“T his sector is compromised,” the Elder’s proxy said. “We need to reach life support.”
He heaved me to my feet. A sharp pain in my injured hip struck, and my legs gave out. All the adrenaline from flying through space had dwindled, and soreness radiated throughout my body from everything it’d endured. The only thing that made all of it somewhat tolerable was that my hip hurt exponentially worse.
“I can’t move,” I groaned.
The proxy lifted me by the helmet with his metal hand, then placed his arm under my shoulder to help me walk. I could barely even move my legs. Instead, they dragged across the ground like limp sacks of meat. It didn’t seem to slow him.
“In my time, we used to be trained to tolerate the high stress of space travel,” the proxy said. “My proxy was addicted to a piloting VR. He has been preparing for this his entire life.”
As I was dragged along, I studied my new surroundings. The entire inhabitable portion of the station was a wide cylindrical space, with a transparent wall on one side aimed at space. Emergency shutters divided the area we were in from the rest, and all that remained of whatever equipment had been inside were sparking outlets. Explosive decompression from when the waste vessel collided had sucked it all out.
The edges of the gash were bent back so far, it was as if it the station were made of tinfoil. Through the hole, the blue orb of Earth receded behind the horizon of the ever-spinning Ignis . A single brown splotch of paradise coated a small portion of it. High Earth.
“It looks so small,” I marveled through clenched teeth.
“The sky, space, other worlds in this system—Earth was the one place we never learned to tame,” the proxy replied.
“High Earth was larger when you were born?”
“There was no High Earth when I was born.”
We stopped in front of an emergency shutter, which must have lowered automatically to prevent damage to the rest of the station.
“Can you stand?” the proxy asked.
“I think so.”
He placed me near the bulkhead, and I quickly learned that I was half-right. I could stand if I leaned the majority of my weight against it. He kneeled in front of the door’s control panel.
“Locked,” he said. “The other side remains inhabitable. We need key codes to override.”
Again, my suit beeped. “My oxygen tank is almost empty,” I said, growing anxious. All that heavy breathing during our "landing" really did me in.
“There is still oxygen remaining in your helmet and suit. Just breathe slowly–it should be enough while I override the lock. High Earth programming was Virgil’s specialty, but I should be able to get us through.”
The proxy held his artificial hand over the control panel. The screen flickered as he was able to communicate with it without contact. The lights in the tech latched onto his head sped up in their blinking pattern.
As I watched, I wondered if it was the Elder or her tool doing the work. Could she see through his eyes and tell him what to do, or was he mostly alone with nothing but her blind advice? It helped me to focus my thoughts on something. Distracted me from how tiny my breaths were, and how strained my chest felt from doing so.
Suddenly, the controls chimed and the door shot up into the ceiling. We should’ve been blasted backward by the sudden change in pressure, but we weren’t. A man in a space suit, uncannily similar to ours, appeared in the opening. His visor was fogged and he held a pulse-pistol. With no air or comm-link to carry a voice, whoever it was waved us in with the weapon, never breaking aim.
The proxy was hesitant to enter, but I didn’t have time to think. I ignored the pain racking my body and lunged in, forcing him to follow. My head was getting light, and without air, I had no idea how much longer I had left. Another resource I never had to worry about in High Earth.
The emergency shutter resealed behind us, and then the familiar, soothing robotic voice of a VORA announced: “Repressurizing station.” Lights along the tall ceilings blinked red, and the loose vent cover of an air recycler started shaking.
I fell to a knee, tore off my helmet, and breathed in so deep it hurt my organs. Hearing VORA’s voice sent a calming sensation rippling across my body, like I was entering my home.
Only I wasn’t.
The person holding us at gunpoint removed his helmet as well. He had a wrinkled face with a messy beard and hair that looked like it hadn’t been brushed in ages. He looked like someone straight out of the heart of the Outskirts. I didn’t recognize him.
“Who are you, and what are you doing here?” he asked.
I did, however, recognize his voice, as abrasive as the surface of Ignis . It belonged to Lance Alsmore, the Ignis: Live fixer I’d worked with for years. The very same who’d worked in secret to rectify our mistake after helping Mission. I’d never actually seen him when he wasn’t wearing the holographic face of an inhabitant. Apparently, Mr. Helix hadn’t replaced him yet.
“Helix Productions has been notified of the intrusion,” VORA said. My gaze was drawn to the security feeds tucked into the ceiling. They would have already transmitted my image back to Earth for Mr. Helix to see if he wanted to.
“Thank you, VORA,” Lance said. “Now, I’ll ask again, who the hell are you?”
The proxy faced Lance and stood still, without even bothering to remove his helmet. My attempt to stand failed, so I remained kneeling.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Lance,” I said.
The sights of his pulse-pistol bounced between the proxy and me. His left eye twitched. “How do you know my name? Are you here to replace me? Mr. Helix said there’d be a bot.”
“No, it’s me… Asher. Chief director of Content.”
“Asher Reinhart?” His face lit up. “By Earth, I knew you sounded familiar! They told me you retired after the fiftieth.”
“Not exactly.”
“So, you are here to have me replaced?” He turned to the proxy and raised his pulse-pistol again. “Is this him? Is this the one?”
“No, Lance. Nobody is here to replace you.”
“Then why are you here?” He squeezed his gun tighter and took a hard step forward. He looked like he was ready to snap. One eye twitched every so often, and the other lagged behind, unable to focus on anything. “They said I failed and didn’t fulfill my probation. Might not get re-enlisted. What in High Earth’s name are you doing here!”
I didn’t have a chance to respond. Blue streaks raced across the room and struck Lance in the chest. His body convulsed and flashed from the inside out. I could see the silhouette of his skeleton through his skin. A stray shot from his pistol gashed the floor a few feet from me before he crumpled into a smoking heap.
“No!” I shouted. I crawled to him and flipped his body over, only to find that his mad eyes had rolled back into his head and the center of his suit was charred. I turned, aghast, to see the Elder’s proxy with his electricity blaster armed.
“Lance, I am no longer receiving readings from your lifeband,” VORA indicated. “A med-bot has been dispatched.”
“Why did you do that?” I yelled at the proxy.
A slot in the wall opened and a many-limbed med-bot floated out. Another blast from the proxy’s weapon promptly overloaded it, causing half of its arms to pop out as it sparked and toppled over. A few more shots cooked the surveillance feeds tucked in along the ceilings.
“Lance, I am no longer receiving readings from your lifeband,” VORA repeated, and then twice more as if she was malfunctioning before silencing.
“He was a threat,” the proxy said. He finally removed his helmet and proceeded into the room.
“That doesn’t mean he had to die!” Adrenaline fueled me and I rushed him. I took him by the collar and drew his OptiVisor-covered face toward my own, so close that I could see the pale outline of eyes beyond the screen. Both were cybernetic.
“No more risks can be taken. Helix knows we’re here now.” He pushed me off. His charged weapon crackled beside me, making my entire body tingle and the hairs on my neck stand.
“So you’ll kill anyone else who gets in our way? You don’t even care about being here!”
“Nobody else is in our way, Asher. We have made it.”
He turned to face a vast viewport comprising an entire wall. Earth was no longer visible, and the Ignis asteroid had revolved far enough that the sun glared in the lower corner. Radiation shielding ensured the brightness wasn’t hazardous, but I still had to use my hand to shade my eyes. This was the view Lance had to live with every single day, rotating between Earth and the sun. Constantly being reminded how minuscule he really was. It was no wonder he looked like he was on the verge of cracking.
“I suppose you have another plan for how to get inside?” I asked.
“No,” the proxy said. “We are here to fulfill a promise to you. How to proceed is your choice. You are the expert on Ignis’ people.”
The proxy turned, strolled across the room, and stopped in front of a cluster of powered-down holoscreens. We must have been in Lance’s living quarters. A lonely chair was positioned in front of it with an OptiVisor hanging off the arm, but it wasn’t a VR station. In fact, there was nowhere for him to enter a VR at all and interact with anybody.
Adjacent to the chair was a small kitchen much like the one in my smart-dwelling, complete with water dispenser and a re-assembler. A half-eaten nutrient bar sat on a round table nearby with two table settings. The food lay in front of one, where I presumed Lance ate, and a neckband projecting the photo-realistic face of Jacen in 3D was at the other. As if they’d been “sharing” a meal together.
Then I noticed a succession of purposeful scratches on the floor. Some were complete nonsense, others more deliberate etchings. From meaningless spirals and symbols, to the hand-scrawled ravings of a lunatic in script I could hardly decipher.
The wall beside the holoscreens had the most. Thousands of tally marks were lined up along it, top to bottom. The last one was fresh, inscribed with a handmade chisel made from one of the med-bot’s arms that was missing even before the proxy got to it. Lance had been counting down the days until his probation ended and he could be a proper resident again. I always knew Mr. Helix chose people who were on the brink of delistment to volunteer for this as their penitence. The intense nature of the work meant a shortened period.
“Who would choose this?” I said.
“To live alone with an AI?” the Elder’s proxy replied. “Every resident does.”
“Not like this… and it’s not like we have a choice.”
“Of course you do, and you made yours. Now you are here.”
I glanced back at Lance’s body. His usually crass attitude and impatience when it came to repair operations finally made sense to me. The way he stayed behind until the very last second to install a new camera and the smirk his false facade wore as he’d fired at Mission during the fiftieth anniversary events. Without any ability to load into VRs, it was the only interaction he ever got.
“At least he died before he had a chance to be let down again by paradise,” the proxy said.
“Shut up,” I snapped. “Was he not good enough to have his eyes opened before you killed him? Being older than everyone doesn’t mean you get to choose who stays blind. Virgil wouldn’t have—”
“Virgil is dead because of his decision to aid you. Unless you want Mission to join him, I suggest you stop trying to understand things beyond your control and focus. I made a deal to help you save her, and I intend to honor it.”
I squeezed my fists as tight as I could, then exhaled. The Elder was right. There was time before her spacing, but that didn’t mean there was enough to waste arguing.
“Fine,” I conceded. “VORA, please turn on any live feeds of Ignis: Live currently tracking Mission-14130.” It felt so natural to ask it of her. Like old times. Only I’d never speak with the one designated to me again.
“I am sorry,” she replied. “I am programmed only to accept commands from Lance Alsmore or Craig Helix. I am no longer receiving readings from the former’s lifeband, and there are no med-bots available. Can you verify his status?”
“He’s… dead. Now, please activate the screens.” She didn’t answer. Her processing matrix, which threaded the controls and tech throughout the station, suddenly powered down. We were lucky a VORA couldn’t harm a human being and the life-support systems remained active.
The proxy waved his artificial hand across the display and switched on the holoscreens manually. An episode of Molecular Nation was the first thing to pop up. The actress portraying Gloria Fors was in a lab, tinkering with a strange gizmo. A suit hanging in the background bore the same FORS TECH logo that the one I currently wore did. For some reason I felt like I’d viewed the scene before, even though a watermark indicated this was a new episode. The proxy quickly changed channels to Ignis: Live , where Mission was, as usual, front and center on a live feed.
I released a sigh of relief. She was still alive.
[Ignis Feed Location]
Recycler Hollow
<Camera 14>
Cassiopeia stood beside Mission in the Ignis recycler hollow, as well as numerous enforcers who didn’t appear overly pleased with her being permitted there. The chunky machine comprised an entire wall. Tubes extended from it in either direction, like arteries branching from a heart. In the center was a rectangular mouth of metal large enough to fit a human. Once bodies went in, they never came out, but their energy lived on. Jacen’s corpse lay naked inside, his body painted like sunlight by the hellish glow. It made the roughly sewn wound in his gut harder to notice.
Mission glanced at Cassiopeia, who returned a stern nod. She placed down a bowl of her last meal, which she’d hardly touched. Then she approached the body cautiously, as if afraid it was going to spring back to life.
“He’ll be with us forever now,” Cassiopeia said. “Helping us carry the flame of humanity.”
“Good. You’ll need him.” Mission fought her trembling lips to form a smile. “All he ever wanted to do was help our world.”
“It’s all any of us can hope to do.”
“I used to hope there was more.”
“There was,” Cassiopeia said, “but our impulsive ancestors destroyed all of it. Our burden is crushing, Mission, I know. I only wish I’d spent more time with your generation, helping them see why all of this is worth it, instead of teaching them only to fear losing it.”
“Why is it?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why is it worth it?”
She sighed. “There was a time back on Earth when a girl could meet a boy and they could love each other without restrictions. One day, our children’s children will step off Ignis , purified by the rigors of our journey, and into a new world where that may be possible again. Where they’ll be free. Until then, we remain. Against all the forces of the universe, we must remain.”
“I never got the chance to tell him how I felt.”
“I’m sure he knew.”
Mission placed her quaking hands on the edge of the slot where Jacen lay. She closed her eyes and let her head sink. She wondered then how Alora, her real mother, felt, holding her as an infant here when she couldn’t go through with it. If it had been this difficult.
When her eyes opened again, she saw that Cassiopeia had placed the star-speckled pendant Jacen made in front of her.
“Alora told me this belongs to you,” she said.
Mission quickly grabbed it and squeezed it as hard as she could while holding it against her chest. In all the chaos, she’d forgotten about it.
“How is Alora?” Mission asked.
“She continues to insist that you’re lying and that she’s going to find out what really happened.”
Mission put on a brave face. “Good. She needs something to keep her busy.”
“Whatever the truth is, I hope you understand why I have to accept your confession as the truth and punish you according to our laws.”
Mission nodded. It was what she’d anticipated when she decided to tell the Collective and everyone else in Ignis what they secretly wanted to hear. To give them a villain to direct their anger toward: a girl who never really fit in. They were angry and scared, even if they didn’t realize it. The core was the face of their laws. It couldn’t be rebelled against or overthrown, it was simple data.
“Earth has fallen… We remain,” Mission recited. For once, she said it like she actually meant it.
Cassiopeia put on a solemn grin and backed away. Mission reached out to graze Jacen’s chin. The coolness of his flesh caused her to recoil at first, but then she cupped her entire hand around the back of his head. She lifted it and placed the necklace he’d made for her around his neck.
“You keep this,” she whispered, pressing the pendant against his bare chest. “I’ll finally see the stars for myself soon.”
She leaned over him and ran her fingers through his hair. At first, the body appeared to her like a bad wax replica of her oldest friend, but as she got closer, she no longer doubted it was him. She could still picture him on that first day she sat beside him to look out upon their world, smothered in darkness. Unlike then, now he appeared to be at peace.
“They say our energy lives on forever, Jacen,” she said. “Now you’ll be a part of the plants you loved so much.”
Cassiopeia laid a hand on Mission’s shoulder. “It’s time.”
Mission got even closer, until her and Jacen’s faces were mere centimeters apart. “I don’t know if you can hear me,” she said, “but I know now that I would have let the whole of Ignis die for you. So I can’t stay, you see? Even if I wanted to. Even if I belonged. I love you, Jacen.”
She pressed her lips against his and kissed him like she’d always wanted to, unimpeded by her responsibilities or the core’s laws. She held there until tears rolled directly from her eyelids onto his stony cheeks.
She had to draw on her entire reservoir of willpower to pull her lips away. A part of her wanted to crawl in there with him so they could be reduced to pure energy together, but it was too late to be selfish.
She backed away slowly, holding back her tears, and said: “I’m ready.”
Before she could change her mind, Cassiopeia activated the recycler. The doors of its maw shut, and the machine roared to life. Through all its vibrating tubes, his energy would be transferred into fertilizer for the farms, feed for the insects, fuel for the lights. He would live on forever as a part of the Ignis .
* * *
"How will you reach her?” the proxy asked.
I wiped my cheeks. Jacen’s death had never really impacted me beyond how it’d wounded Mission so deeply. I thought a part of me had always been jealous of the time they got to spend together, but now Virgil taught me what it was like to lose a friend. Nobody had been closer to Mission than him. Not Alora. Not even me.
“How will you reach her?” the proxy repeated.
“Sorry… I’m thinking,” I answered.
He pulled up a station schematic on another holoscreen. “Fixers are able to traverse the station’s structural beams directly into the asteroid’s pipes and ductwork. We can reach her through them.”
“She’ll be watched constantly until she’s spaced. We’ll be seen.”
“Does that matter? Remember, I saw your mind. We know the Ignis well enough to escape with her before anyone can do anything about it.”
“It won’t work,” I argued.
“Are you really still worried about disrupting the show after all of this? You are no longer its director. Think of your arriving to grab her as one of the natural phenomena Craig Helix used to rationalize his actions.”
“I know what I am now, but you heard Lance’s VORA. Mr. Helix will know about our intrusion by now. They’ll send bots here. But if they think Mission is dead, they might overlook her. She can sneak back to Earth on their ship. It isn’t perfect, but perhaps your replica Ignis will suffice as her new home.”
“What about us?”
I shrugged. “You couldn’t promise a way back. Besides, all they can do is toss us back into the Outskirts with our memories wiped, where we already belong.”
“Belong is a peculiar word choice for you.”
“At least it’s somewhere,” I said.
“As glad as I am to hear that, that is still not a plan to retrieve her.”
I scratched my chin and tried to pace. After a few limping steps, a bright line of pain up my side reminded me how injured it was. I slumped backward into Lance’s lonely chair. His OptiVisor slipped off the armrest it was balanced on. Out of reflex for protecting the tech I used to worship, I scrambled and caught it just before it crashed into the ground.
That was it!
“I’m going to catch her,” I said.
“What?”
I pointed at the solid inner face of the station. “The Ignis’ airlock is directly below us, right? When they eject her, we can quickly catch her in space.”
The proxy studied the schematics of the station in relation to the airlock. We were at least fifty meters away from the surface, in a ring with about ten times the diameter of the airlock itself.
“The only way out there is by tether,” he said. “Bots preserve the station, so there are no thruster-suits available for exterior maintenance. And they won’t operate now. With VORA offline, all bots are on standby.”
“I don’t have time to learn how to use anything new anyway. Can it work?”
“Pressure will draw her out fast. You’ll have to be extended far to grab her, with the strength of my proxy to reel you back in. And if you miss—”
“I won’t,” I said.
“Arriving ships dock at an airlock on the inside of the ring to shield them from any stray debris caught in orbit. It’s the closest way in or out of the center, but it would still be a long period for her to be exposed to vacuum.”
“How long?”
“If we pull you in as soon as you grab her…” He, or rather the Elder, paused to think for a bit. “Roughly ten seconds.”
“Could she survive?” I asked.
“That depends on whether or not she tries to inhale. The extreme change in pressure might prevent her from doing so at first, but once you have her… I can’t predict that.”
“Could she survive, Elder?” I asked sternly.
“I still suggest we infiltrate and remove her from the inside.”
I pictured Mission crying over Jacen’s bloody body from when Mr. Helix set it to replay repeatedly. Thanks to Virgil, I was starting to get a clearer picture of the type of man he really was.
“I can’t say what Mr. Helix might do to her right in front of me out of anger,” I said. “Catching her is the only way to keep her survival secret. Can you retool Lance’s uniform into a mask? I’ll cover her mouth and nose as soon as I grab her, and you get us back in.”
“If you are absolutely sure about taking this risk, then yes, it can be done.”
“There are no absolutes.”
Flickers of a grin touched the proxy’s lips for a moment, then faded. He keyed a few commands on Lance’s terminal.
“I’ll start working, then,” he said. “I have now deactivated all surveillance throughout the station. You head to the dock. There should be an emergency tether there. Based on the schematic, you will need exactly twenty-four-point-four meters to reach the midpoint vector of the Ignis’ airlock. Make sure it’s long enough.”
“Got it.”
I groaned as I rose to my feet, but I’d worry about my battered body later. I analyzed the schematics for one last moment, then started off deeper into the station. The proxy stopped me.
“Here,” he said.
He opened a med-kit he’d found in the kitchen and revealed a few stims. Calming pharma, painkilling—everything that came with a standard-issue lifeband. I quickly reached for them, then stopped, hand hovering over them. Sweat dripped down the back of my neck. My very skin seemed to want to extend from my bones for the shots of sweet relief.
“No,” I decided. “I need to be clear.”
“Good for you.” He closed the kit and tossed it aside. I regretted it as soon as I heard the snap of the top sealing, but I couldn’t back down now. “As soon as she is safe, we have upheld our end of the bargain, correct?” the proxy asked.
“Yes,” I replied before continuing along the curving passage. If I waited any longer, I’d shoot up every ounce of medication the station had.
One more trade nearly completed. I was becoming a true delisted man after all.
* * *
The docking airlock was on the other side of the station. Because of our breach, I had to take the long way through a lengthy space filled with exercise equipment. A bot reminiscent of my guardian in the Outskirts stood silently by a rectangular table with a low net strung across the middle and paddles lying on either side of it that looked like they hadn’t been touched in ages.
Its eye lenses were pale, but for some reason I felt like it was watching me. I limped by and into the next space. This one was empty, meant for loading supplies, and a ladder across the way led up into the docking airlock. It took some time for me to climb with the shape I was in.
The airlock poked out toward the center of the ring-station, with the outer seal positioned straight above me. The tiny chamber stored a tether just like the proxy anticipated. I worked as fast as I could to extend it all the way back down the ladder and across the floor. Its interface provided a measurement. About a meter short, but after some quick thinking, I removed my own suit’s belt. With that added on, I was left with a bit of slack that the proxy could use to his benefit while dragging Mission and me in.
When I was finished, I made my way back and found the proxy in the exercise room. I sat across from him, eager to rest my throbbing hip. He’d ripped off the faceplate of the bot by the netted table and was busy using Lance’s homemade chisel to shape it. He then pried off the bot’s arm and used its sparking end to fuse a tube to the portion over the mouth and nose, which connected on the other end to Lance’s now unneeded oxygen tank.
“As soon as it’s on her face, hit this switch on the tank, and the pressure will be enough to make sure that when she does take a breath out there, her lungs don’t collapse,” he explained.
He showed me the contraption. The mask looked like something out of a horror drama.
“That switch,” I said. “All right, easy.”
“And wrap this around her body immediately to limit radiation exposure.” He slid a wrinkly silver blanket over to me. Lance’s suit lay off to the side with the lining cut out of it. The Elder-proxy team worked exceptionally fast.
I raised the shimmering blanket. It’d been stitched together from at least a dozen pieces. “This is all incredible,” I said.
“If you must know, my exact specialty in old Earth was research and development for aiding safe interplanetary travel. I miss using my own hands more than anything. Not that he has his.” The proxy finished a last bit of fusing and twisted things into place. “I am compelled to warn you again that this is extremely dangerous. More so than any operation I supervised in my youth.”
I was too busy staring at the proxy to answer. As the young man sat there tinkering, a thought popped into my head about the Elder. Her age, her technical prowess, the logo on her proxy’s chest, but the real clue had been seeing Molecular Nation earlier, right after learning about Alora’s true nature. I realized what was so peculiar about the brief scene that had come on Lance’s screen. I’d seen something similar when the Elder was looking into my mind, only there was something off about it.
“You’re Gloria Fors, aren’t you?” I said quietly, hardly able to formulate the words. It was rarely in my nature to be awestruck by a High Earth star, but if I was right, the woman who’d invented the molecular re-assembler and sparked the techno-revolution was sitting directly in front of me… sort of. Without her, High Earth as I knew it would never have been possible.
The way the proxy’s gaze snapped up toward me, even with an OptiVisor on, answered the question before he could. A thousand different responses flashed across his usually demure features before the woman dictating his words settled on the truth. “In another lifetime, perhaps. Yes,” he said. “I was wondering how long it would take you to realize yours wasn’t the only mind opened that day.”
“That’s… Does anybody else know? Did… did Virgil know?”
“If he did, he never cared to say.”
“Why aren’t you in High Earth? The med-bots could help you, couldn’t they? Fix your body. I don’t know. You deserve—”
“What? A throne? That new show about me the residents adore so much takes many liberties with my life. As did all that came before it. The molecular re-assembler was meant to help us settle the universe in response to our dying planet, not to stay behind on it. But the technology was bought out by the developers of what became the Higher Earth Network, and I… Let’s just say you aren’t the only one with mistakes to rectify.”
I crawled forward. “It’s many things, but High Earth isn’t a mistake,” I said. “It just needs the same help you and Virgil have given me. They need to be reminded to stop from time to time and look at each other.”
“No," Gloria said, shaking her proxy's head. “High Earth is perfect. It's what humanity has striven for since the first time a Neanderthal picked up a rock and sparked a flame.”
“What about all that stuff about opening eyes to the reality we’re born into?”
“The reality we live in is broken. I can change thousands in the Outskirts, but they will always be the people stuck on the other side of paradise’s wall. If ever that wall disappears, not one of them would turn down the chance to cross over.”
“Virgil would have. He did.”
“Pushing you that day released the anger he clung to, but he was still a man. And the human struggle to survive ended the moment I made a machine that could turn dirt into wine. Food, water, shelter, and mental stimulation—in those regards of necessity, High Earth is perfect. You can’t fight perfection, Asher. However, humankind is anything but.”
“So then why are you even here?” A mixture of pain and anger had me raising my voice. “There’s more to it than a trade with me, isn’t there?”
The proxy calmly stood, reached behind his belt and removed the OptiVisor that had belonged to Lance. “For now, to save a girl.” He handed the device to me. “We can’t waste any more time with talk. Put this on and refill your oxygen tank. You can keep track of Mission until the spacing, and the moment you have her, I’ll be listening on our comm-link frequency to know when to pull you in.”
Just holding a legitimate, High Earth bit of tech in my hands again felt like seeing an old friend after years apart. At least, what I could imagine that felt like, as I was new to friendship. I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t miss it. Would I too return to paradise like Gloria thought?
I looked back up at the Elder’s proxy, into the reflection of the OptiVisor that essentially stole his sight and being.
“And I thought I was the one who was lost,” I said under my breath.
I lowered the OptiVisor over my face and turned away. The last time I wore one, I thought Mission was going to die before I was exiled to the Outskirts. Now, as her face came on screen, I was so close I could almost feel her amber-colored hair between my fingers.
“I’m coming, Mission,” I said.