DAY 30, 12:37 P.M.

Aboard the Tower Space Station

It’s odd to pass through hallways without scoreboards. Strange not to be focusing on the next test. There’s a freedom in it that feels like summer come at last. After dinner, I went hunting for Bilal. He wasn’t in his room, though, and he wasn’t anywhere else I had access to on the Tower Space Station. I crawled into bed knowing I’d have only tomorrow to say goodbye to him. Eden looked majestic out the porthole, but in the dark moments before sleep, it was a poor trade for my friend.

Vandemeer doesn’t wake me up. No alarms go off. No lights click on reminding me it’s morning. I sleep two hundred days, two hundred nights. I sleep to take back all that I lost aboard Genesis 11, and all I still have to lose. I sleep, and dream of victory, of falling like iron rain to a planet of fog-thick valleys. In each dream I’m given gifts no one can take from me.

When I wake up, it’s to Vandemeer rummaging in a corner. Seeing me, he apologizes, but when he tells me it’s almost an hour past noon, I flip the apology right back.

“It’s all right, Emmett. You slept about as long as I expected you to sleep. It happens in situations like this. There was a part of your mind that never slept on Genesis 11. An instinct that couldn’t stop thinking and planning. That’s gone now, so you slept fully. Don’t apologize for that.”

“I have to say goodbye to Bilal.”

Vandemeer nods. “Of course. He’s not in his room, but he has to be somewhere on the station. We’ll find him after you eat breakfast. Or brunch…lunch? I don’t know.”

He’s got something behind his back. I nod at it. “What’s that?”

Vandemeer grins. “I was going to save it for later, but since you’ve spotted it…”

He holds it out. A present. Wrapped in old star charts, and he even managed to find a bow somewhere. I shoot Vandemeer a smile. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“No, but I wanted to.”

“What is it? Money?”

He laughs. “I hoped to give you something a bit more valuable. Go ahead, open it.”

The newspaper tears and the bow falls to the floor. I pop the tabs of a cardboard box. Inside is a black cord connected to thin, sticky padding. One end looks identical to the charger I use for my player. I look up at Vandemeer for an explanation.

“You might figure it out eventually, but okay, I’ll save you the trouble.”

“What’s it do?”

“A nyxian charger. They don’t exactly have electrical sockets down on Eden.” He taps the sticky end. “Attach that to any nyxian source and plug the other end into your player. I’ve tested it a few times to make sure, but it’ll charge.”

I coil the cords up and set it on the bed beside me. “It’s perfect, Vandemeer. I mean it. Perfect. Now I can share my tunes with the Adamites. They’ll be forever in your debt. I just wish you’d given me a warning so I could have made you something.”

“That’s not necessary, Emmett.”

I hold up a curious finger. “Yeah, if only there was something I could give you….”

I duck a hand under my pillow and fish out the picture. It took some doctoring, and Vandemeer nearly caught me working on it a few times, but I finally finished it. I couldn’t part with the original that Kaya gave me, so I made him a copy. It’s the selfie she took with me all those months ago. My arm is wrapped around Kaya’s shoulder. Her smile is all the flowers in all the fields. The version I copied looks like an old-school holographic card. The shifting colors and space suits make us look like superheroes.

“It’s not wrapped or anything,” I say, offering it to him. “But it took me some time to get the colors right. I hope you like it.”

His hands tremble. “Yet again, you are full of surprises.”

“This way we can both take her with us. Wherever we go. This way, we’ll never forget.”

Vandemeer nods. He sets the picture gently aside and gives me a hug. I file it away under T for Temporary. I’ll see him again. I have to believe I’ll see him again. Already there have been hard goodbyes. Moms and Pops won’t hear from me for a year. Vandemeer can’t follow where I’m going. Neither can Bilal. It doesn’t bring me to tears, but it does feel like an amputation. Babel is taking parts of me that I never knew I needed. The person who lands on Eden will be less without them.

Gifts exchanged, we head to lunch. Vandemeer carefully fills my plate up with foods that are less likely to be thrown up during the descent. The decision makes me curious.

“We’ve been moving just as fast through space all this time, though, right?”

He nods. “Yes, and Babel’s used nyxia to seal their launch pods too. If you throw up, it won’t be caused by the force of the descent. It will be caused by the emotional shock. You’ll be alone and on a foreign planet. That’s enough to make anyone a wreck. Trust me.”

After all this time, I do trust him. We sit in easy silence together. I catch glimpses of the other victors every now and again—Jaime even comes up to congratulate me—but the rest of the afternoon is a long and stretching quiet. We all know this is a solemn day.

For the first time, I let myself imagine Eden. It’s full of uncharted wild. Populated by a species about which we know next to nothing. We will be the first in years to roam its plains and valleys, to navigate its rivers and cities. And when I come home, everything will be different.

It’s late afternoon and my search for Bilal is just as fruitless as the night before. He either can’t be found or doesn’t want to be. Vandemeer shadows me as we search. The only people we run into are techies and marines making final preparations for the launches. Frustrated, I return to my room. There, we find a letter from Bilal.

Babel says I will be given another chance. I’m not sure what it will be, but perhaps I’ll see you on Eden after all. If I do not, then I will wait for you back home. I am thankful to have such a friend. My home is open to you.

Bilal

“I don’t think you’ll see him before launching,” Vandemeer says after reading it.

“Do you have any extra paper?” I ask.

Vandemeer fetches some, and I do my best to write something back. When I’m done, Vandemeer takes the letter and promises me it will reach Bilal no matter what. I want to search the ship again, but Defoe arrives. He sets a knapsack next to the door and hands me a glowing blue key. It dangles from a necklace like a dog tag.

“Your activation key,” he explains. “The pods are individualized. You’ll need the key to enter the pod. Once it’s closed and prepped, you’ll use the key to launch. Understood?”

I nod. “Got it.”

“The pods won’t launch without the key. They won’t launch with multiple people inside of them. They won’t launch until the door’s properly closed. Remember that.” Defoe gestures to the bedside table. “Go ahead and remove all of your nyxia.”

It takes a second to slide off all the rings. He sweeps them into a zip bag, only to replace them with a pair of boxing claws. The nyxian knuckles look sharp and shiny, brand-new. I can’t help but pull them over my hands and flex my fingers inside the fine leather.

“Newly made,” Defoe says. “Unlike the pair you’ve used, these are not blunted. They’re sharp enough to slice through stone. Our gift to you.”

He fishes through the knapsack. “And one other gift.”

My name is patched onto the front of a fighter jacket. It looks like the kind of thing pilots wore way back when. On one arm, the Tower of Babel is patched above an American flag. Vandemeer helps me slide into it. A perfect fit. Defoe nods his approval.

He takes two steps forward and extends a hand. It takes me a long second, but I reach out and shake it. His grip is iron. “Congratulations, Emmett. Your contract has been fulfilled, and Babel Communications will begin providing your family with the money you’ve earned. Should you continue to fulfill that contract through your work on Eden, you will gain even more benefits based upon the agreement you signed with us. Your team will have quotas that can earn you these extra benefits. Continue to work as you have, and you will live out the rest of your life as a very, very rich man.

“You are departing from Station Twelve. Please arrive at your pod fifteen minutes before departure. You may bring the knapsack, the jacket, and any approved personal items you have. Consider this your official welcome into the ranks of Babel Communications.” He steps back and nods to Vandemeer. “Doctor, I entrust him into your care. Good luck, gentlemen.”

The minutes tick away like time bombs after that. Vandemeer doesn’t say much and neither do I. When it’s time, I sling the knapsack over one shoulder and walk down with him. The station looks alien somehow, like a stranger. Blue lights shine here and there, casting their glow over dark panels and sleek interfaces.

We’re permitted into a section of the station I haven’t seen before. An elevator takes us down four flights, dropping us off in a white-lit hall. The number twelve glows blue against a distant door. One of the Babel techies gives me a good prep about breathing and buttons, but the launch is mostly automatic. My only role, he laughs, is to not die from a heart attack on the way down. I don’t laugh at the joke because I’m barely breathing as it is.

We’re in a long, circular hallway. At one end, I spot Jazzy. She’s outfitted like me, but alone. She waves and I wave back. On the other side, Morning waits. She paces back and forth. Every now and again she looks over at me. I’m expecting her to still be pissed off about what I pulled on the bridge, so it’s a surprise when she waves me over. I glance back at Vandemeer for approval. He smiles and gives me the kind of wingman shove that would make PJ proud.

I stumble over and Morning watches, eyes dark above her nyxian mask. She glances over my shoulder at Vandemeer, then locks back onto me. I watch as she snaps the mask off.

“I’ve got two things to say to you.” She leans so close that it’s just the two of us, in whatever world we’ve been making the past thirty days. She sets her hand against my chest like she’s trying to keep the walls from collapsing. “I wanted you to win. After that second day, when you held my hand. I wanted you down on Eden with me. You—I’m just glad it’s you, okay?”

She plays with the collar of my suit before shoving me back a step. Her wildest grin flashes before she can slide the mask on over it. I know there’s still pain there. I know she thinks she failed Loche and the rest of her team. I know she’ll treat that broken promise like a burden, but for now it’s enough that we’re going to the same place together.

“Wait,” I say. “What’s the second thing?”

“I’m still mad as hell.” She nods me back toward Vandemeer. “Race you to the surface?”

I nod once. Her smile’s gone, but it feels like a new beginning. I take my place at Vandemeer’s side and feel the pride straightening my shoulders.

Not everything is lost or broken. There’s still hope.

The techie announces that the door will open in five minutes and retreats down the hall. I unravel my headphones and flip through songs until I find the one I listened to on the first day. The one that annoyed Longwei to death. I’ll have to make him listen to it when we land on Eden.

I offer Vandemeer the other earbud and he takes it. He’s a little taller than me, but we stand quietly and listen to the cuts and drops and bright voices. My stomach is rolling, but it helps to know that when the song finishes, the door will open. When the door opens, I go to Eden. The facts are straightforward now.

A commotion sounds behind us. I don’t look at first, but Vandemeer turns and the bud falls out of his ear. Voices are raised. Vandemeer says something I don’t catch. When I turn, Karpinski is shouldering past one of the techies and down the hallway. My stomach clenches. So do my fists. His face is as hollow as ever. Why is he here? For me? Vandemeer has something pointed at him that I can’t see. Karpinski holds out his hands pleadingly.

“I’m not here to hurt him,” Karpinski begs. “I’m not.”

Vandemeer’s face darkens. “You need to leave, Karpinski.”

“No,” he says. “No. Emmett has to know. The others don’t know.”

The song reaches the bridge. One minute.

“I’m warning you,” Vandemeer says angrily. “Don’t come any closer.”

Karpinski takes a few steps back. “Fine, but Emmett has to know. He’s waiting for you. I don’t know why, but he’s waiting for you.”

In my ear, the final chorus is playing. Trumpets boom. Thirty seconds.

“I mean it, Karpinski. You need to leave.”

Karpinski goes on stubbornly. “It isn’t over. There’s one more chance. In the room.”

He thrusts a fat finger at the glowing twelve. Behind us, the door hisses open. An identical door with an identical number waits. An antechamber. Vandemeer signals and the two techies grab Karpinski. They force him back down the hallway. My heart’s beating fast as I put my player back in the knapsack.

“Be careful,” Vandemeer whispers.

“I won. I get to go to Eden. No one’s in there.”

Vandemeer’s face is veiled. “Just be careful.”

A robotic voice echoes from the antechamber.

“Door closes in ten seconds.”

I step inside. Behind me, there’s another hiss. I dig through my knapsack as the door closes and start pulling on my nyxian knuckles. With my ungloved hand, I tuck the glowing blue key under my shirt. The nyxian jacket feels like it’s waking up. Cleansing air gusts through the overhead vents. As the noise dies, the doors slide apart. Light pours into the antechamber. My body coils in expectation, but no attack comes.

My enemy waits in the dimly lit distance. Roathy looks every bit a demon. Dark is his suit; dark are his blades. He’s framed by a view of space, by the promise that was taken from him. As I step forward and the second door hisses shut, he starts to laugh. With one curved blade, he points.

“I knew it’d be you,” he says. “Twenty-five percent chance, but I knew it’d be you. They like to play their games with us. That’s all this is. One more game to play.”

“I won the game.”

He grins beneath his mask. “Oh. They must have put me in here by accident, then.”

They put him in here? This can’t be right. Beyond Roathy looms the launch pod. It’s carved into the bottom of the wall like a lodged bullet. I want to ask why they brought him here, but that’s a dumb question. He knows why and I know why. He’s here to finish Babel’s game. One more test to pass. One last fight to win. If he’s telling the truth.

I am the darkest starless corner of space.

“I know you’ve got the key,” he says with a nod back at the pod. “They told me. Get it and we’ll forget you were in the bottom four. Get it and you can go to Eden instead.”

“Roathy,” I warn, “we’ve fought more times than I can count. You never beat me. Just let me go and I won’t hurt you. Isadora will be back in a year. You’ll see her again.”

His face pinches in disgust. “You’re a lurch if you think that’s how this works.”

“I mean it, Roathy. It doesn’t have to end this way.”

“It’s the only way,” he spits back. “The only way, fathom? They saw to that.”

I stop just five meters from him. “Who? Babel?”

“Fight or die, they said. If I let you go, the pod launches and the room vacuums. If I let you go, I get sucked out to space. This was always the plan. Always. We aren’t going back.”

My heart’s thundering in my chest. It doesn’t make any sense. The words from Bilal’s letter echo. Babel says I will be given another chance. But why force us to kill? Why like this? I imagine Bilal in an identical room, facing Anton or Jaime or Alex. I know he’d never fight. He’d step to the side and tell the other person to go to Eden.

But what if Roathy’s telling the truth? What if this was Babel’s final plan?

One final fight to the death. Kill or be killed. Black hole or black hole.

“You said one out of four. The others…”

“Same thing. Bilal, Brett, Loche. Same thing. They might already be fighting.”

“It doesn’t have to end like this,” I repeat. “They wouldn’t vacuum the room, Roathy. That doesn’t make any sense. Trust me. It’s smarter to just let me go.”

“You think there’s anything Babel wouldn’t do?” Roathy sets his feet and lifts both short swords. “I’m going to Eden. Isadora and I promised each other. You won’t stop me.”

I settle into my stance. My mind is reeling from the possibilities of Babel’s final lie, but the rest of me moves by instinct. I know how the fight will go. I know his first swing, my first block. I know how he moves his feet and how I’ll slide in response. We’ve danced this way too many times to forget the music. The only difference will be the blood, the dying.

I start forward, eyes fixed on his. I’m a sword slash away when I notice his eyes flicker up. There’s a pulse of bright light behind us, and fire lances me from shoulder blade to hip. I drop to a knee as another pulses overhead. Roathy’s blade comes slashing down, and it is a miracle that I get my off hand up in time.

His swing glances past and slits a bright red line along my right shoulder. I shove back and up and almost get my guts spilled by one of his lunges. He catches me under the armpit instead, and I nearly slip on the blood puddling at my feet. He sees it, my death, and I see it reflected in his eyes. I block, block, and slip. Before he can bring his short sword raking across my face, the nyxian jacket thrashes to life.

It is not by my command, but it saves me all the same. His blade is turned back by the forming shadow. On my knees, bleeding and coughing, I watch the substance seal me safely away from Roathy and his cannon. He shouts and swings helplessly. Every time he does, white sparks fly. The pulse cannon he created keeps firing, but my shield turns away each shot. Eventually I stagger to my feet, and the shield stretches with me.

“You coward!” Roathy shouts. “Come out and fight me.”

Knowing the nyxia will hold, I slide off my gloves and calmly treat my wounds. The burn on my back is already numb. I’ll need to have it cleaned or it’ll fester. Neither of the cuts is deep, but that doesn’t make them hurt any less. Carefully, I draw two strips from the nyxian shield. A quick manipulation makes them adhesive and I dress them over the wounds. I twist back into my gloves and crack my neck. Roathy waits.

I have to kill him.

But I can’t kill him. If I kill him, Kaya’s taught me nothing.

The thought has me breathing hard. If I can’t kill him, then what? Do I hope that Babel was lying to him? That they wouldn’t vacuum the room and waste their precious resources? My eyes flicker from Roathy to his pulse cannon. I assess the situation, take another deep breath, and set my feet. With a thought, the nyxian shield dissolves.

Before Roathy can start forward, it coils into a giant black bird. It looks like the one Katsu conjured in those first days, but bigger and darker. It flaps up in a chaos of wings, and Roathy’s forced back a few steps. I use the distraction to slide left, angling my back to the pod. The cannon charges, but it doesn’t fire as I put Roathy between me and it. Roathy slides forward, but this time I meet each of his swings. He’s getting angrier and sloppier. I jab twice and he pulls back, changing his angle of attack. Behind him, the pulse cannon’s gone silent. It’s a clever manipulation. Roathy has it set to my body signature, but it can’t track me with him in the way.

I keep up the jabs so that he doesn’t notice my nyxian bird landing on it. The metal claws dig deep, and it strips pieces away. A metal screech pulls Roathy’s attention, and I almost plant a claw right in his heart. He spins and backpedals. I pursue. His face is transformed. The thirst for blood has vanished, replaced by desperation. He lashes out, and I crush his wrist with my right. One sword clatters to the floor. I press him before he can pick it up. Jab, jab, hook. The third shot brings blood gushing from his ribs. Behind him, my bird has the cannon crashing to the floor. Roathy presses a hand to his wound. Blood slips between each finger.

I lower my hands and he takes the bait. His sword stabs high, and I sweep it higher with my claw. A helpless noise escapes his lips as I steal in for an uppercut with my off hand. The little shield shatters his nose and sends him sprawling. Blood splashes out as he lands on his back and slides toward the entrance. The second sword clatters to the ground, and this is the moment.

Blood pulses in my neck as I stand over him. I could end it here. Be done with it forever. The nyxia aches for blood and justice and reckoning. It seems to know who Roathy is and what he’s done. It wants to answer like for like. But Kaya gave me something Babel can’t touch. Pops and Moms raised me to be the better man. Vandemeer praised me for showing mercy.

I will not be the executioner Babel wants me to be.

Roathy’s still down and dazed. I cross the room and collect my things. Before he can crawl back to his feet, I manipulate my bird out of the air. A black square forms in its place. I pinch the corners before throwing them up and out. A thin smoke screen divides the room in two. Roathy and the entrance on one side, me and the pod on the other.

He’s back on his feet now. He holds one hand over the mess of his nose and pounds the other fist against the wall I’ve created. Desperate, he reaches out and tries to take hold of the nyxia from me. But I’ve always been stronger than him in that. My manipulation holds as I concentrate on putting the final touches to it.

When I’m sure it’s ready, I seal it off and stand in front of him, eye to eye.

Anger twists his features. He picks up a sword and slashes at the wall. He swings again and again, until his arms are ready to give out. There are flickers and sparks, but this is one of my best manipulations ever. Eventually Roathy sags to his knees and shouts, “Fight me! You’re a coward! Fight me!”

“Coward?” I ask quietly. “I could have killed you, Roathy. You know that, don’t you?”

“You’re going to kill me!” he shouts. “When you leave, the room will vacuum!”

When I don’t say anything, he takes his sword up again and stabs it forward. The point catches in the wall, but he keeps driving it forward with everything he has left. The wall shakes nervously, but I know it will hold. I made it strong for a reason.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

His arms are trembling with the effort now.

“Roathy, it’s an air lock.” I tap my side of the wall. “In ten seconds, I’m getting into that pod and launching down to Eden. Destroy this, and you have no protection against whatever Babel planned for you. If they were telling the truth, then this saves you. Goodbye, Roathy.”

He lets the sword sag and his eyes meet mine.

“I will come for you. I will find you. I will never forget.”

I look down at the broken boy and nod. “Don’t forget any of it. Don’t forget who put you in this room and why they put you here. Don’t forget that I’m the one who had a chance to kill you and didn’t take it. Don’t forget that I let you live, when they would have let you die.”

“Launch pod will release in one minute.”

The robotic voice echoes. I leave Roathy screaming behind the black. He deserves better than this, but I doubt he’ll be given it when Babel finds him. I cross over to the pod and dig under my shirt for the key. The blue light glows bright as I shove it inside. It clicks open and I give the handle a tug. I leave bloody streaks everywhere.

Inside is clockwork and lights. I stuff my knapsack below my seat and the hatch closes. Launch platforms line the inner rim of the ship. I can see the black of space above and below. Gunmetal gray loops in a thin circle. I lean forward against my straps and see that the other pods have deployed. Empty craters are all that is left. My breath catches. Maybe Roathy was right. Maybe Babel really did intend to kill one of us. No matter what.

I search for Bilal in every single window. I pray and plead to whoever’s listening for him to be alive. But there’s only one other pod that hasn’t launched. It’s three over on the right, and a ghost waits inside it.

Isadora’s face is a ruin. Not from one final fight, but because my pod is the only one left. She must have watched the others launch into space, one by one. This pod was her final hope that Roathy would be coming with her, and I’ve ruined that hope once and for all. I glance back into the room and see Roathy there, a mirror of her pain and loss and sorrow. But at least he’s alive. At least my nyxian wall will save him.

“Launch sequence activated.”

I thrust the key in before looking back at Isadora. The entire pod starts to shake as we lock eyes. She doesn’t know what happened, but there’s an accusation, a promise in her stare.

And then I’m falling. Black spins in the windows and claws at the glass. Flame lashes out, and I’m pulled chest forward through space. I say one more prayer for Bilal, and then the metal screams. I get a glimpse of Eden’s dark-wine oceans before everything blurs to nothing.