The first thing they taught us was how to lie. Not just by speaking but by contorting our deepest thoughts into something unrecognisable. Something that would confound those that pierced our minds. Now I was about to find out if that training really had been worth it.

It began with an intense throbbing pain in his forehead. It threw him forward, and he almost headbutted the table. Even as he felt the first few trickles of blood, he gritted his teeth. He had prepared for this. He just had to resist the one that sought to penetrate his memory. The room became distant as a nauseousness overcame him. He leaned back, his lolled up to gaze upon the blind, glassy eyes of the one who had used rend. They remained expressionless as his head rolled back forward, and mentally, he was back when he first landed in Lazarus.

The Portunus Front was a large dome covering a massive portion of the moon’s surface, and he’d had a good view of it too, before landing. The shuttle began its slow descent into the hangar area. Once it landed and the overhead doors sealed. They were able to disembark. He followed his fellow new arrivals as this new strange coolness washed over him. The artificial white lights led him down some silver corridors until they reached the customs area. A sudden jab in the back caught his attention, and he looked back to see a familiar, friendly face. She smiled at him. The Russian, Melina Petrova, but that doesn’t make sense -

‘Stop leaking. It’s taking a lot of focus for me to pull this off.’

‘Leaking?’

‘Bleeders, they call them. People implanted with aether technology. It gives them psychic powers. Rend is one of them. You’re familiar with it, right?’

‘An aggressive and invasive interrogation method. It attacks memory. It can leave the subject in a state of brain death.’

‘First time, though?’

‘Yeah, but what about the others? Andrey is dead. He can’t help the others.’

‘I can multitask. The Mortans, as you know, are a hivemind. Think of it in those terms.’

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‘A pseudomind?’

“Get a move on! We don’t have all day,” said the security guard nearby.

That was as much his memory as it was likely Melina flexing her strange power. It dawned on him then that she was projecting her mind into each of them, creating a collective lie to obfuscate the truth. He could only imagine the toll this would be taking on her. The line soon shortened, and he was obliged to hand over his ID card and Luna pass. The person at the desk ran them through a scanner, and it did not take long for it to come back all clear.

The next thing he passed through was the biometric scanner, a short corridor that checked for contraband and also ran a health check by pinging the Lazarus biomod he had installed back on Earth before leaving the doomed planet behind. He didn’t like it, but it was the only way anyone was getting away from the Long War. It had begun with an assassination back in 1914 of some Austrian archduke, and since then the thing had transformed into something else. These complications had brought him here. A way out from the nightmare below. A chance to begin anew.

He entered the scanner and stopped in the middle, allowing it to do its thing. Once the greenlight pinged, he was free to leave, and he watched as Melina followed suit. The greenlight followed for her, and the two left the customs area. The baggage collection was full of newcomers from all walks of life. Originally, only a select few had the privilege of moving up to the luna city, but as a demand for a workforce ramped up, the city’s creator of the same name sought to cast a wider net. After a few minutes passed, Frank had his luggage, and Melina had hers not long after. She had remained quiet, smiling at him whenever he glanced her way. He rolled with it and progressed finally into the welcome area of the Lazarus, Luna City.

Adam’s knuckles had turned white from pressing his hands against the back of the chair. The blind Bleeder he had brought in to perform a trace somehow drew nothing conclusive.

“Nothing of suspicion.”

“Same as the last time you asked. Just a lot of extra noise feels like a front, though.”

“A front?” asked Adam. “You question what you’re seeing.”

“Possibly, it feels authentic, but it’s hard to say. Nothing is out of the ordinary. Everything points to the crew coming together by chance. There was no way any of them could have known a Mortan was among them.”

Adam growled and leaned back. He rested on the wall and folded his arms. “Maybe we should go old school.”

The Bleeder smiled. “Would that be wise?”

“No, you’re right. Can’t beat it out of them. No they need to trip up. Release him. Ease him back into the room.”

“Yes, boss, bringing him back now.”