He looked back and forth between the settler and the rebel commander. Suddenly, the commander drew a pistol from the holster strapped to his thigh and cocked it. "She says she’s grateful you saved her child from the thugs."

Even though the words should have reassured him, the commander’s body language and actions told a different story. The cocked pistol in his hand left no room for comfort. If anything, it promised more trouble.

"Imagine you had acted differently back then. Imagine you hadn’t saved her baby, and had just stood by while the other rat threw it into the river. Your journey would end here and now. But instead, you’re being given a chance to prove yourself to us."

The boy hesitated. "What do you mean?"

The commander turned toward the window, where the prisoner still knelt. For a while, Lex had completely forgotten about him, but now he was more present than ever, worse still: Lex already knew who he was, even before the commander pulled the flour sack off his head.

The redhead was bruised and beaten black and blue. Weeks of torture had snuffed out the fire in his eyes, like a damp blanket smothering flames. His gaze was vacant, as if his spirit had left his body a long time ago, and now his heart beat on without a mind, his breathing mechanical and steady.

"She wants to believe you hate the corporate thugs as much as we do," Beaulac said. "That you didn’t want any part of this. But she also wants proof."

He held the pistol by the barrel and handed it to the boy, grip first.

"You have to let him go," the boy said.

"Take the gun."

"That’s Ron," he said. "He didn’t want any of this either. He hates the TC as much as I do. That’s why they sent him to the jungle. Because he was a thorn in their side. You have to let him go. He could be one of us."

The redhead didn’t even look at him, but he had to have noticed him, had to have recognized his voice.

"Take it."

"I don’t want to."

"You don’t have a choice. Loa." Sweat beaded on the young rebel commander’s forehead. He wiped it away with his shirt sleeve. Even he was feeling the strain of the last few minutes.

The boy lowered his gaze to the gun. He stared at it as though it wasn’t just the destruction of a single person, but of all life on the planet. After a long pause, he took it and placed his finger on the trigger.

It felt unnaturally heavy in his hand.

He raised his head, looking at the commander, then at Ron. He made no move to fight or plead for mercy.

His hand trembled violently.

"What are you waiting for? Just shoot him already."

"I won’t do it," he said, glancing at the settler.

She had taken her hand off her child’s ear, who was sleeping peacefully in her arms.

"I’m not doing it," he said. "I’m one of you. I want to fight for people’s freedom. But I won’t kill someone who was once good at heart, who can’t defend himself."

Beaulac stood motionless next to the boy. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger over his mustache as if he were feverishly thinking through the solution to a riddle. The back room remained silent for a while longer. The commander and the settler exchanged glances.

She spoke a single word.

Moments later, a gunshot rang out.

Ron’s face didn’t change at all in the moment of death. He didn’t even fall—his body, through some insignificant accident, kept its balance in a slumped posture, his chin resting on his chest, and dark fountains of blood gushed from both nostrils.

The barrel of the pistol still smoked.

Beaulac handed the borrowed weapon back to his aide. The scraping sound of a chair on the wooden floor echoed in the room. The settler stood up, and the little boy in her arms cried. Before she left, she paused, taking in the image of the dead man as if she wanted to capture the moment of her satisfaction and take it home with her.

Without saying a word, she finally left the room.