Raywick drifted among the stars like a soul without a realm. He saw a world with three moons and two suns shining bright on vast cities under emerald, green water. Then he was back, lying in the warm red sands of the barrens soaked in blood. Dying apparently. A giant man with red hair was standing over him saying something he couldn’t hear. He didn’t like this world, so he drifted again. This time he saw a paradise of flowing rivers and plants growing free from human touch. He adored this place so full of life. A beautiful red sunset hung in a sky that was familiar to his heart. And then all was black again. Raywick opened his eyes to see his soul had decided on the dying world. He seriously needed to work on making better decisions.

“Are you done with the whole dying hero act yet? It’ll be a good one for the stories, but it’s getting a bit long in the beard for me,” Freeman said.

The red-haired giant was standing over him with all his usual eccentric features, but one stuck out. His hands were vibrating. They were a blur of movement that was completely unnatural. He gave them a shake like casting off water, and the vibrations stopped.

“What… What happened to me exactly?” Raywick asked with a cough.

Freeman handed him an old canteen.

“Well, you gave yourself up to a group of lunatics—quite dramatically I might add—and they shot you there in the chest as lunatics often do. Not your brightest moment if you’re asking me.”

Raywick twisted the lid off the canteen and took a deep swallow. He immediately coughed and spat out the strong alcohol.

Freeman nodded as if to say I remember my first drink of spirits and handed him a much smaller canteen of water.

“I know the kid shot me, but how am I alive?” Raywick asked.

“The bullet managed to miss all the vital parts, so the healing was fairly straightforward. Of course, it will take some time for your body to heal up on the inside so you should probably take it easy.”

Raywick lifted his shirt to see an angry knot of scar tissue where the bullet went through his chest. There was a sharp pain from torn muscles, but the wound was closed and looked to be well on its way to healing. This was impossible. A wound like that could only be treated by Company doctors in Aeos and it would still take months to heal.

So, he has been outside the boundary then, Syra said

Freeman was giving him that insane smile, clearly enjoying Raywick’s failure to put the pieces together.

“What are you?” Raywick asked.

“As I said before, things are not always as they seem. Don’t trouble yourself with the specifics just yet kid. If I was you, I would go find that flyer of yours and check up on your cave-dwelling friends. I think captain Zion might be headed that way.”

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Raywick thought of Tessa and looked to the horizon, but the Company flyers were long gone. From behind him, Freeman said, “Oh, and feel free to take the reactor core from my office. You might need it where you’re going.”

Raywick turned around but there was only a swirl of red sand kicked up by a breeze as if Freeman had never been there at all.

Raywick tucked the reactor core safely in the Skyblade’s storage compartment and tried to make sense where there was none. Why had the captain ordered the kid to shoot him after killing the other prisoner himself? For a moment, the old man seemed to be talking to himself. Did he hear a voice too?

You know the answer, Syra said.

“Obviously I’m dead and this is a dream,” Raywick replied.

“Maybe I’ve been dead this whole time and you’re my spirit guide or something.”

Raywick put a hand on his chin and paused for dramatic effect.

“Nah, spirit guides are way less annoying in the stories.”

I’ve noticed you always revert to sarcasm when you are overwhelmed with stress. It is a defense mechanism, I think.

Raywick took a moment to think. He needed to clear out everything else from his mind and find the logic. There’s just no reason why Zion would stop to talk to himself like that. He was right on the edge of killing me when—and then it hit him.

An order.

The pieces began to fit together to complete a terrifying puzzle. He formed a thought that he knew would draw a reaction from Syra.

I’m going to use the whole vile of dust this time. I’m going to take enough to fade away forever. No more worries of crossing the boundary or fighting the company.

It was a thought that he had considered in his weakest moments, but just a passing thing. Not a real consideration.

Syra was silent of course because she couldn’t hear his thoughts. He had been dismissing the idea of her for so long that he was blinded to the simple logic of it. She could only hear him if he spoke out loud. The captain wasn’t mumbling to himself in some indecisive moment of thought. He was communicating with something. Someone maybe. The voice must have told Zion not to interfere with Raywick directly. There were forces at work on Solaris far beyond the purview of vagrants or even the Company. The thought made him dizzy.

Are you okay? Syra asked.

“I think I am, actually.”

It was the right thing to do you know.

“What’s that?”

Not shooting the kid.

“No good deed goes unpunished apparently,” Raywick conceded

I’ve been meaning to tell you something you may already know. I have connected myself to you in a way that binds our futures together, Syra said.

“Soo If I die you die?”

No pressure

Raywick could hear a smile in her voice.

What will you do now?

“Find Tessa. If I’m going to have any shot at figuring out what’s going on beyond the boundary, I’ll need her help.”

The sun dipped in the sky and graced the world with a waning spectrum of color, replacing the sharp red and yellow heat with cooler oranges and violets. The scene was near to his heart. How many sunsets had there been now since his parents died? It was the only time you could see blue in the great above, and as beautiful as it was, the sky seemed bigger than yesterday. The sun was setting on vagrants, mining companies, and rebels. Tomorrow it would rise on something else entirely. Something Raywick couldn’t even comprehend.

The Skyblade’s engines fired up on the first try and spun up a whirlwind of red sand as it slowly rose to a hover. Raywick knew the cost of this journey might be more than he could bear, but maybe he didn’t have to do this alone.

“I’m not sick,” Raywick said.

You are not sick, Syra replied.