Already having changed his outfit four times, with a huff,
the blonde boy slumped back into his desk chair, letting out a pathetic groan.
Never once before had he cared about how he looked, at least not in regards to
a girl (or guy, he had to constantly
remind himself). Now he couldn’t pick an outfit for a night at a club.

The problem stemmed from the fact that he had never bought
an outfit for going to a club, because he never planned on going to any clubs.
All he had were plain clothes for day to day errands, and his old InCorp
uniform. It looked more worn and distressed than he had remembered leaving it.

In the back of the closet, behind everything else, was a
small metal staff and battle armor from his time at the Registry. It couldn’t
be worn anymore, most of it was cut or torn off of his body after the showdown
in the Underway. Together with the weapon, it served as a reminder of who he
could be, if he chose to be.

He didn’t need to be a warrior, today; he just needed to be
attractive. In his mind, and he wouldn’t dare tell Miria this, they had been
dating for longer than a few days. All the time he had known her, he had wanted
to be with her, at least some small amount. Going on a date with her was just
formalizing matters. Most of all, it was something that never would have
happened if Isaac hadn’t let go of Tyloki.

Rising from the chair, he didn’t see the figure standing in
his bedroom doorway. With crossed arms, he chewed on his lip as he looked over
his choice of outfits again. He hated them all. When he turned to check the
clock, to see if he had time to go out and buy a new outfit, he noticed the
fair maiden standing in his doorway.

“I got tired of waiting on you.” She said, and all he could
see or think about was the ruby blouse, cut just a bit too low, and the form
fitting black pants that came to a stop midway down her shins.

“Funny that, I got tired of waiting on you a long time ago.”
He shot back quickly, before he remembered he was in his underwear.

His face went as red as Miria’s blouse, but instead of
turning to his usual tactic, covering himself with embarrassment, he stood
proud, acting like he wasn’t embarrassed at all. Her smirk told him that she
wasn’t fooled.

“Oh.” Her smile broadened, and she turned with a clearly
fake intention of leaving. “I’ll just go then, if I’m not wanted.”

“Wait!” Isaac said, hurriedly picking an outfit. It didn’t
matter which one anymore. He wouldn’t be looking at himself, he’d be looking at
Miria.

“Now you want me here while you change? This is your
mother’s house, Isaac. Be decent!” Miria giggled.

“That is not what I meant. Though considering I’ve never
brought a girl home before, at my age, I don’t think my mother would mind that
much.” Isaac said.

Miria strutted towards Isaac, who shrank back slightly. She
closed the door behind her as she went, and Isaac’s heart started to beat
faster.

“You don’t need to blush.” She insisted, “I’ve seen more
than this when I was treating you.”

“That doesn’t make me feel better.” Isaac sighed as Miria
started to hold his outfits in front of him.

“Purely clinical reasons, of course.” Miria said.

“Of course.” Isaac said.

“This one.” Miria chose an outfit, a black and gold shirt
with buttons down the front, and held it against him. Her free hand brushed
gently against a sensitive part of his lower body, and he nearly started to
drool. It brushed again, just so he would be sure it hadn’t been an accident.

“This one?” He asked, taking the hanger from her.

She walked to the door and pulled it open. “I just wanted to
encourage you to hurry up a little. There is only so much time in a night, and
we’ve got so much to do.”

Isaac was left standing in his bedroom, panting, as he
watched Miria exit. Inside, he felt the same as he had when he fended off
Rain’s affections, though he had eventually realized he wanted the otter’s
attention. This feeling filled him with confidence, so he dressed and he
followed Miria out of his room.

There was, after all, so much to do.

There was nothing to do, trapped in their small square, and
it was driving Riley insane.

“We can’t just sit in here until we starve to death.” He
said.

Renton was sitting on the ground, inspecting each and every
one of his many bombs that he had poured out in a pile. “Quiet, I’m trying to
think.”

“Unless you have a bomb that doesn’t explode, I don’t see
how useful those are going to be.” Riley said.

“I don’t remember what they all do off the top of my head. I
kind of just put them together and throw them in the bag. Might’ve been drunk
when I made some of these.” Renton eyed the current sphere suspiciously.
“Because I do not remember making
some of them.”

“You have bombs you don’t remember making?” Riley couldn’t
help but laugh.

“I’m very creative. None of them are as good as the Lance
was, but that’s your fault.” Renton said.

“Let it go.” Riley was tired of being told it was his fault
that the Lance was destroyed. Renton was the one who dropped it.

“Most of them will definitely kill us.” Renton mused,
placing each bomb back in his bag after he finished looking them over.

“It’s amusing that you think only most of your bombs would
kill us in such a small space.” Riley did not like being cooped up, and his
usual fix for this couldn’t materialize where they were.

“I said that because that means that there are some that
won’t kill us. I think.” Renton placed a specific sphere aside, made of
interlocking red and blue pieces of metal.

He thinks.

[Better than we’ve
got.]

You’re on his side,
too?

[There’s sort of a
beautiful tranquility to this place, isn’t there?]

Ugh.

“This one.” Renton picked up the red and blue sphere and
held it up high for Riley to see. “It was designed to draw Aer out of the…air.
Almost exactly the same as I believe the Thrall is doing to us.”

“Fantastic. We can speed up the process. That’s very
considerate of you.” Riley said.

“The Thrall wants our Aer, but we might starve to death
before it takes it all. But if we didn’t have any Aer left to give it, there
would be no sense is keeping us trapped here anymore.” Renton said.

“Just like all of those villagers it isn’t keeping trapped
in the square. Oh wait, it is.”

Renton sighed deeply, “Even a regular human has Aer to give,
it’s a building block of our universe. They’re just not as rich as we are.”

With this explanation, Riley started to see how Renton’s
plan might work. He felt a glimmer of hope.

“Why wouldn’t it just crush us to death when it’s done with
us?” Riley wondered.

“It takes Aer for the Thrall to grow itself like that, it’d
be wasting energy to kill something that isn’t a threat. I think, if it doesn’t
detect any more Aer within its confines, it’ll revert to its hibernating state.
It ate Shel first, and it’s had a steady supply of Aer ever since.” Renton
said.

“A steady supply. Our Indicia replenish our Aer, so wouldn’t
your bomb just drain our energy, and then the Thrall would start being fed
again right away?” Riley said.

“I believe that the reason that Indicia can’t materialize
here is that the Aer flow is being throttled, but not completely blocked. It’ll
weaken us for a short time, and the influx of new Aer should be slow enough for
us to get back to the village. The Thrall shouldn’t attack us again, it only wanted
to destroy the Lance, which was its biggest threat.”

What do you think?

[Might be the only
option.]

“Renton,” Riley crouched and placed one hand on each of the
boy’s shoulders, “how sure are you that this will work?”

“Almost positive that it won’t.” Renton assured him.

“Good enough for me. I say we do it.”

If there was a chance of getting out of their prison and
saving even one of the villagers, it would be worth the risk. Besides, Riley
didn’t believe that Darius would go down that easily.

Renton retrieved the bomb from the ground and pressed a
button on the side, raised his eyebrows at Riley, and tossed the sphere as high
up as he could. The bomb didn’t detonate with an explosion, instead it produced
a growing sphere that looked like a swirling white gas, translucent but not
transparent. Wisps of light swam around the inside of the sphere, and it grew
large enough to surround Riley, Renton, and Shel. The wisps angled towards
Riley, swam through him, and came out
the other side green and pink. After changing colors, the once white wisps went
back to lazily floating around the air, with no apparent destination or goal.
As the swarm of wisps glided through his body, Riley felt faint, so he took a
knee to keep from falling over.

[...]

Silence in his head, scratching at his mind. There was
something there he wanted to hear, but it was too soft to make out. He could
barely hear himself think, and he couldn’t hear Rain at all. He had never been
this drained of energy before. Colorful dots of light danced around him, and he
reached out to grab one, found them to be incorporeal. Green, pink, orange,
blue. The light show was mesmerizing, and Riley couldn’t bring himself to focus
on anything else. He was too weak.

In a way, they reminding him of snowflakes, but they were
lighter than that. The sensation of being lost in a snowstorm remained,
however, and Riley drifted off to memories in the snow. Memories of nights
huddled with Rain, bodies pressed tightly together, hiding from the cold that
wanted to take his life.

[...]

Then the memory changed to what it had not been. Riley was
alone in the snow, without Rain to hold for warmth, he was shivering, wet and
cold, alone, dying. Worst of all, he was no one. He had no one.

Riley came to when Renton grabbed his arm and gave him a
hard tug. Shel was still on the ground next to him, and the Thrall pillars had
raised back into the ceiling, letting them free. It had worked.

It took more effort than Riley liked to push himself off the
ground and into a standing position, and more strength than Riley wanted to
give to lift Shel, but he did it. Both Riley and Renton were now of the same
mind, searching for the spot where the Lance had fallen. They found its
remains, and seeing it shattered was another blow to Riley’s hope that they
could get out of that place. Renton gathered the parts, carrying some in his
arms and stuffing some into his bag of bombs.

When there was nothing left to get, it was time to go back
to the town square and decide what to do next.

They found Jensen sitting on a box staring at the sky.
Evidently, the Thrall had attacked the people in the village as much as it had
attacked them. Several of the buildings had caved in or were almost completely
gone. Darius would have been busy trying to keep everyone calm.

“Where’s Darius?” Riley asked Jensen, and worry started to
set in when Jensen didn’t turn to look at him.

“It looks like they started to move the dead into the bar.”
Renton said. The bar was one of the few undamaged buildings, and there was a
lot of open space inside, it made sense to move the dead in there. “I’m going
to see what I can do about the Lance. You should find someone to treat Shel.”

Jensen raised his hand and pointed a finger at the bar.

Riley put Shel down next to Jensen and nodded at Renton. If
there was anyone with enough medical experience to treat Shel, they would need
to find them. But first, Riley needed to check in with Darius. He strode
quickly towards the bar, hoping to find the Collar inside, and directing
operations. He didn’t expect, he didn’t want, to find Darius among the bodies
of the fallen.

That was what he found. It didn’t take long to identify
Darius’ armor on one of the bodies, and Riley crouched next to his friend, held
his cold hand. He felt weak again, like when the wisps of light had been
draining energy from his body, but this was different. It was deeper. It was a
feeling that he couldn’t stand. He couldn’t lose any more of his friends, after
Jin, Dominic, Darius. Even Isaac had a death wish. There was nothing he could
do to stop them, nothing he could do to save them.

Riley knew he didn’t have time for tears, and without
Darius, he was the only person left to take command, to bring these people to
safety. They wouldn’t trust him to lead them if they saw his sorrow, so he
quickly wiped the water from his eyes. He tried to magic the tears away, but
couldn’t muster the strength.

[...]

He still couldn’t hear Rain.

It would take time and rest before he could use magic or
hear Rain. For now, Renton would have to try to rebuild the Lance. In the
meantime, Riley needed to be strong for the people still trapped inside. As
little hope as he had left, he needed them to have more than that.

“You think too much.” Miria shouted over the music.

It was too loud, too dark, uncomfortable, and Isaac realized
he wasn’t smiling. “What?”

“You think too much, you make yourself worry about what you
want, and what you have. You need to turn your brain off once in a while!”
Miria pushed a shot in front of Isaac.

He downed it, coughed, made a face, and Miria laughed at
him.

“You’d rather I made every decision without thinking?” Isaac
asked.

“No.” Miria grabbed his hand and stood up, pulling him out
of his seat. “Just take your heart out of your head once in a while, listen to
something other than your worries.”

There was a crowd on the dance floor, it would be easy to
get lost in there.

“Take my heart out of my head? You talk funny when you’re
drunk.” Isaac said.

“Whatever, you know what I mean. Come dance with me, and
promise to stop thinking so much!” Miria said.

Isaac felt his LINK vibrate, and he glanced down to see who
it was. “I’ll come dance in a second. Gotta go pee first.” He smiled at Miria
and watched her disappear into the mass of dancers before making his way to the
bathroom. He had to squeeze through the tight spaces in the crowd as he went.

He answered the call on the last buzz, just as he reached
the bathroom. “Hello?”

“Don’t you ‘hello’ me.” The female voice spoke.

“Um, okay. Did you want something?” He asked, leaning on the
wall by the bathroom door.

“We need to talk, Walker.” She said. “Come out front, I’m
waiting outside.”

“What!? I can’t come outside, especially to see a girl. I’m
on a date. We either talk on the phone or this can wait.” Isaac didn’t know
what she wanted, but it wasn’t about to ruin his date.

“It can’t wait. Hold on.” She went silent for a moment.
Isaac was about to hang up when she spoke again. “Come to the men’s room.”

Isaac took a deep breath and tapped his foot on the ground
once, twice, three times. He decided to humor her, and opened the door the men’s
bathroom. Dimly lit, but brighter than the club’s dance floor. Urinal, two
stalls. Narrow window into the alley, situated high up on the wall. Spotless,
likely cleaned by a robot. Or magic. Isaac wondered if any Collars had cleaning
magic.

No, that would be silly.

But there was no one in the bathroom.

“Back stall.” She said, and Isaac rolled his eyes as he
walked to the back of the bathroom.

Without warning, Isaac was stolen into the second stall, and
it was closed, latched behind him. It didn’t exactly trap him, but it made him
feel trapped. Miria was likely already starting to wonder where he was. After
the sort of things he’d done at the Registry, her mind might wander when
thinking about things he could be getting up to in the men’s bathroom. He ended
the LINK call and crossed his arms.

Alyssa and Isaac barely fit into the stall together.

“You!” She accused, pressing a sharp finger into his chest.

“You!?” He spat back, moving to poke her in the chest, but
he thought better of touching another woman’s breasts while on a date with
Miria.

“You!” Alyssa said, and she jabbed him harder before
stepping back, standing awkwardly around the toilet.

“What me?” Isaac asked.

“I got fired. You thought that InCorp was doing something,
so I looked into it, and I got fired.” Alyssa said.

“You thought they
were up to something. I thought it was Canaan. Didn’t I? I can’t really
remember anymore.” Isaac was still confused about what Alyssa wanted.

“We both thought it was both. Right? That’s not important.
What matters is that I got fired, so whoever thought InCorp was up to something
was right. They’ve got this huge vault in the basement. No idea what’s in
there. But Jensen is supposed to steal a weapon called a lance to break into
the vault, so whatever is in there, the Vassals want it. Maybe they’re working
for the Registry. I don’t know.” Alyssa spoke too quickly for Isaac to keep up.

“Wait, what? A vault? Who is Jensen again? What the Hell are
you talking about?” Isaac asked.

“Jensen, the Vassal I found that InCorp was holding.” Alyssa
said.

“Okay, this is all good. Why don’t you take it to a Collar
at the Registry? I’m out of the game, in case you didn’t know.” Isaac said.

“No! That is exactly the problem. You!” She jabbed him in the
chest again. “You quit!”

“You’d have quit too, if you had to put up with Tyloki.”
Isaac shrugged, though he did wish she would quit poking him so hard.

“Tyloki or not, you don’t get to quit. When Dominic took
your sister, I saw you on the news. You drew a line in the sand, and you asked
everyone in the city to pick a side. You drew a battle line and then you
resigned. Who does that?” Alyssa asked with a burning gaze.

“It isn’t that dramatic. I got Sera back. Tyloki did
something wrong, so he’s being punished. It just so happened that it set me
free, too.” Isaac explained.

“Isaac, I don’t have many people I can trust right now. I
walked into Parker’s office and I was sure he was going to kill me. I feel like
I’m being watched, everywhere I go. Why do you think we’re talking in a
bathroom stall right now?” Alyssa asked.

“Because you’re a bit crazy.” He answered honestly.

“Only a little, and only because of the stress. But that’s
beside the point, Isaac. I need your help. I know you’re clean, you were there
with me when everything went down at InCorp. Something is going to happen
again. Soon.” Alyssa said.

“That’s not my job anymore, Alyssa. Take it to the
Registry.” Isaac said, and he turned to undo the latch on the stall door.

“You asked me before why I do what I do. It’s because it’s
the right thing to do. It isn’t your job to save lives. But it is who you are.
You can’t just hide from that, drinking and dancing, sitting around with your
dick in your hand.” Alyssa growled.

“I’ve saved people. I did that already. I’ve saved my fair
share. I’m done now. I just want to live my own life, Alyssa.” Isaac opened the
stall door and started to walk out.

“You can’t just walk away.” Alyssa whispered, and Isaac
didn’t see the tear that rolled down her cheek.

It took Isaac a minute to find Miria on the dance floor, and
by the time he did, he had already put Alyssa from his mind. The music was too
loud, and it was too dark, but Miria was teaching him how to dance. Just like
she asked, Isaac let his mind go blank, and let go the worries that ruled his
life. Later that night, Miria taught Isaac more than just how to dance.

“What difference does it make?” Jensen asked Riley. They
were sitting together, away from the others. They were the outsiders.

“What do you mean?” Riley asked, glancing sideways.

“If we get out of here, if we don’t. I’ve never much thought
about other people. It’s just been me. As long as I can remember. So if I don’t
have anyone that will miss me, what difference does it make if I die in here or
not?” Jensen said.

“If you’re asking me what the point of all of this is,”
Riley gestured big, enough to compass all that existed, “you are asking the
wrong guy.”

“But you have people that you care about. People that care
about you, right?” Jensen asked.

“I do. But it seems like, lately, they’re just there so I
can lose them.” Riley said.

“That’s kind of an arrogant way to look at it, isn’t it?”
Jensen chuckled.

Riley didn’t feel like chuckling. The gesture made him
angry, he wanted to turn away, but he didn’t have the energy to move again, not
yet. “How do you figure?”

“Part of the reason I keep other people out of my life is
because I can’t control what paths their lives are going to take. No one else
is going to live their life for your benefit. Their lives belong to them. If
that helps you, it’s incidental. If it hurts you, same.” Jensen explained.

“If I’m arrogant, you’re cynical.” Riley said.

“Whichever one of us is right, sometimes, it seems like
there just isn’t a point to any of it.” Jensen said.

“This world doesn’t owe us a point. We get to live in it,
that’s all we get.” Riley said.

“And we’re not owed a single damn thing else.” Jensen
nodded, and they agreed.

Riley was sitting silently with Jensen when Renton announced
that he had fixed the Lance. He already had it set up on some boxes when they
arrived. It was a long machine, resembling a rifle, and it was pointed upwards,
towards the ceiling. It had two large handles on the side, simple metal poles
that pointed up along with the Lance.

“Will it work?” Riley asked, looking it over.

Shel wasn’t on the ground anymore. Riley had sent someone to
take care of him, they must have moved him somewhere safer.

“If I thought this thing would work in the first place, I
wouldn’t have kept saying we were going to die.” Renton said. “That said, if
anything can get us out of here, this is it. It wasn’t as badly damaged as I
assumed it would be.”

“How does it work?” Jensen asked.

“It produces a high concentration of self-modulating Aer
that rotates through the entire light spectrum several times a second. Not much
could stand up to its beam.” Renton sounded downright proud of himself.

“I didn’t understand that.” Jensen proclaimed proudly.

“What are we waiting for?” Riley asked.

Renton looked at Jensen. “You’ll want to stand back.” He
gestured towards the machine. “If you’ll do the honors, Riley.”

“How do I start it?” Riley asked, but he was nervous, Jensen
and Renton were both stepping slowly backwards to a safe distance. “Is this
going to explode in my face?”

“No, it’s fine. Just a precaution.” Renton insisted. “Just
grab those handles on the side and it’ll start itself up.”

Stepping up to the Lance, Riley glanced at Renton, who
nodded enthusiastically. Jensen shrugged. If there was one thing that could get
them out of there, it was the Lance.

Here goes nothing.

Riley grabbed the handles and held on tight. As soon as he
made firm contact, the Lance began to emit a whirr sound, and a ring around the ‘barrel’, as far as Riley
understood it, began to spin slowly. It was definitely an impressive piece of
engineering, and that Renton had made it himself, despite his young age, was
quite a feat. As seconds passed, the noise grew louder, and the ring spun
faster.

An empty feeling filled the pit of his stomach as a green
light appeared at the center of the spinning ring. A small dot, a twinkle, but
Riley recognized it just the same.

[Riley, something is
wrong.]

He could hear Rain again, but not for long. The otter said
something else, but the sound was muffled. The green light grew into a small
ball of green energy, and Riley knew that it was his Aer. The feeling was similar to the bomb that had drained their
Aer, but this time, it was all being conducted via his hands. His palms
tingled, and he could feel the energy leaving his body into the handles.

Instinctively, Riley let go of the handles.

Weakened by the drained energy, reaction slowed by the
fogginess that was filling his head, he couldn’t move fast enough to stop it.
He felt one of his daggers pulled from its sheath, and the point of the blade
was driven into his lower back, right in the center, aiming for his lower
spine.

[...]

He couldn’t hear Rain. He could hear his scream as the
dagger tore through him, it was distant.

[...]

Rain was trying hard to say something, but he still couldn’t
hear it.

What was happening? His head was heavy, he couldn’t
understand what was going on. His legs didn’t hold him up anymore, and he fell
to the ground. He hit hard, and his head rattled, making his disorientation
even worse. Heavy arms reached down and grabbed his hands, raised them up,
wrapped them around the Lance’s handles.

He struggled to turn and see who had stabbed him, who was
forcing him to use the Lance. It was Shel. Renton stood by his side.

“What?” He coughed, “What are you doing?”

“The Lance. It needs a power source. You can’t just generate
a high concentration of Aer out of thin...air.” Renton smiled, wobbling back
and forth in Riley’s vision.

“First plan was to use your friend, Darius.” Shel said,
holding Riley’s hands tight on the Lance’s handles. “But he went and got
himself killed.”

The ring was spinning faster and faster, the green sphere
was growing larger every second.

“The Lance is powered by human lives?” Riley asked, looking
around, wondering where Jensen was. He was a civilian, but they had come into
this together. Would he let them do this?

“No. No, no, no.” Renton was annoyed that no one understood
how it worked except him. “It uses Indicia. They are a vast wealth of Aer, it
just converts that directly into destructive energy.”

“It’ll kill Rain?” Riley pulled at his arms, but they
refused to move. He tried to throw himself to the side, but Shel was crouched
around him, trapping him. His legs wouldn’t move either.

“Yes. But you’ll survive, don’t worry about that.” Renton
said, reassuringly.

“No, I don’t want to.” Riley pulled again. It didn’t budge.

“That would be why there is a knife in your back. I had a
feeling you’d be uncooperative, so I made a backup plan. Thank you for carrying
me back here, I’d be dead if you hadn’t helped.” Shel said, Riley could hear
the man’s smile.

“Rain.” Riley said.

Rain.

[...]

Riley could feel Rain leaving
him. He could feel the emptiness that was remaining in his place.

“Why not one of you?” Riley asked, though he couldn’t muster
up the anger he wanted. Instead, he sounded weak and weary. “You’re both
Collars. It could’ve been you.”

“Actually,” Renton grabbed his shirt collar and scrubbed at
the colorful ring around his neck. It smudged. “Mine’s just make-up. I knew
that no one would trust me to get them out of here if I was just a kid. But a
Collar? People listen to Collars. It worked on you!”

Riley remembered the bomb that drained their Aer, how there
had only been four colors, not six. None of the wisps had drained from Renton.
He had missed that fact before.

“What about you?” Riley asked Shel, who hulked over him,
whose frame reminded him of Tyloki.

“Why would I volunteer when there was someone else that
could do it? First Darius, then you. Nothing personal. You’ve got to fight to
survive in the Brink.” Shel said.

“My Indicia’s name is Rain. He’s young, by Indicia
standards. He’s never told me that, but I can tell. He’s saved my life more
times than I could say, and he’s made me into a better person. I was no one
before I met him. I was raised to be no one by the Acolytes of the Acadian
Faith. But Rain made me into someone. He’s special, and you’re going to kill
him.” Riley said, growing weaker, losing blood, losing Aer. “It’s not right.”

“It is right. Maybe it isn’t good. But the good and the
right aren’t always the same thing. This is my home, and Shel is my friend. Why
should I ask him to sacrifice himself? You said you wanted to save the people
trapped in here. This is your chance!” Renton said.

“I want to make him proud. I can’t make him proud if he’s
gone.” Riley said.

[I am proud.]

Rain.

Riley had an idea. It was a bad idea, but it was all he had.
As soon as he thought it, Rain protested.

If I die, our link
will be broken, and you’ll be safe.

[Riley, no.]

You have so much more
good to do. More people to save than just me. Tell Isaac what I couldn’t tell
him.

Riley didn’t know how he was going to kill himself, of
course. He couldn’t move. It would have to be quick, though, because he was
losing a lot of blood. Wait. That would kill him. Would he die before Rain did?

He blacked out before he had a chance to consider the
answer.

Jensen didn’t know what any of the bombs did, but being
bombs, he assumed they blew shit up. Picking one up at random, he placed his
thumb over the button and, bag slung over his shoulder, stepped up lightly
behind Renton. The boy didn’t realize he was there until the bomb, button
pressed and held down, was waved in front of his face.

The Vassal had let Darius die, and on any other day, he
wouldn’t have minded trading a Collar’s life for his own. Things had changed.
The Lance was the weapon Freeman wanted, and it was powered by Indicia. It was
powerful enough to kill the Thrall they were trapped in, powerful enough to
open the InCorp vault. It was too powerful. He couldn’t let Freeman have it.

Besides that, Riley was an alright guy, and he didn’t
deserve this.

“Let him go.” Jensen said as confidently as he could.

Shel glanced at him. “No. You blow up the Lance, none of us
get out of here. I think that’s more important to you than, what, your friend?”

“I am going to blow up the Lance whether you’re next to it
or not. What I’m asking is if you want to explode with it.” Jensen said.

The Lance was nearing full charge, or it seemed so, and the
green sphere of light at the barrel was almost as large as the barrel itself.

“If you destroy the Lance, we’ll all die in here.” Renton
said.

“Okay.” Jensen said, and he tossed the bomb underhand
towards the Lance. It landed next to the Lance, on top of the boxes it was set
up on.

Shel let go of Riley’s hand and scrambled to grab the bomb,
tossing it aside, where it exploded near one of the already crumbled buildings.
Riley’s unconscious arm fell limp to the ground, and his body weight shifted
sideways. Shel had to struggle to keep Riley upright now, and as he tried to
grab Riley’s hand and bring it back to the Lance’s handle, he let too much
pressure off of Riley’s left hand, and it slipped off of the handle as well.

As Shel tried to get Riley’s hands both back on the handles,
another bomb landed near the Lance, and he had to toss that aside as well. With
no power going into the handles, the green sphere had shrunk considerably, and
the spinning ring had stopped cold.

Renton shoved his elbow back into Jensen’s gut, and the
Vassal dropped the bag of bombs as he stumbled back, coughing. He regretted
getting so close to the boy, it hadn’t been necessary. The bombs rolled out of
the bag and onto the ground, scattering. Several of them rolled over and
bounced off of Shel’s feet.

Shel ignored them and held Riley’s hands against the handles
again. This time, there was no reaction. Riley was cold, most likely dead. He
wouldn’t be able to power the Lance anymore. There was only one person left
that could do it.

“I’m not going to die in here.” Shel screamed, and he tossed
Riley aside, grasping the Lance’s handles with his own hands.

Jensen tried to get his hands on a bomb to throw at Shel and
the Lance, but Renton was scrappier than he looked, and he put up a good fight,
keeping Jensen away from the scattered bombs.

The Lance’s ring spun once more, and the green sphere turned
orange. It took only a few seconds for the Lance to return to where it had been
before, orange sphere touching against the edges of the barrel. Shel fell
forward, hands still tightly grasping the Lance’s handles, head lolling between
his shoulders.

The orange sphere turned into a beam of light that pierced
the sky, swirling with every color of the rainbow, radiantly shifting from one
color to the next. The beam struck the ceiling, and the Thrall let out a wail
as the laser drilled through its barrier and flesh, giving off colorful sparks
that lit the sky like stars.

Jensen stopped fighting Renton and stared up, marveling at
the intensity of the beam, at the miracle of the stars in the black sky. The
Lance had fired, there was no reason to fight anymore. Renton felt the same,
and he joined Jensen in watching the Lance do its work.

The Lance’s beam broke through the Thrall’s ceiling, and as
the light from the outside sky crept through the cracks in the flesh, Jensen
covered his eyes from its blinding brightness. It got so bright he was forced
to close his eyes completely, and while they were closed, he felt a shift in
the air around him. It grew colder, wetter, and brighter. When he opened his
eyes again, he was standing in the town square of Cliffridge, and the Thrall
was gone.

            The
buildings that had been destroyed were standing once again, the Lance was
nowhere to be found, and the only evidence that anything had ever happened at
all was Riley’s body, lying lifeless in the snow, and the building full of
bodies nearby.

Everett arrived soon after the Thrall disappeared. Having
come to look for his missing agents, he indeed found them in the square of
Cliffridge, along with half a town’s worth of people who were scared and
confused. It was a strange thing to happen upon, especially given that Darius
and Riley had been sent to investigate the usual missing person’s case, and it
appeared that there was no one missing here.

There were dead, but not missing.

A teenage boy stood in the center of town, next to the
supposedly missing Collar. Shel was sitting on his bottom in the snow, staring
blankly forward. His totem had no Aer left in it, an empty, useless husk.

“It’s so quiet.” He said, and he didn’t react when Everett
waved his hand in front of his face.

The boy wasn’t saying anything either, though that was by
choice and not from shock. He had his neck painted as if he was a Collar, but
he had no totem, and Everett didn’t sense any Aer. Why had he been pretending
to be a Collar?

Everett wasn’t too worried. Someone from Cliffridge would be
willing to explain what had happened. The most pressing thing Everett
encountered was Riley, bleeding in the snow, and everything else had been
secondary to that. A slight amount of Aer remained in his totem, and Collars
were amazingly resilient. Everett knew enough first aid to keep Riley from
bleeding out completely, but it was cold, and he had stained a lot of snow red.

Bayard found Darius in the bar with the other dead bodies,
and reported to Everett what he had found. It was a blow, but if Darius was
gone, Everett had to give everything he had to saving Riley. There would be
time to mourn later, when he knew exactly how many friends he would have to
mourn.

“Yeah, I need you to fly some EMTs out here. I need a VTOL,
the train is too slow. This is an emergency.” Everett called in on his LINK.

While he waited for the air support, he decided to take Shel
and the boy into custody, until they could figure out what had happened. It
wouldn’t take long for a VTOL to arrive, but it wasn’t time he was sure they
had.

Riley dreamt of the worse and better days, when he was
living in the Brink with Rain. Just after he had left Acadia, before he found
his purpose as a Collar. When the world was just him and Rain, and that was all
he wanted. He was warm, fur pressed against his skin, keeping each other alive.
But that wasn’t right. They weren’t keeping each other alive.

Riley knew that it was Rain keeping him alive, and it always
had been. It always would be.