

# Azure

## Grant Palmquist

Copyright © 2013 Grant Palmquist

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons, living dead, or undead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

Smashwords Edition

_Do not be afraid; our fate_

_Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift_

Dante, _Inferno_

Title Page

Copyright

Epigraph

Azure

 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

 |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |  |

Epilogue

About the Author

Other Works Available by Grant Palmquist

Thank you

# Azure

When the gunmen stormed the bar in District 18 of the nation of Azure, Asher Cain wanted to believe he was dreaming, but he hadn't dreamt a dream in as long as he could remember, hadn't experienced anything but nightmares, and every single one of them turned out to be real.

He first heard the man shouting, "I ain't living with this shit no more," then the boom of the Meridian shotgun followed and blood slung against the walls and women screamed shrill screams. The man who was shouting had long, stringy hair, a throaty voice, and his piss-like stench traveled through the bar in a nauseating wave. Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes and FUCK YOU was scrawled across the base of his neck in red lipstick. A dwarf walked behind him with a black leather mask covering his face and a Generation 44 pistol in his fist. The pistol was so big it looked strange in the dwarf's hand, as if it might cause him to fall over at any moment.

The dwarf fired the pistol into the ceiling. "None of you bitches even try to leave, or you'll be dead before you hit the ground."

The stringy-haired man strolled from patron to patron, picking and choosing who he wanted to off next, shooting a man in the chest who flew against the wall, spray-painting it red, or blowing someone's head off and moving onward. He stopped along his path and ran his fingers through a blonde's hair and kissed her trembling lips. Tears ran from her eyes, and he seemed to get off on it, smiling and wiggling his tongue against her rouged cheek. He killed the woman with a shot to the temple and stood before her for a moment afterward, seemingly admiring his handiwork. All the while lyric-less techno music played on the sound system like background music to a fever dream, the ringing from the gunshots now the primary layer of noise in the bar.

They laughed as they continued going on about their business, steadily cleansing the bar of clientele. One man's head exploded in a cloud of blood at the hands of the dwarf. Another woman's hand disappeared behind the boom of the shotgun. Behind them a red neon sign read MARTINIS BEER COCKTAILS. The dwarf aimed his pistol at the sign and fired and sparks channeled through the air and the neon glow died.

Some of the men ducked and folded their hands together behind their heads. Some of the women put their hands over their eyes and cried. Somehow, through it all, Asher heard the stringy-haired man's boots clicking on the ground as he made his way closer and closer to him. The blood of strangers now crimsoned the man's face. There must have been twenty to thirty people lying dead in the bar, only moments earlier laughing and drinking. Finally the stringy-haired man made it to him and told him to open his mouth. Asher did so and wrapped his lips around the warm double barrel of the shotgun and looked at himself in the mirrored sunglasses of the man, his heart pumping in his ears. If only he could watch himself turn to pieces, then it would be a perfect end. The man hesitated— _why?_ Asher took his lips from the muzzle and looked up at him.

"What are you waiting for?" he said. "Go on and do it."

He sucked on the muzzle again and closed his eyes, waiting for his head to explode and a vision of white light to engulf him. But the shotgun slipped out of his mouth and when he opened his eyes to the ringing sound of shots, he saw that half the man's head had disappeared before him. His body lingered a moment, as if trying to keep its balance, his fingers twitching around the shotgun, then dropped to the ground with a thud.

The pale-skinned, white-haired man who had offed him brought the barrel of a Generation 18 to his lips and blew away the streams of smoke. Across the bar, the dwarf tried to charge him, firing away, and the man squatted, aimed, and shot him in the center of the leather mask, leaving a gaping hole where his face used to be. The dwarf went stumbling to the ground and again the man brought the barrel to his lips and hushed away the drifting rivers of smoke, then holstered the gun beneath his beige trench coat and stared at Asher.

Asher splayed his hands and widened his eyes. "You gonna kill me now?"

The man turned away from him, swiveling his head about, seemingly checking the bar for survivors—only a few. One of his eyes emitted a bright white light that swam around the room, flashing over each person in turn, revealing him as an android.

"Now," the android said in a sonorous voice, "none of you have seen a thing here tonight. None of you have witnessed a murder or murders. This never happened. If there comes a time when word hits the streets about this event, I will find out who slipped the word, I will come for you, and I _will_ kill you. Let me reiterate that for the hard of hearing: this never happened."

Asher's ears were still ringing a bit, but he heard everything the android said clear as a bell. He placed his hands on the hard wood of the table before him and watched the android with grim fascination. His movements were clean, each one driven by intent. Not like a human man, who hesitated with every motion, who fumbled and stuttered. No, the android's voice was clear and meaningful, his motions rhythmic, seductive. What he said, he meant. And looking around the bar, Asher knew at least one of these people would die by his hands, maybe even himself.

The android walked out of the bar and into the night and the sound of the techno music crawled back into the forefront of existence, though it had been there all along, hiding behind the gunshot blasts and eerie speech.

Asher looked through the window and watched the android merge with the dark, then tried to finish his lukewarm beer, alcohol the sole pleasure the government allowed. His hands shook around the glass. Suds slicked down his throat. The smell of blood filled the air. He studied the remaining patrons. Of the few people left, a couple of women who'd survived cried in their men's arms; another one stared straight ahead in shock, her hands pulling at strands of her hair. A man crossed his arms over his stomach and vomited on the ground.

He finished all but the dregs of his beer and left the bar. Strangers had begun to cluster in the street and on the sidewalk, looking at the bloodstained windows, clearly curious about the carnage.

"What happened?" one of them said to Asher.

"Why don't you go inside and take a look?" he said.

He stopped in the middle of the street and looked up at the sign—SMITHEE'S PUB. Above the sign he made out several drones hovering in the sky. Behind them a tracer wheeled through the air, shining a spotlight into the district below. Always watching, and they couldn't stop a massacre from happening? Soon he'd be watching from one of the drones too, as useless as all the rest, only around to do the government's bidding.

He moved up the sidewalk, jostling past strangers, the warm summer air causing sweat to coat his brow. He shoved his shivering hands into his pants pockets and headed toward home. An armored car sped by in the streets, a slider behind it, its blue lights spinning like tracers through the darkness. More than likely both were manned by androids. The number of androids was steadily growing within each sector, the police force still being the most highly permeated. He'd heard rumors they'd begun to man drones too, which could eventually put his job in jeopardy. Sooner or later they'd probably replace people altogether, then everyone would be out on the streets, committing crimes, murdering each other over bread crumbs.

He could see it so clearly. It made him wonder if the government really cared, or whether they were blowing smoke up everyone's asses, giving speeches just to sound important.

On the way home he witnessed a youngster pleading for his life on his knees before a masked man; a stabbing in an alleyway, lit only by the intermittent gleam of the offending knife; and an old man on the ground with his arms raised to the grey-black sky, begging someone for help. It was the last one that stopped him cold.

He stood and watched the bearded man beg an unknown entity for peace. The old man rolled his fingers into a fist and then spread them out.

"Please help us," he said. "You see us suffering. We got nobody down here that cares, nobody."

The drone hovered closer, its camera probably trying to see through the darkness. A barrel extended from within it and a flash of light blazed against the obsidian backdrop. The old man's arms dropped, and he slumped over and crouched there, dead or close to it.

Asher backed into the shadows and studied the drone, wondering who was watching through its camera. Was it some young punk who'd just gotten the job, abusing the little bit of power he had? If it was, he would find out soon enough that every power leaves you one day except the one within you—that power nobody can steal, try as they might.

When the drone had backed into the clouds, Asher emerged, laughing to himself at hiding from it when only a few moments earlier he'd urged a stranger to kill him. But the strangeness of life was never a stranger to him.

Asher moved toward his apartment with his head down, sliders zooming by him every now and again. Occasionally, sliders flew through the skies, though it seemed like it'd been a long time since he'd seen that happen. Perhaps their functions had regressed or there was some other reason behind it. Either way, he supposed he'd never know. He wished he could drive or fly, but citizens weren't allowed to own armored cars or tracers or sliders, for they were an alleged danger to those around them when in control of a vehicle, land or air, despite the fact it was rumored some of the pols liked to get drunk and go out in the night and run over citizens for fun, a game they called chickenshit, which he had a hard time believing was the truth, but rumors had a way of becoming truths sooner or later.

Asher arrived at his dilapidated apartment building, some twenty stories high, and placed his hand on the sensor.

The speaker box near the glass doors said, "Please state your name."

"Asher Cain."

The line on the voice-recognition box went from red to green, and he pushed open the door and went inside. He took the elevator to the eighteenth floor and walked up the hallway to room 1822 and placed his forefinger on the sensor above the door handle. It lit up green, and he opened the door.

Home, sweet home.

It was one room with a kitchen off to the side and a single bathroom, a tall window at the back of the place. The only furniture he had was a stiff bed. A couple of German cockroaches skittered along the far wall against the moonlight.

He poured himself a glass of water and drank it down in a few long gulps. Then he walked to the window. Even through the darkness he could make out one of the drones watching over his district, number eighteen, one of the twenty-four in Azure. Soon he would be watching through one of them, chained to his workstation. He dreaded the thought of work, of one more day in that shithole. A fly landed on the glass and maneuvered about. Was it an insect drone, watching him, recording him? He tried to swat it, but it flew away just in time. His chest sank thinking of how much he hated Azure and was a part of it at the same time, like two chains inextricably linked together. There had to be some way out... somehow. He'd wanted to commit suicide but could never bring himself to do it, always seeing his wife's green eyes staring at him as he tried to press the blade to his wrists. It was his penance to live here, to carry out this life no matter the cost.

When he couldn't take any more of listening to his thoughts, he went through his nightly ritual. He performed one hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and weightless squats and two hundred calf raises. Afterward, he ran in place for forty-five minutes and did squat thrusts and jumping jacks. If he didn't exercise, he couldn't sleep. And sometimes he couldn't sleep, either way. At thirty-eight, he felt the strain in his muscles and ligaments while working out, but he pushed through it anyway.

Afterward, he lay on the hard bed and closed his eyes. He imagined holding his wife, Chloe, in his arms, kissing the soft skin of her neck, smelling her soapiness, tasting the saltiness of her tongue. His chest felt as though it was caving in on itself, a hurt he revisited often thinking of her and his son David. He looked into her green eyes, and it seemed he could look forever, hold her forever. Tears strained his throat. He wanted to say something to her, anything, but it was as though he couldn't form words any longer, although he knew what he wanted to say. He opened his eyes and looked out the window. Moonlight crept from behind grey clouds and lit a hovering drone. He reached under his bed and pulled out a small wooden box and opened it. From within it he pulled a slightly yellowed letter.

_Dear Asher,_

_You know I love you, but I can't stay in Azure one more day. David is always unhappy, you know that. It has nothing to do with you. It's just that I know you'll never try to leave, and you'd try to talk me out of it. But what is a life when it's lived under tyranny? You might as well be dead. Please don't blame yourself. You were always a good father and husband, and I always loved you and always will, but I have to leave you now. I hope you understand, and I hope you find someone new who will love you and fill any hole in your life I may leave behind. I wish I could say more... but I don't know what to say._

_Yours,_

_Chloe_

A fly landed on his chest. Was a mini-camera inside it watching him? He waited a moment then swatted at it, but it buzzed away and spun around the room. He looked at a German roach crawling along the wall above the bed's headboard. Maybe they were recording him, but if they were, so what? What more could they take from him? Everything he'd ever had was already gone. He was left to his own devices. Yet they still wanted more, wanted to make sure he did everything in his power for the good of Azure, for that was what really mattered, not his humanity, not his heart, not his spirit.

He went to the bathroom and turned on the flickering lights. It was only now that he saw his face and hands were covered in dried blood. He got into the musty shower and scrubbed the blood away a little at a time, the cold water sending goose bumps up his arms and legs. While doing so he thought back to that man on his knees in the street. What did he know that Asher didn't? Who was he talking to, arms raised in the night? When Asher finished washing himself and brushing his teeth, he lay on the bed. Images of his wife and son wove their way into his mind.

He could almost feel their presence beside him.

And that was good enough for now.

For now.

# 2

Asher was up, as always, before the alarm clock went off.

He lay on his side, staring at the glowing numbers—5:37 a.m. He turned off the alarm, rolled onto the floor, and did twenty push-ups to fully wake himself up. Then he went to the kitchen and made coffee and poured some stale cereal. He ate and drank standing up, staring out the window, watching the glow of the sun purple the night sky, smelling the aroma of his cheap coffee before each sip. The drones became clearer with each moment, populating the ashen sky like so many clouds.

When he finished his breakfast, he washed the dishes with cold water and soap and put them back in the pantry. He laid his khaki pants and shirt on the bed and looked down at them. The patch on the chest of the shirt read ASHER CAIN - EMPLOYEE OF AZURE. Just looking at the clothes made him tired, drained him of the little bit of energy he had. He loathed going to work, sometimes wished he could be like most everyone else, living off the government tit or committing crime to get by, anything but the same mundane shit day in and day out. But, he supposed, sooner or later he'd grow tired of that, too. Sooner or later everyone got tired of their routine.

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thoughts plaguing his mind. He took the elevator to the lobby and walked outside into the balmy morning air. A few men and women moved up and down the street, hurrying toward unknown destinations. The sun had risen a little more, and across the street Asher spied a man dressed in black with an open briefcase lying on the ground in front of him. He studied him for a minute, then crossed the street and stood before him. The man had a glass eye and a hook-like scar that ran from his temple to the corner of his lips.

"You about to pack up?"

"Yeah, man, it's almost daybreak." His voice sounded like gravel was lodged in his throat.

"What are you selling?"

"Straight-up dreamnovas."

Asher squinted. "Dreamnovas?"

"Yeah, you heard me."

"What do they do?"

"Make you dream awesome dreams while you sleep. Most people only have nightmares, which... can you blame 'em? But this shit is clean. You'll sleep like a baby and have dreams of your own personal paradise."

"How much?"

"Five gold pieces."

Asher pulled his pouch of money from his pocket and counted. He had twelve gold pieces. "Can anyone detect this stuff?"

"You work for _them_ , right? You should know better than me."

"All right." Asher handed the man five gold pieces, and the man gave him a small blue tab. "That's it?"

"That's it." He squatted, secured the hasps on the leather briefcase, and rose.

"All right." Asher put it in his money pouch and looked the man over once more. "Let me ask—"

"I gotta go. You need some more, come find me."

"What's your name?"

"Mason."

"You got a last name?"

"Yeah, but you don't need to know it."

Asher watched him disappear around a corner. When he looked about, he noticed a young brown-haired girl watching him. He waved to her. She waved back.

On the way to the light rail, the sun crept over Azure. Tracers flew by overhead, watching the citizens below. Cops rode through the streets on sliders, the blue lights on the wheels like lasers in the fading dark. They tried to make eye contact with citizens as they drove around, looking for signs of crime or disloyalty, but any fool knew to keep his head down, to keep his mouth shut, and the criminals seemed to know just when to pack up and disappear.

Asher reached the light rail and got on. He sat toward the back and folded his arms over his chest. A few other people were scattered about within. The rail smelled of urine mixed with potpourri. On the speakers the news played, the same type of news that played every morning: "It's another wonderful day in Azure. The skies are perfect, the weather is warm, and it's a great day to work for your government and fellow citizens. Your government is always looking out for you. Look to the skies..." Asher looked out the window. Drones populated the sky along with a few tracers spinning through the air. "... look to the streets..." He looked down and saw a couple more cops on sliders and an armored car trundling up a rubble-strewn street. "... look to your heart and know we are always here for you, protecting you, watching over you. Murders have continued to decline in Azure thanks to our ever-helpful drones and police force. Just last night, one of our police officers stopped a massacre from occurring when he spotted a man entering a bar with a shotgun in his hands. Our officer laid waste to this vermin, this man who threatened our people. Always be true to the government of Azure, or we will hunt you down. Remember these simple rules each day as you go about your important work: number one, if you see any suspicious activity, alert your government or the police; number two, any traitors to the government will be executed immediately without trial; number three, if you see any suspicious activity and do not report it, you will be executed immediately; number four, if you in any way disrespect your government, you will be executed immediately; number five, if you try to leave Azure, a nation which has been so loyal to you and given you so much, you will be executed before a crowd of your peers to show them how disloyalty is punished; number six, if you in any way disrespect a member of Congress, you will be executed immediately; number seven, if you question your government in any way, you will be brought before Congress for treason, and the punishment upon guilt is execution; number eight, respect and love your fellow citizens, but watch them carefully; number nine, never carry a weapon or you will be executed, period; number ten, do not try to procure a phone, for if you are caught using one, you will be executed; number eleven, do not read books, watch films, listen to music with lyrics, or in any way attempt to escape from your life, for your life is perfect, and the punishment for these crimes is most severe; number twelve, do not procreate without government approval, for only one child is allowed per household."

Asher looked around at the surveillance cameras. He wanted to shake his head, for whoever was talking through the speakers had flat-out lied. He'd caught them lying before, but never in this big of a whopper. It reminded him of all the times Chloe had come home and told him they were being treated like animals, with barely enough to eat, barely enough to live on. She said they were nothing more than cogs in a giant wheel and bad-mouthed the president and Congress. Someone had gotten to her and told her that their lives were a sham, a lie that kept moving day after day only to preserve the status quo. They were living on borrowed time was what she used to say before she disappeared. The government had been created to suppress the people and they were voluntarily playing along. There's a better life somewhere else, she'd tell him time and again, but he never listened, only told her that if they tried to leave, they'd be killed. When he found the pamphlet titled _A People's Right to Freedom_ she had gotten from someone in the street, he tore it to shreds and burned it in the trash can.

"It's too late," she said, "I already read it."

"Oh yeah? What are you gonna do, Chloe? You gonna leave me? You gonna take my son, too?"

"I just might."

After that, they rarely talked, just ate their meager dinners and sometimes made love in the darkness, where they couldn't see each other's faces. Always he checked on his son before bed, who was only nine years old when they left him, patted his head, and wished him a good night's sleep. But that was over. It was all over.

All he had left now was his job.

The light rail stopped, and he got off and walked into the street, passing by other citizens. Nobody said hi; nobody smiled. He reached his workplace, a grey forty-story building with only the address above the glass doors—955 Levity Street.

# 3

Asher went to the ninth floor and walked up the hallway.

An antiseptic smell permeated the air. On either side of the hall, men sat in cockpits inside their doorless offices, watching light-projected screens, their hands clenched around black sticks that guided their drones through the districts, searching for crime and disloyalty. An occasional click was the only sound Asher heard besides his footsteps.

He wondered whether the boy controlling the drone that killed the old man last night had left yet. Probably, if he worked the night shift. Those who worked the night came in just as the sun was setting and left as soon as it came up. It had to be a boy, drunk and in love with his new job, perhaps still in love with the nation, thinking he was doing everyone a favor by ridding the streets of such a man. Typically the old and worn sleepwalked through the night shift. It was hard to see anything, and there was a great chance you could make a mistake and kill an innocent out to drown his worries in one way or another, something that would haunt a man with a conscience, but then not every man could be counted on to know the difference between right and wrong.

Before ducking into his doorless office, Asher looked at the sign hanging at the end of hall, written in big block letters: _TO YOUR NATION BE TRUE._ YOU HOLD THE KEYS TO PROTECTING YOUR NATION. ANY ABUSE OF THIS POWER IS SUBJECT TO THE PENALTY OF EXECUTION. ALL TAPES WILL BE REVIEWED IN A TIMELY MANNER, AND IF YOU ARE FOUND LACKING IN YOUR ETHICS, IN YOUR OVERSIGHT, YOU WILL BE TRIED AND, IF FOUND GUILTY, EXECUTED. That was their answer to everything—execution. He wondered how many people the government executed in a year. It had to be thousands, all to stoke fear in the hearts of the citizens according to Chloe. But what if it were really for the good of the nation, the people? After what he'd seen last night it was possible. Crazies existed, waiting for their chance to tilt the world out of balance, to dim the lights of the living, if only for a moment.

He went into his office and sat in the cockpit and turned on his equipment. Handcuffs encircled his wrists and locked him into place. The length of the lightweight chains connected to the cuffs was long enough to let him move about freely within his workspace, but not long enough to reach the hallway. They adjusted as he moved, rolling out from within two separate chambers, giving him more or less length depending on his need. The light-projected screen popped up before him. He took hold of the black stick and began to guide his drone through the streets, watching the people move up and down, all dressed alike. An armored car rolled up one street with a cop holding a Meridian shotgun propped outside the window. He took aim at a passing man and—

Asher closed his eyes and steered the drone away. He knew what had happened, but he didn't know why, didn't want to see it. It made him sick to his stomach thinking about it. Images from the previous night flashed through his mind: the voice of the stringy-haired man yelling, "I ain't living with this shit no more"; heads and hands exploding; blood splattering the walls and floor; the android's promise to kill anyone who mentioned anything. Was there a way he could find out if he had, or was it merely an empty threat? He knew the light that had flashed around the room had collected the identity of every living person there, but how would the android ever know whether something was said? Was someone watching him even now?

He dusted the thoughts from his mind. He needed to focus now. He wanted to do what was right, even though the more he saw each day, the more he knew Chloe was right to leave, and the more he knew he should have listened to her, should have packed his shit and left with them. But wasn't it always too late when people realized what they should have done, what they could have done?

His heart sank in his chest as he maneuvered the drone throughout Azure. Would he one day see his wife and son on the streets, wandering about with a new husband and father, or had they died on their way out of Azure? Could they have made it out alive? Every day he wondered at those questions, a burning desire to see them filling the hole in his chest.

He came upon a young man and woman standing beneath a dying oak tree in Park #2. The man held her thin fingers to his lips and kissed them. Asher zoomed in the audio to hear what he was saying.

"I love you, and we're going to be together no matter what they say."

"They'll kill us."

"It doesn't matter, does it?"

It was only then that Asher noticed the young man had a shriveled hand, the fingers merely stubs. He ran their identities through the computer. They had already asked the government to procreate and were denied due to the congenital defects of the young man, whose name was Samuel Powers. If the government had its way, he would never have a child due to his imperfections. The couple didn't seem to care a drone was hovering above them; that or they didn't notice. A strange feeling passed through Asher—that of wanting to help the couple in some way. But there was no way he could do it. He was just a man in a world too big to fight against, a world that had let him down time and again.

The girl, Ashley Manning, folded her arms around Samuel and rested her head on his chest.

"I don't want to lose you," she said.

He stroked her hair with his good hand. "You're not going to lose me. I'll die before I let that happen."

She cried.

Asher maneuvered away from them. They deserved to share a peaceful moment. Everyone deserved that once in a while, even though the government had tried to convince the citizens no peaceful moment truly existed outside of the pseudo-tranquility they granted. Oh, they stated everything was perfect while people were blown to pieces day and night, while they monitored their citizens endlessly, threatening them with execution for any false move. The government used fear to keep people in line; it was the main weapon they had. And what if he were to find someone who sold guns and bought one? Would they ever really find out? Would they even try to find out? Or was all of this bullshit one giant nexus of engendering fear?

At lunchtime the manacles unlocked and he went to the break room and sat next to Paul, one of his coworkers. Paul constantly adjusted his rimless glasses and passed his hand through his thin grey-black hair as he ate his reheated black beans and white rice. Asher ate reheated pinto beans and brown rice.

"Anyone new been working the night shift?" Asher said.

Paul twisted his lips and squinted. "Not that I know of. Why?"

"Just wondering. Things seemed a little strange this morning."

"Strange how?"

Asher looked through the side of his eye at the surveillance camera in the corner of the room. Was someone listening?

"I don't know, a little off. I could sense it, I guess."

"Same as it's ever been"—Paul leaned closer and whispered—"in this shithole."

They both laughed.

"Guess you've got a point," Asher said.

"I don't expect it to get much better, ever."

"As well you shouldn't."

Asher was only looking to glean information about who may have killed the old man. Who was controlling that drone? But he supposed he'd never find out. It'd be another mystery covered up by the government to make itself look good. Who was the real danger—the government or its citizens?

"What do you do at home, for fun and such?" Asher said.

"'Fun'?"

"Yeah, you know..."

He shrugged. "I _don't_ know. We eat dinner together and talk about my son's schooling, but I wouldn't call any of it fun."

Schooling was nothing more than training children for a particular government vocation, indoctrinating them to the rules of Azure—the commandments one had to follow to keep from being executed.

"And what does your son say?" Asher said. "How's school these days?"

"Same as it ever was."

"And he likes it or hates it?"

"Come on," Paul said. "When have you ever known a kid to like school?"

"You've got a point."

"He does it 'cause he has to, like anything else. Same as us working our lives away here."

"Only we get paid for it."

"Just barely," he said under his breath.

Once his twenty-minute lunch break was up, Asher went back to his office and sat in the cockpit, chained once again, and trolled through the districts. He barely paid attention to anything on the screen, for his mind seesawed back and forth between the massacre of last night and the murdered old man and the dreamnova in his pouch of money. He wanted to pop the dreamnova now and close his eyes.

Sometimes he grew so tired he wanted to sleep forever.

Before his shift ended, he came upon a spindly man walking down an alley with an antique snub-nosed pistol in his hand. He hovered before the man and spoke through the drone, which distorted his voice.

"Drop the gun," he said.

The man smiled and held the gun up. "I'm on my way home. I just happened find this along the way. I'm not gonna do anything with it."

He continued onward, as if the drone weren't even there.

Asher took a deep breath and pressed the button to extend the barrel from within the drone. "I have the right to shoot you for carrying a weapon. Now drop it, or I'll do it."

The man slowed to a crawl, held the gun up, curled his fist around the grip, fired at the drone, and missed, then broke into a sprint. Asher ground his teeth and locked his sights on the man and fired. He went down immediately, a crimson circle appearing on his back. Asher radioed the hospital and told them where the body was, though he knew the man was dead. Somehow, when he had to perform such an act, he was able to disconnect himself from it. He was hiding behind a machine, after all, and the machine took away some of the personal nature of the job. Still, it affected his sleep, haunted him from time to time, found its way back to him in nightmares that were nothing but endless loops of the film of his life playing again and again. But if he didn't perform the duty, someone else would.

Would he one day be the man running from drones and the police? Would he ever have a reason to run?

As he drifted away from the body of the man, he couldn't help but admire him. There was something in rebellion that touched him, made him feel alive. He wished he had something worth dying for. As it was, he merely drifted through life, apparently awake but not really, just another government automaton carrying out orders.

Toward the end of his shift, his boss, Stewart Ballard, stopped by his office. He carried a schoolmaster's cane made from rattan which he tapped on the ground as he moved. From a hook on his belt hung a small black whip. His thin grey hair was slicked back and bags hung beneath his dark eyes. He made his presence known by standing to the side of Asher and smiling without showing his teeth. He was always watching through the cameras, as everyone knew, but sometimes he stopped by to administer corporeal punishment or heap praises on his workers.

"May I have a moment?"

"Sure." Asher put his drone on auto-pilot and faced Stewart.

"I wanted to tell you good job shooting down the man with the gun." He tapped the cane against his palm. "Some men would have hesitated, but you did not."

"Thank you, sir."

"But what about that couple you came upon? You reported nothing, said nothing."

"They posed no threat to the nation, sir."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes, sir."

He whipped the cane around and brought it to the base of Asher's neck, let it slide upward to his Adam's apple, then lifted his chin with the tip of it. "Absolutely positive?"

"I am, sir."

"I hope so, because if it were one day found out that they posed a threat to our government, and I have a tape of you passing them over without judgment, the punishment would be most severe."

"I understand, sir, and I left them knowing that full well."

He let the cane slide down Asher's neck and over to his clavicle and swung it back as if to hit him. Asher squeezed his eyes shut, but when he opened them again Stewart was resting both palms atop the cane.

"Don't be afraid," he said. "There's no reason to fear anything unless you've done something wrong."

"I apologize, sir, it's just—"

"Just what?"

"Instinct."

Stewart reached forward and patted his cheek. "Instinct is for dogs and other animals. Are you an animal?"

"No, sir."

"Then look fear in the eye. Never turn away from it."

Asher nodded.

Stewart tapped his cane on the floor a few times, gave Asher a one-cornered smile, and left without saying good-bye.

When it was time to leave, he logged his hours and the handcuffs snapped open. He took the elevator downstairs. A few men who worked the night shift nodded as they passed him on their way inside the building. He wondered whether any of them could have been the one who pulled the trigger on the helpless old man who pleaded to the sky last night.

He hit the streets and made his way toward the light rail. The sun was beginning to lower on the horizon, yearning for twilight. When he got on the rail, the last thing he wanted to hear was the news, but, as always, he listened to it without choice, everything without choice.

"It's another wonderful evening in Azure. The skies are perfect, the weather is warm, and it's a great time to work for your government and fellow citizens. Your government is always looking out for you. Look to the skies..."

# 4

Upon arriving at home, he took off his work clothes to get comfortable and reheated more pinto beans and brown rice and poured a glass of cool water.

He noticed a few weevils in his rice and picked them out, crushed them with the tips of his fingers, and threw them in the trash can. His dinner smelled of cardboard. He'd had it so many times he was lucky it had a scent at all anymore. Still, he ate without hesitation. The water had a filmy substance to it, which sometimes happened, and he held it up to the light to study it. _Well, if they poison everyone, they won't have anything but androids left,_ he thought and drank it down. _Of course, that's probably want they want._

He laughed to himself.

To let his stomach settle he lay on the ground with his hands folded together upon his abdomen and breathed deeply in and out, pumping himself up for his nightly workout. He listened to the classical music playing in his head. He'd heard the piece a few times and wished he knew the name of it so he could find it somewhere. It felt like his heart was soaring sometimes when he heard that song, like electricity was trickling through his brain. But at the same time, it made him aware of an empty space inside him, a space that couldn't be filled with anything simple like work or power or gold, a space that invaded him time and time again, demanding to be filled, only he didn't know how to fill it, how to make himself whole. He remembered times when he felt complete sitting with his family in this same apartment, but even then the feeling sometimes escaped him, left him torn to pieces inside, for he knew he hadn't been the husband or father he should have been, but who was in this dismal world?

The song dissipated in his head, for he couldn't remember the end of it. He wondered what music with lyrics was like, whether it took away the personal nature of songs. He liked the fact that a musical piece could mean anything to him, that he could attach any meaning he wanted to it, and he imagined with lyrics that wouldn't be possible, because the words would tell him everything. Of course, he could be wrong, but there was no way to find out. All music with lyrics was destroyed long ago in the great fire, and the digital files had been co-opted by the government. What they used them for, or whether they used them at all, he didn't know. He'd heard stories of lyrics causing murders and mass shootings, however. It was written in the history books that some of the last lyricists and singers had been put to death long ago as a final measure.

He rose and warmed up by running in place, then did his nightly workout: one hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and weightless squats and two hundred calf raises, followed by running in place for forty-five minutes and squat thrusts and jumping jacks. After he finished he sat on the ground and took out his money pouch. He opened it and took out the dreamnova, which was small enough to rest on the tip of his forefinger. For the first time he noticed a D etched into the bright blueness. Should he take it now? What if Mason was working for the government and these pills somehow tracked potential drug users? But that wouldn't make sense, because he would have busted him right when he bought it. He would have—

_Stop overanalyzing and just take the damn thing._ That one thought overrode the others, and he popped the tab in his mouth and got up and poured some water and drank it. All he had to do now was lie on the bed and wait for the dreams to come.

And they'd come.

They had to come.

He lay on his back on the stiff bed and looked out the window. A hazy night, thin with rain. He closed his eyes, opened them. A drone hovered outside his window, nearly touching the glass. He widened his eyes and lifted his head and it was gone. An illusion or something more? Was he dreaming already? A tingling sensation worked its way from his toes to his head and it felt as if bugs were crawling about on his scalp and he tried to itch his head but then his skin was burning all over and his eyes were on fire and if he just closed them he could see her and feel her and tell her everything and—

***

He stood in the midst of verdant grass that rolled on and on amid hills and valleys for what looked like miles and miles, growing brighter and brighter.

Evergreen trees lined one side of the horizon, their branches growing longer and then regressing. A floral muskiness pervaded the air, and a cool breeze brushed past him. It felt as if he were sinking, but when he looked at his feet they were firmly planted on the ground. Multicolored lights whirled through the sky, a chromatic confluence that formed a river in the firmament. He heard a waterfall and bells chiming but saw no water on either side of him, nor behind him. Maybe it was over the hill before him. He took one step forward, then another. It felt as if he were a baby learning to walk again at first, but he gained composure and soon moved at a normal pace.

As he moved forward, he swore he heard Chloe's voice whispering his name. It tickled his ears and sent waves of pleasure through his brain. He broke into a run and crested the hill and found only grass on the other side, but still he heard her voice and the waterfall and the chiming of bells and knew if he kept looking he would find her.

"Chloe," he said.

His voice rolled out in waves of sound that he could see, their colors changing before they merged with the river of light in the sky. He heard his son David laughing, a laugh of happiness that he'd rarely witnessed in life. It lifted his heart to hear it, despite the fact he couldn't see the mirth on David's face.

He looked to the evergreens. Was that where their voices were coming from? He ran toward them, and his feet lifted off the ground and he floated upward, losing control of himself, grasping at cerulean strands of air, turning around and around, spinning toward some unknown destination, and after a moment he gave up fighting and lifted his arms over his head and it seemed the world turned into nothing but streaky colors all around him, frozen in a moment.

He dropped to the ground on his side and then picked himself up. Utter silence. Streaks of blackness shot out from the center of the dome above him, dripping downward in every direction like falling stars. Figures stood off in the distance, one tall and one short. He ran toward them, but the more he tried to reach them, the farther away they stood.

He stopped and closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, he stood in the middle of a long, rolling field of wheat with a single oak tree in the midst of it. He walked through the field toward the tree, spreading his arms and letting his hands brush against the top of the wheat, the smell of wood permeating the air. Upon reaching the tree he squatted in its shadow and looked at a single Papaver rhoeas flower that had blossomed beneath it and touched its vivid red petals. He heard the waterfall and chiming bells again and looked up from the flower.

Chloe walked through the field toward him, David holding her hand. She was smiling, her teeth white but for a single grey canine. David tilted his head downward and to the side, the shy boy he had always been.

Asher rose, his throat straining, and moved toward them.

A bevy of crows rose into the air behind her, squawking and flapping their wings against the backdrop of the orange sun.

Asher reached her and threw his arms around her, trying to form words but unable, just sinking into an embrace, then kneeling and holding his son, something he had done rarely on earth, but how could he have known what would happen? He rose and hugged her again and kissed her neck and smelled her soapy skin and ruffled his son's hair with his free hand. For the first time in what felt like forever, his heart filled to the brim. His vision went black for a moment, and when it returned they were nothing but skeletons and he was surrounded by darkness and the crows were screeching, their noises like morbid laughter. A full moon shone in the sky and a sound like an engine roared in his skull.

He tried to shut his eyes again and release the darkness, but every time he opened them it was still there and—

***

A cloudburst exploded outside, and through the window he saw nothing but pure darkness and heard an occasional blast of thunder.

He reached to the side of the bed and turned the alarm clock toward him, but it had gone out. He sat up and waited for his sight to adjust to the blackness, wanting to go back into the dream but unable, for already he'd grown restless. He needed to know whether David and Chloe were truly dead. But was he fooling himself? Could he find that out through dreams?

He had no other way. He had to find Mason again.

When his vision adjusted to the dark, he saw someone standing across the room. The man's white hair seemed to glow. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, then raised a forefinger and waved it through the air.

Asher squinted. He knew this man's face.

Before he could make out who it was, the man sprinted across the room and jumped onto the edge of the bed, squatting there, a Generation 18 pistol in his fist. His eyes were a brilliant blue, bluer than the eyes of any man. He brought the muzzle to the center Asher's forehead, and Asher remembered him—the android from the massacre at the bar.

"You wanted to die once," he said, his voice scratchy and whispery, unlike the sonorous voice from the other night. "Is that still true?"

"No, I'm sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"For seeking out death."

"Why would you seek out death when death is always seeking you?"

"I don't know," Asher said.

"Have you spoken of what happened at Smithee's Pub?"

"No."

"Good... If you do, I'll return and take your life without hesitation."

The man vanished before him.

Asher turned and looked at the clock. The glowing numbers read 2:17 a.m. Outside the moon now shone brightly through the night. He went to the window and looked at the glass—dry and dirty. It hadn't rained at all.

Had the android been in his room or not?

He retraced the steps he'd seen the android take, checked the edge of the bed for his footprints, but there was nothing there. He sniffed the air, trying to smell traces of him. Nothing. Was it part of the dream? But he still hadn't woken up from this one.

He pulled a sharp knife from the kitchen drawer and pressed the blade against his forearm, reveling in the pain, pushed a little harder, just enough to draw blood. Once the blood dribbled forth, he put the knife back in the drawer. Of the fact he was awake he now had little doubt. If he really wanted to die, all he had to do was walk outside, knife in hand, and threaten someone or attract the attention of a drone. Then he would die like the man he had pulled the trigger on during the day. Then he could be a footnote in the history books of the nation, someone used to make itself look better, like everything else. But somehow, between the time he'd witnessed the massacre and now, the urge to die had faded from him, replaced by a hollowness that crept through his bones and emptied his heart. He knew his suicidal tendencies would return; they seemed to come and go like the different seasons.

What could he do?

He was tired of being alone, tired of working every day at a job he hated. He didn't want to kill anyone; that was the last thing he wanted to do, yet he'd done it again and again through the eyes of a drone for a government whom he now suspected of lying endlessly. Was every sacrifice he'd committed for the government a murder in the end? When Chloe had come to him with her ideas it was easy to ignore her, but now he'd seen and heard it for himself. Could he ignore his own mind and heart?

He set his work clothes on the bed and looked them over. The time was edging toward 3:00 a.m. He went to the window once more to double-check whether it was raining or not. A clear night. He slid on his clothes and touched the patch that held his name. What did a name mean in a nation where the whole point was to blend together, to work as a whole? There was no such thing as an individual, for they were all working toward a common goal—the subsistence of each other. But if that were true, why did the politicians live so lavishly instead of joining the rest of them? Why did the police terrorize the streets as if every citizen was a prime suspect for crimes not yet committed? The police and government officials acted with impunity, while the slightest misstep by a normal citizen resulted in execution. Had they sent the android to visit him, or had he come of his own volition? Had he come at all, for that matter, or was it part of the dream?

He shook the thoughts from his mind and went into the hallway, took the elevator downstairs, and headed outside. The air was warm and dry. He shoved his hands in his pants pockets and walked up the street. A gunshot rang out a couple blocks away, followed by screams then, finally, silence. He could only guess at what brought about the silence—an android cop, the shooter disappearing into the night, an acceptance of death.

He turned right and walked up an alley then took a left and moved closer to the direction he thought the noise had come from. From where he stood he saw flames rising in the night sky, spirals of smoke above it. Screams returned to the darkness, and a man engulfed in flames scrambled up the street.

The burning man shambled past him and fell to his knees a little farther down the street, then slumped forward, a pyre in the darkness, the smell of his burning flesh leaving a trail behind him.

Asher waited a moment, then rose from the shadows and went in the direction the man had come from and came upon a burning storefront. A few dead bodies lay in the street, men and women, their faces lit by the glow of the dancing flames. A ways down the street, a drone steered away through the sky. Blood rushed to Asher's head and pumped in his temples. Who was guiding that drone? Was it the same person as the previous night, the one who'd killed the old man? Was Stewart letting him kill innocents without any kind of punishment?

He walked closer to the bodies, the overwhelming heat of the flames causing him to break out in a sweat, and made sure none of them were still alive. One of the women was breathing, and he lifted her into his arms. Half her face had been burned away. She looked at him and said something.

"What?" he said.

"Kill me, please kill me."

"I can't."

"It hurts so badly."

She was so heavy it was already causing his arms to ache. He knelt down and laid her upon the ground. "Where do you live?"

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does."

"I don't have anyone anymore."

"There's always something—"

"He's dead"—she pointed to one of the bodies strewn in the street—"and he was my only reason for living."

"Tell me what happened."

"It just shot us up."

"What shot you up?"

"The drone."

"Why?"

"I... I don't know."

"There had to be a reason, right?"

"Fuck you," she said. "We didn't do anything."

She looked into the sky above him, and her eyelids fluttered. "Hey, baby, I know you did... I know..."

Asher looked to the canopy of blackness above, a few stars in the midst of it.

"... I'm cold... just hold me..."

He knew she was talking to someone else, someone he couldn't see, but he lifted her up and held her anyway to give her some form of peace in her last moments.

"... I love you..."

He wanted to say the words back, but what if it broke her state and she died in his arms without the comfort of her imaginary lover?

He stayed quiet and rocked her till she stopped breathing, then laid her down upon the pavement and trudged away from the scene, trying not to look back, trying to convince himself it had to have been some sort of accident, that nobody operating a drone would blow away a bunch of innocents for no reason.

***

He found Mason outside Empyrean Beer & Wine Garden on Bethany Street, about three blocks from his apartment, the fiery scene still winding through his skull, and they went inside the place. The bar name came off funny for a hole-in-the-wall pub.

By the time he'd located him it was almost five in the morning, and a couple hours from then the sun would be up, and he'd be on his way to work. The bar was sparsely populated, with only a handful of people still around.

Mason told him to sit across from him in the booth. He didn't look up while he filed his fingernails. When he finished, he set the file on the table and looked at his nails beneath the lamplight, blew away the dust, and licked his top row of teeth.

"I took the dreamnova," Asher said.

"And?"

"I dreamed something."

"No shit." Mason curled one corner of his lips in a half-smile. "What'd you dream?"

"That I could hear my wife and son... that they were still alive somewhere."

"So what, you found me 'cause you want some more, right?"

"I want another one, yes, but let me—"

"I don't wanna answer no questions about that shit."

"I only have one."

"All right." Mason leaned back and spread his arms along the back of the booth. "Shoot."

"Is it possible the dreams could be real, that the dreamnova could be showing me something?"

"As real as any other dream," Mason said.

"They turned into skeletons at the end, though, my wife and kid."

"I look like some kind of psychoanalyst to you?"

"I thought you might know something—"

He leaned forward and poked his forefinger against the dark wood. "Yeah, I know something, I know you're reading too much into the ramblings of your own bullshit mind. I can't tell you what your dreams mean, all right?"

"But you can tell me something."

"Yeah, I can tell you somethin'. Buy yourself another dreamnova and get the fuck up outta here."

"I do want one... I do, but I need you to tell me what you've seen when you took—"

"What I seen?" He leaned forward, ran his forefinger and thumb beneath his lips. "I seen all kinds of shit, but I ain't got no family, never wanted one. Do my dreams mean something?" He shrugged. "Maybe they do... or maybe they don't. I don't really care. All I am is a dealer to you. I'm not your friend, not your buddy who wants to listen to your dreams. I'm the man who provides your shit to you, the shit that makes this life bearable, you feel me?"

"Yeah," Asher said. "Yeah, I feel you."

He took out his money pouch and held the five gold pieces in his hand. "Should we do it right here?"

"Good a place as any."

"What if someone sees us?"

"Nobody in here gives a shit," Mason said. "If a cop was in here, somebody already would have thrown up some kind of sign."

Asher slid the gold pieces across the table toward him, and Mason handed him another dreamnova.

"I got other things if you ever need 'em."

Asher slid the dreamnova into his money pouch. "Like what?"

"Whatever type of shit you need. Just let me know and I can get it."

"I don't know much about drugs."

Mason winked. "Sure you don't."

"I don't, I'm just..."

Mason inclined his chin toward someone at the entrance of the bar. "I got business to attend to." He shooed Asher out of the booth. "Time for you to go. Pleasant dreams."

Asher got up and passed by the bulky man at the door, trying not to make eye contact, and entered the last gasps of night. He heard a gunshot in the distance, and the images and smells of the blazing storefront and dead bodies again twined through his mind. It was something he wished he could forget, wished he'd never happened upon, but now it was there, lodged in his mind along with every other dreadful memory.

A cop spun by on a slider, its blue lights twirling against the grey dawn. People moved up and down the sidewalks on either side of the street. Through the corner of his eye Asher watched one man stomping his feet and talking to himself, clutching something in his pocket.

_Just don't pay any attention,_ he thought. _You've seen enough in the past couple of days to last a lifetime._

Maybe things were getting worse. Maybe he'd seen the cusp of some new development, only he didn't know what it was. He tried to shake the images from his mind, but they trailed back on him, sliding into the forefront of his thoughts: the massacre at Smithee's Pub; the old man blown away on his knees; the burning stranger; the lady in his arms begging for death, dead bodies strewn around her, her lover included.

_You've seen worse,_ he said to himself, but he was always able to distance himself from the pain before. Now it felt as if he were right in the middle of it, and the more he tried to forget what he'd seen, the more he remembered. Little details of each atrocity emerged in his imagination: the particular way a man's head had been blown apart in the bar; the piercing sound of a woman's scream just before her life was taken from her; the rancid smell of the burning man's flesh; the look in the lady's eyes who had died in his arms; the way the old man's voice cracked when he pleaded to the sky, as if he knew what he was asking for would never be answered. Whether they were true details or his mind was adding to the horror he couldn't be sure, but the pictures and sounds became brighter, more vivid, making him want to cry.

He got onto the light rail and lowered his head. All he wanted was to go home and drop the dreamnova and revisit his wife and son in his dreams. He felt as if he were floating outside himself, his spine nothing but jelly. The familiar smell of piss and potpourri permeated the rail's interior. He looked out the window and the news came on the sound system.

"It's another wonderful day in Azure. The skies are perfect, the weather is warm, and it's a great day to work for your government and fellow citizens. Your government is always looking out for you. Look to the skies..."

***

Asher drank two cups of coffee before he got into the cockpit.

The manacles circled his wrists, and he eyed the light-projected screen before him.

_All you have to do is make it through the day,_ he thought. _That's it, just make it through the day. Nothing bad's gonna happen. It's gonna be a quiet day, and once it's over you can go home and lie in bed and dream as many dreams as you like._

He guided the drone through the streets. Tracers glided past him in the skies. Sliders and armored cars wound up and down the streets. While he was sitting there, he wondered who had guided the drone that shot up the storefront last night. If it was the same person who had shot the old man, how come Stewart hadn't pulled him off the drone and punished him with whip and cane then sent him out into the streets jobless? Or was Stewart happy with it for some reason?

At lunchtime he again sat with Paul, only this time there was a young man with blond hair and fair skin sitting next to him, probably around twenty-five. Paul once again had black beans and white rice, and the youngster had the same. Meanwhile, Asher ate his reheated pinto beans and brown rice.

He introduced himself to the young man, whose name was Joe Bowman.

"I haven't seen you around," Asher said to him.

"Doesn't surprise me," Joe said. "I haven't been around long."

Paul turned toward the boy. "You started, what, a couple weeks back?"

"Yeah."

Recalling the conversation he'd had with Paul during yesterday's lunch, Asher asked, "So when did you guys meet?"

"Just yesterday evening on the way out from work... Stewart introduced us."

Asher raised an eyebrow. "He did, huh?"

"Yeah," Joe said. "He'd mentioned you before too, I think."

Asher glanced at the surveillance camera. "Oh yeah? What'd he say?"

"Can't remember." Joe talked through a mouthful of food. "I think in passing, you know, like naming who worked in what office."

He leaned closer to Joe, sizing him up. "You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

Paul interjected. "Asher, don't—"

"I'm just trying to make sure he's above board."

"I'm with you guys." Joe swallowed his food. "I'm here to help rid the nation of criminals."

"Good luck with that."

Paul motioned toward the camera. It swiveled about and focused on Asher.

"Have anything else you wanna add?" Paul said.

"I'm only pointing out the obvious. You know—"

"Stop," Paul said. "Just shut up before you get us all in trouble."

Asher set his hands on the table and leaned forward, whispering. "I've seen things, Paul, you don't understand."

Paul shook his head. "I don't care to."

"Seen what?" Joe said.

Asher looked at him and laughed. He wished he could go back and erase what he'd just said. On a little more sleep he'd never have said it in the first place, but now it was too late, and it was obvious someone had picked it up behind the camera. He was only waiting to be called in, and then—

"Asher Cain, please report to your manager."

Paul glanced at him with sorrowful eyes, then lowered his gaze to his food. The boy looked from Paul to Asher and back again.

"What's gonna happen?" he said.

"You don't wanna know, kid," Paul said.

Asher picked up his dishes and went to the sink and washed them off, sending some of the pinto beans and brown rice down the disposal. He turned on the disposal and listened to its whirring, his stomach tying in tight knots at the sound. He knew what was coming. He shouldn't have said a word, should have sat there with his mouth shut, playing nice. But at least now he knew the boy was innocent, could sense it. So who was the culprit?

On his way to Stewart's office the floor tilted out from under him. He had to stop from time to time and steady himself against the cold wall. The air was cold too, something he'd grown so used to he'd almost forgotten it. Gooseflesh crawled over his skin and needled his skull. He took deep breaths. What if he took the stairs to the first floor and ran out the front door? Then he was done. They'd come and find him.

There was no escape.

Maybe trying to make it out of the nation was worth dying for.

_Chloe, I'm sorry,_ he thought. _I should've come with you. I should've—_

"Asher Cain, please report to your manager."

Why couldn't he just disappear, fade away, or at least have the courage to kill himself? It was only in that one moment, when he was watching other people die at Smithee's Pub, that he'd gathered the electric courage to wrap his lips around a warm barrel and ask for death. He pushed himself away from the wall and staggered up the hallway toward Stewart's office, passing some of his coworkers along the way. Matthew Lane, Patrick Wade, Mike Ross, Daniel Watkins. They all looked straight ahead as they passed him, not acknowledging his presence. They knew where he was going.

Everyone knew. They'd broadcasted it.

Now he'd be an outcast here too, as if out in the world wasn't enough.

***

"Close the door behind you," Stewart said.

Asher did so. His chest tightened. His breaths came in short bursts now.

The many screens behind the red oak desk in the center of the room kept surveillance on everyone and everything in the building. If Stewart didn't catch something, one of his assistants in some other office typically did. Off to the side of the large room stood a metal pillory. Directly in front of it was a screen on which bright lights swirled about kaleidoscopically. Whoever got locked into the pillory had to stare into those spinning lights as pain enveloped their body.

"Have a seat." Stewart motioned to the empty wooden chair on the opposite side of his desk.

Asher sat.

Stewart strode around the desk, tapping his cane on the floor, and unhooked the small whip from his belt. He sat on the edge of the desk, crossed his legs, leaned the cane against his knee, and slapped the whip into his palm.

Asher focused on the ground.

"Look at me," Stewart said. "I heard what you said in there. You know better than that."

Asher splayed his palms. "I didn't really say anything. It was just—"

"Shh." Stewart raised his hand, palm outward. He grabbed a remote control off the desk and pressed a few buttons. All the screens behind him turned off but one.

On the single lit screen Asher watched himself talk to Joe.

"I'm with you guys," Joe said. "I'm here to help rid the nation of criminals."

"Good luck with that."

Stewart paused the tape. "You wanna tell me what you meant by that?"

Asher folded his hands in his lap. He knew exactly what he meant, but how could he translate it into something more palatable? "I don't know," he said. "It was an off-the-cuff remark. I didn't—"

He frowned. "We don't make off-the-cuff remarks around here."

"I'm sorry."

"What about this one?" He hit play again.

"I've seen things, Paul, you don't understand," Asher said on the screen.

Stewart shook his head. "Now why don't you tell me what you've seen."

"I don't know what I was talking about—"

"Yes you do."

"I don't, I—"

"Yes you do, Asher. The only person who knows what you were talking about is you. So why don't you tell me?"

He thought of the things he'd seen the last couple of nights, the images that haunted his mind, but he couldn't bring them forth and lay them on the table, for he knew how Stewart would react. Without pity, understanding, or grace, but like that of a stern schoolteacher who'd caught a student misbehaving and knew not to spare the rod.

Stewart pyramided his fingers. "I'm waiting."

"I don't know what to tell you."

"Then you know what to do, don't you?"

"Please, I—"

"Tell me what you meant by those words, Asher. It's so simple, but you keep equivocating."

A tightness strained his throat. "I don't know what I meant, okay? I didn't sleep well last night"—he threw up his hands in frustration—"and my mind's been foggy and I don't know what else to tell you."

"You know what to do, then, don't you?"

His chin trembled. "Please."

"You know what to do, so do it."

He rose from the chair and crossed the room to the pillory and laid his hands and head atop it. The metal felt like cold razors against his skin. Stewart closed the top, and Asher was locked in place. All he could see were the multi-chromatic colors swimming in circles before him. He ground his teeth and squinted, waiting for the pain to hit.

The first slash of the whip caused his eyes to water. The second caused tears to run down his cheeks. On the third he screamed in pain.

The colors on the screen whirled about before him in dizzying waves. His lunch lurched into his mouth, but he swallowed it back down and gasped for air, the bilious taste of the vomit burning his throat. The whippings continued and soon his lunch spilled onto the floor and its acrid stench overtook the room.

"Dammit, Asher," Stewart said, and whipped him again.

The strangeness came about when the pain disappeared and euphoria engulfed him. It was as if he wasn't in a room anymore but was in space among the stars and stardust floated through the air before him and all the planets were within reach and beyond the blackness he heard someone calling his name but he couldn't make out the voice and tried to move through the infinite dark toward it but then—

# 5

He awoke in the cockpit inside his office, his body throbbing with pain. How did he get here?

Everything in the room had been turned off except the light-projected screen in front of him that read YOUR POSITION HAS BEEN TERMINATED. Beneath it there was some fine print he had to squint to read. _You will receive your last paycheck in the mail in two weeks. When you leave today, you are never to return. The punishment for disregarding this message will be execution._

He couldn't believe what he was reading. He burst out in laughter, laughing so hard his eyes watered. Sharp pain snaked across his back in electric waves, and he remembered where he'd been only moments earlier: in his boss's office, at the receiving end of the whip. He pulled at his shirt tail and felt that it was stuck to the weeping skin on his back. He pressed his lips together; he'd deal with taking his shirt off later.

If only he had any version of a Generation pistol, he'd walk—well, probably stagger—to Stewart's office and blow his head off if he was still there, then end his own life and let the government sort out the mess. The government. Those fuckers. Look at what they'd done to him. Caused his wife to take his only son and leave him, probably dying in the process. Left him with a shitty job that required total allegiance to them, despite the fact he'd seen enough to convince himself they were as crooked as anyone else. But he kept trying to convince himself otherwise, kept trying to believe in something bigger than himself.

Now there was nothing left.

He was truly alone.

And he knew this world wouldn't take him and coddle him, knew he'd soon be out on the streets with the murderers and thugs he'd once helped to watch.

_It's time to go home,_ he thought. _It's time to leave this shithole forever._

He pushed himself out of the cockpit and almost fell right back into it once the pain electrified his being, but he endured, kept pushing, and fell onto the cold floor upon his knees. The movement reminded him of the old man in the street, and for a moment he thought of raising his hands and begging some invisible creature to help him, to hold him in a warm, imaginary embrace.

He laughed. He couldn't do anything else.

Once he'd composed himself, he pushed himself up and staggered up the hallway, the aching in his back spreading to his legs and neck. All he wanted was to lie down. A couple coworkers passed him in the hallway and raised their eyebrows before looking away. Everyone knew what had happened, of course. They had to know he was leaving, too, but they probably didn't know what to say or had nothing to say. He was a pariah to them now, which was fine. He would find a way to survive on his own, without the help of anyone else.

He made it to the elevator and pushed the down button. The bell rang and the doors slid open and he stepped inside. Two men stood behind him, one tall and one short. He sensed them judging him, sensed them studying his blood-soaked shirt. He wanted to turn and say, _What the fuck are you looking at? You wanna judge me, huh?_ But he said not a word, instead conserving his energy, trying to focus on anything but the sharp bursts of pain lighting up his back.

The bell rang on the first floor and the doors slid open. He shambled through the lobby toward the street. When he stepped outside, despite the fact the air was warm, cold needles pricked his skin and a chill wound around his skull.

He crossed his arms and made his way toward the light rail, feeling the eyes of every stranger he passed on the street burning through him. A couple times he stopped to steady himself against cement columns, and after the second time he noticed a blond-haired man following him from a short distance. He tried to quicken his pace, but it was useless; the blond man could catch him with ease if he wanted to.

Asher reached the light rail and got on. It was pretty packed, so he sat toward the back beside a fat man with thinning hair and hunched over with his arms covering his stomach and tuned out the quotidian message playing on the speakers and studied the oncoming passengers. The blond man, who he swore was following him, got on and took the one available seat toward the front, next to a frail old lady.

Asher gripped the seat in front of him and watched the man's blond head, sweat dripping from his brow and covering his clammy hands.

"You okay, buddy?" the fat man next to him asked.

"I think I'm gonna make it." Asher forced a smile.

"All right, if you say so."

His throat began to hurt and he kept swallowing, hoping the ache would go away, but it didn't.

The rail's stops came and went and passengers loaded on and exited, but the blond man was still there.

_Just get off,_ Asher thought. _Leave me alone. All I wanna do is go home and sleep._

When it came time for Asher's stop, he rose as the rail was slowing, watching to see if the blond man rose too. He didn't, and when the rail stopped and Asher got off, he forced himself not to look back till he heard the rail moving again. It wheeled past like lightning and he glanced over each shoulder in turn and there was the blond man, following him again. He tried to walk faster, but the faster he walked, the more pain singed his back.

A slider spun past in the street, an armored car following close behind it. They turned a corner and disappeared. People strode up the sidewalks on either side of the street like zombies. The sun was lowering and grey clouds shifted in the air, revealing the white moon and then hiding it again.

Asher stopped mid-stride. He could see his building from where he stood, but he wasn't going to go there yet. Instead he went to a hot dog stand a couple streets down and used the last of his money to buy himself some food and a beer.

"That's three gold pieces," the stand's owner, Don, said, his license to operate hanging from a lanyard around his neck.

"I only got two."

"You can get me next time."

"I'm good for it," Asher said.

He stood beneath the stand's awning, eating his hot dog and sipping his cold beer, waiting for the blond man to emerge from the crowd, but he never did.

"You waiting on someone?" Don said.

"Nah, just don't feel like going home." He didn't look at Don when he talked, keeping focused on the pedestrians instead.

"Old lady giving you trouble?"

"There is no old lady anymore."

He heard Don gasp, catching himself in a faux pas.

"That's right, man. I'm sorry."

"No apology needed. She left me, remember?"

"It happens to the—"

"I'd rather not talk about it."

Asher turned his back to the stand and looked in the other direction. The blond wasn't that way, either.

"Holy shit, man," Don said. "What happened to your back?"

Asher faced him. "I got fired today." He said it so calmly he surprised himself. The sharp pains in his back had turned into a steady throbbing that caused his head to ache. "My boss beat the shit out of me before letting me know."

"That's messed up... I'm sorry."

"So am I."

"What're you gonna do?"

"I don't know." Asher faced Don. "Does it matter, really? I don't have anything or anyone, so I can lose everything and it won't mean a thing, right?"

Don shrugged. "I mean, that's one way of looking at it... but don't you wanna find a new job?"

Asher laughed. "There's nothing for me, unless you wanna hire me to work at your hot dog stand."

"It's a one-man operation—"

"I'm joking."

"I can try to help you."

"You don't have to bullshit me," Asher said. "Nobody's gonna help me."

"I mean, I can try."

"I know what that means."

"I'm sorry this happened to you."

"Not half as sorry as I am."

Asher threw his hot dog wrapper and plastic cup in the trash can next to the stand and stumbled toward home.

"Hey, I'll see you later," Don said behind him.

Asher raised a hand in good-bye without looking back. That was something he should have learned a long time ago: never look back. He was always looking back. At his family, his regrets, his mistakes. It was like carrying a constant weight on his shoulders. On his way home he jostled through a throng, came to the front door of his building, and placed his hand on the sensor.

The speaker box near the glass doors said, "Please state your name."

"Asher Cain."

The line on the voice-recognition box went from red to green, and he pushed open the door and went inside. Before heading to the elevator, he turned and looked out the glass doors into the twilight. The blond man stood across the street with his hands in his pants pockets, staring directly at the glass doors Asher had entered.

_Who the fuck are you?_ Asher thought.

A few people passed before the blond man on the sidewalk, and he disappeared.

Asher took a deep breath and headed for the elevator, took it upstairs to the eighteenth floor, staring in the mirrored glass before him on the way up. He looked like shit. He turned sideways and checked the bloodstains on the back of his shirt. They were almost black now.

He came to the eighteenth floor and got off, headed for his room, and placed his forefinger on the sensor above the door handle. It lit up green, and he opened the door, closed it behind him.

The faint light in the room lit everything a sickly purple. An odor like that of fading smoke hung in the air, which made him wonder: had someone been here?

A fly buzzed away from the front door toward the window. Was it the same one from the other night? He couldn't shake the feeling that it was recording him. Maybe they had one in everyone's room these days, seeing what the citizens were doing, reporting back to the government and police. There was no way to know for sure except to kill and inspect it. It landed on the window across the room, a black speck amid the gloominess. He decided to ignore it and went about his business.

The first business he had was to take off his shirt. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth and lifted it from the hem, feeling it peel off against the scabs. He winced and gasped at the pain and new currents of blood ran down his back and he kept pulling, trying to make it end as quickly as possible, but it felt like forever, like it would never come off, but it finally did. He held the bloody shirt in his hands for a moment, then rolled it into a ball and threw it to the floor. The fiery pain had returned to his back, and he tried to think of anything to distract himself from it, yet his focus shattered every time.

What he could do was work out. That might take his mind off the pain, at least momentarily. He stretched out a bit before starting, then went about his routine, working up a sweat, looking out the window from time to time. Drones appeared and disappeared. Tracers whirred through the skies, shining spotlights below. In the distance, spirals of smoke rose toward the black canopy above. Off and on he heard a scream or gunshot. Sweat trickled down his brow, and he breathed harder, working out quickly, moving from exercise to exercise, but the pain remained, crackling up and down his back with each movement, watering his eyes.

When he finished, he crossed his legs beneath him and took out the dreamnova and held it in his palm. He felt like he was floating about the room, light as a feather. All around him the floor was spotted with blood. The fly landed in the midst of it and hopped from one spot to another. The urge to swat it revisited him, but he didn't have the energy left. Instead he popped the dreamnova in his mouth and stumbled toward the bed and flopped down, his arms spread to either side, staring at the circling ceiling, feeling the wet blood coat the sheets beneath him. The fly landed on his chest. Its eyes seemed huge, like he could see his own reflection within them. Its buzzing grew louder and louder, like a waterfall within his ears. He tried to lift his hand to swat it, but suddenly his hand was a great weight and—

***

The grass was sickly and brown and crunched beneath his feet. Fog hung in the air, making it hard to see anything else.

He took each step forward cautiously, unsure what the next one might hold, when he began to sink into the earth. He trudged onward, his steps creating a sucking sound, the ground beneath him suddenly muddy and wet, its musty smell twining into his nostrils. His wife's voice rattled through the air, her words faint and unintelligible, a hiss sounding behind them.

He groped at the fog as though he might be able to part it with his hands, but it was no use. It grew ever thicker, making it impossible to see even the ground any longer.

"Chloe?" he said.

His voice echoed through the air, redounding upon him.

He fell to his knees and the watery morass soaked his thighs. Dew coated him like a thin layer of skin. Invisible bugs skittered over his arms and chest.

How did he get here? Where was this place, anyway?

_Keep moving_ , he told himself. _She's out there somewhere._

He picked himself up and staggered onward, the ground hardening beneath his feet, the fog lifting, revealing a line of mountains on the horizon lit by a bright star. Above the peaks was the ghostly face of someone whom he couldn't quite make out; squinting didn't help, for it was the faintest of outlines. The mountains rearranged themselves as he moved toward them, some of them growing larger and others smaller.

At the base of the mountains was the entrance to a cave. He looked to either side of him. Nothing but empty landscapes. What if this cave led all the way to the other side and Chloe and David were waiting for him there? Maybe that was where they'd been all this lonesome time. Maybe that was where he'd find his salvation.

He made his way toward it, brushing the tiny insects from his arms and shaking them from beneath his shirt. They were tiny and white, like nothing he'd ever seen. They writhed about on the ground and disappeared within the hard soil.

When he reached the entrance of the cave, a warm draft of air blew past him, as if the opening was a mouth breathing upon him. He stood there for a moment, weighing his options. He could go the other way, but, really, what was back there? Nothing. His gut told him to go inside, to explore the unknown. It was the only way left for him. He'd gone the other way countless times and look where it had left him.

His hamstrings stiffened as he took his first steps into the darkness. His throat tightened until he could barely swallow. A frost spread from his toes to the base of his skull. He moved inward, toward the belly of the cave. Ghostly faces floated about in the darkness, people he remembered from somewhere but couldn't recall exactly where. Their visages merged together, forming only one likeness—his own. It floated there before him like a bright white lightbulb. He angled his head to the side, trying to determine whether what he was seeing was real or merely his imagination running wild. He looked over each shoulder in turn, thinking of leaving this place, but the opening to the cave had closed behind him. His heart sank in his chest. He faced himself again. A pinpoint of light swam through the dark behind his likeness, seemingly miles and miles away, lighting the shifting interior of the cave.

"Can you make it to the other side?" his likeness asked.

Asher shook his head. "I don't know."

"Either you can or you can't."

"I don't even know where I am."

"Yes you do. You know exactly where you are."

"Why don't you tell me, then?"

"What's the use of me telling you something you already know?" his likeness said.

"Because I _don't_ know."

"You lie to yourself, you play games with yourself."

"I'm not playing any games. I only want—"

"What you want is irrelevant. Haven't you found that the world never gives you what you want?"

"Is that my fault?"

"Is it?"

Asher lowered his head. "Maybe... I don't know."

"When you look at yourself, what do you see?"

"A man who..."

"Who what?" his likeness said.

"... who just wants to be happy."

"Yet you know happiness is illusory, temporal, living only in your mind."

"So what do I do?"

"You follow your heart."

"To where?" Asher said.

"Wherever it leads."

"I don't know what I want anymore."

"Remember what I said."

The darkness erased his likeness and Asher was once again alone, and he remembered the words: _What you want is irrelevant._ But was it? Was what anyone wanted irrelevant?

The ground beneath him grew soft and his feet sank into it. He plodded onward, trying to feel the walls on either side of him to steady himself, but he couldn't reach them. Ahead, the pinpoint of light was fading. Each step grew heavier, to where he could barely move anymore. He stopped and wiped the stinging sweat from his brow and heard something moving toward him from one side and then the other.

He squinted, and the light shone brighter for a moment, helping him see. The walls were closing in on him and from within them mud-slicked arms reached out, groping for him. He lumbered forward, swinging his arms through the air, lifting his legs as high as he could, breathing hard. The dot of light faded more and more, silhouettes moving about behind it. His knee hit a large rock and he tumbled to the ground and warm blood spilled from the wound and the walls continued toward him, the fetid hands grabbing him. He dug his fingers into the dirt and pulled himself forward, but the darkness eclipsed the light and he was alone, moving toward nothing at all.

He covered his face with his hands and tried to cry to release the emotions welling up within his chest, but it was no use. He couldn't do it. He felt the slick skin of his stomach tear open and the grimy hands dig into him, heard sibilant voices whispering something from the roof of the cave. He listened carefully, trying to parse the words, but they broke apart, fragments of phrases he couldn't piece together. The walls began to crush him then stopped and reverted, pulling away, and the hands slid out from within his stomach.

Above him a small white light shone, slowly growing in breadth. Within it, shiny figures spread their wings wide and circled through a sky devoid of clouds and—

***

He awakened with a start.

A white light filled the room and disappeared just as quickly.

Sweat dripped from his forehead and chest and soaked his pillow and bed. A couple of German roaches crawled over his chest. He brushed them away and sat up, a burning sensation rippling across his back. Blood stippled the bed where he had lain.

Something floated past the window. A drone?

He staggered to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water and guzzled it. Its coolness trickled through him. The dreamnova had sucked all the hydration from his body—or perhaps it was merely the nightmarish quality of the dream, which had caused him to gush pools of sweat. He had some more water and then set the glass on the counter. These were supposed to be beautiful dreams, dreams that took him into a paradise lush with beauty and tranquility, but this one had been a full-fledged nightmare, and the last one had ended in the same manner, though it had had a beginning worth revisiting. And maybe that was what he clung to now, the idea that he could see Chloe and David once more if he kept taking the drug, if he kept dreaming vivid dreams. Even if they weren't alive anywhere else, they would always live in his heart, his mind.

But he hadn't even seen them in the latest dream, had only thought he'd heard Chloe, and perhaps that was only a delusion, a false hope thrown to him by his own mind. Maybe his last image of her would always be her skeleton staring at him through empty eye sockets. Perhaps he'd touched her for the last time, even in dreams. It was something he had to consider, whether he liked it or not, that trying to fill his life with a ghost was as empty as being a ghost himself.

He checked the clock—2:17 a.m. He had nowhere to go in the morning anymore. So what would he do with his time?

He went to the bathroom and turned on the flickering lights and checked out his back. The scabs from the lashing crisscrossed it. They had mostly dried, except for several spots where dots of blood wetted them. Just looking at the scabs caused him to revisit the cracking sound of the whip on his back, the kaleidoscopic blur of colors before his eyes. He grew dizzy thinking of it, imagining Stewart smiling while he partook in the torturous movement of whipping him again and again as though conducting a strange symphony.

Pain. It was something he knew intimately, whether inner or outer. He had lived it in every way, had almost made it a way of life. But what was the use any longer? What was he struggling for? The job he'd lost over saying something true? Truth was the most dangerous thing, he knew. It was what most everyone ran from, what everyone avoided, including himself. It was easier to think the government was taking care of you, despite all the evidence to the contrary. What they really wanted was total control of every aspect of life. There was no point in denying it to himself any longer, for he wasn't their slave anymore and no longer had any vested interest in them. That he'd denied it to himself for so long was an accomplishment in itself, ignoring signs that danced before his eyes, brushing off everything Chloe said, rationalizing the lies he caught them in time after time.

He turned off the bathroom lights and walked to the window. Drones hung in the sky like so many stars. Soon it would be morning, and he had nowhere to go. What would he do with his day? He lowered his eyes. The first thing was to get every bit of money he could out of his account. Who knew if Stewart and his cohorts would ever send him his last paycheck? It wasn't something he could count on. Something he _could_ count on, if he didn't get to the bank fast enough, was money disappearing from his account due to saying un-Azure-like things. Certainly the government would have no problem ruining him, turning him into a husk who walked the streets, wishing he were dead. And if people asked, he would have to tell them how it all went down, how it had all started by saying something bad about the nation, about the government, about how the whole society worked. He would serve as a living example to never cross those in power.

But he couldn't let them win.

He put on a plain white T-shirt and stared at the bloody work shirt that still lay on the ground in a crumpled lump. It was a reminder that yesterday his old life had died. Today he was someone new, a man who could rearrange himself, become whoever he wanted to be.

He looked for something to carry money in for when he cashed out his account. His money pouch was too small, made for carrying twenty to twenty-five gold pieces at the most. He looked all over the room and finally settled on a white pillowcase covering one of the pillows on his bed. He took it off the pillow and made sure there weren't any holes in it, then folded it into a small square and tucked it into his back pocket, drank one more glass of water, and left the apartment.

# 6

He walked up the sidewalk toward his bank, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, the warm air washing over him, a metallic odor on its back.

Sliders wound up and down the streets, their blue lights carving through the darkness. A tracer whirred past overhead. Pedestrians filled the streets and sidewalks, going who knows where. They always seemed to be wandering in the night, searching for something. He imagined most of them were jobless, just like he was now, replaced by androids or fired for insubordination.

Despite the omnipresence of cops, he witnessed one crime after another: a stealth robbery of a balding man's money pouch; a young man pulling a svelte woman into a back alley, his hand covering her mouth, a small knife in his fist; a group of boys kicking the shit out of an old man. His stomach twisted in knots at the sights and sounds. He wished his life were normal, that he was going to work this morning, that he could still believe the government's lies. It was easier that way. But there was no road back to that anymore. Why couldn't he have kept his mouth shut? Why couldn't he have played along with Joe?

He came to Wiley Street and looked at the glowing red-and-white sign that read ALLOY BANK, slipped his hands into his pants pockets, and gazed at a sky filled with drones. Was the rogue drone out there somewhere, searching the streets for a new thrill-kill? Was someone pulling the strings behind it, perhaps even Stewart himself?

Anything was possible.

He crossed the street toward the bank and came to the automated teller machine, which was situated beneath a red awning. He leaned into the facial-recognition system, rested his chin on the cool plastic cup, and sensed the green lines passing over his face, forming a pattern.

"Asher Cain," the machine said, "please place your finger on the sensor."

He did so and a green light blinked beneath the contour of his forefinger, then the options appeared on the screen. He chose to check his balance. When the available balance came up as twenty gold pieces, he squinted to make sure he was reading right. Of course it was right. They'd already cleaned him out. Twenty pieces of gold was the minimum needed to maintain an account. Why would they do this to him?

_They take everything I have and then they take some more,_ he thought. _Crooked bastards._

The lashes on his back began to ache. His head pounded. He withdrew the remainder of his account and put it in his money pouch. Standing there sliding the gold into his pouch, he thought back to the night the white-haired android had saved his life when the patrons inside Smithee's Pub were getting massacred. Why not let him die then? Why wait and ruin him later? Of course, that night was when he'd started to notice their lies more and more. Before that, it was much easier to believe the lies they sold, but when you'd seen a massacre like that and then listened to the government gloss over it with their own version of the story, it was hard to buy into anything else they said. His version of life was bound to crumble around his feet sooner or later.

He slid his money pouch into his pocket and lumbered up the sidewalk, the gold jangling in his pocket, trying to figure out how he was going to survive. He needed to do push-ups or sit-ups to get his mind clear, to figure things out. Twenty pieces of gold wouldn't even pay his rent for the next month. If he was extremely careful and only lived on the food he had at his place, it might last a couple of weeks, till the end of August. Afterward, he'd be out of food and a place to live.

_What do I do?_ he asked himself. _What do I do?_

He clenched his fists so tightly his knuckles ached. He barely even noticed the people moving past him. It seemed they were ethereal, floating by like forlorn ghosts, so many of them without jobs or homes. Who was he to complain? He'd lived a relatively good life till his wife and son had left him. After that, he'd pieced together each day, lived for the next meal, the next workout, the next day at work. But what did he have to live for now? If there was ever a time to off himself this was it, but strangely he now desired to live, to find a way amid the darkness.

He came to a street that was mostly deserted but for a couple of men who'd planted themselves on the sidewalk and lain down with their backs to each other, their faces shrouded in shadow. Footsteps echoed behind him. He slowed his pace and looked at the light glancing off the buildings across the street and saw the giant silhouettes of three men closing in on him from behind, their outlines growing smaller as they neared him.

"Hey, buddy, how's it goin'?" one of them said in a reedy voice.

"Yeah, man, you doin' okay?" another one said.

"Will you motherfuckers shut up?" the third said.

Asher's heart hammered in his head. He knew exactly what was happening. They'd probably followed him here from the automated teller machine, waiting till he went somewhere where the foot traffic had thinned out, and now here he was, the perfect prey. Their footsteps sped up, and he was in such a contemplative mood that he slowed for the sole reason of wanting them to catch up. A fire spread from his belly to his face and throbbed in his temples.

When they were almost upon him, he turned and faced them. One of them swung his wiry arms as he moved, every once in a while stroking his thin goatee. Another hulked toward him, thick veins pulsing on his bulging arms, the light glinting on his bald head. The third one waddled like a penguin, his belly falling over his belt, a small foldout knife in his thick hand. They smelled of refuse, and Asher held his nose and breathed through his mouth till he spoke.

"Can I help you, fellas?" he asked them.

"Yeah," the fat one said. "That's a nice shirt, lemme have it."

"This one?" Asher pinched the shirt between his thumbs and forefingers. "You can have it if you want."

"And that shit you got in your pocket sounds pretty," the wiry one said, laughing incessantly as he spoke. "Can I take a look at it?"

"You can have whatever you want," Asher said. "I don't want any trouble."

He kept waiting for the brawny man to say something, but he never did.

"And those boots," the wiry guy said, "we're gonna need those, too."

"No problem," Asher said. "Anything you guys want."

They stood directly in front of him now, their stench even stronger. The brawny one stood over him with his lips pursed together, rolling his fists into huge balls. Asher knew this game: he gave them everything he had and they beat the shit out of him anyway, maybe even killed him.

"You give me a little space, and I'll give you everything I've got."

"He's nice, ain't he?" the fat one said.

"Sure is," the wiry one said. "Eric, back off him a bit. He's gonna be a nice boy."

The muscular man, apparently named Eric, took a couple steps back.

Asher knelt and untied his shoelaces and took off his boots, electricity running from his toes to his brain and tingling through his spine on the way up. When he was barefoot, he rose and took a few steps toward the fat one, offering the boots.

"Here you go," he said.

When the fat man reached out to take them, Asher pushed the boots toward him and let go and then rushed forward and took hold of his other wrist with both hands, at the end of which was the fist that held the knife, and twisted the skin in opposite directions, creating a scorching sensation that caused him to squeal in pain. His grip around the knife loosened and Asher grabbed it. When he looked up, the other two were rushing at him. He sank the blade into the fat man's neck and pulled it sideways, ripping open his throat and cutting through his jugular veins, then kicked him toward them, still holding the knife, warm blood running over his hand. The fat man fell to his knees, gripping his throat, trying to say something yet spewing nothing but garbled words and gasps.

Asher stood there in shock, looking down at his handiwork, the first man he'd ever killed up close and personal. All of a sudden his feet left the ground and a fire engulfed his head and the muscular man was holding him up by the hair and bashing his face in. A starburst pattern erupted before his eyes and blood dribbled down his face from newly formed slits and a blurry version of brawn circled about in front of him. He jabbed the knife forward over and over, sinking it into the man's chiseled chest again and again, creating a sucking sound, and tried to avoid his trunk-like arms swinging about as he yelped in pain. He dropped Asher to the ground and the wiry one removed a Generation 14 pistol from beneath his shirt and aimed at him and fired, the shot ringing out in the night. Asher thought he'd been shot, but he felt no pain and rushed the shooter and tackled him and stabbed him repeatedly in the neck, eyes, and arms, blood spattering his face and forearms and shirt, the pistol clattering to the ground. Just as Asher reached out and grabbed the pistol grip, the brawny man got him into a headlock from behind and lifted him up, creating friction against his back and causing the scabs to ignite with fiery pain. Asher brought the pistol over his shoulder and felt the muzzle press against something and pulled the trigger and felt a shower of warm blood wash over him and fell to the ground atop the brawny man with a thud. His ears rang to where he could hear almost nothing else.

He lay there a moment, looking into the sky, laid the gun on the ground, and then picked himself up. The two men who'd been lying on the sidewalk had vanished. One of the drones lingering above began to move toward him, probably drawn by the sound of the gunshots, and he put on his boots and stumbled up the street away from it, his face and back aching, his ears throbbing. Behind him he sensed the drone's spotlight light up and discover the scene of the crime as he fled from it.

It would search for him, he knew. They all would. And considering he was covered in blood, he wouldn't be hard to find.

He tucked his hands into his sweaty armpits and lowered his head and moved up a crowded street, jostling by people, hoping nobody noticed him, that no cops would roll past. But it was as though the thought made them appear, for a slider sped up the road just as the thought entered his mind, a cop upon it. Its searchlight passed over the crowd, and Asher moved behind a few people, hoping it wouldn't spot him, his chest winding into a compressed ball. The slider kept going.

He let out a sigh of relief.

Then he heard a muffled commotion behind him. It was clear people were yelling, but it sounded as though they were whispering. He looked back. The slider had stopped in the middle of the road and the cop had gotten off it. He removed his helmet and his eye lit up like a white star—an android. It shone over the crowd, checking identities, taking snapshots of each person, searching for any trace of blood upon someone.

Frost traveled up Asher's back to his brain. _Keep moving,_ he thought. _Just keep moving. Don't look back._

He turned a corner and found a less populated street. He only needed to make it to his place before daylight, then he could wash up and dispose of these clothes. Nobody would care about the scabs on his face, about his suffering. He kept moving, one foot in front of the other, shambling beneath drones and past more sliders, the streets like tunnels into different worlds. A couple tracers whirred through the sky, seemingly unconcerned with anything below. Nobody on the streets paid him any attention as far as he could tell, and he'd already escaped the android cop, so he was safe... at least for now.

Finally he made it to his building and placed his hand on the sensor.

The speaker box near the glass doors muffled its usual request.

"Asher Cain," he said.

The line on the voice-recognition box went from red to green. He shouldered open the door and skipped the elevator to avoid running into anyone who might inform on him. He opened the stairwell door and stepped inside. On the way up the stairs he kept his chin against his chest in case anyone showed up. But nobody did. Sweat dripped down his cheeks and brow and clammed his hands. He gripped the railing and pulled himself upward, leaving traces of dried blood behind, listening to the echo of his feet on the stairs.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, he reached the eighteenth floor. He strode up the hallway, eager to fall into his stiff bed and sleep for hours and hours, but when he made it to his door he noticed a pasty white substance on the finger sensor. He squinted, rolling it over in his mind, then pressed his ear against the door and tried to hear behind the incessant ringing in his ears.

Who was in there?

He looked at the space beneath the bottom of the door. A light flashed back and forth. His heart raced in his chest and his body grew heavy. Where could he go? He had no friends, no family, no job. He staggered away from the door, almost falling over, and found his way back to the stairwell entrance. Just as he slipped inside he saw the door to his place opening. He held the stairwell door handle and closed it slowly behind him, wincing as he did so, biting his bottom lip, sweat dripping into his eyes and stinging. It closed, he hoped, without a sound, but he couldn't be sure.

He raced down the steps, sure someone was behind him the whole way, and emerged into the warm summer morning. The sky had turned purple. He only had so long now. He looked up and down the street, trying to think of somewhere to go. Now the people who looked at him on the streets did double takes. It would only take one tracer or drone or slider or informant to notice him, and he was finished.

There was only one person whom he could talk to—Mason. Who else was there in his life, really? A drug dealer whom he'd recently met. He felt pathetic. He supposed he could go to Paul or Joe, but he knew they'd turn him in. They had to, for it was the nature of their job. He would do the same thing if he still worked there. But that life was over.

He had to be reborn somehow if he was to live at all.

Now, how could he find Mason? The only chance he had was to go to Empyrean Beer & Wine Garden on Bethany Street. That was where he'd found him before. If he went anywhere else, it'd be full-blown daylight by the time he found anyone, and he would be discovered for the murderer he was. It didn't matter that it was self-defense. How could he prove it? How could he prove the gang of three had had the weapons and he hadn't? Someone was clearly already searching for him, anyway. But why? What had he done that they knew about? He racked his brain trying to come up with an answer, but there was nothing.

The eyes of strangers singed him on the way to Empyrean, but he forced himself to look straight ahead. A couple times sliders sped past, but they went so fast they didn't take notice of him. Then a tracer wheeled by overhead, and he ducked into an alley till it passed. Down the alley a ways, a woman with crimped hair was hitting a metal pipe, her eyes like shattered glass. She looked at him and smiled, revealing crooked grey teeth, a few of them chipped.

When he was certain the tracer had passed him by, he emerged again, jogging a bit then running full speed, trying to beat the daylight, which seemed to be working against him, the sun rising as fast as it could. He made it to Empyrean but the neon sign read CLOSED.

He dropped to his knees, his hands wrapped around the cold doorknob, tears working their way into his throat. "No... please."

A figure appeared behind the glass and opened the door. A fat, balding man stood before him. His lips moved, but Asher couldn't hear what he was saying.

"Please help me..."

The fat man said something, but it registered as nothing but a murmur.

"I'm looking for Mason."

The fat man looked over his shoulder and spoke to someone.

Mason appeared at the door, leaned out, and looked both ways, then grabbed Asher's shirt and pulled him inside.

He stayed on his knees in the cool air of the bar, his hands folded together.

Mason's lips moved, but Asher couldn't hear what he was saying.

"I can't hear you," he said. "Everything hurts."

Mason pulled a couple pills from a small pouch he kept in his pocket and mouthed _Open up_.

Asher did so, and Mason dropped the pills on his tongue.

A few minutes after he swallowed them, the ringing dissipated and the pain in his back and face eased.

"You look like shit," Mason said.

"I can hear you now."

"I know."

# 7

Mason, smelling of cloves, spread his arms along the back of the booth, glared at Asher, and shook his head. Nobody else was in the bar but him, the fat man, and a woman with dreadlocks who sat in the dark at the back of the bar.

"It's not what it looks—"

"Comin' up in here all covered in blood. You remember what I told you last time you was in here?"

Asher leaned back, sighed, and tried to run his fingers through his hair, but it was matted with dried blood. "I didn't have anywhere else to go."

He placed his palms against his chest. "That's my problem?"

"That's not what I mean."

"Damn sure sounds like it."

"What I'm trying to say is I don't have anyone."

"Again, that's my problem why?"

"I... I don't know."

"That's right, you don't know. You _really_ look like shit."

Asher almost said thanks before realizing it wasn't a compliment. "So what am I supposed to do?"

Mason threw up his hands. "Why you asking me? I look like some person who sells advice? You ain't even given me no money."

"I go back out there and I'm dead."

"So maybe you should start telling me how you can help me."

"I can do whatever you want. I can sell dreamnovas if you need me to."

"Nah, everything's under control. Don't need no more dealers."

Asher glanced across the place. The fat man was standing behind the bar, cleaning a glass with a white towel, clearly listening while pretending not to.

"Look"—Asher leaned forward—"I've got twenty pieces of gold. You just find me somewhere to hide, and it's all yours."

Mason squinted his glass eye. "What if I ain't got nowhere for you to hide?"

"Then I'm dead."

"You best start with telling me what you done."

Asher told him the details: how he'd borne witness to a massacre; how he'd seen drones attacking seemingly innocent people over the past few days; how he'd been fired from his job after a severe whipping; how the dreamnova had given him a terrifying nightmare rather than a tranquil dream; how he'd woken in the night and gone to clean out his bank account only to discover it had already been cleaned out; how he was followed by three men who attempted to rob him, and whom he then killed; how his apartment was being searched by someone when he went back to it. He slowed down, ending with, "I don't know what to do."

Mason arched his eyebrows. "You think I know what to do with all that shit?"

"Do you?"

"Some guys tried to rob you and you saw some shit, it happens. But your bank account gettin' cleaned out and somebody inside your place... they got it out for you, clear as day."

"Who?"

" _Them._ "

Asher realized he was talking about the government. "Why?" he said. "I didn't do anything."

Mason offered a wan smile. "You sure about that?"

"I mean..."

"You done anything, thought anything about them that might be figured as hostile? Remember, you worked for them. They could have been monitoring your ass all the while. They been replacing you sons of bitches with androids like nobody's business. You give them a reason and they'll get rid of your ass like that." He snapped his fingers. "You did somethin' that pissed 'em off, plain and simple."

"Maybe I said something... or thought something. I've been thinking about some of the things my wife said before she left me."

"That the same wife you saw in them dreams?"

"Only one I've ever had... only person I've ever loved."

Mason raised his hand, palm facing outward. "Spare me the melancholy bullshit."

"It was like all at once I started to realize the things she kept telling me were true, and all this while I'd been denying them to myself." He shrugged. "And for what? To get beaten to a pulp for saying the wrong thing one day?"

"What type of shit'd she say?" He raised his fingernails to the light and examined them.

"That we were living a lie, that we're just cogs in a wheel."

"She was right." Mason set his hands on the table and laughed. "We're all cogs in a wheel, just depends which one you wanna spin on."

"I'm serious."

"I know you are."

"Can you help me?"

"I don't know what you mean by 'help' _._ I don't help people. There's gotta be somethin' in it for me, see? I try not to do good deeds, 'cause you do a good deed for one man, maybe the word gets out and somebody else thinks you owe them a good deed too."

"I'm not gonna tell anyone," Asher said. "Who would I tell?"

"I'm not worried about you tellin' nobody. I don't think you know what you're askin' me. You leave that world out there"—he pointed at the lightening window—"and you follow me, there ain't no goin' back."

"I don't wanna go back."

"You say that now, but—"

"I'll help you however I can."

Mason turned toward the man behind the bar. "You hearin' this, Frank?"

He was cleaning another glass, answering without looking up. "I heard it."

"What you think?"

"I think a man covered in blood is hard to trust."

Mason faced Asher again. "You heard him?"

"I heard him."

"A man covered in blood is hard to trust." He leaned forward. "And you look like you took a shower in that shit." He motioned with his forefinger. "Come here."

Asher moved closer to him.

"You ready to kill again and again?"

"If that's what I have to do."

Mason laughed. "I'm just fuckin' with you, but there's only one way you can go down there..."

"Down where?"

***

After Asher had washed the blood from himself in the bathroom, Frank led them to the stockroom and pulled the cheap rug back and uncovered the door in the floor.

He yanked it open by the iron handle. A spiraling metal staircase twisted downward and Mason led the way, their footsteps echoing all the way down. They reached the stone floor below. The smell of dirt and sweat and body odor flooded the air. Candles lit the darkness, seemingly floating within the tunnels surrounding them and glowing inside distant rooms.

"You don't have electricity down here?"

"Just candles, my man."

"How do you see when you wake up, then?"

"One of us always sleeps with a candle nearby so we can light it when we wake up."

"That'll take some getting used to."

"New shit always does take some gettin' used to. It took years and years to build this place," Mason said. "To be one of us, you gotta fight one of us."

"I'm already all messed up."

"You agreed. I told you there was only one—"

"Just not today."

"Somebody challenges you and you ain't got much choice."

He led Asher through the various tunnels. One led to a room full of wooden tables and rotted cabinets called the mess hall, where a thin man and woman stopped eating and nodded to Mason. He nodded back. Another led to a room full of bunk beds where people were sleeping, including a small child, and a couple others were sitting on the floor and talking.

One of them, a brown-haired girl, pointed at Asher and said, "Who's that?"

"This is Asher," Mason said.

"Hi, Asher." She waved to him.

"Hello."

The scraggly boy sitting with her stared at him with squinty eyes and a scowl. In some ways the boy reminded him of David, although he'd always been too shy to ever act so outwardly disdainful. Maybe it was merely a way to remember him, and he'd grasp at anything he could.

Mason led him to another room, which was full of sleeping bags. Some people were huddled inside them. A rat scurried along the edge of the wall and disappeared inside a hole.

"When the bunk beds are all taken, the rest of us sleep in here."

"Do you have a specific place?"

"Nah, just wherever's open."

The next room lowered into a bowl-like depression stippled with blood. Wooden benches surrounded the depression. All at once the ache returned to Asher's face and back and a slight ringing enveloped his ears. He knew what this place was without Mason having to tell him.

"Somebody got a problem with you, you come here to settle it. And somebody's definitely gonna have a problem with you in the beginning."

Asher pressed his hand against his sweaty forehead. "I'm starting to hurt again... My ears are ringing, too."

"You got them twenty gold pieces you was talkin' about?"

Asher took his money pouch from his pocket and offered it to him.

"Nah, keep it for now." He took the small pouch from his pocket and fingered through it, removed a pill, and handed it to Asher. "You're nothin' but trouble, son. This should fix the ringing in your ears for good. The pain'll come back, though, it always does."

Asher popped the pill and the aching and ringing subsided almost immediately. "I'll make it up to you."

"Ain't nothin' you can ever do that'll make it up to me." He slipped the pouch back into his pocket. "Never back down if someone challenges you, or else you'll be a target all your days down here."

"Why would someone want to fight me? I didn't do anything."

Mason looked at him with an arched eyebrow. "'Cause you're new. Nobody likes the new boy. Anyway, that's how it's done down here. You fight somebody when you show up to prove you ain't no punk. You ain't no punk, is you?"

"I'm no punk."

"Then you're gonna have to prove it. We got no room for sissies down here."

Finally, he took him to an assembly room with a makeshift lectern at the front and rows of rotting wooden benches and another room that was empty but for a single faux-leather chair with various mirrors connected to it. Mason called the assembly room the "lecture hall" and the room with the faux-leather chair "the operating room."

He curled his lips into a half-smile. "Our doctor may have to have a look at you."

"To fix up my scars?"

"To make sure you ain't no android or nothin'."

"I'm no android."

Mason gazed into his eyes. "I believe you, but is everybody else gonna believe you?"

***

Around an hour later, Mason and Asher munched on weevil-filled bowls of brittle rice in the mess hall. Asher had wanted to remove the weevils, but Mason didn't bother, so he followed along, holding his nose to keep from throwing up while Mason told him how they brought down a little bit of food and water at a time from Frank and stored it in the rotted wooden cabinets that lined the walls.

People began to return while they ate. Mason nodded to some of them. A man with a cleanly shaven head, light blue eyes, and corded forearms with an R burned into the backside of one of them stopped and stared at Asher for a moment.

Mason mouthed something to the man and he nodded and continued onward.

"Who was that?" Asher said.

"Ryland Bexley. You gonna have to talk to him... tell him why you're here. He'll pick out whoever you gonna fight."

"I don't wanna fight."

Mason pointed at the ceiling. "Up in that bar you agreed—"

"I know, but look at me."

"You sexy, but I'm sexier." He ran his forefinger along the hook-like scar running from his temple to the corner of his lips. "Can't get any sexier than me."

Asher's stomach tightened, his heart beat faster. "Isn't there some way to prove something other than fighting?"

Mason ate a spoonful of rice and appeared to contemplate the question. "Nah, not really. What you gonna do, give a speech? What they wanna know is that you ain't no pussy. You lose, you lose. All that matters is whether you fight."

"All I've been doing lately is fighting." _With myself, my former boss, would-be thieves,_ he thought. _I just want this to be over. I want to rest._

"Then one more brawl ain't gonna hurt you."

After Mason finished his bowl of rice, he leaned back in the chair and placed his hands on his stomach. "You scared?"

A fire rose in Asher's chest at the question. "I'm not afraid of anything. I'm just trying to survive. If you want me to fight someone to prove it, then fine. Why don't I fight you?"

He raised his hands, palms facing outward. "I ain't fightin' nobody. I brought you down here, remember? Don't talk smart to me. I done my time." He pointed to his glass eye. "Where you think this came from?"

"All I want is to sleep. Can I have another dreamnova? I'll pay you."

"I ain't giving you nothin' till we talk to Ryland."

***

Ryland sat upon one of the benches in the lecture hall. The bench sank downward beneath his weight, looking like it was about to break apart.

Mason introduced them.

Ryland's handshake was firm, his hand covered in calluses. His gaze wandered over Asher, probably taking in the cuts and bruises on his face, the sorrowful look in his eyes.

"Why are you here?" he said.

Asher told him the same stories he'd told Mason. About his wife and son, the massacre he'd witnessed, drones attacking innocents, the nightmares experienced on the dreamnova, his cleaned-out bank account, the attempted robbery, the strangers searching his apartment.

"You didn't answer my question," Ryland said.

"I was—"

"Why are you here?"

Asher lowered his eyes. Why was he here? "I've got nowhere else to go."

"You don't know what it means to be one of us."

"I can learn."

He inclined his chin toward Mason. "Has he told you how you prove yourself around here?" he asked Asher.

"He mentioned it."

For the first time Ryland smiled, revealing a missing lateral incisor. "I figured he did. It's fair warning to let you know some people have been killed in the pit."

He knew what "the pit" was without having to ask: the room that lowered into a bowl-like depression with flecks of blood on the ground. What did he say to a statement like that when they were saying he had to go into the pit to become one of them? Did he walk away, go back to the world above, a world that had rejected him? Or did he stay and fight?

"When do I have to fight?"

"Tomorrow when you awaken," Ryland said.

"No rest for the weary." It was Asher's attempt at a joke, but nobody laughed.

Ryland gazed into Asher's eyes. "Are you an android?"

Asher looked from Mason to Ryland. "No."

"Didn't think so with all those cuts and bruises on your face, but we gotta check you out anyway." He paused. "Take him to see Shultz to put some salve on his wounds," he said to Mason. "Make sure he rests well for the fight tomorrow." He turned to Asher. "We'll talk again after you prove yourself."

He got up, the bench creaking as he did so, and left them alone in the lecture hall. Mason stood there with his arms crossed. Asher felt the heat of his staring.

"What?"

"What'd I get myself into bringing you down here?"

"I'm gonna do it."

"You gonna win?"

"I'll do my best," Asher said.

"That's what everyone says."

***

Asher sat in the hard faux-leather chair within the operating room.

Shultz wore a pair of glasses that emitted green light which washed over Asher in warm waves. He had wild white hair that stood on end as if he'd been electrocuted that same day and wore a lab coat that was too short for him and had tears at the seams. He arranged the mirrors around Asher's head.

"What happened to you, son?" he said in a raspy voice.

"I got into a fight."

"I can see that."

"Are you a doctor?"

"Not exactly," he said, "but I'm the closest thing we've got down here."

Mason stood across the room with one leg kicked against the wall, arms akimbo. He brought his fingernails before his lips and blew on them, shaking his head.

Shultz removed a needle, stitch scissors, and a spool of suture thread from the pocket of his lab coat and said, "This may sting a bit."

Without giving Asher any preparation time, he looped the thread through the eye of the needle and proceeded to sew up the wounds, snipping here and there. It felt like fire was weaving its way through Asher's skin, leaving a trail of pain behind it. When Shultz finished sewing, he took a small container from his coat pocket that had SALVE written on it in big black letters and twisted off the lid and leaned forward and dipped his fingers within it and circled them around and then rubbed the cream lightly over the cuts and bruises, grunting as if in pain as he did so.

"This ointment should help you," Shultz said. "They'll heal right up. You might have some scarring, though."

"You might need to take a look at my back, too."

"What's wrong with your back?"

"Take a look at it and then you'll know."

Once Shultz had finished applying the ointment to his face, Asher took off his shirt and turned around in the chair.

"Oh, dear," Shultz said. "That's not good."

"It doesn't feel good, either."

He applied the ointment to the slashes and a coolness swept across Asher's back. Asher closed his eyes, embracing the soothing feeling, something he thought he might never feel again. A film played in his mind of Chloe giving him a massage when their relationship had first begun, when they were still in love, something he grew less sure of as the years went by. But now what did it matter? They were gone, dead even in his dreams. He needed to accept it, but—

"I need you to turn back around," Shultz said.

Asher faced him.

Shultz clicked something on top of his glasses and the swirling lights turned from green to bright red. He leaned in close, pressing his lips together and tilting his head back, his cool fingers touching Asher's cheeks and chin and forehead. He clicked something on the glasses again and the colored lights disappeared altogether.

"He's definitely no android," Shultz said. "But there's something connected to his brain. I think it might be an emotion chip."

Asher squinted, feeling along the side of his head. "What's that?"

"The government randomly places them in citizens, monitoring their feelings. When you become angry or hostile toward the government, they come for you to take you in and examine just why you feel that way."

"Nobody ever implanted anything in me."

"They wouldn't have done it while you were awake," Mason said without looking up.

"Can they track me with it?"

"No tracking device within it that I noticed," Shultz said, "but I could be wrong."

"So what do we do?" Asher said.

"We cut it out, destroy the chip, and sew you back up."

"Then I won't be able to fight tomorrow."

"You'll be fine," Mason said.

"Yes, you'll be okay," Shultz added.

Everything began to move in slow motion when Shultz removed a rolled-up blue cloth from within a cabinet that blended in with the walls. He laid it on the ground and unfolded it and a panoply of tools was revealed: a pair of scissors, a stethoscope, various scalpels, a pen flashlight, forceps, retractors, distractors, a caliper, and clamps, among other things. He picked up the scissors and snipped them a few times.

"First thing that needs to go is your hair," he said.

"You ain't gonna be a pretty boy no more," Mason said.

Shultz cut away his hair and Asher felt it falling around him, on his shoulders, past his eyes, down to the ground. Once his hair was shorn his head felt lighter, as though he'd been carrying a great weight on his head all these long years. He reached up and passed his hand over his head, brushing over hard tufts and warm skin. Shultz arranged one of the mirrors so Asher could see himself, and what he saw was a new man, covered in cuts and bruises and stitches and with almost no hair, but a new man no less.

_When you look in the mirror, you see what you want to see,_ he'd once told his son, squeezing his shoulders, trying to brace him for the hardness of life, the way it grinds on you, tries to bring you down to its level. He was attempting to instill a self-belief that would never leave him. From his own words, he knew this was either a new beginning or the beginning of the end for himself. _When you look in the mirror, you see what you want to see._

Shultz picked up a scalpel. "You ready?"

"Ready as I'm ever gonna be," Asher said.

He winced as Shultz brought the scalpel in close and pricked his skin. Warm blood trickled down the side of his head and a burning sensation engulfed his skull. The world whirled around him as though he was on top of a spinning totem, the candlelight in the room fading in and out, shocks of pain exploding in his brain. He gripped the arms of the chair, catching glimpses of his writhing form and twisted grimaces, and, finally, when the pain became too much, he screamed and the room rippled around him as if he were in a tank full of water and the last thing he saw was a curtain of pure blackness fall before his eyes.

# 8

Asher awakened to find one of the mirrors positioned before him.

A momentary panic seized him. It took a minute to remember where he was and why. When he did and his emotions had calmed, he turned his head to the side and examined where the incisions had been made. Everything was sewn up—he could see the new stitches clearly, which formed a rather large X—and only a mild ache throbbed where Shultz had operated. The smell of dried blood permeated his nostrils.

"They _were_ monitoring your emotions toward them," someone said behind him.

He tried to place the voice but came up blank. He positioned one of the mirrors to see behind him and saw a sinewy bald man approaching him. Slowly it came to him—Ryland.

"Who?"

"The government," Ryland said. "Any hostility you faced from them was probably because they knew you were on the cusp of rebellion."

"But I wasn't, not really."

"They obviously thought you were or they wouldn't have come for you."

"I mean, I said some things, maybe thought or felt a few things."

"That's all it takes," Ryland said. "They can't tolerate the slightest bit of adversity within their ranks when the streets are the way they are, especially when they can replace you with an android who will do exactly what they tell it to."

"I wanted to believe I was doing the right thing, but—"

"To them, there is no right or wrong, only power. To retain power, they'll do whatever they have to do."

"Including murdering innocents?"

"Including wiping away every last citizen, if need be. You replace them with androids, who don't question, who only follow orders, who do whatever you like whenever you like it... Is your life perfect?"

"No."

"Has it ever been?"

"No."

"Then why do they insist on telling you it is when you know it isn't?"

"I don't know."

"Because it makes you think something is wrong with you, not them." He stood in front of Asher now, holding a microchip between his thumb and forefinger. "They attached this to your brain. We don't know when. You mentioned a daughter and sister—"

"Wife and son."

"Right. Maybe it was after they left you. Where did they go?"

"They were trying to escape the nation."

"If they were captured, would they have mentioned you?"

"It's possible."

He nodded. "There are a couple of other possibilities."

"Like what?"

"The government sent you down here."

"How would they know this place existed?" Asher said. "I didn't even know."

"Maybe they were spying." Ryland held up the microchip and examined it. "Maybe you were."

"That's absurd."

"Is it?"

"Yes."

"You're lucky I believe you." He dropped the microchip on the ground and stomped it to pieces. "But I only believe you because there's no tracking device inside it. The last possibility"—he squatted and raised his forefinger—"is that fate brought you here. You know what fate is?"

"No."

"Doesn't surprise me," he said. "It's something that was destined to happen. Your destiny."

"Was to come here?"

"Let me ask you: how often do you think of your wife and son?"

"All the time."

"Have you considered that they're dead?"

A weight dropped in Asher's chest. "Yes, I've thought about it."

"Most people who try to escape never make it. Holding on to the past is like carrying a great weight. You have to release it. The most likely scenario is they're dead. I want you to meditate on that and then meditate on your own death. It'll put this life into perspective."

"Thinking about death?"

"Yes... When I look into your eyes, I see pain but not much depth. I'd be willing to wager you've contemplated suicide more than once."

"And if I have?"

"It's an easy way out, a coward's way. You live with us, you die with us."

"And if I don't want to?"

Ryland rose and lifted the back of his shirt and pulled something out of his pants. It took a moment to realize what it was—an antique snub-nose revolver. He cocked the hammer and handed it to Asher.

"You wanna kill yourself, go ahead."

Asher took it and felt the cool grip, studied the pistol in his hand. This was a way out, a way to finish things, to end all the pain. And he could do it now. Electric current pounded through his chest and brain and his nostrils flared, his breaths coming in short bursts.

"You think I won't do it?" he said.

"If you're going to," Ryland said, "might as well get it over with."

Asher brought the pistol to his temple and gazed at Ryland. He pressed it hard against his skin, feeling a ring form from the muzzle. He curled his index finger around the trigger and squeezed his eyes to a squint. He ground his teeth so hard they ached. His chin trembled.

"What are you waiting for?" Ryland said.

"You want me to do it?"

"I'm _letting_ you do it. There's a difference."

He pressed the gun so hard against his temple it felt as if the skin might break open, but he couldn't bring himself to squeeze the trigger, no matter how hard he tried.

"You see, whatever life you have is better than death. You're not so eager to visit the unknown."

"Are you?"

"You wanna kill me?" He grabbed Asher's wrist and aimed the pistol at himself, got on his knees, and looked up at him. "Go ahead and do it."

"I never said I wanted to kill you." His voice trembled.

Ryland's jawline tensed. He rose and loosened Asher's fingers from around the butt of the gun and took it and held it by his side for a moment, then lifted the back of his shirt and slipped it inside his pants. "It's only when you lose everything that you find out your true worth."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means nobody up there cares about us, about you. They'd just as soon see you dead as alive. And in your case, it definitely seems like they want you dead."

"So where does that leave us?"

"It leaves you to discover who you really are, not who they made you out to be... It's only when a man has nothing to lose that he has everything to gain."

Did he have anything, anyone to lose anymore? Was he fooling himself by even wondering if Chloe and David were still alive?

"I think you've kept yourself going since your wife and son left by thinking they'd show up one day."

Images passed through Asher's mind of all the times he'd come home from work after passing beneath drones and witnessing muggings or the beginnings of a rape or worse, thinking his wife and son would magically appear when he opened the door to his apartment, that everything that had happened since they left was merely a bad dream, but that dream turned out to be reality, for he always found himself alone in his bed, struggling to sleep after a strenuous workout, staring out the window at the omnipresence of drones, sometimes coming close to tears from the lonesomeness stalking his heart.

"What's wrong with loving your family?" Asher asked him.

"Nothing. But when they're dead, you're not loving your family, you're having a love affair with death."

"So what am I supposed to do, forget them, let them go?"

"If they're dead, what else can you do?"

A dizziness spun through Asher's skull. He'd always clung to the hope that they were alive somewhere, that he would find them, even though he knew how remote that possibility was. Many times he'd tried to move on, to accept their deaths, but if he let them go then who was he anymore? He'd have to redefine himself, find some new reason for life. He felt a tear escape the corner of his eye.

Ryland squeezed his shoulder. "I know it's hard, but as long as you're carrying a false hope you're already dead."

"I loved them so much."

"Show them even more love by letting them go. Let them be free."

Asher gripped his pants and hunched forward and sobbed. He tried to stop the crying, but the tears surged in his throat, making it hard to breathe at all, and he buried his face in his palms. Surprisingly, Ryland massaged his shoulder while he cried, saying, "It's okay to cry," and he was right, for Asher had held the tears back long enough, relying on a false hope, one he knew would never come. It was like watching one particular star and hoping it would fall day after day, only to watch it shine on brilliantly.

"Open your hand," Ryland said.

He opened it.

Ryland placed a dreamnova upon his palm. "Take this tonight. As you begin to fall asleep, picture their deaths and then your own. Move into sleep like it's your own death."

He took his money pouch from his pocket and opened it to pay him, but Ryland stopped him, saying, "I don't want your money."

Asher looked into his pale blue eyes. "Why do you care about me?"

"Why not?" he said.

"I didn't do anything for you."

"Who knows what the future holds?"

He helped Asher up from the chair and guided him through the tunnels to the room full of sleeping bags. There were people in almost all of them, fast asleep. It was hard to see amid the darkness, and again Asher noticed a rat scurrying along the wall, but this time it stopped and stood on its hind legs and looked at them.

"He won't hurt you," Ryland said.

"So you say."

"Take the dreamnova."

Asher popped it in his mouth and washed it down with spit.

"Now start to think about the things we talked about. Don't be afraid." He pointed to an open sleeping bag in the corner. "I'll be back when you wake."

Asher went to the sleeping bag and slipped into it, feeling strange around all these strangers. It was warm cocooned within the flannel lining of the sleeping bag. The dreamnova worked its magic on him, tiring him, making his eyes heavy, pulling him into the sanctity of sleep. The smell of the body odor and sweat from the sleeping bodies grew strong, and he closed his eyes and pictured the two people he'd loved most in life, the people who had made his life worth living for so long. He imagined them across a field running toward him, and he knelt on the ground and opened his arms, thinking of their inevitable deaths, of his own.

# 9

The stars swirled around him as though he was floating through space, and their warm glow comforted him.

He heard someone's voice distantly calling to him. He moved through the darkness and the swirling stars stilled, holding their place like candles lighting his path onward, toward the voice, which became more lilting the closer he came to it.

The voice grew familiar—Chloe. It was as if she were whispering in his ear, tickling the canal with a feather. It had the simultaneous effect of arousing him and weighing down his chest.

"Where are you?" he said.

"Here."

A brightness like pale moonlight shafted through the darkness and lit her. David stood to the side of her, yanking on the hem of her blouse with a shy smile.

Asher's eyes pooled at the sight, and he took a deep breath and strode toward them, feeling as if he were walking on air despite the heaviness within him. When he reached them, he knelt and hugged them both, pressing his face into her stomach, pulling his son close to him. He wished he had shown them more love when they were together, that he'd known how much they meant to him before they left, but that wasn't the way life worked: you never valued things till they were gone. And they had left him, but now here they were.

"I missed you," he said.

"We missed you, too," Chloe said. "We'll always miss you."

When he looked up at her again, her flesh had rotted away, likewise his son. They were merely skulls and bones, staring at him with empty eyes. Then their flesh returned. Was it only him, his vision, his need, that made them appear lifelike? Or were they alive somewhere?

"You have to tell me where you are," he said. "I'll come for you."

Chloe placed her hand on the side of his head and touched her smooth fingertips to the cuts and bruises on his face, wanly smiling. "What happened to you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"I worry about you," she said.

"Don't worry about me." He touched David's cheek. "It's my job to worry about you two."

The boy's face crimsoned; his eyes lowered.

"You don't need to worry about us anymore," Chloe said.

"I can't help it."

"We're gone, Asher."

"I know, but I can find you."

"You don't understand."

"I can try."

His son raised his eyes, sadness percolating within them. "We're dead, Daddy."

"Don't say that."

"It's _true_ ," he said.

"Close your eyes," Chloe said.

He did so and felt her warm hands on his face, inhaled her perpetually soapy scent. A vision eclipsed his mind. Chloe and David were aboard some kind of aircraft, maybe a tracer, spinning through the air, and someone was firing at it from behind. The pilot yelled, "Brace yourselves," and she squatted on the floor and pulled her son close. There must have been twenty or so people in the cabin, all readying themselves for death, some grappling whatever they could get their hands on, others whispering their good-byes to each other, still others serene at the prospect of life coming to an end. A fireball erupted at the back of the craft and a hole opened up and sucked some of the people out. They floated through the air like ants dropped from an invisible hand, disappearing ever so quickly. Chloe had one hand gripping a steel bar on the side of the craft and the other holding on to her son's hand. The skin on her palm ripped open trying to grip the bar and she let go and she and David spun through the air, rapidly descending. She still had hold of his hand as they fell, and he screamed and cried and she tried to pull him close, but the force of the wind breaking against them was too strong and she lost her grip and he was ripped from her. In that moment it was as though Asher felt what she was feeling: the rapid descent of her heart, the gooseflesh rolling up her back and chilling her brain, the sense of loss speeding through her. And then the ground closed in on them and the vision exploded in a cloud of black and crimson.

"Look at me," she said.

He did. Again her flesh had rotted from her skull, her arms. David likewise.

"You have to let us go."

"But I love you."

"You've heard that if you love something, you set it free, right?" she said.

"No."

"Well, now you have."

She traced her skeletal fingers over his temple. "I never stopped loving you. I want you to know that."

His chest grew so heavy he couldn't stand it any longer. Tears exploded from his eyes. "Why'd you leave me, then?"

"Because what is a life if you're living in misery? You couldn't see it then, but now you do."

"I wish I'd listened, that I'd gone with you."

"You'd be dead now."

"What does it matter?"

"Your purpose isn't finished yet." She traced her cadaverous forefinger to the tip of his chin and lifted it upward. "Our purpose was to wake you from your sleep."

He rose and looked into the empty eye sockets of her skeleton and her living image flashed before him, the beauty that once was. David's innocent visage appeared along with hers.

"This is it, then," she said. "You have to let go."

Asher nodded.

"Good-bye, my sweet husband."

"Bye, Daddy."

He pulled his son close, ruffling his hair till he felt only a skull there. His body crumpled to the ground before him along with Chloe's.

Asher stood there looking down at them and the stars above him began to rotate around, leaving a silvery-red streak in their wake. The bones lifted up and whirled through the air, disintegrating as they went.

His feet left the ground and a great wind sucked him into its embrace, carrying him along. He sensed a strong, illuminating presence surrounding him. The wind carried him on its back and in the sky above he saw himself growing older and older, as if someone was playing a film of his life progressing into old age. Finally, he was an old man, alone in his apartment, still holding on to the hurt within his heart. _One negative thought drags you into the dark, pulls you toward sorrow,_ he heard someone say. _One positive thought will grow within you and build on itself, propelling you toward your destiny._ Was it Chloe's voice? He couldn't be sure. An ache resided within him, building in his chest like a steady drumbeat. The skin on the face of his ancient self pealed back and revealed the skull beneath and—

***

Asher awoke covered in sweat, water pooling within his eyes.

His vision shook, the world around him blurring. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the darkness and notice that most of the sleeping bags surrounding him had emptied and that the silhouette of a man was leaning up against the wall at the other end of the room.

"How was it?" the man said.

The voice sounded familiar, but he couldn't place it, nor could he remember exactly how he got into this room. But he did remember his dream, the words of his wife, and watching himself drift into the heart of old age, broken and alone. There was still time to change it. He had to do what Chloe had told him—move on. No matter how hard it was, no matter how much it hurt, he had to let them go. It pained him to think that thought, but he knew it was the truth, and denying it any longer would only make him a martyr to himself, and for what?

He tried to talk, but his mouth felt like it was filled with cotton, so he had to roll some spit around inside it first and swallow. "How was what?"

"The dream."

He shook his head, squinting, trying to see who it was he was talking to. "It was something."

"That good or bad?"

"Could be either. Guess I'll find out with time."

"Did you do what I told you to do?" The man spun the wheel of a plastic lighter and lit a candle resting on a jut that had been carved into the wall. The flame lit up his face—Ryland.

"Which was what exactly?"

"Think on their deaths, on your own."

He hesitated, wondering if he should keep what he saw to himself, but if they were gone it didn't matter anymore. Maybe telling someone would relieve the pain inside. "I saw them," he said, "their deaths."

"What happened?"

It was hard to describe, but he tried anyway.

"They were part of that crew, huh?"

"You knew about it?"

"Those guys came from down here. They had the whole thing orchestrated, tried to hijack a tracer and fly out of Azure but got shot down. They all died... My brother was on board, too."

"What was his name?"

"What does a name matter?" Ryland spun the wheel of the lighter a couple of times, the yellow flame spitting out from within it and then dying. "Anyway, his name was Jack. He was my best friend."

"Did it hurt?"

"Of course it hurt. Still hurts, always will. But you have to let go. You can't go into the past and change it. It's over. Best thing you can do is try to live a full life, one they'd be happy to be a part of if they were still alive."

"I can try."

"You either do something or you don't. Don't _try_."

"All right." Asher smirked.

"Maybe this'll make you feel better," he said. "There was this guy named Jonah who tried to leave with them. He'd been down here a while, said he'd read some book that was banned long ago, I mean straight-up every copy burned, so I don't know how he got ahold of it, but he did. He said it talked of some place, I think it was called heaven, where you go when you die. So, if it's true, this life isn't in vain, there's something beyond it. He even wrote a pamphlet called _A People's Right to Freedom._ Started getting to where the cops were hot on it, so we rounded up every copy we could and burned them in a trash can one night."

He remembered his wife's copy of the pamphlet, which he had burned too. "What is that place supposed to be like, heaven?"

"Jonah said it had streets paved with gold and mansions and you were always happy, that there was no room for sadness. He said nobody died, and all your loved ones stayed there forever. So, basically, according to him, we're all in this waiting room, just getting ready for heaven. This life is only preparation for the next, a test."

"So the government gets away with all their bullshit and then lives forever in this place called heaven."

"That's the thing," Ryland said. "There was another place for evil people where you suffered. He called it hell, I think."

"So everything evens out in the end, then?"

"If it helps to think that, then go right ahead."

"You believe it?"

"I want to, I can tell you that."

"I've got nothing to believe in."

"Then believe in it."

"Can you tell me more?"

"As it comes to me," Ryland said, "along with the true history of Azure."

"I already know the history."

"Probably only what they told you."

"Like when President James Pole was born, the sun rose in the middle of the night and a rainbow burst spontaneously onto the horizon."

"Don't tell me you believe that shit."

"It's a fact."

"That's their history."

"Then what's your version?"

Ryland took a deep breath and lowered his head. "You almost ready for your fight?"

"I really gotta do this?"

"We need to know you're not weak. We've got no room for weak men."

"I'm still tired."

"That's why I brought this." Ryland raised his hand. Between his fingertips was a red pill.

"What's that?"

"Vigorosan, named after the rose. All natural ingredients."

"Where do you get all these pills?"

"Production takes place elsewhere," he said. "Maybe one day you'll get to find out. Right now it doesn't matter." He walked toward Asher and squatted in front of him and placed it in his palm. "Go on, take it."

Asher studied it for a moment and then popped it, washing it down with spit. "I need some water."

"We can get some before the fight. They're probably already waiting on you."

"Who am I fighting?"

"Guy named Zander who hates newcomers."

"You weren't serious about people getting killed in these fights, were you?"

"Sure, a few people have been killed, but I sense something in you, something I can't quite place. I wanna call it a strength, something nobody can touch at your core, like no matter what happens you'll keep getting up, and the important thing in life is that you fight, and if you get knocked down, your ass keeps fighting, all the way to the end."

***

They stopped and drank a glass of water poured from the large jars in the mess hall. A few other people were in there, and Ryland introduced Asher to them. One of them was named Autumn Reeve, a woman in her thirties with long brown dreadlocked hair and greenish-blue eyes. The others blended together, but she stuck with him.

"Good luck," she said to him.

"Thank you."

He felt self-conscious standing before her, what with all the cuts and bruises on his face and his newly deformed hair. _Screw it_ , he thought. _Nothing I can do about it now._

When they left the mess hall and headed toward the pit, the red pill began to work its magic, sending energy through his body in tingling undulations. He heard light voices coming from the pit combined with the sound of feet hitting the ground, creating a steady rhythm. He looked above, wondering whether the sound would carry.

"Don't worry," Ryland said. "They know how to keep the volume under control."

Asher's heartbeat coursed through him, thudding in his chest and head and legs. His hamstrings tightened as he strode toward the opening that led to the pit and saw the crowd sitting on the wooden benches that wound around the room. He rolled his clammy fists into tight balls, then opened them and wiped his palms on his pants and did it again.

"You nervous?"

"Little bit," Asher said.

"Good."

"Are there any rules in these fights?"

"Yeah, beat the other guy."

They entered the pit and the crowd let out a small cheer.

Asher licked his dry lips and looked around the room. It felt like it was spinning around him and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply and tried to calm himself. _Not too long ago,_ he told himself, _you were ready to die. Imagine this man you're going to fight, whoever he is, took everything from you. Your wife, your son, your job. Imagine he left you alone, waiting for death._ When he opened his eyes, the room had steadied, and standing opposite him was a shirtless man with a mohawk. A tattoo on his chest read FIERCE in some strange type of writing Asher had never seen before. Beneath those words a maw had been inked into his skin, black blood dripping from the sharp teeth. Veins pulsed in his arms and chest and neck. He ran his tongue around where his teeth would have been, but many were missing or chipped.

Asher looked around for Ryland, who had disappeared, and instead noticed Mason among the crowd on the benches. He gave Asher a thumbs-up.

At this point he had no choice but to fight, though a film of him running through the tunnels and up the staircase and bursting through the door in the floor that led to the Empyrean stockroom flashed through his mind. But where would he go? They were searching for him out there. He was a wanted man for some reason. Better to die fighting than running.

The next few moments passed in a blur. Ryland seemed to appear out of nowhere, told Asher that his opponent's name was Zander, and asked if each of them was ready. They both nodded, and Ryland stuck his fingers in his mouth and let out a whistle and said, "Fight."

Zander came at him like a whirlwind, drifting in and out, landing body blows that knocked the air out of him. Asher caught himself before falling over from the impact and his senses heightened and the noise of the crowd dimmed beneath the electricity pulsing through his mind and body. He ducked a couple of uppercuts to the chin and landed a shot to the stomach and found a rhythm in the motion of his feet. Zander kept coming, trying to land a knockout blow, but Asher was too quick, cutting out of the way and landing quick jabs to his face, hopping up and down on the hard ground, waiting for the moment when he fully exposed himself. But then, as if growing tired of regular fisticuffs, Zander lowered his head and charged him like a battering ram, lifted him into the air, and slammed him on his back, taking his wind, then began pounding him. The blows to the side of the head lit up Asher's vision like lightning bolts and he kept his fists in front of his face to protect from reopening the cuts there but then felt the X on the side of his head get nailed and a sharp pain stab his brain and blood run down the side of his skull.

It was then that he saw Zander slide something onto his knuckles. With his wavering vision, it took a second to realize it was brass knuckles. He heard him say something, and it sounded like it was coming from far away and then up close.

"I'm gonna kill you, you stupid fuck."

The words reverberated in his mind, and when Zander's armed fist came flying toward his face, he slid his head to the side and felt the brass knuckles clip his ear and then took hold of Zander's wrist and bit into his forearm as hard as he could, tasting his salty blood and hearing his wild scream. He kept biting till the big man's fist opened up and he pulled off the brass knuckles and slid it onto his own hand, his teeth feeling the bone beneath the skin, then he let go and swung as hard as he could and connected with Zander's nose and felt warm blood spray all over him. He hit him again and split open his lips then grabbed him by the mohawk and pulled him sideways and stood up and clipped his eye, opening a cut there, too. He kept hitting, watching the blood run over Zander's face, finally sitting atop him and whaling on him, turning his visage into an unrecognizable fountain of blood, seeing everyone who had wronged him in the big man's image. When he finished with his face, he bashed in his ears, then finally hit him in the throat, slicing it open, and Zander convulsed, dying beneath him, trying to find his breath and whispering words Asher couldn't make out.

Asher rose from the pummeled body and dropped the blood-soaked brass knuckles to the ground and staggered backward, barely able to stand from the stiffness in his legs, blood running from the X on the side of his head and from a cut on his ear. The crowd watching him seemed in shock, neither clapping nor saying anything, just sitting in rapt silence. They wavered in and out around him like a hallucinatory dream, swimming toward him like deformed faces and then reverting to their normal appearances.

From out of the crowd ran Ryland and he reached Asher and grabbed his fist and raised his arm and said, "Here's our winner!"

***

Shultz sewed the X back up in the operating room and placed some salve on it as well as on his ear, which was throbbing with pain. This time Asher didn't pass out, only gripped the arms of the chair and ground his teeth and tried to think of pleasant things, but it seemed trying to think of them drove them away.

When Shultz finished he arranged the mirrors for Asher to see what he'd done. The X looked as good as it possibly could, what with rivulets of blood running from it and a thin layer of salve atop it. His ear looked something like a mutant's ear, the top part of it missing, a thin coating of ointment there, too.

"You killed old Zander," Shultz said.

"I didn't want to," Asher said. "I just sort of lost it while I was fighting him. I guess I shouldn't feel bad, 'cause he said he was gonna kill me."

"He's killed a few guys."

"Seems like he enjoys it."

"Rumor was each one that he killed, he kept their teeth in a jar as a souvenir."

"So I guess it's a good thing I killed him."

"That's up to you to decide."

"Maybe some people deserve to die."

"I'm sure some do," Shultz said. "The hard part is deciding who."

Asher pondered this for a second then said, "You never know how much you wanna live till someone's trying to rob you of your life."

"I haven't had the pleasure of finding that out."

"If you're lucky, you never will."

Later, in the lecture hall, Ryland congratulated Asher on winning the fight and gave him a black skullcap to hide the X on the side of his head and his messed-up hairdo till he could get a proper haircut in one of the districts. "You gotta be careful up there, though," Ryland said. "You never know who might be informing, and those marks on the side of your head could set off alarm bells for the wrong person."

"What do I say if someone asks about it?"

"You lie your ass off."

After everything, he slept in the same sleeping bag he had the day before. He wondered whether it was nighttime or daylight outside, but it didn't really matter, not down here. One moved into the other. It only mattered when you emerged into Azure. As he fell into the arms of sleep, he wondered what they'd done with Zander's body, but he had a pretty good idea, for there was only one thing you could do to erase the evidence of a murder—burn it.

# 10

The next day Ryland opened a door in the wall and led Asher to a room Mason had never shown him and closed it behind them. It had Formica chairs and tables, was arranged almost like a mini-bar. He lit a few candles that lay in various places throughout the room and they sat at a round table and Ryland poured them each a small glass of whiskey, and, as they sipped their drinks, explained something.

It was Ryland's plan to have Asher selling dreamnovas, vigorosans, pale puppies, sunflowers, and more, but he wanted to know something first.

"Who did that to your back?"

"My old boss, Stewart."

"You think he should get away with that?"

Asher tilted his head back, the pain of that humiliating moment returning to him through memories. "I wanted to kill him when he did it."

Ryland finished off his drink, poured another, and gazed at him. "Good. That's exactly what I want you to do."

"What, why?"

"If you're one of us, you don't let anyone treat you like that. You have enough respect for yourself to show them as much."

"What good is killing him gonna do?"

"What good does it do them to kill one of us?"

"They think they're protecting the nation."

Ryland shook his head. "Let me tell you something about this _nation._ It used to be a great place, a bigger place where you could walk the streets without worry, but then something happened."

"What?"

"They realized they didn't have control over everyone, so what did they do?"

Asher shrugged. "I don't know."

"They bombed their own people, rounded up the survivors, and built a much smaller nation called Azure, where they thought it would be easier to control the citizens, made the walls so high you can't climb out and so deep beneath the ground you can't dig your way out. You're stuck here forever."

"You believe that?"

"I know it," he said. "Look at the way they treat us. It's like living in a damn prison out there."

"Who told you that?"

"It doesn't matter who told me."

"Yeah it does. That way I can figure out if it's bullshit or not."

"Doesn't matter. The history's etched in the halls of your mind"—he pointed at Asher's head then at his chest—"and heart."

"I don't remember anybody else ever telling me anything like that."

"I know it's hard," Ryland said. "Even when you know they're lying to you, it's hard to accept it. You'd rather believe in a benevolent government, one that wants to take care of its citizens, but that's just not reality."

"I never said they were benevolent."

Ryland lowered his eyes, sipped his drink. "You ever wonder what's out there, beyond the walls?"

"Sometimes."

"Nobody knows," he said. "I've heard all kinds of things."

"Like what?"

"What does it matter?" Ryland said. "If you don't have the courage to kill a man who beat you like a dog, how will you ever have the courage to make it out of here."

"They're two different things—"

"But they're both measuring the same thing, your courage."

"That fight in there"—he pointed toward the pit—"wasn't good enough for you? Now I gotta go kill my old boss?"

"That in there was for all of us down here." He circled his forefinger through the air, pointing at the ground, then aimed it at Asher. "This is for you."

"But it won't accomplish anything."

"Yes it will. You'll be showing yourself that nobody ever has the right to treat you in that way. You're not a dog, not some diminutive form of life. You're a human being, with the right to life, to freedom."

"Nobody has freedom," Asher said.

"That doesn't mean you don't fight for it."

"But if you know you can't have it—"

"You know what they're doing up there?" Ryland pointed to the ceiling. "Well, do you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean _the plan._ "

"Sounds like you've got a lot of conspiracy theories."

Ryland finished off his second glass of whiskey and poured another. "I know what I know, nothing more. Androids are taking over all the jobs. Pretty soon they won't need people anymore, then what are you gonna do? You gonna go back up there and pretend like you're an android? You know..." He laughed to himself. "It sounds crazy, I know. But you remember that rogue drone you were telling me about?"

"Of course I remember. I told you about it."

He smirked. "Yeah, all right. Well, I bet you everything I got that drone was controlled by an android."

"Nah, they hadn't really infiltrated where I worked yet."

"How do you know that?"

"It's what I heard."

"What you heard?" Ryland said. "What you _heard_? That doesn't mean shit. I'm sorry, but it doesn't. You think they're gonna come in and announce when they bring in androids? Don't be a fool."

A fire wound up Asher's neck and crawled over his face. He stared into Ryland's pale blue eyes, and Ryland held his gaze. He was tired of people talking down to him, treating him like dirt. In that sense, Ryland was right: nobody should ever let anyone walk all over them. But people did it every day, so what did it matter? Whether it was the government stepping on its people to please themselves and feign benevolence or a boss who beat him for perceived misconduct, it didn't matter.

"So if you're so sure that rogue drone was controlled by an android, why don't you tell me why an _android_ would kill innocents?"

"It's simple." He finished off his third glass of whiskey then poured another. "Some of them create chaos and others fix it. It creates the illusion that they're protecting you. I mean, there's no way they can be everywhere at once. They already try to be, but it doesn't work. So they commit crimes and solve them to create the illusion of protection."

"I don't know."

"I do."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Let me ask you something." He leaned forward. "That massacre you told me about in the bar, where was the android when it happened?"

Asher squinted, trying to remember. It seemed the android had appeared out of nowhere. "I don't know. I guess he was sitting there the whole time."

"That's right. He was there, watching those people get killed and not doing a damn thing about it so they could say he stopped it later."

Asher remembered the words he'd heard the news state on the light rail: _Just last night, one of our police officers stopped a massacre from occurring when he spotted a man entering a bar with a shotgun in his hands._ But it was two men, and a massacre _had_ occurred, so if Ryland was right, not only was the government letting these horrendous things happen, they were actively creating them and then covering them up with their own version of events. He'd known they told lies at times to try to make citizens believe they were safer than they were, but this was far worse.

"You know," he said, "after that happened, the android told us all not to say a word about it or he'd come for us and—"

"Yeah, because they had to control the news about how everything happened. They can't have anyone contradict what they say, because then they couldn't shape events however they like, say whatever benefits them the most."

"But the news said he 'stopped a massacre from occurring' when one actually did happen."

"You have to ask yourself what their definition of a massacre is. Not only that, but why act like the android prevented it if he didn't?"

"I don't know." Asher shook his head.

"Neither do I, but you can rest assured if they changed around what happened, there was a reason from their perspective. They distort everything, making you question your own beliefs. They take away the pleasures of life, even the simple ones. Meanwhile, the bastards who take away your freedoms bask in breaking the same laws they create."

"So you hate our government?"

"I don't trust a damn word they say."

They sat in silence for a moment then Ryland downed his fourth glass of whiskey. His eyes had begun to glaze over, and a thoughtfulness fell over his features. He poured himself a fifth glass and rose from his chair and walked with perfect steadiness from candle to candle and blew them out, then he took the final one and brought it to the table and set it between them. He reached out and fanned his hand back and forth over the flame, the R burned into the backside of his forearm looking like an ashen symbol in the flickering light.

"There's nothing to fear, friend," he said. "If they catch you, you die, but one day you'll die either way."

"And I go to this place you talked about?"

"Heaven? Maybe."

"Or maybe the other one?"

"Hell." He laughed. "I think that's reserved for the members of our government and police force."

Asher lowered his head. "I don't know if I can do it."

"You've killed people before, right?"

"Other than the guys who tried to rob me and Zander, only operating my drone."

"Within a drone I bet it doesn't even feel like you did it."

Asher ran his teeth over his bottom lip. "You could say that."

"It's time for the real thing." Ryland reached behind his back and pulled out the antique snub-nosed pistol and emptied the cylinder of bullets then put one back in, spun it, and popped it into place and set it down between them. "I'm going to spin this on the table and whoever it points at takes it and puts it to his head and pulls the trigger."

"That's crazy."

"You need to remember what it feels like to have death breathing down your neck."

"I don't need to do this."

"You do."

"And what if I don't?"

"Then I'll aim at you and pull the trigger for you, too."

Asher leaned back in his chair, trying to appear relaxed, his stomach tightening. "Come on, Ryland, can't we just relax? It was only yesterday—"

"That you fought and killed Zander? That was then, this is now. This proves something different."

"When do I have to stop proving things to you?"

"When I say so."

"Is everything a test with you?" he asked.

"Until the time it isn't. You ready?"

Asher didn't answer out of protest, but he knew in his heart that, as a man, he couldn't back down from the challenge, would walk right past the line drawn in the sand, even if it meant his own death. He'd spilled enough blood lately to think it was his turn to have it spilled, but who knew?

"I'm not agreeing to anything."

"All right."

Ryland placed his hand on the butt of the gun and spun it. It circled around and around and finally came to a stop, the muzzle aimed directly at him. He picked it up without hesitation and brought it to his temple and cocked the hammer, his eyes wide open, staring straight into Asher's, and pulled the trigger. It clicked. He was still alive. Asher let out a deep breath, then Ryland popped out the cylinder and whirled it again, placed the gun on the table, and spun it. This time it pointed off-centeredly toward Asher.

"Go ahead."

Asher's chest caved in as he picked up the cold gun, the smell of Ryland's whiskey breath drifting over him, and brought the muzzle to his temple. He ground his teeth together, trying to remember the times when he invited death, trying to relive them, bring them back to himself in this moment, but they wouldn't come, so he squeezed his eyes shut and pearls of sweat rolled down his forehead and he pulled the trigger, hearing a boom in his mind but opening his eyes to see Ryland sitting before him, holding a bullet between his forefinger and thumb, smiling.

Asher looked at the gun in his hand, popped open the cylinder. It was empty. "How'd you take that out?"

"I never put it in," Ryland said. "The hand is quicker than the eye."

"So what was the point of that bullshit?"

"To make you confront the reality of your own death. I know you more than you think. I've been you, walked the same road you did once. I see something in you that I don't see in Mason or any of the others down here."

"Which is what?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out." He took the gun from Asher and placed it on the table and spun it again then set down the bullet to the side of it. "Funny how something so small can end a man's life, isn't it? How one moment you're alive and the next you're dead. Everything comes to a standstill, but you have to live the best life you can, and I think you found your way down here for a reason."

# 11

Though he thought Ryland wanted him to carry out the mission immediately, days and nights passed, and Asher lost track of which was which. The only thing that marked a new day or night was Shultz applying the salve to his wounds to help them continue to heal.

For long periods of time the men left and the women stayed, alone or with their children. Asher assumed this was the nighttime, when it would be easier to carry out any illegal activities. He stayed behind too, wondering when this mission Ryland had tasked him with would be carried out. It made him nervous thinking about going back up into streets of the nation, the districts within it. For all he knew, his image had been ingrained into the androids' pseudo-brains, the command to kill him or bring him to justice programmed into them, for they had been looking for him before he found this underground lair. But why exactly? Was it really for his thoughts and emotions, that microchip in his brain signaling to them the subversive notions that roiled within him? Had they truly been betraying him for that long, waiting for him to slip, when he'd sacrificed so much for them?

Every once in a while, lying in one of the sleeping bags, he took his money pouch from his pocket and counted the gold pieces inside it. Would he ever have the chance to spend them? Did it even matter now? It was strange to live inside this separate world, one he never knew existed, when he'd inured himself to the daily grind of a punishing job he'd once cared so much about but now knew was all based on lies. Perhaps the people he'd killed had been innocents, too. Maybe he'd been helping the government to carry out their plan, whatever it really was, without even knowing it. He shook the thoughts from his mind, for it made him sick to think he may have killed a husband or wife while operating the drone, leaving some child or children forlorn.

He passed Autumn from time to time in the candlelit darkness, and she smiled and looked at the ground, her dreadlocks twining around her shoulders. Then one day they ended up in the mess hall together. A mother and child were there too, but Autumn was sitting alone, and she had a bowl of white rice—same as him—and after looking around a while, she came over and sat across from him.

"That fight was brave of you," she said.

"I didn't have a choice."

"You could have left, but you killed him instead."

Asher lowered his head. "I know, I—"

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," she said. "He relished hurting people. I'm glad he's gone. If you hadn't killed him, he'd have killed you."

"That's good to know."

"Take off the skullcap."

"Why?"

"Just take it off."

He removed it and set it on the table and crossed his arms and leaned back. She put her hand over her mouth and laughed.

"What's so funny?" he said.

"Aren't you ever gonna get that cut?"

"I was going to, but I don't especially wanna go back up into the streets. They may be looking for me."

"I'll go with you."

"Are you allowed up there?"

"Am I allowed?" She arched her eyebrows. "Of course I'm allowed. There's typically not much reason for me to go up there, though, because women don't sell anything."

"Why not?"

"Ryland thinks the streets are too dangerous for us to be out there without a man by our side, so he won't let us sell dreamnovas or pale puppies or anything, but he doesn't force us to stay down here. He just warns us against going up there."

Asher ran a hand over his head and felt the rough tufts followed by nearly bald patches. "I figured I was making a fashion statement with this hairdo."

"That why you're covering it with a skullcap?"

He gave her a one-cornered smile. "Something like that."

Mason appeared in the mess hall and fixed himself some rice and sat beside Autumn, looking her up and down. She acted like he wasn't even there.

"Haven't seen you in a while," Asher said to him.

"Because I gotta work, unlike some of us."

Autumn rolled her eyes. "He's still getting situated."

"Don't mean nothin' to me." He smacked as he ate his rice. "I gotta get situated all the time. Matter of fact, half the time I'm tryin' to get situated I'm workin', too. That ain't no excuse."

"I'm ready whenever you need me."

"I'm not saying nothin', but Ryland told me he wanted you to rest up and do somethin' first."

"He does, huh?"

"That's what he said."

Mason stared at him, and Asher knew he was waiting for him to reveal what Ryland wanted him to do, but he would never do so. If Ryland hadn't told him himself, then he probably didn't want him to know.

Finally, Mason asked him, "So, what is it?"

"What's what?"

"What he wants you to do."

Autumn elbowed him. "Don't you think he'd have told you if he wanted you to know?"

"Doesn't matter." Mason curled his upper lip into a clearly fake smile. "Boy may just be bashful. Ain't that right, _boy_?"

"I'm not a boy," Asher said. "I think I've proven that to you, but if you need me to prove it again—"

"I'm just joshin' with you," he said. "Shit, you gotta take it easy sometimes, son. All that stress is gonna give you hemorrhoids or somethin'."

"I'm not stressed, but I'm not gonna let you disrespect me."

"Don't forget who brought you down here, son. You'd probably be dead if it wasn't for me."

Asher pressed his lips together. He had to admit the statement was true. "Maybe one day I'll be in a position to help you out, too."

Mason smirked. "How's that gonna happen, huh? You gonna inherit an empire?"

"You never know what the future holds," Autumn said. "Unless, of course, we're talking about you," she added, directing the statement toward Mason.

Asher laughed.

"That supposed to be derogatory?" Mason said.

She shrugged. "It's not my problem if you interpret it negatively."

"I don't need to _interpret_ it," he said. "I can hear it in your voice."

"If you weren't such an ass all the time—"

"Hold on." He raised his hands, palms facing out. "I'm only an ass some of the time."

Asher couldn't stop laughing. Soon they were all laughing, poking fun at each other. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had more fun.

Later, they went up to Empyrean Beer & Wine Garden and drank together, the sickly smell of alcohol permeating the air. He kept catching himself staring into Autumn's blue-green eyes, and she gazed back, smiling, then he remembered Chloe and pushed himself away, tucked into himself and paid more attention to Mason than her, sipping the suds of his beer slowly. He knew it might hurt her, but he couldn't help it, for a sinking feeling spiraled through him every time he thought of his former wife, whom he'd now accepted as dead but was still certain he was betraying if he even thought of touching another woman. The words of Ryland cascaded through his mind: _But when they're dead, you're not loving your family, you're having a love affair with death._ He had to let go of the past, those chains that weighed him down time and again. He shuffled in the booth, trying to get comfortable, sweat pearling on his brow.

Autumn reached out and touched his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"All the sudden I'm not feeling so well."

He jerked away and got up and shuffled toward the stockroom. He heard her say something behind him, but he paid no attention. Some of the patrons in the bar glanced at him as he moved. One of them had whitish hair that seemed to glow in the dimly lit bar. Asher knew he'd seen him somewhere before but couldn't place him. The man's eyes roved over him as if trying to figure out whether he knew him. For a moment Asher thought he saw a sparkle in the man's eye like the beginnings of starlight, but figured it had to have been his imagination.

It wasn't till he was making his way down the spiral staircase that he remembered exactly who the man was who'd been staring at him—the same android who had saved his life from the massacre in Smithee's Pub. A fist clenched his stomach at the thought. Had he recognized him? He grabbed the rusty banister and held himself up. If the android had recognized him, he may have led him straight to them. But maybe he hadn't noticed him. What was that sparkle in his eye, then? What was it?

He nearly fell down the stairs but finally made it to the bottom then dropped to his knees and tried to catch his breath. The women eyed him but said not a word and he trudged through the tunnels till he reached the room full of sleeping bags and slid into one, trying to ease the chills running up his arms and legs and freezing his brain, taking short, sharp breaths. A small boy was in there, his scraggly brown hair pushed to the side of his head, dirt smudging his face. He approached Asher and squatted beside him.

"You look sick," he said. "Do you need some medicine?"

"I'm okay. Thank you, though."

"But you're sweating and shaking really bad."

"I'm just cold."

"It's not cold down here."

Asher forced a smile. "It happens sometimes. It's called nerves."

"What's that?"

"When you feel nervous, your body reacts."

The boy wrapped his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees. "Why would you feel nervous?"

"What's your name?"

"Jacob."

"Well, Jacob," he said between sharp breaths, "I think about things I shouldn't at times."

"Like what?"

"Like things that happened in the past."

"But the past is already over."

"I know."

"So what's the point?" he said.

"I wonder that myself sometimes."

"Are you sure you don't need any medicine?"

"Don't worry about me," Asher said. "Where's your mom?"

"Talking with the other women in the assembly room. It's boring in there."

"What about the other kids?"

"They're with them."

"Maybe you should take a nap, then."

He twisted his lips into a half-smile. "Yeah."

Asher closed his eyes and pretended to try to sleep. When he opened them to slits, Jacob was still there, watching him. Strangely, it made him feel more calm to have a child form of guardian watching over him than any adult, though he knew Jacob wouldn't be able to protect him if it came down to it. It reminded him of the courage one was born with that the world, that the nation of Azure, slowly stripped away, till the only thing you believed in was them, no matter how big of a lie it was in the end. The thoughts drained from his mind and slowly his stomach loosened and his eyes grew heavy and the arms of sleep wrapped around him.

***

Someone slapped him awake, and for a moment Asher thought it was the white-haired android, that he'd infiltrated the underground lair in the darkness, but when his vision steadied and acclimated to the obsidian surroundings he saw it was Ryland.

"Come with me," he said.

Asher rose from his sleeping bag, women, children, and men asleep all around him. Dizzy, he followed Ryland through the tunnels to the operating room, the walls seeming to shift about him. When they entered the room, Shultz stood there with a big smile on his face, candles burning all around him.

"Good morning," he said.

"Is it morning?" Asher said.

"I'm sure it is somewhere."

Ryland guided him into the operating chair. "Do you know why we're here?"

"What I saw in Empyrean?"

Ryland tilted his head back, glanced over his shoulder at Shultz as if to see if he knew what Asher was talking about, but he only shrugged and splayed his hands. "What are you talking about?" he asked.

"I saw him up there, but I don't know if he recognized me."

He placed his hands on Asher's shoulders and looked into his eyes. "Saw who?"

"The android."

"What android?"

"The one who stopped the massacre, who threatened anyone who mentioned it—"

"Did he give any indication that he may have recognized you?" Ryland said.

"Nothing overt. I barely recognized him."

"You sure you didn't dream it?"

"No, it was real."

He took a deep breath. "What do you think, Shultz?"

"Doesn't mean anything. For all we know, he could go from bar to bar throughout the night, looking to stomp out any troublemakers."

"All to make the government look pretty, but that's the problem," Ryland said. "We don't know why he was here. It could have been nothing, or it could have been our friend here... but how would he have known Asher was down here, anyway?"

"Someone would have had to inform a government official."

"Then it would have been somebody down here, and I don't see that."

"Perhaps it was only a coincidence," Shultz said.

"Maybe, but I'm not a big believer in coincidence." He massaged Asher's shoulder. "What do you think, friend?"

"I don't know," Asher said. "I came down here to tell you right away, but my stomach was so tight I could barely walk, so I just lay in a sleeping bag and eventually fell asleep and then—"

"I woke you. I know. But what does your gut tell you?"

"I don't know."

"Yes you do."

"I don't—"

"Of course you do. Now tell me."

"I'm afraid that..."

Ryland slapped him lightly. "Afraid of what?"

"He remembered me."

He took a deep breath, exhaling through his mouth, then turned to Shultz. "Put somebody in the bar at all times, maybe Rick, watching for..." He looked at Asher. "Give us your best description of this android."

"He's pale and has white hair and these blue eyes that... they're unlike anything I've ever seen, like ice or something."

"Tall, short?"

"Pretty tall."

"Muscular or thin?"

"More thin."

"You got that?" he asked Shultz.

"I got it."

"All right," he said. "Everything's under control. Don't worry about this android. Now tell me why we're here."

"You're going to send me up there."

"For what?"

"To kill my old boss."

"You're damn right I am."

"Why?"

"Because nobody has the right to do what he did to me," Asher said.

"Nobody, not me, not Shultz, not anyone down here has the right to treat you like some diseased dog. That's what you looked like when I met you—a stray dog. Now take off your shirt and turn around."

He followed his orders.

Ryland arranged a couple of the mirrors connected to the chair to where Asher had a clear view of his back, the scars crisscrossing it from the bottom all the way to the top. In his imagination he saw Stewart with the whip, relishing each strike, probably getting a hard-on from it. His chin quivered at the sight of the wounds and he closed his eyes.

"Open your eyes," Ryland said. "Study them."

Asher forced them open. A stray tear rolled down his cheek. In the scars he saw evidence of a life torn asunder, the ghosts of his past culminating in wounds that would never heal, like memories he couldn't erase, no matter how hard he tried—Chloe, David. They would always be there to remind him of who he once was, what he'd been. He flinched at the thought of working for a government that saw him as nothing more than a parasite, easily disposed of, for he'd always tried to make himself believe his life mattered in some way. But would it have mattered any less if he'd tried to escape with Chloe and David and died with them?

"Relive the pain your boss caused you, channel it into a fury directed at him. This is a cleansing, a drowning of your old self and a birth of the new man yearning to break free from the chains inside you."

Shultz stood to the side of the operating chair now and lifted his forefinger. On his fingertip rested a contact lens with tiny green and red stripes upon it. "Put this in your eye and it will record everything."

"Why do we need to record it?" Asher said. "My word's not good enough?"

"I want evidence that you did it," Ryland said. "It would be just as easy to go up there, wander around for a day, and come back and tell us it's done."

"So what if I don't do it?"

"How about I put you on a leash and make you walk on all fours, then?" His nostrils flared. "You either take charge of your life or I'll do it for you."

Asher nodded. "Got it." He took the pouch of gold pieces from his pocket and offered it to Ryland. "You wanna hold on to this while I'm up there?"

"Nah, get yourself a haircut while you're gone and shave the rest of that shit off."

They all laughed. Shultz gave him a holster and helped him strap it around his shoulder then Ryland handed him a loaded Generation 44 pistol and a silencer to screw onto the muzzle—"In case you need to be quiet," he said—and showed him how to place the gun within the holster. He stepped back and looked him over and smiled and then gave him a navy trench coat to conceal everything, had him put it on, and patted his chest.

Finally, Shultz put the contact in Asher's right eye.

"Nobody'll be able to tell this is in your eye," he said, "so don't sweat it."

For the first time in his life Asher felt as if he had some form of power that was all his own, not granted by the government but given to him as a gift to show him any true strength lay inside him. He was to do this alone, like Ryland wanted. It was warmer underground with the coat on and the holster strapped around his shoulder, causing a thin line of sweat to break out across his brow, but with the gun on him he had the ability to take a man's life at a moment's notice, the same type of potency his old boss had had when he'd locked him in the pillory and beaten the shit out of him. Standing there in the candlelit darkness, he ran the tape over and over in his mind, tried to relive the pain, to shower himself with anger. The contact caused his eye to itch a bit, but it was something he could endure for the time being.

"What's he look like to you?" Ryland asked Shultz.

"Like he's ready to take on the world."

# 12

They went with him up to the door in the floor that led to Empyrean and bid him good-bye, saying he'd come back a new man or wouldn't come back at all.

Before Asher hit the streets, he ordered a couple of beers from Frank and laid five gold pieces on the table for him. He looked around for the android he'd seen the other night, but only a few stray people sat throughout the bar, their heads hanging over their beer mugs, none of them him. Autumn appeared in the bar seemingly out of nowhere and sat across from him, her dreadlocks twining over the smooth skin of her face, the smell of her like fresh powder tinged with dirt. He liked her, no matter how much he tried to deny it to himself.

"You don't have to go, you know."

"If I don't, I can't come back," he said.

"Why would you want to, really?"

"I've got nowhere else to go." He shrugged. "They're looking for me out there, and I've been alone for so long I'll take living down here over being by myself every night."

"What if you tried to escape from Azure?" She looked around to make sure nobody was listening. "I could go with you."

"You barely know me."

"So what? If I want—"

"You don't know what's out there, either, and neither do I. Not only that, but—"

"You have to prove something to them?"

"I have to do this for myself."

She leaned back in the booth, looking down at her fingernails and clicking them together. "Why?"

"To stand up for myself for once."

"You already did that with Zander."

"That was different," he said.

"How?"

"It just was."

"The only reason you feel like you have to do this is because they told you to do it."

"It's more—"

"Would you be doing it otherwise?"

"I gotta go."

He rose from the booth and she grabbed his wrist and he looked into her bluish-green eyes and she loosened her grip and looked down at the table and he walked outside into the night, the warm air washing over him, a hollowness filling his chest and stomach. What he'd wanted to do was take her hand and lead her outside and get a drink with her somewhere, live a carefree life by wheeling through the streets and laughing, then make love to her in a rented room and hold her in his arms, finally releasing Chloe from the chains of his mind, but it wasn't possible, not here in Azure. By bringing her into his life he'd only invite another chance to lose someone he cared about, and was that worth it after everything he'd been through?

It felt like it had been months since he'd been in the districts. It had to be close to, or the beginning of, September by now, and soon after fall would creep up with its orange skies and cool air. Time moved too fast. He slid his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and looked at the many people milling up and down the sidewalks on either side of the street. A cop sped past on a slider, swerving around rubble and a few potholes, its blue lights twirling through the black. The ever-present drones hung in the sky like lords overlooking their subjects.

He jostled through the crowd, trying to figure out what to do first. He had no idea where Stewart lived, so the only way he figured he could kill him was to wait outside the building on Levity Street till he saw him exit and then follow him home and sit at the back of the light rail and watch him like some pervert studying his prey. A chill ran down his arms and legs thinking of pure, unadulterated murder. It was something he never thought he'd do, but in this world it seemed necessary to have any sort of significance, any real presence, or else you were just a mouse running through a maze created by _them._ He thought of taking the light rails to the glitz of District 7 and walking up the streets to Halcyon, the building where Congress and the president worked, and trying to shoot his way inside. It was surrounded by a fifteen-foot fence and armed guards. Members of Congress rode to work in armored cars from their mansions. Other than that, nobody was privy to anything they did, aside from rumors. He used to think they made laws to protect their citizens, but he now realized it was more likely they had orgies and drank champagne all day long, then rode home with women on each arm. He remembered something his wife had told him about President James Pole: "He has his subjects pick out women for him and they disappear overnight. They say he uses them and then has them killed. He doesn't even care what age they are." He'd covered her mouth before she could continue, searching their apartment for anything that could have been recording her—insect drones or implanted devices in the walls he hadn't noticed before. It sounded so outrageous then he had no choice but to ignore it if he wanted to continue working for the government, but now he wondered whether it could be true, that the president was nothing more than a power-hungry womanizer who'd created his own mythical origin.

Lost in his thoughts, he ran into, of all people, Mason, who was standing on a corner dressed in black with a leather briefcase in his hand. He looked over Asher with a smirk.

"What you doin' out here?"

"I've got something I need to take care of," he said.

"I'm sure you do."

"In case I don't come back, I want to thank you."

"For what?"

"For helping me."

"Yeah?" Mason looked up and down the street then back at Asher. "What can I say but good luck to you."

"Thanks."

Asher extended his hand and Mason set the briefcase down on the sidewalk and shook it.

"I hope you come back," he said. "We need more people like you."

They spoke a little longer and Asher continued on his way. Before he started on the journey, he wanted a hot dog from Don. He wound his way up and down the streets and came to where Don's hot dog stand typically stood, only it wasn't there. He turned in circles, trying to remember whether he was in the correct place.

A young man in tattered clothes with sunken eyes, who was sitting on the sidewalk and leaning against the wall, said, "You looking for Don?"

"Yeah."

He wetted his lips. "Cop came by and said he needed a permit for the hot dog stand or he had to pay a steep fine. I mean, he already had a license to operate. He had to have a permit, too? How long did he have that stand here?"

"A good while."

"Maybe a couple years and nobody said a word, then one day..." He pressed his lips together, his chin quivering. "That's how they do you. Everything's fine till it's not, then they take it all away and pretend like it's for your benefit."

"Is he at home, then?"

The kid took a deep breath and looked at Asher with shaking eyes. "He's dead."

"What do you mean?"

"Just like I said it, man. He tried to argue with the cop and it didn't work 'cause the pig put a gun to his head and shot him for disorderly conduct."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah? Well sorry won't bring him back."

Asher stood there for a moment, awkwardly trying to find more words, for he knew what it felt like to lose someone you loved, but sometimes it was better to just let the person alone, so without saying another word he shuffled onward till he reached the light rail and boarded.

It was sparsely populated. Everyone wore filthy clothes, except a man with short brown hair in a blue blazer and collared shirt, a red tie hanging loosely from his neck. A bulge beneath his armpit told Asher to keep an eye on him. Did he get on when Asher did, or had he already been on board? Announcements and news played on the speakers. "It's another beautiful night in Azure. The skies are clear, the weather is warm, and it's an important time to stay vigilant for your government and fellow citizens. Your government is always looking out for you. Look to the skies, look to the streets, look to your heart and know we are always here for you, protecting you, watching over you. Crime is moving ever downward in our great nation, aided by the police, drones, and citizens like you. Just yesterday the police captured a group in District Five planning an escape from this wonderful nation to the outside world, where chaos reigns. Our police force put a stop to this cabal and later executed them before a large crowd in Limerence Square. Additionally, our drones spotted an attempted robbery on..." He tuned out the rest, including the rules of Azure, and looked out the window. A tracer wheeled through the air, its spotlight shining into the streets below. He caught the last words issuing from the speakers: "Remember, be good to your nation, and your nation will be good to you."

The light rail came to its first stop and a few people got off and disappeared into the night. Then the rail sped along, stopping off and on till it was his time to get off. He rose from his seat and walked toward the front, and the man in the loose red tie followed behind him and got off the rail, too.

Asher tried to ignore him and continue on his way toward Levity Street, passing homeless pedestrians and drunks wheeling through the streets, laughing and shouting, and others wearing government work clothes, their names etched into patches on their chests. Still he felt the man's eyes on him the whole way, so he took a turn down a less populated street to lose him and looked over his shoulder, but he was still there.

_Who is this guy?_ he thought.

The air smelled rank, like metallic sewage, and he held his nose, turning another corner onto a rubble-strewn street and passing by one broken citizen after another. A tracer flew across the sky, carrying an electric banner that read "STAY LOYAL IN THE FACE OF ADVERSITY. AZURE LOVES YOU. I LOVE YOU." - PRESIDENT JAMES POLE. Asher was careful not to shake his head with the stalker behind him, probably measuring his every move.

Finally, on Pyramid Street, he crossed one of the few smooth roads in the area and stopped and sat on a bench, the wood creaking beneath him, and waited for his stalker to approach him. People passed by on either side of the street and finally his man emerged across the road. Instead of crossing, the man stayed on the opposite side of the street, reached inside his blazer, and then held his fist out in front of him. It was then that one of his eyes flashed like a light, beaming right onto Asher as if taking a snapshot, and then he opened his hand and an insect like a firefly took flight, shining for a moment, then evanescing amid the obsidian surroundings.

"Fucking android," someone said.

His stalker then turned his back and walked up another street and vanished, but he now heard the buzzing of the insect drifting from one side of him to the other and knew it was a drone. He swatted his hands through the air at the sound, trying to destroy it. How would that android have known to follow him? He looked completely different now with the skullcap on and the scars on his face. Did he look suspicious? Did he give off an air of mistrust? And if that snapshot was brought to some databank where they could match it with the shot the white-haired android had taken of him the night of the massacre, would they somehow be able to match them? The whole thing made his heart pound in his throat. He didn't want to go back beneath Empyrean if it was going to put his newfound friends in danger.

Lost in his thoughts and paying attention solely to the buzzing sound, he smelled a fetid stench but only noticed the sniffling stranger to the side of him when the man tapped him on the shoulder. The knife in the soot-faced man's hand gleamed against the streetlight. He wiped the snot from his nose repeatedly as he spoke.

"You need to gimme that coat, friend," he said. "It's fixin' to get cold out here with fall comin'."

Asher nodded and raised his hands in surrender. "Okay, just let me get up."

The man motioned with the knife. "Get on up, then."

He rose and acted as though he was going to take off the coat then pulled the pistol from its holster and aimed it between the derelict's eyes. "You wanna stab me now?"

"Sorry, man." He backed away. "I was just playin'."

"Stop moving. Stay right where you are."

The vagrant stopped and raised his hands. "Come on, man."

"Did I tell you to say anything?"

"I just..."

Asher tilted his head to the side. "There you go again."

"Please."

Asher pressed the muzzle between the man's eyes. "How many people have you killed on these streets?" Over the shoulder of the bum he saw a drone swaying in the sky, but it didn't seem to notice anything going on and stayed put.

"I ain't killed nobody."

"You lying to me?"

"Man, I'm sorry, I—"

"Give me your hand."

"Come on—"

"Give me your hand."

The man did as he said and Asher took the money pouch from his pocket and opened it and placed a couple gold pieces in his palm. "Now leave."

"Thank you."

Asher didn't respond.

The vagabond straggled away, looking back again and again, his eyes wide with wonder, till he disappeared. Asher holstered the Generation 44 and looked at the faces of strangers passing by, floating about like the visages of ghosts. They all crossed to the other side of the street to avoid him.

The insect drone rested on Asher's shoulder and illuminated for a second then faded to black. Quickly he reached for it, but it soared into the air and circled around him. There was no way he could carry on with his mission or go back beneath Empyrean till he got rid of this damn drone. But all he could do for now was keep moving, and he did, all the way to Levity Street, and stood across the road from his former place of employment, looking at the tinted windows, wondering whether anyone else had been cast aside since he left. Maybe Paul had been beaten to a pulp and discarded like a piece of trash, too.

All he could do now was wait till he saw Stewart and follow him. There was no other way. He knew if he checked any directory Stewart Ballard wouldn't be listed due to the fact that he ran a government office, for those people were protected to a different degree than normal citizens. So this was the plan: to simply wait, with the drone buzzing about him.

After a few hours, he grew thirsty and wandered about the streets till he found a corner store and bought a cup of water and some stale chips for a couple of gold pieces. Then he walked back toward Levity Street.

Whatever he did, he couldn't shake the insect drone. The constant buzzing made him feel as if he were going crazy. Finally, he took the pistol from its holster, screwed on the silencer, and waited. When the time was right, he swatted at the drone, and it flew in front of him and lit up for a moment and he closed one eye and aimed and fired and shot off one of its wings. A wiry man across the street ducked at the muted sound, looking around to see where it came from. Asher waved to him in apology, and the man shook his head and walked on.

He stood over the mechanical bug as it circled about on the ground, flapping one wing, trying desperately to rise again, and placed his foot over it and crushed it and then squatted and studied its remains. There was nothing discernible in the crushed pieces that would signify it was a drone. It was only when he touched the metallic mess that he was reassured it had been a drone at all. It was funny how the mind could play tricks on you.

***

The sun rose and drones moved through the sky, surveying everyone and everything. An armored car turned down a street a few blocks away.

The sidewalks grew more crowded and Asher moved among the citizens, walking up and down Levity Street, trying to disappear within the throng, but no matter how hard he tried, he felt as though he stuck out like a ten-foot snake in a clear pool.

Stewart wasn't anywhere to be seen. Besides, what was Asher going to do if he saw him? Kill him in broad daylight? Everything jumbled together in his mind; his eyelids grew heavy. He wanted to lie on the ground and take a nap and forget about the whole thing, forget for a moment he was under pressure to do anything. And not a minute later he spotted Stewart heading toward the building.

He jogged across the street and stayed a ways behind him, slipping his hands inside his coat pockets, his legs heavy and stiff, electricity pulsing across his scalp. He made it to where he was walking about twenty yards behind him, and he took a hand from his pocket and reached within his coat and felt the grip of the gun and stopped himself. Not here, not now. Where could he run to or hide in the daylight?

He stopped and watched him enter the building and then approached the glass doors and studied his own reflection. He looked like a different man, one whom he'd never known before. His image shifted upon the glass, growing larger and smaller, wider and thinner. People passed behind him, but none seemed to take notice of him, this anomaly in the world. Or was he just like everyone else now and had been different before, one of the oppressors, one of them?

He drifted away from the building, trying to figure out how he'd spend the day. What he wanted to do was find a nook somewhere and sleep, but how could he? What if he slept too long? What if somebody robbed him during his slumber?

No, he'd have to wait, sit and watch for Stewart to come back out no matter how tired he got, and then follow him and wait for the right moment, a quiet moment with nobody around, to finish him off.

***

The day passed by slowly and painfully.

He caught himself nodding off a few times and slapped himself awake. His body swayed back and forth as he stood and waited. And when he sat on a bench or the ground, his body conspired to lull him to sleep, so he rose again.

When he made a quick trip to get a little food, he got coffee too, which helped to give him some momentary energy, but soon enough his body grew heavy again. Strangers passed before him all day long and he had a vision of his own face on all of their shoulders, as if they were all different versions of him, jostling their way somewhere. He shook his head to make sure it was only a reverie and the imagery broke apart like fragments of a waking dream.

"Asher?"

Asher looked in the direction of the voice then blinked a few times to make sure what he was seeing was real. It was his former coworker Joe, wearing the work clothes he used to wear, his name sewn onto the chest of the shirt.

"It is Asher, right?"

He licked his dry lips and looked around, searching for a way to answer the question without lying or arousing suspicion.

"Yeah."

"You got laid off, right? I mean, that's what I heard."

"Something like that.

"So what're you doing here?"

"I guess I miss it. I don't have much to do these days, so..." Asher crossed one arm over his chest and brought his forefinger to his chin and stroked it. "Why are you going in late?"

"They switched me to part-time." He sighed. "Remember Paul? They fired him. They've been bringing in all new guys and getting rid of the veterans."

"Why?"

"To cut costs, they say. And they have a different vision now."

"What kind of vision?"

Joe looked over his shoulder at the building, as if the edifice itself could overhear him. "I'm not supposed to say. Technically, you don't work there anymore."

His nostrils flared. "When they get rid of you too, you might change your tune."

"I'm not trying to—"

"Just tell me."

"Look, I could get in big trouble—"

"You gotta tell me, kid." Asher's mouth was full of cotton, and he continuously licked his lips and rocked back and forth on his feet. "You know what they did to me?"

Joe backed away a bit. "I've got a pretty good idea."

"And do you know why?"

"I don't wanna know."

"You need to..."

But Joe had already turned away and started toward the building. In his youth, Asher knew he'd have done the same thing. Certainly he probably looked and sounded like a crazy man, about to say something that would incriminate them both.

Now Asher was alone again, waiting for his chance, for the time when Stewart would emerge and he'd revisit the pain upon him that he'd felt when the whip tore into his back.

***

Twilight fell and the crowds on the sidewalks and moving through the streets grew thinner. Occasionally a cop spun by on a slider or a tracer passed overhead. Drones hovered in the sky, moving to and fro, looking down on the pawn-like citizens.

He paced up and down, knowing eventually Stewart would emerge from the building and head toward home, wherever that was. He tried to remain patient, but his legs had grown like wooden stumps from standing for so long and the joints in his arms ached and the nape of his neck throbbed with pain and he rolled his head around his shoulders to try to loosen the stiffness, but it was no use, for the pain remained, coursing through his body like a current. To top it all off his stomach growled with hunger, pangs twining through it, but he couldn't leave his post because he knew that any moment Stewart would appear.

Around the time the last strains of sunlight faded from view, he noticed what he thought was the android from the previous night, still wearing the loose red tie and blue blazer. He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them and the man was gone, but it got him thinking again: _Why was the android following me?_ Was it out of suspicion or something more? Had he recognized him from his old life, and if he had why didn't he kill him? Again he swore he saw the android but then he was gone just as quickly. Was his mind playing tricks on him?

Asher wiped the stinging sweat from his brow and walked along the sidewalk, focusing on the building's front doors, the trench coat growing heavy in the warm weather. People began emerging from the building whom he'd never seen before, a whole new force of drone operators. Among them Joe strode. Asher stayed in the shadows, avoiding any contact with him again whatsoever. If he saw him still standing out here, it would be in the very least suspicious, but more likely incriminating.

He skulked along the other side of the street, studying the group for Stewart, but didn't see him, so he moved to where he had a good view of the building and there he was, walking out the front doors, briefcase in hand, a grin on his pasty face. He passed a hand over his thin grey hair as he walked and seemed to inhale the air with insouciance.

_All must seem perfect when you have a small amount of power,_ Asher thought, _but when that power can be taken from you at a moment's notice, do you own it?_

Asher thought of sprinting across the street, pulling the gun from his holster, and screwing on the silencer and offing him right there in the open, but if anything at all went wrong he'd have to somehow work his way back to Empyrean amid a manhunt. No, he had to be careful, so he strode across the street, head down, hands in his coat pockets, and followed behind him from a distance, careful not to lose him, turning down one street and up another, jostling through crowds and listening to grumbles and things like, "Hey, watch out," and mumbled threats, but it was all white noise to him, for Stewart eclipsed his mind wholly.

Finally, they reached the light rail. Stewart boarded toward the front, so he got on at the back and immediately sat and lowered his head, taking in the smell of piss and potpourri. The crowd on the rail was thin, most of them probably out searching for a high or looking to get drunk to forget their lives for a time. The news began to play, but his head and heart pounded so loudly he couldn't make sense of it. His stomach twisted into a wiry ball, tightening more and more with each second. Every slight move of Stewart's head made him think he'd be spotted. Stops came and went, and some emptied out the rail while new passengers boarded. It felt as if the ride went on for an eternity, the blackness outside like a portal he was traveling through to a new life.

Finally Stewart's stop came and he got up and exited the rail. Asher followed, his head down in case Stewart glanced back. When he stepped off, he knew right away he was in District 7. Glitzy lights lit the myriad buildings. A huge digital screen on the side of one of the buildings showcased President James Pole, his grey-brown hair slicked back, a carnivorous smile on his face, saying, "I love you, Azure loves you," over and over again. Sliders and armored cars rode up and down superhighways in the sky. Drones and tracers swerved through the darkness above. The smell of sweet smoke twisted through the air. Tinny voices carried from unknown corners and crevices and tingled in his ears. A gunshot blast rang out in the distance then echoed through the night. It was said that crime in District 7 was close to zero, but the streets populated with junkies and dealers told a different story.

He stayed a safe distance behind Stewart, his hand readying to grab the grip of his Generation 44 the whole time. If he had no other choice, he would do it in the streets, but his preference was to somehow get inside somewhere and look Stewart in the eye before he took his life, tell him exactly what he thought of him. He pictured it in his mind as he strode along, thinking of what he'd say, images swirling through his skull and making impressions on the night.

A gaunt man touched his shoulder and said, "You got some gold you can spare, brother?"

Asher shook his head and moved onward. He had no time for charity now. His mind was consumed with violence, with vengeance. He walked so fast he almost caught up to Stewart, so he scaled back and increased the distance, swaying from side to side to move more slowly, then, after what seemed like miles, Stewart walked up the steps of a two-story stone townhouse and typed in his information on a keyboard beside the door, placed his hand on a sensor, and said his name.

Asher waited at the bottom of the stairs till Stewart cracked the door open then rushed him and pushed him inside and kicked the door closed behind them. Whether anyone saw him do it he wasn't sure. Stewart fell to the ground and looked up at him with a wry smile and Asher pulled the Generation 44 from his coat and aimed it at his forehead, then took the silencer out and screwed it on. The antiseptic smell of the place flooded his nostrils. A dim chandelier hanging from the ceiling lit the surroundings.

"Remember me?"

"Of course," Stewart said. "Asher Cain."

"Wipe that smile off your face, you piece of shit... Do you know why I'm here?"

"The reason is fairly obvious."

"Which is?"

"You want to kill me."

"No... I'm _going_ to kill you."

"Will killing me give you some sense of peace?"

"More pleasure than peace."

"When I whipped you, I was only doing my job. Surely you can understand—"

"Shut up." Asher shook his head. "Just shut your mouth."

The humiliating moment flashed through Asher's mind. He took a step forward and brought the muzzle ever closer to Stewart's face. He could barely breathe and the pistol rattled in his fist and he wetted his lips and studied his ex-boss's dark eyes, the bags beneath them as pronounced as ever. There was no fear there, no depth. It was as though he were staring into the eyes of an antique kewpie doll. Asher had always been afraid to gaze into them for too long when he worked for him, but now he knew the emptiness that resided there.

"You're afraid," Stewart said. "Don't worry, that's natural."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"Not of me, but of murdering me, of what kind of man you'll become afterward."

"You need to shut your mouth."

"If you weren't fearful, I'd already be dead."

"You're talking yourself into a hole."

"Then kill me."

He moved to where the muzzle was inches from Stewart's face and lightly squeezed the trigger, trying to pull harder, to finish it, but something in him hesitated. Stewart smiled and a light flashed from his eye, nearly blinding Asher. He grabbed hold of Asher's wrist and swirled him around and threw him up the stairs as if he were the weight of a baby. Asher flew into the wall and cratered it and lost his wind and dropped the gun to the ground and it went off and shot the chandelier, causing it to spin slowly around. Asher fell to the ground soon thereafter, a dizziness spinning through his skull. Dust motes spiraled through the air, making it hard to see anything. Still he could make out the gun on the floor before him and crawled to it and curled his hand around the grip then saw Stewart bounding up the stairs toward him. He widened his eyes and aimed at him and fired repeatedly but Stewart leaped upward, disappearing from view. Smoke twirled from the muzzle in sinuous waves. Asher rolled onto his back, aiming the pistol skyward, trying to locate him, regaining his breath, his back smarting with pain. He pushed himself into a sitting position then slowly rose, staggering about.

Stewart's voice echoed throughout the house, coming from all directions at once. "I've already notified the authorities, Asher. Everyone in this district will be looking for you. If you set down the gun and give yourself up, they won't hurt you."

"Of course, you wouldn't lie to me, you fucking android."

"I'm exactly what they wanted me to be."

"You're a lie, like everything else in this shitty nation."

"Careful, everything you say is being recorded."

"Record me, then. It's already too late for me."

"It's never too late."

The voice circled around Asher, and he rotated on his heels, aiming the pistol into the dimness, steeling himself for a sudden attack, an ache roaring through his spine and skull. But an assault never came, so he lumbered up the dark hallway then heard something behind him, turned around and narrowed his gaze and aimed at where he thought the sound had come from, but there was nothing there. He heard it again, a light pitter-patter combined with a crunching sound, and took a step forward.

_Where are you?_ he thought, sweat rolling down his forehead and into his eyes, causing a stinging sensation. _Where the fuck are you?_

He edged onward, one baby step after another, and came to a point where flecks of painted wood drifted through the air from above. He pretended not to notice, stopped in his tracks, looked over his shoulder then dropped onto his back and aimed at the ceiling. Stewart hung from its surface, barefoot and shirtless now, his fingers and toes digging into the wood.

"You got me," Stewart said.

"Caught you red-handed."

He fired at him repeatedly and Stewart dropped to the floor with a thud, his synthetic body writhing there in something like pain. Asher rose from the ground and rushed over and stood above him. A giant red eye in the center of his chest looked at him, blinking rapidly, a white liquid like semen excreting from the corner of it.

Stewart turned his head and faced him. Half his jaw had been blown away, white goo dripping from the pseudo-bone. He grabbed Asher's ankle and jerked it and Asher fell to the floor and pain smarted his back and he brought the muzzle to Stewart's neck and fired again and again, then listened to him gurgling and laughing and kneeled over him.

"They're coming," he said, his voice barely audible. "They'll be here soon. Your face is flashing in the sky and on every digital billboard in the nation as a wanted man."

"Open your mouth."

He merely laughed, a light mirth clicking in his throat.

Asher pressed the muzzle to his lips but couldn't force his mouth open and fired and blew the contours of his face apart and the blowback covered him with thick, warm white fluid. He rose and stumbled backward, thin trails of smoke twining through the air before him, and heard footsteps below. He pushed himself up and unscrewed the silencer and shoved it in his pocket and holstered the pistol then rushed toward the rooms in the back and opened each door, one after the other. Only one room had a window and he shambled toward it. Through the glass he saw drones roaming through the dark. How would he ever make it back?

_There's no time to think._

He unclasped the locks on the window and opened it just as he heard footsteps coming up from behind. Quickly he crawled outside without looking back and hung from the sill, hoping he wouldn't be spotted, and dropped toward the ground below. Pain spiked up the heels of his feet when he hit the ground, but he pushed himself up without taking stock of any injury and rushed through the darkness of the small backyard, staggering a bit, barely able to see anything till he was back in the streets and the glitz lit everything with a sparkly glow. The streets were packed with citizens. It felt as if every one of them took notice of him, covered in this white substance. From somewhere he could hear President James Pole saying over and over, "I love you, Azure loves you." It was like walking through a nightmare landscape.

"There he is," someone said. "That's him."

At the same time he heard a slider screaming up from behind, but he didn't look back, just reached inside his coat, his heart hammering in his chest, and got ready. A drone appeared ahead and shined a spotlight into the street and the brightness wavered back and forth, clearly searching through the crowd for him. Someone grabbed his shoulder and he pulled out the gun and turned toward the stranger, a heavyset man with sunken eyes, and shot him in the stomach. The man dropped to the pavement. Screams erupted from the crowd. The slider had stopped in the street and the cop was taking off his helmet. Asher sprinted toward him, firing over and over. He must have hit him five times in the chest before the cop slumped over. Asher circled around to make sure nobody else was going to attack him then shot the cop in the head a few times to finish him off for certain and the gun began to click. He tossed it to the ground with a clatter and yanked the Generation 14 from the cop's holster and put it in his own then kicked him off the slider and hopped on. It was covered in the same warm white fluid Stewart had bled. The streets cleared around him, the crowd making a pocket of space for him to be caught by the authorities.

"How do you ride this damned thing?" he mumbled to himself.

The drone moved closer and extended a barrel. The only sound he heard anymore was static crackling in his ears, the only smell that of sweat and body odor.

Asher closed his eyes for a second and imagined himself speeding through the streets on the slider then opened them and looked at the handlebars. There were levers on either side. A red button rested between them, the words FLIGHT MODE written beneath it, and under that was a fuel gauge that indicated through a number of blackened cells that the tank was full. He wrapped his hands around the bars and tried one of the levers. Nothing happened. _Come on, dammit._ He looked up and the drone was closer, within striking distance. He tested the other and the slider nudged forward. He pulled it slightly more and it started to move and he steered it in the direction away from the drone and then floored it and screamed through the darkness, swerving one way and then the other, the blue lights on the wheels spinning beneath him like lightning-fast carousels, hoping against hope he wouldn't fly off the thing and kill himself, the tail of his trench coat flapping behind him, the faces of people on the sidewalk to either side of him merely streaky blurs. Another cop appeared in front of him on a slider and passed him right by. He was moving so fast he could barely breathe, the wind blustering against his face, threatening to pull his skullcap off. He had to figure out how to slow the thing down. He tapped the lever that didn't seem to do anything earlier and the slider slowed. Now he had it figured out for the most part, but he had no idea how to get back to his district from here or how long it would take. He pulled the brake lever and rounded a corner and looked back. Several cops rocketed after him on sliders, along with an armored car barreling up the center of the road between them. Drones wheeled through the sky above them all like overbearing mothers.

_All this for me?_ Asher thought. _Is this to prove some kind of point?_

He pulled the acceleration lever all the way down and heard the engine roar and then the wind screamed in his ears and stabbed at his eyes. He moved so fast everything he passed became phantasmagoric imagery—reddened faces jutting out of the blackness then fading away, tracers of light speeding past to either side of him like shooting stars, shapeless buildings that seemed to fall apart and then resurrect themselves. He hit a rubble-strewn street and nearly flew off the bike when it soared through the air after hitting a piece of detritus, but he held on, more determined than he'd ever been in his life, finally feeling as though he'd found some form of purpose, no matter how nebulous it seemed at the present moment.

When he felt as though he might have lost them, he slowed down. Some people on the sparsely populated sidewalks, wherever he was now, laughed and cheered him on, giving him a thumbs-up. Others jeered, flipping him off and cursing him. Did everyone know what was going on? It seemed he had to be in a district besides 7 now, for there was no glitz, but he had no idea which one he was in.

A bright light blinded Asher, and only a second later did he realize a sinuous female android was running after him, her hazelnut hair lifting off her shoulders as she ran. He propelled himself onward just as she drew her pistol and began to fire at him. He ducked and weaved back and forth on the streets and then glanced back. She was still chasing him, moving so quickly her features smeared against the night, then she stopped and reached in her pocket and opened her palm and blew against it. Several insect drones lit up and trailed after him, and she followed along with them.

He had the sudden thought this was going to end badly, but he pushed it out of his mind and once again sped through the streets when out of nowhere an army of lights lit up the pavement before him. He looked over his shoulder and saw more lights behind him. He slowed, the inevitable sorrow of getting caught rolling through his chest like a great weight, then looked down at the fuel gauge, still almost full, and saw the FLIGHT MODE button. It was his only chance. He hit the button and heard a roar behind him and felt the heat of fire and lifted into the air, a vertiginousness swirling through his stomach and skull.

The sliders and armored cars that were in front of him quickly became smaller below him. He gripped the handlebars so tightly his knuckles were white as milk. Flying through the air, he sensed someone or something behind him, but was afraid he'd lose control of the steering or float off into the sky if he looked back. His heartbeat slammed through his body all the way down to the soles of his feet. Gooseflesh trickled up his arms and legs. He was going to die. He was sure of it, and just when he'd found the strength to live.

Tracers and drones appeared distantly before him, their spotlights roaming through the night, probably searching for him. Now was the time to look back to see what was following him. He had to if he was ever going to escape this mess. But first he maneuvered the handlebars to figure out how to raise and lower himself—simply push them down or lift them up. He made sure there was nothing coming up directly in front of him and then glanced back—two cops on sliders and the insect drones the female android had sent after him, illuminating intermittently. How could he lose them?

He looked at the handlebars, jerked on the brake lever, and began to drop straight down, lifting out of the seat. The cops sped right past him. He then pulled the acceleration lever, landed back in the seat and flew onward once again, yanking the Generation 14 from its holster and coming up on the cops from behind, who had slowed to try to locate him. He fired into the gears of one of the sliders and sparks flew and it dropped straight down and the remaining cop jerked his head around and pulled his pistol just as Asher shot into the engine of his bike and flew past him, watching him free fall toward the ground below, flying right out of his seat, his arms wheeling through the air, his vacuous scream barely registering amid the shrieking wind.

Asher holstered the gun and lowered closer to the ground to avoid the tracers and drones ahead. He knew it was only a matter of time before they spotted him, but the more immediate threat was the insect drones on his tail. He had to lose them, and quickly. But how? He didn't know how to land the slider once it had taken off, nor did he think he'd find a way to make it back to Empyrean if he did figure out a way to land. The cops were probably following the blue lights of his slider below, just waiting on him to try it, and maybe they'd even communicated to the tracers and drones, trying to feed his location to them.

He spotted the red lights atop one of the light rails and knew what he had to do. He maneuvered the bike toward it, coming closer and closer to the ground, till he was above and to the side of the rail, hearing it screech through the darkness, the insect drones buzzing around him, flashing like fireflies. He could barely breathe as he brought his knees upon the seat and continued to steer, pulling the acceleration lever down all the way, going as fast as he could. _Please don't let me die._ With swift motions and without a second thought he lifted his feet onto the seat and leapt through the air toward the rail and landed on top of it with a thud, knocking the wind from him, and went sliding across the roof, grasping at the top, the wind conspiring to blow him right off before he found a groove and grabbed it and held on with everything he had, his knuckles aching from the effort, the tail of his trench coat fluttering behind him. He glanced back. The slider hit the ground and exploded, flames spiraling skyward from the wreckage. That would distract them for a while, perhaps causing them to think he was dead till they failed to discover his body. Ryland's words passed through his mind again and again as he lowered his head to try to keep the wind from cutting at his eyes: _This life is only preparation for the next, a test._

The ache in his knuckles grew more and more pronounced, to where it felt as though sooner or later they were going to give, and he wondered whether the insect drones were still tailing him and if this was how his life was going to end and images of Chloe and David flashed through his mind and he held on to them and closed his eyes and tried to make believe he was anywhere but where he was now, but the truth kept sliding back to him in the form of small pieces of debris hitting his head or tracers moving through the sky, their spotlights coming close but not quite catching him, or drones hovering above, just waiting for him to drop into their sights. The night took on a symphonic hum, and a calm slowly flooded his body despite the chaos he'd been through and just as his knuckles started to give way and he began to lose his grip, the light rail slowed. A second later it had stopped fully and he released his grip and waited till most of the crowd had exited and was moving through the dark away from the rail and then lowered himself downward, hanging on to the edge, and dropped to the concrete below. Sharp pain spiraled up his toes and legs, but he kept his balance and looked inside the rail to see if any of the passengers had noticed him drop from above, but they were all transfixed on nothing at all, staring straight ahead like dullards.

He looked all around him for the insect drones but didn't spot them, so he figured he must have lost them along the way somehow. The doors to the rail were still open and he entered and kept his head down, hoping the surveillance cameras wouldn't notice him or the streaks of white fluid covering him, strode to the back, and sat behind a man so fat he covered any view of Asher from the front. To one side of him was a drunk who was mumbling to himself and didn't even seem to notice someone else was now sitting across from him and to the other side was the window.

The smell of piss and potpourri lit up his nostrils and the hard seat beneath him seemed harder than usual. All he wanted was a bed to lie in after all this insanity. He kept expecting to awaken and remember he'd taken a dreamnova and had experienced the most vivid dream of his life, but he knew this was real, that all of it had happened, and he felt like a new man with a new appreciation for his own life, and others' too. He opened his hands and studied the lines on his palms and wondered about the notion of fate, whether it could be true. His gaze fell on the white streaks on his coat and he looked at his pale reflection in the window and saw more of them lining his face and shoulders and knew it would be easy to spot him. He mentally prepared himself to grab the Generation 14 from the holster at any moment. Now he knew, or thought he knew, why he hadn't seen any sliders flying recently: they only flew when giving chase to someone, and piecing together the memories in his mind, he thought the few times he'd seen them flying through the air they had been chasing someone or something, or so it seemed.

The news glared on the speakers. "It's another wonderful night in Azure. The skies are perfect, the weather is warm, and it's a great day to work for your government and fellow citizens. Your government is always looking out for you. Look to the skies, look to the streets, look to your heart and know we are always here for you, protecting you, watching over you." The whole litany made him feel sick to his stomach. Probably most of the people in the rail knew it was bullshit but had been brainwashed to the point where they accepted it all as truth anyhow. "Your brave police force is embroiled in a search for a man who murdered one officer and an innocent citizen then tried to escape our great nation. If you see this man..." A light-projected image of Asher appeared in the center of the rail. "... please notify the authorities closest to you." The news continued to play, but it was only a buzzing in his ears.

He reached inside his coat and kept his hand on the grip of the gun, readying himself for any eventuality that might occur. Now he was a wanted man, and that wouldn't change for the rest of his life unless he found a way out of this place. And if what Ryland had told him about heaven was true, then there was nothing to fear in death. In fact, he should welcome it with open arms. But still knots formed in his stomach thinking about facing the great unknown. It seemed strange when not so long ago he embraced the idea of floating into nothingness without looking back and now life seemed so precious, so beautiful, yet nothing had changed except his internal state. The drunken man to the side of him was now humming a tune, a punishable offense if lyrics escaped his lips and someone turned him in.

After what seemed like hours and hours, a stop came for District 14 and the fat man in front of him, as well as a few other people toward the middle, rose to get off the rail and Asher's eyes widened and he got up too, using the obese man to block any view of him. He entered the fading night and slid his hands into his coat pockets and skulked along, knowing he had to make it back to Empyrean before daylight, watching the purple break across the skyline from the rising sun. A lone hawk sailed through the air above him on the back of a streak of light, tracers floating about behind it, probably searching for him.

He made his way up one street and down another, trying to locate another light rail, for he wasn't completely familiar with District 14. Dolled-up women stood on street corners asking if he wanted to visit with them for an hour or so. Angry-looking men strode up the sidewalks with what seemed like purpose. Propaganda played on digital billboards, talking about the greatness of Azure. Sliders and armored cars sped by occasionally, moving too fast to recognize him. A man had a hot dog stand set up on one of the corners, and Asher reached inside his pocket to grab his money pouch, but it was gone. He checked his other pocket; the silencer was gone, too. _Shit._ They must have fallen out while he was being chased. What he wouldn't have given for a hot dog right then, but life always had a way of surprising him.

He kept waiting for someone to point him out and try to take him down, but it seemed the pedestrians were all stranded in their own little worlds, and he didn't have much to worry about anymore. He ducked into a public bathroom, which was covered in grime and mold and smelled of it too, and washed his face off over the sink, the brown-tinged water good enough to get rid of the white streaks covering him. A sinewy, bucktoothed man exited a stall behind him and strolled up beside him and did a double take and began to reach inside his pocket. Asher drew the Generation 14 and brought it to the man's temple.

"Whatever you were thinking about, don't."

"I wasn't gonna do nothin', man. I was just—"

"Get on your knees."

The man did as he was told.

"Please, brother. I was just reaching for my comb. I thought I recognized you from somewhere, that's all."

"Go ahead and pull it out, then."

He did so and it was, in fact, a comb.

Asher shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"Why can't a guy catch a break?" He began to cry. "All I ever wanted..."

Asher tuned the man out and holstered the gun and backed out of the bathroom while he was still talking, then jogged up the street, the sunlight growing ever brighter. A few blocks ahead he spotted another light rail station and worked his way toward it, passing weary pedestrians in government work clothes and others who seemed to wander aimlessly through the approaching daylight. He reached the boarding area and waited for the rail to arrive, tapping his foot on the ground, looking this way and that.

Finally it came and he boarded and again went toward the back, pressing his chin into his chest to try to remain anonymous, and nearly lay down in his seat to block the camera's view of him. Besides him, there were only a few other people on the rail, mostly toward the middle and front, with a couple sitting near the back. His heart filled up his throat all the way back to District 18, but the stop finally came and he rubbed his hand over his skullcap and lowered his head to shield his identity as he exited.

He slunk up the streets toward Empyrean, passing more speeding sliders and armored cars and weary pedestrians, and finally made it to the door and banged on it endlessly till Frank opened it in a white tank top and pajama bottoms, rubbing one eye, hiding his other hand behind his back.

"The fuck you doing banging on the door this early?" He moved aside to let Asher in.

He groped his way into the bar and fell to his knees and balled his hands into fists and tears flooded his eyes. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Frank set a pistol on one of the round tables and then stand there with his arms crossed, watching him.

"You all right?"

Asher stammered his words. "I think I'm gonna make it."

# 13

Down below, he passed by Autumn in the candlelit darkness among the other men and women and children. She smiled and lowered her eyes. He wanted to say something to her but didn't know what words to use, so he let her pass, glancing over his shoulder as she faded to black.

The first thing he did was go to the mess hall and pour himself a glass of water from one of the large jars and fix a bowl of brittle rice only mildly populated with weevils. He sat across from a gaunt man named Heath and they talked rarely and very little, only commenting on the tastelessness of the rice and their dream meals. Heath's was chicken-fried steak and mashed potatoes and green beans, while Asher's was salmon, a meal he'd never tasted but had heard a great deal about. After eating, he shook the man's hand and walked through the tunnels.

He came upon Ryland, who sat in the assembly room on one of the rotting wooden benches, a few candles lit around him, his head bowed. When Asher entered, Ryland slowly raised his head and turned it to the side, revealing his profile, and nodded.

"So you made it back."

"Looks like it," Asher said. "I'm standing here, aren't I?"

"That you are."

"You don't know what I went through to get back here."

"Did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"What you were supposed to do."

"I killed him," Asher said.

"And?"

"And what?"

"How'd it feel?"

Asher hadn't had time to really stop and ponder that, so he let it soak in now, an eminent sense of power rolling through his bones. The fact that Stewart had been an android softened the blow of murder, made it feel like something more acceptable, like breaking a toy or piece of furniture. He could live with that, for the scars on his back would always be there, a constant reminder of the pain and humiliation Stewart had put him through, while the ones on his face would fade with time.

"Stronger, I guess."

"You should." Ryland rose and faced him. "Not everyone would have made it back."

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

"Nothing more than I just said."

"We should talk in private," Asher said.

"We are in private."

"I mean behind closed doors, then I want this damned thing out of my eye."

Ryland offered a one-cornered smile and nodded.

***

He lit the candles in the mini-bar and Asher stood beside one of the Formica tables and waited for him to sit. When he did, Asher pulled the Generation 14 from the holster and aimed it at him.

"Did you set me up?"

"You gonna kill me?" Ryland said.

"I asked you a question."

"Do I look like a guilty man?"

"This is a guilty nation, so you tell me what guilt looks like."

"A guilty nation along with every other one, wherever they are."

"I asked you a question," Asher said.

"And I answered it."

"I'm going to count to three."

"Then you're gonna kill me?"

"One."

"Go ahead, kill me."

"Two."

He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "You think I'm scared?"

"Answer my question," Asher said.

"I didn't set you up," he said. "I had to make sure you had a toughness inside you, had to strengthen you. When you came here, you were weak. Now you're strong. You feel it, I know you do."

Asher listened to his body. It was true, a strength had been building within him since he'd come down here. "For what purpose?" he asked.

"For what's coming."

"And what's that?"

"My dreams are drowned in fire these days, nothing more than nightmares, but before that I had dreams of a faceless man who would come here and help us, maybe even save us."

"A faceless man?"

"In my dreams I couldn't see his face because a blur covered it, but when I met you I thought it could be you, so I had to test it."

"So you sent me on a suicide mission?"

"It wasn't meant to be that way. It was only meant to test your mettle."

"It tested it, all right. You're lucky I'm still standing here."

"Well, you are," Ryland said, "so put away the gun."

Asher looked at the pistol in his hand, pressed his lips together, holstered it, and sat opposite him at the table.

"In the short time you've been gone, shit's begun to happen."

"What do you mean?"

"Our manufacturer, The Sleeper, disappeared. We can't find—"

"The Sleeper?"

"We call him that 'cause he never sleeps, but, like I was saying, his place was stripped, torn apart, nothing left. Whether someone was watching it or not when we went by, I don't know."

"Nobody followed you back?"

"Not that any of us have seen."

"But you're out of pills, right?" Asher said.

"Not yet, but we're getting close. And when that happens, we're not gonna have any way to buy the things we need to survive."

"So what am I supposed to do about that?"

"I'm not finished," Ryland said. "Mason came in the day you left, saying bugs were swarming him. Not normal bugs, but ones that seemed to be following him—"

"Insect drones."

"What?"

"Insect drones. An android followed me on the light rail and sent one after me, long before I'd ever made it anywhere near my ex-boss. I got rid of it, but—"

"What are you saying?"

"Maybe they know about this place. Maybe they're waiting for the right time to come in and—"

"The only reason they'd know about this place is you."

"How do you know that?" Asher said. "Remember that I warned you when I saw the android in Empyrean before I left."

"But none of this started happening before you came here."

"You wanna take this shit out of my eye and watch what happened to me after I left here?" He threw up his hands as if offering to fight. "This has nothing to do with me. If they're watching you now, they were watching you before I got here."

Ryland brought his hand to his sweat-beaded forehead. "What do we do?"

"Where's Mason? We can ask him—"

"He's gone."

"What do you mean he's gone?" Asher asked.

"He disappeared shortly after he told me about the bugs, hasn't been back since."

"Does anyone else know?"

"I can't scare them," Ryland said. "We have women and children down here."

"You have men, too."

"What can I do, send them up to fight the cops, the government?" He splayed his hands. "There's nothing I can do."

"We can escape the nation. We can leave here."

"Nobody makes it out of here alive."

"Somebody had to have made it out of here at some point."

"There are rumors," Ryland said, "but nobody knows whether they're true."

"What rumors?"

"That a few people escaped once, but even then some of them were caught and burned alive to prove a point. Like I said—"

"How did they escape?"

"Some say on sliders, others say on tracers, still others claim they rode straight through the sally port in the North in armored cars."

"Sounds like a dream," Asher said. "But if you picture something vividly enough in your mind, you can do anything."

"You're definitely a dreamer." Ryland smirked. "Me, I think something else is gonna happen."

"Like what?"

"We're all gonna die down here."

Asher frowned. "You're the leader of this group, aren't you?"

"I try to be."

"You sent me on a crazy mission, and I barely made it back and you act like a pussy because something went wrong while I was gone." Asher pointed an accusatory finger at him. "Maybe you should leave first, leave ahead of all of us, show us what's possible."

"Maybe I will," he said. "It's not that I don't want to believe in something greater, in us, but when I walk outside and look at the drones and tracers in the sky, the sliders in the streets, see them watching us from everywhere, discouragement steals any hope from me." He dropped his gaze to the table and tightened his crossed arms. "It takes it all away. I don't see any way out."

"I made it back here with cops and androids and sliders and tracers chasing me all over the place." Asher pointed at his chest with his thumb. "I did that. You were the one who inspired me to change, to become something more than a man who mourned his losses—and I had plenty. Now it seems I'm the one who has to inspire you. But look at me..." He pointed with his index and middle finger at his own eyes. "... look at me."

Ryland did as he asked.

"We have to hope," he said. "We can't lose that."

"Why not?"

"Because without hope you're already dead."

They sat for a while in silence, then Ryland told him that while he was gone, short time though it was, he kept trying to believe in the positive, but it kept slipping away and his mind became clouded by dark thoughts and visions: the nation engulfed in fire, androids massacring innocents in the streets, his people hanged one by one in front of a captive audience of citizens, the president having his minions pick young women off the street for his harem. He said he'd been struggling with such visions for a long time and told him that when he first saw him, it seemed as though he was staring death in the face, a lifetime of pain worked into a human body and brain, but he knew that through suffering comes enlightenment, and though Asher had suffered greatly, it was through that same darkness that light was born, that a man dug deep within the well of himself and found his true nature.

"You have to grope in the darkness to find a light sometimes," he said.

Asher nodded, as if there was nothing left to say about that.

"Will you help me, then, friend?"

"I'll do whatever I can."

Ryland nodded. "Guess you didn't have time to cut your hair up there, huh?"

Asher took off the skullcap and ran a hand over his head—tufts here and there, bald patches elsewhere. "Wouldn't you know it, I didn't get a chance."

They laughed.

***

Shultz took the contact lens from Asher's eye in the operating room and put it in a metallic contraption he called "the box" that began to play the film of his harrowing experiences upon the wall.

He pressed a button on it and the film sped up, getting to the part where he killed Stewart. Ryland clapped at that point and Shultz joined him, but Asher closed his eyes, a nauseating feeling swirling through his stomach.

When they had seen all they wanted to see, Ryland said to him, "None of us have ever made it through something like that."

"What are you saying?"

"You put it together."

# 14

The following night Ryland went with Asher to get his hair cut, blocking the view of him as best he could any time a slider or drone or tracer appeared, telling him to keep his head down, to look away, while the cool winds of early September swept past them, promising the beginning of fall soon.

They sat in Pete's Barber Shop on Triangle Street, empty but for them, and Asher watched as the rest of his hair was clipped away. The place smelled of shaving cream and hairspray. The barber, Pete, ran his hand over Asher's head to make sure all the hair was even after he'd clipped the whole dome, then picked up a mirror and showed him the back of his head.

"Looks good."

"Bald is beautiful." Ryland clapped his hands.

Pete touched the X on the side of Asher's head. "What happened here?"

"Little scuffle." Asher winked. "Happens sometimes. I'd appreciate it if we left it alone."

He raised his hands. "No problem. Just making friendly conversation."

Ryland paid for the haircut and they wished Pete well and hit the streets, weaving through the crowded sidewalks, Asher still wearing his skullcap, skulking up one street and down another. They came to a red brick building that looked as though it had been abandoned recently, pieces of it shot away, went around the back and climbed through a broken window, carefully avoiding the shards of glass that pointed upward, seemingly trying to jab them.

They went to the second floor, which was a former studio apartment. Moonlight flooded the place. Pieces of shredded paper were strewn across the wooden floor. Holes had been blasted into the walls. Streaks of red paint or blood smeared nearly everything. A couch in the center of the room had been torn to shreds, to where you couldn't even tell what fabric it was made from anymore. Where it looked like there had once been a kitchen, there was now nothing but wires coming up from the floor and within the walls. The smell of stale smoke lingered in the air. In the bathroom there was a huge hole in the floor where the toilet should have been and broken pieces of porcelain where the bathtub must have lain. A fly buzzed around the room and, for a second, Asher thought it was a drone, but it flew right out the broken window. Ryland told him it was the former home of their dealer, The Sleeper.

"Why are we here?"

"To show you what happens when they come for you."

Asher thought back to the night he'd gone home and sensed and seen something behind his door, knew someone was waiting for him before he walked away. Had he not left, this was what his place would have looked like the following morning, he supposed, and he would be dead or something worse today.

"This could have been my place."

"But you found us," Ryland said, "and that wasn't an accident."

"What do you mean?"

"It was your destiny to escape them, to rise up and become a man outside of their influence."

"I was a man before."

"Not like you are today."

They had one more stop on the way home. Asher took him by a rundown stone house in District 17 on Winslow Street. A couple guys stood out front, one gold-toothed and the other with a flashy white grin. Each of them put his hand under his shirt, holding on to something, as they approached.

"What you need?" the gold-toothed one said.

"To speak to Diesel."

"Who you is?"

"Ryland."

He whispered into a bracelet on his wrist then said, "Aight," and waved toward the door. "Go on in."

When they went through the front door, a man was sitting behind a desk with a Provenance rifle aimed at them. The place was pitch dark but for the moonlight carving through the few windows and a single dim lamp alight on the desk. The man, whom Asher assumed was Diesel, lowered the rifle and set it on the desk. A thin goatee that looked as if it had been etched around his lips with charcoal was a clear attempt to stylishly disguise his prominent harelip.

"What's up, brother Ryland?" Diesel rose and shook his hand. "What brings you 'round?"

"I just wanted to introduce my buddy Asher to you."

"Your buddy, huh?" he said. "That sexual?"

"No." Ryland laughed. "Sick bastard. Get your mind out of the gutter. In case anything happens, I wanted him to know where to go if he needed anything."

He squinted at Asher, apparently studying him. "You need something?"

"Not right now."

He grinned at Ryland. "He doesn't need nothin' right now." He turned to Asher. "Well, if you ever do..." He pressed a button on his desk and the walls turned inside out and guns and rifles hung from them on every side. "... I got whatever it is you be needin'."

Asher said, "Thank you."

Diesel puffed out his chest and pointed at Asher. "Very polite, this one, huh?"

"He's one polite son of a bitch." Ryland slapped him on the shoulder. "Aren't you?"

Asher nodded apathetically.

"Not one for laughter, then?" Diesel said.

"I laugh when something's funny."

"You don't think I'm funny?"

"No," Asher said.

He picked up the rifle from the desk and aimed it over Asher's shoulder then at his head, repeated the action, and finally lowered it. Asher didn't move an inch. After what he'd faced, Diesel seemed like nothing more than a caricature pretending to be something he wasn't.

"I don't know if I like your friend or not," he said.

"You don't need to like him," Ryland said, "but if he comes here looking for guns, you sell them to him. You give him what he needs... He has my trust."

"Then he has mine," Diesel said.

Ryland asked him for a couple of cigarettes and Diesel opened a drawer at his desk, pulled out a bag of tobacco, and rolled three, lit one with a silver lighter, then handed the other two to him. Ryland thanked him and slipped them in his pocket.

Afterward, they returned to Empyrean and each had a beer and lit their cigarettes, though it was illegal, and looked over the sparse crowd for anyone who might be an android but saw no one. While Asher sat there, the smoke invading his skull, nicotine buzzing through his body, he kept imagining Autumn in his mind, pictures of David and Chloe behind her, their images fading. It almost made him cry thinking of them moving into a past where he couldn't remember what they looked like any longer.

"Isn't it a bit stupid smoking these in here?" Asher asked. "What if a cop walks in?"

"Then we might find out whether they're really watching us." Ryland took a long drag and blew out a thick stream of smoke.

But Asher knew if they were truly watching the place, they wouldn't blow it wide open on a couple guys smoking cigarettes. They would wait for the right moment, a moment when they had them all at once to destroy them in one fell swoop.

# 15

Sometimes Ryland called them all together in the assembly room and lectured them on staying vigilant, because a couple more of the men—Don and Kenneth—had disappeared when they went out at night to try to unload some of the remaining pills.

Originally he had wanted Asher to deal, but he now told him to wait till things calmed down, till they figured out exactly what was going on and found a new manufacturer, which, for all he knew, they might not. He said it was more important to think about the future than the present, and with guys disappearing, it wasn't safe to send anyone out into the streets, really, but they had to try to make money somehow, so Ryland had a bright idea: There weren't many pills left, and he would load them into a briefcase and go out there himself to figure out what was going on.

"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," Asher said.

"It's the only way. That or I keep sending my men up there to disappear... and where are they going, anyway?"

Asher shook his head. "I don't know. I just—"

"You got a better idea?"

"I just don't want anything bad to happen."

"Something bad's already happened. I'm just trying to curb the tide."

Before going up to the streets, Ryland announced in the assembly room that Asher would be in charge while he was gone. Then, when everyone had left, he strapped on a holster and slid a Generation 44 inside it. Then he put on a black overcoat to conceal the gun and slid a silencer into his pocket and Shultz put one of the red-and-green-striped contacts in his eye to record everything. He toyed with the idea of carrying the antique snub-nosed pistol too, but there was no point in taking both guns. The snub-nosed pistol was loud, too, with no way to quiet it, so if he used it all eyes in the vicinity would instantly take notice of him, and he would never make it back home. He waited till nightfall then asked Asher to come up to the bar with him and have a drink before he left.

They sat in one of the booths. Asher sensed the tightness in Ryland's stomach, the fear spreading through him, though he knew Ryland would never express it, would act as though it wasn't there. But it was only natural to fear the unknown.

"You think that place I told you about exists," he said. "I mean, if I don't come back..."

"You're gonna come back," Asher said.

"You remember what I told you, though, right?"

"About heaven and hell?"

"Yeah."

"I remember."

"So what do you think?"

"I want to believe in it," Asher said. "I really want to, but I just don't know."

"Yeah... me neither."

"None of us will ever know for sure till it's all over."

"That day may be coming."

"Stop." Asher raised his hand. "You gotta at least believe you're gonna come back. What are we gonna do if—"

"I saw what you did, remember? None of us have ever made it through something like that. You're the faceless man from my dreams, I know that now."

"You've gotta stop this shit."

"It's the truth," he said. "If I don't come back, you have to lead them. None of the other men can do it. They can barely find their asses with two hands."

Asher brought his forehead to his palm and laughed. "I can barely find my ass with two hands."

"You're a special case, though."

"If you say so."

"Hey," Ryland said. "Look at me. I got a bad feeling—"

"Then why are you leaving?"

"Because it'll only get worse unless I try to figure out what's going on. Either you or I go up there. I don't trust anyone else."

Asher nodded. "All right."

They talked for a while longer, laughing together at foolish jokes, avoiding the subjects hanging in the air like smoke before them. Asher took off his skullcap and held it, rubbing it back and forth between his fingers, then passed his hand over his bristly head. He didn't really know what to say anymore, nor did he know what to do if Ryland never came back. Ryland and Mason had saved him from whatever was waiting out there for him, and one of them had already vanished. Now there was a chance that the other one would disappear, too.

Asher tapped his fingers on the table. "I gotta say I don't like the fact you're going out there."

"You can't stop me."

"What are you trying to prove?"

"Same thing you were trying to prove when you killed Stewart and Zander, maybe. You could have run away and never come back."

"Where would I have gone?"

"You had something to prove, maybe to yourself, maybe to me, maybe to some invisible face in the sky, but you didn't stay here and didn't have to come back. And when you did, you renewed my faith in mankind, that there are still some people that never give up, that keep fighting even when it feels like the walls have crumbled around them."

"I don't know that I'm who you think I am."

"You may be more, but you're certainly not less."

Asher arched his eyebrows. "Let's hope so."

"Don't hope." Ryland shook his head. "Believe."

When they were through talking, Asher walked into the cool night with him, the drones and shadowy pedestrians and tracers becoming visible, and bid him good-bye, then watched him walk away without looking back and merge with the dark.

# 16

Most of the time Asher sat alone in the mess hall or assembly room, waiting for Ryland to return, but days passed without word and they were running out of food, so his first order was to ration the rice servings, and he assigned Autumn to the task.

"What happens if we run out of food?" he asked her.

"Then we'll have to ask Frank for some."

"And if he can't give us any?"

"Then we starve."

He was waiting for her to laugh as though it was a joke, but she never did.

Other than that, his subterranean brothers and sisters seemed to get along fine without guidance from him. They wandered through the candlelit tunnels, moaning from hunger from time to time, bitching about their surrogate leader, but he ignored their whining and kept to himself, for he couldn't show any weakness.

Lonesomeness crept through him like a virulent poison, particularly when he tried to sleep, tossing and turning in the sleeping bag, wishing he had a dreamnova, then finally opening his eyes and waiting for them to adjust to the dark. When they finally did, he walked through the tunnels and went into the mini-bar and lit a few candles with a plastic lighter and stood in a small open space and began doing his old workout routine, which he'd neglected ever since coming here. One hundred push-ups, sit-ups, and weightless squats, and two hundred calf raises. For cardio he ran in place for what felt like forty-five minutes and ended with squat thrusts and jumping jacks. He was covered in sweat when he finished and lay on his back on the cold stone floor and closed his eyes, a hammering worming its way through his head. He could see David and Chloe, but he didn't feel anything anymore. It was as though he wanted to be with them but knew he couldn't, and some part of him must have accepted that because Autumn superimposed herself on the imagery and spoke to him: _We can be together. Don't you see it? Don't you see it was meant to happen? From the moment I saw you, I wanted to know you more. I wanted to talk to you._ His heart ached from listening to her soft voice and he opened his eyes and felt a stray tear wander down his cheek.

"What are you doing in here?"

It was Shultz's voice.

Asher sat up and wiped the tear away and looked at him. Shultz held a candle on a tray out before him, the flickering flame reflecting off his glasses.

"I don't know," Asher said. "I couldn't sleep, so..."

"So you came in here to drink yourself to sleep?"

"I was working out."

"I couldn't sleep, either." Shultz set the candle on one of the Formica tables and sat down. "I'm beginning to wonder if Ryland's ever coming back."

"He'll be back."

"What makes you say that?"

"Just a feeling," Asher said.

"Feelings are ephemeral." Shultz crossed his arms and slouched in the chair. "I can't tell you how many times I've had a feeling about something and been wrong."

"Have you ever been right, though?"

"Rarely."

Asher went to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat opposite him. "You have to stay positive."

"I've been down here much longer than you. I've never seen our people begin to disappear... I've never seen it. Someone is watching us, waiting for the right moment, and when that moment comes we'll all be goners."

From the faint candlelight, Asher could see the sweat beading on his forehead, could smell the fear emanating from his pores. "Fear does us no good."

"I'm not afraid."

"I can see that you are."

"Do you even know what fear is?"

"I do, yes. The question is, do you?"

He held up his trembling hand. "This is anxiety, not fear. I sense something coming for us."

Asher touched his fingers to his chest. "What do you want me to do about it?"

He squeezed his watery eyes shut, opened them. "I don't know. That's the problem."

"There's nothing we can do but sit tight and wait."

"You can go out there, look around."

"And what if _I_ don't come back, too? What good does that do us?"

He shrugged. "Then at least we know, then at least we can prepare."

"For what?"

"Death."

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he said. "You want me to risk my life to prove nothing's wrong, and if something is then..."

"We know something's wrong already—"

"So what are you telling me?"

"None of this happened till—"

"Until I came here, right? So you're blaming me for this?"

Shultz shook his head. "We need someone who can make it back, who can destroy the fear of going out there, tell us what's going on. Information gathering, if you will. Otherwise, we're done—no way to make money, no way to buy food. And if the guys down here get hungry enough, they'll go up there despite the danger."

"We don't have any product to sell. Ryland took the rest of it with him."

"What does that matter?"

"There's no point to going out there," Asher said.

"You're not going up there to sell product. You're going up there to give the others hope, to tell them everything's okay."

"And what if it's not?"

Shultz stared at the surface of the table without answering.

"You know it's not okay out there and never has been. Why don't you go?"

"I'm not a fighter," Shultz said. "Look at me."

It was true: he looked more like a mad scientist. Asher felt a vise tightening around his throat. The last thing he wanted was to go out into the streets. For all he knew, they were still searching for him, had his image programmed into the pseudo-brain of every android out there.

"You know if they see me, I won't be coming back."

"They?"

"Any cop, android, or member of the government."

"I'm sorry," Shultz said. "You shouldn't go. I don't know what I was thinking. I only wanted a way—"

"I'll go," Asher said.

"No, you were right. I wasn't thinking clearly. I was only—"

"I said I'll go up there. Just don't tell anyone till I come back. The only other person who should know is Autumn."

"They'll notice you're gone."

"But if nobody says anything they'll only wonder where I am. They won't know."

***

The next night he waited till everyone was asleep and woke Autumn and guided her through the dark to the assembly room. No candles to light their faces, only the darkness and their voices.

"What're you doing?" she said.

"I don't know."

"Why'd you wake me up?"

"I needed to tell you something."

"Go on, tell me."

"I'm going up there," he said. "One of us needs to try to figure out what's going on, and—"

"That's crazy," she said. "We know what's going on. People are disappearing."

"But we don't know why."

"We don't need to know why," she said. "You don't go up there when you know something's not right."

"Who else will?"

"Nobody needs to. It's a fool's errand."

"You say that, but you don't know for sure."

She lowered her head. "I do know," she said. "Okay? I know. Why do you have to play the hero? Nobody needs to be a hero here."

"I'm not trying to be a hero. I'm only trying to do what's right. You and the others down here saved my life once the way I see it, so I'm—"

"Going to die for us? How will that help?"

"Nobody's going to die."

"Then I'll go up there with you."

"It's too dangerous for a woman to—"

"I've done everything you've asked me to," she said. "They know they have to ration the food. Me being here doesn't do them any good, but me being with you might—"

"It won't help," he said. "I'll be worried about you the whole time."

"If you leave without me, I'll go up there once you're gone."

Through the dark he made out her greenish-blue eyes staring into his own and a fuzzy warmth spread through his body at her insistence to be with him. He'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be wanted, desired, but he absorbed the magic of her femininity, of her maternal nature wrapping around him like a cocoon, and grabbed her dreadlocked hair and pulled her close and kissed her and felt her dirty fingernails digging into his back and her tongue inside his mouth and tasting her was the closest thing to freedom he'd felt since he'd escaped the maw of death on the way back from his mission, only this was an internal autonomy, a breaking of the self-enforced chains he'd wrapped himself in ever since his wife and son had left him. Now a true sense of life spiraled through his legs and arms and stirred in his stomach, and he pressed her against the stone wall and kissed her neck and collar bone and whispered in her ear how much he wanted her from the moment he saw her. She sighed and repeated almost word for word what he had said, that fate had worked its way into her heart when she saw him, that they were meant to be together.

He put himself inside her and she moaned and he covered her mouth till she stopped and then put his fingers on her tongue and felt her wet, warm teeth and closed his eyes and saw the colors of a distant rainbow and his skull grew thick like a bomb waiting to explode and she kept saying some words over and over again, but he was lost in his own world and couldn't make them out till the warmth flooded out of him and into her and his head cleared and she kept saying it again and again and the words became clear: _I love you._

***

They sat on the ground and leaned against the stone wall and ignored the sound of a squealing rat somewhere nearby, the smell of sex still fresh in the air, spreading through his nostrils like aromatherapy.

"All I need now is a dreamnova," he said, "so I can lie next to you and get some damned sleep before I go up there."

"You can lie next to me, either way." She rested her head on his shoulder. "Do you know how long I've been waiting to rest my head on a man's shoulder... a real man, not some wannabe like Zander or Mason."

"Let's not talk about Mason while he's gone."

"What if we go up there and things are worse than we imagined?"

"They couldn't be that bad," he said. "Frank hasn't seen anything at all."

"How do you know?"

"Shultz asked him."

"You think he'd lie for any reason?"

"Why would he?"

"I don't know," she said. "Maybe if they gave him no choice..."

"There's always a choice." He stroked her matted hair. "Always."

"Except when there's not," she said.

"What's the worst that could have happened?"

"I think you know."

He knew what she was aiming at—death.

"Then we prepare ourselves for that," he said. "And if it's anything less, then we'll be pleasantly surprised."

"That's an idea."

"Not a good one, though, huh?" He forced a smile. "I don't know what else to do."

"I guess that's all we can do."

It felt strange holding her in his arms, when for so long he'd waited for Chloe and David to return to him, and even when he knew they were dead, a sense of guilt instilled itself within him and kept him from trying to know any woman intimately, because he was a married man, taken by the dead, holding his wife's lifeless body in his dreams. His desire for Autumn had taken root within him the first time he laid eyes on her, and the more he tried to rid himself of it, the stronger it became. But he'd only tried to free himself from the bondage of his lust out of loyalty to Chloe, and what did that mean in the end? That he was wedded to death till this moment, when he found life within himself again through caring for another? He supposed he didn't know, would probably never know, and though he loved Chloe now and always would, even in death, he had to find the strength to move into the present and out of the past.

He kissed the dome of Autumn's head and the thoughts of his former life vanished from his mind, replaced not by thoughts of her, but by reveries of the world above, of what might be waiting for them up there, because no matter how he tried to rationalize things, to see them from a positive perspective, he knew something was very wrong, and now he was tasked with finding out just what that was without disappearing himself and taking her with him.

# 17

Like the last time he'd accepted the task of leaving their subterranean dwelling, Shultz gave him everything he needed in the operating room. Navy trench coat, his choice of Generation 44 or 14—he chose 44—holstered beneath his armpit and a hunting knife with a five-inch blade in a leather sheath connected to his belt. This time, he also gave him twenty-five gold pieces to eat and drink with in case he got stuck out there.

"You didn't give me the blade last time," Asher said.

"I didn't think you'd need it."

When Shultz tried to put in the red-and-green-striped contact lens to record everything, Asher objected, saying he wouldn't wear it this time.

"You're gonna have to trust whatever I tell you." He gazed at Shultz. "You trust me, don't you?"

"I do."

"Then I don't need to wear that this time."

Shultz nodded and put it back in its small metallic case. "All you have to do is make it back, then, and tell us what's going on, if you can find out."

"That I'll do."

Shultz lowered his head, nodding one second then shaking his head the next. Asher felt as though he could hear his thoughts: _I sure hope so._ But perhaps they were his own thoughts redounding to him. He wondered whether he'd come back here or go wherever Ryland and Mason had gone, whether they were captured or had found some better place, but if they'd discovered some better dwelling, wouldn't they have come back for their own people? Wouldn't they have ushered everyone toward a better life?

He tugged at the knife on his belt to make sure it was attached tightly, then brought his palm to the grip of his pistol and took a deep breath. He maneuvered one of the mirrors attached to the operating chair and took off his skullcap and put on the trench coat and looked at himself. _A strange-looking man,_ he thought, _who was once bruised and battered but rose again._ He put the skullcap back on, for he felt strange without it now, and shook Shultz's hand.

"Is there any particular place you think they might have gone?"

"No." Shultz shook his head. "You don't have to go, you know."

"Yes I do."

"I didn't mean what I said," Shultz said. "I was frustrated. I—"

"Either one of us figures out what's going on up there, or we all starve... or worse."

"What could be worse than starving?"

"Depends on what they may have dreamed up for us if they know we're down here. The government doesn't play around when they sniff out what they think might be a rebellion."

"We're not a rebellion. We're only—"

"In their eyes, everyone down here is a rebel, which is grounds for execution. I worked for them once, remember?"

"It's not right."

"Doesn't matter whether you think it's right or not. They decide what's right."

Shultz muttered something to himself before saying, "Then all I can do is wish you luck."

"That's about it."

"Good luck, then." His lips trembled as he spoke.

"And good luck to you." Asher winked and tried to give him a good-natured grin, but a half-smile was all he could manage. A screw tightened in his chest and a thudding hammered its way through his skull. He didn't know what he'd find up there, didn't even know where to go or what to do, how to search for what he was looking for. The more he thought about it, the more it seemed Autumn was right: it was a fool's errand. And he supposed he was a fool for taking it on, for risking everything to prove a point, a point he'd not long ago abandoned: Hope always exists; you merely have to find its source.

***

When everyone had gone to sleep, they went up the stairs and through the door in the floor to Empyrean. They had to wake Frank from sleep and get him to open the locked front door for them.

They emerged in the daylight.

The sun was harsh against Asher's eyes. The cool fall air smelled of nitrous oxide and gasoline. Drones filled the sky. Pedestrians moved up and down the streets, their low, murmuring voices a cacophony of sound. Upon one of the roofs of the surrounding buildings he saw a hawk staring down at them. He wasn't sure if he was hallucinating or not, but as soon as he noticed the bird, its eyes glowed and it took flight, soaring through the clear sky toward some unknown destination.

Immediately from around the corner a slider appeared and rode up the street toward them. For a moment he thought the hawk had somehow given a signal that they'd emerged from below, but the slider kept going, passing them right by and turning around another corner. He knew that as soon as he was recognized it was all over, so he had to play it as safe as possible, protecting Autumn first and himself second.

The sheer audacity of coming up from below at a delicate time like this hit him full-force as he looked up at the buildings towering over them like watchful parents, the drones and tracers moving through the sky seemingly searching for them and them alone. But he knew that was paranoia, that they were monitoring every citizen equally and, though he was a wanted man, he hoped he could blend in for long enough to either find Ryland and the others or bring back a story about what had happened to them.

He kept Autumn close, his arm around her, his gaze sweeping the streets again and again in search of anyone who might be following them, but he saw nothing peculiar. It was strange, then, that he sensed someone or something watching them. Was it paranoia? Or was it some all-seeing eye, some new government android or drone they had unleashed that he didn't know about?

They turned a corner and wandered up a street then turned down one street after another, jostling through crowds and past derelicts young and old; past shiny and dilapidated buildings; past bright neon signs and ones that had lost their luster; past paved and rubble-strewn streets; past a young man being arrested beneath a digital billboard displaying national propaganda—AZURE LOVES YOU, an index finger pointed outward; past a woman who whispered offers of sex for a few pieces of gold; and toward a man who wore a suit, red tie, and black sunglasses and surveyed the moving crowd. It was the man in the sunglasses that sent alarm bells ringing in Asher's head, for this looked like the same type of man who had sent an insect drone after him on the way to Stewart's.

He nearly stopped in his tracks, but kept moving, albeit slowly, removing his arm from around Autumn's shoulders and taking her hand.

"What is it?" she asked him.

"Nothing. I just thought I might have seen something."

He was certain the man in the sunglasses was an android. His gut spoke to him with a clenched fist in its center. He squinted as they drew nearer to him. Insects swarmed around the man as though he was some stench-ridden derelict, which his clothes belied. They crossed to the opposite side of the street from him. The pedestrians who passed him avoided him too, probably unsure of what or who he was, but Asher knew, knew deep down exactly who and what he was and that the swarming insects were drones ready to be deployed on anyone who seemed suspicious, to follow them home, to monitor them night and day and report to whoever was in charge if the citizen did anything that might be conceived of as suspect. The man in the suit didn't take notice of them, just kept staring straight ahead as they moved up the sidewalk.

"What was up with that guy?" Autumn said to him.

He wanted to whisper in her ear and tell her, but what if an insect drone buzzed up just as he was doing it and recorded what he said? What then? They would be chased through the streets, arrested or possibly killed, and when they found out who he was, he would certainly be executed, maybe on a light-projected screen in the sky so the whole nation could see it.

Asher let out a sigh. It was time to take stock of what they were going to do, why they were out here. Where were they going to go? How were they going to find anything out? The whole idea was stupid from the beginning, he knew. It was stupid when Ryland did it, and it was stupid now, but it was like a mother going in search of her child. She didn't know where he was, but she was going to look anyway, had to look. There was no other choice.

"Where are we going?" Autumn said.

"I don't know."

"Shouldn't we pick somewhere and head there?"

"Probably."

"So what exactly are we doing?"

"I'm trying to figure that out."

Block after block, he noticed the same types of androids, dressed up in suits, insect drones swarming around them, studying the crowds of people moving past them. There was no way to avoid them. He had to hope they didn't recognize him, for he figured his image was programmed into each of their pseudo-brains somehow, and if they noticed him the only thing he could do would be to head back to Empyrean and hope to lose them on the way. In fact, he was thinking of doing that now. He had risen from the ground and seen nothing, no one. He could now report back safely that there was nothing new to see except androids who commanded hundreds or thousands of insect drones around the district. Where Ryland and Mason had gone, though, he would never know. He saw that as clearly as the bright blue sky above him.

"We need to head back," he said.

"We just came out here."

"There's nothing to see."

"How do you know that?"

"Just trust me, okay?"

"I don't understand. I—"

"You don't need to right now. Just do what I tell you."

Another android stood on the sidewalk. However, this one craned his neck and followed their movements. Asher swallowed a hard ball in his throat and kept moving, barely breathing, only looking at the android through the corner of his eye and then stopping altogether when they passed him, but still sensing watchful eyes burning into his back. A bright light flashed over them, and he knew exactly what it was, had become an expert on it now, but he still strode up the street, trying to appear carefree, somehow hearing the footsteps of the android's following them over everyone else's along with the buzzing of insect drones right behind them.

This was it. He only wished Autumn hadn't come with him.

"Stay behind me when I start to shoot, okay?" he said to her.

"Shoot at what?"

"Just do as I say. If I take your hand, hold on and don't let go."

He brought his clammy hand to the grip of the Generation 44, waiting for the android's voice, for he knew it was coming. One of the insect drones flew around him then rested on his shoulder. Beads of sweat broke out across his brow. A hawk circled in the sky above them. He heard the android's voice behind him, fading in and out like occasional gusts of wind.

"Asher Cain... Azure... Please stop... Put your hands in the air... Get down on your knees... Face me."

The pedestrians milling about him froze, looking around, seemingly trying to figure out who the android was talking to. Asher squeezed his eyes shut, saw what was going to happen in his imagination, removed the gun from its holster, spun around, and fired. The shot boomed, echoing through the air, and screams erupted from the people around them. Half of the android's head disappeared, white ooze dripping from it, but he kept moving toward them like some zombie, drawing his gun and firing repeatedly, hitting stray citizens and causing pandemonium. Pedestrians ran this way and that, unsure where to go.

Asher took Autumn's hand and ran up the sidewalk, the insects buzzing around him, the faint screams of citizens fading behind him. He turned a corner and ran up an alley full of potholes, his pistol held out before him, ready to be trained on any android or cop who appeared. An alarm sounded and he rushed into a street filled with panicked citizens running every which way and looked to the sky. Tracers and drones sped around, and he knew just who they were searching for—him. He fired into the air a couple more times, exacerbating the public panic, holstered the gun and then ducked and blended into the crowd, checking behind him now and again. The insect drones clustered above the masses in apparent confusion: he had lost them.

Autumn tried to say something to him, but he couldn't quite make out her words, could only keep moving back toward Empyrean as quickly as possible. That was where they had to go. If any member of his new family was to be taken, he wanted it to be himself and thus he tried to loosen Autumn's hand from his own, to let her go so that if anyone was caught it was him, but every time he tried to shake free from her grasp she gripped his hand tighter, till he stopped and faced her and cupped her cheeks in his hands and stared into her eyes and told her to go back some other way and set herself free from him, for he was a danger to her.

"What if they catch you?"

"Then I'll escape and come back for you."

"How?"

"However I can."

"And if they kill you?" Her eyes filled with tears.

"I won't be the first."

"You won't be the last, either."

"Listen to me—"

"No, you listen to me for once," she said.

"You don't understand like—"

"You don't understand me."

Behind her cops on sliders, guns drawn, spun toward them. A couple of armored cars followed behind them. Tracers wheeled through the cerulean sky. Suited androids pushed through the crowds, their eyes lit up, determined to find him. From around the corner the white-haired android who had once saved his life, and whom he'd later spotted in Empyrean, appeared like an apparition and sped toward them on a gliding machine he'd never seen before. It had a circular platform from which bright blue light shone and a T-bar steering mechanism he held with one hand while aiming a double-barreled gun into the crowd, clearly searching for him. The alarm continued sounding.

He kissed Autumn and then maneuvered her in front of him and guided her through the crowd, his hands on her waist. He let go of her and drifted back amidst the throng. She stopped and swiveled her head around, looking for him, but he ducked into a pothole-ridden alley and sprinted away from the commotion. He slowed before reaching the next street, trying to appear casual as he approached another crowd that was shoving each other around, everyone trying to escape the tumult before the next person.

Just as he was stepping foot on the street, he glanced over his shoulder and saw the white-haired android speeding toward him. His eyes shot open with alarm and he hurled himself into the midst of the chaotic mob and drew his gun. His name was called behind him in the same sonorous voice he'd heard the night he was nearly murdered in Smithee's Pub. He bent over and shouldered his way forward. Ahead of him the crowd moved in a circular motion around something and as he came closer he saw what it was—a cop sitting on a slider with his gun drawn, looking over the crowd for him.

He came up on the cop just as he turned his head in the opposite direction from him and raised the Generation 44 and fired into his neck. White ooze puddled out from the wound and Asher closed in on him and fired into his chest again and again and then pushed the cop off the slider and holstered the pistol and got on, hit the FLIGHT MODE button and pulled the acceleration lever and sped along the ground for a moment, bumping a few people out of his way until there was a small strip of space before him, and then took off, the wind beating against him, chilling his knuckles and face. Though he wanted to look back he didn't, and images of Autumn trying to make it to Empyrean flooded his mind like a broken dam. He wanted to find and save her but knew he'd saved her more than ever by pushing her away.

He stayed low in the air, a few feet above the crowd, low enough to avoid running into the myriad tracers and drones above him and high enough to avoid the armored cars and sliders continually appearing below him. He sensed the white-haired android still on his tail and knew the sliders on the ground would soon take flight to catch him. He screamed around a corner, trying to lose his pursuers, and glanced back. There were more of them on sliders following behind the white-haired one now. There were too many to count, too many to lose them all. The faint scent of smoke swirled through the air and he slowed and turned a corner and kept going. He went right beneath drones that had their barrels extended, trying to aim at him.

The crowd below seemed to have stopped to watch the chase, looking up at the air show taking place before their very eyes. It was then that he noticed a tower of smoke forming in the direction of Empyrean, rising higher and higher. His heart leaped into his throat. Had Autumn made it back there? Were they burning her alive in the streets? He pulled the acceleration lever down hard and rushed toward the smoke, turning one corner then another, screaming past drones and tracers and armored cars and sliders and androids with their guns trained on him. They were nothing more than blurs to him. The cold wind dried out his eyes and when he finally hit Bethany Street he saw four men with flamethrowers strapped to their backs burning down the bar.

_There are kids down there,_ he thought. _There are kids._

He tried to land by lifting the handlebars and guiding the slider down but it bounced a few times when it hit the blacktop, wisps of smoke rising up from beneath it, and he clenched the brake lever and lost control but held on to the bars for a moment before flying over them and landing in the street, skinning his arm and thigh. Still he pushed himself up and staggered toward the dizzying vision, the heat from the fire rippling over him, drew his gun, and aimed at the men who were busy burning down his newfound home. He fired once, and one of them turned toward him. He recognized the face at first but couldn't believe it, couldn't possibly accept it as true—Ryland? He mouthed his name but wasn't sure if he said it correctly, much less whether it escaped his lips at all. All that he could hear anymore was a buzzing sound.

He fired again and the others turned toward him. Not only was it Ryland but Mason and the others who had disappeared, too—Don and Kenneth. They all stared at him with dead eyes and slack faces and finally turned off the flamethrowers. It was then that he noticed a flaming body lying on its side in front of the bar. Was it Autumn? Had she made it back just in time to be burned to death? Tears pooled his eyes. Just as he had come to open himself up again to others, to remember how to love, it had all been jerked away from him.

Sliders populated the streets and sky before him. Drones and tracers hovered behind them, training their weapons on him. The air teemed with insect drones. A few armored cars barreled through the street toward him. He looked over each shoulder in turn. It was the same story back there, except the white-haired android had stepped off his newfangled machine and was walking toward him with his double-barreled gun aimed at Asher's head.

Asher dropped to his knees and set his gun on the ground and his haunches sank into his calves and the back of his feet. What was the point in fighting any longer? He no longer had anything to fight for or against. The white-haired android stood a few feet from him and said something to him that registered as nonsensical at first. Then it became clear.

"Stand up," the android said, "and put your hands on your head."

Asher did as he was told, though his legs wobbled and he fell back down and threw up on the pavement. The vomit coated his mouth and throat with an acrid taste. The android grabbed his hand and jerked him up and forced a handcuff around one of his wrists then the other. An electric red line whirred back and forth on either handcuff and then turned green, saying, "Asher Cain," in a computerized voice.

"You're under arrest and subject to execution," the android said. "Do you have any questions?"

"Only one. Why don't you just kill me now?"

The android smiled, revealing his perfectly white teeth, removed a small gun from the inner lining of his coat, and brought it to Asher's neck.

"Any other questions?"

Asher looked around and spotted Autumn amongst the crowd of onlookers, behind all the vehicles and cops and androids, mouthing something to him. He thought it was an illusion at first and blinked his eyes a few times and looked again. She was still there. His heart came back to life. What was she trying to say to him?

"Any other questions?" the android asked again.

"No," Asher said.

He pulled the trigger on the small gun and Asher felt a sharp pain roll from his neck to his skull followed by a calming sensation that glided through his body and numbed him, making everything around him look phantasmagoric, like a dream seen through a red fish lens.

The android took Asher's head in his hands and said, "Go to sleep."

# 18

When Asher came to he was locked in an upright circular steel device, his legs and arms spread to either side of him, his wrists and ankles manacled, his vision blurry, his mouth filled with a metallic taste, his head thrumming an indistinct rhythm, a coldness wrapped around his neck.

It took a moment for him to remember what had happened, how he'd ended up here. Before him all he could see was an obscure blue haze. At first he thought he'd taken a dreamnova and was in the midst of a Grand Guignol-type nightmare. But slowly the events returned to him, slowly he remembered what had happened, how he'd ended up here, wherever here was. Needles prickled his skin from the cold air in the room and snot clogged his nostrils, forcing him to breathe through his mouth. It was only when he tried to turn his head to one side or the other that he found it was locked in place by a steel contraption.

Over time, his vision became clearer and he saw mirrors and blue light in front of him. Looking to either side through the corners of his eyes he made out more of the same: mirrors surrounding him and blue lights shining up through the floor like lasers. Only through his reflection did he realize he was naked but for a circular metallic device that had been attached to the center of his stomach, some type of necklace wrapped tightly around his neck, and gauze that had been placed over the areas where he'd skinned his arm and leg in the fall to the pavement. Unconsciously he tried to look down and touch the device attached to his stomach and was reminded he was locked in place and couldn't move. So many angled reflections of a body he'd taken care of but never loved. Music began playing over speakers that must have been positioned behind him somewhere, and for the first time in his life he heard lyrics accompanying it. The voice was smooth and majestic and sang of singing someone to sleep and being gone once the morning came. Imagery flooded his mind of holding Chloe and his son David. Memories were all the images were, ocean waves in the mind, rising and receding. The voice faded and then came back, singing of a better world somewhere else. His thoughts turned to Autumn, holding her in the darkness, stroking her dreadlocked hair. She was all he had now. Or maybe she was gone from his life forever too, and they had only moved him to this room as some form of experiment, to take him apart and have him watch as they did it.

Chills ran up and down his arms and legs and his chest quivered. He rolled his dry tongue around his dry mouth and felt his teeth. Hunger pangs stabbed his stomach. He wished he had something to drink, something to eat. He wished whatever song it was that was playing would stop, for it was making his heart ache with longing. He wished this were all a dream and he'd wake up with Autumn in his arms in their subterranean home, candles flickering all around them, the beginning of a new hope, a new life, but life had never been that way for him. If only it were all a dream and he could wake from all the pain and drift through the painless sky like a bird and let go of all the hurt he'd experienced, all the grief he'd known in his short life. But that, too, was only a dream, a vague wish he knew would never come true, and strapped into this device it seemed like its own brand of torture even thinking of freedom.

He thought of the people he'd known while he lived underground, his new family, gone now forever, burned to death in an unforgettable fire. And when he pieced it all together, he knew the body that had lain before Empyrean engulfed in flames must have been Frank. But why were Ryland, Mason, and the others burning down their own home, burning their old friend to death? When they'd looked at him he knew for certain they didn't recognize him. It was as though they were looking at him with new eyes, dead eyes that had been placed inside their skulls at someone else's behest. The cops or government or someone had clearly captured them and changed them fundamentally, from the inside out, turning them from humans into something lifeless, without heart, without feeling.

He tried to tilt his head back as his eyes flooded but again the steel contraption kept his head locked in place. Words his wife had once said to him passed through his mind: _There must be a better place than this shitty world. There has to be. Who deserves to live like this?_ If only she'd known how things would turn out for him in the end.

The song was still playing, the voice seemingly sadder and sadder each time it sang.

"Will someone turn that song off?" he said. " _Please_ someone turn it off."

He waited for an answer, listening to his voice redound off the walls as if he were in an echo chamber, but it never came. Was this some version of the hell Ryland had told him about? Was his reflection in the mirrors around him hallucinogenic, an illusion? He might have believed it had the pain wending its way through his heart not felt so real, so alive. He tried to clear his mind by breathing deeply, in and out through his mouth, but the thoughts and images kept coming, tunneling through his mind like smoke.

Before him a light-projected screen appeared, and upon it played his life as a government employee: coming home and doing his workouts, waking up and getting ready for work, talking to his former wife about her rebellious ideas, rubbing his son's head. The shots swept overhead, came in close, and faded away, drifting throughout the apartment. It was clear as day they were recorded by an insect drone. Then the images moved to his underground home: fighting Zander in the pit, readying himself to go to Stewart's and kill him, listening to Ryland tell him about heaven and hell. There had to have been insects or something or someone down there recording them. The government and its minions had been watching all along, waiting for the right moment to rid the nation of the underground lair, one of the last bastions of freedom in a broken world. But why had they waited till he came above ground? Why hadn't they ended his life, too? Or had they set Empyrean on fire strictly to drive him back toward it and capture him? That was it. That had to be it. He had caused it by running from them. He had caused a massacre. He should have let them take him and do whatever they wanted the night he came home and they were searching his apartment, but he had run, had set in motion horrors that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

The moving images died and a door slid open before him. The song stopped playing. The white-haired android stood in the doorway, blue light washing over him. He walked into the room and the door slid shut behind him with a sucking sound. His footsteps clomped on the grey floor, killing some of the blue laser lights shining up from beneath it. He circled Asher a few times, touched the metallic device on his stomach, moved behind him, and came back into view with a metal chair and set it in front of him and sat upon it, looking over Asher with his brilliant blue eyes. He tilted his head to the side as if he noticed something interesting.

"Why don't you just kill me and get it over with?" Asher said.

The android smiled. "That wasn't the order we were given," he said. "We were told to keep you alive for the time being."

"Why?"

"To study your heart. Not every man has such a resilient heart. Your friend Ryland took note of it and reinforced what we already believed to be true."

"How would you know what Ryland thought?"

"He told us. It took some coaxing"—he grinned—"as you may imagine, but he did tell us."

"Why didn't you just kill him, too?"

"We had better uses for him. He's more alive than ever before. We simply reengineered him into something friendlier to our cause."

"And the others?"

"We did the same with your friend Mason, with Don, with Kenneth."

"So they're nothing more than robots, like you?"

"Cyborgs would be the correct term. And they live and breathe, like me."

"You didn't have to kill them all," Asher said, thinking of his recently deceased family. "You didn't—"

"You're mistaken," the android said. "We did. You see, the tiniest rebellion can plant the seeds to a great uprising, and we had to terminate it at its roots." He held out his hand. "My name is William. It's so nice to make your acquaintance." He laughed mechanically. "Ah, you're a bit tied up at the moment. The president had something else in mind for you, different from your friends, something that will teach the nation never to rebel against him again."

"An enema?"

"Quite the jokester, aren't you?" He smiled a thin-lipped smile and tapped the metallic device attached to Asher's stomach. "While you were sleeping, one of our doctors studied your heart and mind. There's nothing special about you, nothing unique. You're quite healthy, but no different than any other man. You are only a man after all, and no man is unique."

"Every man is unique."

"So you say, but where is the proof? You all have the same organs, the same bodily functions, the same needs, the same emotions. So where is the proof?"

"I don't need to prove anything to you," Asher said.

He angled his head to the side. "What makes a man exceptional?"

"His character."

"Character?" William rubbed his chin. "And you claim to have more character than another?"

"Only enough to keep me from committing suicide."

He tilted his head back and laughed his tinny laugh. "That's all humans have, isn't it? A desire to avoid death and keep living, no matter the circumstances?"

"I don't know that I'd put it that way."

"No?" He furrowed his brow, again inquiring. "How would you put it?"

"Doesn't really matter how I'd put it anymore, does it?"

"I suppose not," he said. "As I was saying, the president had something else in mind for you. You see, we talked of reengineering you, but since we've already broadcast your likeness everywhere we can't really do that. We have to show that we've captured you, made the ultimate example of you, that you've hurt your nation and yourself."

"I think we know—"

"I'm talking," he said, "so please don't interrupt me. The device attached to your stomach is a bomb that will explode in one week's time. If you try to dismantle or tamper with it, it will explode, so don't attempt it. There is also a collar around your neck that will signal to the drones when your death is near. They will come from far and near to record your death so the whole nation can watch you die. If you try to remove the collar, it will also trigger the bomb. And remember, wherever you go, we can find you if we need to. _Don't_ try to rebel or we'll find you and kill you. Don't try to create a new uprising or we'll find you and kill you. If you commit suicide or your heart stops beating before the allotted time, it will trigger the bomb. You see, you can't win. So don't try. Don't try anything but accepting your demise. Understand? Live out your life for a week, make peace with your death. You can pick anywhere within the districts, aside from District Seven, to die and take whatever citizens you want with you into the dark. If you return to District Seven once we've ushered you out, you'll be shot on sight. It will be impossible to avoid killing others—you know that, don't you? From your rebellion you've created an evil that could have destroyed our people. That is the message. Our citizens pack the streets and nearly every building within those streets. Only we know exactly when the bomb will go off. It will destroy one square block, possibly more, but the results for us will be miraculous. Once you've died, our own people will watch for betrayals, for rebellions, will inform on their brothers and sisters, all out of a fear of someone else like you arising from their midst. Out of your rebelliousness will come order like we have never known before. The drones, tracers, and police force will be nothing more than ornamentation. All the commandments of Azure will be followed without question." He paused for a moment and folded his hands. "Do you have any questions?"

He wanted to ask where Autumn was but didn't want to cast a light on her if she had somehow escaped from them.

Asher's lips trembled. "When can I kill you?"

"You can't, my friend, but you can try this very moment." He rose from the chair. "Would you like to try?"

"Why not?"

William kicked the chair back and stepped forward and pushed a red button below and to the side of Asher. The steel contraption locking his head in place withdrew and the cuffs around his wrists and ankles pulled back and released him and he fell to his knees. He rose, his legs wobbly, his arms weak, and doubled up his fists and swung at him. William caught his fist and pushed him backward. Asher stumbled away from him and fell down and pushed himself back up, swung again, missed. William jabbed him in the mouth and Asher tasted blood wending its way over his tongue, the impact dizzying him for a moment. He balled his fists and let them fly, swinging with his right and left, but he kept missing. The android was too quick, ducking out of the way of each punch, a grin on his face. Asher stopped to catch his breath, held his fists out before his face to protect himself, but William hopped into the air and punched right through them, landing a blow that knocked out one of Asher's molars and sent him to his knees, water filling his eyes, blood gushing from the gums where the tooth was once lodged, its acrid taste filling his mouth. He rose again, staggering toward the android, refusing to give up, streams of warm blood running down his chin.

"You don't know when to quit, do you?" William asked him.

Asher didn't answer, merely raised his fists and went at him again, swinging wildly, crying while he did so, hearing the android's tinny laugh at each swing and miss. He felt helpless, like a ghost swinging through a target, the fight useless but inevitable, the anger inside him swelling in his chest, boiling within his brain. He stopped and shambled backward, swaying his arms by his sides, then ducked his head and sprinted toward him, but William simply lifted his foot and kicked him in the chest, sending him flying through the air. He landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him, and rolled onto his side. The room spun around him. _Get up,_ he told himself. _Get up and keep fighting till you're dead._ Footsteps sounded around him and he tried to locate from where they were coming and push himself up but before he could a boot pressed against the base of his neck beneath the collar. William looked down at him, pushed back the bangs that had fallen before his icy eyes and pulled a Generation 18 from beneath his coat and brought the muzzle to Asher's temple.

"I don't know why he won't let me just kill you and be done with it."

"Do it," Asher said, blood spilling from his mouth. "Kill me, you fake plastic fuck."

"I only wish I could," William said.

He lifted his foot and kicked Asher in the chin, chipping one of his top front teeth. Blood poured from Asher's mouth and he tried to push himself up and keep fighting but it was useless and he curled into a fetal ball and tried to think of something that would distract him from the pain but it was too great and throbbed through his skull down to the tips of his toes and fingers.

William squatted beside him and holstered the gun. "Why do you keep fighting?"

Asher reached up to grab the android's hair and pull as hard as he could, but William caught his wrist and squeezed it in a viselike fashion. His veins bulged in his forearm and he tried to push himself up with his other arm, but he had grown too weak from the beating and could not fight anymore.

William hit him in the face again and again, opening up one cut after another, causing stinging sensations to writhe beneath the surface of his skin.

"Are you happy now?" he asked Asher. "Do you enjoy suffering?"

"Kill me... please kill me."

He was ready to die. He didn't want to wait a week and take other people with him for the things he'd done that the nation disapproved of, but it was beginning to seem as though he had no choice and through the repercussions of his actions would kill many innocent people no matter what he did. He only wished he could turn back the clock and kill himself long before any of this had happened, like he had tried to do many times but lost the will in the last moments, his dead wife's green eyes staring at him in imagination, something within them telling him to keep fighting, keep pressing onward, even when he felt there was nothing left worth living for. He had been wrong then. Maybe he was wrong now.

Again he rose, stumbling to one side and then the other, blood and tears rolling down his face and into his mouth, the sweet and salty taste reminding him of the bittersweetness of life. Though death was coming for him, he didn't regret having lived, only wished it had been in a better place or time, somewhere that valued life rather than demeaned it.

He fell to his knees again. There was no strength left in him. He couldn't fight any longer. He looked at William and could almost see himself reflected in the android's eyes: a man beaten to a pulp, ready and willing to die but unable, forced to go on living for one more week, a bomb stitched to his stomach.

He moved to try to rip the metallic device from his stomach but William grabbed his hand and stopped him. He reached with his other hand and the android grabbed that one, too. He was like a dog with its paws in its master's hands, begging for the treat of sweet release.

"Rest easy," William said to him. "I told you that you can kill yourself anywhere but in District Seven. Don't test me."

***

Before he was released, he was strapped to a gurney in a white room that smelled of lemon, and a man in a surgical mask who had no eyebrows sewed up the cuts William had beaten into him and then placed a soothing ointment on them. The man did nothing for his teeth. They were ruined for the rest of his short life, the throbbing ache still alive within his mouth, dying down ever so slowly.

When the man in the surgical mask had finished, he fed him liquid food through a straw and gave him water to drink. Afterward, the surgeon stepped inside a circular glass portal at the back of the room and vanished as though he had been visiting from some other dimension.

Shortly thereafter a door to the side of him slid open and William appeared in the doorway holding a handheld mirror, blue light streaking up and down in the hallway behind him. His footsteps clicked on the floor as he walked into the room and stood at the foot of the gurney. He held the mirror up so that Asher could see his own reflection. Asher hardly recognized himself any longer. He looked more like a creature than a human, nothing anyone could love, the steel collar wrapped around his neck as though he were some animal.

"Are you ready to waste away out there?" William asked him. "Ready to die like a slug with the whole nation watching?" He laughed his tinny laugh. "We had to fix you as best we could so people would remember you, would recognize you when your story unfolds."

Asher tried to nod, but it felt as if his head were wobbling and he was shaking and nodding it at the same time. "I'm ready whenever you want to release me," he said, his voice cracking. "I'm ready to die whether anyone's watching or not. You think I'm scared?"

William angled his head to the side. "I've always wondered about the emotion of fear. What is it like to be afraid?"

"It's something you'd have to experience."

"I'm afraid I'll never be able," he said with a wry grin.

"Because you're empty," Asher said.

"You can't hurt me. I know you'd like to, but it's not possible. We'll usher you out to the wasteland that is the rest of your life, and you'll await your death in the streets like a poisoned rat."

"A poisoned rat has more dignity than you."

"The insults can't hurt me, my friend," William said. "I know you'd like them to, but they simply can't."

_It still feels good,_ Asher thought.

"I've alerted the police as well as the drone force that you're not to be seen in District Seven once you're released. Remember that if you are, you'll be shot on sight. We'll release you into one of the surrounding districts. Where you go from there is your choice. Don't cause us any trouble, Mister Cain, or we'll dispose of you like the rest of your friends... I want you to meet an old friend of yours. He's changed quite a bit since you last saw him."

William raised his hand toward the door as if introducing a performer of some type. Ryland walked into the room and stood beside the android. The blue lights from the hallway intruded on the room like crisscrossing lasers for a moment then faded away. Ryland stared at Asher with a blank look on his face, as though he'd never seen him before. His eyes were like black saucers.

"Do you remember your friend?" William asked Ryland.

"I don't know this man," he said.

"Don't you remember inspiring him and being inspired by him?"

"No."

"To whom does your loyalty lie?"

"President James Pole and the nation of Azure," Ryland said.

"Who else?"

"Nobody, sir."

"Would you kill this man if I asked you to?" He pointed at Asher.

"Yes, sir," Ryland said.

"Without hesitation?"

"Without hesitation," he said.

"You see?" William said to Asher. "Your friend is no longer your friend."

"I never had many friends, anyway," Asher said.

"You can go now," William said to Ryland.

Ryland walked into the hallway and the blue light bathed him as though it were an ocean wave. The door slid shut behind him with a sucking sound.

It was only William and Asher now.

"Are you ready?" William asked him.

Asher didn't answer, didn't even look at him. He was still looking at the door that had sucked shut and was busy thinking of all the people he'd lost in his life and whether it was worse to die or be like Ryland, who was now basically a dead man in a living body. What he had to find out was whether Autumn was still alive. His heart ached just thinking of her. She was a vestige of hope in his shattered life, like a piece of glass held up to the sun reflecting a ray of light.

"I asked you a question," William said.

"Whenever you want to dump me out there, I'm ready," he said without a glance in his direction.

# 19

The tracer flew through the air, out of the glitz of District 7 and into the surrounding areas. Handcuffs kept Asher's arms locked behind his back and manacles shackled his ankles. William sat with his legs crossed beneath him, smiling his thin-lipped smile. Several cops, probably androids, sat on a couple of benches behind him, their guns trained on Asher. Classical music played faintly in the cockpit, the pilot's head partially visible.

After a while, they landed the tracer and opened the back door onto a deserted street. Asher could only imagine the street was packed till everyone saw the tracer landing and took off for anywhere other than that immediate area.

William rose and put a cool hand on his back and walked him to the center of the street, unshackled his ankles, and took off the handcuffs. He walked backward toward the tracer, his gaze fixed on Asher. When he boarded the tracer the back door began to close and he waved and laughed that unmistakable laugh.

Asher circled around in place, the sunlight bearing down on him. Through the windows of some of the surrounding buildings he saw people peeking through the glass at him. When he gazed directly at them, though, they shut their blinds. It was as though they'd been notified of his imminent demise. But they couldn't have been. The government would wait till afterward, when they had recorded his death, then explain to the citizens how it all happened, how he had betrayed the nation and his people and caused the murder of so many innocents. But these people sensed something was off about him. That much was obvious. The steel collar around his neck was a dead giveaway and, at the very least, a symbol that he was under government control. Maybe they thought he was an android or cyborg. It didn't matter much. What could they do? Kill him?

The resignation within him told him to find the most deserted place in the nation he could and wait out the inevitable, take as few people with him as possible. Maybe if he stayed in one place it would give others time to clear out if he warned them. But then they would think he was a crazy man, and that would probably cause him to be shot down by a drone or cop and detonate the device anyway. A fly buzzed past him. Was it a drone? Did they have any reason at all to stalk him anymore?

He was a walking dead man, and he moved up the street accordingly, dragging his feet, his head beginning to throb, touching the metal device stitched to his stomach, tempted to rip it off and die right here, but who would he be killing with him—mothers, fathers, and children? Concomitantly, a strangeness snaked through him now that knew he was going to die. Everything became more colorful. Every sound was amplified. Every emotion inside him was magnified. Drawing nearer to death gave him more life, more strength. They had indirectly exposed him to the magnificence of life by bringing him closer to death.

He asked himself where he'd be if he were Autumn and knew immediately that she would be somewhere within District 18, had to be. That was where her home and subterranean family had been. That was where she would wait for him, hoping he'd make it back if she truly loved him, for that was the only place he'd know to look, which she had to understand. He only hoped she hadn't been captured. He only hoped he could see her once more and hold her in his arms before he died.

He turned a corner onto a more populated street where pedestrians strode up and down the sidewalks on either side of the road. A few insects swirled in the air above them. People shouted from some of the indistinct, drab tenements and buildings surrounding him. Others talked and laughed in the street, seemingly oblivious to their prisoner-like status in the nation: Everyone was a slave to the nation, whether they knew it or not. A small bar with a neon sign that read DRINK YOUR FILL stood out like a single cumulus cloud in a clear blue sky. Through the window Asher saw that it was packed to the brim with people—young and old, ugly and beautiful, poor and poorer. Everything was for the good of the nation; the only sacrifice was your humanity, your individuality. Probably the only reason the government kept alcohol legal was because they knew the citizens wouldn't be able to cope otherwise, so they simply taxed it to the hilt, lining their pockets while leaving the bar owners with just enough to get by, like everything else anyone tried to do. It was almost not worth it to try to start any kind of endeavor when you knew most of the proceeds would go to them. He grew angry thinking about it and refocused on Autumn.

He wandered the streets till he found a light rail and boarded, catching the occasional double take or sidewise glance or comments like "Nice collar, where's your leash?" or "Here, doggy" along the way there. The light rail was so packed he had to stand and hold on to a handlebar hanging from the ceiling and endure the stares and glances at his bruised and battered face and the collar around his neck. Nobody commented, though he sensed some of them wanted to ask what train had hit him.

He laughed inside listening to the news they broadcasted. "It's another wonderful day in Azure. The skies are perfect, the weather is cool, and it's a great day to work for your government and fellow citizens. Your government is always looking out for you. Look to the skies, look to the streets, look to your heart and know we are always here for you, protecting you, watching over you. Crime is moving ever downward in our great nation, aided by the police, drones, and citizens like you. Just yesterday a group of men was caught serially robbing women in District Twenty-Four. They were summarily executed on the spot by police when captured." Was it even true? Had there been any serial robbers? Had there been executions? Or was it another illusory crime committed and solved by the government to create the illusion of order? Sure, they had destroyed Ryland's operation, but how long did it take them? Months, years? He wasn't sure, but he would have bet years, and he had a strange feeling that he had something to do with the demise of that operation. They solved some crimes that were real, but in the meantime created their own to perpetrate the illusion of constant surveillance, of perpetual voyeurism. They created chaos to settle it themselves, to make themselves look like heroes. How easy would it be to perpetrate crimes and then solve them yourself, declaring yourself a hero? What he wanted was to go back into District 7 and scale the gates of Halcyon and detonate the device attached to his stomach right there on the steps leading up to the entrance in broad daylight. Do away with the government and let the people settle things themselves afterward. He stared into the eye of the camera that watched the passengers as if to say: _Can you hear my thoughts? If you can, try to stop them._

It felt like he'd been riding for a quite a while, and he stared out one of the windows at the fading daylight streaking across the horizon. There were drones and tracers moving through the sky and sliders and armored cars rushing through the streets. He knew there were insect drones everywhere, though he couldn't see them. He knew that little by little the people would have no room left to maneuver, would be more and more in mental chains, if not physical. They would all become cyborgs and androids—the ultimate vision of the government in the end. William had told him so just before releasing him. First, he'd said, they had to have total allegiance to the government and that would take time but time was all they had, for apparently James Pole would live for hundreds of years, long after Asher's death. He would never die, would live on forever. The thought made Asher sick to his stomach, because he knew what the statement really meant: the president had had a likeness of himself made in synthetic form to carry on the business of ruling Azure after he died, or perhaps he'd died already and his double had taken power long ago. It was much easier to die when you felt you'd go on living in another body. He knew this was the truth like he knew the stars hung from the sky and the moon lit the night. He knew... yet he was hopeless, only wanting to hold Autumn one last time before he ventured into permanent darkness.

The stop came for District 17 and he got off, figuring he could walk the streets in the twilight and perhaps search the neighboring district for her as well. A few other people exited after him and he moved slowly, glancing over his shoulder occasionally to see if he was being followed. It was clear he was not. An intermittent buzzing registered in his ears, but he couldn't locate the cause or perpetrator and soon gave up trying.

He yearned for the dark, when his newfound ugliness would be sheltered by the night, when nobody would notice the collar around his neck, when he would be just another wanderer in search of some form of peace in the guise of alcohol or dreamnovas or some other temporary drug, only his drug took the shape of a woman, a woman who might no longer even recognize him if she saw him.

But he had hope. For a little while longer that was all he had.

# 20

After traveling various dimly lit sidewalks of District 17 with drones hovering overhead, tracers spotlighting the streets below, hawks with glowing eyes perched on buildings to either side of the road, sliders spinning past occasionally, the smell of chemicals permeating the air, he came to the conclusion she wasn't there.

A sense of futility weighed him down. He'd gazed at the inhabitants, searching for her, and found nothing but hopelessness: the homeless in the darkened alleys, the drinkers conversing outside the bars, the wanderers wheeling up the sidewalks with seemingly nowhere to go.

He could stay there and wait it out, hope she appeared to him one day like a ghost or vision in a dream, or he could keep looking, though his muscles and bones were growing weary and he had nowhere to sleep but the streets. As he walked he kept imagining looking at himself in a mirror when he began this journey, how different he appeared then, how innocent he had been. The mirror began to crack, distorting his image more and more. Back then he had known nothing of what they'd planned, and he wondered if he'd gone back and been a good little citizen whether everything would have ended up okay for him, whether he would have eventually married a new wife and had a new child and found a new job. Maybe they would have killed him anyway. He was nothing to them but another person in the way of the ultimate vision, a man who was beginning to think the wrong thoughts and that wouldn't do.

He spotted another light rail and made his way toward it. On the way he lightly put his hand underneath his shirt and ran it over the circular device attached to his stomach. It was cold to the touch and sent gooseflesh prickling up his arms and legs. If he hadn't already known it was there, it would be as if it had forever been a part of him. It didn't slow him, didn't cause discomfort. It was as if it had always been inside him just waiting to emerge from the pit of his unconscious mind. He was careful not to yank or put too much stress on it in case that caused it to go off.

When he made it to the light rail he slid his hands inside his pockets and boarded, enduring the gazes of strangers, their squinty eyes and sorrowful glances. They all turned away quickly so as not to stare, and he sat in the back and folded his hands and lowered his head and listened to the news again, the same news he'd heard earlier repeated ad infinitum to make the lie seem more like the truth. He wished he could talk to someone higher than himself, someone who was watching and could change it all, give him a little more time: time to remember what love felt like, what a sunrise looked like, what a good night's sleep felt like—the simple pleasures of life that had slipped away, gone forever now.

The notification of the stop for District 18 barged into his thoughts and he rose and stepped off the light rail and wandered into the streets. Faces of strangers floated about in the dim light like ghostly denizens of a waking nightmare. The familiar buildings stood to either side of the street, bright-eyed hawks perched atop their parapets. Drones dotted the darkness. A buzzing sound sprang into being then faded away.

He was home.

Now he had to find her.

***

Asher grew thirsty and stopped at a moldy water fountain and drank the bitter water till he couldn't drink anymore. A short while later he dug through a trash bin in an empty alley and found the remains of brittle brown rice, weevils crawling through it, and ate it without hesitation, running his tongue over the newly formed hole where his molar used to be, then running it over the chipped front tooth.

Soon thereafter the sun rose in the clear sky, but the fall air was cool and a gentle breeze blew and balanced out the sun's warm rays. The streets grew more crowded, with people strolling along in their clean government-issued work clothes and others wearing tattered shirts and dirty pants. He felt the glances of strangers peering at his ugliness, probably wondering what had happened to him.

_Let them look,_ he thought. _Let them see what they'll become if they continue to blindly follow the lies of their government._

The musty food and water renewed his energy somewhat, though his muscles and joints felt strained and brittle from walking so much. Nevertheless, he continued onward, searching for her in every alley, on every corner, in every nook and crevice. She was his hope, the last pinpoint of light in a darkening world. He wanted to go to a rooftop and call out her name till she came to him, but he knew there was a chance that might scare her away more quickly than it would draw her closer.

He kept looking for her till the sun faded from view and darkness weighed down the horizon. There was only one place he'd avoided: Empyrean Beer & Wine Garden on Bethany Street. He didn't know whether he'd be able to face its charred remains, a reminder of the men, women, and children it had housed beneath it. But if he didn't, perhaps he'd never find her and would have to wait out the end alone, like a man born only to die.

At nightfall, he found an alley with a dumpster and scoured it for food. He found some dry and withered leftover black beans and ate them, shoveling them into his mouth with his fingers. He lay on the cold concrete with his hands folded together beneath his head and tried to sleep. Later a scrawny man strode up the alley and dug in the dumpster and ate the remains of discarded leftovers, then grabbed waste from the dumpster and dragged over a metal trash can from beside the road and created a fire. He invited Asher to join him and Asher came closer but kept a distance, afraid the heat might detonate the bomb within him. By the firelight Asher searched his eyes, trying to understand what kept him going in life.

"What's that collar 'round your neck for?" he asked Asher.

"Nothing but a symbol of my allegiance to our nation," he said.

"Shouldn't have no allegiance to them. Look at us, out on our asses. They don't seem to care too much, do they?"

He shook his head. "No, they don't."

He told Asher that he'd had a job as a welder and his boss had tried to kill him, that he went home one night and his boss was waiting for him there, pistol in hand. The boss fired at him and missed and somehow they ended up wrestling and his boss was overwhelmingly strong and threw him out the window to the streets below. By the grace of some unknown father he landed in a dumpster that softened his blow, and he'd been running and "dumpster diving" ever since. He laughed upon finishing the story.

Asher laughed, too. It seemed like it was something he'd almost forgotten how to do and doing it caused a curious ache in his side, but he continued, laughing endlessly with his new friend, trying to forget for a moment what his mission was, if it even was a mission. After a while, he was so tired he could hardly keep his eyes open and he lay on his back and stared at the stars traversing the sky. Was there something more after this life? Was what Ryland had told him the truth or just a fairy tale made up to make life seem more meaningful because there was no meaning to be had from it? He wanted so badly to believe in the afterlife, for it chilled his bones to think about death. He gritted his teeth so hard he could hear the grinding when he thought about that moment from which he'd never be able to return, his last moment on earth, and he wondered whether he'd done things right, if maybe he'd rearranged certain aspects of his life whether things might have turned out different, whether everything might be okay right now. But what did it matter to think of what might have been. He had no time for that anymore. What mattered was the present. Here. Now. It was all he had, and he needed to make the most of it, whatever it wrought.

With that, he let himself be lulled into sleep, drifting through the kaleidoscopic colors of his mind, hoping for a beautiful dream.

***

Asher sensed the giant black mouth filling the sky behind him, trying to suck the earth and everything else into it. His bones and muscles ached from running for so long and he could barely breathe, but he kept moving, pumping his arms and legs wildly, hoping some shelter would appear on the horizon.

When he finally looked over his shoulder again all he saw was blackness, and he heard a sucking sound and felt a pull at his back and lifted off his feet and swirled through the air, trying to grab hold of something, but there was only darkness around, above, and below him. So he closed his eyes and let himself be pulled into its embrace and—

He woke with a start, the last embers of fire from the trash can still glowing in the alley and warming him slightly. He folded his arms and rolled onto his side and curled into a fetal ball and tried to go back to sleep, pretending the sound of drones and tracers whirring through the air was nothing more than a rhythm lulling him back into sleep's sweet caress.

***

His newfound friend was gone when he woke in the morning. Was he ever there at all, or had Asher wished for a beautiful dream while he was already within a dream?

He got up from the ground, brushed himself off, and stumbled up the alley and onto the densely packed sidewalk. He forced himself toward Bethany Street, his heart sinking at the thought of the sight of his former home. He rounded one corner after another, went up one road after another, dreading the moment he'd set foot on that street, but hope was alive in his heart at the vague notion that maybe Autumn would be there, that maybe he'd see her again before the end. And if he didn't, then he'd make peace with himself and wait, try to forgive himself for his mistakes—too many to enumerate.

_Life is strange_ , he thought. _You live just trying to get by, just trying to pass the time, then when you're close to death you only want to go back and treasure those moments that seemed so forgettable, so extraneous._

He kept moving despite the heaviness weighing down his chest at the thought that Autumn might not be there, that he might have to face his last days alone, and the closer he got the more he realized it was a reality that might come true, but he also remembered Ryland talking about fate, about how some things were destined to happen, and he held on to that notion, put it in the forefront of his mind, visualizing himself finding her amid the crowded streets and holding her in his arms and kissing her soft skin and touching her dreadlocked hair.

_There's always a way to tranquility,_ he told himself, _no matter how dire things seem_.

When he finally hit Bethany Street the moment of his capture came back to him in fragmented pieces. He tried to block the images from his mind, but they kept flooding in and finally he let them come without fighting, let the emotions wash over him like a wave, weighing him down and then buoying him up. For a moment he nearly broke down but just as soon that moment was gone. The street was semi-crowded, but nobody seemed to pay any attention to the charred remains of Empyrean.

He stood on the sidewalk across the street and stared at his old home. Pedestrians passed up and down before it; a drone hovered a safe distance behind and above it. He eyed the strangers striding up the sidewalk but didn't see Autumn, so he strolled onward, looking at each of them in turn as best he could, thinking he might find her face amid the crowd. All day he strode up and down the street but didn't see her. He began to think she'd been captured too, but they had no real purpose to keep her alive that he knew of. Would they attach a bomb to her to prove a point, too? He doubted it, because there'd be no purpose to it, for she had never been a known criminal inside the nation, unlike him. When he'd assassinated Stewart, they flashed his face across the sky, across every available digital billboard, making him not only an enemy but a symbol as well, something that could be used to prove a point, to show the weak who was strong. He wondered what the citizens would think of the famous fugitive now if they recognized him: a collar around his neck, a bomb attached to his stomach, cuts and bruises covering his face, broken teeth. He supposed they were all too busy with their own lives to recognize him beneath the mask of brutality he'd been given, though he was sure the nation would do a damn good job reminding them when the time came. They always did a good job rewriting history for their own purposes, reminding their people how well they were protecting them, how without the nation they were nothing.

Night came quickly, and he was still alone. He found an abandoned alley nearby and lay on the cool ground and tucked his hands beneath his armpits. A chill wind blew up the alley and he wished he had his friend from the other night to make a small fire to keep him warm for a while, to help him escape into a dream. What seemed like hours passed and he rolled from side to side, capturing glimpses of drones and tracers amid the milky stars and moon. His head began to ache and he rolled onto his back and massaged his temples with his index fingers and then ran his hands over his bristly head, feeling the semi-smooth X on the side of his throbbing skull. He closed his eyes, opened them, and sensed someone at the end of the alley. He pushed himself up and squinted, trying to see better, but could only make out a silhouette creeping closer, swaying from side to side as if drunk. Whoever it was reached out and touched the brick wall and traced it with their fingertips while moving toward him. At first he figured it was a mugger but quickly realized a mugger wouldn't waste his time with a bum in an alley. A tracer's spotlight swung over the alley for a moment and he saw that the person had long, thick hair and deduced it was a woman. She stopped a few feet from him and squatted with her back against the brick wall.

"Are you okay with me sleeping here tonight?" she asked him.

He recognized her voice but was certain it couldn't be her, that he wouldn't find her this way. He crawled toward the silhouette and the closer he got, the more certain he grew. He made out her dreadlocks and then her green-blue eyes and his heart ballooned in his chest. She must have recognized him despite his ugliness, for tears welled in her eyes when she looked at his battered face and she kept asking what had happened to him, but he didn't answer because for a moment he thought it was a hallucination but then he was saying her name and she was answering him and he was holding her shaking body in his arms. He cupped her warm cheeks in his hands and kissed her and listened to her cracking voice tell him something that came through only as garbled words at first, the world off-kilter, seeming to drift around him as if he were floating on air, but he focused and finally her words hit him with the force of a shotgun blast: _I'm pregnant._ His stomach hollowed out and his nostrils stung and a bilious taste rose in his throat.

"Are you sure?" he asked her.

"Yes."

"You didn't tell anyone, did you?"

"There's nobody left to tell," she said.

"How do you know for certain?"

"There's no way to be certain, but I can sense and feel it."

"You don't have government approval... They'll kill you and the baby if they find out."

"I know." Her voice cracked.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'm gonna get you out of here, but I have to tell you..."

"Tell me what?"

He sighed a weary sigh. "I won't be able to raise the baby with you."

"Why are you saying that?"

He shut his eyes. He couldn't look at her when he said it.

"Because I'm going to die," he said.

# 21

He kept thinking he must be dreaming, that it was all an elaborate fantasy his mind had woven together, but he knew he was fooling himself, that he'd have to do something drastic to save her and his unborn baby.

He'd shown her the metallic device attached to his stomach and explained to her what had happened, how they'd released him so they could use him as a moral story later, how they wanted him to kill innocents to prove a point. She told him they could find a doctor somewhere that would help him, but he said there was no point, that if he tried to remove the device there was a chance it could explode and kill them all. He had to carry the weight himself and die alone, but first he would guide her out of the nation, however he had to do it, and if he didn't he would die trying.

She was able to fall asleep in his arms, but he couldn't sleep. He kept working over solutions in his mind. How was he going to get her out of here without getting them both killed? He knew when he made his move they would come for him, so he had to be ready, had to have what he was going to do pieced together in his mind, even if it was a half-assed plan. He watched a drone move back and forth through the sky and then followed a hawk that soared overhead, its eyes glowing. He became more and more certain that the hawks were animal drones. Soon the government would have everything and everyone before their eyes. There'd be nowhere to hide anymore. As the hawk faded from view, he came upon a plan. Half-baked though it was, he couldn't come up with anything else and he didn't have time to keep thinking. He had to act.

He kept pondering the notion as the first strands of sunlight reached across the sky, waiting for her to awaken so he could kiss her lips before they began the journey out of the nation or into nothingness.

***

When she awakened, he took her hand and led her up the streets toward his destination, the cool air drifting over them, dark clouds spread across the sky, a slight sprinkle wetting them then dying away just as quickly.

She kept asking where he was taking her, but he wouldn't answer, just strode up and down the crowded streets, following the tracers, drones, sliders, and hawks through the corner of his eye. Every once in a while a fly buzzed past him and he instinctively knew it was an insect drone. They were watching him from everywhere, waiting for him to make a move, but by the time he did they wouldn't be able to act quickly enough to stop him.

They came to Winslow Street and Asher tightened his grip around her warm hand. "When I start talking, stay behind me," he said. "Don't say anything, not a word."

He strode up to Diesel's rundown stone house. The same guys as last time stood out in front: one gold-toothed and the other with perfectly white teeth. They both held their hands under their shirts, their heads tilted to the side.

"What you here for?" the gold-toothed one asked Asher.

"I need to speak to Diesel."

"He's busy," the one with perfect teeth said.

"It'll only take a minute."

"He ain't got a minute," the gold-toothed one said. "Now turn your ass around and walk away."

"How about this?" Asher lifted his shirt, revealing the circular metallic device. "You either take me in there to talk to Diesel or I rip this thing off my stomach and we all find out whether we had a maker."

The two guys looked at each other, and he could tell they were wondering the same thing: _What the hell is that thing on his stomach?_

"It's a bomb with enough power to wipe out this whole street, in case you're wondering," Asher said. "Don't test me. I die either way, and I've got no problem taking you bastards with me."

The house guards looked at each other again. The gold-toothed one whispered into the bracelet on his wrist, seemed to listen to something for a second, then said something else. He raised his forefinger to Asher as if to say, _One moment, please_. A minute later, a girl with a star tattooed onto her upper chest and silky black hair stumbled out the front door of the house, buttoning up her shirt. The front door remained ajar, and the one with perfect teeth nodded over his shoulder, inviting them inside.

Asher and Autumn walked past them and went inside. He lowered his shirt as he walked through the front door. It shut behind them without his assistance. Velvet blinds draped the windows to where barely any light crept into the house. Diesel had his cheek pressed to the stock of a Provenance rifle he had trained on Asher's head.

"The hell happened to you?"

"Doesn't matter," Asher said. "You gonna kill me?"

"You interrupted my business meeting."

"Didn't look like business to me."

"Everything's business," Diesel said. "Sex, death, guns—all business."

"Why don't you lower the rifle so we can talk?"

"We can talk right now, just like this."

"I thought I had your trust."

"That was when Ryland was around," Diesel said. "From what I hear, he ain't around no more. Somebody got him. For all I know, that somebody could be you."

"It wasn't me."

"I don't know that."

Asher lifted his shirt and revealed his stomach, hovered his hand over the bomb. "What I have attached to my stomach is a bomb with enough explosives to orbit this block. I tamper with it and it goes off. What you're going to do is press that button that makes your guns visible. What I'm going to do is take a few."

"What if I say no?"

"Then we all die, right here, right now."

"You gonna take your girlfriend with you to the grave?"

"She's as good as dead if you don't give me the guns, anyway."

"What do you need guns for?"

"It won't matter once I'm gone. Once I'm gone, you're out of the equation."

"You're a crazy motherfucker, you know that?"

"We all go a little crazy sometimes. The other things I need are a coat to hide the guns and holsters to put them in."

"Demanding little bastard, ain't you? What do you got planned?"

"Doesn't matter unless I succeed. If I don't succeed, you'll never hear from me again. If I do, you just might."

"All right, you stupid son of a bitch." Diesel pressed a button on his desk and the walls turned inside out, revealing the rifles and guns. "Take your pick."

Asher strolled around the room, examining the various guns and rifles, took two Generation 44s from the handgun hangers, and set them on the desk. "They loaded?"

"All the way."

"You got a knife, too?"

Diesel pointed toward the ground. There was a row of handles that held blades, and one by one Asher pulled them out and examined them. He settled on a double-edged six-inch blade. Diesel slid open a closet behind the desk and pulled out a black double-shoulder holster and knife sheath and threw them on the desk, then grabbed a yellow raincoat and dropped it on top of everything.

"You're gonna stand out like a goofy son of a bitch with that on if it ain't raining out."

"That's all right," Asher said. "I want them to come for me."

"Who you talking about?"

"Doesn't matter."

Diesel helped him put on the double-shoulder holster and attached the knife sheath to the waistband of Asher's pants. Asher slid the guns into the holsters then sheathed the knife and, finally, put on the raincoat and buttoned it up.

"Don't forget I helped you out if you succeed in whatever crazy thing you're gonna try," he said. "I don't usually help people for free, but when you got a bomb attached to your stomach..."

Asher nodded. "I'll be dead, so I can't pay you back, but I don't forget much."

"I'm sorry."

"There's nothing for you to be sorry for. People die every day. I got me and her into this and now I have to get us out."

Before leaving, he thanked Diesel and apologized for having threatened him. Diesel told him he would have done the same thing under similar circumstances.

"Thank you for helping me," Asher said.

"You didn't give me much choice."

He gave him a one-cornered smile. "I gave you a couple options, and you chose one."

Diesel shook his head. "That much you did do."

He took Autumn's hand and they left, passing the guards in front of the house without a word, and headed up the sidewalk. Above them a hawk soared in circles, keeping pace with them. The dark clouds from earlier had broken apart and the sun's rays warmed his face and neck despite the cool air.

_Come and get me,_ Asher thought, _because if you don't, I'm coming after one of you._

# 22

Autumn kept asking him what the plan was, where they were going, but his only answer was to stay behind him and to hold on to him tightly if he got onto any kind of vehicle. They moved up one sidewalk after another till they came to a fairly crowded street.

Asher leaned against the brick wall of a dilapidated building and studied the crowd: old and young, beautiful and ugly, sunken-eyed and bright-eyed, dressed well or clothed in tatters. Drones and tracers were far away enough to give him time, and there wasn't a slider or armored car in sight. What he was looking for was any sign that would reveal one of the people on the block as an android, but he didn't see one, at least not that he could tell.

"What are we doing?" Autumn asked him.

"Just do what I told you, okay?"

She nodded.

Gooseflesh crawled over his skin and his brain felt as though it had frozen over. He ground his teeth and closed his eyes and took a deep breath, unbuttoned the raincoat, removed one of the Generation 44s from its holster, aimed straight up into the air, and fired three times. Now he had broken one of William's rules. Those shots would qualify as rebellion. An alarm rang throughout the district, and the pedestrians scrambled about, trying to figure out who had fired the shots. Soon enough they seemed to decide it was him and created a pocket of space around him, looking at him with wild eyes.

Above him, drones and tracers began to draw near.

Some of the pedestrians rushed to another street, thinning out the original crowd, but a few of the men seemed to be pondering rushing him, so he aimed the pistol directly at one of them.

"I'll kill you one by one," he said. "Don't test me. Stay back and let your government take care of me."

Each one raised his hands in turn and backed away.

Soon thereafter a slider appeared and Asher grabbed Autumn's wrist and told her to stay close. He began to run in a bent-over posture behind some of the people still scrambling about the sidewalks. The slider stopped in the middle of the street and the cop drew his pistol and bright lights sprang from his eyes, passing over the crowd and zeroing in on him. Asher felt the warmth of the lights swimming over him and then fading as he passed behind ducking pedestrians. The cop aimed toward Asher and started firing, clipping people in the crowd. The smell of blood lit up the air and screams rang out. Asher circled behind the cop, the sound of gunfire seeming to follow him, the drones above drawing closer. Some of the citizens made grabs for him, probably trying to stop the violence by helping the cop, so he did what he had to do and shot them. A heavyset man grabbed Autumn by the hair and pulled, and she screamed in pain and Asher shot him in the neck and the man grabbed the wound and blood bubbled up from beneath his fingers and he dropped to his knees, trying to scream but only issuing a hiss.

Asher rose from a bent-over position and aimed directly at the cop and kept firing till he hit him in the shoulder. The cop's body jerked backward at the impact, white fluid foaming from the wound. He kept shooting, sprinting forward at the same time, hitting the cop again and again—in the neck, face, chest, and head. When he reached the slider he pulled off the cop's shattered helmet and brought the muzzle of the gun to his drooping face, shot him once more then kicked him off the bike, his own chest covered in white ooze from the blowback, its semen-like smell colliding with that of blood. He holstered the gun and looked over his shoulder and saw the drones and tracers coming closer and knew armored cars and more sliders would soon join them.

"Hurry up and get on," he said to Autumn. "They're coming for us."

She said, "Shit," over and over again and jumped on behind him and wrapped her arms around his stomach and pressed her head against his back and shut her eyes.

He told her to hold on tight and pulled the acceleration lever all the way down and sped up the street, swerving around one drifting crowd after another. He heard shots from somewhere and ducked his head then tilted it to the side, cool wind blowing in his eyes, rushing through his bristly hair. He was waiting for the moment when they would try to hit him from in front and behind and just as soon as the question popped into his mind drones, tracers, sliders, armored cars, and cops on foot appeared before him. He sensed the same behind but checked anyway and they were there, too. Some of the drones and tracers began firing at him, creating fiery craters in the street, bodies flying into the air where they hit, stray citizens catching fire and screaming shrill screams. It was clear they were willing to sacrifice innocent citizens to kill him now, and if they hit him and the bomb exploded it would kill many more, including whatever cops, probably all androids, were on the street. All worth it to kill the dangerous rebel. He couldn't draw innocents into his war, so he hit the FLIGHT MODE button and felt the heat of fire behind him as they lifted into the air. The feeling of Autumn's arms wrapped around him reminded him of his unborn child and the love still lingering inside him, waiting to be spent with her during the little time he had left. His brief thoughts fell away as shots spun past him. He dodged them by swerving from one side to the other, dropping downward, nearly hitting the street, then lifting back up.

He glanced at the fuel gauge—three-quarters full. The shots kept coming, decimating the sides of buildings, fireballing people in the streets, cratering the sidewalks and blacktop. He was ready to die, ready to fly into the arms of fate, but it would have to wait awhile. A couple cops on sliders drew up on either side of him, their guns trained on him. He tapped the brake lever and as they flew past him, he drew the gun and hit the acceleration lever, coming up on one of them from behind. He pulled the trigger, the blast sounding like a distant bomb, ignited the cop's back, and sent the slider plunging straight down. The other cop was circling around to come at Asher head-on, but Asher was already on top of him and fired. The shots missed the cop but hit the slider and smoke spiraled skyward. As the cop tried to aim at him his slider went into a free fall, throwing off his shots, which went flying every which way.

Asher holstered the gun and sped onward, swerving past drones and tracers that tried but failed to shoot him. He was moving so fast that everything around him became kaleidoscopic and blurred. He heard things exploding and vaguely saw cops aiming and firing at him from below, saw the gunfire erupting and spinning past him, saw fireballs enveloping buildings to either side of him. He decided not to tap the brakes again, figuring if there was a way to go it was at full speed, with the woman he loved hanging on to him.

Now it seemed as though he was moving through a tunnel, tracers of light lasering past him, the only sound the wind screaming in his ears. He zigzagged through the air, avoiding the continuous blasts of drones and tracers and shots from below, lifting and pushing down the handlebars, rising and falling as if riding over a dozen sand dunes.

A huge drone, the likes of which he'd never seen before, appeared before him. Dozens of barrels extended from it, aiming in various directions. A few of the barrels took aim at him and he broke his promise to himself, hit the brake lever, and took a hard turn, dropping a bit so the buildings hid him from the giant drone. He went up one street and down another and glanced over his shoulder. A tracer hit one of the buildings behind him and exploded in a ball of fire. A cop on a slider got caught in the fray and went circling through the air and crashed into a building on the opposite side of the street.

Asher smelled the fire and destruction sweeping through the air. He kept reminding himself of the feeling of Autumn's arms wrapped around him, her head pressed against his back. It was easy to forget in the constant chaos, but it was his reason for fighting, for escaping this deathtrap of a nation. He sensed the giant drone closing in on him from behind and hit the brakes, dropping straight down, then accelerated and took a hard right. He looked back and for the first time saw nothing chasing him. He went full speed, the sense of freedom blooming in his chest like a gigantic flower. It was as though he could taste it, could feel it at his fingertips. He only had to keep going and he would be able to rest with his woman for a day or so... then, afterward, he'd have to face his end.

He accelerated, stopped looking anywhere but forward, for behind him was the past and before him was a new life for the mother of his unborn child. He was racing through the tunnel of his mind, everything streaky around him, his life passing before his eyes, visions of Chloe, his first love, and David, his only son, dancing through his mind. He still loved them and, in some ways, he supposed this was as much for them as for Autumn, and if this place called heaven Ryland had told him about truly existed maybe he would reunite with them there. A bright blue light ahead jarred him from his visions.

William appeared, steering the T-bar mechanism upon the machine with the circular platform, bright blue light shining from beneath him like an inverted spotlight, and moved directly into Asher's path. He held a double-barreled gun in his fist and had a Meridian shotgun strapped across his back. From his dead eyes Asher sensed a knowing disapproval; from his fake smile he sensed assurance.

William's smile said, _I'm going to kill you._

Asher drew one of his guns and readied himself. He turned one way and William maneuvered into his path. He swerved the other way and the android did the same. Dropping downward didn't work, either. He sped skyward, but William followed suit. There was no way out. He'd have to face him head-on.

He'd never wanted to kill anything or anyone more than he wanted to kill William at this moment, and he aimed at him and the android aimed back. Everything seemed to move in slow motion and he was able to train his gun carefully on his target then squeeze the trigger. He fired again and again and his shots ricocheted off the T-bar and platform, missing William. He zigzagged and swerved to throw off the android's shots and swore he felt a couple graze him and double-checked and Autumn's arms were still wrapped around his stomach, which gave him all the motivation he needed to keep fighting.

Even though he was already pulling the acceleration lever all the way back, he holstered the gun and gripped it even tighter and rocketed skyward. William did the same, trying to block his path, but Asher was going at a faster clip, just ahead of him, and as he glided over the android he grabbed the pistol and aimed down and fired and hit him directly in the clavicle, causing him to drop the double-barreled gun, which went twirling through the air toward the ground below. The circular platform began to spin out of control, and white ooze spilled from his shoulder, but still he was able to unstrap the shotgun from his back and take shoddy aim and fire off a wild shot. As soon as he'd fired and missed, Asher redirected his focus on what was in front of him, only hearing the occasional boom from behind, certain there was no way William could hit him without first steadying his vehicle and by the time that was done, he would be so far behind him that he'd never catch up to him again.

He was back in the tunnel of his mind, screeching through the skies, drones reappearing before him. They fired at him, but he avoided their shots by constantly shifting position, going at full speed. Behind the array of drones he made out a wall that must have been fifty feet high. The only thing it could have been was the great wall that kept the citizens imprisoned within the nation. He was almost there, and though he was still speeding toward it a hardness filled his throat at the sight of it, as if some new form of truth had been released within his chest. The vision of freedom gave him the last push he needed to make it out of this place and he reached down and touched Autumn's warm hands one last time to make sure she was still hanging on and then rushed toward a series of drones and tracers that formed a gauntlet he would have to pass through before he could reach the wall.

He steeled himself and flew straight past one drone and tracer after another, their shots whizzing by him, slamming into buildings and walls or exploding in the distance.

_Focus,_ he told himself. _Focus._

And he centered his attention on the great wall, swinging around and above and below the incessant firing from drones and tracers, the kaleidoscopic view spinning around him. It was as though he wasn't steering the slider anymore, but it was steering itself, guiding him toward the wall, rising skyward in order to scale it and soon enough he was over it and the collar around his neck began to blink with red lights and he shut his eyes and waited to explode, to die way up high in the air like a free man, but it didn't happen, so he supposed it was some form of signal to the government that he'd escaped.

He kept going and checked the fuel gauge, which was now a little more than half full, then looked at the landscape below and surrounding him. Mainly desert, dunes, and dead trees. He rode onward, searching for some place to try to land that was near water or vegetation. It seemed he'd gone on forever, driving the tank down to half full when he spotted a lake with a few trees overhanging the edge, their images mirrored in the water.

He brought the slider down for a landing, bumped into the ground once, and bounced into the air, then hit the ground again, nearly losing control but not quite, and skidded to a stop covered in dust, the harsh flavor of it filling his mouth. He turned and faced Autumn and cupped her cheeks in his hands and kissed her dry lips, took her hand, and led her from the bike toward the water.

Tears filled her eyes and she hugged him.

He understood there were no words that could contain her feelings and he absorbed her emotions, a sense of ecstasy filling him, a weight he'd carried his whole life lifting from him, freeing him from its burden. It would only last a little while, but he hoped for her and his unborn child it would last forever.

They bathed their dirty feet in the cool water as twilight fell around them. He knew he couldn't sleep because there was a chance they could track him using the collar, and if they had that ability they would do it after what the nation had witnessed. He was a rebel who had escaped. Of course they could always lie about it, but it would be more powerful if they could showcase his death.

He lay on the ground with Autumn in his arms and waited for them in the spreading darkness, but they never came. His eyes grew heavy. He struggled to keep them open, fading into sleep and waking again, listening to the gentle wind blowing, till he finally fell into its sweet embrace.

# 23

Asher felt a nudging at his side and rolled onto his back and rubbed his eyes, his vision blurry from sleep. Three hazy figures wearing threaded masks and dressed in what looked like burlap stood around him, their guns trained on him.

At first he thought they'd come in the night and captured them, but the central figure, who must have been six-foot-five or so, squatted, took off his mask, and said something that bypassed him until he said it again. Autumn gripped Asher's arm.

"What's your name, stranger?" the tall man asked him.

"Asher." He pointed to his side. "And this is Autumn."

"My name is Thomas." He placed the gun on his thigh and extended his hand. "Where do you two come from?"

Asher shook his hand and said, "Azure."

Thomas nodded. He pointed to the portly man behind him and said his name was Ryan, followed by the sinewy one whose name was Peter. They asked why he was wearing the collar and Asher tried to explain as best he could, and they nodded, saying they'd heard many stories of the prison-like nation, how very few escaped. Asher wanted to tell them about the bomb but decided it would be best to see if they were friend or foe first.

"We need you to remove your guns," Thomas said to him. "We want to help you, but—"

"Can't do that," Asher said.

"We can't help you until we're sure you're not a threat."

"What about your guns?"

Thomas slid his gun into its holster. "I'll put away mine, but my friends here can't. We have to be able to trust you. Without trust there is nothing."

"How am I to know if I give you my weapons you won't kill me?"

"Is that the type of man I strike you as?"

"No."

"Then trust me. What other options do you have?"

"It doesn't matter," Asher said. "I won't be able to stay with you long, either way."

"And why is that?" He smirked. "We're always looking for good men and women to join our ranks."

Asher lifted his shirt. Thomas tilted his head to the side and squinted, then looked over each shoulder in turn to his friends, as if to say, _What is that?_ Peter and Ryan shrugged simultaneously.

"I don't know what that is, but we accept the differences in people as unique. We have all kinds in our family." He shook his head. "We won't judge you."

"You don't understand," Asher said to him. "It's—"

"A bomb," Autumn said.

Thomas inclined his chin. "So she speaks." He eyed her for a moment before returning his attention to Asher. "Why would they do this to you?"

"Look at my face, my teeth... They did all of it."

"Every man has flaws. They build character."

"Let's hope my character's built already because I don't have much time to build it any longer," Asher said with a laugh. "I have around three days, but I want to be away from her after two." He looked at Autumn, fighting the tears that were striving to rise to the surface. "She has to be safe. That's what matters most."

"More than your own life?" Thomas said.

"Yes."

He studied Asher's eyes as though reaching into his being and trying to root out anything false then extended his hand once more.

"I want to trust you," he said. "Will you let me do that?"

Asher placed his hand in the man's palm and said, "Yes."

"Then keep your weapons, and we will help you as best we can for the two days you have with us."

"Why?" Autumn asked him. "Why do you want to help us?"

"Because you need help," Thomas said. "What other reason would there be?"

Using rope, they tied the slider to the back of their vehicle, a large ship shaped like a teardrop that was run using solar power. Thomas called it a "siren." It seated six people, and they gathered together inside and Ryan began to drive somewhere. If they betrayed them, then Asher could set off the bomb and kill them all, but he sensed they were genuine and he wanted to trust them because he had nobody left to trust and was exhausted from running and fighting. He would have to tell Thomas about the baby. He had no choice. Somebody had to watch over and protect Autumn when he was gone. He looked through the windows at the passing landscapes and she reached over and took his hand and squeezed it.

What would he say to her when he had to leave her to raise their child alone?

***

They came to a village filled with small huts made from stone just as the sun was about to fall below the horizon.

Several sirens were parked behind the huts and people moved about upon the gravel road that ran through the center of the village. They got out of the siren and Thomas introduced them to the villagers, and they all clapped and said, "Welcome," as if inviting them into their family. Asher put his arm around Autumn and walked toward the crowd with her, meeting one villager after another, forgetting their names right after he was told them.

Thomas led them to a small hut at the edge of the village and told him it was vacant, and they could stay there. Inside there were two small beds and a fireplace. Asher told Autumn to wait inside for a minute, and he walked outside with Thomas. Some of the villagers had started a fire and a few of them danced around it beneath the starry night. He'd never seen people so happy in his life. And happy for what?

"I want to thank you for helping us," Asher said to him.

"I had no choice."

"How do you mean?"

"I told you," Thomas said. "When I see a man needs help, I help him."

"It's not something I'm used to."

"It's human nature."

"Maybe I was taught differently."

"I suppose you were."

"There's something I need to tell you," Asher said.

Thomas looked at him, waiting.

"She's pregnant." Tears streamed down his face. "I wish I could stay here, but I—"

"You love her."

"Yes, very much."

"We'll take care of her and the child."

Asher nodded and began to break down. He tried to stop himself, but he wasn't able.

Thomas placed his hand on Asher's shoulder. "It's okay to cry," he said. "It's a manly thing to cry."

"I had a family once before and lost them. Now I have a second chance, and they're going to lose me."

"You'll meet them again after death."

"How?" Asher asked him.

"Life goes on and on. This life only lasts a moment in time, like the sun passing over the sky. But there's a part of you that travels onward, through space and time, forever and ever."

"How do you know?"

"Intuition," he said. "Every man knows it when he's born, but the world slowly breaks you of what's in your heart."

"Have you heard of a place called heaven?"

He shook his head. "I haven't."

"Someone told me once there was a place called heaven where people go when they die."

"What is it like?"

"It's supposed to have streets paved with gold and everyone lives in a giant house. Nobody dies. You live forever, with your loved ones surrounding you."

"Sounds like something worth believing in."

"How do you mean?"

"You have to believe in things that give you hope or else the world will eat away at you. A message with hope at its center is worth believing in."

Asher angled his head to the side and looked at Thomas. The flickering fire behind him bathed him in a golden light. His eyes seemed serene, as though they'd witnessed all the horror and beauty life had to offer. A peacefulness descended upon Asher just being in his presence. Stars shot across the night sky, leaving silver streaks behind. It felt as though he was in the midst of a tranquil dream, the one he'd been wishing for when he'd taken the dreamnovas what seemed like so long ago—he was a different man then.

They stood in silence for what felt like a very long time, then Asher said, "I can't thank you enough for—"

"Then don't," Thomas said. "Get some rest."

Asher went inside the small hut. Autumn lay on one of the beds. He scooted into bed beside her and she rested her head on his shoulder and he stroked her dreadlocked hair.

"I don't want you to leave me," she said.

"I know."

"We can find a way to save you the same way you saved me."

He nodded.

She fell asleep that way, but he couldn't sleep. He knew there was no way to save himself, that he would have to leave and die alone, waiting for the bomb to go off or perhaps setting it off himself. He had a knife, and if he—

But that was too much. He squinted in pain just thinking of it.

He lay there, trying his best to at least rest for a while.

# 24

In the morning they all sat in a circle and ate a big bowl of porridge, each of them taking a bite and then passing it to the person on their right.

Asher kept expecting a swarm of insects or a tracer or drone to appear in the air, tracking him down, but it never happened. If it had, he would have hopped on the slider and led them away from the village to protect its inhabitants. They would have been coming for him, after all. But he supposed the government was able to rearrange what had happened by now in order to continue the tidy history of the nation of Azure, telling the citizens he'd been captured and executed or something similar. He supposed he'd never know.

The day sped by, as it always does when a man is running out of time, and he held Autumn as much as possible. By his count, this was the fifth day he'd had the device attached to his stomach, which gave him roughly two more to stay with her, but he didn't want to take any chances with her and the baby, so he planned things out in his head, thought on how to execute everything to be as painless as possible for her.

The villagers built a fire and danced and he took Autumn's hands and joined them, laughing and smiling as the sun dipped below the horizon. He felt more alive than he ever had in his life, for it was as though he had a clock in his head ticking off the small amount of time he had left, and nothing makes a man feel more alive than knowing death is waiting for him.

In the darkness he held her more tightly than he'd ever held her before.

"If it weren't for you, I'd be dead already," he said.

"No, I'd be dead without you."

"You have to stay strong when I'm gone."

"But we can find someone to fix you."

"Don't you think Thomas would have told us if somebody could do that?"

"We can leave here and keep looking, then."

"Maybe tomorrow we can do that," he said, a lump forming in his throat. "And if we don't find anyone or anything?"

"Then I'll go with you."

"You can't." He touched her stomach.

"I don't want to lose you." She wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I'll always be with you. You know that, don't you? Did Ryland ever tell you about heaven?"

"No."

He told her the story and wiped away her tears and said if he couldn't stay he would wait for her there.

"What if it doesn't exist?" she said.

"Sometimes you have to believe in something to keep going, whether you think it's true or not."

It took a while, but she fell asleep in his arms.

# 25

He moved out from underneath her carefully, so as not to wake her.

He strapped on the double-shoulder holster and made sure the knife was firmly in its sheath. He didn't bother with the raincoat. All the while he watched Autumn in her slumber, standing over her in the darkness, drinking her in. He ran his hand over her hair one last time and leaned down and lightly kissed her forehead and belly and then sneaked out into the darkness and walked with his head cast downward toward the slider.

When he reached it he looked back one last time, climbed on, and started it. He moved at a crawl at first, but the farther away from the village he got the faster he went, for the weight on his heart grew heavier with the increased distance from Autumn.

The pale moonlight lit his way and the stars glowed in the night sky. When he felt he had driven far enough, he found an acacia tree and stopped the slider and lay beneath it. He supposed this was as good a place as any to die. His reckoning would come here, alone amid the deserted landscape.

He closed his eyes and waited.

***

In the morning his stomach ached for food and water, but there was none to be found.

He lifted his shirt and touched the cold metallic device sewn to his shriveling stomach. He wondered what Autumn would think when she awoke and he was gone. If only he had the chance to hold her one last time, he would never let go. That's why he knew he had to leave early: The longer he waited, the harder it would be part with her.

It seemed the minutes passed so slowly out here alone. Cool winds blew, negating the heat of the sun beaming from the bare sky. He tried his best to ignore the hunger burrowing its way through his stomach and lay beneath the acacia tree and closed his eyes. He remembered Chloe and David but reminded himself that Chloe had left him, something Autumn had never done. It felt like he'd had to experience the abandonment of Chloe to appreciate the love of Autumn, though he'd been stripped of both.

In his imagination he tried to picture heaven, so that when he died maybe he'd enter straight into his visualization and it wouldn't be so painful, but instead a vision eclipsed his mind of how he was to spend his last hours.

***

Before he left the acacia tree, he took the knife from its sheath and carved into the wood: I'LL SEE YOU IN HEAVEN, AUTUMN. - ASHER

Then he got onto the slider and sped along and when it was going as fast as it would go, he lifted into the air and headed toward Azure, his body pulsing with electricity, his heartbeat throbbing in his skull.

The sunlight spun over him like rays of gold, guiding him toward his old home. He watched the fuel gauge drop below half a tank and kept going. Memories wheeled through his mind and waves of emotion washed over him watching the man he had once been turn into the man he had become.

His heart sank lower and lower the closer he came to Azure.

# 26

After some time, he saw the great wall that kept the citizens inside the nation. He tried to move toward it faster, but he was already going full speed. Soon enough he passed over the wall and red lights blinked on the collar around his neck and alarms sounded below. He ground his teeth and gripped the handlebars and readied himself.

Drones, tracers, and sliders mounted by cops began to appear everywhere. They gunned straight toward him, firing without prejudice, clearly determined to take him out.

He guided the slider lower, until he was flying between buildings. A cop on a slider appeared before him and came straight at him. Asher pulled one of his guns from the double-shoulder holster and took aim and traded shots with the cop and hit him between the eyes, straight through the glass of his helmet, and a string of white ooze hung in the air as the cop twirled toward the street below. He holstered the gun and sped onward.

A couple drones wheeled toward him and he gunned the slider straight up and passed over them. They tried to turn around at the same time to chase him and crashed together, exploding in a cloud of flames. Asher could only glimpse it over his shoulder before a tracer had him in its sights and opened fire on him. He swerved right to left and then dropped down and went straight beneath it, took out the gun, and shot into the base of the tracer, causing trails of smoke to erupt from it and sending it into a tailspin. He holstered the gun as the tracer crashed into the street below.

In all his life he'd never felt so determined. He saw that his whole life had led toward this final moment. Presently everything around him became like a portal leading to his final destination, colors and memories and emotions sliding by on the wall of his mind as he bypassed one tracer, drone, and slider after another, avoiding their incessant firing by skillful maneuvers left, right, up, and down.

When he had nearly made it, the giant drone appeared and momentarily distracted him and a cop sidled up next to him out of nowhere and tried to shoot him, but Asher braked furiously, dropping straight toward the ground below, and pulled out his gun, cool air whooshing past him. The cop jumped off his slider and caught Asher's bike and began to climb aboard, taking aim with his gun. Asher fired three times into his chest and kicked him in the head with the heel of his foot and the cop slipped off and spiraled downward. Asher followed him down, but just before he was about to slam into the ground, he rose once again and headed toward the giant drone. He felt as if he was growing weaker as he moved and felt something warm dripping down his chest and discovered he'd been shot in the shoulder at some point.

_It's not much farther,_ he told himself. _You can make it._

In the clear skies he saw them gathering in a circle around him, closing in on him. If they could corner him it would be over. So he lowered in a hurry and brought the slider in for a landing. The tires hit the pavement hard, causing a burning smell. Smoke rose from beneath the bike and he bounced into the air but hung on tight, hit the street again, wheeled back into the air, landed again, and swerved about a bit before catching himself and righting the slider and spinning down one street after another. The crowds were sparse due to the perpetual alarms sounding, but some watched from the sidewalk or inside alleys as he sped past.

He could make out the glitz of District 7 and it sent a storm through his stomach, driving him onward. When the vehicles were making a break for him in the streets and swimming downward from above, he lifted back upward and drew his gun and propelled over most of them, shooting at the ones that got in his way. He heard shots behind him, but he paid them no mind. He could die here or there; all that mattered now was that he kept going, kept fighting till the end.

Within District 7 he passed over the superhighways that wound through the sky, passed the beautiful buildings to either side of him and the digital billboards with the president spewing lies. People pointed at him from below. A few cops aimed at him and fired, their shots whizzing past him. Drones and tracers tried to corner him, but they declined to fire at him here and take the chance of destroying the most beautiful buildings in Azure, so he sped right past them. He heard his name issuing from some kind of speaker, someone telling him to surrender, but he finally had his destination in his sights—Halcyon—and he pulled the acceleration lever tighter, his knuckles aching and whitening from the pressure.

He drew closer and closer to it, and when it was clear he wasn't going to stop, they began shooting at him from behind, but carefully, so as not to destroy any of the surrounding structures or Halcyon itself. Hawks circled above him in the sky, and a trail of insect drones swam through the air toward him, but he was already on a trajectory downward, high enough to scale the gates of Halcyon and low enough to land somewhere within the hallowed grounds. One of the hawks caught him and circled its claws around his shoulder and pecked at him, digging its beak into the flesh of his neck, and he fired at it, missing the first couple of times but connecting the last and knocking it away.

The swarm of insect drones clustered together and created a cloud to try to block his view for a landing, but he flew straight through them, feeling them peck at and break his skin and sting his shoulder and neck wounds, and when he came out the other side he landed within the confines of Halcyon and the front tire twisted to the side and he flew over the handlebars of the slider and flipped through the air and landed on one knee and skidded forward, tearing away the surface of his pants and the skin beneath. The other leg twisted beneath him and he came to a stop with the tibia bone sticking out of the skin at the kneecap, a fiery pain spreading through his body like a pounding heartbeat.

A hazy group with guns drawn came toward him, drawing nearer, calling his name, telling him to raise his hands. He tore off his blood-soaked shirt and drew the knife from its sheath and as the group became clearer he saw William was leading them. He brought the knife to the bomb attached to his stomach and touched the edge with the tip of it, hoping William hadn't lied to him. Before he could edge the knife beneath the skin, a hail of bullets exploded and zoomed toward him and he felt the sting of some of them puncturing him and with his last ounce of strength he cut beneath the device, breathing shallowly, the world falling away from him, and warm blood flowed over his hands and he nudged the device upward just as something pierced his neck and took the last of his breath.

He looked skyward and tried to raise his arms, but they were too weak. He felt an implosion from within. A great white light enveloped him and spread outward, capturing William and his group in its fiery grip, consuming each one of them, blowing them back toward Halcyon. The last thing Asher felt was something like two branches protruding from either side of his back.

And he gave up the ghost.

# Epilogue

When Autumn's daughter, Elizabeth, grew into her teen years, she was told the story of her biological father.

It was hard for her to imagine Azure as a prison-like nation, what with its walls torn down now, and the ease with which people could move in and out. But Elizabeth went there often with her mother or stepfather, Thomas, and would ask strangers if they'd ever heard of Asher Cain, and the strangers would break into gesticulations, telling her of how the man had saved them from tyranny.

Sometimes at night she tried to picture him the way people described him, but there was always some kind of haziness that kept her from glimpsing his face. Autumn often told her that without him she would have never been born, that they both would have died within the confines of Azure. She told her she would always love him, and they would meet again one day in the afterlife.

It wasn't until much later that Elizabeth was out on her own, close to adulthood, when she lay beneath an acacia tree and noticed something carved into the wood. She read it twice to make sure her eyes weren't deceiving her: I'LL SEE YOU IN HEAVEN, AUTUMN. - ASHER. She ran her hand over the words and closed her eyes and heard someone's voice in the air, telling her he loved her, that he was with her always, and a warmth spread through her being, a sense of peace.

She brought her mother back to the tree and showed her the words carved into it and Autumn dropped to her knees and shut her eyes and kissed them.

"I've been waiting to hear these words ever since he left us," she said.

~ _The End~_

# About the Author

Grant Palmquist lives and works in Houston, TX. He holds a BA from the University of Houston.

#  Other Works Available by Grant Palmquist

A Song After Dark

Permanent Winter

Isolated Howl

End of Amnesia

Cemeteries of the Heart and Other Stories

Dirge

Engel

# Thank you

Thank you for downloading _Azure._ If you enjoyed the book, please take the time to leave a review somewhere.
