“The name for a unit of Proxies is ‘cadre’. The definition of that word is a skilled worker, capable of both fighting and leading within a wider organisation.” - Oxford Arcology dictionary, p.31.

The wind had a voice of its own. At the roof of the world, or rather, the roof of the Skyline habitat, it spoke to Martin about loss.

To such melancholy thoughts was he given. The spears fell on him. A fist the size of a door slammed into him. The ‘cloth’ of his Chassis shattered and blood erupted on the old street.

He had gotten the note this morning, two days after the Examination. Grade: Distinguished. He felt anything but. Isla had managed to bring down a drone without a Chassis. Berenice had planned. And he…he had sent Isla away, thinking that it was better not to run, to fight.

The cold began to seep into his bones and he felt strangely numb. Here, with nobody to listen, he could admit it. He had seen himself, a new Proxy, fighting the drones and winning. For a kid raised in one of the camps, it had been a daydream, yet a dream all the same.

He lay on his back, staring up at the simulated night sky. The wind keened over a nearby mountain peak, raising a shroud of snow. This habitat was longer than it was wide, in contrast to the Verdant habitat, where their examination had been held. He had looked it up.

But, what it lacked in width was made up for in height. There was a sense of space above him, which could be filled. He the silhouette of it.

A beak, opening to swallow him. Wide tentacles, crushing even the exotic metal of his Chassis- yes, Martin’s dreams were troubled. The cold made the tip of his fingers burn, and indeed, he should just lay here until he began to frost over.

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“You have a new message,” spoke a voice.

“From Isla?”

“Indeed,” spoke the hologram of his father.”She is quite insistent. I quote,’If you ignore my messages one more time, I will personally kick you so hard you vomit blood. Don’t think I won’t’.”

“Can you find her?”

“Her profile is set to public and there is a note that she is currently at Sörgård Mall.”

Martin sighed. He got up, patted the snow from his body and shook himself. “Lead the way, then.”

***

The punch floored him. That, he had expected. The arms that embraced him were less so.”You stupid ass,” she began in her accented Trade,”don’t you fucking leave me like that.”

They separated. She, unlike him, wore her Chassis openly. The difference between being born in an arcology or a camp, he supposed. In the arcologies, Proxies were champions of freedom. In the camps, the heel of the Federated boot.

“I thought…I thought it would allow one of us to survive.”

“I saw the cast. You went down in flames!”

They spoke above one another.

Something in the way Martin stared at her must have been suggestive.”You put up one hell of a fight.”

“I lost.”

Isla Calix shrugged.”Did you think you were going to win?” “Martin,” she said, her Trade accenting his name,”we were supposed to lose.”

He blinked.

She continued in the same vein.”The entire test is meant to give Sviratham a baseline to measure us with. And you, you asshole, you never surrendered. Not even when they bashed you up!”

He hadn’t considered that view. Only his failure. He still carried it, but it wasn’t as heavy now. His shoulders, which had stayed up, relaxed somewhat.

“I’m sorry.”

Isla shook her head.”For what? Martin,” she said,”don’t go about saying things you don’t mean.”

That startled him. He wasn’t sure that she was right, or wrong, but rather the insight of it. Berenice had been the one to make the plans in their group, but Isla was the one who had seen the flaws in those plans. Why would it be any different with people?

Rather than respond to a statement for which he had no answer, Martin glanced around. People were strolling around them, a proverbial river around the rock. It was her Chassis, he thought. In Sala, they would be throwing rocks.

Great white walls formed a corridor with opening at regular intervals where people entered, through which he could make out items. Above the ‘doors’ to each store hung logos.

Martin gestured.

“What are you doing?”

“Oh, just extending my wardrobe,” she said, eyes moving up and down his body. He knew that look.

“What’s wrong with my clothes?”

“Nothing.” She paused a beat.”They look…very comfortable.”

The black jacket and the thicker canvas-pants were made for the provincial camps, where the weather was an issue. Here, in the arcology proper, they made him stand out. It was an issue he had thought about.

“They are that,” he answered, as neutral as possible.

“Oh, I don’t care that you look like some provincial villain out of a cast, but you could pick out a different color than black,” she reiterated.

“That hurts.”

“That’s because the truth hurts.”