The next boy in class stood up, but all eyes were still fixed on Lex. He looked up from his data device. A broad beam of light fell across a row of students. The classroom door was open, and standing in the cold light of the hallway was the thin figure of a man. He had been here once before in the past six months, and no one welcomed his presence. He always brought the worst news. The last time, three months ago, he had to tell Fran that his older brother had died in a work accident. While mining ore outside in the open, a rockslide shattered the visor of his pressure suit. The only comfort for Fran: his brother’s death had been quick, and his soul was now freed from inherited guilt.
"I’m looking for a Lex Marrow," the man said.
Lex stood frozen by the door to the exam room. Only now did he realize why the other kids were staring at him.
"You there. Are you Lex Marrow?" the man asked.
The boy nodded. The other child, who was about to be questioned by the teacher, brushed past him.
"Miranda Marrow is your mother?"
He nodded again. This time, hesitantly.
"Come with me."
But the boy didn’t move. As if he was searching for a way to avoid the inevitable. Or hoping that, by standing still, he could somehow change reality in his favor.
"You’ll face disciplinary action if you don’t follow me right now."
And finally, after a pause that felt endless, he followed the man into the hallway. The automatic metal door slid shut behind him. Once again, it felt like something final had happened.
***
By evening, Lex had packed all his belongings, along with a few of his mother’s things, into a backpack. He waited at the station beneath the apartment blocks for the next train to the edge of the city. The cold, lifeless light from the overhead lamps bathed him as he busied himself with his datapad. The letter the man had sent him included detailed directions to the large orphanage in Bancarduu. Lex glanced at the platform number just as an army patrol nearly knocked him over. He stepped back just in time, bumping into an advertising column.
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On it, holographic wanted posters flashed every minute, showing the faces of fugitives—mostly members of a splinter group from the powerful Crimson Dawn, waging a fierce war against the corporation on Cetos V. They called themselves Forces for the Liberation of Demeter, or FLD for short.
Demeter.
That’s what the moon had been called before the corporation had bought the construction and mining rights to the Kronos moons.
Demeter.
She was a goddess of fertility in the mythology of old Earth. That wasn’t something taught in school. It was whispered in secret during recess. The Thandros Corp. had quickly renamed the previously uninhabited moons to Limbo I, II, III and IV, convincing the convicts they were truly in a kind of purgatory, where their souls could only be redeemed through hard labor. For almost six generations, that belief had held strong. But now the FLD was on the rise, and Lex secretly dreamed of one day living as a free citizen on Cetos V.
In the center of the column was the wanted poster for the suspected leader of the rebel group. His real name was unknown. Where his picture should have been, there was only a large white question mark on a black background.
Alias: Echelon. Wanted for: founding, managing, and organizing a terrorist organization; possession and use of illegal weapons, ammunition, explosives and materials for making bombs; hacking into the global infonet; grand theft; murder; terrorist attacks against corporate freedom and security; mass murder of corporate employees and colonists ...
The list went on. The corporation had placed a bounty of 100 gold on his head and promised forgiveness of the inherited debt for anyone who captured Echelon. That meant a prisoner could live out their life on Limbo without having to work, and with that kind of money, they could feed a large family. Would he betray Echelon for that?
Lex turned back to the tracks, waiting in the cold. His fists clenched as he thought about how they’d exile him forever for thoughts of freedom like these.
From a speaker nearby, a tinny female voice announced the unscheduled arrival of the express train, coming all the way from the northern sector. He stepped closer to the platform’s edge, leaning forward and listening intently to the tunnel. He could hear the rumble and roar of the wheels on the tracks, the grinding metal, and he felt it beneath his feet, deep in his chest—the unstoppable force of tons of steel hurtling down the line.
A beam of light burst from around the bend, illuminating the tiled walls of the tunnel. The reflections grew sharper, blindingly bright, and then the train came rushing into view. Lex stepped back quickly. The freezing wind whipped past him as he stared at the station’s reflection in the blackened windows that crashed by. He caught a glimpse of himself—a ragged boy with fluttering clothes and a greasy face, like a version of himself from another world, one that seemed even darker than his own in that fleeting moment.
As suddenly as the train had appeared, it was gone. Lex watched the tail lights vanish into the opposite side of the tunnel. The faint rumble lingered a moment longer, until even that faded away, leaving only darkness behind, a darkness that felt as heavy and consuming as the great void itself.