Coughing and running away from the cylinder, I got to the other end of the chamber and ran down the narrow stairwell. When I got to the bottom, a waft of stench entered my nostrils that made me not want to turn to the landing behind me.

“Shane!” I shouted as I walked down to the next landing. “Shane. This is Mec of the Gold Prophets.” My voice was calm, dutiful, as was my mind. “Shane. You have betrayed the Prophets. You have to stop this.”

I paused a few steps short of the next landing, the one that led to the secondary generator room. It was partially to listen through the hum of the generators for a response. It was also to stare at the trail of blood that began at the landing and led into the open door of the generator room, where the red mixed with the dust-covered concrete.

There was no noise save the hum of the generators.

I stepped around the blood and into the generator room, hearing the roar of the turbines blast at me when I walked in. The trail smeared its way into the middle of the room, apparently heading toward the ladder hanging from the ceiling. The ladder was supposed to go all the way to the bottom, allowing for an emergency exit up to the surface through a small tunnel. Instead, the ladder had been cut off at the top.

A few meters from the smear of blood, the broken-off ladder lay on top of the ruined corpse of a Dreg. The panicked, bleeding man must have been climbing it when the ladder broke off.

The smell of burnt flesh caught my nostrils, and I turned toward the humming generator. Lying on its face, a smoldering corpse lay beside the stained turbines.

“Shane,” I said, and walked toward the other end of the room. The noise of the main generator deafened me as I approached the doorway leading to the primary chamber. “Shane!”

As I opened the door, I felt a slight pinch in my chest.

Pat-pat-patoomph! The sound of a gun popped through the roar of the primary generator. Standing in front of me was a Dreg with a shotgun. He got off three shots, point blank, and shouted a curse I couldn’t hear.

Had it been a pistol or rifle, I wouldn’t have even paused.

My helmet glowed brilliantly gold.

In half a moment, my ruined flesh stitched itself together, organs fusing around the shot as if time itself were reversed around the wound. My chest soon spat out the shot as only a few drops of blood fell among the pellets that bounced across the floor.

The shotgun blast to my chest made me stand still for a second, my helmet glowing with the energy instantly healing my body, my one Gold power stronger than all others.

Seeing me still standing, the Dreg threw the emptied shotgun at my head and ran to the opposite end of the primary chamber. I didn’t even feel it bounce off, and started running after him.

“Wait!” I shouted, unable to hear even my own voice through the roar of the massive generator looming on the far wall. “Wait!”

All the way down the long chamber I ran after the Dreg, wishing I had a better shockwave ability so I could knock him off his feet. The man reached a stairwell that led to the underground train yard where hundreds of tons of coal were off-loaded hourly. Into the stairwell I ran, down after him.

“Wait!” I shouted, barely able to hear myself halfway down. “Stop! I’m here to help!”

A muffled scream was all I heard in reply.

I had to fight my own emotions to keep my senses calm as I jumped off the stairwell and fell through the gap between the floors. The landing thirty feet below would have broken the legs of a normal man. They broke mine, too, but they mended in half a second and I leapt to my feet to the open doorway leading to the trains.

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The light from the tunnel nearly blinded me, so bright in comparison it was to the stairwell. When my vision cleared, I looked down, seeing the Dreg who’d shot me at my feet. He didn’t have any wounds, no cuts or anything. He just lay there, dead. His eyes were wide with fear and pain, a thirsty look revealing that the life had been drained completely out of him.

I looked up to where floodlights in the ceiling swung. Above one of the parked iron trains, I saw a spark, and the faint silhouette of a man as he leapt off the train, running to the loading dock on the far side of the tunnel.

“Shane!” I shouted, and raced after him.

Steam hissed from the trains as they sat on the many rusted rails. Pushing my way through the hot metal giants, I found a gap between a coal car and an engine and leapt through to the loading dock.

There, sitting together under the glow of the floodlights, I saw something I have yet to get out of my mind.

I thought I was strong.

I thought I was immune to fear and pain.

Most Gold Prophets have similar feelings, but with my prowess at self-healing I’d come to think of myself as physically and emotionally invincible. The sight that made me instantly fall to my knees and vomit, I’ll never be able to fully explain.

The smell, the way their eyes looked up at me, the way their blood-soaked mouths were curled up in smiles, all four of them, laying there in front of me, gathered in a circle. The corpses had been placed huddled around a half-burnt, half-flayed Dreg, pieces of each other’s bodies… I’ll say no more.

Spitting out the burning fluids in my mouth, I forced myself to my feet. I took a few fumbling steps and nearly collapsed against the steaming train engine. I sucked in the acrid air and mumbled a few curses I can’t remember the words for anymore.

Collecting myself enough to at least sound in control, I took my portable phone out of my pocket and typed in the code for Detective Donnegan, given to me on the bike ride to the power plant. “Donnegan,” I said. “Send your men in. The hostages are dead.”

I turned off the phone, ignoring the detective’s angry shouts, and went to the other side of the train yard to fumble off in the direction I’d seen Shane jump. He had no way of escaping. He’d either have to fight his way out or fight me to get back to the main entrance. One thing I’d found in my research of Shane, he’d never killed a police officer, an irregularity I’d yet to explain. I was counting on wedging him in and hoped I had enough focus to be able to fight the rogue Prophet.

When the floodlights dimmed to the dark gap between the train yard and the end of the tunnel, I put my hand up to shield my eyes from the harsh, setting sun. When my eyes adjusted, I found myself facing a completely sealed tunnel, and thirty police officers aiming pistols at me.

“Freeze!” one of them shouted.

“Hold! I am Mec of the Gold Prophets,” I shouted back. The somewhat glowing helmet on my head instantly told these officers I was neither Shane nor a Dreg. “Where’s Shane? He was headed this way.”

The police officers all looked at each other, hesitating to put their guns back in their holsters. Finally, the one with the highest rank nodded at the others and they put away their firearms. “Haven’t seen him,” the officer said.

A few minutes later, after the sun had set, I went away from the scene. I didn’t want the Prosperite medical technicians to see that I was horrified at the sight of the bodies. Maybe it was because I blamed myself for not stopping Shane in time. Maybe it was because it was too gruesome for even a Gold to handle. Maybe it was that I could see how none of the technicians even coughed at the sight and smell of the gore, as if it were just another mess to clean up.

“Calm down, Mec,” Garlan said to me later that evening. Prophets don’t have to eat, not when they don’t want to. But I needed a drink, and I sipped on the hot coffee at a café near the Trains police station. Garlan had agreed to meet me there after I demanded we speak in person with her about the incident with Shane. “You’re supposed to be a Gold.”

“I am calm,” I said, trying to make it as true as possible. Hiding my rising contempt, I sipped on the hearty liquid through the thick, black plastic cup. The coffee flowed down my dry throat, warm and energizing. “You never told me what to expect from Shane.”

“Don’t accuse me of anything.” Garland didn’t have a drink in front of her. She’d met me when I’d already finished a full cup and was on my second. The edges of her unblemished white dress, form-fitting yet proper, fluttered with the wind of passing cars next to the open-air café. “I am not the one who gave you this assignment.”

“But the Sept is. And I need to speak with Vala. I asked you last time and you said she was busy.”

“She’s the seventh voter on the Sept, Mec, a position that involves more than handling a few murders on Prosper. There is still the situation with Seed, not to mention the planet Soul is—”

“This is not a few murders. This is a rogue Prophet she personally sent me to capture. And you never told me what he’s been up to.”

“As if I knew. I am currently the arbiter in a trade delegation for Seed and you expect me to delve into the petty crimes of an overzealous Red?”

“Petty!” I shot out of my chair so hard I hit the table and my coffee flew into the air. Just before it hit the ground, it stopped. The pure white ring on Garlan’s left index finger glowed like a light bulb as she guided her will to bring the cup back to the table.

“They never sent you after him,” I said, accepting my now cold coffee. “I’m starting to get the feeling that you’re defending him.”