THE TUNNEL IS DARK. Only the flames of the Robusts’ torches illuminate our way, casting foreboding shadows on the reddish-brown walls. It’s not damp in the tunnels as I expected; the air is actually arid.

I trudge along the dark, rocky corridor, protected on all sides by a motley crew of warriors who have apparently gone from wanting my head on a pike to accepting I’m a part of this mess. Husniya walks beside me, quietly keeping me company. She should have gone with Yuri, but she and her brother both happen to be persistent.

Mila, as always, takes point, moving ahead as far as she can without losing us—Mos, Faruq, and a few others at her side. She’s either incredibly brave or absolutely insane. Maybe a little of both. It’s hard not to admire her. In her bag she carries the Writ—my gift to her. This simple tome seems to have renewed her strength. Bilgi told me she’s not bold because she believes her Yeos will save her; she’s bold because in her heart she knows He has a plan for her.

The notion of a god is for younglings or people too afraid to admit the universe just is, and that we are meaningless. Yeos, Ilāh, whatever, is just a way to make people, Robusts, feel safe. Even now, the concept of a soul—something that has long eluded science—may be explained by my entanglement with Vedmak.

But maybe there isn’t anything wrong in such beliefs. The burden of knowledge is lonely, and the prospect of death terrifying. Mila and those who share her faith never seem to be alone or afraid to die.

Such a nice story. Go and tell it to your Leader, you simple idiot. He thinks you elitist scum are worth preserving for as long as the universe will allow. But why? You exist, but you do not live. It disgusts me.

Maybe Vedmak is right. I’m worthless, anyway. I haven’t had a hit of DBS in a long time. Yuri said he had no more. I’m slipping away, the control over my own limbs waning.

“Margarida says you shouldn’t think that way.” Husniya tramps alongside, clutching at my little finger and swinging my arm back and forth. “It’ll be okay.”

Younglings. If only we were all so innocent.

* * *

THERE SEEMS TO BE NO passage of time down here. Only my aching feet inform me of how long we’ve been walking. No one says much, all concentration focused on what may spring out of the dark. Every so often, Mila stops the troops by holding her hand up. A few men run off ahead into the gloom, leaving everyone holding their breath in anticipation. So far, they have always come back. Dull thuds and pops tell us of the battle raging aboveground. Musuls, Robusts, and maybe even a few Creed slug it out in an endless exchange of munitions. Is Ghofaun still alive? I doubt it.

“You know, it’s probably better not to focus on what’s going on up there.” Denni’s soft voice doesn’t attract the attention of the others.

This little Robust woman is really pretty. The orange torchlight makes her blue eyes sparkle. Her face is warm, her lips full, and her smile bright. She gazes at me in a way I once desired from Oksana.

I wouldn’t get too attached, little peacock. You’re all feathers and not much else. She’ll figure that out quickly enough. Would you even know what to do with the little sooka if she lay in the dirt and offered herself to you?

“Don’t talk about her that way, Vedmak. She’s done nothing to you. Leave her alone.”

“Who are you talking to?” Denni asks.

Dammit. I must have been mumbling. “Oh, just myself.”

“Uh-huh. Try telling me the truth.” Her eyes are wide, expectant.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“He has a voice in his head like mine,” Husniya pipes up.

Oh, sard.

“His name is Vedmak. My voice is called Margarida. They died a long time ago, but we can hear their souls.” The little girl beams at me and Denni, who looks surprised.

“Is that true?” Denni asks.

The air huffs from my lungs. “Kind of. Husniya is right. I hear a voice. I named him Vedmak. I don’t think he’s a soul, I think he’s proof of another dimension. I think when we die, our information isn’t lost. It’s encoded somehow. His information was kept more intact. As was Margarida’s. Perhaps it somehow transferred to another dimension.”

“Or heaven,” Husniya interrupts, again.

“Can’t it be both?” Denni asks.

“Can’t what be both?” I ask.

She shrugs. “Heaven, Hell, other dimensions ...”

What is she talking about? “The idea of Heaven or Hell is predicated on an individual’s behavior and where the soul is sent after the person dies. People are judged by an omnipotent being or beings. When in fact, the universe doesn’t judge anything. It just is.”

Denni shakes her head. “I don’t necessarily agree. I’m a Fiorian, and I believe in Yeos, but I don’t necessarily get too wrapped up in organized religion.” She smiles. “Taking Yeos out of the equation, if you’ll pardon the pun, what if how we live our lives, the choices we make, changes our information. And thus when we die, how that information is handled means it ends up in one place or another.”

I had never thought about it that way, but it’s entirely possible. Are Heaven and Hell merely representations of a universal sorting system for different information types? Can our information, our souls, be inherently good or bad?

“Demitri?” Denni presses.

“Denni, we need you up here,” Bilgi calls. “We got a fork—which way?”

The young woman touches my arm and runs off to the front of the group. The rest of us bunch up behind and come to a stop, confronted by two rocky corridors splitting off in different directions.

Denni pulls out the holoprojector and fires it up, bathing the passage in an eerie luminescent green. “Here, to the right, the blockage is actually only thirty meters ahead. We’re real close.”

“Mos, Faruq, come with me.” Mila takes off into the right tunnel, her companions close behind. We all follow suit, shuffling along in the dark.

By the time I get there, they are already feebly pulling at the large rocks. At the pace they’re going, it’ll take forever.

Giahi barges past me. “Stay right here, your majesty. Wouldn’t want you to callous your perfect fingers with a little manual labor.”

Mila scowls at him.

He laughs, calling me delicate, and steps forward to move rocks with the others.

They’re not very efficient, these Robusts. The boulders are arranged in a pyramid-like structure, the larger ones at the bottom supporting everything at the top. If I pull just the right one, the whole load should topple. “Would it be okay, if I, um, asked everyone to back away for a second?”

Giahi bows mockingly and waves his hand at the blockage. “Be my guest, cloud prince.”

“My name is Demitri.”

Which stone to pull on? There—a keystone in the structure. That’s the one. I rub my hands together, then clasp the stone with my palms and forearms. A few deep breaths, and then I pull with all my might. There’s a slight scraping sound, the grit of rock on rock. My biceps bulge and strain through the thin material of my top—the veins in my neck swelling with blood. I screw my eyes together and clench my jaw.

The rock pops out, and I fling it to the ground with a loud thud. As predicted, the rest tumble around our feet, dust billowing up in plumes.

“Good job, Demitri. You just bought us a few hours.” Mila pats me on the shoulder, then gives Giahi a sharp glance before clambering through the hole—careful not to catch her weapon on jagged rocks. Giahi says nothing, his face a picture of loathing.

“Pretty impressive.” Denni beams as she slides past me.

Little Husniya is smiling as she beckons me to lean down. “She likes you,” the child whispers.

“Just get your little self through that hole, miss.” I clamber over the rocks, catching my shins and elbows on everything.

Denni gasps. “Whoa.”

“What is that?” Bilgi asks.

The tunnel doesn’t need torchlight anymore. Halogens hang from the rocky ceiling and bathe a huge metallic cylinder, more than three meters across, in an orange light. The machine in front of us is familiar—a supercollider. A replica of the one Nikolaj used, but many times larger. Thin tubes cover the surface like ivy. Some of them run along the roof of the passage and disappear into the dark. A deep hum vibrates in the surrounding walls.

“Demitri, what is it?” Denni asks.

“A supercollider. I didn’t know where he’d build one powerful enough. Now we know.”

“It’s huge. What are all the pipes, and why is it humming, and—ˮ

Denni quiets as I place a hand on her shoulder. “Judging by the diameter of the containment unit, I’d guess it’s a sixty-kilometer ring buried in the earth around us.” There are no mines down here. He was building this machine. “Usually, two beams of particles are fired at nearly the speed of light in opposite directions. When they collide, you can examine what other particles are released. But this one probably has ten beams inside—the Leader doesn’t care what things come out other than a black hole. He’s upping his chances. Anyway, the beams are guided around the accelerator ring by strong superconducting electromagnets that need to be cooled to minus 271.3 degrees Celsius—colder than outer space. The pipes you’re looking at are full of liquid helium, which cools them.”

“And this is what he’ll use to destroy us?” Mos asks.

“Yes.”

“Then we can stop it from here,” a man calls from the back, his arm stretching outward to grab a nearby pipe.

“No,” we yell in unison. But it’s too late.

A cobalt flash and the smell of burned flesh fills the tunnel as an energy shield vaporizes the impulsive Robust. He shrieks, but it’s only momentary, his horrible demise cutting it short. It happens so quickly most only gasp in confusion. My stomach, on the other hand, comprehends exactly what has just happened—and I immediately lean against the rocky wall and brace myself to vomit.

“What the hell?” Bilgi shouts, staring at me as if it were my fault.

“It has a protective energy shield,” I reply between fits of coughing. “There’s no way the Leader would risk this being damaged from down here. I don’t know where the power source is for the shield. You’ll still have to head to the rocket.”

“Sard. No one else go anywhere near that thing,” Bilgi orders. “Mila, we need to keep moving. Ghofaun is probably close to the site by now. Mila?”

But Mila isn’t with the rest of the group. She’s in a darker corner of the tunnel, staring at a hole in the ground.