Chapter One: Morning Star
Eden Underwood gazed out of the starboard observation port. Earth, a planet he had never been, hung there in the inky blackness. Deep blues and strokes of green painted its surface, a stark contrast to the grey surfaces of the Ark. Eden, and all those who made up the twelve conjoined space stations that made up the Ark, were to be a transitional generation, a generation to wait and prepare for when the radiation had subsided enough to return to the ground. Eden placed his hand against the thick, cool glass. Earth felt so close, cruelly just out of reach.
Eden had never undertaken an apprenticeship like the brighter of the Ark children. The only class he had taken any interest in was the one class no one else seemed to bother to take seriously, Earth skills. Eden listened attentively in all of instructor Pikes lectures. Pike even, taking a likening to the boy, let him borrow his personal tablet, enabling him to go through the old archives. As much as he could read about trapping and other survival skills, he couldn't practise any of what he learned on the Ark. Eden let out a sigh that fogged the glass.
A firm hand gripped at Eden's shoulder. "I find myself sometimes looking at it too." Wells, Eden's best friend on the station stood next to him.
"Do you think anyone else is alive down there?" Eden asked, while scratching an alien ship attacking earth in the fogged glass.
"I mean we all made it. It's not impossible to believe there could be other pockets of humanity left out there."
"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. I wish we were down there instead of stuck up here. The vids aren't enough for me anymore. I want to feel dirt on my feet and real wind on my face. Not that wheezing from the oxygen recyclers. I don't care what the engineers say, there's no way that thing is strong enough to filter out your bad breath." Eden jabbed Wells jokingly.
"Whatever, more like your BO." Wells grabbed at his nose theatrically causing them both to laugh. "Listen, I need you to get something to Clarke for me." Wells nervously padded his hands together.
"Sure." Eden said adding more detail to his doodling.
"Just like that? No making me beg or lording it over me?" Wells asked.
"Clarke's my friend too you know. Even though you two won't tell me why the hell she's in there in the first place." Wells looked down guiltily at his feet, still not revealing why. Eden sighed, "give it here."
Wells smiled and handed over a wrapped bundle of charcoal sticks. "You're the best E."
"Yeah, yeah. Anything you want me to tell her?"
"Don't tell her they came from me. Say it was from her mom or something."
"You two are a pair of weirdos, you know that? But, all right. I should probably do it now while Jenkins is still on shift."
"Thanks man." Wells bumped his forearm initiating their signature shake.
"Just don't forget to put in a good word to your old man if they catch me!" Eden yelled over his shoulder as he made his way over towards the Skybox.
The Skybox was the Arks prison. At least that's what the kids called it. On the Ark, any crime was punishable by floating; execution by vacuum of space. Criminals under the age of eighteen however were housed in the Skybox, awaiting a review upon their eighteenth birthday.
Clarke was seventeen, the same age as Eden and Wells, and had been put into the Skybox just two weeks earlier. Around the same time Wells' dad, Chancellor Jaha, had floated Clarkes father Jake, the stations Chief Engineer. Eden had always liked Jake. When Clarke and Eden had become friends as children, Clarke gushed about her old man. 'Dad can make this…dad built me that'. Eden told her he didn't know who his father was, his mother had died during childbirth and had never named his father. He was an orphan of the station. After that, little blonde Clarke scrunched up her face and dragged him by the hand to her father's workshop. 'E doesn't have a dad.' She had announced, 'so now you have to be his dad too.' Her father had laughed good naturedly and pulled her up on his lap. 'Is that so? Well I suppose there's always room for one more in the Griffins.'
Eden had never really taken Jake being his dad seriously but Jake was always around, offering advice and help when he needed it. Eden had cried in his bunk the night Jake was floated.
"Hey, Jenkins." Eden walked up to the guard posted in the solitary wing of the Skybox.
"Underwood? What are you doing here? Aren't you meant to be patrolling farm station?" Jenkins was tall and lanky, just a few years older than Eden.
"Pfft. Doing what? Stopping someone from pinching a couple of potatoes?" Eden replied with a shrug.
"Um, yeah. That's exactly what you're supposed to be doing." Jenkins replied.
"Listen, I need to see Clarke for a smidge so why don't you go take a nice, long bathroom break." Eden said, only to be stopped by a hand on his chest.
"I can't. Kane would float me. He gave explicit orders. Absolutely no one is allowed to see, or to speak to Clarke Griffin. I'm sorry. Why don't you just go back to your patrol and I'll forget I ever saw you here." Jenkins pleaded quietly.
"What if I shared some of my card winnings from the other week with you?" Eden pulled a small wrapping from his guard belt.
"Is that what I think it is." Jenkins gasped, quickly grabbing it and sniffing the wrapper.
"Yep, that is one-hundred percent pure dark chocolate my friend."
"I thought it had all gone?" Jenkins holding the luxury almost reverently.
"Not all apparently. Obrien played it after I won all his meal chits. Now you could eat it yourself quickly and then it'd be gone, or you could give it to Olivia. I've seen you making eyes at her in the mess hall. Can't say what a girl might reward a guy for giving her possibly the last piece of chocolate in existence" Eden whispered conspiratorially.
Jenkins smiled in thought. "Ok…five minutes, and you better be gone by the time or get back or I'm denying all of this."
"You just worry about how happy Liv is going to be when you give her that buddy." Eden said, steering Jenkins out of the door. As the door closed behind him Eden clapped his hands together. "Now to find the nerd."
Not knowing which cell was Clarkes, Eden knocked on the first door in the row. "Scribbles, you in there?"
He heard a muffled voice and opened the food slot. A boy with brown shoulder length hair came up to the opening.
"Oops, wrong door sorry." Eden grabbed the handle for the slot.
"Wait! The boy said. "You're not the regular guard here. Can you get a message out for me? They won't let us have any visitors down here."
I am just a sucker for favours today. Eden thought about carrying on but felt for the guy. "Sure kid." He said, even though they looked roughly the same age. "What's your message?"
"It's to a mechanic apprentice over in factory station, Raven Reyes. Tell her Finn says not to worry about me and that she looked amazing."
"All right. Reyes. Don't worry. Looked good. Got it. Want me to give her a smooch from you too?" Eden joked.
"Just the message will be fine." Finn said unamused.
"Ok, Shawshank. By-the-way do you know which of these cells is Clarke Griffins? She's about yay small, mop of blonde hair covered in feisty?"
"Uh, I think she might be the one at the end." He replied.
"Cheers."
Eden went and opened the slot on the last door in the row. "Scribbles?"
"Eden?" A surprised voice replied.
Eden tapped at the door panel and the door swung inward to a confused looking Clarke, a little worse for wear but still plenty intimidating.
"How did you get in here?" She said, standing up while trying to flatten her hair.
"I am a guard remember?" Eden replied, only to be met with an incredulous stare. "All right, I bribed Jenkins outside to take an unscheduled bathroom break. You happy?"
"That sounds more like you. How the hell did Kane even make you a guard in the first place?"
"Honestly, I have no idea. I mean, I got pretty good marks in the physical tests but even I think he's an idiot for deputising me." Eden scratched his head. "How's prison life? Made any one your bitch yet?"
Clarke sighed and sat down on her small foam bed, patting a spot next to her. "I wish, just for the company. You are the first person to talk to me since I was brought down here."
"Not even your mom Abby?" Eden asked surprised.
"No, not even her." Clarke looked down.
Eden slipped his hand into Clarkes and gave it a comforting squeeze. "I'm sorry about your dad, I miss him a lot too.
Clarke squeezed his hand back as her eyes grew misty. "Thanks." She whispered.
After a moment Eden spoke up. "Oh, and Wells gave me this to give to you. He told me to tell you it was from somebody else but lies between friends are lame." Clarkes face scrunched up at the mention of Wells and she pulled back her hand.
"Well if you don't want to use them then somebody has to give this place some culture." Eden said, grabbing a piece of charcoal and began scratching at the wall. "So, what the hell even happened between you two anyway? And why are you even in here in the first place?"
Clarke looked at him conflicted, chewing at her lower lip. "I want to tell you, I really do. But if I tell you you're going to tell others and then you'll be right in here with me."
"Hey, do these lips look loose to you?" Eden pointed at his face. "You can tell me."
"I know you, this is a secret you would tell people. Just like I was going to, and dad…"
Seeing the look on her face Eden decided to give it up and put the finishing touches on his graffiti masterpiece.
"What in the Ark is that supposed to be?" Clarke eyed up Eden's childlike stick figure drawings.
"Well, that's you and me running away, and the one with all the stink lines is Wells and his smelly breath." Clarke burst into laughter and for the first time since Eden walked in, had a smile on her face.
"What are you, like four?"
"And a half." Eden bumped her shoulder.
Clarke kept laughing, a little too hard. "Oh, god. I needed that." She wiped the tears from her eyes. There's not a lot of entertainment in here."
For a while Eden filled Clarke on everything that had been going on inside the Ark while she had been locked up. All of it was horribly embellished fiction of course, but Clarke played along pretending to be shocked and giving her own suggestions along the way.
"I should really get going before someone finds me in here, but I'll try to come visit again if I can." Eden said apologetically.
Clarke stood up too and wrapped her arms around him. "Thanks E." She said sincerely. "Look after my mom for me."
"Will do Scribbles." Eden affectionately messed up her hair before leaving. He felt guilty closing the door behind him, but Clarkes smile as he left eased his spirits.
Eden passed Jenkins in the corridor out of the skybox. He gave him a quick nod and went along on his way only to run into Marcus Kane, a council member of the Ark and head of the guards on the station.
"Underwood, what are you doing here? This isn't your station."
"Ahhhh, well you see sir, while I was doing my patrol through farm station. I thought I caught the scent of a wild potato which as you know aren't due to be picked for another three weeks. So, I followed the smell down here thinking I might catch the filthy spud thief. But now I think my nose might have been leading me astray. Usually it's much more reliable…sir."
Kane stared at him piercingly. Eden resisted the urge to twitch and met his gaze dead on.
"In future, you do not leave your posting no matter what your nose picks up. Are we clear." Marcus said seriously.
"Crystal, sir." Eden gave his best mock salute.
"As you were." Marcus droned.
Eden couldn't believe his luck and whistled all the way back to his post.
Later that night Eden decided to check in on Clarkes mom for her and let her know Clarke was all right, all things considered. The medical unit was closed but the lights were still on so he used his guard pass to enter just in case she was still around. Before he rounded the corner into the unit he overheard multiple people arguing. Eden paused for a second to listen.
"I'm just asking you to give them a chance!" Eden recognised Clarkes moms voice.
"Out of the question Abby. We cannot waste any more resources than we have to." Kane's dry voice this time.
"That's easy for you to say when you don't have a child about to be suffocated. What we can't afford to waste is people! Without a sufficiently large gene pool we're doomed any way. I've run more revised prediction models. With our solar radiation exposure, we should theoretically be able to metabolise a higher amount of ambient radiation. I can't promise it, but if I'm right and the Earth is survivable then we don't need to cull any of the population. We could go down now."
"The idea has merit." The unmistakable deep voice of Chancellor Jaha spoke up.
"Thelonious, you can't be serious." Marcus started.
"She's right. We're working on a fix for the life support but even if we gain ourselves time by reducing sections of the population there's no guarantee we can even fix it. From here on everything we do is a risk. At least sending down the children offers dual rewards. If Abby's right, we're all saved. If she's wrong the loss of the hundred in the Skybox buys our engineers more time to fix the life support. How long would it take to rig up an Exodus ship for re-entry and communications?"
A fourth voice Eden didn't recognise spoke up this time. "Well most of the shore work is already done on Exodus one. We would just need to install a communications relay and fashion some kind of biometric monitoring devices. Ball park…four months to fabricate and install everything."
"You have three." Jaha asserted.
"Three it is." Came the nervous reply.
Eden leaned over to get a look on the fourth person speaking before the metal trolley he was leaning on gave away under him, causing them both to fall over with a loud crash. Before he knew it a pair of strong hands pulled him up to his feet and held him firm.
"You!" Marcus Kane looked furious. "Why are you never where you're supposed to be!? What did you hear?" The four adults in the room watched him closely.
"Uh, well the Arks dying, you're about to send a bunch of kids from the Skybox down to Earth and I want to go down with them.
"Out of the question!" Marcus raged.
"Well, I could tell you that when I ran into you earlier that I actually had just bribed another guard to leave his post so I could see a prisoner you specifically forbade anyone from talking to. One of those things must be illegal? Hey Mrs G." Eden waved over at Abby. "Clarke says hi."
Abby facepalmed. "Eden honey, why would you want to risk going down to Earth if you didn't have to?"
"Clarks going down, isn't she? None of those guys know anything about surviving on Earth, why would they? None of us ever expected to live until then. I'm the only one who ever paid attention during Earth skills, just ask instructor Pike. If Earth's liveable, how long until you start sending more to the ground? One month? Six? A year? I can keep them alive until then, I know it!"
"Charles has actually submitted before that Mr Underwood here someday replace him as Earth skills teacher. No small praise coming from him." Jaha spoke.
"This is not up for discussion. You are not going down period, and if you discuss any of this outside of this room I will not lock you up, I'll invoke the treason clause in the charter and have you floated instead."
Eden's mouth gaped like a fish. "That's totally unfair!"
"Fair is what I say it is." Marcus seethed. "I think that will be all, don't you Thelonious?"
"Yes, I suppose it is." Chancellor Jaha said with an eyebrow raised.
"I'm sorry Eden." Abby placed a comforting hand on Eden's shoulder as everyone else passed out of the medical unit.
"I just don't understand why I can't go. I thought he would jump at the chance of getting rid of me. I'm not exactly a model employee."
"Marcus is…a complicated man." Abby reconciled.
"Is the Ark really dying?" Eden asked after a few seconds of silence.
"Yes, but we are working on it. It's just taking longer than we hoped. That's why we've been exploring other options."
"Jake, he was the one to find the broken life support, wasn't he? He wanted to tell people?" Eden whispered suddenly making sense of everything. Jake was the type of person who wouldn't keep something like this to himself.
Abby nodded downcast.
"And Clarke found out and tried to do the same…"
"Did you really see Clarke? How is she?" Abby brushed away the beginning of tears from her eyes with her forearm.
"Still a dweeb." Abby let out a small snort. "But she'll be fine. You raised one tough girl Mrs G. She was more worried about you, than herself."
"That sounds like my Clarke."
"If there's anything I can do, let me know. Kane and Jaha be damned. You guys are the closest thing to family I've ever had." Eden said in uncharacteristic sincerity.
"Thank you, Eden. And you are part of this family. Jake…he always thought of you like a son. I hope you know that."
"Thanks, Mrs G." Eden smiled bashfully. "I should probably get going."
Abby braved a smile in return and walked Eden out. "Come by any time Eden. I mean that."
The next few days passed in a daze. Eden couldn't keep focused and wandered off on his patrols. One morning he found himself somewhere in factory station. Suddenly he remembered the promise he made to the boy he met in the skybox.
Scanning the corridor, Eden approached two burly men arguing over a schematic on a tablet.
"-and as I said, that coupling isn't going to work. It's an A-link and we need a D-link."
"Ah, excuse me." Eden interrupted. "Do either of you guys know where I can find a Raven Reyes?"
"She's probably down in the storage bay again. Take the access down on the right." One of the men grunted before going right back to arguing.
"Thanks." Eden skipped off.
Eden entered a large storage bay filled floor to ceiling with space junk and loose mechanical parts. A narrow path had been carved through the centre of the room to a clearing with a small workbench. A small hanging light illuminated an olive-skinned girl with her long hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her hair matched the dark grease that was smeared along her cheek and she wore a pair of overalls that was tied off at the waist.
"Hey- "Eden started before being cut off by a dirty hand.
The girl was prodding around with something before it suddenly flashed and sent up a puff of smoke.
"Damn." She muttered, before glancing over. "What do you want?"
"Are You Raven? Some dude named Finn sent me." Eden picked up a random piece of junk and eyed it speculatively.
Suddenly the girl turned, giving her full attention. "You've seen Finn?"
"Yeah, a few days ago. He wanted me to give you a message. Uh, something about not worrying and how good you looked. Real Romeo that one."
Raven's shoulders sagged as she let out a long breath. "He shouldn't even be in there in the first place."
"What did he even do?" Eden asked curiously.
"It wasn't what he did, I- "She stopped as she eyed up Eden's guard uniform.
"It's ok, I won't tell anyone. I've broken more than my own share of rules."
Raven bit her lip hesitantly. "…did you hear about that illegal spacewalk a few weeks back."
"Yeah. Kane got all bent out of shape because they vented a month's worth of air. That was your boyfriend?" Eden paced around the room
"It was me." Eden raised an eyebrow at that. "It was my dream to spacewalk. I was trained to be a Zero-G mechanic but before my first walk I was binned. Medical discovered I had developed a heart murmur and they deemed it too risky. I just wanted one measly walk so badly so I stole a suit and went. How was I supposed to know the stupid airlock would malfunction! Anyway, I'm a year older than Finn, so when they came for us he told me to give him the suit because they couldn't float him. He's still seventeen."
Eden's opinion of Finn went up a few points. "Looked good…he was talking about your spacewalk?"
"Yeah…" Raven sighed. "You think I'm a coward, don't you?"
"I think being a coward is giving up on your dreams, not fighting for them. Finn knew what he was doing, you've got to respect that." Eden stopped his pacing when he came to two large pods resting against the mountain of junk. "What are these?"
"Escape pods. Salvage from the MIR-3 back in twenty-one-hundred."
Eden pressed against the glass viewport to look inside. "Do they work?"
"Well, they're one-hundred and thirty years old but yeah, with a bit of love they could make re-entry."
"Could you fix one?" Eden asked.
"I suppose I could. Why are you asking?"
Eden paused and looked at the pods contemplatively. "Raven, what if I told you the council was sending all of the Skybox kids to Earth?"
"What!? Are they crazy?" Raven shouted.
"Not crazy, desperate." Eden then told her everything he had overheard and pieced together over the last few days.
"Shit." Raven exclaimed sitting back at her workbench. She reached under the desk and pulled out a bottle of murky liquid and took a big swig before gesturing it at Eden. "You want some?"
Eden accepted the bottle and took a long pull before coughing. "Jesus, what is this? Rocket fuel?"
"Close. The guys in factory station call it Napalm, because it'll put a fire in your belly." Raven laughed.
Eden eyes took on a serious glint and he drank again, this time without spluttering. "Raven I want you to fix one of those for me." Eden pointed at the two pods.
"What? You can't be serious?"
"Listen, Finn, Clarke and all the others are going down to Earth blind. If I can get down first, not only can I signal if it's safe for everyone, I can scout out the best areas to settle. None of those guys hold a candle to me when it comes to Earth Skills."
"I don't know." Raven looked hesitant. "What if Abby is wrong and the Earth isn't survivable?"
"Then only one person dies and they can focus all of their effort on fixing the life support. Your dream was to spacewalk, right?" Raven nodded. "Well mine is to go to Earth. I can live with dying for that."
Raven looked torn for a moment before taking on a serious expression. "…all right. You've got yourself a mechanic." She said confidently.
It took Raven the better part of a week to fix the least damaged of the two pods. During this time Eden had gone around 'borrowing' and prepping everything he needed for his departure. They then had to wait an additional day after the pod was ready to get into the right position for the drop. The retro-fitted pod had thrusters for minor course corrections but didn't have the fuel necessary for major adjustments.
Eden had gotten the landing co-ordinates off a borrowed tablet. Alpha site wasn't exactly a secret on the station. It was in Virginia, the least irradiated part of the United States or so they thought. It was hard to tell with no data from the ground. Everything was modelled using outdated forecasts. It was also close to Mount Weather, a mountain with a military bunker buried deep inside of it, supposedly filled with enough non-perishable supplies to last years.
Eden left a note under his bunk pillow for Wells and grabbed the backpack of supplies he was taking with him. As he was leaving the dorms the last person he wanted to see entered.
"Underwood. Where are you off to?" Marcus Kane eyed Eden and the pack suspiciously.
Eden scrambled to come up with an excuse. "I've been feeling unwell lately. Abby wants me to spend the night in medical and run some tests."
Marcus paused a moment. "Is it serious?"
"I don't think so Abby just wanted to make sure." Eden said and made to leave but was stopped.
"You haven't spoken a word of what you overheard the other week?" Marcus stared into him.
"And have you float me? No thanks. I've kept it to myself." Eden lied.
"Good. I know you mean well but this station is a fragile thing." Marcus said gravely, placing an arm on Eden's shoulder. "Only through order can we persevere."
"Sure…order and all that." Eden mumbled.
"On your way then. Best not to keep Abby waiting."
Eden let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Thank you, sir."
Eden almost ran down to the storage bay he was so anxious. The sooner he left the station the better.
Raven was doing the final flight checks when he entered. Only the day before they had winched the pod into the airlock the station used to originally haul in the space debris.
"Ok, here's how it's going to go one last time." Raven said after finishing her checklist. "When you are in position I'm going to open the outer airlock door. The depressurisation will suck out the drop pod and put you on a trajectory to Earth. You will then have to manually re-orientate the nose up so that the ceramic plating absorbs the heat of re-entry. From there the autopilot will take over and make the necessary adjustments to the plotted co-ordinates. Make sure you get that nose up or you'll burn up in the atmosphere."
"Did anyone ever tell you that you are a horrible pep talker?" Eden frowned.
"I'd rather you not tarnish my mechanical skills with your bad driving." Raven quipped. "Now here's a sat phone. I've boosted it so it'll uplink directly to the Ark but you may need to get to high ground to find our signal." Raven put the phone into Eden's pack.
"You are an absolute legend Raven Reyes, you know that?"
"Just wait, you haven't even received my last gift." Raven looked pleased and pulled out what looked like a very well used iPod from her pocket.
"Is this what I think it is?" Eden gasped, scrolling down a screen littered with broken pixels.
"Yeah, it was a gift from my mum. Finn and I have already listened to everything in there a hundred times. Hopefully it can bring you luck."
"Thanks Raven. I don't know what to say." Eden started.
"You can pay me back by saving all our asses."
"Deal." Eden said, hoping he sounded more confident than he felt.
After one awkward hug, Eden climbed inside the drop pod and strapped himself in. The inner airlock doors hissed as they closed. Eden could just make out Raven through the two layers of thick glass. She was counting down until the right time to jettison. The entire factory section was constantly spinning at a tangent to maintain gravity. So, if Raven hit the release to early or late she could fling him not to Earth, but the emptiness of space instead. Eden preferred his chances on Earth.
After what felt like hours of waiting which was probably more like minutes, Eden felt a tug at the pod. Eden didn't know what he expected but the silence of it all was startling. He watched as the pod was sucked out of the airlock and the station he lived in his entire life in grew smaller and smaller in his wake.
After a few minutes of drift, the pods short range communications light started flashing.
"Well this should be interesting." Eden hit the comms button.
A few minutes earlier
Inside the Ark's command room, a secret meeting was underway regarding the progress of what was being dubbed the One-Hundred Project.
"Does anyone suspect what we're doing?" Chancellor Jaha asked.
"We've kept the project secret from all non-essential personal. The official story is we are ahead of schedule for maintenance and so we are re-allocating resources to future Exodus mission assets in the meantime." Marcus responded.
"Good, what about you Abby?"
"We're still working on a prototype wristband. We may not be able to get all the biometric data we want due to the limited power supplies, but we'll get enough to determine long-term viability."
"Um, Chancellor? Sorry to interrupt, but we've got an unscheduled launch of some sort." An analyst shouted.
"What!?" The three said in unison, rushing over to the stations control centre.
"Bringing them on screen now."
The outboard cameras pulled up and enlarged a small pod floating away from the station.
"Hailing comms." The analyst said and the sound of static filled the rooms speakers.
Marcus leaned forward. "Whoever is out there in Ark property better turn the hell around if they know what's good for them."
"Kane is that you?" A garbled voice replied.
"Eden!?"
"Yeah, this may be an inconvenient time but I'm quitting the guard corp. Those uniforms just chaff in the worst places, you know?"
"Eden, what are you doing out there!?" Abby gasped.
"I'm testing the waters so Clarke doesn't have to Mrs G. As you said we're family."
"Eden, that pod doesn't look very safe. Why don't you come back to the station and we can discuss the chance of you going with the one-hundred when they go down." Jaha spoke up.
"Couldn't even if I wanted to. Now I might need to put you on hold for a second while I re-angle this bird. Ooh, I've got the perfect song for this."
A tune started playing through the loud speakers.
*It's raining men, hallelujah it's raining men…*
On the main screen, the pod began to fire off bursts of gas and swivel round so that its widest side was facing Earth.
"Hey Mr Jaha. Can you tell Wells- "The rest was garbled as the static grew louder.
"Eden? Eden!?" Marcus repeated.
They watched as the pod fell and turned into a streak of red light, and then nothing. The pod left the cameras range and the speakers went dead.
"Marcus…are you crying?" Abby said surprised.
"You said it was easy to send down the children because I had none." Marcus said with an unusual amount of emotion. "That was my son."