fashion. It's been a pleasure to finally meet you."
He stood, again wiping dust from his pants. "When you're able to stand on your own, come see us south of the Rain Belt. I think the next few weeks will be very interesting." He paused at the door, turning back with an almost sadistic grin. "Perhaps we'll even play a game or two."
He watched the older man leave, chilled to his very core. He was veteran enough to know what had just happened, in a language of competition above and beyond the obvious.
His opponent had just introduced himself.
The rain outside began surging again, and Elizabeth stirred at the noise, adjusting her position.
He moved his arm, making sure she was comfortable.
The real game was about to begin, with stakes incomprehensibly high. There was no time to waste, on sleeping or worry or… grief.
He couldn't let himself be dragged down. He couldn't think about her body, still sailing east on a little solar-powered craft on the vast sea.
He stood at the outer wall, looking down at the immense plains of his mind below the plateau where his castle stood, watching the lines of the dead still dancing in endless mad procession. A dozen new faces now danced at the end of the line, among them Dierk, and… Kitna. They smiled as memories, once alive, now specters. With her danced two vague shapes, smaller than the rest… but they never were. They were just a future he wanted once, but that part of himself was just a liability and pain now.
He placed more bricks, building his walls even higher, blocking out the dead yet again. He would come back to them, he promised - when he had the chance.
He would not forget, he promised, just delay.
He pulled up the list of a million potential revolutionaries, accessing the lifelog of the first surviving name. One of them had to be linked to the bomb. One of them would know where it was. He began scanning through statistics, analyzing behavior and profiling actions.
He narrowed his eyes, noticing a different pattern entirely. Every action he took in his search had already been taken, logged by another before him…
He looked to the east, past countless walls, across milling oblivious crowds, and through distant eyes, daring a direct access - a challenge and a question without words.
Lowering his hammer and wiping sweat from his brow, the Islander looked west, his expression grim. The mutual scrutiny they had shared the week before returned for an unhappy, silent moment.
The Islander… knew.
Rolf felt immediately very aware of his own breathing. A thousand questions burst from his thoughts, but none reached his lips. He couldn't speak without giving them both away.
The moment passed. The giant returned to his work.
Lowering his gaze to the stone floor, Rolf began recalculating all his plans. He knew what had just happened, in a language of respect above and beyond the obvious. He had no idea why or how the stranger had become involved, but there was no mistaking it.
Another opponent had just introduced himself.
He pulled up his data again, moving even faster this time, his eyes darting and his thoughts racing, his chest filled by an indescribable feeling he very much disliked - a shadow creeping up the back of his heart, urging it to beat faster, lest it soon stop altogether…
A searing spear lanced through his head.
He tried to ignore it. He tried to keep focused, but the pain only grew.
"I said get some sleep!" Og texted, noticing his vitals spiking dangerously.
As much as he hated to wait, it was his only choice. The unknown person connected to the bomb had survived the worst of the disaster… it would not explode randomly. There was still time.
He could afford to wait a day.
He had money coming, too… that thought struck him strangely. He had more than enough money to not work for a day.
Setting the stress aside in his mind, he was immediately unsure what to do with himself.
An incredible weight lifted, promising to return soon, surely, but for now, his arm was broken, his skin burned, his knee pained, and -
He ran a hand along Elizabeth's hair, smoothing it the way he used to, before all their distance and fighting and the endless pains of life. It was his fault, he realized, for building walls so high they blocked out even the things that mattered. There needed to be a door, some small access - a vulnerability, yes, but a lifeline as well.
A heavy, soothing panacea fell across him as he closed his eyes. His thoughts emptied, and he laid his head back against the wall.
Then, to the sounds of surging rain, he slept.
For the first time in twelve years, he did not dream.
Epilogue: Age's End
They sat together on the gapsquare wall, legs dangling above the silver waters below. A light drizzle kept the Sun's usual heat at bay, and the sea breezes brought fresh air welling upward around them, enhanced by the rain's humid breath.
Og watched Elizabeth laugh and push at Rolf's unbroken arm, her tone mock angry at some dour comment. Watching the two genuinely and visibly happy for a rare moment, he smiled. Heavy responsibilities seemed to have fallen on the three of them, but, for that single Eve shift, there was nothing to do but sit around and recover.
And some messy, unhappy rift between his promise-siblings finally seemed healed.
"What are you looking at?" Rolf commented, embarrassed to be seen happy.
Og raised his eyebrows for a moment and shook his head. "You two just reminded me of my brothers." He snorted. "Which reminds me, I need to start collecting embarrassing stories about you both."
Elizabeth opened her mouth to mock protest, but something caught her attention. Turning, she looked over in confusion. Rolf and Og noticed and turned.
A wall of people stood encircled, watching them with almost reverent expressions.
"Did you three mean what you said?" a young Orani woman asked.
"What?" Elizabeth replied. "When?"
The young woman sent a link.
In the video, the three of them sat along a table, eating with Ragni not an hour before.
"It's not the same, dad," Og countered, chewing on a stubborn piece of cricket bread. "We grew up in this system. We've never known anything else."
"We never had a choice," Rolf added.
Elizabeth nodded. "Or a voice."
Ragni raised one eyebrow. "When did you three get so united? You're… different now."
"It's not just us, dad. The younger generation is of age now, and we're asking questions. We're unsatisfied with the status quo. The three of us may have changed, figured out what's important to us…" Og paused to look at Elizabeth and Rolf's determined faces, a surprising spirit overtaking his words. "…but the world has changed, too. I think people will realize someday that this disaster ended an Age. Today is the First Day of a new era. This will be the Age of the Young, or the Age of the People. There's this concept that went viral, and it stuck with me… the Hand of Society. There are so many of us - too many of us - and when nobody's responsible for anything, we seem to get stuck in a negative cycle of disaster. We get worse instead of progressing. Somebody has to start taking responsibility."
"But who?" Ragni countered. "It's a losing proposition. That's what the Tyrant did, you see - destroyed anyone who tried to step up or speak out, like the government before him, only worse. Putting oneself out there is too risky. The weight of society's eye crushes any one person."
Elizabeth shook her head. "Doing nothing is a losing proposition. We'll take responsibility. We'll say what our generation has been afraid to say, we'll defend what matters, and we'll fight for what needs to be done. The weight of society's eye? I'm used to it, trust me. I can handle it."
"Whoah," Og interjected. "I didn't mean us! Just… somebody."
"Who else, Og? Who else is there? Everyone else out there is making the exact same choice to remain a bystander. If we don't step up, nobody will."
Rolf swallowed the last bite of his cricket bread, his eyes unfocused, his to
ne bitter from experience. "She's right. There's nobody else. We live in a world of glass. We're naked, even when we're clothed, and that scares people. They keep their true thoughts to themselves their entire lives… because they feel vulnerable, and powerless. If they speak out once, it's on record forever, and someone will use it against them… fire them, refuse to hire them, keep them outcast… so they remain silent, and that's how we got here, isn't it?"
Elizabeth nodded in agreement. "The Age of Silence."
Ragni listened to them converse, his expression grim. "So what's your plan?"
She shook her head. "I don't know yet. We'll figure it out from here. But we promised to try, and I'm not backing out."
Og ran a hand down his beard. "That we did. I really had no idea what I was signing up for with that grand speech, but… I'm in, too."
They both looked at Rolf, awaiting his answer.
The three swung around from the gapsquare wall and stood, facing their onlookers.
"You're all here about that conversation?" Og asked, mouth agape. "And it's got a hundred million views already? How in the hell -"
"Did you mean it?" the Orani girl asked. "Will you speak for us? Fight for us?"
The other young men and women around her waited in awed silence, hoping for an answer.
Elizabeth looked to Rolf for support.
Only a few days prior, he'd fled from that very spot by the gapsquare, unwilling to stand and face down the crowd. He gave a concerned grimace - but, this time, he remained.
She turned back to the waiting hopefuls.
"Yes."
The Tree of the Future
Fire lurks somewhere