Evan clung to the rusting perimeter fence of the apartment complex as he watched the sky battle. He was vaguely aware of Strucka having a shouting match with his mother to get her back inside where it was safe. With each red burst in the air, he found his legs growing weaker. His hand hurt from the force of his grip. His abdomen and lower back started to tingle and ache.

Strucka, red-faced after successfully shouting his mother back into the apartment, stood shielding his eyes from the sun, swearing with every interaction of the fighters above. Evan glanced at him in a moment of clarity. Was he even aware of what he was saying?

More Guard Jets joined the fight. As the nearly-invisible craft evaded another volley of bolts, Evan’s mind became crowded with visions of his encounter with Zandith. The refinery, the mysterious malfunction, the haze. Words echoed in Evan’s mind, proud and overconfident: “Welcome to illusion magic.” His back went stiff with fear, even as his legs began to fold beneath him.

The craft seemed to pitch upward in a final attempt at escape. More bolts began to pierce its failing shield, causing more of the cloak to drop. A sleek, semi-transparent hull fell dead from the sky, no longer making adjustments or maneuvers. Any Jets underneath swerved out of the way. The rest of them fired upon the craft, but it wasn’t enough. They stopped firing several seconds before it impacted with the ground; any missed shots would be aimed at the civilians below.

The silence that filled the time before impact was a dark blanket muting all of Evan’s senses. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a map of the city, the location of Ridgemire High School directly under the falling craft. From the memory-vision, Zandith taunted him, calling him a kid, telling him that he’d never understand. Evan’s knee hit the concrete, and he was unsure if it was from his whiffed attack in the memory, or if it was in real life. Was it both?

Blinding red light burned through the blanket on his senses, and the same instant, a line of pain shot through his abdomen and lower back. Zandith’s face appeared in front of him, cloaked in red and stamped with a maddened grin. “That’s right, call daddy.”

For a brief moment, his voice refused to work. The conviction of his own impending death had him paralyzed, but then he saw someone else curled up on ground beside him. Strucka was cowering and covering his head, looking up every few seconds to see if they were still in danger. It was their concerned eye contact that freed his speech, and he croaked, “Dad.”

Strucka began to uncurl, but flinched as the thunderclap of the exploding craft finally arrived. He recovered quickly and crawled to Evan with concern and shock on his face. “What happened? You’re bleeding!”

Evan had curled up on his side as well. His hands cradled his lower abdomen. It just like he lay in the memory, except now the pain was beginning to fade. He looked down at his hand and inspected his palm. It had two horizontal cuts. He pushed himself into a sitting position against the fence with his other hand, then glanced up at where he had grabbed one of the posts. It glistened with his blood.

“I’m fine,” Evan said, showing Strucka his palm.

Strucka scrunched is face in confusion. “But you were holding your belly.”

Evan lifted his shirt, showing only a few minor blood stains from his hand. The skin that had been healed with the hospital’s nanotech was glossier than the rest, and no other evidence remained that he had been harmed. He looked at Strucka. “I’m fine.”

He took Strucka’s outstretched hand and tried to stand, but he found that each time he tried to exert his legs, the pain in his back would flare up again and bring him to the ground. After a few tries, Evan said he could crawl back to the garage. Strucka went ahead to check on his mother.

Halfway to the garage, Evan got a call from Marvain. He sat on the uncut lawn as he answered the call. “Mom, I’m okay.”

He heard a shaky sigh of relief from his mother. “Yes, yes. I knew you were because your wristpad location is still updating. But dad’s not answering. His location is turned off. Did you try and call him?”

“I just talked with him, mom. He’s coming to pick me up at Strucka’s apartment.”

“His last location was in the heart of the city, Evan, and he’s not picking up. Something’s not right!”

“Maybe he’s too busy driving?”

“He’s never too busy to answer a call, and he has never disabled his location. Never.”

“Maybe he crashed again?”

“Why would he disable his location after crashing?”

Evan couldn’t think of an answer. With the way the wristpads were designed, it wasn’t something that could be done by accident. He opened up the map on his wristpad and checked for his dad’s location. There was a trail of green dots that ended in the city, ending in one gray dot. That signaled a purposeful disabling of the location feature. A destroyed device would show up as a red dot, or there would be an alert of some kind.

“I’ll call him and make sure,” Evan said.

“Tell me if he answers,” Marvain demanded. She hung up immediately.

He tried calling Brandon but after half a minute of ringing, he was greeted with the messaging system asking him to leave a message. He was about to try again when a startling thought struck him. If he had been in school today, both his parents would be seeing that terrifying red dot on the map. Then a devastating thought followed: Adam was in school today.

He brought up Adam’s contact and pressed the call button. The tone rang for half a second before beeping with an alert indicating that the device he was attempting to contact did not exist. A shock went through his system as he read the message. He tried a second time and got the same result. He tried a third and a fourth, hoping it was some kind of cruel coincidence.

Strucka was walking back to check on him. Evan interrupted whatever he was about to say. “Do you have a car?”

“Yeah… why?” Strucka asked.

“We have to go see,” Evan said, pointing to the bent pillar of smoke rising from the impact site.

Strucka’s eyes went wide. “You serious? You want to get closer?”

“My friend could be dead!” Evan shouted, trying to stand on his own, but unable to bear the sting of pain in his back. He glared at Strucka as he collapsed back to the grass. “Get your car!”

“Okay, okay!” Strucka replied, making a placating gesture with his hands. “Gimme a minute.”

It felt like ten minutes to Evan. Grief tugged at the edge of his awareness as he tried to figure out why his dad wouldn’t respond to his calls. Where was he anyway? He certainly would have gotten here, as he would have been speeding.

Evan was so absorbed in contemplation he was hardly aware of his movements as he crawled into the passenger’s seat of Strucka’s car. The gate in front of the car opened far too slow. He tried calling Brandon again to tell him he was going to the crash site, but it went to messaging again.

The drive was slow and painful. People ran from their houses to distance themselves from the disaster. Firefighters were already on the location, attempting to slow the advancement of the ring of fire that was slowly consuming the neighborhood houses.

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Eventually, every car they could see was a police car, and they came upon a wall of cars that faced a wall of Eredore Guard trucks. Behind them was the smoldering crater where a school once existed. Not even collapsed buildings had remained, and hundreds of the surrounding houses had been blown apart from the force of the explosion. A sparse group of Guards roamed the wasteland, scanning the area.

Most of the officers were facing outward, assisting the Guard at reinforcing the perimeter they had established, but one of them was trying to push through the line. He was screaming into a Guard’s armored visor. When the Guard straight-armed him, he retaliated with a wide swing of his fist. The Guard’s head hardly flinched, and he pushed the officer away. When the officer turned and fell to one knee, cradling his broken hand, Evan saw that it was Hector.

Strucka was stopped by the line of policemen, and while they were signaling for him to turn around, Evan opened the passenger door and tumbled onto the burning pavement. A pair of officers responded immediately, but before they got to him, Evan shouted at Hector. “Adam! Where is Adam!?”

Hector’s red-eyed, teeth-gritted look was all the confirmation Evan needed. His vision blurred as he screamed. Hands grabbed his arms and tried to pull him up, but he writhed out of their grip. Hector shouted to let him go, and there was no more attempt to pick him up. He crawled in Hector’s direction. His hands and knees burned on the black pavement, but he cried for pain much greater. The surrounding sirens and shouting became muted in the face of his overwhelming shock.

Somewhere, he collided with Hector, and over time the interaction turned into an awkward kneeling embrace. Both men expressed their pain in fits of shouting, mumbling, and crying. A part of Evan’s mind became lucid in the process, knowing that persevering through an event like this made him a child no longer. Now he was one step closer to the understanding Zandith had spoke of, but he wasn’t sure he wanted to understand. He hoped he never would be able to understand. It would only be more weight added to the burden of becoming a man.

Hector began to stand, and Evan let go, unable to emulate him. He just sat there, shoulders slumped, head craned downward, simultaneously numb and raw. The pain in his back, hands, and knees was distant from him, separated by a foggy veil. When he looked up, it wasn’t his own eyes looking. When he wiped his hands on his clothes, it wasn’t his own hands feeling. He coughed from the smoke, but it was someone else coughing.

The dream-like quality of reality was dampened when he wiped the tears from his eyes. It helped to see things regain their clarity. Even his hearing seemed to improve in that same moment.

Evan looked to see who Hector was talking to. It was a man in martial-arts clothing, an odd sight at a time like this. Evan recognized him as the master who had visited him in the hospital. Even more peculiar, he was kneeling with one palm to the ground, eyes closed. His face was also streaked with tears, but it retained an element of serenity. Evan crawled over to hear their conversation better.

“Tell me where he is, Dom,” Hector pleaded. He spoke in ever quieting tones. “Tell me where he is. Tell me where he is.”

A few more heartbeats passed by before Domrik spoke. “I think I’ve found him…”

Hector touched his shoulder. “Where.”

Domrik pursed his lips. “He’s afraid… and confused. Everything looks different to him.”

Hector seized his shoulder. “Tell me where!”

“He no longer…” He bowed his head, laying his other hand on Hector’s. “… has a physical body.”

Hector wailed as his grief was renewed. He put more and more of his weight on Domrik, but Domrik hardly budged. He spoke with effort. “But his Aetheric body endures! If you’ll let me focus, I can relay his messages for you. I’ve calmed him down enough. We don’t have much time. The Others will need to see him shortly.”

Hector managed to stand on his own. He paced in a circle, hands on his hips, taking deep breaths. “Okay… Okay, okay. Fine. Okay. What does my boy have to say?”

“He says…” Domrik started hesitantly, “he’s sorry for dying on you… You were supposed to be first.”

Hector emitted a chuckling-crying hybrid noise. “Damn inappropriate sense of humor survived even his own death. Can’t make this shit up.”

Domrik continued. “He also says he will miss you and Lorey, but he will watch when he can… if he can. And now he has one more reason to envy Lorey.”

Hector sniffed and wiped tears from his face. “And what is that?”

A hint of a smile broke on Domrik’s focused face. “She has a body, and he doesn’t.”

Hector chuckled again. “I knew it.”

“He sees the Others now,” Domrik said.

“Tell him I love him. I don’t have anything else to add. Lorey and I loved him. And his mother… loved him.”

“He knows,” Domrik said, “He says he doesn’t just feel it, he can see it. The energy is turbulent, but he is on the other side of the veil now. The connections are obvious. He sees the connections between you and him, you and Lorey, you and… Judy.”

“Judy?” Hector shouted. “Is she there? Can I talk to her?”

“No,” Domrik said, furrowing his brow in concentration. “She’s not there… with him. She’s here on the surface.”

Hector gasped. “Judy’s still alive!? Where is she, Adam?”

“He doesn’t know how to describe the location. Somewhere in Eredore. Mountains. She still has a physical body, but her Aetheric body is shrouded in an intricate energy pattern within a web of other similar patterns. He says it’s difficult to look at. It’s ugly.”

“She’s still in Eredore, somewhere in the mountains. He can’t be more specific?”

“He asks if your vision is overlaid with labels of locations?”

Hector nodded. “Point taken. Is there anything else he wants to tell us?”

Domrik tilted his head. “I’m having trouble distinguishing him from the Others. Their energies have started to blend.” He took a breath, opened his eyes, and looked up at Hector. “I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, Dom,” Hector said, patting him on the shoulder, smiling. “That makes it much more bearable, especially knowing that my wife might still be alive somewhere.” Domrik stood and they hugged briefly. Then he took Hector’s broken hand and held it between his own for several seconds. When he let go, the fingers were no longer crooked, though the blood remained.

Evan, so engrossed with what he had just witnessed, had forgotten his own existence. He found himself agreeing with Hector. It didn’t seem like just a performance from Domrik. It truly sounded like Adam responding, with all his subtle wit and sarcasm. Domrik had even imitated his vocal inflections accurately.

Evan had an idea. “Excuse me, sir?”

Domrik turned to him. “Evan? Call me Domrik. What do you need?”

Evan looked between Domrik and Hector, uncertain if it was right to ask what he was about to ask. “Can you locate my dad in the same way you just did with Adam?”

Domrik’s eyebrows rose. “Your father? Is he dead?”

Hector was startled from the question directed at Evan, but relaxed when Evan responded. “No… at least I don’t think so. He’s turned off his location and he’s not responding to my calls.”

“Hold up,” Hector said, pointing at Adam. “He told me he was going to get you.”

“Where did he go after he said that?”

“I don’t know. I took off after he shot that damn craft with my gun.” Hector rubbed his temple. “Still don’t know how the fuck that happened. Maybe it was just me tripping.”

“Wait, my dad shot that thing?” Evan pointed to the sky. “Was that why it was smoking?”

“He used your gun?” Domrik asked, puzzled. He pointed to Hector’s vest. “Was that thing recording?”

“Yes, shit, yes!” Hector tapped frantically on his wristpad. A window popped up with a video recording. Evan crawled over until Domrik helped him walk the rest of the way.

The video showed Brandon shouting at Hector to look, and Hector responding with confusion. After a few more words back and forth, Brandon’s eyes went wide and unfocused. His body blurred, there was a red flash from above, and the gun was already dropping from Brandon’s hand.

Hector replayed the clip in slow motion several times, his jaw progressively becoming slacker. “The steal, the spin, and the shot. That entire movement took literally half a second!”

“And it hit the target,” Domrik added.

Hector pointed an accusatory finger at Domrik. “What have you been teaching him? I’ve only ever seen you move like that.”

Domrik raised both his hands in innocence. “I taught him nothing! The only time I have seen him in person was at the hospital. I have been informed, however, that his Vision Ember has been activated prematurely by his interaction with Zandith. That was why he was able to pierce the ship’s invisibility illusion.”

“Is that also why he’s not responding to my calls?” Evan asked.

Domrik looked at him. “I don’t know.”

“And you didn’t answer my earlier question,” Evan pointed out.

“I’ve only met him in person once, so it’s unlikely I’d be able to isolate his unique energy pattern from the rest of the population in the nation or the planet. The more I am around them and get to know them, the easier I can locate them.”

Evan slumped his shoulders. “Oh.”

“Also, if a person changes enough through experience, positive or negative, it can be difficult to identify them energetically. And I’d say, from what we’ve seen here, your father has changed significantly, whether he intended to or not.”

Evan looked at Hector, determined. “We have to find him. We need to figure all this out. None of this makes sense.”

Hector nodded. “I’ll file a missing person report. There will be a county-wide search. Nation-wide, probably, since it’s Brandon.”

Hector ushered Evan back to Strucka’s car. Evan gave Strucka his home address. He rolled down the window and told Hector he will have his mother call him to add to Brandon’s case.

As the window slid back up, he heard Hector mumbled to himself, “The Phantom Scythe strikes again.”