Light on the agricultural Level was low and dim, and the rows of corn, wheat, and barley bore the pallor of the waxing moon, shining through the massive windows to the West, the crescent sliver of gray-white radiance just now slipping behind the shoulder of a snow-capped mountain. The night was growing long in the tooth, and soon the encroaching pre-dawn gloom would be deep and complete out in the Wilds. A gentle wind, generated by massive fans in the ceiling, blew through the sprawling, open Level, swaying the tall green stalks, heavy with their harvest.

Jonquil lay on his back, staring at the moon slowly slipping away behind that mountain through the large windows, massive sheets of glass designed to allow as much natural sunlight in as possible. The growing crops needed extensive sunshine, so the windows were easily five stories high, but the crops near the hub of the Tower still required UV lighting, set as lamp-posts among the various fields, dark at the moment.

The dirt beneath his back was cool, soft, and smelled rich, full of verdant life. The pleasure of lying in wide open spaces was a rare one for the Children, and less so was lounging in loam. However, among the Tower population, it was unlikely any children, psychic or otherwise, experienced such a thing, either. The agricultural levels were off-limits to prevent pathogen spread. The Wildlands were perilous, insidious, too full of mysteries of ages past, massive megalithic ruins, artifacts, and the clever monsters known as Abhumans. No, it was not a world for lying in fields peacefully in the middle of the wee hours of the morning.

For a moment, his mind wandered, and was calm. The confrontation with the Security Captain and Lucina had been wildly draining, exhausting, and he felt bled of a desire to move or think, at least for the moment. He thought of the “warm” memories, those soft little points of light deep within. He often sought comfort there in the past few months, dreams of a different time, tinged idyllically with a golden haze as if they were old photos, spread out on the floor of his mind.

Gentle brushes of the fingers, a rich chuckle deep from within the chest, tender lips, questing touches, locks of hair brushed away from fractal eyes. A thick, grasping ache seemed to settle in his chest, as he stared at the unknowable Black of the sky, recalling nights when he and Lucina had snuck out after curfew, stealing towards the quiet Atrium, a guard swayed by Empathy turning a blind eye. The full moon had always been his favorite, and hers too, he supposed, but they reminded him particularly of ancient human myths and legends that even the Children passed around amongst themselves. Stories of gods and monsters, before mankind had spawned their own. He told her the ones he could recall, and she’d leaned against him, head against his shoulder, eyes wistful, distant, staring at a world she would never know, would never touch. She shared with him her own ache, the one with no name, that sense of nostalgia for something that had never been. She called it ‘Sehnsucht’, an old word she’d read somewhere, one of those words that was difficult to translate. He had tried to grasp it, but it was an alien sentiment to him, so it slipped through his fingers.

Jonquil, she’d named him, in the dark nights mottled with argent moonlight. He’d so wanted to protect her, to keep her safe, but the Tower, the Family, all the citizenry of this second rate city-state, they conspired and pressed against them. But he’d promised her, guaranteed her, that he would bring her to freedom, to see if they could find something out in the wide world that could satisfy that Sehnsucht. He’d sworn it to her, there in the patchwork of shadows and silvered beams. He would be her savior, her freedom, her everything. So he had thought.

Day after day in the R&D laboratories, his resolve and will were tested, were battered. They’d done so many things to him, hurt him in so many ways. The Families and their scientists, their wicked strength, the absolute power exerted over him and his kind. They’d pushed and prodded, bled him, studied every little facet of his mind. Always, they found him lacking, lacking, lacking. A weak Brother, a worthless investment. Impotent, insufficient, incompetent, inadequate. Paltry, pathetic, poor. The condescension in their eyes as they looked on him, tested him, that was the most insufferable. It was so odious because he knew he was more. He was special, he was a god among these little insects. Now they knew it too. He’d written a declaration of his power on the walls in blood.

His thoughts were distracted by a sharp twinge of pain above his eye, where a shard of chromed metal glinted just above his left eyebrow. It had lodged itself deep into the bone in his brow, and touching it was incredibly painful, so he let it be for now. He was lucky his eye was unaffected. “That railgun is a problem,” he muttered, sitting up and brushing himself off. He tore an ear of corn off a stalk and consumed it raw, the sweet juice slowly satiating his body’s desperate need for calories. Several other empty husks lay scattered around him, his earlier feast.

His thoughts kept returning inexorably back to the pair who’d almost gotten the better of him. He thought of Lucina, standing next to the Captain. He thought of her attempts to quiet him, to coddle his mind, make him dull. A kind of Stripping. Didn’t she know he fought for her? Fresh rage burbled up, starting in his belly, rattling his heart, tightening his jaw, filling his head with a deep fog. How dare she try and control me! After all I’ve done for her. After all I’ve given her. I’d tear out my own heart and give it to her if she asked it. That gāisǐ de Human poisoned her against me.

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The look of horror on Lucina’s face caused his thoughts to stutter, though. She had been mortified, first upon seeing him, then when he had tried to kill the Captain. Like he had been doing something reprehensible, wrong. He paused, the juices from the corn dribbling from his lips. Was I wrong? Am I just a killer? Murderer? He thought of Interico, of Arriques, and a momentary dread and sorrow pinned his thoughts. The thought of their blood, their slack jaws, their still limbs. There’s something wrong with me. There’s something broken. I… But no. No! His mind seemed to recoil unconsciously from the thought, as if he’d touched a hot stove. His mind saw that lurid stone in his smoothly flowing stream of thought, and parted around it.

“The death of a Human for the life of a Child,” he murmured, shaking off the horror of murder. How many times had they both said the same? How many times had he heard Lucina repeat that exact phrase? “How many times!” he snarled to the empty fields, flinging the ear of corn, half eaten, as far as he could. It disappeared among the stalks. Roughly, he wiped his chin with his sleeve, brow furrowed. There was no other way to Freedom, no other possible recourse. He had convinced her of his righteous path, she had agreed that sometimes the life of a lesser being had to be spilled for greater to survive. That was just evolution, survival of the fittest. She’d agreed! And when it came time to actually do it, Lucina had balked, cowering in the coat-tails of a human, forsaking her own kind, afraid to get her hands dirty.

“Some zealot you are, Lucina,” he snapped at the night sky as the moon finished sliding into shadow, standing to his feet. “Harlot. Whore.” His blood simmered in his veins. “Kěwù de mǔgǒu! I thought you loved me!” he roared, growing more agitated, striking his chest, spittle flecking his chin, full darkness consuming him as the moon disappeared, leaving only streaky, flinty stars that barely shimmering through the plasma shield. “You were mine! All mine! You knew what was at stake!” In his surging rage, he barely noticed as he reached out, Psionics spreading low over the ground, seeking something, anything to grasp. But there was nothing, nothing, noth--wait. Unconsciously, he yanked hard at what he felt, as he continued to shout impotent insults, stomping like a petulant child in the dirt, kicking stalks over.

From a good fifty foot radius, a fine grain began to rise like reverse rain, dripping upwards and collecting into globs of sighing, rippling spheres at about eye level. Iron and nickel dust, loose in the soil, was collecting in floating, rippling, jittering orbs. And all the while, he raged, tearing stalks of corn from the earth with his hands, keening his displeasure at his ‘love’, his ‘possession’ now robbed from him. The metal dust began to spin and twist, orbiting him in long, trailing black-tailed comets. The air around him blurred as they began to speed up, shredding through the stalks of grain as if they were being scythed down. The orbs began to break apart, becoming a sandstorm of crystalline sand, grinding the stalks into small fragments like a sandblaster. Everything within fifty feet was not just leveled, but razed into the dirt, the water from the corn turning the dirt into gritty mud.

His thoughts grew increasing chaotic and crazed. Scattered. Incoherent. Kill him, kill her, kill all. Take away their--Gouge ou--Pulveri--Take everything. Burn it all--Burn the Tower. Kill--devour--maim. Hate them--hate their--Raze it all! He gripped his head in his hands, and ‘flexed’ against the black cloud, which exploded outward, flattening more stalks. What’s wrong with m--me--Wrong with her--wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! Nothing wro--I will save…will save them…Destroy them. Only one who can. Only one who can sav--shred their… The tumult inside his skull was deafening. Contradictory. Overlapping. “MMmmngh!” The manic thoughts broke as he sank his fingernails into his forehead, drawing blood, pinky catching on the metal shard, sending a sharp, lancing pain through his face. He started as if waking up, blinking, hunched over, breathing ragged. Taking a slow, shuddering breath, he drew his hands away from his eyes, looking around at the field, the area around him clear of all corn-stalks. Blood trickled over his eyes and onto the ground with a soft ‘plip-plip-plip’.

Swiping at the blood on his face with his sleeve, Jonquil sniffed, eyes moist, nose running. I can’t rescue her. I thought I could. The sensation of despair arose again, but he pushed it away. He thought of their plan, to sneak to the top of the building, see if they could get on the emergency walkway, get through the Plasma shield where there was a rumored tunnel beneath it, designed for emergency evacuation of the Tower population. He had wanted to take her with him, but now, she refused to follow him. Let her die with her Human, then. I’ll have to settle on getting the rest of the Children out. She’ll realize she’d chosen poorly too late.

Considering his options, the Big Brother began to head towards the opposite end of the field. Pushing stalks aside as he walked, he remembered the tokamak fusion generator on the first basement level, just below the main atrium of the Tower, covered in thick, clear ballistic glass, on display for the Tower denizens to see, a marvel of engineering. He thought of the Children’s quarters on the fifth floor of the basement levels. He tried to recall his physics lessons. He contemplated Killian and his big ol’ destructive railgun.

Fiddling with the gambler’s medallion in his pocket, the Big Brother formerly known as Subject 23 pushed open an access door, grinning to himself. He was going to save them all.